7 – One must work in order to eat

A month flew by in the blink of an eye. And Saito has indeed gone through a hellish training scenario. Even now, he is taking his graduation test. The final step for him to become complete. Shamoa was waiting at the exit of a cave. Why was it labeled "exit"? Because this cave was very special.

Unlike a dungeon there were absolutely no monsters in this cave. Even more, there are no living beings inside the cave. Not even insects. It starts at one end of a cliff range and it ends on the other end. It was a straight line. There was no way you could get lost. And it took roughly 7 days to fully navigate the tunnel. But this cave held a deep secret. It was the most extreme form of training one's senses.

"Meow… he's late. Did I get my hopes too high for that kid?"

Shamoa was grooming herself like a typical cat and was anxiously waiting for Saito to come out. She waited and waited, until eventually she managed to hear footsteps. And after a few more minutes, Saito's silhouette came into view.

He was covered in bruises and looked in a bad shape.

------

"Hou!! You made it in one piece! So, how do you feel?"

"It's like you said. I feel awakened. Like a brand new person."

"Is that so?"

Shamoa instantly jumped and propelled herself for another one of her headbutts, but this time, without even shifting his gaze, Saito blocked the charge that was coming from his blind spot with his palm.

"That won't work anymore."

"Fufu!!"

She once again positioned herself in front of Saito.

"If you managed to stop my charge now, then my mission is done. Your training is complete. From now on, you're free to go wherever you want and do what you want."

"I am truly grateful for your guidance, Shamoa-sama. It was actually… fun. Won't you tell me now at least who you really are?"

"Nope. I would love to, but I really can't. Rather than that… what are you going to call yourself?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well you yourself said that you feel like a new person. And since you don't look like your old self, are you really going to keep calling yourself Saito, even as a woman?"

She has a point. If I have to live the rest of my life in this world, I should cut ties with everything from my past life. Including my name.

"Hey, Shamoa, the dragon that owned this blood. Did it have a name?"

"It was before my time. But if I recall from legends I think it was called… Edelweiss."

Edelweiss? Well, weiss does stand for white in german. And snow is white so I guess it makes sense. Edelweiss is also an alpine flower… yeah. It’ll work.

"Hmm… then that's going to be my name. Edelweiss."

"Huh?"

"Is there a problem with that?"

"Absolutely not. I was just surprised you would pick something like that. But yeah, there won't be any issues. Try reciting [Status] in your head again. Without any prior form of identification card or affiliation to a guild, if you really desire that name, imagine it clearly. It will overwrite your original name."

As instructed, Saito once again recited the word and the game-like menu appeared before his eyes.

Edelweiss

LVL: 241

HP: 320960/320960

MP: 88155/88155

ATK: 293412

DEF: 287644

AGL: 268875

HIT: 916

INT: 2765

Magic Attribute: Ice

Unique Magic: Devour

Titles: Awakened One, Successor of The Ice Age Dragon

"It's true. My name really did become Edelweiss."

"Yup. Well I can't wait to hear stories about you. I guess this is where we part ways now."

"Wait!"

"What?"

"I've been in that tunnel for 7 days. I'm starving!! You can't just disappear on me like that."

"Yare, yare. What a troublesome child. Fine. I guess I can feed you before we part ways. So follow me."

------

After my belly was full, Shamoa pointed me in the direction of a town. We parted ways. I guess I will miss her. She was soft and fuzzy and I liked petting her. Accessing my knowledge from games and books, I remembered the term Guild when thinking about magic. So I decided to ask the townspeople about the location of the Guild.

Living and traveling here wasn’t free. Somehow or another I had to save up money. By the way, the money of this world could be stored on a Guild Card. Likewise it was possible to pay with the card. That’s what the townspeople said at least.

The Adventurers Guild is an organization that serves as an adventurer-for-hire service for the people and other organizations in the world of Berseria. The Guild collates all the complex word-of-mouth information it receives and redistributes it in the form of quests and adventures assigned to adventurers.

Apparently ‘quests revolve around monster slaying and dungeon conquering, while ‘adventures’ are generally exploration, mapping out areas or herb gathering type requests

Little is known about the origins of the Adventurers Guild.

The guild has several branches throughout all nations. Each branch has a branch master, also known as Guild Master, who is in charge of formulating entrance exams for new adventurers, under the supervision of a 3rd party, usually a receptionist.

The guild has two known departments, which are:

Intelligence Department

Recruitment Department

The Intelligence department typically does not undertake commissions. Instead, they provide adventurers with vital information that they can use to complete their commissions. This department is split into two groups: the investigators and the organizers. The investigators are in the field and handle the collection of information, while the organizers take all of the information gathered by the investigators and organize it before providing it to adventurers.

The doors and the roof, even the structure of the windows was big. It was as if something that was one size bigger than the other citizens was living there.

The moment I stepped inside I thought that all eyes would be drawn towards me. But apparently that wasn't the case. People kept going on about their business, which feels fresh compared to the classic trope "let's pick on the newbie" from manga and anime. But I did feel some lecherous gazes on me.

I minded my own business and went to the front counter. In games, manga and anime, normally you would be welcomed by a cute female receptionist, same as here.

“Hey, I want to register.”

The woman at the counter explained with an awkward smile:

Various quests were filed to the Guild. An adventure earned a reward by carrying out these requests. The quests were classified into levels of difficulty from F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS till SSS.

A Guild Card was handed out upon registering. An ID so to speak.

The adventurers were ranked into the same categories as the quests as well. Although there were very few adventures with a rank S or above.

The woman at the counter gave me a white card and told me to drip my blood onto it. I pricked my finger with the small needle that was handed to me. After dripping the blood on it, the card started to disperse and vanished.

“Huh? It’s gone?”

“Please recite [Guild Card] in your mind.”

When I did as I was told, the card appeared in my hand. But the card was different than before. It had been completely white, but now it had a blue border.

“The color represents your rank. From the lowest blue to violet, green, yellow, orange, pink, red, silver, golden and finally black.”

Name: Edelweiss

Sex: Unknown

Race: Crossbreed

Age: 17

From: Unknown

Rank: F

Quest:

Equipment:

-Weapon:

-Guard:

-Accessory:

Wurna: 0

I was glad that the FROM column listed my birthplace as unknown. If there had been written that I was from another world, it would have been troublesome to explain. The counter girl was baffled that my sex was also labeled unknown, but fortunately she didn’t pry. Equipment means gear. My race is labeled crossbreed. That basically means I wasn't a pure breed beast type race. But what I am curios about…

“Hey, what’s this Wurna stuff on the card…?”

“Mh? That is the currency…”

The woman tilted her head. Because I lived in the castle I didn’t study about the economy of this world. I was more interested in magic books.

“Where can I take quests?”

"Before that you have to pass a test."

"Test?"

"Direct combat with no restrictions. We can't send you on dangerous missions before we know how you perform. You might not even qualify to take monster hunt quests, but don't worry, there are also non-combat quests like herb gathering. Any questions so far?"

"Nope. It's pretty clear. I just have to kick some ass."

"That's one way to sum it up. Also it's worth mentioning that the guild won't take any responsibility if you get injured."

"That's not a problem either."

I'm actually curious about the strength of other people in this world. It will be interesting to see what people are capable of.

"Well, shall we go to the training chambers and start your test?"

"Umu. Show me who's ass I got to kick!"