After finishing my business in town, I still walked around a little and then returned to the guild. It still was some time before evening, but it’s not like I have any place to go for now. That’s why I picked up some random table in the corner of a guild’s café and peeked to the menu. It mostly consisted of some steaks, sandwiches, and salty snacks. So I picked a random costly steak and a cup of beer. I sure feel that I must to try out local alcohol.

And it was decent. I finished my steak with appetite and was silently drinking while watching the surroundings.

Well, there wasn’t a lot of interesting things to look at. While I was doing some shopping, I guess most of the people who wanted work already picked up something and went hunting or whatever. So guild was pretty empty except for some lazy people or strange dudes who thought to glare at a girl who suddenly was accepted to the exam and actually completed it.

Yes, it’s me, so stop looking while whispering something to each other. If you got some damn questions - come and ask it.

But well, I’m not good at understanding what people are thinking so I’m not going to care about them that much. I’m just waiting for my token to be done anyway.

Suddenly a door to the guild opened, and a group of people rushed in. Judging by their equipment they looked like a scouting party or something.

 “Is Guild Master here?” they asked Clara.

After getting a nod from her, they rushed to the second floor. Even if I was not that interested in what happened, some of my natural curiosity somehow starts to poke me, asking to take a look. But I already used to hold myself back in this kind of situation. And anyway it’s not like I can just go with them to a GM’s office and listen to what is going on.  Not my business after all.

After 15 or something minutes, the scouting party both with a GM returned to the main hall. After dismissing scouts to have some rest, GM went to Clara and gave her a stuck of some papers.

 “This is the list of dungeons that require a temporary rise in rank. Some monsters seem to be stronger there both with some dungeon layout changes. Inform everyone about it and post some extra exploring quests to the board.”

Wow, it looks like there is some interesting shit is going on when I just came here. So cliché. But Clara’s reaction seems…strange?

 “Master, looks like we got a problem.”

 “What is it?” GM seems irritated.

 “Just yesterday there was a ‘D’-rank party who got a quest for a monthly dungeon ‘C’ for a rank-up…”

 “idiot!” with a sadden slam to a counter GM started to shout “How many goddamn times I told you not to give any monthly quests before a report!”

 “B-but there was no problems with other reports for all these years! And that elf woman was so persis…”

“Shut up! I don’t care about your excuses. What I care is that right now a young party might die somewhere and it will be your fault!”

Ooh, it looks like Clara’s lack of enthusiasm finally bore some fruits. But still, elf, party, rank up. I’m sure I saw it already…

 “But Guild Master” suddenly said one of the scouts who was still standing nearby “Isn’t the guys from ‘Twilight Moon’ are in town right now? I think they can catch up really fast.”

 ‘Twilight Moon’…isn't it the party I was fighting in my last exam’s battle? Oops.

 “They sure are, but for the next few days they will spend their time in a hospital.”

With these words, GM turned to face me. Well, isn’t it obvious? I guess so. So I stood from the table while scratching my head and joined the commotion. He will call me anyway so let me pretend to be interested a little. In some way, it is my fault anyway.

 “I guess ma help would be useful?”

“Oh, Yuki-san. Just in time. We got some force majeure that require quick actions.”

After that, I got an explanation about what actually happen and some details.

Apparently, some dungeons got some strange changes that are mostly unknown, so letting low-rank parties explore them is unacceptable. For now, I need to rush to a dungeon named ‘C’ that got its name just for its rank, that could actually be called ‘barely C.’ It was unremarkable and simple so was used as a rank-up test for newbies.

The goal is to find and, if possible, rescue a ‘D’-rank party that was sent here by mistake to its death.

Party members are human mage, elf archer, elf healer, and beastmen samurai.

Isn’t it that party with a doggy-girl I saw yesterday? And I even wished some good luck to them. I guess it was a bad idea.

“Wait!” the scout guy is again trying to say something “Why are you discussing important details with a random girl who is not even an adventurer? In addition, she’s a beastman!”

Here it comes, so GM spent some extra time to explain a scout guy what happens in the last two days and who I am. Scout guy sure not seem convinced but it’s not crucial for now.

While we were discussing things, there was already evening, and GM’s secretary came and gave me my ready token. It should be Clara’s job but whatever.

Token itself seems more like a military dog tag I’ve seen in movies sometimes. Two plates on a ball chain with the first one contains my adventurer info and the second one contains my rank. Judging by other adventurers I’ve seen today they all look similar with no silver-gold-platinum-whatever editions. I was told that it was made from a special alloy that can't be forged.

Well, convenient. So with that, I put this token on my neck. At first, I was a bit afraid that it could be rejected by my outfit, but it seems that token count as an accessory and won’t be destroyed. That’s good.

So after registering a quest, I went to a town’s gate. It was another gate than the one I came from, but my walking during the day made me remember a streets layout somehow, so I didn’t lost. Guardsmen didn’t ask any random questions when I just showed him my token.

After that, I checked the map and chose just a straight way right to the dungeon. With that, I lit up a cigarette and departed.

Roads?

I don’t need roads.