The Latest Game Is Too Amazing

In real time, it’s been about a week. After staring intently at the map while traveling north, I’ve finally made it to the city.

…Spending a week logging into the game just to travel was pretty tough…

I think this travel time might be a bit too much for an MMORPG. Fortunately, since this is just a game, it’s set up so that I don’t get tired no matter how much I run, so I’ve been running this whole time (I can run faster than usual and at a sprint), and along the way I was attacked by monsters a few times, so I didn’t get tired of it, but even so, I feel like they made this world too huge.

And after so many days, I’ve arrived at a pretty large city that’s surrounded by a wall. Other cities that appear in games like this are only populated by up to 100 people at most even if they’re spacious, but Another World is on a whole other level. Judging by the scale, it’s probably about 3-4000 people.

They did a nice job configuring this many NPCs to reproduce a real townscape, and I admire the game developer who made AI capable of complex behavior like acting out realistic lives.

This city, Maeldia, has the major shops like the weapons shop and armor shop, so for the time being, I plan to make this place my base to level up and get some equipment. It’s about time to get myself some stronger equipment than the basic staff and shirt.

The Adventurer’s Guild is the first place I go in this city before anything else. Unlike ordinary RPGs, obtaining money directly from defeating monsters isn’t the standard in this game. That’s what quests are for. You either hunt a specific monster, complete a request to collect an item or something for a reward, or sell a monster’s drops. You can accept requests from people directly or through the Adventurer’s Guild. Going through the Adventurer’s Guild gives you access to an abundance of quests, so if you want to earn money, doing it this way is especially efficient.

…Or so the wiki said.

Next to the inn is the Adventurer’s Guild. I go inside, and there are several brawny men that look like adventurers as well as three men at the desk doing paperwork. Not a single woman, what a rotten place.

“What do I do if I want to accept a quest?” I ask one of the men doing office work.

The man takes one look at me, then takes a sheet of paper out of his desk drawer and points to it.

“First, you need to be registered as an adventurer. Fill this out.”

But I can’t read what’s on the paper. This is probably a detail added to the game for worldbuilding, its own original language. An enthusiast could probably decipher this in an instant just by looking at it, but for me, that’s impossible. Though since it’s for registration, it’s probably only asking me to write my name and age.

“I’m guessing you can’t read?” the man asks, and I nod. Though technically, since it’s not a real alphabet, I doubt most players could read this. “Then, tell me your name, age, and lastly, your specialty – basically, tell me what you can do. For fighting, something like a sword or bow proficiency would be fine. Have you got something?”

I don’t register my class? I’m a Magician, so I guess I should say I can use magic?

“My name’s Chaos, I’m 16, and my specialty is magic.”

“Hmm. Magic, huh?”

He looks at me appraisingly, like he’s got something on his mind. Did I mess up somehow?

“Well, alright. You’ll be given your guild-issued ID card tomorrow. There’s a fine if you lose it, so be careful. When you want to accept a quest, just ask me or one of the other Guild receptionists. The request details are posted on the bulletin board, though I guess you can’t read them. Need anything else?”

“I want to sell some pelts from the forest wolves I killed. Where do I go for that?”

“Ahh, you can sell those here, then. Let me see ‘em.”

I take the 50 pelts out of my inventory. They’re the pelts I got when I beat a group of forest wolves I ran into on my way here. The receptionist is a bit surprised. Maybe this is too many? But his expression soon returns to normal, and he takes the pelts and starts giving them a serious look.

“These pelts are pretty good quality. This many pelts of this quality will get you 10, no, 15 silver. You’re not half bad at this,” the receptionist said with a grin. “You’re new to this city, right? You probably know this, but there’s an inn next door. New guild members get a discount. And with that much, you can probably get a pretty good room to stay at. Now, how about I give you a quest?”

“Please do.”

“Hunting killer bees seems about right for you. They show up along the east river, so it won’t take long to find them. There’s also this medicinal herb that grows there, so while you’re at it, bring back a bunch of that. Oh, right, I’ll give you a sample. If it’s as good quality as these pelts, we’ll pay extra.”

“Got it.”

After taking the herb, I leave the Adventurer’s Guild. Before heading out for the quest, I stop by the weapon and armor shops and spend 10 silver coins on a mage’s staff and cloak. The ones I choose give a slight stat increase to Intelligence and Constitution, respectively. When I first entered the weapon and armor shops, there were some like this that give stat increases displayed alongside ones that don’t even though they’re the same type of equipment, so it looks like I need to be careful when choosing what to buy.

And now, I’ll get right to that quest.

***

Carlo, who works at the Adventurer’s Guild, was grappling with some paperwork as usual.

He had retired from being an adventurer five years ago. Due to his contributions up until then, he’d been given an office job at the Adventurer’s Guild, but even now, he and paperwork just didn’t get along. Today, he was once again tediously confronting his paperwork.

Then, a strange boy paid him a visit.

The black-haired boy was dressed like a boy you could find anywhere. In all his years of living in Maeldia, Carlo had never seen that face before. He was probably a boy from a nearby village with dreams of becoming an adventurer. But, considering this, he was dressed far too light, which piqued Carlo’s interest. It would take more than two days to travel here on foot from even the closest villages, which wouldn't have been a problem if he was carrying anything with him at all.

‘Maybe he rode here with a merchant whose carriage happened to be passing by?’ Carlo thought.

It seemed he was a rookie adventurer after all. Carlo handed him the guild registration form, but he hadn’t even started writing yet. Apparently, he couldn’t read. But then, this country’s literacy rate wasn’t the highest. Reading and writing for people was one of his jobs as a guild office worker. Just like always, Carlo started writing for him. He asked the boy’s name, age, and, as usual, his specialty.

It was impossible for an idiot to declare their specialty just like that. There were adventurers who hoped to join a party, and their specialty would also serve as a reference when assigning quests. Well, it wasn’t uncommon for rookies to show off. In cases like those, it wasn’t uncommon to see them get themselves into trouble.

At that moment, the boy said that his special skill was magic.

Carlo looked the boy over once more. No matter how you looked at him, he didn’t have the muscles for a sword or a bow, so it made sense. But to use magic, it was common to read grimoires in order to gain knowledge. It shouldn’t be possible to do without being literate. He considered the possibility that the boy was from a foreign country, but if so, the fact that he was dressed so light was a contradiction. The only impression he could get from the boy was one that didn’t match up at all.

For now, he would just see how this played out. While he considered studying a list of criminals or the guild’s blacklist later, Carlo gave him an explanation.

After the explanation was over, the boy asked if he could sell pelts from forest wolves that he had killed.

Things like this that were collected from monsters not only served as proof that the monster had been killed, but were also widely used for weapons, armor, medicines, and such, so there were many quests asking for them and even the Adventurer’s Guild bought them.

Against a single forest wolf, even an amateur could drive it off, so it wasn’t impossible. He had probably hunted a few forest wolves that had wandered away from the pack, Carlo thought to himself, failing to take him seriously.

However, the boy took out 50 of them, far too many to be from stragglers. But they weren’t old, so they seemed to have been hunted quite recently. Did he really mean to say that he’d gone up against 50 of them…? Could they have been stolen? No, that was impossible with that amount. Forest wolves lived deep in the forest, so the pelts weren’t traded in such large numbers. And where in the world had he been keeping this many pelts earlier? As doubts arose one after another, Carlo suppressed them when faced with the boy’s questioning look and focused on his appraisal.

Each pelt seemed to be carefully skinned. It was rare to see something that had such thorough work done on it. The quality was nearly uniform, so it seemed to all be the same person’s work. If he was told that this was the work of a master hunter, he wouldn't doubt it. At the very least, he had no confidence that he would be capable of this even before he had retired. There were some adventurers who were bad at things like skinning and harvesting, despite having the skills to hunt monsters. There were also some that wounded the monsters so much that they were impossible to sell. Merchants would surely pay a lot of money for this level of quality.

If this boy had actually done all of this himself, he was an absurdly talented rookie. No, this far surpassed rookie level, even if only in this one area. There was a lot that was suspicious about him, but Carlo ended up approving of him. Someone who can do their job so precisely must be given an appropriate assessment. The fact that he could make such an impartial assessment was exactly why Carlo had been chosen for this job.

With that assessment in mind, he gave the boy, Chaos, silver coins and offered to give him a quest.

Carlo thought. He would be overqualified for a beginner’s quest. In that case, Carlo should test his abilities with one that had a slightly higher difficulty level.

Killer bees were ferocious insect-type monsters about the size of a human baby that caused many rookies to fall victim to their quick movements and the swarm of stingers, so they presented an obstacle to rookies. But if Chaos’s ability was real, he should definitely be able to complete it.

There were still a few things about him that were suspicious, so Carlo needed to be careful, but he had high hopes for this big shot rookie that ended up making him remember his adventurer days with excitement.