"Magic?"
After chatting for most of the night, Lillian had grown familiar with the merchants. The next morning, as they resumed their journey, he rode in the same ground-dragon carriage as Otto, who was close to him in age. When Otto asked about his purpose for going to the Royal Capital, Lillian gave a simple answer.
"Magic."
"Well, magic really depends on talent," Otto said. "As for me, my mana affinity is Earth."
"You can use magic too?" Lillian asked with interest.
Otto nodded, a bit embarrassed. "Not much. I'm pretty average."
"Then can you help me check whether I have a 'Gate' or not?"
Otto shook his head. "I can't do that. Only high-level mages can, I think."
"I see."
Lillian understood. After several more hours of travel, they finally arrived at the Royal Capital. There, he parted ways with the merchants, who each went off to conduct their business.
As for Lillian, instead of immediately returning to the room he had rented, he decided to visit the Mercenary Guild.
He hadn't even known such a guild existed before, but now that he had heard about it from the merchants, there was no harm in joining if it offered benefits. He had been acting under the identity of a mercenary anyway—having an official status would be safer.
After buying a map from a general store and following it, he soon found a building in the central district of the capital. Its wooden doors stood wide open, with many mercenary-looking people going in and out. Lillian stepped inside.
The interior resembled a tavern. A bar counter stood at the back, with several round tables in the middle. Unlike a tavern, however, large wooden boards stood on both sides of the room, covered with numerous posted papers.
He walked up to the counter. A short-haired young man behind it glanced at him.
"What'll you have?"
"This is the Mercenary Guild, right?"
"Hm… new here?"
The young man behind the counter sized him up. "Are you looking to join the guild?"
"What rights and obligations do members have?" Lillian asked.
"Huh?" The question clearly caught the youth off guard. He scratched his head.
"Rights and obligations? Well, you pay one gold coin a year as membership fee. After that, you can take on guild-issued missions and get paid for completing them. If you complete enough missions, the guild also gives additional rewards."
"And there can be even more rewards than that~"
A burly man at a nearby table overheard and chimed in jokingly. "If a noble client takes a liking to you, you might get recruited straight into their private mercenary corps. Who knows—maybe you'll even end up becoming a knight. You're a good-looking kid, go try taking a job from some noble lady, hahaha!"
"I think you're the one who's gone mad dreaming about becoming a knight, Soen," someone immediately shot back. "Take a look at yourself first."
"Go screw yourself!"
The place instantly became noisy. The young clerk had a headache coming on and quickly pulled out a sheet of paper from under the counter, handing it to Lillian.
"If you want to join, fill this out and bring it back in a week. We'll conduct a unified assessment for all applicants then!"
With that, he hurried off to shout at the rowdy crowd.
Lillian glanced at the paper in his hand. It contained basic questions—essentially an application form. Folding it neatly, he slipped it into his pocket, gave the noisy crowd one last look, then walked over to the wooden boards lining the side of the room.
---
The papers pinned to the boards listed various missions. Lillian quickly noticed that difficulty increased from top to bottom.
The first row was filled with trivial errands:
"Find a lost necklace,"
"Teach children basic sword techniques,"
"Provide manpower for house construction."
The rewards were pitiful—usually less than one gold coin, paid in silver.
Further down, the difficulty increased sharply. Missions like "Escort goods" and "Eliminate bandits" appeared—jobs involving genuine risk to life. The rewards rose accordingly, ranging from two to twenty gold coins.
Lillian's gaze shifted to the very bottom row.
There were only a few papers there, nothing like the dozens above them. The danger was obvious at a glance:
Eliminate the Great Mabeast: the Great Rabbit
Eliminate the Great Mabeast: the Black Serpent
Eliminate the Great Mabeast: the White Whale
All of them listed the reward as: Unknown.
He looked closer. The paper had yellowed with age—it was clear these missions had been posted for a long time. Naturally so. Even finding these mabeasts would be a miracle; if one actually encountered them, the instinctive reaction would be to flee, not to think about claiming a reward.
After all, everyone believed that the previous Sword Saint had died at the hands of the White Whale. If even the Sword Saint fell, what chance did a mercenary have? Were you stronger than the Sword Saint?
Mercenaries, for the most part, were self-aware. They wouldn't touch something like this. They had no desire to die.
Perhaps noticing how long Lillian had been staring, another mercenary walked over and casually slung an arm around his shoulder, speaking in the tone of someone more experienced.
"Kid, don't bother staring at those. That's not something mercenaries like us should even dream about. If those monsters ever get taken down, it'll be by knights, mages, Sword Saints—people like that. We mercs should just keep our feet on the ground."
"Is that so," Lillian replied, giving a slight nod. He didn't argue.
The status of mercenaries was indeed the lowest—and the threshold for becoming one was equally low. No special talent was required. Train for a few years, learn a few tricks, and you could call yourself a mercenary.
Mages and knights were different. Mages required extraordinary talent. As for knights… the real difference between knights and mercenaries lay in inheritance—systematic training and tradition. Most mercenaries were self-taught, while knights usually came from decent families and received structured, professional instruction from a young age. Naturally, when grown, they far surpassed ordinary mercenaries.
It was like a prodigy child from Japan dominating locally at table tennis at age eight—only to come to China and get crushed by peers, questioning his entire life. The coach's verdict would be simple:
"Great talent, but weak fundamentals."
Those "fundamentals" were precisely inheritance—the accumulated techniques and experience passed down through generations.
The same applied to knights and mercenaries. Scientific training versus endless push-ups and sit-ups. The idea of "random punches killing a master" was rare in another world. A real gap in strength couldn't be bridged with wild flailing.
Of course, there were exceptions. A few outstanding mercenaries might break through—joining a noble's private corps or even becoming knights under the recommendation of a patron. But those were rare cases. The vast majority never even dared to dream of it.
"Thinking too much is just wasting time," the mercenary said. "We're just here to make a living."
"Yeah," Lillian agreed. "Just making a living."
---
After leaving the Mercenary Guild, Lillian felt that joining wasn't a bad idea. Living in this world required money, and he cared a great deal about his quality of life—which meant he spent money quickly. The funds he'd taken from Elsa were already largely gone; it wouldn't be long before he ran dry.
Having a stable source of income would be useful. As for the flashy idea of building a commercial empire in another world like certain transmigrators did—that simply wasn't his style.