I dressed quickly, adjusting the tunic and pulling the trousers into place before tightening them properly. The fabric felt rough but manageable. Once I was done, I gave everything a quick tug to make sure it sat right.

Ken was already finished and standing in front of the wardrobe mirror.

His armor was light but well-fitted, made from layered gray leather plates stitched together with dark thread. The chest piece hugged his torso without restricting movement, while the shoulders were reinforced with slightly thicker padding. The gloves were snug, fingered for dexterity, and the boots looked sturdy enough for long travel. It wasn’t flashy, but it looked practical and durable.

"How is it?" he asked, turning slightly. "Three gold. Absolute steal."

"It looks solid," I said. "Three gold well spent."

"Right?" he grinned, clearly pleased.

"Hmm..."

His expression shifted, becoming more serious. "Seriously though, wear your ring. We’re academy students. People expect to see our divine marks."

"Don’t worry about me," I said, brushing it off. "Let’s just go."

He held my gaze for a moment, then sighed. "Fine. Be mysterious."

I shook my head slightly as we moved toward the door.

Yeah. This guy was going to be trouble.

ꨄ︎ꨄ︎ꨄ︎ 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Ken pushed open the Guild’s doors, and we stepped inside together.

The place was crowded, nearly every table occupied. The noise hit immediately, voices overlapping, mugs clinking, chairs scraping against the floor. Still, something felt off. One of the tables near the center of the room had a deep crack running straight through it, the wood split as if something heavy had slammed down on it. A couple of wine bottles lay on their sides nearby, one still slowly dripping onto the floor.

"What happened here?" Ken asked under his breath.

I shrugged. "No idea."

People were murmuring among themselves. Some kept glancing toward the broken table, while others ignored it completely and went on eating or drinking like nothing had happened. As I walked past, I noticed a dark stain on the table’s surface. At first I thought it was spilled wine, but the color was off.

Blood.

So a fight had broken out recently.

We moved on and stopped in front of the quest board. Papers covered it from top to bottom, some neatly pinned, others half-torn or overlapping. Most of the higher-paying ones were clearly out of our league, things like entering the Circle, gathering rare materials, or hunting monsters that sounded way too dangerous.

"No way we’re doing those," I muttered.

"How about this one?" Ken said, pointing at a sheet. "Escort quest."

"Which one?"

"This. Pays decent."

I leaned in and read it.

Objective: Escort me to The Circle.

Reward: 40 silver

Deadline: Today

Notes: I have a cat. If you’re allergic to it, fuck your whole bloodline. I’ve got my own cart. I’ll grab something from my supplier and come back. Shouldn’t take long.

I let out a small breath. "Bit rude, but simple."

"Yeah, but easy money," Ken said.

The pay wasn’t amazing, but the job sounded straightforward. No fighting, no complications, just walking along and making sure nothing went wrong. And I needed to complete two quests anyway.

"We’ll take it," I said, pulling the paper off the board.

"Nice."

That was one down. I still needed another.

Someone bumped into me from behind, a big dude, bald. But he just lowered his head and walked toward the counter. Some rude people, I swear.

My eyes moved across the board again, scanning for anything manageable. Most of them were the same kind of dangerous nonsense, until one caught my attention.

Objective: Deliver potions

Reward: 10 silver

Deadline: Tonight

Notes: To Garmonna. No one else.

"Garmonna?" I muttered.

"Mm?" Ken leaned in beside me and read it. "Oh. Garmonna, huh."

"What is that?"

"Garmonna’s Lair," he said. "It’s a brothel in the Medra district. She owns it."

I looked back at the paper. "Sounds easy enough. Why hasn’t anyone taken it?"

"For ten silver?" Ken snorted. "I wouldn’t move a finger for ten silver."

"Then why post it at all?"

"She likes outsourcing small stuff," he said. "Plus, some guys take jobs like this just for the excuse to walk in there and look at some tits... I’m one of those guys, by the way."

I glanced at him. "Wow."

We made our way through the crowded hall toward the counter, weaving between tables and stepping around chairs that stuck out into the walkway. I kept both quest papers in my hand, careful not to crumple them as we moved.

The woman behind the counter glanced up as we approached. Her eyes flicked from me to Ken and then down to the papers. I set them on the counter in front of her.

She took them without a word, scanning each line quickly, then ducked below the counter. A moment later, she came back up with a thick, leather-bound ledger. The cover was worn at the edges, the kind of wear that came from years of constant use. She flipped through the pages until she found an empty space, then picked up a simple quill resting beside an ink pot.

"Name and surname, please."

"Ace Walker."

"Ace..." she murmured, writing it down in neat, slanted script. "Walker. Both quests have deadlines. Good luck."

"Thank you."

She lowered the quill and pressed its nib firmly against the bottom of the first parchment.

The reaction was immediate.

The paper flared with a sharp golden glow, light bursting outward from the point of contact and spreading across the surface in thin, branching lines. Within a second, the entire sheet shimmered like liquid gold. The air around it gave off a faint hum, low and steady, as if something unseen had been activated.

The glow didn’t stay still. It shifted and rippled across the parchment, like light moving beneath water.

Then it began to reverse.

The gold started flowing back toward the quill, slowly at first, then faster, drawn into the nib in thin, glowing strands. It looked almost like the light itself was being drained out. The quill pulsed faintly as it absorbed the energy, small flickers of gold running up along its shaft before disappearing into the dark feather.

The parchment didn’t burn or tear. It simply dissolved.

The edges broke apart into glowing fragments, each one drifting toward the quill and vanishing into it until there was nothing left in her hand.

She repeated the same process with the second paper. The same glow, the same hum, the same quiet unraveling into light.

Once both were gone, she wrote my name again in the ledger, added a quick signature beside it, and the faint golden tint in the ink faded back to normal.

"That’s it," she said, closing the ledger halfway. "Accepted."

"Hmm."

"We’ll inform Mr. Menny that you’ve taken the escort request. He should be here in about twenty minutes."

"Alright," I said. "We’ll handle the other one in the meantime."

"If that’s the case," the worker replied, leaning down to grab a small crate from beneath the counter, "take this. It has ten potions."