I didn’t have to wait to find out who the Guild Master selected, as she nearly jumped up. She was a tall, muscular woman, and one I hadn’t seen in some time.
She puffed out her cheeks. “You still won’t call me by my name. It’s Ruby! Ru-by!”
There was a time when she had seemed so large and powerful to me. She honestly had intimidated me a lot, and so even though she was always nice, I kept a distance from her. However, that was the old Deek. I wasn’t only more muscular than I used to be, but I actually grew a little too. I heard it was an effect from leveling rapidly. Your body started to change to match your skills and abilities.
After dealing with the Osterians, Ruby didn’t seem so imposing anymore. Rather, after being around so many strong women, Ruby appeared a bit cute. She was still a big woman, although she wasn’t so large as to be Osterian, she was a bit over six feet tall. She had a big chest that made Celeste’s look small, and was even bigger than the Queens. She also tended to wear very little armor, exposing a lot more skin. I wasn’t sure how that tied into her being a skilled Adventurer though.
“Ah, so you’ll be joining me?”
She grinned a big smile. “I’ve been waiting for a time I could take you out. To think you’ve been an Adventurer for around four months, and you still are a grade F. That’s really slow.”
“Ruby!” The Guild Master rolled his eyes. “You know the situation with them wasn’t exactly ideal.”
“He knows I’m just teasing him!” She hit my shoulder hard, but where I remember it hurting once, it only felt like friendliness now. “Anyway, the mission is bandits? I have to tell you, bandits are tough. Monsters are only so smart, but bandits are as smart as you and I. Also, although these quests are leveled, Bandits are unpredictable. It’s very easy for a C quest to jump to A because we had their numbers wrong or a particularly strong person joined their group. Death is common against bandits. That’s why so few Adventurers have been doing anything about them.
“That, and they’re as tough to handle as cockroaches. They can be resurrected by Dark Priests, and they’ll hold grudges. If you capture them, you need to deliver them to a city with the strength to hold them, or the Bandits will raid the city and they end up free again.”
“Yeah, I learned that the hard way.” I said bitterly.
I was hoping to get a quick buck and ended up handing in a bandit leader that had attacked us close to the city of Penbrooke. However, that city was attacked and the man I had just defeated had been freed only a short time later. He later died, but there was nothing keeping him from being resurrected. At the moment, I had no clue if he was still out there, plotting against me.
“I’m just being frank with you here. It’s a very tough job. I’m not a Dungeon Diver, and I know you have the threat of perma-death hovering over you, but battling bandits is a completely different beast. As much as we like to act like we’re immortal, we only have so many lives before death psychosis begins. That’s when your spirit has been worn down by so many deaths you start to suffer unseen trauma. So, battling bandits that have just as many lives and can be just as skilled and powerful as we are can feel like trying to hold back a flood with just your hands. I’ve known Dungeon Divers, who are used to the clear rules and expectations dungeons provide, crack under the pressure of Bandit hunting. It’s not for everyone.”
“Ruby! Haven’t you scared him enough?” The Guild master admonished.
I merely let out a chuckle, “Actually, I think we’ll be fine.”
Ruby gave me a worried look. She clearly wasn’t convinced. It looked like I was just going to have to show her what we could do.