The next morning, I got up with the first bell and headed down to breakfast. The place still smelled of booze from the night before, but not terribly so. A delicious meal of eggs, bacon, porridge with plenty of honey and fruit later, and I headed off to the guild.

Passing through the entry hall, I decided to take a peek at the newly posted requests. I couldn’t do much as a rank zero, so I wanted to at least get up to rank one sooner rather than later.

Most of the quests were stuff I wanted to avoid. Sure, I could do the job, but I’d hate it. There were some that I wouldn’t hate, except for the fact that they were longer term, like a three day trip to a nearby forest for herb gathering. It was put up by an alchemist who’d also be hiring some higher level people as guards.

Then I found something amazing. A level zero request intended for a newbie mage. Ironically providing ice for a local business. I snagged it, and found another one a little further down. I’d be able to fill these in a short time, then get back here to study some more.

Joining the queue, I accepted the quests and headed off. The quest sheets had the locations of the stores that needed my services, though I had to ask around to find them. There were no exact addresses or maps I could follow to get me to the destination easily.

I visited the second quest location first, since it was closer. It was a merchant that specialized in transporting fish to other cities, so I just had to drop a mountain of snow in the specified location before they signed off on it. They needed to pack the fish in between layers, and I wasn’t needed for that.

The location of the first quest I found was in the craftsman’s district. It was a brewery, one that needed to maintain a specific temperature while aging their goods. They’d had a magic tool to do so, but an accident had damaged it, so it was out for repairs. Ice mages were their stopgap. With how much of their work would go to waste if the place got too warm, it paid really well. It was also repeatable daily for the next week.

Daily requests really exist!

After finishing up, I headed back to the guildhall and turned in the quests before retiring to the library.

Yesterday, I’d decided on where I intended to go, so today I’d spend time learning more about how things worked in this world. Especially when it came to equipment. I’d learned a bit from Gavin, but he was low level and had mostly worked in the merchant district since becoming an adventurer. His views on equipment hadn’t really been helpful, since they were based on hearsay, not personal experience.

After consulting with the librarians, I was pointed to the books I wanted. I started with The Common Equipment Guide for Beginning Adventurers. Wordy title, but very helpful. I noted what was the norm for the first few ranks, mentally since I had the perfect memory skill.

I discovered that magic bags were rare and expensive, but that by rank five most adventurers had one. It mentioned two ways to get one. First were the ones been made by enchanters working together with space mages who could make their own spatial storage. Second was to find one in a dungeon. These could have extra effects on extremely rare occasions.

So using either a magic bag, I had a bunch and could make more if I wanted, or my spatial storage skill was safe to do, as long as I didn’t pull out anything ridiculous, like a house.

Yes, I had a portable house in my storage. Yes, I could have used it instead of flying to the port city while feeling sleepy. I didn’t do so because I didn’t want anyone to possibly see me pull it out. I couldn’t make something that size invisible for long enough to catch up on sleep.

I used to have a tiny one, tent sized, but it’d gotten destroyed and I hadn’t gotten around to making a new one yet.

I grinned. Dungeon existed in this world.

The only ‘dungeons’ on Valla were prisons. There were ancient ruins and abandoned locations that could be explored, but not the regenerating dungeons of RPG fame. Once a place was examined and looted, it was worthless, unless the explorers had missed something.

Having discovered dungeons existed, I’d searched for information on them. This world had dungeons set up by the gods to collect the miasma generated by living being’s negativity and condensed it into monsters that could be slain for rewards.

Unless the dungeons were left untouched for too long, then as soon as they were slain most of the body vanished, leaving loot behind, usually some kind of monster material, but occasionally something else.

If a monster left behind an entire corpse in a dungeon, then either a monster from outside had strayed in, or the dungeon was about to have a stampede.

Dungeon monsters were unable to leave the dungeon unless they’d gathered enough miasma to survive outside, but the miasma was spread evenly among the inhabitants of a dungeon, so they would all reach that point at the same time and instinctively try to leave.

Dungeon maintenance fell to the Adventurer’s Guild, so they were at fault if there was a stampede.

Monsters were born outside of dungeons either when stagnant mana infected by miasma or by existing monsters breeding. Monsters naturally gathered miasma, growing stronger as they did so, and could only breed when they’d gathered enough to match what it had taken for them to be born.

There was a list of dungeons and information on them including size and inhabitants, but I found that there were none nearby. I laughed at the ad that was posted near the dungeon list. Maps and more detailed information was available, but would cost money to see.

I might look into that when I was close to one to raid, but having fulfilled my curiosity on dungeons for the time being I went back to looking at other stuff.

---

The next week I spent taking care of easy quests, then spending the rest of the day in the library. Most of the stuff available was easy to read, since while books were not too rare or expensive, but this world’s literacy rate was still pretty low. Many beginning adventurers had to take classes in order to learn how to read so they could check the quest boards.

I easily ranked up, and was halfway through the number of quests required for the next rank by the time the week was over. I’d stuck around the city since it had plenty of books to read, and easy quests to complete, since ice was a great seller.

Lots of merchants wanted it, but most mages could only produce so much before they ran dry. With my mana pool, I could have covered the city in snow had I wanted to. The merchants were happy to be able to ship off more fresh fish than usual instead of having to dry them, since they brought in more profits when fresh.

However, I was getting a bit worried. As I ate dinner, I heard people talking about how a large group of temple knights had arrived from the capital. It wasn’t known publicly why they were here, but I had a pretty good guess that they were going to try to hunt down the ‘witch’ that had defeated their men, so it was time to plan my escape.

The next morning I went to the Merchant’s Guild instead of going to the Adventurer’s guild hall. They handled the information as to what ships were taking on passengers and to what locations. While there was a ship taking passengers to Merrow, it didn’t leave for three day. I booked a cabin for myself. It was supposed to be for two people, so it was a bit expensive to reserve both spaces, but well worth it. The voyage would take eight days, so I wanted my own place to relax, not have to share a room.

Passage secured, I headed to the Adventurer’s Guild. The receptionists relaxed a little when they saw me, since I’d been making the guild look good, and bring in a good amount of revenue with my ice magic. They must have been worried that I had left the city or something, since the second bell had just rung, and I was usually there soon after the first.

I had promised to let them know that unless something went horribly wrong, I’d inform them before I left. Yes, it might have raised a flag, but I think I avoided it preemptively with the shape change.

Because of that, I didn’t have to worry about grabbing requests from the board. The merchant’s I’d been working with had taken to making designated requests of me, so they didn’t get posted on the board unless I didn’t show up. Not that I was forced to do them, it just made things easier for everyone involved.

“Mornin’ ladies! Sorry I’m late.”

I said on reaching the front of the line. All the receptionists present today were women, though there were men who did the job as well, they just weren’t around right now.

“Good morning, Rynn. You had us worried.”

“Sorry about that, had some business to handle. Had to stop by the MG to book passage on a ship. It leaves in a couple days, so if anyone asks for me after that, please let them know I won’t be around.”

“You’re leaving? So soon?”

“Yeah, hadn’t intended to stay this long, so when I got word that a ship that met my needs was here, I had to jump on it. Anyways, what have we got today?”

There were a bunch of people behind me glaring at me for what they saw as flirtation rather than business. The receptionist I got today was one of the cutest ones, so she was very popular.

“Ah, here they are. Four today, the usual three, as well a new one.”

I took the papers from her and looked them over. I didn’t recognize the last place, but I’d gotten a few one-offs before, so once I checked the approximate location and that the pay was reasonable, I accepted them all.

“OK, you’re all set. See you in a bit!”

She handed me back my card and I headed off. With my skills, it’d only take me an hour, maybe hour and a half to get through all four places. The new place was close to the second, so I didn’t have to head anywhere too far off my usual path.

As I made my rounds, I asked to speak to the managers, informing them of my imminent departure and how the day after tomorrow would be the last day I’d be able to take the quests. They were sad, since it would cut into their profits, but I’d made it clear I’d be leaving before too long. I’d been asked to become an employee for two of the places, and declined with that explanation.

Due to having to wait for the managers to become available, I got back to the guild hall later than I’d figured on, so the woman I’d talked to that morning was away from the desk. However, I was still familiar with the man I got instead. I’d talked to him at the guild’s pub during lunch a couple times.

“Welcome back. Heard you’re leaving?”

“Yeah. In a couple days. Can take the usual quests tomorrow and the next day, since the ship leaves late enough that I can pull it off.”

I handed him the papers and my card, he verified the signatures, then marked them complete in the system and my card was updated to show I’d done twenty-three of the forty quests required to take the rank up exam. After that exam, rank zero or one quests wouldn’t raise my quest count. As those two were the beginner ranks, they had easier requirements to get rank ups.

After reaching rank two, the first of the intermediate ranks, I’d have to take quests of the same rank in order for them to count. I could still take the lower quests, but that would only earn me money, and maybe some good will if I took the jobs no one else wanted to or could perform.

He handed me back my card and the rewards.

“It’s too bad you’re too low rank to take escort quests, huh?”

“Yes and no. If it was at a rank I could accept it, so it’d count toward my rank, I’d have liked that. But I’m also not the best on the water, so being able to just relax instead of being constantly on watch would be better.”

“Hahaha. Well, no one’s perfect. Need anything else?”

This time of day was pretty slow, so there hadn’t been a line when I arrived, but there were a couple people waiting now.

“Actually, yes. Is there a large dismantling room available?”

He raised an eyebrow, but went over to a table and checked something before returning.

“Depends on how big you’re talking, but there’s one open.”

He took me to the room in question. Sizing it up, I checked the corpses in my inventory. While I couldn’t handle them all in that size room, about half of them were small enough to fit without crushing me when I pulled it out of inventory.

“Looks good.”

I passed him the coin to rent the room and he passed me the key. After finding out it was safe to do so, I stopped going out of my way to hide my spatial storage. I hadn’t told anyone how big it was, and they hadn’t asked. Unless there was a very good reason, it was forbidden to ask about a person’s skills.

He headed back to the desk, leaving me alone. Shutting the door, I locked it, then threw up wards. It’s never a bad idea to make sure no one can spy on you if possible.

Pulling out the first wyvern, I attached the chains to lift it up and got started.

Five hours later, I was finally finished. I’ve got plenty of strength and speed, but dismantling something so much larger than my own body took a good amount of time, especially when there was more than one of them. I was sweaty, covered head to toe in blood, and tired, but at least I had plenty of wyvern materials to use or sell. And that was only having taken apart the smaller half of the flight.

Storing away the last of the materials, including the refuse since I had to dispose of it myself so as not to give away what I’d just worked on, I started cleaning up. I really wanted to just use cleaning spells on everything, but it was a light magic spell, and doing so would erase all traces of filth, which would be VERY noticeable.

So I did it the hard way. Wash everything with water, then dry it with fire and wind magic. Not just the room, but also my clothes. I could do a better job later and just not wear this set again till after I left the city. There was a drain in the floor, so I didn’t have to collect the wastewater, instead letting it flow into the sewers.

Most of the time a dismantler would have also let the blood flow into the sewers as well during the draining process, but wyvern blood has some beneficial uses, so I’d collected it in barrels prepared for that purpose. Also, to be clear, these wyvern were sub-dragons without the venomous tails sometimes portrayed in some works of fiction.

Satisfied with my work, I unlocked and opened the door. I’d dropped the wards when I’d started cleaning up. The drain would have been blocked otherwise.

The reception desk was busy as the start of the evening rush hour had gotten started. It’d only get worse once seventh bell rang, since that was a common ending time for the many businesses and jobs.

I hopped in line. Although I’d paid for the room, it was customary to pay for a lot longer than one expected to use it, rather than have to get interrupted when time ran out. If the dismantler hadn’t paid for long enough, they could be kicked out if someone else had reserved the room after the time they’d paid for was up. So we overpaid and got a refund on the time remaining when turning in the key.

I’d paid for until eighth bell, so I’d get one bell’s worth back. It wasn’t that I cared about the money, a cup of the wyvern’s blood would have made enough to pay for a room for a week straight, but I needed to turn in the key properly, which meant waiting in line to have it logged back in by a receptionist.

After waiting for a while, reading while I waited, as was normal for me, I got to the front and took care of business, was reimbursed, and headed off find something to eat.

Telerean

In case you noticed it, the three vs two days for leaving was not a mistake. I just couldn't find a decent place to insert an explanation without breaking things.