I put 12 silver coins on the table, and on the other side, the receptionist of the Adventurer's Guild also handed over three cards.
"Whoaaaa! So this is what it feels like to be an adventurer!" Eris cheered as soon as she held her card.
That's right, I really kept my promise and took the whole group to register as adventurers. I already had Philip's approval beforehand, so I wasn't too worried. What concerned me was asking Lord Sauros for permission. Surprisingly, Lord Sauros also nodded and praised me for being able to keep my promise and for caring about his granddaughter's feelings.
Sometimes I don't understand the logic going on inside the heads of these Greyrats, but whatever.
"The material of the card seems durable, doesn't it?"
While Eris was jumping around like a kangaroo, Rudeus was scrutinizing the card in his hand. And yes, the reason there are 3 cards is that Rudeus and Sylphiette also registered along with us.
So now we have registered a party. After days of back-and-forth discussion, we had a lot of ideas for naming. For example, taking the first letters of the four of us combined would be 'Arse'. But since I know English, I dropped that idea, even though Eris liked the name because it was quite similar to the name of the hero Ars in history. What's concerning is that Rudeus didn't seem to realize what 'Arse' meant either, and when I explained it, he switched to my side of opposition to discuss again.
Now I know Rudeus is pretty bad at foreign languages. Occasionally finding his weak points makes me quite happy (sorry). At the same time, Rudeus himself seemed somewhat satisfied knowing he had beaten me in some area.
Yep, we are allies, friends, and have also become rivals.
I'm quite satisfied with this progression, really, because with my experience with Isolde, as long as both sides respect each other, being rivals is also a way for both to improve the fastest.
As long as we're not love rivals, it's fine.
Rudeus is really sensitive about anyone trying to approach Sylphiette.
Anyway, the naming issue took us nearly two weeks without a result. Finally, today we were able to temporarily agree with each other.
"And the party registration procedure is successful." The receptionist smiled again and handed my card back. "From now on, you will belong to the party 'Mythical Dancers'."
Yep, our party name is 'Mythical Dancers'. The reason for this is because we all know how to dance and use magic (even though only two of us are called mages).
Guess who came up with this name?
That's right, it was Eris.
Actually, she didn't exactly come up with the name but only came up with the concept idea with the original name being Magic Dancers. Then Rudeus was the one who perfected it by changing 'Magic' to 'Mythical' to make it sound cool. And that's how our party name was born.
And since we have a party, there must be a division of labor. Our party is divided into four positions like this:
Vanguard: Eris - swordswoman
Rearguard: Rudeus - mage/healing mage
Rearguard: Sylphiette - support mage
Miscellaneous: Atur - Thief
Suddenly, my profession is the only one that looks lame. Even though everyone in this world doesn't seem to have much problem with my 'thief' class, I still find it annoying. Oh, and Rudeus too, I had to explain to him that I really don't steal from anyone.
"Then why not name the class 'treasure hunter' or something?"
"Heck if I know."
In the end, we had to accept that this is a cultural difference.
And my name on the card is still Atur Notos Greyrat, which is really annoying to look at. Thinking back, the Guild only requires 4 silver coins to change information, so I don't mind.
But before I could hand over the money, Eris ran over and choked me, snatching the card back. "Hey! Who gave you permission to drop the Greyrat name!?"
So I still have to keep my name and profession. What a pain. Haiz...
But my suffering isn't over yet; now comes the most tiring part: choosing a quest. And Eris is the one giving me the biggest headache.
"Let's take the quest to subjugate the Red Dragon!"
"That's an A-rank quest, we can't take it." I sighed. Does she want the whole group to die on the very first quest or what?
"So what if it's an A-rank quest? Can't we do it?" Eris pouted.
If I remember correctly, I explained this already, didn't I? Well, I'll ask Rudeus and Sylphiette... ah, they went to look at the items on display. Ok, I have to explain it again to the young lady by myself then.
"According to the Adventurer's Guild rules, we can only take quests of the same rank or one rank higher or lower." I explained. "I'm rank E, you're rank F, so the party will take the upper standard as E and the lowest as F. So we can't take any quest higher than E, understand?"
Actually, we can still take D rank quest but a bit of lie to hold Eris back is fine.
"Hmph." Eris still pouted, but she seemed to understand the gist that we couldn't take the quest. "However, even if we don't take the quest, we can still go and make mincemeat of that dragon, right?"
"Theoretically yes, but I advise against it."
"Why?"
"Because even if we complete the quest, we won't receive the reward or credit. We might even be penalized by being expelled from the guild."
I wasn't making up the penalty part, because if someone else took that quest and our appearance affected it, they could report it to the Guild. Because the rules strictly forbids adventurers from interfering and harming others' quests. Besides, if we go and get killed, it also counts as being 'expelled' from the guild, so it's best not to do that quest to be safe.
I don't know how strong a Red Dragon is, but I heard even a party of ten A-rankers barely stands a chance against it, so I want to avoid it as much as possible.
"Hmph, so what do we do now? Find a way, Acchan!"
Eris pushed the responsibility onto me again. But oh well, I knew it would come to this sooner or later.
I immediately walked over to the quest board; the list of E-rank quests is usually quite short because most rookies are eager to take E-rank to rank up faster and get more money. Meanwhile, F-rank quests are usually ignored and occasionally part-time adventurers will appear and do a series of them to increase income.
Because the Guild also has a mechanism to refuse promotion, many adventurers with low strength and cowardly natures (like me before) will stay at E-rank to be able to comfortably do quests from F to D. And also because the nature of those quests is quite safe, it's easier for them to stay alive.
I've been capable of reaching D-rank for quite a while now (because I occasionally sneak out to do a few quests for fun) but decided to stay at E-rank for the same reason as above. And actually, there's another reason: I promised to form a party with my friends, and according to the rules, party members can only be one rank apart. Meaning if I go up to D-rank, Mythical Dancers will be missing one person until the members reach at least E-rank, which is quite troublesome.
But with the current party, I shouldn't take D-rank quests. E-rank quests are too few, and they are all fighting quests, so I decided to take F-rank for safety.
"Let's do this one."
I pointed at the paper that said 'sweep leaves around the Mayor's mansion wall' and got punched in the face.
…
In the end, we took a quest to destroy a Goblin nest.
Usually, this quest would be rated at least C-rank, but because monster activity has become too strong recently, it seems adventurer guilds have lowered the requirements to keep up with demand. No one knows the reason why, but it seems the scope of this instability mainly includes Asura and the Fittoa territory.
So I can understand that a group of kids, the oldest being 10, going into the forest is quite dangerous, but having a Sword King, and an S-rank Sword King at that, coming along might be a bit overkill, right?
"Done."
Ghislaine flicked her sword covered in black blood and turned to the four of us with a nod.
"It's safe now."
To be honest, I hadn't even seen what a goblin looked like in real life for a second before she had sliced all dozen or so of them in half. Truly terrifying.
But um... mission complete?
"Why did you kill them all, Ghislaine!?" Eris immediately shouted. I can understand her dissatisfaction. "At least leave one or two for me to try slashing!"
"If I kill them all but leave one or two, they will panic and disregard their lives, causing double the danger." Ghislaine calmly explained. "It's best to kill them all."
So the three of us stood behind watching Eris nag Ghislaine for about half an hour.
Meanwhile, I didn't forget to look around and check a bit. After all, it's rare to have a chance to go into the forest, so Sylphiette, Rudeus, and I took the opportunity to take out a botany book and check a few things.
So our goblin subjugation quest turned into a picnic to learn about the vegetation of the forest on the outskirts of Roa. Most valuable things in the forest seemed to have been harvested, like mushrooms or flowers that can be used to prepare medicine. If there was a place to find something interesting, it was only around the goblin camp just now; we found some fragrant mushrooms called 'rose mushrooms' because the smell is similar to roses but stronger.
If I'm not mistaken, this type of mushroom is often used to make perfume too. In the adventurer's guild, there are occasionally quests to collect them, so I wasn't stupid enough not to pick a bunch, hehe.
In addition, I also found a few other edible mushrooms and even found a bunch of truffles. Although this is not a rare ingredient in noble kitchens, finding it myself, I will consider it my proud trophy.
…
We then walked in the forest for a while and accidentally encountered a pack of Treants. This time Ghislaine also agreed to stand aside for the group to coordinate and fight together.
Basically, Treants are tree-like monsters that turn into firewood after being defeated. They are quite weak, so even though the group was fighting for the first time, we still destroyed them all easily.
Although to be honest, the coordination of the group was surprisingly bad.
Rudeus seemed to be fighting for real for the first time, so he was a bit shaky (but still gained his confidence pretty fast); Sylphiette used a lot of strong and weak magic inappropriate for the situation, and Eris... completely ignored the formation and rushed in to slash. Meanwhile, I also had a bit of a headache because too many things were happening at once and I didn't know what to prioritize thanks to my high level perception.
So even though this was a victory, I have to say it was a terrible experience.
"You guys coordinate really badly." Ghislaine also commented. "From tomorrow we will practice coordination."
And suddenly a new subject appeared; hopefully, it will help this Mythical Dancers party not be turned into mincemeat in the next quest.
After the sky started to turn to afternoon, we also decided to return. However, now we realized those Treants were originally the target of another adventurer party's quest. To avoid trouble, the whole group decided to hand over the items dropped from the monsters (mostly just dry firewood, so not much value) for them to use as proof to report quest completion.
The captain guy even suggested splitting the reward money, but we all refused because clearly, we weren't doing this for money. Finally, to show gratitude, we and they introduced our party names to each other for easy support later.
And that's how I learned about the existence of the 'Counter Arrow' party and was impressed by their friendliness. Besides, they seem to have an archer with good tracking and reconnaissance abilities. Maybe sometime I will take the initiative to place a quest designating them to help me find some ingredients.
But that's a story for the future; now I have to think of what to cook with the mushrooms I just found. Maybe cheese pasta? I still miss Italian food quite a bit.
Accompanied by a pineapple pizza, it would be great. I'll definitely ask Rudeus to use Earth magic to create an oven.