Chapter 1 The Door

Just as Hao Ren managed to squeeze forward another step, the Mercenary Guild's door was rudely pushed open from the inside, and a short figure was thrown out.

Judging by the build of the unlucky person who was tossed out, it was clearly a woman. She wore a faded, old mage robe. Judging by the style of the robe, it looked like something a scholarly mage who spent all day doing research in a magic tower would wear. However, it wasn't as new and gorgeous as the robes of wealthy mages. When she was thrown out, her hood accidentally slipped off, and Hao Ren felt a flash before his eyes. He saw a dazzling mane of golden hair flying wildly—as she fell.

This down-and-out, golden-haired mage scrambled up from the ground somewhat disheveled, and then launched into a series of loud curses directed at the door. Although she had a very pleasant voice, the sheer volume of vocabulary the little lady used when cursing left Hao Ren dumbfounded. It was like a gritty dust storm mixed with a Category 12 hurricane spraying outwards. Not to mention Hao Ren and his companions, even the surrounding mercenary onlookers couldn't help but step back slightly. Some people were murmuring, "Her cursing skills have improved again..." "Probably blew up her lab again, so she's using the excess energy to research cursing."

"Who's talking about the great Archmage Leah behind my back?!" The small mage's ears were surprisingly sharp. Even while cursing, she still had the energy to listen to who was badmouthing her, and immediately turned her head to glare fiercely. "None of your business! Go cool off somewhere else! Or are you planning to accept my commission?"

The mercenaries were mostly a bunch of crude and barbaric guys, but when this little mage threw a tantrum, no one actually answered back. The expressions on their faces clearly showed that they regarded her as a huge and thorny problem, someone to watch the fun with, but definitely not to touch casually.

"Save your breath, no one's going to accept your mission," the black-skinned strongman who had been standing at the entrance of the Mercenary Guild finally spoke. He was the one who had thrown the short mage out earlier. "Testing ancient artifacts you dug up from ruins, trying out the magic potions you concocted, following you into the Great Pit Road to dig up ancient tombs. What is it this time? Going to Howling Bay to find the ancient city of the Sea Giants?"

The short mage was choked for a moment and couldn't refute. One of the older spellcasters among the surrounding mercenaries couldn't help but speak up at this point. "That's enough, Miss Leah—how about reining in those unrealistic studies and doing some proper magic homework? You can't save the world, and you can't destroy it, but at least you can take care of the magic tower your mentor left behind. You know, for us wild mages, that's a very enviable piece of property."

Although this older spellcaster was a mercenary, he seemed quite familiar with the little lady named Leah. The latter had no choice but to reluctantly restrain her ferocious aura and mutter somewhat unwillingly, "What I research is none of your business—and it's not like I don't pay. Besides, even though a few groups of mercenaries encountered some danger, didn't they all escape unscathed in the end?"

"But the risks you encounter are dozens of times higher than other clients with the same reward!" The Mercenary Guild's strongman shook his head. "In short, we won't accept your commissions anymore—unless you can declare in advance that you'll give up your dangerous projects, or increase the price tenfold. Of course, you can also look around outside to see if anyone is willing to take on your private jobs, maybe you can find one or two newbies who just arrived to cooperate with you."

This was a very clear attitude. Leah gave up arguing with the gatekeeper and turned to look around.

All the mercenaries stepped back a layer in unison.

"Tch," the female mage squeezed a disdainful word from between her teeth, straightened her robe, picked up the iron staff that looked cheap, and without putting her hood back on, strode towards the street with a heroic and proud aura. "Make way, make way, the show's over, everyone disperse—if you're still blocking the way, I'll assume you're planning to accept my commission!"

The mercenaries scattered as if they had seen a ghost: they weren't necessarily worried about the female mage's combat power or status (if she had any), but wanted to avoid being dragged into trouble. After all, the name "Leah" was even more well-known in White Maple Leaf City than the local lord, and this fame was entirely built up from various bizarre accidents and countless miserably unlucky people. By now, this small female mage had become synonymous with trouble, and except for when watching the show, absolutely no one wanted to stand within five meters of her.

Leah left the Mercenary Guild with the air of a victor, even after being thrown out. She walked down the main street with her head held high, and entered a small alley leading to the Mage District.

Only when she got here did she lower her head, and the combative rooster-like aura disappeared. She sighed almost imperceptibly, "Sigh, a bunch of fools."

"Avoiding harm is a biological instinct, especially considering your 'illustrious reputation'."

A voice suddenly came from behind, startling the little mage who had just breathed a sigh of relief. With an agility that was completely inappropriate for a mage, she quickly turned around, stepped sideways, and bent her waist. While moving away from her original position, she had already held the iron staff horizontally in front of her with her right hand in a blocking stance, and sparks of magical power began to jump between the fingers of her left hand. "Who is it! You... you were standing in front of the Mercenary Guild earlier?"

The group walking in from the alley entrance was none other than Hao Ren and his party.

Even in the multi-ethnic White Maple Leaf City, the presence of this team was quite significant: even excluding Lily's boisterous nature and Izhaks' appearance which attracted a lot of attention, this small group of nine had four or five different races, and a team with such a wide variety of equipment was also very rare. Perhaps that was why Leah had remembered these people: although these people were just standing in front of the Mercenary Guild at the time, she had only glanced at them.

"You actually remember us," Nangong Wuyue said in surprise, "Impressive memory."

"You can't be a scholar with a bad memory." Leah didn't relax her vigilance at all. Although she had an arrogant personality, that didn't mean she was careless. Thinking carefully, she had just thrown a tantrum in front of the Mercenary Guild, and this group of mercenaries who had never been seen in the city suddenly followed and blocked her in the alley… No matter how you looked at it, this was not a good situation.

While casually perfunctory to stall for time, she paid attention to observing the group in front of her, trying to confirm their purpose and personality: to be honest, this group didn't look like fierce and evil people, at least in the mercenary circle where the overall temperament was not good, they were considered a kind and benevolent bunch—of course, this had to exclude the big guy who looked like a mixed-blood giant, whose face simply increased the ferocity value of the entire team. Probably even a group of living saints standing with him would look like a criminal gang.

Hao Ren and the others of course knew that their appearance in this way would inevitably cause the target's vigilance and resistance, but in order to avoid attracting the attention of more irrelevant passers-by, he had to follow the female mage to a deserted place before showing up. The primary task now was obviously to dispel the misunderstanding and tension between the two sides.

So he turned to look at Nangong Sanba: This kind of negotiation should obviously be handed over to the face value担当 (one in charge of appearance), it was time to use his face.

"Don't be nervous, we don't have any malice," Nangong Sanba was indeed quite tacit, and immediately put on the most friendly and reliable smile—the kind of smile commonly seen on people selling fake medicine and promoting physiotherapy equipment—he spread his hands to show that he had no weapons, and slowly said, "As you can see, we are a group of travelers who have just arrived in this city, unfamiliar with the place. We originally planned to go to the Mercenary Guild to take a look, but we happened to witness you…your eloquent battle with the crowd, so we became a little interested."

"Interested?" Leah asked warily, the first half of the other party's statement matched their clothing, but whether the last sentence was true remained to be seen. "Interested in what?"

"About your commission," Hao Ren interjected, "To be frank, we need money, we need to find an employer, so we're curious what your commission is."

This was of course an excuse—the real situation was that he needed to find a local to break through, so as to understand the situation of this world, but in a completely unfamiliar alien world, it was not easy to find a local and establish relatively stable information exchange.

Going to places like the Mercenary Guild or taverns was indeed a good choice, but the former obviously required a complete set of identity verification and registration procedures, while the latter required local currency and good eloquence that could still talk to people for an afternoon even if you didn't know anything. Currency was easy to solve, but eloquence was not necessarily, there were indeed many people in the team who were good at nonsense, but eliciting information and nonsense were obviously not in the same talent tree…

In this case, Leah who suddenly jumped out became an excellent breakthrough: she seemed to have a task that needed help, and it seemed impossible for her to find help through formal channels…

Leah suspiciously sized up Hao Ren and Nangong Sanba: "My commission? I don't know how much you saw today, but as long as you're not blind, you should be able to see that almost no one…okay, no one is interested in my commission at all, and you actually took the initiative to follow me? Are you out of your minds?"

"It's troublesome to accept commissions through formal channels." Nangong Sanba took out the further explanation he had thought of long ago, and spoke vaguely, so that even if there were deviations, Leah could fill in the gaps herself.

"Formal channels…" Leah took a small step back. "Wait, could it be that you…committed a major crime and had your qualifications revoked? Or are you adventurers who haven't registered as mercenaries at all?"

"Cough cough, we are obviously not bad people," Nangong Sanba coughed twice, "We just haven't registered yet. We came from remote small places, and we didn't think about being mercenaries at all. It's just that there was a situation on the road, and after arriving here, we really didn't have any money, so we had to try our luck at the Mercenary Guild."

"Not bad people…" Leah muttered dubiously, and couldn't help but start glancing at Izhaks.

Vivian sighed and looked at Izhaks: "Big guy, why don't you wear a helmet next time you come out?"

Izhaks: "...Is it my fault?"

"Who cares, even if they're unregistered, it doesn't matter!" At this time, Leah suddenly waved her hand with great spirit. "Anyway, I guess I won't be able to recruit anyone other than you. That's it, come with me!"