"Hey, guys. What's wrong? We're finally in Blummund, you should be happy." It'd been two days since we'd set out, with Kabal, Elen, and Gido as our guides.
At the beginning of the trip, they'd seemed really happy about finally being useful to Big Bro.
Now, they seemed rather downcast.
"Well…" Elen trailed off.
"What kinda trip was that?! It took us months of trudging through the forest to cover ground that these wagons covered in a single day!" Kabal complained, "And where did that path come from?!
"Yeah, we thought that we were guiding you, but what's up with the ultra-comfortable wagon, pulled by A-rank monsters?! It was like we were totally useless!"
I laughed. "Guys, I didn't need you for the route."
"We need you to introduce us to the guild. Help us get our bearings." Risa finished for me, "Trust me. Just by being here, you're helping us a lot."
It was nice to hear her trying to be less curt, even if her tone still had a bit of a bite to it.
The first place we went to was the local inn and tavern. When we got in, there was a huge dude bragging about smashing a monster's face in with his Great Ax.
First thing Risa does? Walks up to the guy and goes "But… it's just a fake."
She was totally right. The monster pelt in question, lying on a table for all to see, as some sort of trophy, wasn't from a monster at all. It was a normal bear, with a rabbit horn shoved into its skull.
"You callin' me a liar, little girl?!" The dude postured up to Risa, clearly trying to intimidate her.
Unfortunately for all involved, Risa wasn't a normal person at all.
Sensing danger (and not for Risa), I rushed up to Risa and grabbed her by the shoulder. "Excuse my sister, sir, but-"
"Kabal…? D-don't worry about it! N-not a big deal! I'd better get going now, I n-need to have the guild appraise this thing. If a friend of yours says it's a fake, then…" As soon as he caught sight of Kabal and his gang, the swindler seemed to run off with his tail between his legs.
Then, as if the swindler dude hadn't ever been there, a bunch of people from the tavern began to swarm Kabal's party.
"Guys, you seem to be popular around here." I joked. Kabal rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed. The other two looked similarly embarrassed.
"You guys recently ranked up to B-plus, right? So fast! You're my idols!"
The dots clicked in my mind. "You guys know why I'm glaring at you, right?" These idiots were selling off Tempest's useless, excess monster parts as proof that they'd 'killed' strong monsters.
Oh, well. At the end of the day, so long as they used a bit of moderation, it'd be fine. And Fuze wasn't stupid, so I'm sure he'd figured it out as well.
"...yeah…" They said in unison.
…
After we reserved our rooms at the inn, our next stop was the Free Guild. It was one of the most grand, five-story buildings in all of Blummund.
Entering the building, the trio guided me to the General counter.
The guild counter was divided into three counters, the sales counter, the general counter (basically a 'help' counter for people who didn't have specific business with the guild) and the expert counter, for registered adventurers with specific business with the guild.
In our case, I wanted to register Risa and I as adventurers.
Unlike Risa, I wasn't particularly interested in fighting monsters for the sake of battle experience, but getting a high Free Guild rank had its uses. In fact, it acted as identification. The higher your rank, the more nations trusted you.
Walking up to the general counter, I said "Hi. My… sister and I would like to register as adventurers, please."
"...How old are you?" Yeah, I'd kinda expected this. Risa's physical age had seemed to grow to the point where she looked like a teenager, maybe, but I still seemed elementary-school aged. "Being a general member's one thing, but you seem a bit young to be an adventurer."
"Don't worry about that. This guy, Rimuru, lemme tell ya, he's strong. They both are… real strong." Kabal jumped in to vouch for us.
Luckily, that was enough for the counter woman. "If he's strong enough to impress you… the tests can be dangerous, though."
"We don't mind."
"Okay, then. Which department do you choose, then?" The guild had a general membership for anyone, but to actually qualify as an adventurer required a specialization.
There were three specializations that one could choose from. Each in Kabal's party had a different specialization. Kabal was part of the monster slaying department, Elen was a retrieval specialist, and Gido was an exploration specialist.
Guess which specialty Risa chose?
Honestly, though, for Risa and I, monster slaying was the only real choice, though. The tests for each specialization were different, with exploration requiring you to go to a specific site in a totally different country. Monster slaying was the only test that could be done onsite.