CH.199 They don’t trust us
<span style="font-weight:400">“We need to have a guild employee with you to monitor your party.” Was what we were told at the adventurer’s guild.
<span style="font-weight:400">We had gotten there, Paulina had exined the direct request quests and handed them over. Then as we were epting the first one of them, we got that little bit of news from the guild.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Why is that necessary? Brian hasn’t failed any of his guild quests, has he?” Paulina asked. Do they send out someone with the party if the party fails a lot of quests?
<span style="font-weight:400">“I understand that, but you also have to consider our view on this matter. He, and the rest of you, have beenpleting quests so fast that it should be impossible. We simply must know what you are doing differently, so other adventurers can also use simr techniques.” The employee exined.
<span style="font-weight:400">Yeah, good luck with that. Just buy an airship and use that. I’m sure every adventurer will have the money for one.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Brian, what do you think?” Paulina turned to me and asked. Then she added in a quieter voice. “This is your quest, so you do have the right to just say you won’t do it under that condition if you don’t want to.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Will that reflect badly on us?” I asked quietly.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No. It will actually look bad on the guild, as the quest giver, my father, clearly trusts your report and wants more of them from you. So for the guild to set a condition that you don’t agree with, causing the quest to be left undone, or having to be given to someone else will reflect on the guild. Remember that as an adventurer, outside of emergencies, you are allowed to refuse a quest for any reason, including no reason.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... maybe I should …” I pondered my options.
<span style="font-weight:400">If I refuse, the guild might panic and allow us to go without someone spying on us, considering the quest giver. Or they might just say “The named adventurer didn’t ept the quest.” or something like that. But they should realize that Paulina will tell the real reason to her father. And even if the quest actually fails, the Earl can just ask me to do the quest outside of the guild''s influence. There is nothing strange about a lord sending someone out to check the safety on the roads in their territory. And while usually those missions are given to adventurers, sometimes the knight order does them instead. Or so I’ve been told.
<span style="font-weight:400">But at the same time, refusing the guild’s auditor would look bad on me. Like I want to keep secrets. Which I of course do, but that’s a different matter. They might ask for something more next time, like me showing my status or something. But at that point I could just say F them and quit being an adventurer. I don’t need the money and while sure it would be cool to get to be an S-rank adventurer, it might not be worth it.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Paulina, say I identally happened to travel up and down the road we were supposed to check today, then I just happened to write a report about it and deliver it to your father, do you think he would still pay me for it?” I asked so that the adventurer’s guild employee definitely heard all of it.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Of course he would. And he would cancel the guild quest right after that. He might even stop sending jobs to the guild as a whole, considering how much they seem to doubt people he trusts.” Paulina answered, keeping up my not at all subtle hint that I really didn’t want anyone from the guild toe with us.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well, I guess that will make this simple.” I said before turning back to the guild employee. “I’d like to ref…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Please don’t!” She panicked a bit and interrupted me. “Please just wait a moment. I’ll call the guild master. I’m sure he will approve you doing this quest without anyone from the guild having to monitor you.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... sure. Go call him then.” I said. “But please do hurry. I don’t have all day.” I added, just to add a bit more pressure to the guild.
<span style="font-weight:400">It’s not that I want to do this, bute on. You have no reason to send someone with us. Overdrive is one thing, but having to exin B.E.S. Big Core to the guild. Yeah, I’d rather not.
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<span style="font-weight:400">“I already said that he needs an observer, so make sure he has one.” I heard someone speaking in a loud voice, as he was approaching the front counter.
<span style="font-weight:400">“But…” The employee likely tried to tell him something.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No buts. Either he is observed, or he doesn’t take the job.” The loud male said, as they finally made it to the main room of the guild.
<span style="font-weight:400">He was probably in his early thirties, by my estimation. Not too muscr, but still decently well built and his hair was lime green in color.
<span style="font-weight:400">I guess I never talked about hair colors in this world, so I’ll mention it now. Most people, about 85%, have what I would call ‘normal’ hair colors. You know, brown, ck, blond, ginger. Things you see on earth, outside of someone visiting a hair salon. But there are also some with colors that arepletely wild, like his lime green. Assuming that his hair is a natural color, not the result of some magic hair dye.
<span style="font-weight:400">On the other hand, dhampirs seem to have a much higher chance for rare hair colors. Putting Lua’s crimson and Ria’s silver aside, all of them have some more rare color. Red and blue were the mostmon in the vige, but there was also silver and even the indigo hair of Rosemary. I originally thought that the color of the hair came from magic attributes or something, but that clearly isn’t the case, as shown by Lua and Ria.
<span style="font-weight:400">Humans are probably just a boring race. Maybe the unnatural hair colors are caused by interbreeding with other races. … or maybe not. I don’t know. I think Tahlia would be better at calcting gics than I am. But then again, I feel like she would rather invent a time machine or some sort of teleportation device than work out how gics work.
<span style="font-weight:400">Anyway, back to the situation at hand.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Is that the guild master?” I asked Paulina. I know thest time I interacted with a GM for the first time, it didn’t go so well, so if he is the GM, I’ll try to amodate him a bit better. I still won’t allow an observer, but maybe I won’t threaten his job or something like that.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No. He is the assistant guild master. He is also the third son of baron Hari Bloggs.” Paulina answered.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh. Alright.” So he is just an assistant GM. I guess going for his job is fair game then. … Okay, I’ll try not to do it.
<span style="font-weight:400">“So, are you the kid who cheats on his quests?” The assistant GM asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Cheats? Hardly. I can understand your suspicions about the safety check, but how do you cheat an escort quest or a monster hunt?” I asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“So you admitted it. And it is quite easy. You just buy the monster corpses from other adventurers and have the quest giver fake the paperwork.” The AGM answered.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... alright. Well, I guess you could.” I agreed.
<span style="font-weight:400">“And another admission. Because of your less than normal speed atpleting quests, we have decided to send an observer with you on your next mission. I believe you will have no problem with that.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well, actually I do. And I won’t go on a quest with an observer.” I answered.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... I see. Well, if that is how you want it, so be it. Le, cancel the quest.” He said to the employee.
<span style="font-weight:400">“But sir…” She began.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Cancel it. He is a cheater and until he is willing to go out with an observer, he won’t be taking a single quest from this guild.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“But sir, the quest he was about to take is nominated for him. And ites from the Earl’s house.” Le finally was able to say what she wanted.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... wa? Show me the quest form!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sir, please don’t yell. Lady Paulina from the Sawyer house is also present and she would be going on the quest with Mr. Brian.” Le added, as she handed the form over to the AGM.
<span style="font-weight:400">The AGM quickly confirmed that statement, by making eye contact with Paulina. Paulina just waved back yfully. The AGM then read through the quest form.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... fine. Because ites from the Earl and a member of his family is here to make sure it is done right.” He muttered, before talking to us. “But don’t think this is it. Just because you have contact with the nobility, doesn’t mean that you can cheat your rank.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I don’t cheat.” I told him. Well, I do, but not with these quests. I cheat in all the other ces. I cheat the system, not the guild. “I’ll be epting an apology from you when you realize that.” I added.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then just take an observer with you.” He said. “If you can show them that you don’t do anything wrong, I’ll dly apologize for my words.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sorry, but not to this quest. I have to use some quite secretive techniques to get this quest done in a day, which I don’t want to share. I hope you understand that.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Just because it is the adventurer’s right to keep their status secret outside of their registration, doesn’t mean that the guild likes it. But do as you wish.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Thanks.” I turned back to Le. “So we are good to go?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes. I apologize for all the issues and the dy.”
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<span style="font-weight:400">“Paulina, are you sure this won’t cause any problems?” I asked as we rode Overdrive towards the north gate. Today’s check was going to be on the road heading north. Ironically enough, we would actually pass the town of Bloggs, where the AGM is from. We would also go a bit beyond it, all the way to arger town ruled by a viscount, who would be attending the birthday party.
<span style="font-weight:400">“As the guild gave in, I think it will be fine. But if they cause more troubles, we will help you with them. But at the same time, the guild master should know your situation … with the system, so I don’t think he will allow anything more than that.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... oh. But the assistant GM doesn’t know?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I believe the info was limited just to guild masters, if I recall correctly.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then how do you know about it? Well, I know I told you, but how do you know info about the guild?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I have my ways.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Of course you do.”
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<span style="font-weight:400">Once we were outside, we swapped to Big Core.
<span style="font-weight:400">Other than that, the mission went basically the same as it didst time. First, we flew up, north, all the way, marking all of the problem monsters and otherwisepleting the report.
<span style="font-weight:400">Then we had a small lunch break.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Mystik Wok. Cook up my Hungry Burger.”
Spoiler
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[copse]
<span style="font-weight:400">This was going to be today''s lunch. I really was craving for a burger. And admittedly, I had eaten all of the bento that I was given by the kitchen staff at the manor already, because I had been hungry for the entire day. So I had to Wok something up. And when you are super hungry, what is better than a huge burger? Well, maybe pizza. Or a kebab roll.
<span style="font-weight:400">But a burger might still be the best because the excessive carbs will make you feel full faster.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Brian? Want to exin that?” Paulina asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I can, but what about it? It''s just a card that makes me food.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“It cooked up your monster, didn’t it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Can you use it to cook up any of your monsters?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Pretty much yeah. But some of my monsters are … metallic, so I don’t think they would taste that good.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“But you can cook a dragon with it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... I see. How much would something like that cost? Say I wanted to buy a cooked dragon for a party.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Like for a birthday party? We cane up with a price both of us can agree to. Depending on the dragon.” I answered. Admittedly, I have been wanting to taste dragon as well, so I’m more than willing to go along with this. Sure I could do it in the dhampir vige, but I think a dragon deserves a more fitting ce to be served than that, no offense. And I can serve them dragon blood instead.
<span style="font-weight:400">“But that burger, it is way toorge. The ones in the capital are small enough that you can hold them in your hand.” Paulina said.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... there are burgers in the capital?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes. Theye from a tiny dungeon, turned restaurant, which only makes burgers. They are quite tasty.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... okay. Well, that’s cool. But don’t worry about the part where the burger is too big. I’ll just use this. Micro Ray.”
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Spoiler
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[copse]
<span style="font-weight:400">A strange device appeared and beamed the cooked burger. As it did, the burger shrunk down to a size where it was norger than a regr burger you can get at a standard fast food ce.
<span style="font-weight:400">After the device disappeared, I picked up the burger and bit into it.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... alright I guess.” It wasn’t the best burger by any means. It was fine, but I’m not the biggest fan of tomato in my burgers and it needed some sauce. So remove the tomato, add some ketchup and mayo, maybe some pickles and the burger would likely be better. But that is just my opinion.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Brian, can you make me one?” Alice asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sure. What about you two? Do you want one as well?” I asked Paulina and Ria.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes please.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“If you would be so kind.”
<span style="font-weight:400">With the positive answers, I cooked up four more burgers, shrunk them down and we all enjoyed them. Yes, I wanted a second for myself. I’m hungry.
<span style="font-weight:400">There was one problem with using Micro Ray though. It removed the healing effect of the food. It was still good food and did fill your stomach, but it wouldn’t heal you.
<span style="font-weight:400">I guess I need to get Shrink instead. At least with that, I should get half of the healing. Hopefully. Also, in case you were wondering, Ria really liked the burger, but Alice and Paulina just found it … fine. Like I did. But then again, Ria likes basically anything. I guess after a lifetime of just blood, anything will taste good. I even asked Ria what her favorite this far has been and she gave an immediate answer.
<span style="font-weight:400">“The ck pudding stuff Agatha made.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Well, a dhampir is a dhampir. Now I really need to make some blood sausages. Then I can make bloody hot dogs. … wow that sounded wrong. But still, I think it would be good. Maybe make a blood sauce for it as well. I think you can do that at least. And as I can now freeze time in my inventory, excuse me, in my storage, I can make a big batch of stuff and just hold the rest of it there. Convenience. Also, we need to look into that DDF kitchen and smithy project.
<span style="font-weight:400">After we finished our burgers, we got into a freshly summoned Big Core for our return trip. We also had a monster to kill. Alice and Ria will have to deal with it as I’m still under the exp ban from Laura. But I’m sure they will manage, even though it is a B-rank monster.
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