While Garrick and Dustin went inside to check out available missions—
Franklin was thinking deeply about what he overheard Garrick saying to Dustin.
His heightened hearing with mana made it easy to hear something so far away.
'He's right. Although training is very important and especially useful for someone talented like Jayson, it's still just as important to gain real experience.'
He glanced at Jayson, who was collapsed on the ground from exhaustion.
"Jayson. Tomorrow you'll take your first mission. I'll pick an appropriate F-Rank one for you after today's training."
"Uh. Wait what?"
"I mean. How come sir? You said it would be in a few days."
Jayson was clearly nervous.
"Your party activities start in about a week. Just one mission before that won't be enough to be useful to Osric. And there's only so much that training with me can do for you."
"Facing actual monsters will be a lot more helpful to your growth, as long as you put your train correctly into practice. You already learned the very basics and your body already wasn't half bad. It's more than enough for F-Rank missions."
Jayson gulped.
"Will I go alone?"
"Of course. Most F-Rank missions don't require more than one adventurer. A lot don't even involve actual fighting. That won't be the case for you though."
"Oh okay sir."
He clenched his fists. 'Why am I scared? I need to be able to do at least that much to be useful to Osric.'
His expression changed to something more determined.
'Good. He has the right mindset. But whether he can overcome his fears in a real battle remains to be determined. He has never faced an actual monster after all. It's not the same as brawling with some lowlifes.'
—
Currently inside the guildhall, Garrick was staring at the mission board.
"Hmm."
He scratched his chin.
"Which F-Rank mission should we take? They look a lot easier than expected. The ones that actually involve monster killing, only mention a single F-Rank monster."
"Of course mister. The difficulty needs to be appropriate. It does however rise a lot with each rank." Dustin said.
"I see. I didn't pay much attention to adventurer work despite being a mercenary also involves facing monster every now and then. When protecting caravans for example."
"Explain it to me."
Dustin looked happy to be useful.
"You got it!"
"Alright. F-Rank missions usually involves scouting and investigating anything monster related. With some monster eliminations that only involve a single F-Rank monster. Oh, and going into the monster forest to gather herbs and other materials for merchants and such who put in the requests to the guild."
"I see. So it probably just needs a single F-Rank adventurer, right?"
"Correct. Sometimes they go as a pair, when it involves hunting a monster. Most F-Ranks are just ordinary people trying to make a living and they aren't confident against any monster."
"Alright. What about E-Rank missions? I heard Osric takes those and that there aren't many higher ranked ones."
"Yes. This is where it gets more complicated. Because first, the difficulty rises tremendously. And not all E-Rank missions are actually the same in danger level. It's already hard to accurately estimate a monster nest or pack's overall strength, but it's especially difficult in Ashbrook."
"How come?" Garrick asked.
"Because there are some cases where an E-Rank mission here, would be qualified a D-Rank mission somewhere else. Only higher difficulty D-Rank missions are actually classified as D-Rank here, because the Barony doesn't want to spend more money on mission rewards and they don't care if adventurers die."
Dustin looked angered, which didn't fit his innocent looking face.
"I get it now. That definitely fits House Greydell and it also makes sense when I read the different E-Rank missions."
He pointed at one mission parchment. "This one for example is probably a low difficulty one, since it involves only eliminating three Feral Dogs."
"Yes."
"And this one is probably an average one that most small parties take. A Forest Creeper nest eradication. But the reward money is ridiculously low."
"But the real issue are these clearly more difficult ones. A small group of Lizardmen, a big Wolf pack, a Bonespear Ape pack? These are all E-Rank monsters and they are in groups that should bring the mission to a D-Rank."
"That's correct, mister."
"No wonder this place is so gloomy most of the time. You have to risk your life to fight something out of your league, only to get a low reward."
"That's true. It's also why only capable parties make actual money. And it's only because they have the manpower to carry and sell the monster corpses."
"What a shitty situation."
'How did Osric manage to accomplish so much by himself under such circumstances?' Garrick thought.
He then glanced at the few D-Rank missions at the top of the board. Most had clearly been there for a while.
"I heard there are only two actual D-Rank parties in the guild. Do they take the D-Rank missions?"
"Well yes, some of them. But they mostly take the difficult E-Rank missions. It's also been slower since George's party lost two members and another one retired. They only have three members now, but at least they're all D-Rank."
"Another thing is that Elliot's party were killed by Osric. Elliot was the only D-Rank among them but he was strong. Them disappeared also slowed things down, but no one is complaining since they caused a lot of trouble for other adventurers."
Garrick massaged his neck and exasperated.
"I guess the guild is really lacking in manpower."
Dustin looked a little discouraged but didn't stop.
"Yeah we are. But there are other D-Ranks. There are two other party leaders, and a few solo adventurers who are also D-Rank. And then there is the top party of the guild, who even George couldn't compete against when they had all members."
"Tell me about that top party. I heard before that they have a knight."
"Yes. Their party leader is Beorn and he's a 1-Star Knight. The only Knight besides Franklin in the guild, who's a 2-Star Knight. Beorn has a crew of five subordinates, excluding him. They are all D-Rank adventurers and two of them are apprentice knights."
Garrick looked positively intrigued for the first time.
"They sound impressive. Guess it'll be a while before Osric can become the top dog around here. But he'll definitely succeed with me by his side. Hahahaha!"
Dustin looked slightly embarrassed to be seen with the loud Garrick who didn't care about his surroundings.
"Yes, haha."
Garrick turned around and ripped a mission parchment off the board.
"Let's do this kid."