Henduria port.

There are people everywhere.

I have never seen this many people.

After docking the ship, Albert's men started unloading the cargo.

Albert in the meantime started talking to Feldo's party about some stuff.

Meanwhile, I was looking around and...felt like something was missing.

That's right.

The monster.

Wasn't this place supposed to be attacked?

Well, I guess I would have already lost if it did...

But still, if it's not here yet, when will it come?

"Reiza, we are going to the adventurer's guild to get a confirmation about completing a request.

Do you want to tag along?"

"...sure"

Me, Feldo, Nathan and Dave start walking through the town, leaving Albert and the rest of his crew behind.

Feldo told me earlier my race isn't very appreciated among humans.

And as such, there might be people, who will be hostile toward me.

But he told me I shouldn't kill anyone in this town, otherwise I might get into trouble.

I was concerned about my self defense, but he said it was fine to just knock out those who picked a fight.

As we walked through the streets, I noticed there were many people staring at me.

They all have the ears on side of their heads unlike me.

And they don't have tail either.

Maybe I'm the weird one here?

Most of the glares aimed at me contain disgust, but when I look back at them, they quickly shrink back.

There were also some, who looked curious or surprised when they looked at me.

But those were in a minority.

While walking, I noticed the buildings all around me, were really different to what I have been used to.

The safe houses inside the dungeon were always dome shaped and not very tall.

But these buildings, are square shaped and some of them are as high as half of the giant spider's leg length.

Is that the norm to settle down in one of these?

We finally arrived at a certain building.

It had a wooden signboard above its big double door.

On that signboard, there was a painting of a sword crossed with a staff.

The double door below it was wide open.

All of us slowly walked in and I started looking around inside.

On the left side, there were some tables with chairs next to them.

There, I saw crowds of people.

The moment we entered, we seemed to have caught their attention.

Or more precisely, me.

When I gazed at them back, most of them averted their gaze, but some of them kept staring.

Up ahead is a wide staircase leading upwards.

And looking to the right, I see some counters with people behind them.

They looked pretty busy, shifting through papers or writing something.

Feldo, followed by the rest of us, walked to one of them.

"Excuse me."

Reacting to his words, the woman behind the counter looks up and smiles.

"Welcome, what can I do for you?"

"We are here to turn in a completed quest."

"Ah yes, please show me your cards."

Feldo and the others each pull out a silver colored card from their pockets and present it to the woman.

She takes one of them and places it on some sort of metal tablet in front of her.

As she does that, the top of the tablet shines.

She looks in the air above the tablet as if something was there.

"Escort a merchant's ship from Garthan to Henduria, is it?"

"Yes, that one."

"Do you have the proof of completion?"

"Right here."

Feldo pulls out a small metal button with a strange pattern engraved into it.

As he does that, the woman sifts through a stack of papers lying on the shelf and finally pulls one out.

She holds the button in one hand and the paper in the other looking back and forth a few times.

Then, she places the paper down and writes something on it.

After that is done, she opens a drawer next to her and places the paper inside.

She then takes the two other silver cards and places them on the tablet one by one.

As it lights up she nods to herself.

"I have confirmed it."

She then opens yet another drawer in front of her and pulls out coins from under there.

"Here is thirty silver coins, ten for each one of you.

Just wait a second while I update your card status."

"Thank you."

Feldo and the others share the money among them and...

Huh?

"I think you deserve at least part of it."

They present me with six of those coins.

"...umm..."

"Come on, take it.

If it weren't for you, we wouldn't even be here anymore."

I didn't really understand money before.

But it has been explained to me, that it's a universal currency that can be exchanged for anything.

In case you don't possess the exact item the other party wants in the trade, you give them money.

The lowest valued one is one copper coin, a hundred of these is worth one silver coin and a hundred of these equals one gold coin.

There are also azure gold coins, worth hundred gold coins, but these aren't commonly traded.

But I don't need these few silver coins.

Albert gave me ten gold coins.

Well he didn't really give them to me.

More like, he bought something from me.

It happened when I was showing the magic I learned as a reward for beating the dungeon.

I pulled out the old black mace.

Everyone really latched their eyes onto it and admired it.

Apparently, it was made out of something called demon steel and it was worth a lot.

Since I wasn't using it and I didn't like it anyway, Albert bought it off of me for ten gold coins.

"...don't need..."

"You are being too modest..."

Feldo sighs and distributes the coins among himself and his teammates.

At that moment, the woman calls out to them to return their cards.

They take them and put them back into their pockets.

"Ah, that's right! Won't you register now Reiza?

Whatever you plan on doing, it's never bad to take some simple quests and earn money along the way."

"...sure"

"Excuse me, could we have this girl register right now?"

"That girl? Isn't she too yo-"

The woman is about to say something, but when our eyes meet, she suddenly goes silent.

"S-sure..."

Hey what was that?

I practiced making friendly face as Feldo taught me.

Am I still too scary?

She pulls out the same tablet which shined on contact with the cards and presents it to me.

"Put your hand on this and insert a little bit of your mana."

I do as I'm told and the tablet shines a little.

At that moment, the woman's expression distorts.

"FOUR THOUS-???"

She covers her mouth with her hand as she goes pale.

Drops of sweat appear all around her face.

Her eyes contain even more fear than before.

Her sudden scream attracted attention of both the other people behind counters and the people sitting at the tables.

She looked around her in panic and finally let go of her mouth.

"P-p-please wait here for a moment!"

After saying those few words, she dashed out of here toward a staircase behind her.

Everyone left here was dumbfounded, not knowing what just happened.

...

"Hey...Reiza..."

Feldo is the first one to break the silence.

He is talking to me but his eyes aren't looking at me.

"I forgot to ask but...what...level are you?"

Hmm...?

Level?

Oh, wasn't it one of the things in the status screen?

Status screen: open

Hmm, yes here it is.

It's...

"...four thousand...six hundred...twenty one"

...

Hey, even if you are smiling, I already know you aren't really happy or anything.

I have seen that expression a lot from you, so I know it already.

Feldo looks around at the people and then lowers his head and whispers to me.

"You see...my level is 45...and that's considered quite high already.

The highest I have seen was one S ranked adventurer, who was level 361..."

...

Huh...

Do you mean, my level is way too high?

Umm...

Is that a big problem...?

At that moment, the woman returns from upstairs along with another person.

It's a tall man with gray beard and hair.

Just from a single glance, I can tell he is stronger than any other human I have met.

The woman points at me and the tall man walks up to me with his arms crossed.

I look up at him and out eyes meet.

Unlike everyone else up till now, he doesn't even flinch.

But even if he does well to cover it, I can still feel some fear in him.

We stare at each other for some time, but then he silently closes his eyes and mutters something.

"Follow me, I need to talk to you in private."

The man turned around and started walking back.

When I met eyes with Feldo, he seemed hesitant for a bit.

But then he smiled awkwardly and spoke.

"You should maybe follow him..."

...

I really don't know what's happening, but since I don't feel any hostility from that man, let's follow him.

Even if he is stronger than most other humans, he is still way weaker than me.

If I had to compare him, the mana I could sense within him barely reached the levels of the red slime.

So even if he suddenly turns hostile, I probably won't have to worry too much.

I follow the man upstairs, leaving everyone else except the woman from earlier behind.

Up here, the walls were covered in boards full of papers.

There were a few people looking at some of them, but when I arrived, I caught their attention.

We headed toward one of the doors on the right side of this room.

He pulled out a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock.

The door clicks and opens.

...

Hmm...keys and keyholes huh?

I have some particular memories with these.

He opens the door and beckons at me.

"Please come in."

...

I slowly walk inside.

He and the woman also step inside and lock the door behind them.

This room is quite small.

It's not a perfect square, it's a little longer than it is wide.

There is a desk at the end of the room with a chair near it.

On the sides, there are various shelves and drawers filled with papers.

On a wall near the desk, is a shiny sword hanging.

And in the middle of the room, there are two sofas surrounding a small table.

"Please have a seat."

He points at the sofa.

I walk up to it and sit down.

Really comfortable...

He then sits on the opposite side and the woman stands behind him.

"Well, then...nice to meet you.

My name is Phil Nerozimac.

I am the guildmaster of the Henduria's adventurer guild branch."

"...Reiza"

"...well...

Let me get straight to the point...

Why is an ancient monster like you trying to register as an adventurer?"

...

What?

Bonus:

It was mentioned that mithril is very enchantable.

Does that mean a normal iron sword wouldn't be able to hold enchantments?

They are much worse at it and would probably break apart if you tried to stuff too much mana into them.

A mithril sword would probably break eventually as well, but it can hold a lot more.

Then why were mere pages from some books in a dungeon able to hold so much mana?

"Hey, who do you take me for?

I'm not just some cheapskate!

Of course I will put high quality books in there!

You could probably stuff twice the amount of mana into one page than into that mithril dagger!"

What a waste of resources...

That's like making a chair out of pure gold.