The Hunter Guild was empty. Right now was the least busy time since it was already afternoon.
Neither was it a mysterious building that fused a reception with a bar, nor was there an event where she got harassed by drunks.
The girl headed to one of the free counters, choosing arbitrarily.
「Excuse me, I would like to register as a Hunter…」
「Ah, yes!」
A 17~18 year old woman, who looked like she hadn’t done this job very long yet, hurriedly faced Adel.
「Um, can you write?」
「Yes, that is no problem.」
「Then, could I ask you to fill out this form?」
The girl was handed a sheet from the clerk and headed towards a desk a little removed from the counter with it. She put down the sheet and picked up the provided pen before staring at the first item on the form, which of course was her name.
(My name….)
The girl was deep in thought.
(“Adel” gets sealed, no choice there. I probably won’t get to use it anyway besides when I meet some of my old classmates…. And I left “Misato” back in the previous world so I have to think up a new name)
But then she remembered a conversation she had had with her father when she had been a child.
If she remembered it correctly, it was when they got the assignment in elementary school to “ask your parents where your name comes from.”.
And her father’s response to that question was something like this.
『Misato, you know that your father works with planes, right? In this business we use a unit called mile to measure distances.
There are land miles, and nautical miles. There are several different types of land miles like the international mile, the survey mile, the statute mile, and many others.
But for the skies and oceans, and in turn all ships and planes, there is only the nautical mile. Since it would be a problem if different countries used different units for the seas and sky that is shared between everyone.
While the land miles are defined by several different things, there is only one way to define the nautical mile. 360° when you go around the earth from south to north. One such degree is 60 miles, so a sixtieth of a degree is one mile.
The Kanji of your name Misato can also be read as Kairi, the japanese name for the nautical mile.
Something that will always be understood no matter where you go in the world. That’s the kind of girl I wanted you to be when I gave you this name…』
The girl’s hands moved the pen vigorously to write down her name.
『Mile』
This was the birth of the Novice Hunter, Mile.
Mile then continued filling out the form one by one.
Gender: female. Age: 12. Profession: mage. Specialities: none. Wants to form a Party: no. Previous Hunter experience: none. Further notices: none.
When she returned to the counter, the clerk didn’t have any problem with the form and accepted it.
「Ah, Mile-san. Are you from around here?」
「No, I come from a far away mountain range. When my parents died there was no other job I could think of…」
「I-I’m sorry I touched on an unpleasant topic…
But now I’ll explain a bit about the Guild!」
The explanation that Laura the clerk gave her largely matched with what the boys in her class had told her.
There are eight Hunter Ranks ranging from G to S.
G-Rank is for the 6 to 9 year olds who are “Quasi-Guild-Members” and aren’t allowed to do anything but odd jobs around town or herb gathering with an escort.
From age 10 onwards you could be a real F-Rank Guild Member, but the available quest are only things like plant or mineral gathering. You can’t take on extermination quests for bigger monsters than Horn Rabbits and boar and deer are the limit when it comes to hunting wild animals.
On E-Rank you could fight against monsters up to Goblins or Orcs. From D-Rank onwards there were no restrictions.
But a D-Rank Hunter was still considered half-baked and while they could take on escort missions, the commissioner would usually request a C-Rank or higher.
C-Rank is what you would usually call a “proper” Hunter and it is the Rank with the most members. But since their actual strength could range from “barely above D-Rank” all the way up to “almost B-Rank”, this Hunter Rank is kind of vague.
B-Rank Hunters are first class and can command a sizable amount of respect in a rural town. A-Rank Hunters are celebrities known throughout the country whereas S-Rank Hunters are already in the realm of Heroes.
In return, there are only a handful of S-Rank Hunters even in the capital.
Promotions are awarded by the Guild conference according to the number of successfully completed tasks or other contributions to the Guild. But unless there are special circumstances, there is a minimal age for certain Ranks.
Any manipulation in regards to promotions is absolutely unforgivable. If they are found to be guilty, even if they are a branch chief, they will get banned from the Guild for good or, in the worst case, even get executed. This is to ensure that there is no way to easily buy your Rank.
As long as it’s just small fights between Guild members, it’s their problem. If it turns into a crime though, they will get punished by both the city guards as well as the Guild. They might be part of the Guild, but they are also still citizens and will get punished accordingly for their crimes.
While the clerk was explaining these things, a Hunter plate had been made according to her form. It was a small iron plate with a chain to wear it like a necklace. The letter F(its equivalent of the local writing system) as well as Mile’s name, this branch’s name, and her identification number were etched into it.
Obviously, it didn’t come with mysterious functions like automatically recording the number of slain monsters or informing the Hunter of emergency quests. It was necessary to always collect the designated part of a slain monster and carry it back to the Guild to update the plate. If you want to change your base of operations, your branch office needs to send your record as well as a letter of introduction to your destination.
Since they highly value their integrity, there was no fear that the content of that letter or its destination would be traceable if a Hunter wants to vanish.
「If you happen to find the remains of a Hunter somewhere please collect their plate. Their families or friends will then be notified and receive their Hunter plate after all records have been erased. There will be a small reward for retrieving these form the Guild. Sometimes from the families too.
Furthermore, all other belongings of a fallen Hunter belong to the one who finds them, including their armor and weapons.」
The clerk told Mile this as she handed over her plate.
After she had finished all of her explanations, the clerk straightened her posture and addressed Adel once more.
「Welcome to the Hunter Guild!」
That night, Mile made plans for the coming day while laying on her bed.
The most request for F-Rank Hunters were continuous commissions rather than specific quests.
Continuous commissions were quests that didn’t need to be reissued every time and simply left open. Hunters could then just skip the formalities and only needed to harvest or hunt the requested target and the Guild would buy it off of them. An example for this would be gathering herbs or Horn Rabbit meat.
This kind of quest was convenient since it let you avoid the busy mornings in the Guild.
Also, it was a loophole Mile could use to hunt higher ranked monsters than Horn Rabbits and turn them into money despite being only F-Rank.
One such loophole was forming a party, but this option was obviously discarded.
The one she aimed for this time were continuous commissions for higher ranked monsters.
The restriction placed on lower Rank Hunters was to keep them from getting killed meaninglessly and to ensure a low failure rate. But since there was no success rate for the continuous commissions and it sometimes happened that one was attacked by a stronger monster during hunting. And the value of the prey wouldn’t sink just because she was an F-Rank.
They don’t really recommend it, but if you did it in full knowledge of the dangers, the Guild respects that and won’t make a fuss about it.
Only, Mile had no intention to go out of her way to hunt higher ranked monsters. She was an absolutely normal, average F-Rank Hunter.
There were several reasons why Mile had decided on becoming a Hunter. It’s a profession that doesn’t care about your background or age. With a Hunter plate you could easily cross domain or even country borders. If anything bad happened she could simple migrate to the next country.
And even if her name should become known in the surrounding countries, she could just take on a new name and start over as a F-Rank Hunter again in a far away country. If her opponents were only monsters and animals, it wouldn’t be too tragic if she made a mistake in controlling her power.
If she went solo, there would be no need to restrict her magic or sword skills. She wouldn’t bother anybody if she suddenly vanished.
And finally, once a week might have been fine, but tending to a shop all week would be boring, and she wanted to make a little bit of money in preparation for her future married life.
When she thought about the future, she couldn’t think of any other profession for her to take up.
And most of all, Hunter was a job all those took who had problems finding work and didn’t have any special abilities. In other words, a very normal, average occupation.
