Whoa…
I’ve seen adventurer guilds in countless anime and novels, but standing inside one felt entirely different.
From the outside, the Lavender Town Adventurer Guild was a five-story building, the largest structure I had encountered so far. Stepping inside, I found myself in a vast open space, the high ceilings making the hall feel even more expansive.
The evening had just begun, so only a handful of adventurers occupied the chairs. Some were clad in warrior armor, others wore mage robes similar to Sis Celes. Among them were muscular powerhouses and lean, agile-looking fighters.
Oh! There are Elves!
It was my first time seeing another race besides humans. Their long ears, elegant features, and the way they carried themselves… Yep, they fit the fantasy stereotypes perfectly.
We approached the reception counter, where a woman with long mint-green hair greeted us.
She wore a green blouse, and though her uniform was modest, it couldn’t quite conceal her curvaceous figure. She looked to be around twenty years old, standing at about 160 cm.
“Hello, Daisy, Celes. It’s rare to see you two at this hour. What’s up?”
“Hello, Karin! We came to introduce our little brother.” Sissy, as usual, took the lead.
“Ohh! Is he the little brother Celes always talks about!?” Karin’s eyes widened before a warm smile graced her face. “He’s even cuter than I imagined.”
“Right? He’s the cutest brother in the world!” Sis Celes beamed, placing her hands on the counter.
Karin chuckled. “You really get excited when talking about him.”
Then, she turned her gaze to me. She leaned forward on the counter, crossing her arms.
“Hello, cute boy. I’m Karin. What’s your name?”
“Hello, Sister Karin. I’m Freed.” I bowed slightly.
“Oh my, what a polite young man.” She giggled. “So, Freed, what brings you here?”
…Huh?
Shouldn’t she be asking my sisters that question?
After all, they are my guardians here.
【Master, she seems to be testing you.】
Oh?
A test, huh?
Let’s see… How should I answer?
I put on my most innocent expression.
“Umm… I want to be strong so I can protect my sisters from bad people! My sisters said I can train here!”
Karin blinked.
“Ohh? That’s a great answer. But why only bad people? Don’t you want to protect them from bad monsters, too?”
I tilted my head in confusion. “Why would I need to do that?”
“…Huh?”
“I trust my sisters are strong enough to handle monsters on their own.”
Karin’s brows rose in amusement. “Oh? So you believe they can defeat monsters, but not bad people?”
“No, Sister Karin, you’re wrong.” I shook my head. “I trust them to win against bad people, too. But only if it’s a fair fight.”
Karin frowned. “What do you mean?”
Instead of answering immediately, I closed my eyes for a moment, furrowing my brows as if deep in thought. Then, I turned to my sisters.
“Sis Celes, Sissy—if you found someone injured and helpless near the forest, what would you do?”
““Huh?”” They blinked, caught off guard by my sudden question but answered nonetheless
“Of course, I would help them.”
“Yes! If someone needs help, we should help if we can!”
I nodded slightly, as if expecting that answer. Then, I turned my gaze back to Karin, my expression calm yet serious.
“Did you hear that, Sister Karin?”
I tilted my head slightly, my deep navy-blue eye glinting with a knowing look, while my crimson eye flickered with something more intense.
“My sisters are too kind.”
Karin’s brows knitted together. “...And that’s a bad thing?”
I sighed softly, then lifted my hand, gesturing as if drawing an invisible picture in the air.
“Imagine this—what if those pitiful-looking people near the forest… were actually bandits in disguise?”
I slowly curled my fingers into a loose fist, mimicking someone concealing a weapon.
“The moment my sisters lower their guard to help, the ‘helpless victim’ suddenly pulls out a dagger—”
I thrust my hand forward in a stabbing motion.
“—and before my sisters can react… they’re already bleeding.”
A brief silence.
I let my words linger, watching as Karin’s eyes slightly widened.
Sissy frowned, her body stiffening. Sis Celes’ brows furrowed, and she clutched her staff a little tighter.
Then, I slowly relaxed my hand and rested it on the counter, my face completely neutral, yet my mismatched eyes gleamed with quiet intensity.
“That’s just one example,” I continued in a low, measured tone. “There are countless other ways bad people could harm my sisters.”
“That’s why I want to be strong.”
“Not to fight monsters.”
“But to protect them from bad people.”
Silence.
Both Karin and my sisters stared at me.
Huh? Why?
【Master, an innocent kid would never think a case like this.】
…Oh.
Did I mess up?
“Freed…?” Karin’s soft voice broke the silence. “Why do you think that way?”
“That’s right, Freed,” Sis Celes added. “We never taught you something like that.”
Before I could panic—
“What are you two talking about!? Doesn’t this mean Freed is a genius!?”
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Sissy came to my rescue.
“Hmm… Yes, perhaps Freed is a genius.” Sis Celes nodded, believed in Sissy's words.
Karin, however, still looked suspicious.
Damn, I needed a cover story.
I racked my brain…
Ah!
“Umm… I noticed Sissy hiding her vegetables and telling Mom she ate them.”
“Wha—!? How did you know about it!?”
Ignoring her surprised face, I added, “So, I started thinking… If Sissy can lie so easily, what would bad people do?”
“...I-I see. I often saw Daisy throw away the vegetables and lied to mom. But I’ve never thought of something like that.” Sis Celes nodded, convinced. “As expected, Freed is a genius.”
“Wha—!?” Sissy looked betrayed. “You knew about it too, Sis!?”
“Hahaha! What an interesting kid!” Karin laughed.
…Phew.
Crisis averted.
“Oh, by the way…” I tilted my head. “Did I pass your test?”
Karin smirked. “Oh? Why did you think it was a test? Did your sisters tell you?”
“No, my sisters didn’t tell me anything.” I shrugged. “Well… You had the same expression as Sissy when she’s lying. So I thought you were giving me a test.”
“Huh? Did I?”
“Fufu…” Sis Celes chuckled. “Now that I think about it, your expression was exactly like Daisy’s when she tries to hide something.”
“Sis Celes,” I said with a grin, “you also wear that expression when you hide money from Sissy.”
“H-Huh—!?”
“Haha!! So you’re the same, Celes!”
“W-Wait! You hid money from me, Sis!?”
“Ah…”
We all burst into laughter.
“Haha.. Haa.. It has been a long time since I laughed like this.”
After a while, Karin finally spoke up again.
“Well then, allow me to properly introduce myself.”
She stood straight and smiled.
“My name is Karin, the Guildmaster of Lavender Town’s Adventurer Guild.”
“W-Wha—!? Guildmaster!?” I couldn’t hide my shock.
“Haha! So you can be surprised! Yes, I’m the Guildmaster here. But that little exchange earlier wasn’t a test. I was simply curious about the kid Celes always talks about.”
“He’s cute, right? And a genius on top of that!” Sis Celes bragged about me again.
“Umm..” I hesitated,
“Hmm? Do you want to ask something, Freed?”
“...Is it easy to become a Guildmaster?” I asked curiously.
Karin smirked. “Hah! Not at all. I had to work over 30 years to get this position.”
“Th-30 years!?” I gulped. “B-But you look… 20?”
“Aww, thank you.” She winked. “Yes, you can think of me as 20 years old.”
“What are you talking about, Karin? Don’t be fooled, Freed,” Sissy interjected. “She’s 206 years old. She’s a half-elf.”
“Daisy, that’s rude!” She pouted. “Don’t reveal a woman’s age!”
“Eh–? EEEEEEHHHH!?!?” I exclaimed so loud because of the unexpected fact.
206 years old!? A half-elf!?
<”Aza, did you know about it?”>
【Master, how could I have known? Half-Elf features are not different from humans. Besides, you have Appraisal, not me.】
She is telling me like I should be the one who knows about this fact since I’m the one who has the Appraisal skill.
… Even though she knew I couldn’t use that skill yet.
After we all had a good laugh, Karin took a deep breath and straightened her posture.
“Well then, let’s get back to business.”
She crossed her arms, leaning slightly on the counter with a confident yet relaxed demeanor. Her mint-green hair cascaded over her shoulders, catching the light from the nearby lanterns. Though she wore a friendly smile, there was an unmistakable sharpness in her emerald-green eyes, revealing the experience and authority of a Guildmaster.
“Well then, you can train with other kids here. Some adventurers who want extra coin will take on training roles, teaching the young ones. Normally, you’d need to pay to train here, since the money goes to those adventurers.”
She tilted her head slightly, watching my reaction.
“But if you’d rather not pay, there’s another option—you can work here as a part-timer on weekdays. That means you’ll help out at the guild’s bar.”
She tapped the wooden counter rhythmically with her fingers.
“As a part-timer, you won’t get paid in money, since that goes to fund your training, but you’ll be given three meals a day and a bedroom to stay in during the weekdays.”
She then lifted one hand, raising a single finger as if emphasizing her point.
“You can go home every weekend to visit your family. But while you're here, you'll be expected to work hard and train seriously.”
“Do you accept these terms?”
Once she finished, I replied without hesitation,
“Yes! I’ve heard about it from my sisters. I’m fine to work as a part-timer here, and I will be back home every weekend.”
“Okay, you can take a rest in your bedroom for today. You will start to work tomorrow.” Karin gave a follow up.
Once the business talk finished, Sis Celes and Sissy bid farewell.
“Well then, we will take our leave now. Don't force yourself too hard, Freed. Karin, please take care of my brother. Let’s go, Daisy.”
“Good luck, Freed! We will visit you every day!”
Sissy waving their hand as they leave.
Not long after, Karin led me to a small bedroom that only has a bed, desk, and chair.
I thought being a Guildmaster would be very busy, but she said only if there are some circumstances that she will be busy.
Now I’m alone here. What should I do?
Oh, right.
It’s better to check my current status first before start my training.
<”Aza, status open.”>
? STATUS WINDOW ?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Freed
Age: 6
Race: Great Human
Title: Otherworlder
State: Normal
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
? Essence ?
Mana: 0 / 1
Aura: 1 / 1
Vitality: 20
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
? Attributes ?
Strength: 30
Magic Power: 1
Mental Power: 1
Agility: 40
Dexterity: 25
Magic Resistance: 1
Mental Resistance: 1
Status Points: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
? Element Affinity ?
-
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
? Skills ?
— Active —
Immortal Bonds, Appraisal (1)
— Passive —
Language Comprehension
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
? Innate Talents ?
Immortal, Double Natural Growth Rate, Status Manipulation, Elementalist, Learning Acceleration
Some attributes have increased even though I haven’t started training.
Aza said it’s from natural growth.
For example, there’s no way a kid who can run has the same speed as a baby who can only crawl. That’s why the agility attribute increases as we grow. Though, it doesn’t mean anything for people who train their bodies.
Meanwhile, the other attributes like aura and mana capacities, as well as magic and mental powers and resistances, can only be increased through training and fighting.
