After a bit of aimless wandering through the unfamiliar streets, carefully avoiding the deeper snow drifts, we finally made our way into the adventurer's guild. And well… I didn't expect much going into it, but looking around now, it was actually more than I'd anticipated though not necessarily in a good way.
If you looked toward one corner, you could see a bunch of rowdy, drunk men clustered around a table, singing off-key tavern songs and laughing raucously at jokes that probably weren't funny. Their voices carried across the entire hall, grating and loud. In another corner, several adventuring parties stood examining a large mission board covered in posted requests, quietly discussing strategies and payment splits.
The whole place was not just loud it was actively irritating, assaulting my senses from every direction. All the voices, clinking mugs, scraping chairs, and boisterous laughter created an overwhelming wall of noise. I winced slightly, my head beginning to throb.
"Rudy, are you okay?" Sylvia asked immediately, noticing my discomfort. She looked at me with genuine worry creasing her brow, her hand reaching out as if to steady me.
But I waved her off dismissively, not wanting her concern. "I'm fine. Let's just register and leave as quickly as possible." This place was already seriously pissing me off, and we'd barely been here two minutes. The noise felt like it was crawling under my skin.
I marched up to the front counter with purpose, weaving between tables, and saw a young woman standing there with an almost unnaturally joyful expression plastered on her face.
"Hello! Welcome to the guild!" she chirped in an enthusiastically bubbly, upbeat tone that somehow managed to be even more grating than the background noise. "How may we service you today, sir?"
Just looking her up and down, she seemed to be exactly what you'd imagine your typical guild receptionist would look like very large chest that seemed almost impractical, but her face looked surprisingly youthful, like someone not much older than me despite her developed figure. I'd guess her age was somewhere in that fourteen-to-sixteen range. This world was truly bizarre in its contradictions.
"We'd like to register an adventuring party," I said softly, keeping my voice level and polite despite my irritation.
She smiled even wider which I hadn't thought possible and reached down beneath the counter for something. A moment later, she placed two blank cards on the counter, sliding them toward us. "Here you are!"
Sylvia and I both grabbed a card, examining them curiously.
"These are adventurer registration cards," the receptionist explained, still maintaining that aggressively cheerful demeanor. "Just run your magic through it, and it will process all your information automatically!"
I looked over the card carefully, turning it in my hand to examine it from different angles. Then, focusing my mana, I activated my demon eye to get a better look at the magical construction.
The receptionist's eyes widened noticeably, and she leaned forward with sudden interest. "Oh my! Is that a demon eye?" she asked excitedly, leaning over the counter to get a better view, her voice rising with curiosity. "I've never seen one activated before—"
But all I could see when I looked up was two large orbs directly in my face, far too close for comfort. Her chest was practically on the counter.
I quickly stepped back in annoyance, my face heating up despite myself. "Personal space," I muttered.
She leaned back immediately, smiling awkwardly and looking slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, sorry! It's just so unusual to see a magical eye being deliberately activated like that. Usually, they're permanently active you know, always on. I got excited." She rubbed the back of her head and chuckled nervously, her cheeks slightly pink.
I didn't say anything in response, just shook my head and returned my attention to the card, trying to ignore the awkward moment.
When I examined the card more closely with my enhanced vision, I could see the intricate magical circle engraved within it, and I was genuinely surprised by the sophistication. Whoever had crafted these registration cards was surprisingly skilled possibly a master-level enchanter.
Just from my limited experience and knowledge, I could see the incredible complexity woven into this seemingly simple card. The layering of the spell circles.
Someone like Nanahoshi in the future would easily be able to create something like this, probably even improve upon it. But me, at my current skill level, would have an extremely hard time trying to recreate this even if I studied it for months. It was humbling.
I carefully channeled my mana through the card, watching with fascination as it reacted. The magical circle inside seemed to actively process my mana signature, somehow using the unique properties of my personal mana to read and record various data my name, race, height, age, magical aptitude, and more.
This is genuinely weird, I thought, frowning slightly. Can just analyzing someone's mana really tell you all of this information? Is mana somehow encoded with biological data?
I would definitely have to keep this phenomenon in mind for future experiments. I hadn't done any magical research recently because I was completely flat broke with no funds for materials or equipment, but whenever I made it to the magic university or managed to acquire some money, I would absolutely pursue more research into this.
The implications were fascinating if mana contained that much personal information…
"Rudy? Rudy!" Sylvia's voice cut through my thoughts, and she shook my shoulder gently. "What should our party name be?"
I blinked, coming back to the present. She looked incredibly excited, like a little girl who'd just spotted her favorite present under the Christmas tree, her eyes practically sparkling with enthusiasm.
I hadn't thought of anything beforehand, and honestly, I didn't have anything particular in mind. Names weren't really my strong suit.
"You pick it since you're the oldest," I said nonchalantly, deflecting the responsibility. "Whatever you choose is fine."
She immediately put her finger to her chin, adopting an exaggerated thinking pose. She really seemed to take this seriously, her brow furrowing in concentration. Then, after a moment, her face lit up as an idea clearly struck her. "Ah! I know exactly what we should name ourselves!" She stuck her chest out proudly, beaming. "We shall be the Red Cross!"
She was clearly proud of her naming skills, looking at me expectantly for approval.
I just grumbled quietly but didn't protest or offer an alternative. It was fine. Whatever.
The receptionist clapped her hands together enthusiastically. "What a wonderful name! I absolutely love it it really fits you two perfectly!" She looked at me expectantly, holding out her hand.
I glanced down at my card, then placed it in her outstretched hand along with Sylvia's. The receptionist took both cards, did something behind the counter for a few seconds, then handed them back with a bright smile.
When I looked at my card again, there was a new line of text under the party affiliation section:
Party: The Red Cross
I nodded once, satisfied, and tucked my card away into my inner pocket. But as I did so, my fingers brushed against something else a piece of paper that definitely hadn't been there before.
Curious and slightly suspicious, I pulled it out to read it.
"Meet me back here later tonight for a special treat. —Your favorite receptionist ♡"
When I looked up sharply at the receptionist, she just winked at me and smiled, a slight blush coloring her cheeks.
I quickly glanced over at Sylvia, but she was far too absorbed in examining her own card and geeking out over being an official adventurer to notice what had just transpired.
I sighed quietly, crumpling the note in my fist. "Sylvia, let's go," I said firmly, already turning toward the exit.
Sylvia, who had been busy staring at her card like it was made of gold, was startled by my abrupt voice. When she saw me already walking away, she scrambled after me, nearly tripping over her own feet.
"Hey, Rudy! Aren't you excited too?" she asked breathlessly as she caught up, barely containing her enthusiasm. Her whole face was glowing with joy. "We're real adventurers now! We can take on quests and fight monsters and—"
I just shrugged noncommittally, keeping my pace steady.
"Ugh, your nonchalant attitude is seriously ruining my mood!" she complained, reaching up to tap the side of my head repeatedly with her finger in annoyance. "Can you at least smile or show some emotion? Anything?"
I kept walking, ignoring her protests. It wasn't that I didn't want to smile or share in her happiness it was just hard. Every time I tried, every time I felt even a hint of joy trying to surface, I remembered everything. I remembered what I'd done, what I'd failed to do, who I'd failed to protect. And what they said to me.
And then I remembered that I didn't deserve to smile. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Being like this wasn't fun, and I wasn't angry at the world or anything dramatic like that. I simply knew I deserved this emptiness. But seeing how my constant emotional distance was clearly affecting people around me people like Sylvia who genuinely cared was complicated. It made me feel something, at least. Guilt, maybe. Or recognition that I was hurting someone who didn't deserve it.
It was like I was in a constant internal tug-of-war with myself, my feelings in perpetual conflict, shifting moment to moment.
"Rudy, where are you going? The inn is right here!" Sylvia's voice snapped me back to reality. She was waving at me from the entrance of a modest building, then bolted inside without waiting for my response.
I turned around, realizing I'd walked right past it. Too busy inside my own head again.
I followed her inside and up a creaking wooden staircase to the room she'd booked. It was small and sparse just two narrow beds on opposite sides of the room and a small table with a water basin. That was about it.
"Well, I didn't expect luxury, but damn," Sylvia said, looking around with mild disappointment. She plopped herself down on one of the beds and let out a long, calm sigh, stretching out. "At least the mattress isn't terrible."
"It's so strange, you know?" she said softly, almost to herself, staring up at the wooden ceiling. "Being outside that place now, becoming an adventurer, sleeping in an inn in a strange city… I always dreamed about things like this when I was stuck in that sanctuary. And now it's my actual reality. It's weird thinking about it, but…" She smiled genuinely. "I really like it. I'm happy."
I didn't know what to say to that. I'd never been the best conversationalist, especially with emotional topics. So I said nothing.
"Hey, Rudy," she said after a moment of comfortable silence, "have you ever dreamed of a life like this? Or did you imagine something different, something more?"
Her words caught me off guard. "What's with the random deep life questions?" I asked, genuinely confused about why she was suddenly being so philosophical.
She shook her head, sitting up to look at me directly. "I don't know. Now that I actually have my adventurer card, now that this is real, it feels like everything has suddenly hit me all at once." Her voice was quieter now, more vulnerable. "I'm in a completely unknown city with a kid I've only known for a couple of years, about to go on genuinely dangerous missions where we could die, and I'm finally starting to pursue my real life goal."
She laughed nervously. "It's a lot, you know? Exciting but also terrifying."
I hummed thoughtfully. That was indeed a lot to unpack. "Um… I guess I always knew I'd eventually become an adventurer," I said, unsure of what else to say. The truth was complicated I'd been reincarnated with knowledge of this world, so nothing was quite as simple as "dreaming" of a future.
She nodded slowly, then scooted closer on her bed, her eyes bright with curiosity. "You've never told me what your life was like before you came to the sanctuary only small bits and pieces, you know. Where were you from? What happened?"
But I just answered her with heavy silence, my jaw tightening.
Her expression fell, and she frowned deeply. "You're no fun," she said quietly, crossing her arms and looking away like a pouting child. "Fine. Whatever. Keep your secrets."
"Shouldn't we get some sleep?" I suggested, deflecting. "We'll need our energy tomorrow."
She sighed in resignation and lay back down, deliberately facing away from me. "Yeah. Goodnight, Rudy."
"Goodnight."
I lay down on my own bed, still fully clothed, staring at the dark ceiling and listening to Sylvia's breathing gradually slow and deepen. After what felt like an hour, when I was certain she was deeply asleep, I carefully got up and walked out of the room, making absolutely zero noise.
I paused at the door, looking back at her sleeping form one last time. She looked peaceful.
I kept walking through the dark streets, my arms tucked deep in my pockets, the cold wind whipping past me and snow flying through the air like tiny frozen knives. I just kept moving forward with purpose, my breath forming clouds in the frigid night air.
It was already fully dark now, and with no streetlights and no natural moonlight breaking through the heavy clouds, it was nearly pitch black. Only the warm glow from a few scattered shop windows illuminated small patches of the street, creating islands of light in an ocean of darkness.
When I finally made it back to the guild, the building was almost completely empty. It seemed like everyone had either left for overnight missions or had gone home to their families. The once-loud, chaotic space was now eerily quiet and still.
But a single receptionist stood there behind the counter the same one from earlier. She'd changed out of her professional guild uniform and was now wearing something entirely different a low-cut dress that left very little to the imagination. She looked nervous, fidgeting with her hands, glancing repeatedly toward the entrance.
When she finally saw me step through the door, her face lit up with relief and excitement. "Oh! Rudeus, right? You actually came!" She hurried around the counter toward me, her heels clicking on the wooden floor. "I honestly thought you would've just thrown away my note and ditched me."
Before I could react or step back, she reached out and grabbed both my hands firmly. I felt her soft, warm hands they were smooth and petite, even for someone of my size. Her touch was deliberately gentle, almost caressing.
"What did you want from me?" I asked directly, cutting through any pretense. I kept my voice flat and emotionless.
She giggled, a sound that was probably meant to be alluring. "Mmm, I could tell you'd be more of the straightforward type. I like that about you." Her eyes roamed over my face. "The look in your eyes says everything you look perpetually tired, exhausted by the world. But you know what? It also makes you look kind of handsome in a mysterious way."
She stepped closer to me, closing the distance between us until I could feel the warmth radiating from her body. I didn't move, didn't react, just watched her carefully.
She reached up slowly, her hands moving to my face. She rubbed her smooth fingers down my cheek, the touch sending an involuntary tingle down my spine. Her skin was impossibly soft, and the sensation was deliberately intimate.
She noticed my slight physical reaction and smiled, clearly encouraged. She kept going, her fingers trailing down from my face to my neck, then to my shoulder. She slowly moved her hand down to mine, interlocking our fingers together in a mockery of romantic hand-holding.
Then, maintaining eye contact, she used our joined hands to guide my palm directly onto her breast, pressing my hand against her chest.
"Do you like that?" she whispered in what was clearly meant to be a sensual voice, breathy and low. "Does it feel good?"
I didn't say anything, didn't react at all. My face remained completely blank, emotionless.
She furrowed her brows slightly, clearly frustrated by my lack of response. Why isn't he reacting? Every other man would be—
Determined to get some kind of reaction, she moved even closer until our bodies were touching completely. I could feel every curve of her figure pressed against me, the warmth radiating off her body almost uncomfortable in its intensity.
She wrapped her arms around me in what looked like an embrace, letting me feel her entire body molded against mine. "You're so warm," she breathed into my ear, her lips nearly brushing against my skin.
After holding the embrace for a moment, I saw her hand slip into her pocket. Her fingers closed around something small something I couldn't quite see from this angle.
With her other hand, she began to move lower, trailing down my chest, over my stomach, going lower and lower with clear intent. Her fingers were reaching for my private area, moving with deliberate slowness.
She went down lower… and lower… her hand almost there…
But before she could reach her target, I suddenly side-stepped with explosive speed and delivered a powerful kick directly to her midsection.
The impact sent her flying backward. She crashed into a table, sending mugs and plates scattering across the floor with a tremendous clatter. She tumbled and rolled, finally coming to a stop several feet away.
When she recovered and looked up at me, her expression had completely transformed. The seductive, playful mask was gone, replaced with pure, undisguised hatred and fury. And there, clutched in her right hand where I could now clearly see it, was a small but wickedly sharp knife. The blade gleamed in the dim light.
She gritted her teeth so hard I could hear them grinding. "You bastard," she hissed.
"Women like you are the worst," I said coldly, walking toward her with shirt steps. My body cast a long, dark shadow in the moonlight streaming through the window, making me look like a giant looming over her. "To think you actually believed such childish, obvious tricks would work on me. Only someone as naive as my father would fall for such transparent manipulation."
I rested my hand on the hilt of my blade, the familiar weight.
"You… you can't do this!" she screamed, scrambling backward on the floor. "I'll tell everyone you raped me! I'll scream! I'll—"
My face didn't budge at all. My expression remained completely flat, emotionless.
"What arrogance," I said quietly, "to think you'll survive long enough to tell that story to anyone."
She backed up further, her eyes wide with sudden, she started to feel genuine terror. All her confidence, all her seductive bravado had completely evaporated. "Wait! Wait, please! What do you want? Money? My body? I'll give you anything you want! Please, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
She was whimpering now, her voice breaking with fear. She felt true terror looking at the expressionless boy standing before her, his cold eyes looking down at her with absolutely no emotion at all.
He didn't even see her as trash or an enemy. She was so utterly insignificant that he hadn't even formed a real opinion of her. She was nothing. Less than nothing.
It was like how you might look at bacteria under a microscope with clinical detachment and zero emotional investment.
I thought about it for a moment, considering. "What are your motives?" I asked, my voice still flat. "Tell me everything. Now."
She scrambled to pull herself into a sitting position, her hands shaking violently as she tried to form a coherent response. Tears were already streaming down her face, ruining her makeup.
"It's… it's because I'm being forced to do this!" she sobbed, the words tumbling out desperately. "You have to understand a couple of years ago, my younger sister was taken, kidnapped while she was traveling outside the city walls. Then she was sold back into this very city as a prostitute, forced into that life!"
She was crying harder now, her whole body shaking. "And to try to save her, to buy her freedom, I… I traded myself. I made a deal with them. But now the only way to save both of us is to pay off this massive debt, and being a receptionist on a terrible salary… it would take me ten years or more to pay it all off!"
Her voice broke completely. "So I've resorted to things like this terrible things, I know. Seducing men, drugging them, robbing them, sometimes worse. I know it's wrong! I know I'm a terrible person! But it's what I have to do to survive, to save my sister! Please, you have to understand!"
She broke down completely, sobbing uncontrollably and clutching at my leg with desperate hands. "Please! Please don't kill me! My sister needs me! She's only twelve! Please!"
I gripped my sword tighter, my knuckles white. She squeezed her eyes shut and cried even harder, pressing her forehead against the floor, waiting for the killing blow.
In an instant, I unsheathed my blade with a metallic ring that echoed through the empty guild hall.
And I sliced.
The blade moved faster than the eye could follow, cutting through the air with a whisper of steel.
My sword made contact with flesh and went through smoothly, offering almost no resistance. The blade was that sharp in my hands.
A splatter of blood stained the wooden floor, spreading in a dark pool. A man's body someone who had been sneaking up behind me from the shadows, knife raised to strike was bisected cleanly in half. The two halves of his body fell in opposite directions with wet, heavy sounds.
The woman screamed at the top of her lungs, a piercing shriek of pure terror. She scrambled backward desperately, slipping in the spreading blood, her eyes fixed on the corpse.
"Interesting," I said quietly, looking down at her. "It seems you knew this man was coming, that he was hiding and waiting for the right moment to strike. But you didn't warn me, didn't give any signal."
I took a step toward her, my blade still dripping with blood. "It's a shame. You almost survived this encounter. Almost."
"No! No, please! I didn't…I had to…they made me…" she babbled incoherently, her words dissolving into incomprehensible sobs.
I raised my blade.
"Please!" she screamed one final time, her voice raw and broken. "My sister! Someone has to save my sister! Please! She's in the Red Lantern District! The Rose House! Please, you have to—"
I brought the sword down.
The blade stabbed cleanly through her skull, piercing smoothly with almost no resistance at all. The expression frozen on her face was one of pure, absolute terror eyes wide, mouth open in a scream that never finished.
I pulled the blade out and flicked it once, sending droplets of blood spattering across the floor.
I didn't relish in this death. I felt nothing no satisfaction, no regret, no anger. Just emptiness.
If I had any regrets about this encounter, it was only one I should have asked more questions about the organization. I should have gotten more information before ending it.
But she'd been part of a trap. The man waiting in the shadows proved that. This had been an ambush, carefully planned.
And I'd walked right into it.
I looked down at her body one more time. "Your sister," I said quietly to the corpse. "Was she even real? Or was that just another lie?"
The dead woman didn't answer.
I cleaned my blade on her dress and sheathed it, then turned and walked toward the exit. I needed to get back to the inn before Sylvia woke up and realized I was gone.
Behind me, the bodies lay in spreading pools of blood. The guild was silent except for the sound of my footsteps.
Tomorrow, someone would find them. There would be questions, investigations, panic.
But by then, Sylvia and I would be long gone from this city.
As I stepped out into the cold night air, snow immediately began to settle on my shoulders. I looked up at the dark sky, at the clouds that obscured any stars.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to no one in particular. To the woman I'd just killed, maybe. To her sister, if she existed. To Sylvia, for the person I was becoming.
"I'm sorry."
But sorry didn't change anything. The blood still dripped from her dead body.
A/N: word count for this; 4,137 I made fanart of the rudeus from this story I'll put the image here. This is exactly how I imagine him. I made this btw :O
Also before anyone says anything him and Sylvia not having much extensive dialogue is on purpose and it will be addressed in the story