She looked at me in awe, "You're saying you've already completed these quests? You're not lying right?" I replied, "Yes I've already killed them and retrieved their mana stones." She nodded and placed the quest requests over my card as if she was scanning something and returned it to me.

I thanked her and queued up in the completion counter behind three others. I remembered the second man, he was the one who had told me about the equipment holders. The other two men were strangers. I also looked around but didn't notice the boorish newbie guy. After two three minutes, it was my turn. This time the receptionist was a guy, "Hello, are you a new player?" When I nodded he replied, "Please hand me your guild card." 

I handed it to him and he raised one eyebrow. Before he could say anything I spoke up, "I've completed all five quests. Where should I put the mana stones?" He looked a little shocked, "Completed all five? I see. You can give me the mana stones one creature at a time. First please take out the ten hobgoblin's one." I took them out from the item box and gave ten of the fourteen hobgoblin mana stones to him. He verified them and gave me 1 silver. Next he took 10 of the 14 fox's mana stones and gave me 5 silvers after verifying. Finally he took 15 goblin's mana stones and gave me 15 silvers.

He then looked through a pile of quest requests and took out five of them, stamped them and placed my card over each of them before finally returning my card and congratulating me, "You can get ranked up to rank E. Please go to the last counter and do so right now."

I took back my guild card and nodded. My guild card was now pure white:

I then went to the empty counter, the miscellaneous and registration counter. I recognized Martha, "Hello, Martha. Here's my card, it seems I'll rank up." Martha looked up at me after taking my card, "Aren't you the newbie who came by today? You've completed 3 rank E quests already?!" 

"Yes. So the criteria for ranking up is three higher rank quests?" I asked her. She replied with a sigh, "Amazing. To answer your question. No, for different ranks the criteria is different. For example, rank F has the criteria of 3 rank E quests and 1 rank F quest. For rank E it's 10 rank D quests and 5 more rank E quests. Congratulations on becoming rank D. Here you go."

I thanked her and took my card from her. It was black again, the only change was that my rank was E now. When I turned I was met with a few curious stares from people. I gave a small nod and walked out of the AG. I now had 24 silvers. I headed to the inn located opposite the AG and entered it. I was met with a sight of a western movie's saloon or a game's tavern. I headed towards the bartender (?) and asked him about the inn. He directed me towards a counter near the stairs and so I went there.

Sitting behind the counter was a young girl who asked me, "Looking for a place to stay? It'll be 20 coppers for one day. The discount is 1 silver for a week. Two meals on the house per day. What do you say?" I thought for a while and decided to stay for a week. So I gave her 1 silver.

"Why don't you eat dinner before you go to your room. Your room is on the second floor. The third door to your right. Here are your keys. Today's dinner is chicken curry and rice. The usual menu is bread for breakfast, pasta for lunch and rice for dinner. But you can only have two of the three in a day, non negotiable."

I replied, "I understand. Then I'll have dinner before going to my room. Thank you." I went towards an empty table and a waitress came up to me and asked me to show her my room key. After looking at it she gave it back, "I see you haven't had a single meal, please wait two minutes, I'll be bringing you your food shortly."

I looked around the inn, there were about a dozen tables, each with either two or four chairs. Only four tables excluding mine were occupied. Two girls were seated at a table close to mine, they looked like the girls who walked ahead of me on my way to the forest. But, I wasn't completely sure. I heard loud footsteps, someone pulling a chair and roughly sitting down. It was the same boorish newbie. His face, surprisingly, was back to normal, he had a black eye last I saw him, but there was no sign of it now.

Just then the waitress came with my food and my stomach grumbled. I had arrived in the town at noon I suppose, and now it was past six I presumed. So me being hungry wasn't surprising. Before I could thank the waitress, she left. And with the spoon I mixed the gravy with the rice and gulped it down with the curry chicken. Maybe because I was hungry or probably because I was at ease after all the killing, but it was the best meal I had had in a long time.

Satisfied after eating my dinner, I stood up and went towards the stairs. The boorish newbie looked at me, "Oi. The newbie from before… How's it going?" I looked at him, he was talking to me. I sighed and yelled, "Doing good. But I'm super tired now, going to bed now. Good night." Before he could object I smiled and left for the stairs, hearing a loud goodnight from him, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Maybe he wasn't so bad? I'd find out in a few days anyway. I climbed to the second floor. The walls were lit up with small shiny stones. There were three passages. The center one had two doors to the left and right. The left passage had three doors each on the same wall to the right and the right passage also had three doors on the left wall. The layout was identical to the first floor and there were stairs leading up. Out of curiosity I headed upstairs. The layout was the same except there there were only two doors in the left-hand side and right-hand side passages. And no stairs leading up.

I went back down and walked to the right hand side passage to the last (third) door. The key in my hand fit into the lock and I twisted the key to unlock the door. I placed the key back in my item box. The room was dark. 'How do I switch on the light?' I locked the door and went back downstairs to ask about it. Then I came back up and entered my room. I closed the door and felt behind the door, searching for a stone. As soon as my hand touched the stone I felt a pull like a magnet and the stone lit up.

This was a light magic stone. By supplying 1 MP to it, it would light up. To get it to turn off we just had to supply another 1 MP to it. I touched it again and focused on thinking of supplying MP to it and after another small tug it became dark again. I again turned it on. My MP that was 57 had now become 54. I started counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi, when I reached 58, while staring at my status menu, my MP became 55. So one MP gets restored per minute. My counting was off by two seconds, I suppose.

Glad that I had figured it out I turned to look at the room. To my right was a door, when I opened it I saw a sink, commode and shower. There was a small hook behind the door of the bathroom, a small towel and a small bar of used soap. I washed the dirt off my hands and after verifying that the towel was fresh, I wiped my hands and face. No mirror. I got out of the and headed into the room. There was a bed with bed sheets and a thick bed cover, covering it. There was a table and a chair beside the bed to the left and a small table to the right of the bed. No cupboard, no other decorations. 

A small window was there over the table, I went towards it and opened it to see the guild and a few other buildings. I went back and switched off the light. Came to the bed with the help of the light from outside and laid down on the bed. I took off the thick bed covers and snuggled under it and drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

The next day I woke up around noon. I guess I was tired. I thought about my family but quickly removed that thought from my mind. 'No point thinking about it. I'll just get depressed.' I headed downstairs but lunch wasn't ready yet. I decided to go to the AG and accept some goblin quests.  20/110 so if I completed two more quests I'd level up to 8. I also decided to accept three subjugations of wolves quests, so I'd have to kill 6 of them. I got all the five quest requests and went to the accepting counter. The AG was almost empty so I didn't need to queue up, probably because it was close to lunch time.

I arrived at the counter and it was the same guy as last time. He nodded to me, took my card, scanned the quest requests and gave it back, "Please be careful." I told him that I would and headed to the gate. I just wanted to ask him the location of the wolves and then I'd come back to the inn to have lunch. Just thinking about pasta was making me drool.

I hastened my pace and asked the guard where wolves were found. He told me to go to the other gate, located in the south of the village to ask for directions. I thanked him and returned back to the inn. Thankfully lunch was ready so I sat down, impatiently waiting for its arrival. The food did not disappoint. It was pasta with white sauce and bits of vegetables. No meat, sadly, but still tasty for my empty stomach.

After gobbling down the food I headed north towards the goblins. My stomach was slightly full so I wasn't going to fight against an unknown opponent. So I decided to kill goblins first and then wolves. After crossing the gate I took the right hand side path that led diagonally into the woods. A few minutes later I encountered a lone goblin and used CC. Then I proceeded onwards and killed goblin after goblin. This was not that difficult. After killing seven goblins I headed back East. Killing three more on the way making the count 10, while also receiving a level up message.

I was now level 8 and as usual I increased each stat by one. About 130 more exp and I'd become level 9. I presumed to get to level 10 would require 150 more. While I was wondering how much exp a wolf would give I reached the gate. After the guard verified my card, I made a beeline towards the guild. Giving them the 10 mana stones and receiving 10 silvers,

I headed to a different notice board this time and looked at rank D subjugation quests. The one with the lowest reward was: [Subjugation: Kill 1 horned wolf. Proof: mana stone. Reward: 5 silver. Rank: D]. I looked at the description of the horned wolf. They were supposed to be a bit bigger than normal wolves. But they were stronger and had a tougher hide. I didn't know if my mace was enough to kill it. I asked an adventurer who was beside me, "Excuse me, do you happen to know if E rank weapons can kill a D rank monster?"

He turned to look at me, he was my age, had slightly tanned skin, a stubble and two swords and daggers on his waist. And a shield on his back. He answered me, "The rank of a weapon, I'm not too sure of it. But I do know you need attacks of at least 10 to give a significant damage to D rank monsters. Are you a newbie?"

I replied, "Oh I see. Thank you very much. Yes I'm a newbie. So will I get better weapons in the blacksmiths?" To which he replied, "Not a complete newbie, I see. Yeah, you'll get your desired weapon from the blacksmith behind the guild. I'm Jared by the way. Rank D. What about you?" He smiled at me, so I smiled back, "I'm Megzie rank E." 

"Megzie, nice name. How long have you been here?" Jared asked me. And I replied, "Thanks, I just got here yesterday." He looked visibly shocked, "Yesterday?! No wonder you're a newbie. Wait… You ranked up fast! What's your average base stat like?" I replied honestly, "19 or 20 I guess." He gave a short whistle, "Wow. My highest stat is 25, but I've crossed level 10. Though I'm a week old. I guess you're pretty skilled and a fast learner for you to have such high stats. But I guess you haven't hit 10 yet. Can I ask you something?"