"Some things I can do easily, but you can't do at all.

And some things you do effortlessly,

but I could never manage. That's all there is to it."

Lumina Greyrat - Volume III

Chapter 21:

Rikarisu

There were only three entrances to the city of Rikarisu. They were all seemingly carved out of the massive crater that the city resides in. It looked really captivating, as the cracks themselves were probably fifty meters tall.

Alek and I walked up to the city guard, a little tired from our travels. Or, at least, I was. I doubted that the killing machine could feel fatigue. Alek began conversing with the city guard, and he carried on talking for a while.

I still couldn't understand the language. Alek had started teaching me a bit of Demon God when we settled down for the evenings, but since we didn't have any paper, I probably wouldn't be writing in the language any time soon.

Hopefully, we'd get some more time and resources for it in the city. Or maybe not, depending on how grave the situation with Ares, that noble boy, was.

We entered the city without much issue. It was enthralling seeing how big and bustling the city was, as there was little to no sign of any tribe taking residence for miles. Yet, there were many people here.

"Lumina. I don't suppose you have an Adventurer's Guild card?"

From what I had heard and seen, the Adventurer's Guild was an organization for people who were exceptionally skilled at fighting and support, or just for people who wanted jobs. It was a mutually beneficial establishment, as people got jobs that helped out the city, and they got paid for doing them.

"I don't, no. Do you have one?"

Alek nodded his head.

"I do, but it's been a long time since I took a job. It might already have been revoked."

Revoked? I had no idea how this guild card thing worked, but I assumed it was just an ID badge of sorts. Well, I'd find out soon enough.

"The Adventurer's Guild is going to be our best chance of gaining enough money to get by as we travel the continent. So, it'll be in our best interests that you get a card as well. But before that, let's sell the pelts we have."

We encountered more than a few wolf type monsters while traveling here. Alek said that we could sell them to get enough money to be comfortable. Speaking of, money here had a lot less value than in Asura. From traveling with Alek, I had learned that there were also a few other types of money. Starting from the least to most valuable:

Stone Coin: ~1 yen.

Scrap Iron Coin: ~10 yen.

Iron Coin: ~100 yen.

Green Ore Coin: ~1000 yen.

Compare that to the Asura currency, with the least valuable coin there starting at 100 yen. It was evident that it was going to be harder to earn enough money to eke out a living.

We headed to a cluster of roadside stalls that were established near the entrance of the city. It seemed that this particular business practice of trying to reel in new citizens at the city gates was all over the world. I looked around for a few minutes, trying to decipher some markings and asking Alek for help checking out the prices. I'd decided I'd want a hood to travel around in, and maybe some fruit. I wasn't particularly interested in getting any vitamin deficiency during the journey.

Eventually, I found a stall that found what I needed. Alek bought the items for me, and we were left with one iron coin, and four scrap iron coins. That was just barely enough to buy a week's stay at an inn, according to Alek. But, with the money we got from selling the wolf pelts, we were back up to a comfortable two iron coins.

I decided to snack on the fruit while we walked. I put on the hood we had just bought to protect against the sun. It was white, and had thin black lines running over it. It also had cat ears, but I decided to ignore them.

Now, we were ready to head to the Adventurer's Guild. I didn't know what to expect, but I imagined that it wouldn't be a friendly place. The Adventurer's guild was a gathering place for some of the strongest demonfolk in the city. Some were physically strong, and some were proficient at using weapons.

So, when we walked in, people turned their eyes to look at us. We were a unique pair, a short human girl, and a tall demon with pitch black hair. We both had swords on our backs, but I don't think we were intimidating anyone. Well, it's not like that's why we're here. The guild quieted down, and the chattering turned into murmurs.

We strode further into the lobby. Alek had to do the talking, but I told him all of my credentials as a Saint-tier magician. We were probably more than qualified to sign up. Alek began talking to the clerk. About her, she stood out to me. One, she had fangs and orange hair, but that wasn't all that uncommon. The thing that stuck out to me was the fact that she had three tits. I looked down at my mostly flat chest, and huffed.

Alek turned to me. "Lumina. You're gonna need to read and sign this. He pointed to a piece of paper. But, it was in Demon God.

"…I can't read it." I said.

"You can't? Oh, I suppose not. That's my bad. Let me read it out for you." Alek replied. How did you forget that? I made a deadpan expression as Alek began to speak.

The paper detailed the rules and regulations of the Adventurer's Guild. First, it outlined how the Guild or Adventurer's Card worked. It was like I had thought, an ID badge of sorts. It held your status in the Guild. It was a little more complicated than that, but I'll come back to it.

You could leave the Guild at any time, and you could come back whenever you willed it. Also, the Adventurer's Guild was a global scale organization. It was like McRonald's, if the jobs at McRonald's were actually appealing.

If you wanted to keep your status as an adventurer, you had to follow a set of rules. One, you couldn't violate any local laws. That seemed pretty simple by itself. Two, you couldn't do anything that could potentially harm the reputation of the Adventurer's Guild from association with you. Three, you couldn't try to stop another adventurer from carrying out their jobs. That one looked like it was established for good reason. And lastly, you couldn't buy or sell Guild jobs. The rules seemed easy to follow, and pretty reasonable at that.

Next, there was the ranking system. Adventurers were ranked in seven tiers based on their expertise and capabilities. The rankings went from rank F, a newbie, to rank S, an elite class individual. As a cautionary thing, adventurers could only take job listings that were one rank below them, one rank above them, and one that was their rank. Your adventurer's card reflected your rank, as well as your information that you filled out when signing up.

You moved up these ranks by completing a number of jobs. That number was determined by the adventurer's current rank. If you were deemed to be able to rank up, you could choose to accept the promotion or refuse. Additionally, an adventurer could be demoted if they failed a bunch of jobs at their level in a row. Plus, you would have to pay one fifth of the reward money if you failed the job after deciding to undertake it. If you didn't pay, your status as an adventurer would be removed.

In the case of a city wide emergency, you were obligated to help out if the city officials requested it.

The party system was interesting as well. A party consisted of up to seven Guild members. All of the members had to at least be within one rank of the party leader, and every party member got credit for completing a job. In order to join a party, you had to have explicit permission from the leader to join.

Additionally, you could leave at any time. You could also conversely be ejected from the party at the leader's discretion. If the party leader died, the party was automatically disbanded. You could also combine two or more parties to form a Clan, which could take on tough tasks at a regular pace.

"Hey, Alek. It's alright if I sign this form out in Human, right?" I asked him, after he handed me the form. "It wouldn't cause any issue, no." He replied.

I scribbled down my information, and handed it back to Alek. He gave it a once-over, and gave it to the receptionist. They exchanged a few words, and then he turned to me again.

"Lumina, place your hand on this." Alek told me. The receptionist pulled out a transparent board, more or less the size of a board game box, with a clean looking magic circle situated in the middle.

What even is this?

"Er, like this?" I pressed my hand onto the board. The receptionist pressed a button twice on the edge of the board, and it lit up. She said a few words to me, and handed me the card. The card was made out of a dull metal material, but its letters were faintly glowing. This feels more sci-fi than fantasy…

The letters themselves were in the Human tongue, so I could read what it said.

Name: Lumina Greyrat

Sex: Female

Race: Human

Age: 10

Profession: Magician

Rank: F

That was everything I had filled out on the form. A magical printing press? There had to be a reason why they couldn't use it for books, considering how much faster it was. As I was wondering about this, I took a look over at Alek. He was right in front of the receptionist, seemingly having renewed his Guild Card.

Name: Aleksander Ryback

Sex: Male

Race: Immortal Demon

Age: …

Profession: Swordsman

Rank: S

S-Rank, huh? That checked out.

"K-Kalmann The Third?!" The receptionist sputtered out in shock. I looked over to them. Alek started teaching me the Demon God language starting with his title, so I could understand what she said. The receptionist looked horrified. It was sort of unexpected, but maybe Alek was more popular than I thought. I could see it, considering just how strong he was.

Alek beamed at the receptionist. "Correct. I, Aleksander Ryback, also known as Kalmann The Third, am currently in the process of escorting this child back to her homeland!" He exclaimed. Oddly enough, he said it in human tongue. He looked around. He realized no one understood him, so he seemingly repeated himself in Demon God.

The silence in the guild was extremely deafening. No one said a word.

The receptionist cleared her throat, and clapped in pity. She said something sheepishly to Alek, to which he grinned in response. I looked down in embarrassment as the guild started murmuring and chattering once again.

"Wait, Alek. If you're S-Rank and I'm C-Rank, how will we join a party together?" I asked. It was against the rules to party up with someone who wasn't within one rank of you, so how would we go about doing this?

"It's not a problem. I get an exception because of my title. Great, isn't it?" Alek beamed. An exception to worldwide established policies? Just who was this guy?

The receptionist lady said something to Alek, and he looked thoughtful. "Lumina, what would you like to name the party?"

A party name? "You don't have any ideas?" I asked him.

"I am particularly bad at naming, so I'd prefer you come up with one." He responded.

Well, if this was the party that we'd be in for the rest of our journey back to Fittoa, I'd have to rack my brain. Apparently, we couldn't just voyage westward, thanks to the races living underwater. We'd have to take the long way around, going to the bottom of this continent, traveling through the Millis Continent, and back to Fittoa. It was safe to say that this was pretty big.

So… maybe I could ask Alek for something that I could name the party after. Hmm. Maybe that sword of his? It looked like a classic legendary item from an RPG.

"Alek, does your sword have a name?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Yes, it does. It's the strongest sword in all of existence. It would be a disgrace to keep it nameless. It's known as King Dragon Sword Kajakuto." Alek responded in a valiant voice, as if he was a president giving a speech to the citizens of his country. Strongest sword in existence? That's all well and good, but why does that name sound…Japanese? It was just a hunch, but I could have sworn I had heard something like it in my past life.

Back to naming the party, Westward Kajakuto didn't roll off the tongue very well. Westward Dragon Sword sounded nice, but kind of over the top. The King Dragon's Odyssey? I was leaning towards it, honestly.

"The King Dragon's Odyssey," I said. If I came up with a better one, we could change it later.

"Odyssey? I haven't heard that word before." He said, tilting his head slightly. "An odyssey is like a journey. Since we're heading back to Fittoa and all." He nodded. "Very well. It's a perfect name, then." I smiled, and he took my card from me, and gave both of our cards to the receptionist. She walked into a room behind her, and then came right out. She passed us both of our cards, and smiled.

I glanced down at the card, and read the new line that had been printed at the bottom.

Party: The King Dragon's Odyssey (C)

C-Rank. That was the average rank of Alek and I.

For whatever reason, it was sort of humbling to see it written down. Maybe it was too over the top… Well, it didn't matter much what we called ourselves. For now, we'd just check out a job or two.

Alek and I strode over to the bulletin board that had job listings hanging off of it. I sighed when I thought about how I couldn't read it again. I was relying on Alek way too much recently. I'd have to do something for him one of these days. Hopefully he wouldn't one day decide to drop the hero act and dump me on the side of the road.

Before I could ask Alek about the listings, we were interrupted. A horse-faced man walked up to Alek and started talking to him. The horseman nodded with respect, and the people around him did the same thing.

I was expecting some level of violence from the rowdy adventurers, but clearly, they knew who they were talking to. They took their leaves and strode out of the Adventurers' Guild.

Alek smiled. "This level of recognition is unfamiliar, although I can't say I don't enjoy it." He said that ominously, which was kind of terrifying coming from him. He was horrifyingly strong, sure. But he was easygoing in general. He constantly spoke in a valiant tone that would bring up a "legendary hero" to mind. He was nothing of the sort, of course. But he was reliable. That was really what mattered to me.

For now, we'd just have to get on by. While I hope we'd end up finding Ares while doing a job, I did plan on dedicating time towards finding him. I was still wondering just why Mister Man-God had told me to rescue him. He didn't stand out all that much to me, really. Aside from his disappearing act that he did at my birthday party.

Alek broke me out of my mind. He pointed towards the bulletin board. He detailed a few listings, like a warehouse organizing job, or a job that would require one to find a lost pet.

"Just a question, what about the monster subjugation jobs?" I wasn't really that excited about the prospect of hunting monsters, but I wanted to try out my Curse Magic on a live target. For now, it really couldn't do much.

"The monster hunting jobs start at C-rank, so we should start with something simple. That aside, I haven't seen you in combat yet." That's because you slaughter anything that comes our way!

I said, "Well, that's sort of a relief. It's getting late, so I don't think we should be picking up a job right now. Maybe tomorrow morning?"

"It's fine with me. Let's go find a place to stay for tonight." He responded, and began walking out of the room.

I followed him out of the Guild, but looked back at the building. I glanced at my guild card. So I'm an adventurer now… Wonder how Paul would react.

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! I enjoyed my break a lot, and in fact, today is my birthday! Hopefully, I will be rolling out more of Volume 3 consistently. For now, stay tuned!