Pion accidentally flung the double doors to the Adventurers Guild wide open. She had expected them to be very heavy due to their considerable size, but they were surprisingly well-oiled. A little abnormal, since large organizations tended to overlook little things like this.

All the heads in the guild turned to the newcomer at the entrance. The usual hubbub of the guild quieted for a moment. There was nary a sound to be had, in this pin drop silence. All at once everyone returned to business as usual, exchanging information, socializing, or kicking back and taking it easy for the day.

Perience was standing before a cork billboard lined with various requests. Each sheet had a displayed rank on it, along with a rough description and an unnecessary sketch of whatever the request entailed.

“Hey, Pion! O’re here! Help me pick out a contract!”

Pion ignored the heightened whispers of the guild members and scanned the whole board. Copper and iron requests littered the board, followed by a reasonable number of silver and gold quests. Occasionally a platinum one would be tacked up along with the others. According to the descriptions for platinum quests, such as Big Slime Removal and Minor Ant Nest Extermination, the nearby area should not pose a significant threat to her integrity.

“Based on your observed fighting ability, Contract 204 would be the most suitable.”

“The Giant Worm Extermination? I can’t really strike at an underground enemy, you know. I’m just a silver adventurer.”

“Correct. However, when the worm surfaces in order to attack you, your strength should be enough to bisect the enemy, assuming you can perform the glowing attack from earlier.”

“Usually there are multiple worms, though. If I prepared my [Charged Slash], I would only be able to kill one, before being attacked from behind by the other ones.”

“I can fight the remaining worms to keep them occupied. When you finish killing one of them, you may attack the ones attracted to me.”

“Ya need an Adventurer Badge to take on quests. Since you’re new here, I don’t think ya have one. It’s a form of ID, cause people in the past’ve pretended to be someone else to sabotage others.”

She was glad for the presence of at least one familiar facet of civilized life: paperwork. For order and organization was true bliss.

“Where are Adventurer Badges dispensed?”

“The front desk? You gotta register for one. Lots of pen pushing these days. They hafta keep records of us and our skills and magic or whatever. Tell ‘em you don’t wanna have your skills catalogued though. Wouldn’t want anyone to find out exactly how to beat you just by looking at your file.”

Unlike the Merchant’s Guild and the Alchemist’s Guild, the front desk was staffed by multiple receptionists, all with their hands full answering questions, confirming finished requests, distributing deserved rewards, etc.

Pion proceeded to stand in front of an empty desk with a plaque reading “Short break, please wait” for 11 minutes and 47 seconds. Perience watched her do all this wordlessly. Only at the end of this interval of time did she consider what the bell resting in front of her was for.

She rang the bell once. Then again. Then again, and again, and again. The sound of the bell was muffled somewhat by the natural ambience of the rowdy adventurers constantly present. Only after 56 rings did a short woman carrying a stack of papers half her height step up to the desk, dropping the whole pile with an audible THUMP on the table.

“Sorry, I’ve just got a lot to do today, I have to look through all the records for gold rank adventurers and above to ask for help with the new war declaration from the Hammer State, but my boss is making me do all of it, and I’ve been up all night I have not slept in 28 hours-”

“I am here to apply for an Adventurer Badge.”

“Oh, um, sorry, let me just find the form, one second!”

While she rifled through a variety of drawers, each containing a collection of random forms tossed inside, Pion took 955 milliseconds to scan the receptionist for general health data. Low vitamin D, early signs of malnutrition, and high blood pressure. Likely from staying inside, not getting enough food, undue stress, and repeated exhaustion.

“Here ma’am, please fill out this Adventurer Application Form with your name, age, sex, health conditions, level, skills, magic, you get the idea…”

“May I choose to refrain from divulging the relative quantification of my abilities?”

“W- yes? There are some adventures who don’t like writing down those things, so you don’t have to. The guild might not send invitations for tailored requests though, since they don’t know your general class and combat information.”

“I do not mind. However, based on observation, I noticed you are not getting enough sun, food, and are exhibiting signs of repeated stress on the body. Continuing with your current routine may lead to lasting health problems.”

“I don’t know how you figured all that out, but I don’t really have a choice. Ma and Pa died when I was 16, and I had to find work. I’ve had this job for six years. It doesn’t really pay well, and it’s really hard, but if I became jobless and homeless I would probably die. Tell Perience I said hi by the way, he helped me get this job. He comes by sometimes with free stuff, which helps me get by.”

“So you have seen us together. I will pass on the message. I require a name to attach to the message, however.”

“I’m Cep. Here’s your copper badge, also.”

The badge Cep handed to her was made out of solid copper, with the name Pion Ere carved into it. Strange, since there was no obvious carving mechanism.

“Thank you. I will return after I have completed a request.”

“Have a wonderful day…”

Pion rendezvoused with Perience, currently chugging water from his canteen on a bench out of the way of everyone else.

“You’ve got mail! Cep says hi.”

“Ah, yes, I remember her. Saw her trying to apply for a job on my first day as an adventurer, and put down a recommendation for her. She got the job. Just goes to show how lazy the Guild gets with its hiring practices. If you ever have the time to, you should visit her. She really does deserve better.”

“Noted. Any other relevant information that I should remember?”

“Well, it’s not necessary, but when you talk to people or visit them or something like that, you might want to take off the cloak, gloves, and boots. It’s a little hard talking to someone when you can’t really see them.”

“I will… be sure… to do that… in the future.”

Damn. She couldn’t take the cloak off because it would be much too obvious she wasn’t really a human. Even removing the gloves and boots would reveal her lack of actual skin. The closest thing she could do was maybe withdrawing her nanite reserve and putting the whole nanomachine ensemble to work imitating the feeling of skin and flesh, as well as procuring a few sets of clothing to wear when not using the cloak.

“By the way, the request we’re going to take is recommended for iron rank and above. You sure you can take on a group of worms by yourself?”

“I believe my true rank is much higher than copper. The Guild is unable to recognize this, and have designated me much lower.”

“If you say so. The farm we’re goin’ to is half a day from here, and the suns going down, so we’d best head back to an inn. Good thing I know a place, made for wanderers.”

“Is it called The Wandering Inn?”

“No, I have the feeling that name is already taken. It’s just an out of the way hotel, cheap and reliable.”

The inn Perience was referring to was quite small, sporting only five possible rooms to stay at. Despite this, all rooms were occupied. The only real option was to share a room, at least until Pion could make money and pay for her own space somewhere else.

“Since you’re the guest, you can have the bed.”

Perience’s continued generosity was one she found very odd. They had not known each other at all until earlier that day, and she had not done anything particularly nice for him. He seemed like the type of guy vulnerable to scams. If so, Pion would have a lot of fun fleecing him for all he had. And this time, she didn’t forget to say

“Thank you.”

Perience ended up sleeping in the other room, technically a living room. Instead of sleeping, Pion began performing routine maintenance, as well as attempting to work out the kinks in the Emotion Emulator. Diagnostics returned zero issues with the module, but she knew better. At least the camouflage plan was doing much better. With the backup reserve of nanites packed before the trip, she was able to encase herself in a layer of them, enough to simulate an inch of flesh. Any extra was diverted to the chest area for ease of use.

The hair was particularly difficult to get right, since each hair needed to be created individually. She ended up with a head of brown hair that fell past her shoulders. The only consolation was that it made the whole “I wear a mask” aesthetic to be much more believable. The rest of the night was spent on exercising applications of the Solid Light Projector and getting used to the new body.

One hand mirror and a bit of tinkering later and her new self was ready for presentation! A little bit taller than before and a little more “meat” but still within reasonable boundaries. As long as she used the Solid Light Projector more liberally, damage to the nanomachines should be negligible in combat. Now she only needed to purchase clothes.

After scanning the mana potion and the uranium sample, she could conclude a few things: mana was some new form of energy, naturally present in low quantities. Mana was peculiar in that it was nearly undetectable unless concentrated significantly, as it had no measurable impact on what sensors normally detected. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to even begin with manipulation of this new particle. Thankfully, she didn’t need to discover it. With the presence of mana potions and talk of magic, the people of this world seem to have figured a lot of it out already.

After performing a temporary shutdown, she rebooted at the crack of dawn, right when the light began to filter through the small wooden windows and illuminate the dust in the air. Clear skies, sunrise. Perience was gone. The only thing he left behind was a note on a table reading “Doing herb collection requests. Will return with money later.”

It was around an hour later when Perience opened the door.

“Hey kiddo, I’m back from the Guild! Pulled in a favor and got a few of the easier quests, an’ I got some decent money…”

At the current moment, Pion was testing her ability to lift the bed with her new body, the cloak covering only her back. It was a good thing she was facing away from the door, lest he see her uncovered front.

“I am moderately busy.”

“I can see that. I’ll just let you finish up.”

He closed the door quietly. Pion celebrated the fact that he did not question this new form, even in a reasonably exposed state. Proof that it worked well enough for future encounters with other people of this world. Just to make sure, it would be a good idea to avoid observation of her naked form, to fulfill societal obligations of modesty and ensure she would blend in with everyone else.

She drew the cloak close to her and slipped on the gloves and boots before opening the door.

“It has come to my attention that I am in need of clothing.”

“Have you just been wearing nothing but the cloak the whole time? Ever since you left your village?”

“I never needed anything besides the cloak.”

Perience was very reasonably frustrated with the very strange circumstances which Pion claimed to come from but pushed on anyways out of spite and a refusal to accept that there was someone he could not afford to help.

“We’re going to the tailor.”

And so Pion went to the tailor and purchased a few basic sets of clothing for two-and-a-half silver.

At last, it was time for the first controlled combat test.