After nearly an hour of walking, I finally reached the castle. It's huge. For a second I thought I was lost because the streets were empty. This time of the day is when nearly everyone is working, and even if they aren't working, they stay inside their houses. At least it's not hot out here, but it's still quite cold. After all, winter will start very soon, and it's already getting cloudy and foggy, so I guess rain is coming soon.
I started searching for any large building behind the castle, as it was so big that I didn't really know exactly where he meant. But I finally found it. It was just a bit larger than the normal buildings here, and there was a sign on the building saying Adventurer's Guild. I don't really know if it's available for everyone, or just adventurers, but I'll still enter. And I did. I started looking around, and everyone began giving me weird looks. I guess I shouldn't be here, but the reason for these looks could just be me wearing adventuring clothes, since I look too young. I decided to keep going to who seemed like a steward here, and after I got there, I asked him:
"Can I exchange coins here?" I whispered.
"No, where the hell do you think you are? This place is for adventurers — they can take missions here. It's not against the rules, but a little girl like you shouldn't be here. A lot of people here are not very… gentle," he responded angrily, but softened his tone to a quieter one at the end.
"Oh! Sorry, but do you know where I can go to do that?" I asked politely.
"Yeah, it's the building next to us."
"Oh, thanks!"
I was about to start hating that guy in the restaurant, but he still told the truth, so yeah, no need to hate him I guess.
I got out of the adventurer's building and started going to where I should have gone from the start. It was actually large this time. I entered, and people still gave me strange looks. I should probably buy clothes that aren't weird for someone like me to wear. I also need a better backpack than my current one. My current one can't carry a lot of things, and the weight absorption in it is so bad it slows me down. From now on, I need to get faster and faster so that I can catch up to him. Anyway, I started walking to the steward. She's a beautiful young girl, who probably isn't much older than me. I asked her gently:
"How can I exchange coins here?"
"Ohhh beautiful one! You're welcome here. You can just give me the coins you want to change, and I'll do it for you — even though we take a small cut from each coin," she said with a beautiful, gentle voice.
I gave her around 10 gold coins and asked her to change them into silver coins. She was slightly surprised by that, but she just took them and gave me the coins, taking one silver coin from each gold one.
"Thanks," I said in a nearly whispering voice, and she just waved at me with a wide smile on her face.
I really suck at communicating with people. I guess that's just not my thing. I'll try minimizing it as much as I can. Also, I think I need to find a hotel. I want to rest right now, but I have nowhere to go, and the rain is starting. I don't mind getting wet, as I did multiple times before because of the rain on this journey, but I'd prefer not to.
After hours of just wandering in the city, reading every sign I could find while it was raining, I found a sign saying Hotel. The building it was in looked a bit too prestigious. I think it'll probably be expensive, since it's not very busy there. I got inside it, and just as I thought, it was expensive. Thankfully, I don't care about the price. I asked the steward gently:
"Can I get a good, big room for one person?"
"Yeah, it's 10 silver coins per night."
"Okay, I'll take it."
He seemed like he didn't care whether I'd buy it or not, but I gave him the amount he wanted, and he gave me a key with the number 7 on it. Then he pointed at the stairs. I started going up the stairway. There were multiple rooms. Each room had a number on its door, but there was no number 7. I started going to the next floor, and the first door had the number 7 on it. I opened the door using the key he gave me and looked inside. It's just as expected — it's clean, organized, and big. It doesn't have that many things, just a bed, a closet, a window overlooking the outside, and another door. I opened it and, to no surprise, it's a bath. It's raining even more now, so I decided to get in the bath since I'm wet. I took off my clothes and got in the bath. It's quite hot, but a manageable heat. It feels so good — like refreshing as hell. I wouldn't mind staying here forever. Also, I noticed something else — I'm getting taller quite quickly, and my breasts are getting larger as well. I guess that's something normal for my age.
After around 30 minutes, I thought it was time to get out of this heavenly beautiful place. Oh god! I'm definitely deeply in love with this bath. I washed myself using some soap. It's actually not that bad, given the fact that it's in a civilization this undeveloped. So I got out of the bathroom, then laid down on the bed, and instantly fell asleep.
I woke up to the light of the sun reaching me. My head hurts, I feel dizzy. I shouldn't have slept this long — it's sunrise. I got up and got out of the room. I paid the steward another 10 silver coins for the next night, then started wandering in the city. The stores had just started opening up, so I guess I'm gonna start checking them out now to get what I want in its best quality. But first — I'm hungry. So let's go to a nearby restaurant. There was one just a few minutes of walking from the hotel. I ate in it and started walking towards the castle because nearby there are a lot of stores that sell everything.
After some minutes, I spotted a shop that sells magical items of all kinds. It's massive and has a lot of customers as well, even though the day just started. So I guess it's good. I got inside and went to the backpacks section. I started checking them out one by one until I found a petite one. It's small, and it has way better weight absorption than my current one, so I decided to buy it. It was expensive as hell, but good. I started searching for other things, but nothing else was worth the money I'd spend on it, so I got out of the shop.
I started searching for where I could find good, normal clothes. I hate getting weird looks whenever I go. After several minutes, I found a shop that sells clothes. I entered it and bought a nice yellow dress — it's beautiful — and another dress as well. They were the first things to be put in my new backpack. Then I decided to do something — an activity I had in mind for so long: trying adventuring. This job is all about doing missions that require power in exchange for money. It's a great way to get stronger and gain more experience, so I just changed my direction to the adventurer's guild after going back to the hotel and getting everything I usually have with me. As I entered, the steward instantly recognized me, so I asked him:
"Can I take a mission if I'm not officially an adventurer?" I asked in a neutral, normal tone.
Everyone's jaw dropped after hearing that. After all, a child just asked them that.
"It's legal, but you'll get less money — a small amount will go to us. But why do you wanna go on dangerous journeys? Just for money? You can definitely find something better to do," he said after regaining his composure.
"I just wanted to try it. So what are the missions I could do?"
"You can choose from that wall. All missions are there." He pointed at a wall with a lot of posters on it after he coughed. I started going over there, hearing everyone whispering about me. I don't really care — I only want to try the job.
So based on what I'm seeing, there are 5 different types of difficulties in missions, from 1 to 5. 1 is the hardest, 5 is the easiest. Based on the missions, I can say level 2 missions are the ones that are actually a challenge for me. So I took one of them. I asked some nearby people who looked a bit friendly, and they said there is a sixth difficulty as well — 0. They say it's usually not from a person, but from a country. I guess I'm still far away from this. The mission I took basically says that I should kill all the invincible slimes in a farm because they invaded it. And just as they're named, they are nearly impossible to kill — no kind of physical attack works on them, and there are just some elements that could work on them. Thankfully, fire is one of these elements. They're not very harmful if you fight them, but they target humans. So basically, this mission needs a huge amount of mana. That's the reason I took this mission. After all, it'll help me control my mana more. It was stated in its description that there are nearly 300 slimes. I will get 50 gold coins if I do what I should do successfully. I took the poster off the wall and gave it to the steward. He looked at me — his eyes looked worried, knowing he couldn't show me how difficult this mission is — but I know… I think.
He told me that the amount of money I'll get is 48 gold coins — reasonable. And he told me the location as well, and how much time I have for the mission, which was 48 hours. He gave me a piece of paper proving that I'm the one behind the mission and wished me good luck.