The mercenary guild.

"Hello, my name is Valia Raid. I want to register as a mercenary."

The old lady at the counter is writing something on documents. When I present myself, she only glances at me and says:

"The minimum age for registering is 16."

"I'm 25." When I say that, she pauses and pushes the documents to the side.

"Then follow me."

She leads me to another room on the side and points to the couch. I take a seat. The old lady takes some documents and a slab from a shelf. She sits down on the opposite side of the table and places the slab over a piece of paper on the table.

"Listen here. This tablet will tell us your name, race, class and stats. It also adds those up and gives us an estimation of your personal power rank. Personal power ranking is classified like this: F,E,D,C,B,A,S,SS,SSS - with F being the weakest, if you didn't already know that. Now place your hand on the tablet."

I do as asked and put my hand on the black slab. The slab glows an iridescent light for a second. I take my hand off and she takes the tablet. On the paper is my information magically printed:

[Name] - Valia Raid

[Race] - Nymph

[Class] - Euphemia

[Level] - 35

HP - 15,500

MP - 19,450

Strength - 1592

Defence - 1198

Agility - 1590

Vitality - 1550

Magic power - 1945

Mana capacity - 1945

Demonic power - 830

-------‐-------

"Now give me your Id, I will go and do a security check and then make your guild card. While I'm gone read and sign this." She points to the document.

I give her my Id, that was made for me when I was in the mansion and contains my profile painting (Magically painted by an artifact that looks pretty much like a photo). It has basic information, like my age, name, race and so on.

She goes out of the room. I take the documents and start reading. Essentially the document is an introduction to the mercenary guild, their guidelines and rules. The part where you have to sign states that I have understood the guidelines and rules of the guild, and breaking them will lead to punishment by the law. It tells you what belonging to the guild means, what privileges you have and what is illegal to do. Pretty basic legal document that covers all the loopholes and puts all the responsobility on you, should you die, get injured or do something illegal/against the guilds guidelines.

I browse through it quickly, memorise it and sign it. The old cat woman comes back after a while and leads me to a training room that has an old, gruff looking ogre guy waiting.

"This is Zen, a veteran mercenary. He will examine your combat ability. Go all out against him. He may look old but his combat ability used to be S, so he can take anything you throw at him. He is retired and now an official examiner, so he will be able to accurately judge your combat ability. Well take this and your stats to account and assign your power rank based on the results."

"Allright"

I do a few streches and take out my adamantium broadsword.

The big old dude takes out a sword, looks at me and says.

"Come at me when you're ready."

I go at him ferociously, using my physical attacks and bombarding him with magic at the same time. I trick him, trap him, suprise him. Use claws, tail, sword, magic, everything in my arsenal, but the old guy responds to all of them and even counters.

He let's me attack for some time and then swiches to attack. He keeps ramping up his attacks until I can barely keep up and in the end, beats me up.

"Hmm your combat ability is incredible. If we were to fight at the same power level, you'd give this old man a run for his money. Sadly your power level is low, so it doesn't matter much. I'd put you at the top of E rank. You could probably take care of a low D ranked opponent, but that's your limit."

I collect myself off the floor and follow the cat woman to the same room we were in before. She goes into another room and comes out with a bronze card. On it is my picture, name and a bunch of other things.

After giving me the card, the old coot leads me back into the lobby.

"All right, I'll explain this only once, so listen up. The guild card acts as your identification as mercenary, always carry it with you. On the card is your profile painting, name, race, level, power ranking and how many missions you have completed. Your card is bronze, which indicates that you are a bronze ranked mercenary. The mercenary ranking and power ranking indicate different things. The mercenary ranking indicates your experience on the job essentially.

Mercenary rankings are: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platnium and Diamond. The higher your mercenary rank, the more benefits you gain from the guild and the more prestige you gain from the clients, which means more money. Right now you're a newbie. As a newbie you get shit pay for a lot of work and no one will respect you. One of the biggest benefits for having a high rank is how much the guild backs you up. As a bronze ranker, no one cares about you.

The mercenary rank is based on a point system. You gain points for completing missions. If you take a mission straight from the client, you will not get any points on your mercenary ranking, unless you're part of a mercenary band, that has a contract with the guild. One of the best things you can do as a bronze ranker, is join a mercenary band. If they see promise in you, they will groom you and back you up in exchange for loyalty. How you can achieve that will be up to you.

Failing missions will net you penalties from monetary to jail time, depends on what you did. You read the guidelines and rules so I will be brief. The guild doesn't care as long as it's prestige isn't affected, so keep that in mind.

As long as you keep the client happy, the guild will even give you bonus points for mission completions.

If you wish to update your guild card in any way, except for Mercenary ranking, then you have to pay a service fee. Updating the mercenary ranking is free.

You can take missions from the mission wall on the lobby, recive a mission from a mercenary band or get privatly hired by a client. Just remember, If the guild isn't connected to your mission, it won't show up as a completed mission on your track record.

Any questions?"

"No."

"Alright, good luck." After saying that, she leaves.

I look around the lobby. I see some stares at me, most of them lewd. Nymphs aren't that common and mostly you can find them in brothels, so those stares aren't that weird.

I take a look at my guild card. My pretty face stares back at me. Valia Raid, Bronze E rank mercenary

Oh well, I head to the mission wall and take a look. There is probably a thousand missions on here, looks like they're spread all across the kingdom, not just the region, and some even out of it.

It takes me about half an hour to see one that interest me.