A boy entered the adventurer’s guild early next morning with a bored expression. Rex had spent what was left of the previous day walking around town and the night, taking a nap on someone’s roof, where nobody would see him. At least he was able to sleep. He didn’t feel like dealing with thieves. There weren’t as many people inside at this time, but everyone still quieted down once more when he entered the building with some whispers still present this time.

“Is that him?” heard Rex through his sharp ears.

“Idiot of course it is. Or do you think there's a second white-scaled young-looking Drakin visiting ?”

“Well… I guess you’re right but-“

It was at that point Rex just tuned them out. It was mostly conversations about him. Some wondered why he was registering as an adventurer. Some speculations flying around he was exiled from wherever the Drakin holed up, which would undoubtably cause him trouble at some point. But he ignored it all. It was too early in the morning for him to deal with this shit.

He walked up to the counter, the same man as yesterday stood there.

“Pretty early aren’t ya?”

“Is my card ready?”

“Sure.” He took it out from under the counter and put it on top.

‘Is that counter a magical storage device or something?’ thought the boy half-jokingly as he picked up the card. It was the same as the white card from the last day but it had a black border and his information written into it in black letters. This included his name, his race, his gender, his adventurer’s rank of F and a number counter for the number of tasks completed of each rank before S.

“You know the rules?”

“No need to explain them.” He was aware of the important parts. Ann had filled him in on adventurers and the guild quite a bit. She knew he would need to become one to get a core quickly.

“Suit yourself.” Said the man, before Rex turned around and went straight towards the task board, which was positioned away from the tables. He looked at the board as he stepped in front of it. There were quite a few tasks and each request had a stamp to show what kind of quest it is.

The blue logo of the adventurer’s guild showed a one-time request issued either directly by the guild. The red snake biting its own tail represented repeatable requests, usually also from the guild, though not always. You could do them as many times as you wished until the guild pulled them off the board. Obviously you weren’t to pull them off yourself until then. The green stamps of two hands shaking each other, is a request issued by someone through the guild's official request system. In other words. Usually a request issued by an individual or a small group of such. In case the request is taken that fact has to be reported to the guild first before you go out and find the issuer yourself, though apparently there were exceptions. You could usually bargain for a higher price with them or make requests of your own and if you can’t strike up a deal you have to report to the guild with there being a fee if you fail to report immediately as you would be holding up other potential takers from taking the quest during that time. It was even possible to get your licence suspended if you did so too often.

The last one. The yellow crown showed a quest issued by a large organization, usually the country itself. For instance, there was a request with a golden crown stamp for taking care of bandits on the south-west road. Unfortunately, it was C rank. From D there was nothing interesting. The town alchemist, needing to have some herbs collected from the forest. The classic goblin hunt, apparently guild-sponsored. ‘Oh? Some kobolds taking shelter in the nearby mine? Ugh… the hunt is D rank but the extermination is C. As usual.’ The boy sighed. Nothing interesting at all. And just like that as he was distracted he felt someone put a hand on his shoulder, which caused him to turn around quickly, on instinct.

What he saw when he turned around was a young man. Probably at the end of his teens, or his early twenties, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He was wearing an iron chestplate and kneeguards but no armor beyond that. He had a shortsword at his waist as well. He might not have had enough money to afford anything better since Rex knew for a fact that steel existed in this world and wasn’t too uncommon.

Rex stood still waiting for him to say something but the man seemed a bit taken aback, unsure of what to say “Um…” with a small smile on his face, seemingly trying to appear friendly. The young tyrant heard some men whispering behind him ‘What’s he doing?’, ‘There he goes again’, ‘Damn it, Leon, you’re gonna get us killed.’ He thought he heard from one of the groups.

“What is it?” Rex nudged him on.

“A-Ah right. You looked like you were troubled with the requests.”

“Troubled? Well I guess that would be right. D-rank requests look like they’ll be boring. And I can’t take C at first.”

“Oh. That’s the problem? Well uh… if you complete five D-ranks you’ll be able to advance to C. Maybe you could just do one of the repeatable ones? If you’re capable enough you should be able to get to D in no time.”

Rex thought for a moment before sighing “I guess there’s no choice. I might as well get this over with.” He looked at the board again. The D-rank quest for the kobolds was repeatable. He had to kill five per request and bring their right ears as proof. Rex sighed at that. Annoying. He didn’t have another bag so this one would probably be bloodied by the time he was done. He had nowhere to leave his cloak either.

He turned around to leave again, but saw the man was still there.

“Is there anything else?” Rex asked

“Oh. No. You chose a job? What about a party?”

“Don’t need one. I can do this much myself.”

“Ah… W-well good luck.”

Rex nodded to him before leaving the building. Leon saw him off and let out a sigh of relief as soon as the door closed and walked over back to his party. A woman and two other men sat at the table. The woman with black hair, wearing a dark robe and mantle was cupping her head in her hands, propping herself up on the table. One of the men, with similar dark hair was following suit, while the other one, having blonde hair and wearing a priest’s robe was smiling wryly.

“Hahaha… that was nerve-wracking.”

“Are you kidding me?!” the dark haired man suddenly rebutted “You almost gave my sister a heart attack! She came in just as you got to that guy, and suddenly he turns around giving you the death stare! We thought you were fucking dead man!”

“Oh it wasn’t THAT bad! He’s just a kid!” rebutted Leon.

“He’s a Drakin, you moron!” the woman exclaimed next “What do you think he is? A lizardman? They have the blood of dragons in their veins! We’re D-rank adventurers! He could have probably downed you on the spot!”

“Now, now. calm down, you two. “ said the priest with a troubled smile “It all ended fine and maybe Leon had the right idea. Maybe we’re all just a bit too cautious of the boy. He didn’t seem like a bad person and maybe that’s the whole reason he was so cautious.”

“I…” she sighed “Fine. I guess all’s well that ends well.”

Her brother said nothing, leaning back in his chair, unconvinced and unsatisfied.

“A-Anyway. About those goblins…” Leon continued talking about whether to take the goblin extermination request and their plans to complete it if they did.

Rex on the other hand had long since moved away from the guild, heading for the southwest gate which was the closest to his destination. As soon as he left the gate he saw a forest in the distance with a path towards it. That was where the mine was located. The travel was only about half an hour. Maybe one. It wasn’t too far away from the city, giving the option of people to go on foot from it each day instead of living in the mine itself, though they obviously had that option as well. The kobolds should have been spread out in the area around the mine. Not just inside of it. So he wouldn’t even need to go there if there were enough outside. That being said he needed twenty-five which was quite the number. He would most likely have to go in the mine at least for a bit, if not go quite deep in. Still, he was quite sure he would be able to find at least twenty-five of them. Cleaning them out was a C-rank request after all.

He walked the path until he reached the forest. Unlike usual where he’d learned to ignore most sounds he concentrated on them now. The forest wasn’t dark to him, but sounds were still a better way to locate the general location of creatures. He went off the path, but kept in mind the general direction it was in. It wouldn’t do him good to get lost after all. Even if this forest was nowhere near as big as Nocturnalis ‘Fuck whatever it’s really called.’ He hadn’t actually bothered to even ask or look up the name of the blue forest, as he prefered his own. He checked on the sounds creatures made one by one until he heard something specific that made his head hurt.

It sounded like a voice. A very squealy and rough voice, quite inhuman by nature but a voice nonetheless. But that wasn’t the important part. What were they saying? He didn’t know the words. He didn’t know the words but their meaning seeped into his head. Still he couldn’t quite make it out, as if the words were sort of wrong.

It was giving him an insufferable headache. His head throbbed in pain. They needed to- “Shut up” the tyrant mumbled under his breath as he stumbled a few steps forward and broke out into a sprint faster than any human in his old world could run. “Shut up!” he shouted this time as two small, hunched over, humanoid figures came into view. They were lizard-like, and both had a small beard coming from their chin. They squeaked loudly in the same language again, causing his headache to worsen even more and with a gruff beast-like grunt he turned his hands into claws and slashed deeply into both their throats at once. They didn’t even have a chance to use the shovels they seemed to have as weapons.

He panted deeply, taking a while to catch his breath, his headache still persisting but slowly getting better. Until he heard it. So many voices in the distance. Was it a dozen? Two? More? He couldn’t tell. His head felt like it was splitting apart. He couldn’t take it. The pain was too great. They needed to “Shut… up…” he said, stumbling towards the voices, though the words didn’t seem to match up. He forgot to even cut the ears off the kobolds he had just killed. The voices needed a silencer. He would gladly fulfil that role right now.

He sprinted off once more. The voices were all unstoppably assaulting his mind, giving away the exact location of the speakers. As he sprinted through the tree line three more figures appeared in his view, each stopping in surprise, though he kept barreling towards them stopping only in front of the first one, by using the momentum of his run to thrust his claw forward, piercing straight through the kobold’s torso and puncturing his heart. He didn’t stop for even a moment as he used a leg to kick the dead body away towards The kobold furthest in the back, while he turned to engage the second one. The kobold lifted his shovel in panic and tried to bash him with it. Rex raised a leg high in the air, knocking the shovel aside and using the momentum of the attack to spin around, landing his foot on the ground again and using his other one to kick the kobold away full force, it’s power breaking straight through the shovel’s handle and landing directly in the kobold’s ribs, several cracks registering pleasantly in in the boy’s ears before the kobold was knocked away, right into a tree, falling dead on the spot.

The last had let go of his weapon, a pickaxe, in surprise to catch the body. He had let go of it but by that time he saw his kin being flung away. Not even holding a weapon, as Rex turned towards it, it stumbled backwards, tripping and falling on the ground. It used its voice to beg for mercy bringing further pain in Rex’s head, causing him to propel himself forward and kick the creature down, stepping on his throat and snapping it. The kobold tried to struggle for a few moments before it’s limbs fell limp.

But the voices didn’t stop there were so many more. He sprinted through the forest. Before he knew it another kobold was dead, by having its throat cut. Then another group of three showed up. The first two walked together this time. They both tried to bash him with their shovel and pickaxe only to have the blows dodged. Rex grabbed the handle of the shovel, twisting it and stabbing it into the kobold that held it, causing it to fall dead on the floor. The pickaxe wielder raised his weapon again, only to have Rex propel himself forward, appearing within his range in a flash and striking a fist into its face, crushing it completely. The last rushed towards him with another pickaxe, only for Rex to grab the one the last kobold had just dropped and stabbing it accurately into the attacking one's head.

Again the voices didn’t stop. The silencing continued. A kobold had his leg broken, before being stabbed in the heart. Another had his head snapped by an upper kick. Rex quickly killed kobold after kobold, as he tried to concentrate more and more on the killing, in order to ignore the pain, turning him into an inhumanly efficient killing machine.

The next moment he clearly knew what he was doing, he was panting heavily inside of what seemed like a stone tunnel. “Ugh!” he winced from the pain that still remained in his head, but the voices had now stopped. He stumbled over to a wall, leaning his back on it and sliding down until he sat on the floor, finally giving him the chance to observe his surroundings, undeterred by the darkness of the cave, no… the mine… he supposed, considering the wooden supports, built around.

The ground of the chamber was covered in blood and about fifteen dead bodies of kobolds lay on it. While most of them held shovels and pickaxes like the ones outside, there was one who seemed to use a steel shortsword and another who had a Long wooden branch. ‘A staff?’ he thought. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed or even how many kobolds he’d killed, but that wasn’t the problem now.

“I’m gonna have to go back and collect the ears now.” He emitted a long-winded, deep sigh.

Once more it was early morning and… once more the doors of the adventurer’s guild opened to reveal a young, white-haired boy. He entered, now with a shortsword strapped on the side of his belt with the dagger on the back. Everyone quieted down and… ‘This is becoming routine isn’t it?’ Rex asked himself as he went to the counter. Looks like it was someone else today. Instead of the old man, a girl, somewhere in her twenties sat behind the counter. It was hard to tell the age really. Always was for Rex. She didn’t seem as fearless as the old man from before, being visibly nervous.

“W-What can I help you with?”

“I want to report a completed task… More like ten actually.”

“Ten? Um… which tasks are… those?” she asked, skeptically

As an answer the boy threw down his bag on the counter. The thick leather had done a good job to hold the blood in thankfully but an ear fell out as he put it down. The girl admittedly took it well. It looked like she wasn’t new there or anything. She’d seen her share of monster parts.

“Oh this is… kobold? Oh! We did have a repeatable quest for kobolds up!” she exclaimed, out loud, realizing what Rex meant by ‘More like ten’. She opened the bag to peek inside, at which point her eyes widened. “Th-This is…” she took them out one by one, counting. All the way up to sixty-three when she took the last one out. “S-Sixty-three. That completes twelve of the continuous jobs. M-More like. Didn’t you clear it out? Why didn’t you take the C-rank request if you were planning on doing this? It should have paid… better…” she slowed down her words as she looked at Rex, realizing he was visibly annoyed. She HAD meticulously counted the ears from one to sixty-three.

“O-Oh! Sorry! Right! Your reward from this will be sixty silver Rais. May I have your card?”

Rex looked through his pockets, forgetting which he’d put it in and took it out, handing it over.

“This was… your first request, correct?” she said, almost not believing it herself, getting a nod out of Rex.

“I understand. In that case you will be promoted to D-rank from today on.” She rummaged beneath the counter a bit ‘Someday I will uncover the secret of this thing’ She pulled out a small leather pouch. “Your payment. Please wait while I update your card.” She said, leaving the pouch on the counter and walking through a door behind the counter.

Rex took the bag and shook it a bit, getting the pleasant jingle of coins from inside. ‘This is the definition of “They don’t pay me enough for this shit”. That headache wasn’t worth a few thousand gold, let alone sixty silver. Ugh. I feel like I’m gonna lose my breakfast just remembering it. I’m never going near a kobold again.’

‘Oh hey actually. I’m D-rank now. That means I can take requests of C.’ he walked up to the board looking for one in particular. ‘Darn. Someone took the goblin extermination.’ He sighed ‘Guess bandit hunting it is. I still need to get to C rank to officially get information about labyrinths from the guild. Maybe there are some easy ones I can clear around here.’ He ripped the bandit request off the board and went back to the counter, waiting a few minutes for the girl to come back.

After a few moments the door opened and she walked out.

“Thank you for waiting.” She said, putting the card on the counter. Rex picked it up, reading it. It had him listed as D-rank and noted he had completed twelve D-rank and one C-rank request. He looked back up at the girl and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh. Also.” She put ten gold coins on the counter “the rest of your reward.”

The boy picked up the coins, looking at them for a moment. Ten gold coins was the reward for the C-rank extermination request. “Is this okay? I didn’t take that request. And I’m getting credit for both?”

“It’s apparently fine. It isn’t against the rules to check in repeatable requests as well as the extermination requests of the same kind at the same time either. And since you’re D-rank now you can receive the reward for the request. Even if you didn’t take it you obviously completed it.”

The boy looked at the coins again and dropped it in the pouch before looking back up and nodding in gratitude. He presented the bandit request next. It had a reward of fifteen gold coins. “I want to take this one next.”

“Ah this one. I understand. Please come back once you have completed it.”

“What about proof?”

“Requests like these don’t need any but be aware that lying about a complete task can get you permanently and completely banned from the Adventurer’s Guild.”

‘No wonder people keep that rule…’

“I see. Also what are the requirements to advance to C-rank?”

“To advance to C-rank you need to complete ten D-rank and five C-rank requests.”

“Understood.” He simply said before turning away. He took a short glance to check if maybe the man who’d called out to him yesterday, Leon, was around, but it didn’t seem like it so he just left the building. Not that he was planning on doing something if he WAS around. He simply wanted to check. Leon had left an impression on him.

For now though, he would see what he could find around town. The shops he’d discovered on his first day here awaited him and he would finally be able to visit them properly.