“Umm, I think the Guildmistress is expecting me?” I really wished my Cold Blooded was active, my usual bravado had just completely fizzled out at the prospect of meeting the Guildmistress again. It had to have been a skill. No way was my skill broken and I was reduced to being the anxious wreck I had once been just because I was terrified of her.
Really the only person I was not a mess with was Nerry at the moment, Nerry who practically oozed harmlessness. I hoped Cold Blooded would level up until I wasn't so skittish. Thank the system for giving me skills that let me skip out on my growing out of the anxiety phase! That was hard enough the first time around
Thankfully, the older woman was a model of professionalism and just used her remote talking skill without comment.
“Yes, she's waiting. You can go now.”
The Guildmistress looked and felt just as overwhelming as before and I was really glad that she was sitting at the moment.
“G-good morning Guildmistress. Yes, I'm doing pretty well. I mean I think.”
I muttered.
“Good, I'm genuinely glad to hear that.” I saw the terrifying Guildmistress’s weathered face soften into a hint of a smile for a moment before it hardened again.
“Now on to business. I assume Taimim has already informed you about your performance?” I nodded.
“Good, she will join us in just a mome—. I believe she has arrived.” Just as Valdima finished speaking, Tiamim sauntered in. She waved at me before standing right next to Valdima.
“I have already told Tiamim about your… situation without asking but you can trust her.” Alright this was getting stupid now. Try to imagine Valdima in pyjamas —no doesn't work, still scary. Alright imagine myself in pyjamas— no wait, that's dumb. Alright, imagine that I am back in the camp and recently crippled. Be prickly or be walked over. Yes!. I exhaled slowly, trying to work through the knot of emotions before speaking, slowly and deliberately. Cold Blooded levelled up once or twice but I ignored it.
“V-very well Guildmistress, I understand why you did that but I would really appreciate it if next time you at least let me know before telling my secrets. No offense to you Tiamim, of course.” Tiamim did a gesture that I assumed meant something like “no biggie”.
The security screening just turned out to be a more thorough version of the interrogation that Valdima had already put me through. Afterwards, I was shown a few teleporters hidden in the guild headquarters that transported me back to the grey underground complex that Tiamim worked from.
The moment we were in the complex, Tiamim burst out into wheezing laughter.
“Hahahahaha, that was so worth it. I'd get you a raise just for her reaction if I didn't have to explain that to the coinheads.” She slapped my back and I almost fell face first into the ground.
“Err, is standing up to the Guildmistress just that uncommon?”
“Of course not. It's just not something people do after one or four meetings. It's a skill you see, and one she can't turn off without leaving her vulnerable and that is not something she can afford. Cold Blooded, I presume?”
“Yep.”
“Come now, let me introduce you to the rest of the team.”
There was Agitjin, a young mage only slightly older than me. He used barriers made of raw mana and could see the past usage of mana in a place. It was more impressive than it sounded, he could recreate the exact flows of mana to a degree. He apparently had hundreds of spells he had simply copied like that. From what I understood from him, every skill could in theory be recreated with enough experimentation, knowledge, skill less mana control, augmentation or other ‘mundane’ methods. It just became exponentially more complicated. Kind of like just getting a computer to print “hello world” to single handedly making an ai smarter than every human combined, if I had to use an analogy from my old world. Just talking with the guy made my Mana Direction level up.
Then Novas, Novas was just odd. Another ‘promising young talent’, Novas wasn't human but rather the survivor of some now dead madman's attempt to grant a race of slime sapience. He wore a black full body suit of armour with an internal skeleton that his hidden slime form flexed and contracted to make him look like he was moving. He was almost even more introverted than me. He couldn't speak but had absurd senses of smell and innate substance identification because of his species. I mean everyone called him a he but did slimes have gender?
So how was any of it going to work? Simple. I didn't have to come every day but I was given a gem that would heat up if I was needed, and that could happen anytime and I would have to show up when it did. The guild didn't concern itself with every single death but anyone high profile? That meant work for us. The unsaid bit, of course, was that no one cared if a random poor person was murdered.
I would be paid. 200 Aetherites (the mana crystals) per victim. That said, I still didn't know the actual scale of my debt. The hotel staff remained tight lipped about it and it was not Tiamim’s domain.
And then Tiamim asked for any actual stats.
“That's wow, those are terrible. I was going to ask you to take a particular level 40 class at your next mastery but at these numbers, that would kill you. Do you at least have a level 25 class?”
“Uhh no guildmistress, the best I have is a level 20 that I can take after I finish my current class. Should I?”
“No, take another 15 and then the 20. Normally this is a problem and someone would have to poach kills for you but you have one advantage, your pet. So here is what I recommend you do. You sign up as a temporary contractor with the guild as well and take on a few Aetherite slime culling contracts. Damn things literally multiply faster than we can even keep track of them.”
“Err what are Aetherite slimes exactly?”
I probably wouldn’t refuse, considering that Knife might take offense but I was not stupid. I wasn't going to agree to killing something I had no idea existed just seconds prior. So far this world hadn't adhered to the norms I had expected and I had never been the type to jump into danger like that. Even if slimes didn't sound that dangerous but again Novas was a slime and he could kill me easily.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Right, Godtouched. The refinement towers you can see on the other side of the city make and refine Aetherite, that's what makes the smog glow. Aetherite naturally collects and stores mana that we can then use. It's also New Delport’s primary currency. Now Aetherite refining creates byproducts that are toxic to us humans and is too volatile to throw in a bunker or in the water for long. The solution we settled on was an engineered slime that consumes this byproduct to grow and reproduce. We dump our waste into an underground labyrinth and let them convert it into something that doesn't poison the bloody city. With me so far?”
“Yes.”
“The Illustris Council pay us for getting rid of their waste and letting citizens level up in a relatively safe environment. We do that by having temporary contractors, they pay us a signing fee and then we pay them a small stipend for killing slimes. Sometimes we get jobs that are not worth it for us and we send it down to the contractors for a cut of their reward.” Lovely system that, I did not comment on the fact that guild seemed to be charging for a service they were already being paid for.
“I think I got it. Do you want me to start right now or…?” If they were used for fast levelling then the guild must be making a ton of money off the contracts.
“Right now would be lovely, I believe they should be handing out today's contracts soon.”
“Alright. I just have one last question before I go. When do I get that cool black armor?”
Tiamim just laughed.
“I'd like to register as a contractor.” I told the receptionist.
“Sure, your initial fee is already paid so we'll just need to have your mana signature.” Already paid? Just how massive was my debt at this point? I hadn't even received a number from the inn people for rates yet. Nerry didn't know it and managers insisted that it was negotiated with the guild and to ask them. The receptionist placed a small red crystal on the desk. I touched it and a single point of mana was deducted from me. The woman's glasses flashed blue.
“No records of criminality, no association with any factions considered to be threats. Alright. You are almost in. Just read this and confirm that it is fine and we'll register your mana signature.” I was then handed a deceptively small booklet that I went to one of the tables to read.
The guild hall’s doors opened and Rev strode in and waved at me before disappearing into one of the six main doors.
Shaking my head, I went back to reading. It was fairly standard if harsh stuff.
- As a contractor you won't have access to guild gear, housing or training. All equipment will have to be purchased from outside at the freelancer’s own expense.
- The guild will make no formal efforts to protect or rescue you in case a contract goes bad.
- Up to 70% of your earnings from contracts will be taken as contracting fees by the guild. After completing 2000 small Aetherite crystals worth of contracts after deductions, the fee will be reduced to 50%.
I wasn't sure how many crystals one contract paid or how much a thousand crystals was but Valdima at least had a vested interest in keeping me alive and sending me on my way post haste so couldn't be that bad, right? Right?
“Yeah I think this is fine. Also I'd like to start with the Aetherite slime culling contracts.”
The receptionist had given me very specific directions. Third door from the left, take an elevator to the second floor, then the first door on the right. What she hadn't mentioned however was how crowded the room was. It was not like people were fighting over contracts or anything but I was acutely aware of how I looked younger than my actual age and everyone around me seemed generally stronger in some way or another. A girl with a large sword, a child with only a set of thin stilettos strapped to a belt, a bulky guy with a pair of handaxes, a thin and lanky girl without any actual weapons other than metal knuckles directly growing out of her hands and more. I even saw a few with other pets, a crackling bird with two pairs of wings, a green snake that hissed at Medea and something that looked like a dog, if dogs existed partially as shadows and could jump into them.
A map of what I presumed was the labyrinth was projected onto the ceiling. It was subdivided into almost a hundred sectors each with a number on it. Some were colored red, others blue and some yellow. But there was variation within those, some reds were pale pink while others reminded me of Medea’s eyes. Sky blues and navy blues. A single sector was pitch black; sector 0.
A harried looking young man in square glasses was arguing loudly with… wait was that Rev? The pair’s bickering almost devolved into a shouting match before Rev stormed off and the man sat down at a table where a bunch of rectangular plate-like devices awaited. They somewhat resembled the old smartphones and tablets that were popular in my old world during the 10s and 20s. Heh, my old world and my new world. Weird way to think about it. The man flicked his fingers and the machines all lit up.
On cue, as if it had happened tens of times before, everyone spontaneously formed a queue. I hastily slid near the rear end of it. The line moved fast, abnormally fast. The reason for which became soon apparent, the other freelancers each just took one of the devices and one of the red sectors in the map above became yellow. That was simple enough to understand. Red for places where the slimes needed to be culled, blue for places their population was under acceptable amounts and yellow for places undergoing culling.
“I… I don't know what it means.” I sheepishly admitted when I received mine and tapped one red sector on the map on it. It had turned yellow on the larger ceiling map but the numbers that flashed across the tablet meant nothing to me.
The man glared at me while muttering something about lazy freelancers not even doing the bare minimum research. He gestured at a corner and told me to wait until he finished with the rest. He also took my tablet and gave it to the next person in line, a boy with oversized rocky hands that hung by his side like a gorilla’s. It took longer than expected as the line had grown behind me in the meantime. I waited while anxiously checking the map above, there were a lot more yellows than red now. There were only 5 red sectors left when the line was finally cleared and I found myself once more facing the irritable man.
“You obviously know how to pick a sector on the vaultboard so do that and I'll teach you the rest.” He grumbled and I did as instructed. Sector 42.
“Ok so this counter here is mana saturation. Aetherite slimes constantly radiate mana so we use this to keep track of them, your job is to reduce the saturation to 15% or less but DON'T take it all the way down to zero. You will not be paid and will incur a fine if you make that sector unusable until Aetherite slimes from other sectors repopulate it because you wanted to level up.” He rattled off the functionalities of the vaultboard with the cadence of a long memorized lecture.
“That number is for coordinates, and you can tap that to open up a map of your sector. The vaultboard is connected to the mana sensors so you will always know your current location in real time. Finally, if the board makes a buzzing noise and a sector goes orange then that means that the contractor for that sector needs help. You can choose to render aid or ignore the call but helping means that half of that contractor's earnings are given to you. That means if you are the first to make it to their sector and get within a certain proximity of thekir vaultboard, you get the prize. If two or more contractors meet up before retrieving whoever needs help then the payout is divided. You can call for help yourself or when rescuing another contractor by tapping that circle but remember that only the boards are tracked so don't lose it.”
That actually sounded simple enough. I thanked the man and turned to find that everyone else had already left. I was on my own. At least it meant better experience, right?
“How do I enter the labyrinth again?” I flashed what I hoped was a winning smile. The stink eye I received in response implied that it wasn't as winning as I thought.
“The teleportation array for the labyrinth is just next door. You can't miss it. Just input your sector number and go. Now shoo. I have other things to do than babysitting.”
The teleportation array turned out to be a room with four large white squares on the floor. Each square had a device with a keyboard with Dellish numbers on them. Mildly disappointed to see that no one else was still in the room, I typed my sector number in and waited as the square started to hum. I didn't fall or black out or anything like that, Medea and I were in the exact same position in the labyrinth as we were in the guild hall. But one moment, the walls were white and well lit, the next they were grey and looked almost corroded with angry purple splotches.
I was in the labyrinth.