It was just a normal day for Gake, who had just become a guard for the gate a few days back. It felt that he was destined to be a gatekeeper, especially since that was what his parents had named him after, as they were both civil servants. 

 

On the day he had first started, he was told to look out for a certain group of people, but he had long forgotten what he really had to look out for. It was something about them having a card, or about how they had a big mission, but after seeing so many people enter and leave the city, he had long given up on even trying to remember who he had to look out for. All he knew was that he had a desk in front of the gate, and just had to ask for documents, and let them through. In the case that something came up, he had seniors nearby that he could call on.

 

As Gake granted permission to another merchant to enter the city for the day, he saw two girls coming up next. For some reason, their clothes were completely clean, the shirt of the shorter of the two was completely white, without any dirt or stains on it. 

 

“Next!” called Gake, and the two girls came towards his desk.

 

“Please show your guild identification and quests if you have any,” said Gake as they arrived at his desk.

 

“Alright,” replied the taller one of the two. She reached out into something that appeared in the middle of the air, and pulled out a giant stack of paper, along with two guild identifications. The stack of paper was so heavy, that when she placed it down on the desk, a loud thud could be heard.

 

As Gake looked at the giant stack of paper on his desk, he started sweating profusely. They couldn’t possibly be asking him to look through this entire thing right?

 

Gake slowly stood up to look at the stack of paper that was now on his desk. He couldn’t see the top of it while he was sitting, so he had to stand up. He then started to flip through the entire stack of paper, and realized that they were all quests to deliver extremely expensive materials. The weirder part was that these two girls in front of him weren’t wearing armor at all, one just had a normal white shirt, and the other with an unbuttoned blazer with a blouse underneath. The roads were supposedly safe, so he didn’t ask too much.

 

“Alright, you two may pass,” said Gake, after flipping through barely one-tenth of the stack and looking at their guild identification. It was way too much, and would take too much time to go through. He did confirm, however, that all the ones he flipped through were genuine quests.

 

As the two started leaving, he suddenly remembered something about two people and big quests. When he tried to look for them, the two were already gone, and Gake immediately alerted his seniors that the people they had to look out for had entered the city.

 

------------- 

The two were of course Aumo and LisiA, who had finally gotten into the city.

 

“I didn’t expect the line to take that long,” said LisiA, “Were you bored, Aumo?”

 

“It was much better than walking for 3 days straight without rest,” replied Aumo. A couple hours in a line could never beat out 3 days of walking without stopping, especially when there wasn’t anything to do but walk for 3 whole days.

 

Upon entering the city, the two noted that the buildings were not as tall as the ones in Yuhsar and that some looked much older than the ones around them. The buildings were also not arranged as nicely, with some really weird curves and turns around.

 

“So, how do we get to the Guild Building?” asked LisiA as she looked at the streets that went all over the place. The city was so big that the building couldn’t be seen from the entrance of the city, nor did they have a map of this place.

 

As they walked around, Ria slowly mapped out the area, but it wasn’t enough to navigate around the city at all. Just as they were about to turn through a corner for the 100th time, an old man called out to them.

 

“You two young‘uns over there! You look lost! Need some help?” called out the old man. 

 

“You mean us?” Aumo reacted to the call.

 

“Yes, you two,” confirmed the old man.

 

Neither Aumo nor LisiA even consider themselves young anymore, they were undoubtedly older than the old man that had called out to them, but they did look young on the outside so they understood why.

 

“Um, do you know the way to the guild?” asked Aumo.

 

“Ah, the guild, yes,” said the old man, “These streets get really confusing! It took me 20 years to figure out how to get from one corner of the city to the other!”

 

The old man bursted out laughing, and then slowly recovered from the laughter.

 

“So, the guild building?” said the old man, “You just have to go down that street, turn left, walk down about 40 meters, turn left again, then walk to the next intersection, turn right, walk forward 70 steps, turn left, keep going and ignore the next intersection…”

 

It took a couple minutes before the old man was done…

 

------------- 

It was crazy how that old man could remember the way to the guild building and recite it like that, if Aumo and LisiA weren’t androids, they would have definitely forgotten the way after just a couple turns. 

 

The instructions took a couple minutes, but walking there took nearly 2 hours! On their way, they saw some machines overhead that seemed to transport people around the city. They didn’t need to go through all these twists and turns as they went over the buildings, and they were also much quicker than a person going by foot.

 

“Those look convenient, but we have no idea how to get on one,” said LisiA as she watched one of the machines go by overhead. What was apparent was that there were many that went in the direction of the guild building, most likely so that it was easier for adventurers to leave the city and get back to the building to complete their quest. That said, the location of the guild building was really inconvenient. It was a wonder on how it would function without such a way of transportation.

 

As Aumo and LisiA arrived at the building, they noted that the building itself was a lot smaller than the one in Yuhsar.  In fact, most of the building was dedicated to receiving the machines that transported people to the guild. 

 

“What an interesting building,” commented Aumo.

 

They walked through the front door of the building and saw multiple lines of varying sizes. There were multiple receptionist desks to speed up the process of getting and completing quests. Aumo and LisiA went to line up in one of the lines for completing quests, and their turn came by very soon.

 

“Welcome to the Guild, Breali Branch. You two look new here,” greeted the receptionist at the desk, “What quest are you giving in?”

 

LisiA took out the giant stack of paper once again, and slammed it onto the desk. The receptionist got startled as a loud thud resounded in the guild, and everyone turned to look at what just made that sound.

 

“LisiA, don’t slam the paper stack,” said Aumo as she saw everyone turn to LisiA.

 

“Can’t help it, it’s a really heavy stack,” replied LisiA.

 

The receptionist just looked at the stack of paper, dumbfounded on what to do.

 

Status:

 

-----------------------------

Name: Aumo

Core Level:8

XP: 5/300

Status: Normal

HP: 2200/2200

MP: 1200/1200 

MP Stored: 169.6

-----

Skills: Mana Manipulation, Mana Sight, Mana Sense, Mana Analysis, Mana Item Storage, Levitation, Mana Vibration, Small Fireball, Ice Throw, Air Slash, Body Reinforcement, Body Strengthening

 

Upgrades: Map, Gate Detector

 

Stored: Heater, Giant Breadstick, Box of Carbon Steel

---