Chapter 37 — An Odd Case

Rain clouds were gathering ominously overhead by the time Ria had memorized the basic dagger forms and Tina's recommend footwork exercises well enough to be able to practice them on her own. She and Tina agreed to bring the session to an end.

As they returned to the village, Ria greeted the guardsmen at the gate with her helmet off and chatted with them for a few minutes before heading back to the Adventurers Guild. Even though the chat was mostly just complaining about the weather, having Tina with her helped Ria feel confident talking to the guardsmen and helped the guardsmen to be more comfortable talking with her. After the tension of the morning, Ria wanted to build relationships with each of the guardsmen and avoid such situations in the future.

The teens outside the guild were no longer there and must have also noticed the incoming weather or found something else to do. Ria was relieved. She didn’t particularly think they were a threat, but unpleasant things were unpleasant. Best to always keep the lightning wand handy to zap them around a little next time.

A hunter was at the counter with a dead monster on a tarp behind him when Ria and Tina entered the guild. Ria spotted Leon over by the notice-board talking about something with his instructor.

The hunter and Aaron concluded their business, and a man was called over from tavern side to help drag the monster corpse to the grounds at the back. Tina explained that the guild buys monster corpses to salvage usable materials, and dismantlers get paid to process the monster into parts.

Ria asked if dismantling the monster ahead of time would get better prices and was told that the result would depend on the quality of the materials extracted. Tina pointed out that guild members could pay a small fee and use the tools out back to do the dismantling themselves if they wished. Something for Ria to look into later.

“You’re back in one piece, I see,” Aaron greeted Ria with a warm laugh and handed over a hinged metal case. “Welcome to the Adventurers Guild.”

Ria was confused but received the case anyway. Her confusion went away when she opened the case and saw her guild card kept safely inside. Her rank was ‘G’.

“Ours is a bloody profession, and paper quickly becomes unreadable if not stored safely,” Tina explained. “You’re a G-rank trainee right now, and unless you decide to switch to Neryl, I’m going to be your mentor for a while. To reach F-rank, you need to earn 50 mission credits with an overall satisfactory performance rating, complete one F-rank mission, spend a night in the wilderness, and demonstrate basic combat proficiency.”

“Currently, you are limited to G and F-rank missions. F-rank missions will gain you double credit,” Aaron added. “Poor performance ratings can prevent you from ranking up and lead to fines in some cases. Always keep the mission goals in mind.”

Ria nodded. Except for the fines part, it all seemed easy enough, particularly since Tina had already said her survivability was at D-rank. “What kind of situations would lead to fines?”

“Death of the client, property damage, illegal or reckless behavior affecting the mission, and falsely reporting mission completion. Those kinds of things. Failure to pay the fines will result in revocation of your membership,” Aaron said flatly. “Not something you’re likely to have to worry about if you keep a professional attitude while working. We do understand that mission failures happen from time to time. Report your results promptly so the mission details can be updated and another team sent out.”

“Okay,” Ria acknowledged.

“The job board is next,” Tina said and led Ria in that direction. “The only thing you need to know about the job postings is that ‘open requests’ are always available until taken down by guild staff. For normal jobs, you take the posting to Aaron, and he’ll assign it to you, or your team, if you group up with others.”

Burtan noticed their approach and greeted Ria with a hearty grin, “Welcome back, girlie. Glad to see you’re still moving about.”

“Ah! Ria, are you really okay?!” Leon worriedly asked when he realized she had returned. He looked exhausted but more dependable somehow.

It was enough to make Ria grin. “Yep! I learned a lot, but mostly learned that I have a lot to work on. How was your training?”

Leon gave her an incredulous look, but after a moment, he made a fist and looked down at his clenched hand. “Burtan is a really good instructor, and I learned a lot as well. I’m going to stick with the training and see how far I can go.”

Ria clapped him on the shoulder happily. “Good for you, Leon. You look stronger already. Still up for magic training after this? I could barely stand after the first time Jarrel took me out for hunter training.”

“Ugh… if I got hit by your lightning, I think I’d die for sure,” Leon muttered and shook his head.

“Hahaha, Leon, no need to worry about that. You’re going to be stuck doing meditation and energy-sensing until you learn to feel and control your inner energy,” Ria cheerfully told him.

Leon groaned.

Tina and Burtan both chuckled.

“We’ll leave you two to it then. Check with Aaron when you're ready to schedule another session,” Tina said, winking to Ria and pulling Burtan away by the elbow.

Burtan went along willingly. “That’s right. Looks like you owe me a drink, Tina, haha.”

After watching the pair leave, Ria asked Leon, “So, any fun jobs available?”

“Mostly just deliveries, herb gathering, cleaning, nuisance removal, that kind of thing.” Leon shrugged. “Pay is nothing special either.”

“Hmm. Guess that’s to be expected for jobs eligible to trainees,” Ria responded, but she was still disappointed.

“There is one that’s a bit different from the others. The pay is still pitiful, but I thought you might be interested because of Ranger,” Leon offered.

“Because of Ranger?” Ria asked, intrigued.

Leon nodded and pointed. “Yeah, this one. It’s a job to investigate recent pet disappearances.”

“Oh? Pets disappearing inside the village… within the walls, unless they are being turned into someone’s lunch… that seems odd,” Ria considered. “Any chance your spicy meat friends…?”

“No way! Sal only uses the best beef and pork,” Leon protested then admitted, “But there was a time he offered a monster meat special…”

“Haha, don’t make that face Leon. I was just joking,” Ria said, sticking her tongue out and pulling the posting off the pin. “We can give it a try. It’ll give me a good excuse to meet some new people, and Ranger can probably track the pets down by scent.”

“Woof!” Ranger agreed, happy to be useful.

“Okay, did you want to start on it today?” Leon asked. “You know, with the rain and all.”

“Ah, crap. The rain will wash away the scents,” Ria realized. “Still… it might be possible to find them with specialized proximity wards or maybe a detection-type barrier. If the pets are dead that will make things trickier.”

“Worawr…,” Ranger mumbled dejectedly.

“Sorry, buddy,” Ria comforted Ranger.

“Didn’t Guardsman Collin say not to use your magic where people can see?” Leon reminded her.

“What if I prepare some scrolls in advance? I am a member of the Enchanters Guild… so, that should be okay, right?” Ria asked as she joined the line that had formed at the counter.

“I guess,” Leon answered noncommittally.

The hunters in front of her were placing large, severed paws on the counter for Aaron to count, and Aaron didn’t look too happy with what he was seeing.

“So, it was dire wolves,” Aaron noted worriedly. “Wonder what has them scared enough to venture this far out of the wilds…”

“Dunno Aaron, but I sure as hell don’t want to meet anything that scares off dire wolves,” one of the hunters commented, and his partner muttered agreement.

Aaron wrote some notes down and paid the hunters their earnings. Ria saw the glint of silver coins. Apparently, hunting dire wolves paid well.

After the men left, Ria stepped forward and handed over the job posting.

“Oh, so you two are interested in this one? Good, good,” Aaron nodded approvingly and glanced over at Ranger then handed them a small paper slip. “Here’s a list of the people who reported missing pets. Captain Bastach is the client for this job. I’m guessing that he’s more interested in ruling out illegal ritual magic and shapeshifting monsters infiltrating the village than actually finding the pets, so be extra careful, okay? You only have to identify the cause, not resolve the situation.”

“Don’t worry, Aaron. Ranger will let us know the moment he smells anything dangerous,” Ria replied and handed the list of names over to Leon. “We’ll be careful.”

Aaron nodded. “Good luck.”

As they turned to leave, the guy who helped with the monster corpse from before returned, saw the dire wolf paws, and after a signal from Aaron, he started taking the paws out back.

“You know, most of these people do live around Sal and Marlene’s place,” Leon mumbled while looking at the list.

Hahaha, that’s terrible. Chuckling to herself, Ria smiled wryly and shook her head.