Adventurers of Gjallarhorn
Adventurers of Gjallarhorn
Why was she singling me out?
I was momentarily puzzled, but Bella soon told me exactly why she'd called me over.
"I heard the report from Receptionist Wendy: that you, who previously had no particularly distinguishing traits, awakened as a mage this summer."
"Excuse me? I have no distinguishing traits? I'm an incubus with a gold tan and blonde hair."
"I meant your abilities as an adventurer, not your looks. Until recently, Luke, you possessed no outstanding talents. But now that you've learned magic, you've changed. You've become a mage—the genuine aristocracy of the adventuring world."
"Not just aristocracy, but genuine aristocracy. That's a little embarrassing. So, what did you want to say?"
Bella pointed toward the back of the stage with her thumb and spoke.
"Once the promotion ceremony is over, follow me. When a guild-affiliated mage gets promoted, we provide them with some useful equipment. A magic staff, for example."
"You're saying you'll give me a magic staff for free?"
"Yes. Our guild provides them at no cost."
A magic staff was a weapon that amplified a mage's power.
The price alone was one thing, but the craftsmanship required was so exacting that they rarely circulated on the civilian market. If you belonged to the Magic Tower or a magical order, obtaining one was possible—but for a wandering mage like me, getting my hands on a magic staff was damned difficult.
'Fucking score.'
And she was offering one for free.
Had our guild's adventurer benefits always been this generous?
Back when I was a newbie grinding my ass off, they hadn't given me a damn thing.
Except for Wendy privately hooking up with me when I was a fresh-faced rookie, that is.
"Sounds good, but what's the catch? Why are you only looking out for me?"
At my question, Bella let out a deep sigh and opened her mouth.
Hoooh.
"As of yesterday, our guild had exactly ten mages. Half of them are gone now. To a place from which they'll never return... all of them have left."
"They all got themselves killed on quests?!"
Half the guild's mages wiped out overnight?
Did Thanos show up at Yoen-su or something?
Or were they saying they got eaten by monsters and crossed the river Styx?
A chill ran down my spine, but it turned out the meaning wasn't nearly that gruesome.
"They didn't die—they colluded and collectively deserted! Every last one of them got hired by nobles and is living a life of luxury now! So, to head off another batch of backstabbing deserters, we've implemented a new system to support our mages, starting today."
"O-oh, I see. Thank you for looking out for me."
"If you're grateful, Luke, then don't desert. If you take the support gear and then transfer out, I'll hold a grudge for life. I'll place a curse on you—three generations of baldness, your children included."
"Hyeek."
It didn't sound like a joke. Bella's voice was steeped in obsession.
Baldness. The most horrifying curse imaginable in this other world.
They don't even have Propecia here, for crying out loud.
"Wait just a moment! I have a question, Vice Guild Master!"
Kate, who had been listening to the conversation, suddenly raised her hand at Bella and threw out a question.
"Why isn't there a separate support system for nuns? You're only looking out for Mongma-nim while I get nothing, and suddenly I feel so left out I might just desert too. A nun is standing right here with her eyes wide open—why are the two of you having this conversation without me?"
"Go ahead and desert. Nuns can't be stopped anyway. You've got a free pass wherever you go, so it's entirely up to you."
"Haah—?!"
I could see Kate's expression twist into utter bewilderment at the reply.
"You call yourself a Vice Guild Master and this is how you act?! Are you disrespecting nuns right now?!"
But she wasn't wrong, honestly.
Nuns were welcomed everywhere they went. Giving them gifts wouldn't make much of an impact. If anything, treating a nun like Kate coldly might be the better move for reeling her in.
'A guild that treats a nun like garbage—you're the first ones!'
That was the strategy, you could say.
And in practice, the tactic worked on Kate perfectly.
"Wow!! Unbelievable!! You're the first Adventurer's Guild employee who's ever treated me like this!! It's so absurd that it's actually got me intrigued!!"
"If I've managed to intrigue you, Kate, then I'm satisfied. Honestly, if you were any other nun, I might have laid on some flattery—but since it's you."
"What did you saaaaaaaay—?!"
Bella winked, and Kate clutched the back of her neck as if her blood pressure was spiking. Seeming to have lost all desire to speak further, Kate neither questioned nor pressed Bella anymore.
"Now that I've explained the newly implemented support system in full, let's begin the Silver Tier promotion ceremony. Handing over the silver badges all by their lonesome would feel a bit bleak, so please enjoy a performance from the band first."
Snap!
The moment Bella snapped her fingers,
the red curtain on the stage parted, revealing musicians holding instruments behind it. Not just me—the other adventurers were startled too.
"Who the hell are all those people?!"
"Shock! Instrument people!"
Nobody had expected there to be a whole band lurking behind the curtain.
"They were hiding back there this entire time?!"
"It's a band hired by the guild. They're contracted to come perform at important events like promotion ceremonies. They've been waiting here since this morning for your promotions."
Bella turned her head and gave the musicians their cue.
"Begin the performance!"
Ba-ba-ba-bam, ba-da-ba-bam.
The band's performance went on for about ten minutes.
Once the music ended, Bella stepped down from the stage and personally handed us our silver badges. After that, she gave a short congratulatory address, and with that, the promotion ceremony concluded.
"You may now take your leave, Silver Tier adventurers. Congratulations on escaping the abyss."
With the ceremony over, there was no further reason to remain in the annex.
Ally and Brut said their farewells and left the Adventurer's Guild.
Kate, of course, had decided to stay and wait for me.
"Once you've gotten everything you're supposed to get, come straight out, Mongma-nim! And don't go hanging around that fox of a woman! Got it?!"
Kate shot Bella a glare, then scurried out of the annex.
Scuttle-scuttle-scuttle-scuttle-scuttle!!
She seemed to be planning to wait for me near the guild entrance until I came out.
Left alone, I followed Bella toward the back of the stage.
A staircase leading to the upper floor of the annex was connected behind the stage. Bella brought me up to the upper level, then crossed a skybridge to move into the guild's main building.
The main guild building and the annex were connected by a long skybridge. I just quietly followed Bella, and before I knew it, I'd arrived at the office at the very top of the main building.
- Vice Guild Master's Office.
The place where Bella normally conducted her business.
A room you could call the control tower of Gjallarhorn.
When she opened the door and I stepped inside, the lavishly appointed office spread out before me in a single sweeping view.
A fur carpet covering the floor, countless ornaments arranged on the shelves, Bella's personal desk made of solid mahogany.
Behind the desk, an enormous horn sculpture about a meter long was mounted on the wall, exuding an oddly imposing presence that overwhelmed the room's atmosphere.
"Have a seat and make yourself comfortable. My secretary will be bringing the support items meant for you."
I did as Bella instructed and sat at the guest table in the office to wait. Soon, a young female secretary entered the room.
"Lady Bella. I've brought the promotion commemorative support items for the guild-affiliated mage."
"Lay them out on the table here, Hannah."
The secretary, Hannah, gave me a slight nod in greeting, then laid the equipment she'd brought onto the table. Looking at these so-called "support items" with my own eyes, I was honestly a little stunned.
Three magic staves.
A stylish robe and a set of pointy-tipped mage boots.
'Whoa. Boss Bella, very nice.'
Every single one of these was expensive gear worth dozens of silver coins.
Giving all this away for free—was she running a hemorrhaging loss-leader before the place went under?
"You're giving me all the equipment here?"
"Not all of it. You may only choose one magic staff from the three."
"Still, this is incredible. A staff, a robe, and pointy boots—I could walk out of here right now with just these and look like a mage anywhere I go. I could do full-on mage cosplay."
"Something like that, I suppose. Wait. Cosplay? You're an actual mage, aren't you?"
Bella looked baffled at the word "cosplay," so I shook my head and clarified.
"If I ask my girlfriend to wear it, it becomes cosplay."
"Ah, so that's what you meant. Must be nice having a girlfriend. You're not seriously bragging about being a couple right now, are you?"
"Not at all."
Since I've got two girlfriends, I wasn't even sure which one it would look better on.
I had a feeling it might suit the slightly more alluring Rebecca better.
Just the robe draped over my girlfriend's naked body—yeah, that would be horny as fuck.
"So I just need to pick a magic staff, right? Which one's the most expensive?"
"You don't pick the staff, Luke. The staff picks you."
Hm?
Just as I was about to choose a staff, Bella's sudden words made me freeze.
'What is this, some kind of Russian reversal?'
What did she mean, the staff picks me?
But after listening to the explanation that followed, the phrasing actually made sense. The world of mages was far more mysterious than I knew.
"My secretary Hannah actually once studied as a student at the Magic Tower. She's only a third-rate mage who graduated despite lacking talent, but she's thoroughly versed in the theoretical side."
"What? Your secretary is a Magic Tower-trained mage?"
Hearing that, I glanced over at Hannah, the female secretary who had been quietly standing by.
Surely someone of the Vice Guild Master's stature wouldn't lie to me.
If her secretary was a mage, that meant Bella had an elite on her staff.
When our eyes met, Hannah nodded as if to confirm Bella's claim and spoke.
"Incubus adventurer. As the young lady said, I am a mage trained at the Magic Tower. I may be a third-rate mage, but in my student days, I consistently ranked top of the class in theoretical examinations. As a wandering mage, you may not be aware of this, but a magic staff chooses its master of its own will. Each staff has its own preferred type of mage."
"Come on, how can a mere staff be picky about people? I just grab it with my hand and that's that, isn't it?"
The moment I wrapped my hand around one of the magic staves laid out on the table, I was treated to a tingling shock, like an electric current surging through my body.
BZZZZZZT!!
"Gahk!"
The shock was so intense my whole body trembled.
It felt about as electrifying as the time I'd stuck chopsticks into an electrical outlet back on Earth. That memory came rushing back—doing it as a penalty game with my friends when we were drunk, and nearly dying.
"Gyaaaggh."
"I should have warned you beforehand—my apologies. If you select a staff you're incompatible with, a rejection reaction occurs. Please let go and examine the staves once more. You'll notice their shapes are all different, won't you? Each shape of staff prefers a different type of master. They're called Wand, Staff, and Horn, in that order."
I barely managed to pull my hand away and inspected the three magic staves laid out on the table. I hadn't paid much attention before, but they really did look distinctly different from one another.
The first was a Wand.
Literally a short staff—the very item I'd just grabbed and been electrically tortured by.
The second was a Staff.
A long staff, tall enough to plant on the ground and walk with.
The third was a Horn.
A staff carved from wood into a shape resembling a beast's horn.
Hannah explained what type of mage each of the three staves preferred.
"As a mage learns magic, they grow into a type suited to their aptitudes. At the Magic Tower, these types are referred to as 'classes.' They're generally divided into the Wizard Class, the Summoner Class, and the Shaman Class. To offer a more detailed explanation of each class......."
If I summarized Hannah's explanation, it went roughly like this.
Wizard Class mages had no specialized field but could do a little bit of everything in a somewhat half-assed way, and they used Wands as their exclusive weapon.
Summoner Class mages specialized in commanding summoned creatures like spirits, and they used Staves as their exclusive weapon.
Shaman Class mages specialized in necromancy—calling upon the dead—and they used Horns as their exclusive weapon.
The moment I heard all that, a thought inevitably popped into my head.
'So this is a way to find out which class I'm suited for.'
The Wand already triggered a rejection reaction, so Wizard was out.
That only left Summoner and Shaman. Either bossing spirits around like lackeys, or bossing the dead around like lackeys. One or the other.
But somehow, I didn't like either of them.
Felt a little too bitch-ass for my taste.
Building your whole strategy around ganging up on people with your minions—that's just cowardly.
Even back on Earth when I played RPGs, summoner-type players were always kind of like that. During PK they'd summon their creatures and then run away, and it was fucking infuriating.
'Still, they're giving this stuff away for free, so I've gotta pick one.'
I figured I'd start by touching the Staff. If the Staff zapped me too, then the only thing left would be the Horn that Shaman Class used.
Sliding my hand forward,
the moment I reached toward the long Staff—
Bella, who had been sitting at her office desk, abruptly spoke up.
Her mysterious violet eyes, tinged with a hint of purple, were fixed on me.
"You don't like either of them, do you? Honestly."
"Excuse me?"