CH16

He took the moment of privacy to slip on his clothes that had been moved to his bedside before Thera walked in.

“Oh hey,” He said, awkwardly buttoning his pants. Before he could think of whatever he should say she was bowing at him.

“I’m sorry. If I had told you about my magic earlier then you wouldn’t have been hurt the forest.”

“What? Don’t worry about it. I should have asked more questions before we left, and it’s my fault for not paying attention. I’m usually a bit more careful, I swear.”

They stood in silence for a moment longer, both feeling awkward and not knowing what to say before Thera spoke up.

“Should we go report the kill to the guild? It may have only been one but I guess it will be the last we can do until you make me a new staff.”

“Sure, sounds good.”

As they were leaving Ben realized he hadn’t been brought to a clinic, but to their actual home, and then wandered into the guild.

Onk was still at the counter and gave them both a friendly greeting when they went in.

“Back already? How did the hunt go?”

“Not ideal,” Thera told them, neglecting to mention the specific events of their hunt.

“We only got one,” A small problem came to Ben’s mind. “Wait, we didn’t bring the body. How are we supposed to prove we killed one?”

“I guess this is your first quest Ben, you don’t need to bother bringing any remains unless there is a specific request for them. Now here, both of you give me your cards. Whenever you hunt something after you’ve joined the guild can inspect them for what you’ve hunted and how much you contributed. Thera it looks like you got 70 percent of the kill.”

Ben came to a realization as they were giving their explanation and he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with the outcome of it. “Hey you can give mine back. I don’t really care about raising my rank at all.”

“Nonsense, it’s important to do this to ensure everyone gets proper credit for their work. Now… this can’t be right,” Onk muttered as Thera looked between them both, a little confused by Ben’s sudden awkwardness and Onks change in demeanor.

“Ben, you have a lot of unreported kills,” If they had a face Ben was sure Onk would be staring a hole through him. “I thought you said you were just going out to gather supplies.”

“I mean technically monsters are supplies.” He told them with his most innocent look.

“There’s a few dozen on here… and your first kill was an Amarok! I thought you didn’t have any combat skills?”

“I don’t, I just made some traps is all. Blame my teacher, he was insistent that I hunt one if he was going to take me on.”

“Wait, how much did he contribute to hunting an Amarok?” Thera cut in.

“100 percent. He managed it without help.” He couldn’t tell why, but he could hear a lot of unhappiness in their voice.

“Um, is that a problem?”

“It’s not exactly a problem per se. It’s just, it may cause you some issues later is all.”

“Wait, why?”

“You’ve successfully hunted enough powerful monsters to be moved up a rank. Ordinarily, this would be a matter of congratulations but ranking up also comes with its own added responsibilities. Namely that you’ll now have to participate in any emergency quests. There aren’t many that have happened that would take rank sixes, normally that’s reserved for rank fives at the lowest, but it can happen. This regularly wouldn’t be a big deal, any emergency request can be dangerous but the only time lower ranks are included is if it’s something they should be able to manage or if it’s expected everyone would die either way. The issue is that without any combat skills even the safer ones could leave you at risk. You could always revoke your rights as an adventurer, but then you would no longer get access to the archives.”

“Ah well, I’ll keep being an adventurer for now, that’s not too bad after all. Aren’t we expecting the world to be invaded in a few years? Seems a bit silly to worry about any other emergencies in the meantime.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a positive or extremely negative way of looking at things,” They said while handing back his card.

“It just is what it is,” He told them, glancing at his card and about to put it away before having to do a double-take. “Hey I think you made a mistake, you added a lot of money to my account.”

“No mistake. An Amarok is considered a rank five monster and you’ve killed a few rank six as well. Even without the money you would have received if there had been requests for them it still gets you a reasonable amount of income.”

It looked like a couple months of casual hunting was enough to let him live for about a week even if there weren’t requests, so long as what he hunted was judged to be a great enough threat to public safety. It wasn’t enough to live off of or make Ben want to start hunting full time, but now that he knew, it would be a good way to make a little extra pocket money. Especially considering he would have to hunt for materials anyway. “Cool okay then, hey Thera wanna grab a bite before going back to Falk’s?”

Jerking her head when she heard her name, her mind had clearly been wondering. “Why would we? And why are we going to uncle’s shop?”

“Um, we’re working together now, it doesn’t hurt to get better acquainted. We have to go back to the shop anyway if I’m going to start on your new staff.”

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“You’re starting already? We only just got you treated.”

He gave a shrug. “Yeah but I’m fine now, may as well work. So food?”

“Not interested. Let’s hurry back then.”

“Your loss.”

They left the guild and on the way Ben stopped to grab some skewers from a cart. He still tried to offer one to Thera but she recoiled from him as he got too close with it.

Damn was it something I said?

He was a little hurt but he was only a temporary partner after all. Maybe she just didn’t want to bother getting close to someone she wouldn’t be working with for long.

When they went into the shop they were immediately greeted by an angry Falk.

“Damn it brat! How did you get yourself injured on your first hunt with my niece? And from a screll no less? You’ve never brought me any materials from a monster that weak before, but one managed to take you out?”

“Sorry Falk, I got distracted trying to figure out how to make some better items, the ones I currently made just couldn’t stand up to Theras power.”