Dawn- An age of Darkness

 The rooms were good. No complaints. 

Dick's mind however was occupied with something else. He had girls to pick up. I couldn't bring myself to tell him about how he might have been a little wrong to assume that girls would just flock around him. 

"Alright, let's head out!" Dick proclaimed. 

We were still in the process of booking the rooms. But Dick couldn't stop his excitement. I didn't want to rain on the poor guy's parade so I just kept quiet.

"Servesta, you stay here. I'll go get me some la- I mean meat for dinner." Okay, maybe he was more excited than I thought. 

"Understood."

Servesta however, had no problems. 

I sighed. Lianne smiled and didn't say anything. She obviously knew what I'd gotten myself into. 

Maybe I shouldn't have….

With Dick's constant nagging and hyperactivity, the booking process ended pretty quickly.

We came out of the inn. Biteria stayed behind. The little bunny just refused to leave the room. It was selfish if nothing else. But then again it wasn't so little anymore, so maybe leaving it alone, was the better choice?

I asked Lianne to help me with buying things while Dick parted ways with us, claiming he had business to attend to. He did blink at me though before leaving. 

This is not going to end well.

I had no idea what Servesta was up to, but I guess he was free to do anything he pleased. 

"Now then, where do you want to go first?" Lianne stood at my side.

The passersby were giving us a lot of looks. The elves in particular were glaring at me with eyes and mouths open. I guess the empress really was famous.

"Tell me, what's your opinion on the guild?"

I didn't trust Lianne as much as I used to but still knew she knew enough. So her opinion was always a bonus.

Of course, I understood her reasons for doing all this, but that didn't mean I just accepted them without even thinking. 

"The guild, huh? I have mixed feelings about the guild. I think what they do is important for the economy and peace. But some of the upper echelons are too greedy and make lower ranked adventurers do all the grunt work."

Why do you have to be that specific?

 "But privileged people are always like that. Do you think selling materials would be better in the guild?"

We walked along the road. There were so many hoverboards and gliders that my mind was going funny. Most of the people gliding or riding boards were elves though with occasional humans sprinkled here and there: but then again those humans had at least one or two animal features. Meaning, not a single ordinary human was up there. 

"That's not necessarily true for all the privileged you know." Lianne sighed. I guess she was frustrated with me. I didn't blame her for that though. My opinion of the higher born was always low to begin with. "If you have lots, then yes. But when it comes to small stuff any normal shop should do. The guild does offer better rates for rare materials but they'd pretty much scam you in case of the very rare ones like that cane for example. Besides, they might even make you register and go into a contract with them."

"I still don't get why he wanted it that bad though."

She gave me a rude stare. "Sometimes I wonder how your thought process works. Be it old, that was the legendary scepter of Boriosa the grand mage of the six clouds. It's almost as famous as the mystic weapons and was deemed to be a national legend by Alfeim. The country would literally pay you enough to buy half a city like this if you were to sell it. That much worth it has." She continued. "But I trust in your judgment… I don't think you'll fall prey to greed." 

I had no idea why she'd trust me so much, but it did make me feel better if nothing else. But then again she was totally dissing me in the first half though. 

"Maybe I should learn to use this too, just in case, "I mumbled.

She had supernatural hearing. Those ears weren't just for show I guess. "First comes the bow, then the scepter."

Oh no.

I kind of got myself into something I didn't want to. 

"You know how to use this thing too?" I asked, my voice a bit shaky. 

She was too versatile. 

Instead of answering my question, she just stopped in the middle of the road. "We're here."

"Where exactly?" 

"The guild?" 

Are you answering me or asking questions? 

She was pretty efficient if nothing else.

"You brought me here already?" The earlier mention of learning how to use scepters was still bugging me though. 

"I had a hunch you were interested in at least seeing things out."

"Sometimes I wonder how I could get intuition like that," I mumbled to myself.

Though it was night, the city was pretty busy just like Moire. Most of the cities I'd visited all had better morale and activity than the first village I came to. I didn't even know that village's name. Maybe this world was only so horrible to the unfortunate who held no power. Maybe that was how the world was supposed to be. After all, even Darwin wrote about how only the fittest survived. I learned the truth of it the hard way.

And yet, I couldn't really accept it. 

"Don't you want to get in?"

I was staring at the guild building. It was larger than the inn we were staying in. The building had some sort of different air to it. There were three banners hung from the top of the building. One of them had a serpent-shaped with wings. Maybe the dragon was native to this land? The other two had weird symbols.

"How come I didn't see them in Alfeim?"

"They aren't allowed to be in the capital for various reasons. Do you want to get in, or go somewhere else?"

I didn't understand these various reasons, but I got the picture, elves liked their secrets. 

"Yeah, let's go in."

We entered and a bell rang. There were a lot of people here. But the moment we went in, everybody stared at us. Most of them were men but some were women. Everyone looked battle-hardened. 

I thought lady adventurers were supposed to be rare?

Of course, I only saw three but I never expected to see women as adventurers, the reason being goblins. 

"Don't just stand there. Let's go over the counter," Lianne whispered.

I walked in. "Is it me or are people really staring?"

"Think of them as potatoes."

"Funny. The old man said something like that too," I said.

Well, these days I got used to getting stared at.. But it was still jarring.