Adventurers Guild

Amber City.

As a city established over six hundred years ago, the history of Amber City began with the diversion of the Agate River. Due to large-scale desertification in the upstream plains and an epic-scale Mad Snake Rebellion, the relationship between the human kingdoms and the Druids deteriorated further, causing the course of the Agate River to shift by nearly sixty kilometers. Even today, the Druids continue to restrict humans from over-exploiting the natural environment, resorting to armed violence when necessary.

The diversion of the Agate River led to the decline of one city and the rise of Amber City.

Unlike the filth and chaos of the slums, the streets inside Amber City are much wider and cleaner, with paved roads wide enough for ten carriages to pass through simultaneously.

However, this cleanliness and order are built upon the expulsion of vagrants and the lower-class poor.

Because every entry into Amber City requires a fee of one Copper Thaler, the lower-class poor and vagrants simply cannot afford it. Even if they manage to sneak in, they are often discovered by night patrols and thrown out again by the guard. Such situations are common in southern cities; the inside and outside of the city are two completely different worlds. As for the Noble District, it is as beautiful as a garden, with flowers, grass, and trees planted along both sides of the roads, and grand, magnificent buildings and exquisite sculptures visible everywhere. Even Soren cannot easily enter that area, as it is guarded by specialized noble guards.

The Grand Plaza is the main market of Amber City.

It is responsible for trading goods transported from all over, bringing in substantial tax revenue for Amber City every year while also securing the economic source for the nobles.

The annual agricultural income of a manor is less than a dozen Gold Thaler.

For the nobles, interfering in the transport trade on the Agate River is the best way to accumulate wealth and strengthen their families.

Along the way, Soren could see many heavily guarded sentries. The Skinning incidents had made Amber City appear somewhat withered; merchants were hurriedly offloading their goods before leaving the city. Past experience had taught them that wherever the Dark Domain is active, there will always be many troubles and dangerous events.

Directly opposite the plaza is the Adventurers Guild.

It is a massive yet loose organization, spread across almost every corner of the world, yet its management is composed of representatives negotiated by various factions.

Whether it is kingdoms, nobles, the church, or other organizations scattered across the world, none would allow the Adventurers Guild to form a unified will. Therefore, they must ensure they have a foothold within this massive and loose organization. The Adventurers Guild is composed of local Councils, with each region operating independently. For example, the Adventurers Guild in Amber City covers work within a five-hundred-kilometer radius, including three cities, twenty-one towns, and over one hundred villages.

The members of the Council are controlled by nobles, the church, local powers, and so on. They are on equal footing with Adventurers Guilds elsewhere in the world, merely maintaining agreements based on shared interests.

Soren now needed the identity of an adventurer.

Becoming an adventurer requires no prerequisites and involves no strength assessment; you only need to be able to afford the application fee.

It costs 10 Gold Thaler in total.

That is enough to cover the living expenses for an ordinary family of three for three years.

All adventurer identities start at F-rank and bear an Arcane Mark, which can be verified at Adventurers Guilds all over the world.

Of course.

If you are strong enough, you can also forge one.

The greatest use of an adventurer identity is as a pass, because there are many places you cannot simply enter as you please.

This world has a very strong sense of regionalism.

Population movement is also a very slow process, as there are too many dangers in the wilderness; many ordinary people will never leave the area within a few dozen miles of their homes in their entire lives.

If you only operate near your hometown, you naturally don't need those things.

But if you intend to travel elsewhere, there are two things you must prepare: first, proof of status as a Freeman, and second, proof of status as an adventurer.

These two items can eliminate a great deal of hostility and trouble!

Of course.

If you can manage to obtain the status of a noble, it becomes even simpler.

Impersonation is also fine.

As long as you don't get caught; getting caught is a huge hassle.

Soren first needed to prepare an adventurer's identity for himself, followed by Freeman status for both himself and Vivian. With these, they could move freely throughout most of the southern regions.

Without these documents, many towns and villages would refuse you entry!

Even with these proofs of identity, if you enter places that are highly xenophobic or have strong regional biases, the captain of the Garrison will still come to have a word with you.

And they will sternly warn you not to cause any trouble here!

This is the truth.

Because back then, many people would head out on adventures full of excitement, only to be repeatedly interrogated every time they reached a new place.

In the end, they would even become subjects of special scrutiny!

The moment you made any suspicious move, local residents would immediately report you to the Garrison, and then fully armed warriors would come to have a talk with you.

If you haven't truly experienced it, it's hard to imagine how much trouble is involved!

There actually aren't many people at the Adventurers Guild.

Because this is a dangerous profession, and also one where it's very easy to retire.

A single accident in battle can leave you with injuries that are difficult to recover from, causing your strength to drop significantly. If you cannot afford the expensive costs of Divine Magic treatment, then you should pretty much prepare to retire. The number of F-rank adventurers registered at the Adventurers Guild is countless, yet only one-tenth can reach E-rank, and less than one percent can make it to D-rank.

However.

If you possess an E-rank adventurer status and have a clean background with no criminal record, you can easily find a job in a guard unit near a town.

Although the income isn't as lucrative as adventuring, it is a stable source of livelihood.

It is enough for you to take a wife, have children, and carry on your lineage.

After all, not everyone has the desire to adventure, and the risks involved mean you are staking your life!

The commissions posted here were relatively formal; many low-level tasks were private contracts handled individually and would not pass through the Adventurers Guild. The lowest-level task here was F-rank, with a challenge difficulty generally above level 5. For example, one that Soren was looking at right now recorded the following:

"A village named Snada, belonging to the territory of Lord Tenodo, has recently seen the appearance of a group of Goblins, with traces of Gnolls among them. The village militia cannot contend with these monsters, so they have offered a reward of fifty Gold Thaler to hire adventurers to clear them out. Task difficulty rating: F+."

This was merely the basic record on the quest board.

If you intended to accept the task, you first had to weigh whether you could handle a group of Goblins (over 20) and a single-digit number of Gnolls (1-5).

And that was just the beginning.

If you decided to accept the task and head to the destination, you would still have to scout whether the number of enemies was truly as high as they claimed.

If it really was that many, you could prepare to formulate a battle plan right now.

But if the number of enemies was far greater than what was recorded, you would have to make a decision: whether to abandon the mission and demand compensation (travel expenses), or continue the mission and demand a higher reward (diplomacy).

Or, perhaps you didn't care at all and were prepared to take the money and leave after solving the trouble.

Soren still remembered the time he accepted his first mission. Back then, he had found two companions, and the mission difficulty was similar to the one before him, but in the end, an Ogre had actually emerged.

His life had nearly ended right there!

If the client hadn't increased the reward by 50% at the end, he had even considered taking a blade to the client.

This was no joke!

Soren had truly done such a thing before. He had once hung a client who had lied about the mission difficulty—causing the death of a teammate—from a flagpole, whipped him to death, and left the corpse hanging for three days and three nights!

That was his first native teammate, a shy, smiling boy named Chebu.

He had two younger brothers and a younger sister.

Before convincing him to become a teammate and leave his home, Soren had promised his mother that he would earn enough money to repair their village, which had been damaged by a flash flood, and return safely. He was the only professional in that remote village, an excellent level 6 warrior who had saved Soren's life once, blocked three arrows for him, and ultimately fell into an encirclement while covering his retreat.

By the time Soren found him.

The corpse had already been gnawed on by Gnolls until only half remained; he couldn't even recover a complete body!

That day.

Soren killed many people.

But revenge did not alleviate the pain in his heart. In the end, he could only take his comrade's cremated ashes back to his hometown. The mission earnings of over 1,000 Gold Thaler could not give him the courage to face the sorrowful face of a poor mother who had lost her child.

He had promised to bring that shy boy back alive, but in the end, all he brought back was a handful of ashes.

At that moment.

Soren finally realized clearly just how cruel and real this world was!

As a Rogue, he would never let down his guard, and he would never easily trust anyone again.

Because he had already made that mistake once!

Perhaps it was precisely because of this incident that he was able to stand out among the many Rogues and eventually become one of the few legendary Rogues among the players!