She sighed deeply in disappointment, delicately adjusting the glasses resting on the tip of her nose with her middle finger.

  “Another youngster picking this job, huh? What is it this time? Debt? Harassment? Slavery?”

  Welp, that certainly shattered my naive image of a perfect, peaceful world.

  Too bad, I’m still interested!

  “N-no, I just thought adventurers are cool, that’s all!” I said quickly, trying to soften the sudden intensity of the conversation.

  “…Ha?”

  Aaand now the entire room was staring. So much for keeping a low profile...

  “Well, I always wanted to be an adventurer, really!”

  She studied me for a moment.

  “How sure are you? On a scale from one to one hundred?”

  “Five billion!” I replied with idiotic confidence.

  Another annoyed sigh escaped her lips as she began preparing paperwork.

  “We meet your kind from time to time,” she said. “Dumb kids who think adventuring means living the easy life. Hunt the big monsters = get the big coin = never worry about economy again.”

  She pushed a sheet of paper toward me.

  “It doesn't really work like that, but hey — maybe for you it's gonna be different. Anyway, you’ll start with a Level 1 quest: slime subjugation. If you succeed, you’ll receive the official guild ID alongside with a sum between 1 and 7 silvers. Naturally you'll also start at Rank F.”

  Her tone changed so quickly it nearly creeped me out.

  “Slimes?” I said, taking the paper. “That should be easy, right?”

  I turned to leave—

  —but she grabbed the sleeve of my cape.

  “Not so fast, kid.”

  She basically dug her nails into my flesh. They were orange and almond-shaped, by the way — not that it matters, her scary level way surpassed her cute level.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Sub-ju-gate. Okay?" After a death glare she continued. "Not kill. Got it?”

  “Huh?”

  “Slimes aren’t just random pests. You need to treat them with respect.”

  “Respect? Slimes? What?”

  She groaned.

  “Oh gods… do we really have to start from scratch? Fine.”

  She crossed her arms and attacked me with a lecture.

  DIANA IS NOW CONFUSED!

  THE ATTACK WAS SUPER EFFECTIVE!

  She then proceeded to explain the entire ecosystem of slimes.

  Apparently they are cleaners, since they posses the dissolve skill and are usually found in forests, the world had basically titled them Natural Doctors.

  They consume the corpses found in the forest, this prevents the number of deceased from rising and later evolving into undead.

  Even more, there are laws to protect them roombas!

  With a ridiculous birth rate, below 30%, they are by default already near extinction — only thing stopping this is the abundant rains.

  Thus, killing one or two slimes on rare occasion — maybe by accident or as self-defense — may be pardoned or fined, depending on the place, time and intent.

  Further hunting them with actual killing intent will result in bigger fines or prison.

  The guild and the city had learned this the hard way, nearly exterminating them about ten years ago.

  Back then, these specific laws didn't exist, and the low number of slimes led to corpses gathering like crazy.

  As you'd expect, the fallen that accumulated the airborne mana had evolved into undead.

  No slimes ? no one to dissolve corpses ? corpses gather ? corpses eat mana ? corpses rise back to life as undead ? undead start to wander.

  These undead marched into a city-scale attack on the capital and nearly won.

  Luckily, all important names were present and saved the day, although not without consequences.

  This little history lesson is taught to newbie adventures through the beginner quest: bring three slimes, alive and unharmed, to prove your competence.

  The unharmed part is easy, mainly due to their self-regeneration skill.

  But the kill part is hard because most of them are slippery and hard to catch.

  As soon as you complete this quest the guild contacts the saint which resides in the forest for balance Intel.

  If the balance is fine, the slimes will be domesticated and sold as companions, basically living roombas that cleans households and plays ball games with children.

  The adventurer who brought them will receive around five silvers.

  Contrary, if the forest is lacking in slimes they will simply be released back to continue doing their natural job, and the newbie who caught them may receive between 1 and 3 silvers.

  If they're domesticated or released back, doesn't really matter. The real reward for completing the quest was all along the adventurers' guild ID.

  Those who have the ID will have their rank assessed. Most start at rank F, but on rare occasions there are prodigies who skip it and jump right into D or even E.

  As for the ranks? I took a look around me and compared my Status Window with the world's system.

  F: 1 ? 10

  E: 10 ? 20

  D: 20 ? 30

  C: 30 ? 40

  B: 40 ? 50

  A: 50 ? 60

  S: 60 ? 70

  SS: 70 ? 80

  SSS: 80 ? 90

  There is an extra rank at the very top. They call it 'EXALTED' where only the level 90+ reside and it stops at 100. Now, I'm unsure if anything else comes after Lv.100. However, if a Lv.188 exists, it will also be classified as an 'EXALTED'.

  I politely thanked the lady while plopping the little daggers out of my arm.

  "Thank you ma'am! I'll be careful with my mission!"