The two drunk men who had challenged Lone and Sophie had already left to warm up in the guild's training arena as they waited for the two of them to finish registering as adventurers.

"As you don't have enough members to form an official adventurers' group, only your names shall be etched into your adventurer's plate," the employee said as he used a small carving knife to write 'Lone Immortus' on a small piece of wood and then 'Sophie Vladimirovich' on another. It took him several tries to write her name due to how odd it was.

"It will cost you twenty-silvers to register each," the employee said with a polite smile on his face.

Lone raised an eyebrow as he took a gold coin out of his pocket. "That's a lot of money, isn't it?"

The employee nodded as he took the coin and started counting change. "It is, but with some elbow grease, it can easily be earned back in a day to a week depending on the types of quests you undertake as well as your skill level."

"'Why's it so pricey?', is what I meant to ask," Lone said as he rolled his eyes and played with his new adventurer's plate.

"Hahaha, of course, Sir. Well, being an adventurer has many benefits. So many, in fact, that it would take an incredible amount of time to explain them all. The biggest one is that it allows free travel across almost every border. Adventurers also get an entry discount to most human-run countries. Demi-run countries will allow adventurers of a certain plate rank to enter as well since we don't let just anyone increase their rank because they're strong or because they're influential, or even if they've done a lot of quests. We consider their personality and motivations quite heavily when ranking up their plates," the employee explained.

Lone nodded slowly. "Makes sense, but that sounds incredibly hard to, you know, regulate. Surely there'd be internal corruption getting in the way of that, no?"

Again, the employee laughed gently. "The Grand Guildmaster is a Divine, so that's hardly a realistic worry. People have tried before, but she has a very powerful artefact that allows her to detect wrong-doings amongst her employees. She also only employs the most trustworthy of people to act as guildmasters for The Adventurer's Guild's branches."

"Sounds a bit unbelievable. The part about that tool," Lone noted as his mind wandered elsewhere. 'A Divine? What the fuck's a Divine?'

"Many do not believe it exists, but please, if you see a morally-bankrupt person with a plate ranked above silver, let me know. I'll pay you a whole ruby-gold coin if you do," the employee declared a little bit smugly.

'What the hell's a ruby-gold coin? Never heard of that type of currency before,' Lone thought before he asked, "Sure, but I'm curious, what ranks are there anyway?" He gestured to his wooden plate and said, "I can guess that wood is the lowest, right?"

"How astute. Indeed, a wooden-plate is the lowest possible adventurer rank. There are fifteen in total. Going from the lowest to the highest, we have; wooden, iron, copper, bronze, steel, dark-steel, silver, gold-silver, gold, white-gold, adamantine, ruby-red, emerald-green, sapphire-blue, and lastly, diamond-clear," he happily explained in a very routine-like manner.

"Huh... That's a lot," Lone commented.

"True, but there are also fifteen natural ranks of I-rank to triple-X-rank, so even without being above B-rank, you can usually tell how strong an adventurer is if you mentally pair their plate to the same rank. Like how an adamantine-plate would be roughly an SS-ranker. Of course, there are talented people who this doesn't work on and it becomes irrelevant if you manage to become a B-ranker since you can just sense the other person's internal strength, but it's a handy and fairly reliable trick at C-rank or lower," the employee advised with a warm expression on his face.

Lone frowned and held his chin as he privately spoke to himself mentally. 'B-rankers can detect other people's internal strength? Shit. That's really useful and really dangerous information. I need to reach B-rank as soon as I can then, don't I?'

At this point, Sophie yawned audibly. "Lone, may we finish up here and go deal with those buffoons that insulted us?"

Lone grinned a bit wryly. "Right. Um, one last question. Do we have to display our plates at all times, or can we hide them if we want to?"

"Ah, a fair question. Normally, yes, you do have to wear them on your person. Most hang them around their necks via a string or a chain, but I have seen them sown into clothing or welded onto armour before. When I say that you 'have' to wear them, that only applies when accepting and turning in quests. I would advise that you do keep them visible at all times, however," the man said.

"Why?" Lone asked.

He didn't see the point. Wouldn't it just tell people that they were newbies and easily attackable? Knowing that B-rankers or above could tell their ranks was annoying enough, why give that ability to those at C-rank or lower as well through their plates?

The employee chuckled softly. "I know that look, Sir. Trust me, you will be safer with your plates on display, regardless of their material. Every guildmaster takes after the grand guildmaster and is very protective of adventurers. So long as an adventurer is not in the wrong should an incident happen, the guildmaster of our branch here in Ranton will give his full support to them."

"And this guildmaster is someone impressive?" Lone followed up by asking.

"Exceedingly so. His uncle is an incredibly well-respected soul oracle and he himself is a powerful SS-ranker. Just to put that into perspective, Milindo only has four SS-rankers of their own, but each one of them is weaker than Guildmaster Gilbert," the employee claimed.

"Huh... Okay. Thanks for the info," Lone replied.

The employee smiled brightly. "Not at all, Sir. It's rare to find someone so interested in anything beyond making quick money here. This was a refreshing conversation. Now, I assume you wish to proceed with your challenges against those two men?"

"Yeah. Is there any formal procedures or anything?" Lone asked politely.

"Indeed. You may have seen those... gentlemen speaking with my colleague just before I was finished making your plates. I'll need you to sign waivers stating that the guild is not responsible for any life-changing injuries or death. Both of those things are strictly prohibited in challenges between adventurers, but they do happen occasionally. Signing the waiver means that you accept full responsibility to compensate your opponent or their next of kin should you cripple or kill them, and vice-versa, you leave all responsibility to them should you be the victim," the employee calmly stated as he slid two parchments across the counter along with an inkwell that had two quills in it.

"Huh. Makes sense, I suppose. You can't have some losers waltzing in here, sign up to be adventurers, then just lose a hand in a duel on purpose to sue the guild," Lone muttered as he and Sophie signed their papers.

"Indeed. There is also a fee of a single silver piece for the guild to host such challenges, but only the challenger has to pay this, so you are now free to go to the training area where your opponents await you," the employee said as he checked both Lone's and Sophie's signatures before he filed the documents underneath the counter.

"As a small word of advice, the child-hater is known to be quite quick despite his large weapon, while the racist is mostly an all-rounder, though he does supposedly know some very basic fire magic. Crude Fireball, if I'm not mistaken," he added with a warm smile.

Lone gave him a peculiar look. "Uh, thanks for the tips."

"Think nothing of it. Those men will never become anything more than steel-plates in their entire lives unless they change their ways, so I'm perfectly happy giving you two a nice little advantage. I have a good eye for people, you see. All of the staff here do. It's why we were hired. I look forward to working with you in the future, Sir Immortus," the employee said as he bowed his head politely.

"Huh. Good to know. Likewise. Well, we'll be back shortly then to take on a quest or two," Lone happily replied as he left with Sophie.

The employee remained there smiling. 'Guildmaster Gilbert would get along with him, I suspect. It really is very rare to find someone who is so openly ignorant and willing to learn to fill in his lacking knowledge. It's a shame that I can't oversee this challenge. If only it was still my lunch break...'

'Wow. There's a lot of people gathered here. I guess they came to watch our fights since they're rare like that staff member said, huh?' Lone wondered as he walked into the open courtyard that had a large fighting ring in its centre.

Perhaps thirty adventurers had gathered and were making bets on who would win or they were simply enjoying food and drinks that they'd bought from the guild's second-floor restaurant.

The short man who'd aggressively insulted Lone for his species grinned and stretched his body. "Finally. I thought yes'd nev'r show. I figured ye'd fucked back off into the forest where yer kind belongs, demi trash."

The taller man just glared at Sophie menacingly.

Ignoring the insult thrown at him, Lone asked, "How do you guys wanna do this? One-on-one, or two-v-two? I'd prefer we all fight together, to be honest. The quicker this is over, the better. We plan to actually do some work today, not just loaf about like losers drinking like there's no tomorrow."

The two men's faces distorted with anger while the crowd started hollering and laughing.

"Hahaha! For a demi, he sure knows how to hit where it hurts!"

"Right you are! Even slaves can have a sense of humour!"

"This'll only make it even more satisfyin' when he gets his ass-kicked for bein' so arrogant!"

"Hey, Grindol, make sure you cut a tail or two off for what he said!"

"You two should fight 'em together! Only a coward would be scared of one demi and a fuckin' kid!"

At this point, they had heard enough. The taller man drew his greatsword from his back and narrowed his eyes. "So be it. Come at us together. It will hardly make a difference."

The shorter and slightly pudgy man held his daggers backhandedly as he smirked while looking at Lone. "I'm thinkin' three or four tails. 'At should put ya back in yer place."

Lone laughed. "There must be a misunderstanding here. You'll only be fighting me. I said two-v-two, but I really meant both of you against me. You see, if Sophie fights, she'd struggle to hold back, and I'd honestly rather not pay your bastard sons and daughters who don't even know you're their fathers your funeral money."

Again, the crowd laughed fiercely.

"This fuck'r... Oi, Quint, fuck 'im. 'E wants to fight us both at the same time? Well then, fuckin' let 'im! Keep 'im busy while I prep my magic. I'll fuckin' roast 'im like the animal 'e is!" the short man ordered his friend furiously as he sheathed his daggers.

Lone grinned. 'Perfectly provoked. Now I can upgrade my Fire Magic Resistance. Just as planned.'