Slime! Slime! Slime!

  These jelly balls stubble upon our cute Kiana picking up the Cecilias. There are a few of them, with different sizes and shapes, but the same can be said about their elements. Though, at the end of the day, they are just slimes. Simple cute slimes.

  “Oh, I didn’t see any of you... Or should I say, sensed you?”

  Was she to occupied with gathering the Cecilias that she didn’t noticed them? Odd, slimes are beings made of purely magic and yet, she didn’t sense them? Is it because of the forest?

  “No, just far too weak for my skill to pick them up. F rank monsters, ones that even a child could defeat them. Yep, I probably should have my Magic Sense skill also sense them just in case.”

  Well, that explains everything then. Since they are beyond weak, her skill didn’t bother to report to her about the threat. Just like she said, these mere slimes won’t be able to harm her at all, but it still is good to know what is around her, even if they are weaklings.

  “Ahem! Time to play with them, I guess. They can eat all of the Cecilias if I let them hang around.”

  Well, the battle goes as expected, Kiana won without any trouble at all. Seriously, she basically kicked the five slimes one by one, into oblivion. The moment her foot or boot to be extremely precise for no reason at all, hit the slime dead on, on their jelly round like body, they were splattered into the surroundings, mere moments later, disappearing into nothing, leaving only a small magic stone behind. She will probably ignore such magic stones- or maybe not? She sure seems quite eager to pick them up... Desperate times require desperate measures, I guess? After picking everything up, the magic stones include of course, she leaves the forest right after that.

  It's around 18 pm.

  It’s starting to get late, and it seems after this small adventure, she might go home. Or maybe she will explore the city? The nightlife I would say, the time where her Magical Girl persona will come out and she will save the city from the Unknown Villain! The one that kidnaps innocent people and experiments on and with them!

  “Ahem!!!”

  Ups, I was starting to get rather excited for some reason. Though, why the hell do I want such a thing? What’s wrong with me? Is this narrator thingy making me have such despicable thoughts!? As I was questioning myself and my sane thoughts, a few minutes later she arrives at the guild. It goes as anyone can expect, in other words, it goes smoothly. Kiana gives Katarina the Cecilias, completing the quest with it. As a reward, Kiana gets 10 points for her ranking and 5 coins for each Cecilia, totalling 105 coins since there were 20 Cecilias. Well, the math does not add up.

  “Erm, I’m not that good at math, but Katarina-san, you gave me a little more money than it was supposed to be.”

  With quite the confused look on her face, she asks this to Katarina, who gently smiles back at her.

  Katarina- Correct, 5% to be precise. It’s a small bonus for day one completion. Basically, if you take a quest and you complete it in the same day, you get a little bonus for it. Ah, but don’t worry, if you ever make a request, the guild will not charge for it. It’s just a small incentive to complete the quest ASAP.

  Kiana- Oh, that’s actually quite nice! But how about the higher rank quests? Sometimes, even a C rank quest can take multiple days if the information is not accurate for example.

  Katarina- The guild knows that, that’s why every rank has a different time limit. The reward will always be 5% though.

  Kiana- I see, that’s good to know. I think with this, it will incentivise the adventurers to complete the quests as fast as possible. After all, once someone accepts a quest, said quest is unavailable for everyone else, correct?

  Katarina- Yes, the moment you accept the quest, no one else can accept it. It’s a way to also somewhat protect the clients as with this, the adventurers have the tendency to complete said quests as fast as they can. The guild also has a few other ways to make things fair to everyone involved, such for example, a maximum of quests that can be accepted at any given time. After all, a B rank adventurer can complete quest from ranks B and bellow that. If he decides to just take all D rank quests available, then the newbies can never climb the ladder, that’s why there is a limit, three to be precise, no matter the ranks. However, is there anything else you want to ask? You seem a little curious about something…

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  Kiana- Actually yes, it’s about the forest and the dungeon. I have a few questions about them.

  And so, she quickly explains to Katarina her questions, about the forest “owner” and about the dungeon entrance. Here’s the answer for them;

  First of all, Katarina says that it's the first time she ever heard about a supposed “owner” of the forest. Yes, she knows about the Dryads but very little about them though. It seems that Kiana knows more about Dryads themselves than the guild itself for some inexplicable reason. That’s unusual, quite unusual in fact. An adventurer knowing more about a monster than the guild, that alone would make me question the validity of said guild, and in this case, they really don’t seem to know much about it. That smells fishy, but it’s not like I can smell, although it might be more so because of the tavern. I think they are preparing a fish plate for the night…

  Secondly, the dungeon is free for entry, though there are no quests or jobs related to it, which means that, if something happens there, no one is coming to help. On the positive side, all the resources there, from the magic stones that the monsters drop to the chests themselves, are accepted in the guild, or in other words, they will be bought for the appropriate price. Since there are no jobs or quests for it, the dungeon is all left alone, if Kiana goes there, everything will be for her and only her. She also said that the dungeon is left alone thanks to its large size and of course difficulty.

  There are 100 floors and for some reason without any checkpoints, meaning that, each time you go there, you will have to start from floor 1. That is beyond unreasonable and way too hard. A few years ago, there was a massive expedition to complete the dungeon that actually ended successfully. It took roughly 90 days to do so, and while the rewards at the end were extraordinarily good, the time it took for such was far too long, not only that, it was divided by several people, tenths of them, 97 to be exactly precise. The difficulty is also gradual and the same way with the rewards, increasing slowly by each floor. All of this makes this dungeon quite unappealing for the average adventurer and even for large parties since they cannot go back and rest. If they do so, they will have to start from floor 1.

  “(A dungeon without checkpoints and yet, 100 floors? How is that even possible? Something is not adding up, the dungeon is far too big to not have any checkpoints.)”

  Well, she’s right, it seems this story has a few plot holes or a part of the information is being hidden from her. In both of our experiences, every dungeon has some sort of checkpoint, one where at least, the adventurers can rest. Some checkpoints even have teleports waiting to be activated, allowing you to freely come back after resting and or getting supplies you might need to keep going. When the dungeon is cleared, it collapses, disappearing completely after a few days, weeks, months or years, depending on the size of it. The fact that the forest dungeon still stands proves two things. The first one it’s that the dungeon is an extremely rare type of dungeon where it will never disappear even after being cleared, however, taking days, weeks, months or years to fully recover. The other possibility is that it was never cleared in the beginning and that the story was a lie. Either way, Kiana needs to be careful about this if she wants to tackle the dungeon by herself in the future, after all, the information that Katarina provided to her might as well be all false.

  Kiana- Thank you Katarina-san. I was a little hesitant to go to the dungeon without knowing I need permission for such. But since I don’t need it, I might tackle it in a few days.

  Katarina- Well, the guild does not own the dungeon nor the forest, but I do understand your concerns. However, I do think that the dungeon is not a good use of your time. Not only there aren’t quests available for it, the lack of checkpoints is rather worrying. What happens if you get lost or hurt? I think it is a bad idea to tackle it with a party, let alone by yourself.

  “Ah, don’t worry about it, I can handle myself, not only that, I’m actually quite strong. Anyway, thank you and I will see you some other day! Bye!”

  Well, this left Katarina speechless for a few moments. The amount of confidence that this petite young lady has, it surprised her to say the least. But, at that moment, a thought crossed her amazed mind. “Her card said that she was an A rank, and it was real. Maybe she can really tackle it by herself…”. Right after this she came back to reality, bidding her goodbyes to Kiana shortly after.

  ........

  ......

  ...

  She got home at roughly 19 pm.

  A simple apartment really, even though it belongs to the Academy, the famous Academy, the well-known and extremely wealthy Golden Eden Academy. Though, we cannot forget something important, she got invited here, she didn’t buy her way in, that could explain why the apartment is simple looking rather than something top notch. I really can’t complain much and the same can be said about her as it seems to have better conditions than at her home in her village. But now that I think about it, something does not add up, how come a tiny apartment, one with a bedroom, a living room with a kitchen combined into one and a rather large bathroom has better comfort than her own house? An A rank adventurer should have something akin to a mansion, and yet, here we have Kiana completely excited looking at this small apartment... Did she get scammed in some way? Blackmailed? She was forced to do adventurer work by someone and she ended up in A rank? Seriously, something is wrong, but it seems time will tell the story. For now, it seems that Kiana is eagerly wanting to do something.

  “Time for a hot shower! Mhuahaha! I don’t even have to heat up the water with Pyro magic! From what they told me; I just need to open the water facing the red dot and bam! Hot water is coming out from the faucet! Amazing! It’s magic and I don’t even have to use it!”

  Yeah man, this is not normal for someone as strong as her. Oh well, she’s a simple girl living in an advanced world, I guess. But, before we end the day, here’s a quick resume about Kiana current economic situation and rank progress.

  Money – She currently has 580 coins, 80 more coins than what she started with.

  Adventurer Rank – She currently is D- and has 10 whole points. Amazing.

  ……..

  ……

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