Following the events of that "spar" with Girmold, I tried to apologize to him a lot of times on the way back to Univ but he said it was fine as it was a fair fight, albeit with a sour face. I stopped when he explicitly said that he was annoyed by me apologizing all the time.

The next day, it was my first day being an adventurer as Girmold smiled as I giddily saw him again.

"And look what I've got!" He said as he pulled out a rectangular sheet from his bag. He handed it to me, but I didn't grab it first as I saw it was just an empty black card.

"What's that?"

"You need to grab it."

And I did, when suddenly, a design and some words started to materialize out of nowhere.

Holy CRAP IT'S MY OWN ID "Domo arigatou gozaimasu!"

He laughed and said you're welcome, "I don't know what the hell you said but I'm gonna assume that's a thank you. Oh! I almost forgot!"

He then pulled out some kind of brown cloak and a piece of paper. "This is a cloak for anonymous adventurers so people could recognize you as one. It's given free for anyone that signs up to be one. I couldn't reject it or I'll look suspicious. And this *holds paper up* is your first mission as an adventurer!"

Of course, I asked a few questions and found out a lot of stuff that interests me. The design on the background is the logo for the Guild of Malia, which is the worldwide guild for adventurers that is recognized in all human countries. It also appeared on the brown cloak that would hide a person's looks if they were wearing them.

I understood the purpose of everything else in the card, but...

"Everard? When did I get that as a last name? Do dragons have last names?"

Professor Damian got extremely annoyed by that. "You've been living with the nobles in this town for two weeks, listening to all the conversations you heard, but you still DON'T KNOW WHAT THEIR LAST NAMES ARE??"

Holy shit, dude. Calm down.

That then leads to another complicated set of shit, where I unconsciously have fully identified myself as a part of Besley's family, and so do they, so I accidentally adopted their last name too.

And there is also the security system which I was worried about. "Isn't it a bit unsafe for the guild if a creature like me can join?"

Girmold cleared his throat, "Boy, that has a long history. The security system is pretty sophisticated. You won't be able to feel it, but at the back, there are tons o' tiny ridges that will make up a code so that there are no fake cards when they scan it with some magictrickery. Oh, and the ridges will make up a different code every week as it changes. There were some non-human adventurers long ago, which then lit up some of the civilians' anger. Yet, somehow, while the guild was able to make all the other sophisticated stuff in their organization, they still couldn't insert a spell in the card that would also identify if you're human or not. So they temporarily put a spell into it that checks if you're genuinely benign and willing to work for the guild. Yet the civilians were satisfied by that as it allows adventurers to have more diversity so they left it at that."

"Sounds like 'sophisticated' is an understatement."

Of course, even though I won't be able to wear it, I kept the hooded cloak and stored it for my own pride, and literally an hour later, I was jogging alongside Girmold to complete our missions, which were quite close to each other. And yes, he has his own mission and I have my own mission.

In the middle of the walk, Girmold tried to break the ice a bit. "So... How did you learn all that magic and how did you become so powerful in it?"

"Meh, stole some magic books, absorbed a vampiric tiger's and some kind of earth bear thingy's magic essence."

"Wait, you stole books?"

I did a mix of huffing and growling, which is the best I can do for a snicker. "Ask Damian about it. Bet ya he can entertain you for at least half an hour."

"You stole books from his library?!"

I did a shrug which Girmold might not be able to see but he moved on anyways.

"And how did you get those magic essence from those creatures anyways? Both are challenging-classed beasts!"

"One was advanced-class. It was the full moon."

Girmold stared at me for a while, dumbfounded. "Didn't answer my question, dragon boy."

There you go again, with the cringy nickname. "I killed em."

"How did you kill a vampiric tiger?!"

"Silver."

"Where'd you get the-"

"Too many questions! Move on!"

It was quiet again.

"You know, I know you're a reincarnate."

If I could choke on air, I would have. "Now where the fuck did you get that conclusion?"

"The way you speak, the profanities you use, and your slip up before about your last names."

"How would you know how a reincarnate speaks? And what slip up?"

"I've been in a few missions to subdue individual or groups of human reincarnates and paid enough attention to know how they speak. Oh, and you said if dragons have last names. When true dragons are born, they already know most about their identity. You don't. And, judging by your size and the maturity of your scales, your age in this world won't even reach a month."

Damn, if I have to be that observant to become an adventurer, I'd get a score of 0. "Fine, ya got me."

He smirked before it was silent again for a few minutes as we walked. "How old were you when you died?"

"Guess."

"14."

"Pretty close. 15. Is it the voice?"

"Yep."

And, AGAIN, it was silent. But this time the silence was killing me before Girmold pulled me into a bush--quite roughly---and whispered, "There it is, the hole of the mrolls."

I looked forward to see nothing out of place. Until a mole-like creature with green skin and large bat-like ears. It was barely taller than me, yet it looks absolutely putrid. Spots of skin with pimples and rashes were all over its body and the paws are actually arms like a human, making it look so out of place. It has witch-like nails on its forepaws but had normal mole-like back paws. It looked around and then jumped into a hole which was covered by enough leaves for me to not notice.

And how did Girmold notice that???

Apparently, his mission is involving these little green fuckers stealing shit from the town. It started getting troublesome enough that more than a dozen families were affected, that's when the guild issued a mission for it. From the info on how strong individually these guys are and how many live in a colony, this was first an intermediate-classed mission. But then, a group of 3 veteran adventurers went to exterminate this threat only to never come back. And that's how it quickly got to an advanced-class mission, a level for elite adventurers like him.

I was about to ask how he was so observant when he put a finger on his lips to signify silence.

Bitch, I speak telepathically-

He then came out of the bush and started shouting. The 'mrolls'(what a weird name) started grouping one-by-one outside of their hole. Once all of them were out, there were nearly a hundred of them.

One was bigger than the others, and it screeched before all the others started kamikaze-ing Girmold. At first, he was doing fine, swinging his sword all around the place while not getting much damage himself, but halfway, he started getting sluggish and struggled a bit and when there were about a dozen left, he was panting and was covered with quite a number of lacerations. His clothes were starting to get tattered and his sword was covered with blood.

Then, not long later, it was the biggest one left. I think it's the leader seeing how it is the biggest one and how it had red ears instead of green like the rest of its body.

It let out a screech as a fireball came out of its mouth.

Oh damn, it's a variant. A fire one too.

Girmold was surprised as it was very rare to find variant monsters with magic, he didn't react fast enough to use a magic shield so he only managed to block half the fireball with his sword as the other half hit his body, leaving burn marks on his clothes and knocking him back a bit.

It released another fireball and Girmold's eyes widened in surprise as he didn't summon his shield again. It hit him fully.

Did he run out of mana? How???

This time, it knocked him enough to get him off his feet.

The mroll was about to release another fireball when-

*SWISH*

*splat*

There was an ice bullet that went through its head.

Should've helped earlier.

I looked at Girmold, only for him to shout, "Hey! That was gonna be my kill!"

I was annoyed enough that I said with a sassy tone, "Oh, is that so? Oh, I'm sorry. What I saw is that you're the one which is going to be its kill, so I decided to help. Unless, of course, you want me to leave you to die next time? Oh, and your shoulder is still burning."

He looked to see that his left shoulder is on fire and stood up in alarm before frantically rubbing the fire out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were walking again in the forest and Girmold was carrying a bag made out of felts which was filled with the ears of the mrolls, especially the leader's. He had to cut them one by one and explained to me that I would also need to gather some evidence to actually submit a completed mission.

I tried to convince him to go back home, but he was persistent and I ran out of reasons to get him to go when he poured a low-level healing potion to all of his wounds which closed them and drank some water from a wooden canister he brought.

On the way to the approximate location of where my mission is, I asked him why he didn't put up his shield.

"I don't know. I just... couldn't. It's like... my magic essence ran out or something. I don't know why."

"Could it be possible that the fatigue made you use magic essence instead of normal energy?"

"No no no. It requires quite complicated magic that only high-level magicians can do to transform magic essence to body energy. The most probable scenario, which is saying something as that means the creature had two magic affinities, would be that the leader had a magic-essence sucking ability."

I nodded to convey my understanding. Although I got interested in a detail he talked about, "I noticed that you say mages and magicians differently. Is there any contrast between them?"

"Good ears. Yes, actually. Mages are magic users that generally use a magic medium or tool to conjure spells. Magicians don't need that. Although both can be powerful, magicians are generally stereotyped to be more powerful as they would have an affinity or mastery while mages don't guarantee them. You'd be called a magician, and I'd be a mage when I use magic."

I got confused as I've never seen him with a magical medium when he casts his magic, "You're a mage? Not a magician?"

He raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Ah, that means it's not clearly shown. Good. Not many would notice, but when I cast my spells, I mostly use my sword as a magical medium. The only element I would cast without my sword is fire, and that's quite weak in contrast to my earth magic or my slash. "

He uses his sword to conjure earth spells? Never noticed that.

I then noticed pure blackness in the distance to see a black wolf almost twice as tall as Girmold, dwarfing me as I estimated myself to be the size of its tail.

"Uhh... what is that? Let's get away from it." I said, feeling a little fearful just being near it. I was about to walk away when Girmold held my tail as he started crouching behind a bush.

"That's a shadow wolf, and is your mission."

HOLY SHIT, ARE YOU INSANE? "DUDE, WHY DID YOU PICK MINE HARDER THAN YOURS? AND YOU NEVER TOLD ME THAT THE WOLF IS THIS HUGE!"

******************************

"What is a shadow wolf?"

"A shadow wolf is a magical wolf that has the ability to travel with shadows and blind their enemies with darkness. If you use this," Girmold said while tapping his head, "You'd be able to kill him easy-peasy. Just don't let 'im touch any shadows and it won't be able to teleport with it."

******************************

"Because your level should be higher than mine and I'm sure you'd struggle more in my missions as you're easier to surround and have a smaller melee point reach. I'd have a hard time seeing you do better on my mission than this. And you'd have an easier time with a bigger target because you're not trained nor do you have the experience of fighting multiple enemies at the same time."

He got a point...

"I'm still only the size of its tail!"

"Stop fussing and kill the thing while it's sleeping."

True to his word, the giant wolf is sleeping and is actually snoring quite loudly. I'm baffled at how I don't notice shit like that.

"Water slash?"

Girmold looked at me with some annoyance before saying yes.

**************************

Girmold was still unnerved by my water slash after the fight. "You can't just steal my most powerful move and multiply it without using much energy!"

"Haha water slash go brrrrrr."

**************************

And he's still annoyed that I managed to do that.

I quickly flew up and conjured a water slash to its neck. But then I noticed that its gray eyes were open and it sank to the ground in a shadow before my water slash reached it.

I looked around as growls were heard. I created a strategy where I use earth magic for defence and fire magic for offence against this thing.

Suddenly, it appeared from the shadow of a tree trunk behind me, but I was ready for it as a wall appeared from the ground as it crashed through it and started to claw at the air yet couldn't reach me as the momentum needed was lessened by the wall. It unceremoniously crashed to the ground before dashing away as another water slash hit the spot on where it was. It disappeared into another shadow.

If the fight will be like this, then I'll end it quickly.

I allocated half of my magic essence to power a giant fireball as big as the wolf itself which lit up the forest, forcing the wolf out of a shadow as it started disappearing. The wolf seemed to be badly hurt. Girmold told me that it can be damaged in shadows if you make the shadow disappear, which is what I did.

As it was still struggling from the pain, I launched the fireball at it and it created an explosion big enough to blow a lot of leaves off the trees and enough dust to cover my vision. When the dust settled, what I saw was the wolf with most of its fur on fire and half its head charred off with the skull and brain visibly black. I gagged at the sight. Although I was surprised that the wolf was tough enough to only get that much damage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In my teeth is a bag Girmold gave me with the remaining eye from the wolf and a patch of its fur. I chose them and Girmold approved and was proud I got it first try. Although it is very unnerving that the eye of the wolf itself was nearly as big as my head.

I was waiting in a treetop again as I waited for Girmold to come out and tell me how I did on the mission. He came out and went to the spot we both promised to meet up.

"Here's your pay!" Girmold exclaimed as he took a bag and threw it on the ground in front of me. There were 3 gold and 4 silver coins in- wait...

GOLD? I'M TOUCHING GOLD?

"Wait, is this real gold??"

Girmold was baffled for a second before he laughed, "O' course it is! Don't lose it! One gold coin can last you a few days of everyday needs if you use it! Oh, and ask Damian for the types of coins and their values. I'm going to have some early dinner and relax." He quickly left my sight as I was still enamored by the coins.

I can't believe I'm touching gold.

Welp, I guess today marks the start of a new lifestyle for me.