Chapter 118.
I used the notes of the real estate agent’s son because I was told he passed the exam. Considering that I used his notes to manipulate my grades, but still ranked fifth in the exam scores, Demuir was quite a smart person.
"Ahaha! That’s right. Who would have thought this would happen?”
"Thank you for your welcome. Senior-nim."
Demuir waved his hands at my greeting.
"Ayy, you don’t have to call me senior. Just Demuir is fine. Our Adventurers’ Guild headquarters is not such an uptight organization.”
"Yes, it seems so."
Judging from Demuir’s outfit, he seemed to have no freedom.
Demiur laughed cheerfully. "Ahaha. It’s all thanks to our director of the headquarters. He’s quite a lax person."
From what I knew, the Adventurers’ Guild Director was also the director of the headquarters. I’d never seen him before, but considering Demuir’s free-spirited appearance, I reckon he might be quite an interesting person.
"Please address me comfortably, Mr. Flam," Demuir said formally.
Flam nodded and replied, "All right, Demuir. But you’re older than me, so you don’t have to speak formally to me. I’m only seventeen."
Demuir looked stunned for a moment. Flam definitely looked old enough to dumbfound people.
"Hahahaha! Okay. I’m 23, so I can call you Flam, right?” Demuir smiled cheerfully and asked.
Flam nodded. "Yes."
Considering Demuir’s age, he passed the civil service examination at a fairly early age. Flam and I were unusual cases as we passed the civil service examination in our teens, but usually, most people passed when they were in their late 20s.
"Ah, shoot! I might be taking up too much of the newcomers’ time. If you go through that door, you’ll find a strict-looking, bespectacled guy with a 2:8 hair parting. He’s supposed to be in charge of guiding the newcomers. If I knew this was going to happen, I would have taken charge of guiding the newcomers.” Demuir talked loudly, pointing to the door next to the counter in the center.
He was as talkative as the real estate agent lady. Demuir said he was going to go wash up briefly and then went back into the night-duty room.
Flam and I headed to the door as told.
The space past the counter was quite spacious. Several large wooden desks were set out, and each desk had a large cabinet and bookshelf next to it.
The space for adventurers outside was quite large, but the space inside where work was done was fairly large. I could finally get a sense of the scale of the Adventurers’ Guild.
In the midst of surprise, a young man with a strict-looking face and 2:8 hair parting came to us, as Demuir said.
"Hmm, are you the newcomers appointed here this time?” the senior with a strict-looking face, pushed up the glasses that were sliding off and asked.
"Yes, that’s correct.”
The strict-looking senior took a watch out of his chest and looked at the time before nodding as if he was content. "You’re quite early. Great."
He put his watch back in his chest and introduced himself. "Nice to meet you. My name is Organ von Fabian. I have been tasked to be the guide today and I will also be the one tasked with directly giving you work in the Adventurers’ Guild."
Organ seemed as impeccable as the impression he gave.
"My name is Den von Mark. I look forward to working with you."
"I am called Flam Dainter. Please take good care of me."
Organ nodded.
Considering that he didn’t show any reactions to Flam’s oddly formal speech, it seemed, despite his strict-looking appearance, he wasn’t as uptight.
"Then, I’ll start with explaining the basics. The Adventurers’ Guild’s workday starts at nine. But if you can, please come to work 10 minutes early or at the minimum 5 minutes."
"All right."
It was an exceedingly natural thing to say.
"When we get to work at nine, we take thirty minutes to prepare to receive adventurers. The guild doors open at nine-thirty. As to what we prepare, you’ll learn gradually. I’ll take you to your seats."
Organ took the lead, telling us to follow.
The seats he guided us to were in a corner of the workspace. He spoke while pointing to two desks in the corner.
"These two seats are reserved for you two. You two decide which one to choose."
Flam gave me the first choice.
"I don’t really care about my seat. You can pick first.”
The two seats we were assigned to were so close that it didn’t matter where we sat.
"Then I’ll take a window seat by the wall."
The seat I chose had a large window behind the seat and a cabinet just below the window to store items. There was a bookshelf on the wall, and quite a number of worn-out books occupied about half of the bookshelf.
"Then I will take this seat," Flam spoke as he took his spot.
Touching the books on the bookshelf, I asked, "Are these books for public use?”
Organ shook his head.
"No, these are the books your predecessor left behind when he retired. Since you are the owner of this seat now, I’ll leave it up to you to decide what to do with them."
"May I?” I asked.
Surprised, Organ nodded.
"The predecessor also said that the new owner of the seat could do with them as he wanted. Actually, he said he’d give it to other civil servants, but everyone refused and so it was left here."
Certainly, the books on the bookshelf had very diverse genres, and the difficulty level was quite high. This book was a Fairy Tribe language dictionary; it was almost an alien language. This was a magic book about circle theory that was abolished more than 400 years ago because its limits were clearly revealed. And this was a recipe book written by Patissier that was famous 100 years ago, and a picture book of monsters that have been extinct for more than 300 years...
I don’t know what kind of person the previous owner of these books was to have all these. If it was just a collection, he would have taken it when he retired, so I didn’t think it was a collection.
It was high in value but only in historical research as most of them had lost their practicality as books. If I sold it to a history researcher, I could probably earn quite a bit of money, but I felt that my own research would produce more results.
To be honest, even if I sold it, it would only fetch a small sum.
"Then I’ll accept them gratefully. There are many interesting books."
There was a novel on the bookshelf but it was written in an ancient language. The paper was relatively new, so it wasn’t an ancient book. Just which oddball wrote the novel in an ancient language?
Oh, maybe it was a transcribed manuscript of an ancient book?
"I see. The previous owner would be pleased to hear that. Personally, I don’t know why he collected these weird books, but I’m glad there are more eccentrics like him in the world." Organ nodded and added that it was a relief.
I thought I heard something I couldn’t agree with, but I decided to move on.
"Then, since we’ve gotten your seats taken care of, let us go meet the Guild Director.” Organ suggested.
Flam had a rare look of reluctance.
"What’s wrong?"
"Haha, it’s nothing." Flam lightly laughed it off.
Organ took the lead again and spoke as we headed upstairs. "The second and third floors are reserved for adventurers who reside here or wish to lodge here for a while. Those who reside here are mostly at least silver plate adventurers, so please be cautious."
Since adventurers had a difficult job of dealing with monsters and demons, there were many rough-tempered people. Of course, not everyone was like that, but it was better to be careful.
"Do we take a fee from adventurers who wish to lodge here?”
Organ nodded at my question. "Yes, we do. It’s usually about three refined iron coins a night, around the same as a cheap inn, but we are at a level of a high-quality inn, so a lot of adventurers use our lodgings."
Flam asked, "Then who cleans the room after check out?"
It was definitely an important question. If I were unlucky, I might have to do the cleaning. If I had to, I would, but it was still bothersome.
"We have a cleaning service, so you don’t have to worry."
I felt relieved. Come to think of it, even with the cleaning service, the Adventurers’ Guild was so rich that it didn’t matter. This guild made a considerable profit by exclusively trading items hunted by adventurers and collecting membership fees from the adventurers. In addition, because this was an empire organization, there were even civil servants who worked there and even allotted a spending budget.
Of course, the budget was smaller than other departments because it could make a profit on its own. However, from what I understood, the budget was still large because the guild size was large.
While we were climbing the stairs from the third to the fourth floor, Organ stopped briefly.
"The fourth floor is a place where our seniors, from the 4th rank to 1st in prestige, work. These people manage the guild’s funds, budgeting, and local branches, and hence are frequently on business trips. So you won’t get to see that many times in a year. Because of the frequent business trips keeping them very busy, there are quite a few people who are always on edge. So please be extra careful when going up to the fourth floor."
"Yes."
"All right."
With that, Organ went up the stairs again.
“On the fifth floor, there is the Guild Director’s office and reception room. And there are accommodations and amenities for the platinum plate adventurers. We have two platinum plate adventurers who are currently staying at our headquarters. Fortunately, both of them have good personalities, so you won’t have any difficulties dealing with them."
One of the two would be Bloody Rosellis, the champion of the martial arts competition. Come to think of it, I found out during vacation that Flam and Rosellis were close. However, we weren’t able to talk to each other when we went to watch the play together. Since then, I wasn’t really curious as to how they got to know each other, so I just moved on without asking.
Arriving on the fifth floor, we stopped right in front of the door marked as the Guild Director’s Office.
"Guild Director-nim. New civil servants have arrived. May we come in?"
As Organ knocked and asked aloud, there was a call telling us to come in. He opened the door and entered without hesitation.
In the middle of the Guild Director’s Office, Rosellis sat on the sofa with her legs crossed on top of the table.
"Oh, you’re here?" Rosellis greeted from the sofa with a slight lift of her arm. Then she looked around searching for something.
"What about Arwen?"
She was looking for Flam’s younger sister.
Flam laughed pleasantly and said, "Hahaha, you can’t bring your sibling to work."
"Tch, I don’t need an old man.”
Rosellis clicked her tongue as she turned her head back and waved her hand, telling us to leave.
"Guh, that’s mean."
Flam laughed it off as if he was used to it.
"Although she is acting like that, she is a really caring Noonim," Flam said.
Rosellis flicked her middle finger at him in response. "Who’s your noonim, do you want to die?"
Are you not actually related? [1]
1. Noonim is the formal version of noona, which just means sister. But in Korea, noona is used by men when referring to women older than them whom they are friends with or are close to, not only for biologically related sisters.
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