Ben had just come back from taking all of his letters to be delivered and started preparing breakfast when Thera got up for the day. They had a long one ahead of them now that it was the weekend and they were going on their first multi-day hunt together, so he made a big meal for them to tide them over for the bigger part of it. After eating they made their way to the guild for the first time in weeks to see whatever quests might be available to them.

As Ben opened the doors and walked in there was a change immediately. Everyone seemed to be talking up a storm, excitement clear in their voices but one by one, adventurers present started noticing them and started quieting down, many with complicated expressions on their faces. How were they feeling at the moment? While plenty had come to apologize to Thera after the incident with Roan, that didn’t erase their previous treatment of her, and some were sure to still consider her at fault. He was immediately prepared for a fight and felt Thera tense up beside him as well, half expecting the worst, but the tension broke in an instant as a familiar face, or lack thereof, called out to them.

“Thera, Ben, it’s been so long!” Onk yelled out from across the counter to them. “Has everything been alright?”

“Hey Onk, it’s good to see you too,” Ben told them, happy to feel the eyes around them go back to their own business.

“Ben just had to take a trip for his job and I went to help him,” Thera explained lightly, trying to leave the more interesting details to the side. “We were looking to take a quest but is everything okay here? Seemed like things were pretty crazy when we came in.”

“Oh my, you haven’t heard yet? I guess news just broke so it shouldn’t be too surprising, but it looks like one of the groups of summoned individuals from a year ago came from a world far advanced of anything we can imagine, and they’ve made contact to help us! It sounds like they’re going to try to work to track the invaders' homeworld for us and see if any of their technology might work here!”

Even without a face Ben could detect the excitement coming for their favourite guild employee, but Ben tried to look as surprised as that bit of information should have made him if he wasn’t directly involved with it happening, even going so far as to activate hidden mind in the hope it would keep some of his true emotions from showing.

“What, that’s unbelievable,” He said, not feeling like he sounded as surprised by the news as he should and jealous of the fact that Thera had the benefit of her face being covered. Even though the alien that led them to Karly and Glob on the trial seemed to try to keep itself out of her sight, once Ben confirmed everything and had agreed to help the world, as well as himself, he gave her a rundown on what happened and got to see her shock first hand.

Luckily for him though Onk didn’t seem to notice any issues and went on. “It’s like a miracle, isn’t it? An entire world, powerful and ready to help us as much as they can, we actually have allies for what’s to come!”

Ah, that makes sense. When he thought about it like that, it sounded like before the invasions, separate worlds didn’t have much or any contact with each other except in rare cases. This was probably one of the few times a world wasn’t facing the threat alone. Even if they couldn’t provide soldiers, the knowledge that could be gained from reconnaissance would be invaluable, not to mention the potential for technological development. Maybe this really was something to get emotional about.

Thera though seemed to find the entire topic uncomfortable given her knowledge on how it came to pass and was more than happy to get them back on track. “That’s really exciting and all, but we were looking for a quest to take, we were planning on going into the deeper woods so we don’t have any problem with something that would be two days if we include travel time.”

“Hmm, I’ll see what I can do, but would you mind if I see your cards first? Neither of you updated them since the town was attacked. Rewards need to be distributed and contributions determined.”

Obediently they both handed over their cards, and as something she was checking them something changed in her demeanor. Ben wasn’t sure what until she leaned in close and spoke in a low voice. “You’ve both completed a trial?”

He was caught off guard. It wasn’t a big deal for people to know, but he hadn’t been spreading it around since it sounded like a pain. The fact that it was apparently viewable to the guild the same way their kills and contributions were wasn’t something he’d been expecting.

“We did the one in my homeland,” Thera calmly answered, seeming to have expected this.

“I see, well with that being the case combined with your previous accomplishments in protecting the town I’m happy to tell you both you’ve made it to rank five.”

Even with her face covered Ben could tell Thera was overjoyed. When they first started to work together she seemed to want to gain achievement to raise their ranks, now they had. Ben on the other hand cared significantly less. Even if they couldn’t take quests for the higher ranks they could still hunt whatever they felt like, and all this meant was an increase in responsibility should an emergency occur. Still, if it made Thera happy he’d take it as a good thing, at worst he could just quit the guild if she ever found a real party to work with, he would just have to make sure he got everything from their archives he could before that happened.

“In that case do you have any rank five quests we could take?” His friend asked, excitement filling her voice.

“Hmm, there's a couple options, but if you’re looking to go to the deeper woods there's one we need to get done, though the reward is smaller than a typical rank five quest. We need someone to collect some specific plants for us. Since it’s in a more dangerous section of the woods we can’t ask any lower ranks to do it, but it would be a big help to the guild and we’ll do our best to find you better quests in the future for doing us this favour.”

Ben looked to Thera, waiting for her to answer. After all, he didn’t care one way or another what they ended up taking, and it wasn’t like they couldn’t fight any beasts they found as they went.

“We'll do it,” She said confidently, her willingness to take a non-combat related quest stemming from her current happiness at her rank increase as well as the promise of better quests in the future. “Could we get a description of the plant and how many would you want?”

“Give me a moment,” The guild member told them before walking to the back and grabbing a book, flipping open to a page with what appeared to be a small shrub. “This is the one you’ll be looking for, you only need to collect the smaller branches from it, but of that take as many as you can. I can loan you the book while you go to help find it, but if it’s lost or damaged there will be a fee taken from your reward or future rewards should you fail the quest. Is that acceptable?”

“Absolutely,” Ben told them as he grabbed the book. “Does this have information on all of the medical plants in the area?”

“Medical and poisonous plants, yes.”

It was perfect and Ben immediately started flipping through the pages seeing what other plants were in the area. He remembered cursing himself on the trial for not taking the time to prepare any potions or medicines, as well as not working on his alchemy beyond what he needed to prepare weapons. If he was already going to go out then there was no harm in taking the time to gather any useful plants for himself as well, and now that they had two spacial bags sent to them thanks to Pelenia’s gift they could potentially make quite the harvest.