A Dragon’s Curiosity

 

 

Borrowing a room from the Adventurer’s Guild, Nisha changed from her leather armor back to a green dress and wrapped her favorite scarf around her neck.

Since it was hard to pay attention to one’s attire during a fight, the guild offered many amenities to teams that returned from the Dungeon, ranging from food to fresh clothes and other conveniences.

By gathering all of the adventurers in a single location, the guild itself reaped high rewards once the teams decided to sell off their materials and other rewards in stores associated with them.

A small amount of each transaction entered the [Adventurers Guilds] coffers with each sale and purchase.

On top of that, many skilled artisans turned the materials obtained from the dungeon into suitable gear, multiplying the total value several times in between.

Nisha herself had no plans to sell off any of her haul, most of the meat was used to keep herself fed and the rest of the skins, furs and bones slowly piled into a hill of discarded items inside her [Inner World].

She also found it hard to part with the shiny coins that occasionally appeared at the foot of her bed inside her room, in her opinion humans were truly foolish to return her many smaller golden coins and silver bits whenever she paid for something.

It only benefited the dragon as her mound of treasures grew with each exchange, warping the girl‘s sense of money.

Many merchants were troubled to gather enough change when the elf brought out coins worth five or more gold when their usual transactions ranged in the tens of silvers.

Nisha did not plan to linger in the building for a long time, yet before she left, a rather familiar face behind a counter attracted her attention.

Waving her small hand, the person in question also quickly recognized the girl and spoke to a colleague before taking a break, exiting the long row of counters shortly afterward.

 

“Hey Nisha, how are you?“

Sporting a bob of brown hair, it was exactly Aubrey who worked as a receptionist for the guild.

Hugging the petite elf as a greeting, the other young girl smiled excitedly.

“Hi Aubrey, doing pretty well, how about you?“

Returning the greeting and the hug, the dragon was in a pretty good mood from ascending a rank in cultivation and having some results from testing her newly acquired powers.

As one of the possible heirs for a major noble house, she had also taken some lessons on social interactions and could easily handle small talk between nobles where each sentence could hide a knife, chatting with a friend was nothing in comparison.

“I got pretty lucky and was recently promoted from the other branch to the main branch here.

It sure is different to watch when big groups of strong people come and go every day to risk their lives, I never saw anything similar when assigning missions before.“

An indistinct odor of blood clung to the dragon after her slaughter inside the Dungeon, inevitable after being drenched in the blood of multiple fourth rank monsters.

Aubrey surely noticed the special scent as a professional in the same field, yet her worries were assuaged after scanning the elf from the top of her head down to her feet and not noticing any big wounds.

“Are you used to it yet? I haven‘t worked in the guild before, so I don‘t really know about it.“

Let alone the guild, Nisha had never considered being the owner or clerk of a store.

When she needed money, the dragon could simply take some out of her treasure mound and when she was hungry, hunting a monster would suffice.

The Wilderness had even fewer concepts of ownership, where monster lairs and beast habitats often changed hands once a stronger competitor showed up.

It took many fights and plenty of strength to establish the [Dragon‘s Den] and deter other groups from invading.

 

“It‘s certainly different to work close to the Dungeon. Most of the time, I used to accept completed missions or helped to pick suitable bounties for adventurers that were either urgent or close by, rather rarely coming in direct contact with monsters or anything related to combat.

Since there was an opening in the main branch here, I applied for the promotion and luckily got selected, but I was seriously shocked at the start when blood drenched adventurers walked by the counters or dragged back monster corpses.

To tell you a secret, I even had to vomit at the start when someone injured was carried out, he lost a leg and needed his companions to carry him.

Thankfully, I am now more or less used to it and the guild has healers on standby to handle emergencies.“

Unloading her mental burdens, Aubrey was very happy to confide in a friend and share her troubles.

Behind the backs of the teams braving the depths of the Dungeon, many capable support staff worked tirelessly to support the warriors at the front, easing their struggles as much as they could.

A small receptionist at the guild might not count much in the bigger picture, but her work also helped the adventurers to pick suitable targets for themselves and avoid fatal danger sometimes.

The maps provided by the guild after each reshuffle of the floors alone saved many lives and allowed them to safely return to the surface.

“Yeah, it‘s rather off putting at the start, you can only slowly get used to it.

When it comes to rescue efforts, every second saved is a second that counts, the earlier the treatment, the better the effects are going to be.

Is the other work more difficult now?“

Despite saying so, Nisha did not truly mean it. As a dragon hatchling, the four dragon siblings had to claw their way through the Wilderness from the day of their birth.

No matter whether it was a mountain of corpses or a sea of blood, the dragons had the determination to walk through them and survive.

Especially Little Flame, as the leader, encountered more gruesome fights than any of the other three and had long since become attuned to the scent of slaughter.

 

“It‘s usually not too bad, and there are more duties here that I need to handle.

At the same time, the turnover rate for missions is also higher, so I earn a bit more as a commission every time an assignment is correctly turned in.

Most of the workload comes from administrative work and directing the adventurers to the correct regions when they approach us for guidance.“

Aubrey happily relayed her experience to the elf. It was not easy for her in the past either.

Due to being transferred in from the side branch, there was nearly next to no one she was on speaking terms with among the colleagues and her superior also was extra critical of her work as they were unfamiliar with each other.

If the brown haired girl made a serious mistake or showed a lacking work attitude, perhaps a day would come soon where she had to return to her previous post at the side branch.

Nevertheless, Aubrey strived to make her way up the career ladder of the guild employees and always double checked her reports and missions to avoid any negligence.

“So you mainly handle missions and guide teams to correct places? I haven't often come to the Guild before, I mainly came today to enter the Dungeon and test my power after having a breakthrough, so I‘m not too clear on the services offered by the guild.“

Nisha had obtained a guild card mainly for the benefits of picking a skill book and entering the Dungeon unimpeded, she did not often come in contact with them otherwise as materials and other harvests always entered her own pockets and the elf let go of her yields, hence not entering the guild stores either.

In regards to the missions posted by the [Adventurers Guild], she had a rough impression of them but no definite knowledge.

Concurrently, the dragon had never accepted a mission or bounty either.

It was enough to provide enough food and materials for herself, the rewards offered by first to third ranks did not entice her to go through the trouble either.

As such, the elf did not have a thorough understanding regarding these matters.

 

“You asked the right person, this area is mostly within my duties.

Receptionists are available at all times of the day to guide and advise adventurers so that they can make the most out of their strength.

By combining the rank of your guild card and asking about your specializations and team members, we can easily recommend missions of equal difficulty to your strength and propose good training areas depending on the needs of the guest.

Take a look over there.“

Pointing behind the elf, Aubrey indicated a door leading towards another place of the lobby.

Nisha rarely entered the guild building itself, putting aside more time to hunt and stock up on food when she came to the Dungeon.

It was also the first time she took notice of the area pointed out to her.

“There‘s an entire area dedicated to mission postings, any guild member can accept these tasks and report them to a reception desk when they have completed them.

Although materials retrieved from the Dungeon are about half a level weaker than genuine goods, it is easier to find corresponding level objects than hunting them in the Wilderness, where it‘s hard to estimate which region had which rank of monsters.

Generally, the price only is marginally lower, except when the quality dropped by an entire level from overharvesting.“

Being a competent worker, the brown haired girl often had to make the judgement call when monster materials or minerals brought back from the Dungeon were handed in, giving her quite the appraisal expertise.

Nisha was a bit interested after learning about the mission area and resolved herself to take a look next time before she went underground and thanked her friend for introducing these matters to her.

 

“No problem, this is my job anyway.

It‘s very lucrative for some rare materials that rarely appear in the outside world, some monsters have exceedingly rare habitats or their products get quickly destroyed by other species.

In the Dungeon, this is prevented to some degree and rare species show up more often, so the payout can get pretty high.

For some third rank warrior teams, they can earn close to several gold from two or three days work, if they sell their loot and finish missions at the same time!“

Clearly, this amount of money tempted Aubrey greatly and astonished her to some degree.

Normally the yield from a third rank monster would reach a few silvers if the materials from its body were harvested and sold, yet their profit could swell more than ten times if the goods in question were sought after or particularly rare.

Starting from the fourth rank, the prices were only going to be higher, so Nisha felt tempted to earn some extra money next time. Shining treasures always held a fatal temptation for dragons.

“You must have seen quite some interesting things then, coming in contact with all sorts of people. Did anything interesting happen recently?“

Surprised by the unexpected depth and usefulness of the Guild, the elf wanted to learn some more about the topics she was previously unaware of and never expected such a harvest from regular small talk with a friend.

Her intuition did not let the young lady down either as the brown haired girl grimaced and looked around to make sure no one listened to their talk before continuing in a hushed tone.

 

“Truthfully, something scary happened earlier today.

A rather strong team of newcomers returned from their trip and wanted to sell off their haul, when one of their members collapsed without any reason.

It‘s not unusual to see injured warriors or magicians get carried to the healing station, but that guy acted normally and just fell down while walking.

His team tried to figure out what happened and called for a healer, but when another one of their members lost consciousness too, it was quite an uproar.

Two healers hurried over and tried to figure out what was wrong with them and could only carry them off.

Later, the city guards showed up and brought the entire team somewhere else and ordered the guild to keep quiet and disperse the crowd. My supervisor is currently not here precisely because of that incident.

It‘s unclear what happened yet.“

Although Aubrey tried her best to remain calm, the dragon noticed that she was still very rattled on the inside and only kept her strong facade because of her belief in the Guild.

Since it was above her pay grade and a superior already started to work on the issue, it was no longer in her hands.

Nisha, on the other hand, could imagine what malady befell the adventurers.

Apparently the [Blackroot Plague] had proliferated inside the city already and even adventurers were not spared from falling prey to it.

From what she knew, collapsing and falling unconscious corresponded to the later stages of the disease and there was little hope for the affected team.

Hopefully, at least the other members were in time to get treatment at the temple.

“This …“

Nisha was unsure how to respond to this piece of unexpected news.

The dragon had an inkling as to what exactly befell them, yet was unsure how to relay the news to her friend without causing a panic in the process.

Making up her mind, she could only let out some hints and give the brown haired girl and her family a better chance at preparing.