21 You're A Mercenary, Tera

For some reason, Amber was in quite a good mood after I accepted her invitation and she even hummed to herself as we left the guild.

"They'll most likely transfer her bounty to you once she gets processed so in the meantime… You hungry? I know a good place if you're interested and we can talk there." She asked.

I shrugged, "I don't mind, lead the way."

"Great! It's just a short walk down the street over there! I would go there after finishing my hustles to unwind."

I raised an eyebrow at her, "You've been a Merc for long?"

She shrugged, "Lost count of time. Probably a few years I guess."

"Right… So what happened with those three guys?"

She raised an eyebrow at me for a moment before smacking her hands together, "Oh right! Those three idiots? Fucking incompetent idiots trying to take what they don't deserve to have, that's what. They picked up a job that they couldn't do and ran away from it, then I had to come in and do the job for them and guess what they did?"

"Claim that you stole the job from them?"

"That's right! And they even have the audacity to try and say that they would have completed it even without my interference! Yeah, right."

We stopped at an intersection where the light was red and we waited to cross.

"What was the job?" I asked.

"Escorting a mining convoy into the asteroid belt which was attacked by a few pirates along the way. Instead of staying to defend them, they ran away from the fight. If I wasn't passing by at that time, those miners would have been floating around in the void of space right now."

I frowned, "Is there no penalty for them to abandon the miners like that?"

"Oh there definitely is. They'll be paying back the client the money they should have received from the hustle and the Guild would most definitely be deducting Mercenary Points from them."

"Mercenary points?"

"Heh, shall I start the introduction to new Mercs, Tera?"

The light turned green and we started to cross the street, though I managed to give her a nod before we did.

She then raised a finger, "You, my dear friend, are now a proud member of the Mercenary Guild, congratulations! Blah blah blah. I'm just going to skip over all that stupid shit and get to where it actually matters. You start out as a Copper rank and there's eight ranks in total. From the lowest to highest rank, you have Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Emerald, Ruby and finally Prisma. Each rank has five levels and you must advance through all five before you get to the next rank. Got all that so far?"

I nodded, it's a pretty basic concept after all even though this system did not exist in the game. You could still operate as a Mercenary but there was no guild so there was no ranking for Mercs either.

She continued as we reached the other side of the street, "The last two ranks are a little special but let's leave that aside for now. To advance in the other ranks, every Merc has Mercenary Points which are obtained from completing hustles and once they reach a certain number of points, they move up a level. So as a Copper rank at level one, you need a minimum of fifty points to be raised to level two."

"How difficult is it to get fifty points?"

"Not that hard to be honest. It's really just the introductory stage for a Merc. You could just do a few escort jobs or even some transport jobs and each hustle at that rank could give you around ten points each. Ah, here we are."

She pointed to a certain shop and I looked up to see what was basically a ramen shop.

The place even had counter seats too.

Amber led me to one of the empty tables and sat down with her feet raised to rest on the empty seat beside her while I took the chair across from her.

She tapped on a button on the side of the table and a holographic screen was projected in front of both of us.

"Just choose what you like, my treat."

I narrowed my eyes at her, "You're treating me?"

She grinned at me, "What, are you thinking that I'm looking to get something from you? Can't a senior look out for her juniors these days?"

"You barely know me though."

"And same for you, yet you still followed me alone out here? I'd say it's a little too late to play the cautious card don't you think? Relax, I'm just killing some time. Besides, the Credits I'm using are taken from that escort hustle I completed for those three idiots so no need to feel bad about it."

Since she offered… I shrugged and went ahead to peruse the menu and… What the heck?

"This is… Ramen, right?" I asked.

"Yes?"

"What kind of ramen is this? What's 'Synthramen with Subpork'?"

She raised an eyebrow at me, "Exactly what it means. What are you talking about?"

"What the heck is Synthramen and Subpork?"

"Shit, Tera. You might as well ask me what is an arm and a leg. How the fuck am I supposed to tell you that aside from exactly what it sounds like?"

"Ok… Let me ask it in another way… What are they made of?"

"Ah fuck. Don't tell me you were thinking that you're actually going to eat real pork made from pigs and noodles made from wheat?"

I gave her an incredulous look, "What else can they be made out of?"

"Well fuck, girl. Unless you're like the super elite with Credits to throw around, peasants like us are stuck eating the Synth and Sub foods and fuck if I know what they're made of. They taste decent enough and we don't starve, details aren't that important."

Ok… Yeah… Maybe I'm just making too big a deal out of it… This is another universe after all so maybe they came up with the technology to replicate these foods without the need for raising all the materials organically anymore.

Thus, the organic foods are more of a luxury than a necessity or something.

I shrugged and tapped on the picture of that particular ramen on the holographic projection.

Amber did the same and the screen disappeared, leaving us free to converse again.

She gave me a look, "You're not some super rich lady from one of the Noble Families that's out on a joyride, are you?"

"If I were, do you think I'll be alone?"

"Well fuck, maybe you ran away from home, I dunno. Please tell me if you are, ok? I don't want to get implicated in any of the Noble Families bullshit."

"I don't even know what Noble Families you are talking about so you don't need to worry about that."

"Fair enough. Now where was I… Oh right. When you reach level five on your rank, you can apply to be promoted to the next rank through the Guild and they will assess if you have the necessary requirements to move to the next rank."

"So even if you have the necessary Mercenary Points you can still fail to move to the next rank?"

"Yep, since hustles are tied to ranks and Mercs can only take hustles that are in the same rank or one rank below them. And especially when most of the higher ranked quests involve needing your own ship, a Merc without a ship might not be able to rank up. Or if you're just a fucking asshole and everyone hates you, that might prevent your rank up assessment too."

"Huh… In that case, doesn't that mean someone might be able to bribe their way to get ranked up since it's the Guild that decides it?"

She shrugged, "Maybe, but what's the point? Even if you just ride on other Merc teams to complete hustles to get your Mercenary Points and then pay someone off to rank up despite not qualifying for it, what are you going to achieve? Hustles would still get completed and everyone still benefits from these being completed so I argue that this would be seen as a skill by itself. And if you just so happen to take a hustle beyond your skills which led to you dying because of it, you have no one to blame but yourself, right?"

So basically it's just a case of even if you manage to go around the system, the one at risk the most is still the Merc themselves since they are the ones risking their lives to complete those missions they take.

Fair enough… Though I would question that wouldn't the Guild's reputation take a hit for sending incompetent Mercs to take these jobs that they would fail?

I was going to ask that and a few more questions when a drone floated out from the kitchen holding a tray to stop beside our table.

It lowered its altitude until it was level with our table and Amber sat up to take her bowl off the tray.

I followed her and took mine as well, looking at the bowl with a critical eye.

It looks… Like ramen I suppose?

Amber was already slurping the noodles so I decided to dig in too.

Alright~ Let's try what space ramen tastes like.