Part Forty-Eight — The Adventurer’s Guild

　Roshan swallowed us the moment we passed through its gates――noise first, then smell, then the sheer press of more people in one place than I'd seen since Tokyo, in either of my lives.

Okay. That's a lot.

That's genuinely a lot.

　Eris pressed closer to my side without seeming to notice she'd done it, eyes darting between market stalls and passing carts and the general chaos of a city large enough to have its own gravity.

　Ace, walking at my other flank in a form Anti-Subconsciousness had helped him shrink down to something closer to an ordinary large dog――enough to avoid causing a panic at the gate――kept his head low, ears constantly swiveling.

None of us built for this, exactly.

Guess we're all learning it together.

「You alright?」 I asked Eris, quietly.

「There's just――so many of them,」 she said. 「I've never seen this many people who aren't looking at me like I'm something to be sold.」

Yeah.

That's going to take a while to unlearn, probably.

Doesn't have to happen today.

「Nobody's looking at you like that here,」 I said. 「Not while I'm around, anyway.」

　She didn't quite believe it yet, I could tell.

　But she let the words settle anyway, which felt like its own kind of progress.

　The guild was easy enough to find――a large stone building near the city center, marked with a crossed-sword-and-shield emblem worn smooth by years of hands passing through its doors.

　Even from outside, I could hear the low roar of activity within, dozens of conversations layered over each other, the specific chaos of a place that did brisk, constant business.

Alright.

Let's see what an actual adventurer's guild looks like, from the inside.

　I'd used Mirror Skin before we entered the city proper――Roge again, unremarkable, forgettable, my aura suppressed carefully enough underneath the disguise that even a trained eye shouldn't catch anything worth a second look.

　Eris walked beside me under her own name, plain traveling clothes doing most of the work of making her blend in.

　Ace, small and quiet, drew a few curious glances but nothing more.

　The inside of the guild was exactly as loud as it had sounded from the street――a long counter staffed by several harried-looking clerks, request boards covered edge to edge with parchment notices, and clusters of rough, weathered people who all had the specific bearing of folks who made their living doing things ordinary people avoided.

This is definitely a different crowd than Millhaven's guard captain and his quiet border jobs.

　We found an open spot at the counter, where a woman with tired eyes and quick hands was sorting through a stack of completed contracts.

「New faces,」 she said, not unkindly, glancing up at us with the practiced assessment of someone who'd sized up thousands of hopefuls before. 「Registering, or just looking?」

「Registering,」 I said. 「For all three of us, if that's allowed.」

　Her eyebrows rose slightly at Ace, sitting calm and alert beside me.

「Companion beast?」

「Something like that,」 I said.

「He's smarter than he looks,」 Eris offered.

　That earned her a small, surprised laugh from the clerk.

「Aren't they always,」 the woman said, already pulling out registration forms. 「Alright. Names, then. Guild registration requires at least a working name――doesn't need to be your real one, plenty of folks here operate under something else entirely. We're not in the business of asking too many questions, so long as the jobs get done clean.」

Convenient.

Very convenient, actually.

「Roge,」 I said. 「That's fine for me.」

「Eris,」 she said, steady, like she'd been waiting for a chance to use the name properly since I'd given it to her.

　The clerk glanced at Ace.

「And him?」

「Ace.」

「Simple enough,」 she said, jotting it down. 「Alright. Standard registration gets you access to the request board, guild facilities, and a starting rank of Bronze――everyone starts there, no exceptions, regardless of how capable you actually are. You'll need to complete a handful of verified jobs before you're eligible to rank up. Most people find that process insulting, for what it's worth. Just so you're prepared.」

Bronze.

Lowest possible rank, regardless of what I can actually do.

Fair enough, honestly――better to stay unremarkable a while longer than draw attention by looking too capable, too fast.

「That's fine,」 I said. 「We're not in a rush to be impressive.」

　She gave me an odd look at that――like she didn't often hear new registrants say something like that with a straight face――but didn't push it.

　The request board itself was a chaotic wall of parchment, jobs ranging from mundane escort work to monster subjugation contracts marked with warnings serious enough that even Doran would've thought twice.

Let's see what's actually available to someone starting fresh at the bottom.

　Most of the Bronze-tier postings were exactly as unglamorous as I expected――pest control for local farms, simple courier runs, escort jobs for merchants too cautious to travel the roads alone.

　A few looked genuinely tedious.

　A few looked like decent, low-risk ways to actually build up some coin while we figured out the shape of this city.

　Eris studied the board alongside me, expression thoughtful.

「That one,」 she said, pointing. 「Escort job. Merchant caravan, three days out and back, decent pay listed.」

「You've got an eye for this already,」 I said.

「I spent a month being cargo,」 she said, flat, without much emotion attached to it. 「Learned a fair amount about what makes a caravan job actually worth taking, and what makes it a trap waiting to happen. This one looks legitimate. Established merchant house, listed destination's a real town, not some vague 'meet at the crossroads' nonsense.」

Fair.

More than fair, honestly.

She'd know better than most what red flags actually look like, in this exact context.

「Good eye,」 I said, and meant it. 「Let's take it, then.」

　While Eris handled the paperwork at the counter, I found myself scanning the rest of the board out of simple curiosity, half-listening to the ambient chatter of the guild hall around us.

A place like this probably hears things.

Rumors, at minimum.

Maybe more than that, if I know where to actually listen.

　A cluster of rougher-looking adventurers nearby were deep in conversation, voices pitched low but not quite low enough.

「――heard the Eastern Church's been recruiting hard the past year,」 one of them was saying. 「More knights through here than usual, past few months. Something's got them stirred up.」

Interesting.

Very interesting.

　I drifted closer, feigning interest in a nearby posting, close enough to actually hear the rest.

「You know why?」 a second voice asked.

「No idea. Above my pay grade, whatever it is. Just know they're paying well for information on 'anomalies.' Whatever that's supposed to mean.」

There it is.

That word again.

Anomaly.

Same shape as 'confirmation of what shouldn't exist,' just dressed up in different clothes.

　I filed the conversation away carefully, the same way I'd been filing things away for years now――small pieces, gradually assembling into something with an actual shape, even if I still didn't have the whole picture yet.

They're not just hunting me specifically.

They're hunting a category.

Whatever that means for how many others out there might be like me――or like Eris, now, maybe――that's not a comforting thought.

　Eris returned with the signed contract, Ace trailing behind her, and found me still half-lost in thought near the request board.

「Everything alright?」 she asked.

「Yeah,」 I said, shaking off the weight of what I'd just overheard. 「Just listening. Learned something worth knowing, I think.」

「About the Church?」

「About the Church,」 I confirmed. 「Nothing solid yet. But it's a start.」

A start's better than nothing.

Better than the years I spent not knowing anything at all.

「So,」 I said, forcing some lightness back into my voice, 「escort job. Three days out, three days back. First real work either of us has actually done together.」

「First of many, probably,」 Eris said, something like genuine hope creeping into the words.

Ace? I asked, through the link. You ready for your first proper job?

I have been ready since we left the mountain, he replied, dry as ever. I simply did not want to seem overeager.

Sure. That's exactly why you've been quiet.

Precisely.

　I laughed.

　Actually laughed, standing in the middle of a crowded guild hall in a city I'd never seen before a week ago, flanked by a girl who'd survived slavery and a wolf who'd apparently developed a sense of dry humor faster than most humans managed it in a lifetime.

New city.

New job.

New pieces of the Church puzzle, slowly coming together.

Whatever's coming next――I think, for the first time in a long while, I'm actually looking forward to finding out.

　We headed out to prepare for departure, the guild hall's noise fading behind us as we stepped back into Roshan's crowded streets, three unlikely companions about to take on the first job of what I suspected was going to be a very long list.