Feriana POV

We made our way to the adventurer's guild. I never thought I would be going there to register myself as an adventurer. I only ever came here twice to post jobs, that too only on my father's directions.

A lot of people often put up jobs in the adventurer's guild. I doubt anyone could ever go through their lives here without needing the adventurer’s help. Adventurers were not just about killing monsters. There were a lot of people who took up jobs inside the city, like finding lost belongings, delivering items, helping in repairs and all kinds of things. Though the most profitable, considering the danger involved, was hunting beasts in the woods or in the dungeon. The hides and teeth and meat and almost every part of the body could be sold. Many a times there would be bounties on the beasts or a herbalist or a merchant would post special requests for some raw material.

We walked in the guild building. It was morning so there weren't a lot of adventurers here yet. The large hall of the building had several tables and chairs, only a handful were occupied. On the left end of the wall, there were pin boards which had job postings for the adventures. It was practically empty right now.

I led Satoshi towards the right where the registration counter was.

"Hello. You look new here. Are you from another district or here to register yourself?"

The bespectacled deer lady from the counter asked me. She was a fair, gentle-looking woman and seemed to be quite good at her work as she instantly recognised me as someone new.

“Hello. Um.. We would like to register ourselves as adventurers.”

I said pointing first at me and then Satoshi who had his hood on.

“Ah, new registrees! There’s always scope for more work to be done!”

The deer lady exclaimed with an enthusiastic clap.

“The registration fee is 1 large copper coin per person. We try to keep it as low as possible but we do have to keep a minimal amount to stop people from just coming in and registering themselves for the heck of it.”

The deer lady explained with an apologetic smile. She really took her work very seriously, it seemed.

I took out 2 large copper coins and put it on the counter.

“Ah, please keep it for now. We tell people about the price beforehand to prevent any squabbling. Return when you have filled out these forms. Quills are kept over there. Please refrain from taking it with you.”

She handed me two forms and pointed in a direction where writing material was kept.

“Thank you.”

I thanked her courteously and walked away with Satoshi in tow.

“Hmm.. Let’s see.”

The form had blanks for only the most basic information: name, age, animal-species and specialisation(if any). The only problem was.. Satoshi was human and I couldn’t possibly fill that. I don’t know if they would check it and I hoped they wouldn’t.

I filled our respective details with a bit of apprehension with ‘ferret’ in both of our animal-species. I left my battle specialisation empty and filled ‘wind mage’ in Satoshi’s.

Again, I led Satoshi to the counter. Adventurers had started coming in so we had to wait for the person in front of us to finish taking his job.

"You’re back! Have you filled out the forms?"

"Yes. Here."

I handed the two forms to the deer lady.

"Let's see. Feriana and Satoshi. Hmm."

She overlooked the forms and nodded to herself.

"Good enough. If you submit the fee of 2 large copper, I'll issue a request for your IDs. You may either wait half an hour or collect it anytime thereafter."

"Here you go."

I handed her the coins and she took them inside somewhere. I wasn't sure what to do so I simply waited.

About a minute later, she returned.

"It'll be done in half an hour. You can either wait or collect it later. Or if I may suggest, should you be planning to go hunt beasts and do not already have a party, use this time to approach some adventurers in the guild hall and ask them if you could party with them. The ones that come in the morning are usually the less crazy ones."

She said the last part in a whisper to me. I returned her goodwill with a smile and a few words of gratitude before walking away. At a fair distance, I turned to Satoshi who had been diligently following after me.

"You said we should go with other adventurers. So I suppose we should try talking to someone."

He didn't reply.

(I like it that he trusts me with this, but I'm not used to this.)

I shook my head.

(No bad thoughts! I'll figure out a way to get whatever Satoshi wants!)

I looked around, trying to find a small party which looked approachable and didn't have any good looking women.

There was a group of 3 young male adventurers with swords and bows. They were even younger than me.

(Perfect.)

I made my way over to them with Satoshi in tow. The group consisted of three dogkins, though they didn’t really look related. One of them was holding a quest sheet and saying something to the other two. He had a sword at this waist and seemed to be the leader of the group. There was another one, again with a sword and the last one had a bow and a quiver full of arrows. From their equipment, it was clear they would be going out to hunt some beasts and though I couldn’t be sure of how good their skills were, they seemed good to approach for my first try.

“You need something?”

The one with bow noticed my approach and called out.

“Umm.. Hi, I am Feriana and this is Satoshi. We just joined as adventurers and are looking for a party to join.”

The three dogkins shared a look among each other and the leader spoke up.

“What are your roles?”

“Satoshi is a wind mage. He is very powerful.”

The three didn’t get too surprised, as Satoshi’s mage role was evident from his clothing. But they still seemed to be a little intimidated.

“And you?”

The leader asked again.

“..I’m his assistant.”

It was the best I could think of and I was hoping it would work and at the same time make them think that Satoshi was a resourceful mage.

The leader raised one of his bushy eyebrows. He alternated his look between me and Satoshi but refrained from discussing anything with his teammates just yet.

“What are you guys looking for?”

“We are just looking for some simple hunt quests for now.”

“And what kind of reward split are you expecting?”

This was something I didn’t prepare for.

(Reward from the quest? I don’t know how it is usually split.. Equally among 5 people? Do I count if I’m an assistant? Or do we divide equally among our two groups?)

“What do you suggest?”

(Yes, good thinking me! Let them suggest something!)

The leader just briefly looked at his teammates and without any words or indications of signs, turned to me and spoke again.

“Proportional to the kills. You kill more, you get more.”

It didn’t sound right to me.

(Wouldn’t that promote discontent in the team and hinder teamwork?)

“Okay.”

But I had no other ideas, so I agreed. It didn’t really sound all that bad though. Satoshi could probably kill everything before they even lifted their weapons if he tried.

“Alright!”, he suddenly turned more brightful, “Before we discuss quests, let’s get introductions out of the way.”

He pointed at the bow-wielder.

“I’m Elanjol. You can rely on me for backup from a distance.”

Elanjol was a little short, barely 5 feet tall and had a sincere toothy grin.

“Grevmack. Swordsman.”

Grevmack was much taller than Elanjol but equally lean. I wasn’t sure if he generally spoke less or just considered his self-introduction sufficient for the moment. He gave off a serious feeling while Elanjol was more of the cheerful type.

“And I’m Fredrick. You can call us Evan, Grev and Fred. I’m also a swordsman. Me and Grev learnt together so we use similar styles though it hasn’t caused us any troubles yet. In fact I think its better this way since we know how to complement each other in our own ways. We were looking for new party members but the only ones we found were sword-users. It’s good you approached us.”

Once formalities were out of the way, Fred became a different man. He was an in-between of Elan and Grev; he was a talker but I could tell that his words were a little more thought out than they initially seemed. He was also midway tall between his two teammates but was a lot bulkier. Not too much, but enough to be called well trained.

"I'm Feriana and this is Satoshi. He doesn't talk much, just his personality, please don't mind. He's a very good wind mage though, I assure you."

"That's good to know and it's alright really.", said Fred.

"Yeah, we all know how eccentric mages can be.", added Elan.

I simply gave a smile in return. They really seemed like good people.

"So how about we go out for a quest?"

--------------

Pugnuns are vicious creatures. They are small and a very dark green color, so very hard to find in the woods. They hunt in packs of 4-8 and rip their prey to shreds with their dangerously pointy teeth. This was all written down in the quest along with the general direction of where to find them. Apparently a few of them had been spotted by some farmer who also had had two of his sheep disappear in the last week. Irrespective of all this, they are pretty easy to get rid off even by amateur adventures, according to Fred.

We'd departed right after collecting our IDs from the guild and it had taken us 3 hours of walking to reach the place we’d been intending to. Elan was quite a talkative fellow and kept trying to subtly hit on me but didn’t try anything too far for scare of Satoshi. I didn’t get too close to Satoshi during the walk and kept talking to the group of dogkins. This was my first time going out of city into the woods and I had to learn as much as possible so I could be of use to my saviour in the future. Also, Satoshi seemed content with his papers and quills that he’d been constantly using to scribble something down. I knew he was trying to study our conversation because sometimes he’d call me over and ask me the meaning of some words out of earshot of the others.

We were about to pass by the vast fields and cross into the woods. This was already farther than what I’d ever been away from my house but I was determined to go however further it took.

“We can’t know for certain where the pugnuns will be at. We might encounter other beasts, though it is unlikely that we will encounter anything dangerous near the boundary of the forest. Still, be wary and keep your eyes and ears open. None of us have any special detection abilities so be extra careful.”

Fred made a small informative speech as we got to the boundary of the forest which was clearly directed towards me and Satoshi.

“Me and Grev will walk in the front. You stay back with Elan. Satoshi, you can attack as you please, just be very careful with friendly fire, okay? Do you know any AOE spells?”

I panicked as Fred directed a question at Satoshi.

“Ye..Yes! He does.”

“Okay…”

Fred looked a little weird at me but chose to ignore it.

“In case we encounter large groups, use wind AOE spells to disperse the enemies. Me and Grev will take them apart from the front, while Elan shoots from the back. You have any suggestions?”, Fred directed the question to me.

“N..No..”

“...I guess we can discuss again once we are more familiar with each other’s skills.”, Grev said.

“That sounds good.”, said Elan.

“Alright then. We don’t know how many pugnuns are there going to be. The farmer said there are at least six.”, said Fred.

“Quick and efficient, that’s what we aim for.”, Elan added.

“Yes, Elan. Now let’s get going. Anybody notices anything out of place, you let everyone know but don’t react. Some beasts do a pre-emptive attack if they sense your hesitation.”, said Fred.

“Got it.”, I replied.

“Let’s go!”, Elan exclaimed and we started walking.

----------------------------------------------------

(This is so annoying!!!!)

Walking in the forest is so difficult! Having lived in the city all my life I never knew that taking steps could be so slow and stressful. The dogkins had troubles of their own but fared far better, clearly having some experience. For Satoshi it was easy since he didn’t need to walk in the first place. I wish he could make me fly as well but my legs weren’t hidden and there was no way it wouldn’t be conspicuous.

I begrudgingly focused all my being into walking so I wouldn’t slow the others down, while their attention was clearly divided into traversing the land and detecting any signs of danger. Fred and Grev hacked away at the bushes and branches to cut a path. Elan kept his bow on his shoulder and used a dagger to leave a mark on the trees for traceability.

“Something’s coming from our right.”, Elan suddenly called out.

The swordsmen got on high alert and quickly moved to take the frontline.

The leaves brustled and what came out was a deer. From what I know, these creatures are completely harmless are, in fact, herbivores. Some make living hunting these and selling them to the butcher.

The deer paused for a second as it realised it had stumbled upon predators, turned tail and ran. None of us bothered to pursue it.

“Let’s continue.”

With that said by Fred, we got back into our original formation and started walking again.

----------------------------------

We ended up not encountering any troublesome fights. Rarely some snakes or hares would come out but they all ran away with a bit of sword waiving or with their comrades being shot with an arrow. It was after the sun started to set and we had decided to turn around that we finally got some luck.

I felt Satoshi wrap some air around me. I turned to look towards him but he didn’t bother looking at me and just kept into his scribbles as he’d been doing throughout the day. That’s when we heard the rustling of leaves and a pack of pugnuns launched out towards us from our side. They were closer to our rear team which included me, Elan and Satoshi.

“Enemies!”, Elan shouted while simultaneously readying his dagger. At this distance and with the front team away a bow would have been useless.

“You guys fall back!”, Fred shouted to us while he and Grev ran to our position to confront the pugnuns.

Even though it was a matter of less than a few seconds before our front-liners reached us, there was no way we could have escaped the attacks of the pugnuns since they had managed to catch us by surprise. One of the small black beasts jumped at Elan but before it could reach or Elan could even swing his dagger, a sharp wind knocked it away and all the others and sent them tumbling towards the sword-wielding members of the party. They were initially startled but regained their composure quickly enough to slash out one enemy each before they could even get up.

Now looking closer, there were exactly seven of the dark creatures and now five remained. An arrow later, the number was down to four. The rest took only about two minutes till the pugnuns were down to one. The last member of the pack alive tried to run away but was stopped with an arrow from Elan to incapacitate and a sword by Grev for the final blow.

“Great work everyone. No casualties, no injuries. I believe this counts as completion of the quest.”, Fred made a small speech at which only Elan raised his enthusiastic voice.

“Then, let’s grab the proof of subjugation and head back.”

-------------------------

The proof of subjugation can be different for different beasts but is usually the ears or the teeth, so when in confusion, take both. This is what Elan told me. They put seven pairs of ear and teeth in a small and tight bag and we all started our way back to the city.

We were moving across the fields and since it had gotten dark, Satoshi had put away his pen and quills and was walking quietly. I made sure to chat with the dogkins so that Satoshi could pick up on as much words as possible even if he couldn’t write it down in the dark.

“So how are we going to split the reward?”, I asked. We had originally decided that it would be depending on the number of kills and Satoshi hadn’t really needed to take part in any of the fights barring the one where his only involvement was knocking the pugnuns. But I was still expectant since without his interference, Elan would have certainly been injured, though it was hard for me to judge the extent of his injuries without any experience.

“The reward for the quest is 2 large bronze for each pugnun. That makes the total…”, Fred started counting his fingers.

“One small silver and four large bronze.”, Grev cut in.

“One small silver and four large bronze. Even though we had originally decided upon split per kills…” Fred took a pause, “If Satoshi hadn’t interfered, we’d have to spend some on healing Elan’s injury and the fight would have also lasted longer. Does three large bronze sound fair?”

Three large bronze sounded quite less compared to the entire reward but it could have been generous considering the entire fight was done by them. We weren't pressed for money and staying on good terms with them might help us out in the future. And on an absolute scale, it wasn’t like 3 large bronze was a small sum. It seems hunting jobs are indeed more paid than regular ones.

“It sounds alright to me, since we didn’t do any fighting.. Would you three be going for a quest tomorrow as well?”, I answered after thinking for a bit.

“We most likely will. We usually head out early, so if you’re there and see us, do give us a holler!”, said Elan enthusiastically.

We kept walking with light talks through the fields.