Joining the Guild
'Not on Noah's level, but she's quite the beauty herself. Just the sort of thing a dirty old man might pull.'
Sitting at the counter face-to-face with the receptionist, I found my gaze drifting to her looks anew. She was the picture of a blonde beauty, her cheeks flushed with healthy color. Neatly dressed, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail that showed off the pale nape of her neck — striking, to say the least.
Perhaps relieved to be rid of the lecherous old man, the receptionist greeted us with a warm, easy smile.
"You'd like to join our guild? Are you, by any chance, a resident of this city?"
"No."
"May I see some identification?"
"Don't have one."
"Hmm... please don't take this the wrong way, but joining the guild requires verified identity. And it's not something just anyone can do, you see—"
"Here. A Guild Recommendation Card. I was told this would settle the identity issue."
"Huh?"
I handed over the card fragment shimmering with a faint blue light, and the receptionist tilted her head, puzzled. Her expression said she had no idea what it was. Then something seemed to click, and her eyes widened slightly.
"Oh — my apologies. You said it was a Recommendation Card, didn't you? I've simply never seen one before. Given the blue color... it means you were sponsored by a 5th-rank guild member. The name is... Mr. Alta. A retired member, it seems."
"That's right. So there's no problem with the identity verification, correct?"
"Well... if you have a sponsor's recommendation, then yes, you're verified. One moment, please."
Wearing an expression of half-belief and half-doubt, the receptionist took the card and disappeared. Before long she returned to the counter, her face noticeably brighter — she'd evidently concluded we weren't con artists after all. She set a densely written form down in front of us.
"You're verified! It's genuine! No need to scrutinize anything else. Right this way, then — I'll process your membership immediately."
"Don't you do some kind of aptitude test?"
"There are tests prepared after the paperwork. I'll look over your personal information and direct you to the appropriate testing area."
"I see."
We took up the quills set beside the counter and began filling in the blanks one by one. The back pages dealt with personal information, just as the receptionist had said, but amusingly, the front page contained a section of common-knowledge questions — a written exam, essentially. The difficulty wasn't much to speak of.
'So paperwork comes first everywhere, huh? Funny.'
Scrritch, scrritch—
The script in use was the common tongue. Thank goodness I'd bothered to learn my letters back in the village. With a firm, practiced hand, I wrote steadily without a single pause.
'Back then, the ruins translated everything automatically, so learning to write hadn't strictly been necessary...'
But we had no intention of exposing how different we were by using Hangul or English — the scripts of the ruins. Spoken words wouldn't give us away so long as no one studied our mouths too closely, but written characters are translated by meaning alone, their shapes laid bare for anyone to see.
Granted, the scholars had long since finished deciphering the ruins' scripts. Still, going around writing in what everyone considered a dead ancient language would've made us look like absolute lunatics.
We filled out the forms in full and submitted them back to the receptionist. The written portion passed without a hitch.
"Oh my. You can both wield a Mana Weapon? And Miss Noah has healing abilities as well?"
"Yes."
"I thought as much... The recommendation card noted you earned distinguished service in the subjugation of an Evil Cult. You're clearly no ordinary people. Though it says here you have no prior experience — you've never registered with an association or anything similar?"
"This is our first time."
"How unusual... Now, how on earth am I supposed to assess your ranks?"
The receptionist clutched her head as she pored over the paperwork. Our backgrounds were simply too unusual to file away as mere newcomers. In the end, she chose to defer the decision.
"Let's just get to the testing first!"
...
We filed out of the bustling guild building and were led somewhere else entirely. Our destination was a spacious lot with a training yard at its center. Judging by the dirt ground — a rare sight in this city of stone — and the makeshift structures scattered about, this was where training took place.
We stood in the middle of the yard. Logs, boulders, and the like lay strewn around the perimeter, apparently for use in various examinations.
"Normally there are all sorts of tests, but... if you can wield a Mana Weapon, most of them can be waived."
"Is that really allowed?"
"Of course. Someone who hasn't reached a certain level could never produce a Mana Weapon in the first place. That's why it's treated as a kind of certification. I'll lend you some weapons — would you care to demonstrate?"
"No problem at all."
Woooong!
I drew a long, steady blade of sword aura from the loaned practice sword. Tempered by our recent battles, it burned a vivid silver, remarkably stable. Noah, for her part, poured mana into her mace, wrapping it in a rounded shell of a Mana Weapon. Unlike mine, its form wavered just a touch.
"Ooh... so young, and already a Mana Weapon this refined. Let's test its power as well. Would you strike that large stone over there—"
Swish!
KRAK-BOOM!
We swung before the receptionist could even finish her sentence. My stone was cloven clean through, as effortlessly as slicing paper. Noah's, being a Mana Weapon built around raw destructive force, shattered her boulder into rubble.
Wearing a somewhat dissatisfied expression, the receptionist approached us, scribbling something on the form in her hand.
"Raw power, top marks. Sustained control, top marks... My, you're both *far* too proficient. At this rate, testing you is completely pointless."
"Pardon?"
"This exam was designed for beginners, you see. This is the first time I've been embarrassed to even administer one..."
"So are we done now?"
"There's one last thing — a sparring match. Rules are rules."
...
For all the talk of sparring, it wasn't much of a contest. The examiner the receptionist dragged in turned out to be barely 8th rank — the guild's more capable personnel were all away, the branch being in the thick of its busy season.
CRACK!
My sword, brimming with sword aura, obliterated the instructor's blade, which was itself wreathed in aura of its own. Identical practice swords, but the mana woven into our auras was heaven and earth apart. The instructor stared blankly at his shattered weapon for a moment, then tossed the hilt aside and raised both hands.
"I yield! I surrender! What kind of rookie takes an entrance test like this?"
"Thank you for your trouble."
The test ended in anticlimax. Both Noah and I had forced the instructor's surrender in under ten exchanges. Shaking out his hands as though he'd had quite enough, the instructor played it off with a joke.
"Handling sword aura with that kind of mastery... your swordsmanship is superb too. You're clearly above me, plain and simple. And the lady — I don't know what she's been eating to be that strong, but bless you for holding back. If she'd put her full strength behind that mace, my arm would've been paste."
"Haha..."
"Are you two nobility? Or is there some other-race blood in you? Your physical abilities and mana are simply absurd..."
"Neither. We're just ordinary people."
"Hooh...! Well, a pair of monster rookies has just walked in the door. Every faction in this city will be circling like vultures. But — hold on, how am I supposed to rank a case like this? No matter how I look at it, you deserve at least 7th rank."
As he reeled off his compliments, the instructor seemed suddenly struck by curiosity and glanced over at the receptionist. She, for her part, was sweating bullets, clearly at a loss.
...
We returned to the guild building, this time being shown into a small reception room tucked into a corner of the first floor. Once the door closed, the market-day din from outside was almost perfectly sealed away.
Now, then — time to hear our results. Not that the outcome was ever in doubt, given that we'd steamrolled every test with overwhelming skill.
And just as expected, the receptionist — who had stepped out briefly to consult with her supervisor — returned to the parlor, congratulated us on joining, and handed over a small card.
"Congratulations on joining the guild! Here is your card."
It was the same size as the one Alta had carried, but black, with the number 8 inscribed in an old-fashioned hand at the top. As I studied the number, the receptionist spoke up in a needlessly apologetic tone.
"You've probably already noticed... but we'll be starting you at Rank 8."
"Rank 8?"
"I'm so sorry! Someone with your abilities could easily aim for Rank 7 or higher... It's too low, isn't it?"
I had merely been reading the number, but the receptionist took it for disappointment and bowed her head deeply.
Rank 8, huh... Not bad, honestly. Better than I'd expected. I'd never assumed the ranks would climb just because we had the raw skill. If anything, being handed Rank 8 outright was the surprising part.
"Could you walk us through the ranking system in detail? We only know the broad strokes."
"Oh! Of course! I'll tell you aaaall about it."
Perhaps grateful for the change of subject, the receptionist launched into an enthusiastic explanation. As I'd heard before, Rank 10 sat at the very bottom of the guild hierarchy. New members, upon passing the entrance exam, were almost always assigned this rank as a matter of course.
"From the guild's perspective, we have to watch and see whether a new member can be trusted. Still, as long as you don't cause any serious incidents, you'll generally be promoted to Rank 9 within the year."
"Then why did we start at Rank 8?"
"In your case, you wield Mana Weapons, you carry a Recommendation Card, and you have distinguished service from an Evil Cult subjugation. We weighed all of that together and arrived at Rank 8. A first for our branch! Not that it's likely to satisfy you..."
"No, it's fine. Please continue."
"Yes, ma'am!"
After Rank 9 came, naturally, Rank 8. From that point on, advancement required tangible achievements in martial matters — capturing bounty criminals, subjugating monsters, that sort of thing. Effectively, a measure of real combat experience.
"Most people reach Rank 8 within five years. But the majority end up stuck there for a very long time — it's the rank that currently makes up the largest share of our members."
"Is promotion to Rank 7 that difficult?"
"Yes. Fundamentally, you need to handle a Mana Weapon like sword aura, and from Rank 7 onward each promotion is subject to an individual review, which makes it hard to climb. Veteran members with a decade or more of service occasionally make the jump. It feels wrong to say this, but... Rank 8 is effectively the last rank a person without talent can reach."
And Alta had been Rank 5. That put him at a staggering height.
"That's also why the real benefits only begin at Rank 7. You may have noticed — this building is rather noisy, isn't it? That's because the first floor is used by the Rank 8 through 10 members."
"Ah, so the higher ranks use the upper floors?"
"That's right. It's much quieter up there, and each member gets a dedicated receptionist."
"How enticing... You've certainly made me want to get promoted."
...
There was still no shortage of things to explain after that. The card's various functions and caveats, how the guild operated, the precise requirements for promotion — the lecture didn't wind down until the receptionist's voice was going hoarse.
"...And that concludes the orientation. But there's one last, most important matter left."
"? "
"Deciding which field you'd like to focus your activities in."
Bounty hunting, monster subjugation, escort work, mercenary service, expedition parties. The receptionist counted each career path off on her fingers.
"Is there a benefit to choosing a field?"
"Yes. Once you've declared one, the guild tailors its commissions to match — it's a way of cultivating specialists."
"I see."
"It's not set in stone once you choose... and honestly, at lower ranks you'll be taking all sorts of miscellaneous requests anyway, so it doesn't mean much right away. Still, this is the process of charting your future direction, so I'd advise you to think it over carefully."
In other words, tell the guild what we wanted to do with ourselves going forward. Like declaring our childhood dreams.
Well — mine had been decided a long time ago.
"We would like..."