Sarah's Story Chapter 062 - Corto

Corto was a city unlike any Sarah had ever seen before.

First of all, it was all the way at the bottom of the mountains. But it was also a coastal city. Sarah had never seen the ocean before until the crested the last mountain range and started the final descent.

It was endless, all the way out to the horizon. A flat plane of nothing but water, but in the evening sun it sparkled beautifully.

As they descended, the air rapidly grew warmer and drier. The climate here was clearly different than Asufal and Rolland. And looking at Corto, she could tell they rarely got snow. The buildings lacked the steep roofs of her homeland, built to prevent heavy snow accumulation from collapsing buildings under the weight. Many of the buildings lacked roofs at all, instead treating the top of the building like another floor, though open to the air. Crenelations marked the edges, and she could see tables and chairs and laundry lines and even private gardens topping the buildings.

The city had walls, and for the most part the city stayed in those walls, except for a portion down by a river feeding into the nearby sea. There the city spilled out chaotically, warehouses and sheds and shacks filling in the land all the way to the river port, where river barges and oceanic sailing ships met and transferred cargo.

The caravan would not be taking any water route. The River Tebro wound its way through the Kingdom, adding hundreds of miles of travel compared to taking a direct road. Besides which, the river often grew congested with barges at this time of year, adding yet more time to the journey. Not a problem for bulk goods like grains and ores, but for specialty goods like those from the rest of the continent, it was worth it to just take them directly overland.

Instead, the merchants of the caravan would make a few small sales and purchases, restock their provisions, and then continue on to Cordova, the capital of the Kingdom of Iberteria, and do the majority of their trading there.

After entering the city, Sarah looked in wonder at the unfamiliar architecture. The walls of the buildings were flat, like molded clay rather than the mortared stone she was used to, and every building had multiple balconies bounded with wrought iron, often with a planter full of plants, the vines of which draped down, bedecked in spring flowers, adding a pleasant aroma to the city’s salty air.

The people were also different. Unlike the blondes and light browns of Asufal and Rolland, the people here all had black hair, with a few here and there sporting bright red hair. And rather than pale skin, the people generally had tans, and wore less clothing, exposing their skin to the sun’s harsher rays.

Now that they were out of the mountains, the sun was much, much stronger. Sarah wasn’t sure why, since surely they had been closer to the sun when they were higher up…

A question for the Sages, she supposed.

Also unfamiliar was the money they used here. Rather than coppers and silvers and gold coins, which even Rolland had used, here they used dollars and cents, specially minted coins which she had had to purchase with her normal money. One of the merchants in the caravan had directed her to a reputable currency trader, and she swapped out about half of her money. Five gold coins became seventy two dollars and thirty cents.

She figured it didn’t matter: if she needed more Iberterian money, she could easily earn some from the Adventurer’s Guild by resolving a request or two.

After checking in at the Mercado Inn, she went to the local Adventurer’s Guildhall. It was a sprawling, single story building on the northern edge of town, equidistant between the port and warehouse district to the west and the mountain frontier to the east.

“Hey, what’s a—” a man began, before sputtering and cutting himself off short.

Sarah had worn her crest outside her shirt, to save time and avoid the normal posturing from local toughs who couldn’t recognize strength when they saw it.

The receptionist ahead of her, a young man with slicked back black hair and a thin mustache, looked at her with wide eyes. “W-welcome to the Adventurer’s Guild of Corto, señora,” he stammered.

“Señora?” Sarah repeated with a raised eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“It, it is a term of respect, señora,” the receptionist answered, growing pale.

“Oh, okay.” Sarah accepted it. “Which way is the request board?”

“Er, señora, request board?”

“Yeah, where the requests are posted.”

“Ahem, we, ah, do not do that here.”

Sarah stared at him blankly.

“Huh? Then how do adventurers accept requests?”

The receptionist explained, growing calmer when he realized the mysterious A Rank adventurer from beyond the mountains wasn’t going to fly off the handle. In Iberteria, and Corto especially, adventurers informed the guild of their capabilities and job experience, and the guild would assign them work appropriately.

“Failure to complete an assigned task comes with various penalties,” the receptionist concluded his explanation.

Sarah frowned. That seemed far more restrictive than how it had worked back home.

“And what about people making requests? I made a request back in Asufal, has it been assigned to someone here?”

“And what request might that be? I can look it up for you.”

“It’s a missing person request, for a Smith named James. The reward was thirty gold coins before the start of winter, up north, in Asufal.”

The receptionist frowned. “There is a significant delay between quests being posted in other countries, and the quest reaching us here in the Kingdom.”

“The request is over two years old.”

“Hmmm… I will check,” the receptionist said, and he disappeared into a back room.

Sarah waited.

And waited.

And waited more.

Over an hour later, the receptionist emerged. “A Smith named James, you say? There’s no such request here.”

“Huh?!” Sarah cried, and the man flinched.

“Well, then I want to make a request.”

“I’m sorry, but you have to apply to make a request, and the approval process can take some time…”

“I want to put thirty dollars on the request right now.”

The guild hall fell silent. That was over a year’s wages for most Adventurers in Corto.

The receptionist, however, blanched. “Even so, it will still have to go through the approval process. The fee for first time requesters is twenty-five cents, and then once the request is approved you can deposit the reward amount.”

Sarah was growing frustrated. “And how long will that take?”

“Up to two weeks.”

“Two weeks?!”

She took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly.

It wasn’t the terrified man in front of her’s fault.

He was just doing his job.

He didn’t make the rules.

“I’m sorry, but this is very different from what I’m used to.”

The man merely nodded, too scared to attempt a verbal response.

Sarah sighed.

“Fine. I’ll get the request started. Is there any way I can just leave the reward money here, for when it gets approved?”

“I, I would advise against that, señora. If it doesn’t get approved…”

“Well, in that case, I could just get the money back from another branch, right?”

“Th-thirty dollars is…”

“Fine, how about three dollars to start. I can add more to the reward later, right?”

The receptionist gulped. “If it gets approved…”

“Fine, whatever.” Sarah was upset, but she wanted to at least get the process started. “I want to make the request.”

For the next hour, she gave the receptionist details about her brother, and sketched a picture of his face alongside a more detailed written description, as well as directions to send word to Mortimer Barony in Asufal, the Royal Family of Asufal, and to herself in Cordova via the Adventurer’s Guild with any information.

Then there was more paperwork to open an account with the Guild and deposit three dollars, to be applied to the request reward when it was approved.

“And, señora, if we could get some information about your Classes, Skills, and experience, we could begin assigning you work…?”

“I’m leaving Corto next week with a caravan, for Cordova.”

The receptionist frowned. “Ah, hmm, it might be best to wait until then to register, if you’re not going to settle in Corto. A shame, there’s a number of escort requests for the mountains right now…”

Sarah shrugged.

“Well, enjoy your stay in Corto, then. You said you were staying at the Mercado Inn? We’ll send word there if your request is approved.”

“Okay, and I’ll check back in before I leave town.”

“Very good, señora.”

Sarah sighed heavily and left.

What a stupid system.

She stopped outside the Guildhall and took in her surroundings.

The setting sun, warmer than normal.

The salty sea air.

The ground under her bare feet, her boots having been left at the inn.

The sounds of the city; musicians busking, mothers shouting at children with unfamiliar slang, and young men and women laughing and flirting with each other.

She sighed again, and returned to the inn.

She sat down at the attached bar and ordered an ale, but they didn’t have ale. Instead they only had a local lager, with a different taste than what she was used to.

It was still decent, just alien.

She nursed her beer and brooded, until a deep baritone voice called out to her.

“Hey, Sarah, why the long face?”

Zachary pulled up a stool next to her and ordered his own beer.

Sarah sighed. She’d been doing that a lot today. “I went to the Adventurer’s Guild,” she began.

“Oohh, I shoulda warned you, they do things different here.”

“You can say that again.” She took a large gulp of her beer as Zachary’s arrived.

“Cheers,” he offered.

“Cheers.” They clinked the edges of their glasses together and both swallowed a mouthful.

Then it was Zachary’s turn to sigh. “Oh, hmm…”

“What?”

Zachary eyed the bartender and then gave her a look, and Sarah appraised her own beer.

“Ah, gotcha.”

Apparently this was a particularly poor brew, even for Corto.

“They didn’t even have the request I placed years ago,” Sarah said, after a minute of nursing their beers in silence.

“I’m not surprised,” Zachary admitted. “The Guilds are supposed to be united, but Iberteria is almost a world apart. We never register here when we do our caravan work, there’s just no point. That’s why we make the merchants pay the entire round trip up front.”

Sarah had only signed on for the first half of the journey, from Brightriver in Asufal to Cordova in Iberteria.

“Ugh, so I’m gonna have to register for a caravan the way back?” she pouted.

“Nah,” Zachary replied, “when we get to Cordova, I’ll introduce you to the Merchant’s Guild there. They coordinate a lot of the caravans. Whenever you want to head out, you go there and say my name, and they’ll hook you up with a caravan heading where you want to go. The pay won’t be up to A Rank standards, but at least you won’t have to travel solo. Not that I can imagine you having trouble with that.”

“Hey, I may be a Scout, but I can still get lost, okay?”

“Aye, true that,” replied the Guide.

“Thanks, Zachary,” Sarah said softly.

“Oh, thankful, are ya? You can buy me dinner then.”

Sarah looked up and grinned. “Sure.”

The food in Corto, at least, was amazing. Sarah had never had such good seafood, even in Rolland were they took cuisine very seriously. There was a rice dish here, called paella de marisco, that made full use of the bounty of the sea.

There were also some unique, stronger cocktails, though Sarah only sampled them. As much as she could appreciate the unique flavors, she didn’t want to overindulge in unfamiliar territory. Zachary, on the other hand, accompanied by his A Rank companion, went all out, and Sarah dragged him back to the inn late that night.

“Thanksh, Shara,” he slurred. “Now we’re even.”

Sarah snorted. “Uh huh, sure,” she said with good humor. The man had been Guiding their caravan through wilderness for nearly two months, he deserved to blow off some steam. Besides which, he’d listened patiently to her badmouthing the local Guild system, letting her vent.

That evening, Sarah found herself staring at the ceiling. Much as she had for almost a year after her Choosing day, before she took the Finder Class.

The weight on her mind was different, but once again, there was a weight on her mind.

What could she do now?

She had been counting on the Adventurer’s Guild, and in hindsight, she had been counting on the Guild too much.

If only her mother, or Aunt Nadine were here with her…

They knew how to gather information, even without a Class, even without the Guild…

Sarah sat up suddenly.

Wait a minute. Why couldn’t she do the same?

Her Aunt had found plenty of work on the border between legal and criminal, as a bodyguard, with only her Brawler Class.

Her mother, a Homemaker, had put her [Gossip] and [Eavesdropping] Skills to excellent use in the capital, and had networked her way from the capital’s commoners, to the middle class, all the way up to the upper middle rungs of the nobility.

She could do that!

Sarah flopped back into bed, satisfied that she had a plan for the next week, and slept straight through until morning.

After months of roughing it, the bed felt like heaven.