Nobina and Her Strange Journey Through Another World

The Navira Adventuring Guild’s financials were far more complex than that of the Agora Adventuring Guild. For starters, they had more than twenty times the number of active adventurers in comparison to Agora. That alone meant all the numbers were significantly higher.

“One… hundred thousand gold…”

Nobina’s eye reflected her shock at how much gold the town held in reserve. It was about a hundred times the reserve that their own guild normally held. It made sense though, since looking at the expenses was equally shocking.

The guild spent an insane amount on its programs, quests payments, and apparently fees from all sorts of places. These included fees from the estate, town, guild organization, and royal family. Nobina was surprised they paid some of these fees though, since she had initially assumed that they would be receiving funding from these sources rather than having to pay them.

“Why would…”

“Nobina,” called Carina.

Hearing her voice, Nobina raised her head from the Navira ledger and turned to Carina, who was looking at her with a rather impatient look.

“Can you hand me the financial records for all guild spending on programs related to the swordsmanship program? I need to show Mustan how wrong he is about the trends.”

Nobina, remembering that she was lower in the hierarchy than Carina, both in terms of social and guild status, merely nodded.

“Alright. Give me a minute to look,” she said.

Carina merely nodded, going back to her own desk where she was reading through papers.

Both Carina and Mustan had concluded their argument about ten minutes earlier. Mustan left, telling Nobina he was going to meet with Aunai regarding the swordsmanship program. That seemed to put Carina in a bad mood, but she didn’t say anything to stop him. As soon as he was gone, she went to her own desk and told Nobina to get acquainted with the guild financials.

Nobina got up from her own desk and headed to the book section of the room. The size was similar to the whole library of their own guild. However, the only thing in that room were either financial documents, documents related to finances, or books on the topic of finances. It reflected the long history of the guild and was likely one of the reasons the room had its own guard. These documents likely contained information that was very important.

Reaching the bookcases, she began looking for the section that covered expenses. Eventually, she found books regarding the programs and the financials that Carina was looking for.

“Got it,” said Nobina, grabbing the three books related to the topic.

She headed to Carina and handed over the books, with her merely nodding.

“Thanks. Now keep getting acquainted with those financials. It’ll be nice being able to hand off some of the tedious work we have,” she laughed.

“Uh… right. You know I’m just here temporarily, so…”

Carina instantly frowned upon Nobina mentioning her temporary status there.

“Tch… yeah. I wish you were here permanently. Getting non-stupid help would have benefited me so much. Well, at least I hope it does. I do expect you to not make any mistakes I’ll have to clean up.”

Nobina nodded her head.

“I can assure you that I’m very careful when handling financial information. After all…”

“Just… head back to your desk already,” said Carina. “I need to look at these books before Mustan gets back with likely annoying news.”

Seeing Carina turn to the books Nobina brought and ignore her, Nobina merely shrugged and headed back to her table.

For the next few hours, Nobina was completely locked down reading about the financials of the Navira guild and assisting Carina in her work. Even after a few hours of work, Nobina could already tell it was going to take awhile to fully understand the income and expenses of the Navira guild. However, she knew at least that it was still behind the Agora guild in terms of modernization. The guild used a more advanced version of the system Agora used prior to Nobina going there. It was a system where the guild tracked the treasury amount of the guild on a daily basis. However, it also tracked the total amount they spent on payments to all sources.

It was a good start, since it basically would help Nobina fully understand the extent of what Navira spent money on. The only thing they were missing was tracking the individual items of income and expenses. Of course, such an undertaking on a guild of this scale might not have been feasible. It required a new system of recording income and expenses that the guild wasn’t currently using.

“This is going to be…”

Nobina found herself cut off when she heard Carina call again.

“Nobina. Can you come over here.”

“Coming,” said Nobina, standing up and headed to Carina again.

When Nobina got there, she saw that Carina was holding a book in her hand.

“Can you go to each supervisor and have them fill out their justification for their individual spending for the month? We generally do this so we can determine whether to tone back in allocation or expand it if necessary. I’m still working on the swordsmanship program research so I can’t do it myself,” she told Nobina.

“Of course. Do you know where I can get information on where all the supervisors are?” asked Nobina.

“Downstairs. Go to Darune, who’s supervising the receptionist today,” said Carina, a slowly annoyed look forming on her face. “Now stop wasting time and go.”

Nobina really wanted to say something about Carina’s unnecessary complaints, but she merely smiled and nodded.

“I’ll go ahead and get those responses.”

She headed downstairs towards the receptionist desks. Arriving at the main lobby, Nobina was in awe once again at how many adventurers were there. There had to be hundreds of people either talking with each other, receptionist, reviewing the quest board, or just coming and going. It felt a bit overwhelming, since it was far busier than Agora had been excluding the goblin incident. That incident managed to bring a lot of retired adventurers into the guild, making it very hectic.

Not wanting to get distracted, Nobina immediately turned to the back of the receptionist desks to find someone who appeared to look like a supervisor. It didn’t take long before she saw a rather serious looking man behind another guild receptionist. Heading to him, she could overhear what they were saying due to how loud he was.

“You have to remember we aren’t a charity Ms. Sigan,” he spoke in a disappointed voice. “You cannot accept a partially completed quest. If it’s not completed within the establish conditions, then you tell them.”

“Sorry sir,” said the guild receptionist, giving a sad look.

At that point, the likely supervisor notice Nobina and gave a smile.

“Ah. Nobina. Can I help you?” he asked. “Oh right, my name’s Darune. I’m the one of the receptionist supervisors.”

Nobina tried to recall if they had met before but was drawing a blank. It was likely he was at the party or was informed of her prior though, which would explain why she knew her.

“Oh… yeah. Carina asked me to get the justification for spending from all supervisors. Can you point me in the right direction?” asked Nobina

The mention of Carina immediately seemed to cause him to freeze. Nobina gave a curious look in response, as they didn’t say anything for a good minute.

“Oh, right,” said Darune, remembering he was talking with Nobina. “Follow me.”

Nobina followed Darune to the back section of the guild. Once she was there, she found another set of bookcases full of information.

“Wow… this place has so many books,” said Nobina, impressed by the second room she saw full of books.

“We are a guild that prides itself on being effective,” nodded Darune. “There’s probably five rooms with this much information. You’ve seen the financial one, correct?”

Nobina gave a nod, causing Darune to laugh.

“I’ve seen four out of five and I’ve been working here for twenty years. I’d love to finally get into that room one day, but Carina gave me so much trouble for asking her about it awhile back. Man… those nobles are something.”

The way Darune mention nobles made Nobina realize he might have some opinions on the nobility. However, Darune merely moved back to the topic at hand to avoid saying more about his opinions.

“We have a book here that will tell you where all the supervisors are. However, I believe you will want to speak to the managers as well. Unfortunately, all of the managers and non-essential supervisors are meeting with Aunai for an emergency meeting right now. So you might be out of luck until tomorrow.”

“Are meetings really that long?” asked Nobina, surprised by what he said.

“Well… I don’t know much, but I hear its related to the burning of a village,” said Darune, concern washing over his face. He quickly brushed it aside as he continued to talk to Nobina.

“Anyway, it’s not my room to speculate, so tell Carina that. Actually, they will likely all be in one place so you can talk to them after the meeting.”

“Great! Where are they meeting?” asked Nobina, a bit of excitement entering her voice.

“I believe they are in meeting room one. It’s upstairs next to Aunai’s office. Here’s how to get there.”

Darune showed her a map of the room location, which was the second floor of the guild. It was right next to Aunai’s office as he said.

“Thanks. I’ll be heading out.”

With that, Nobina left and headed back upstairs to the financial room. She was let in without any hassle. Once inside, she saw that Carina was deeply engrossed in the book she was reading regarding the swordsmanship program. Her eyes turned to Nobina, showing surprise at her being there.

“Wow… either you’re very efficient at your job or you have some annoying news for me,” she said in a both polite and annoyed voice.

“Uh… the latter… there’s an emergency meeting,” smiled Nobina.

“Tch… Forgot about that. Well, nothing to do about that. Get back to what you were doing. Once lunch concludes, I want you to join me, got it?” she said, her voice now easily showing how annoyed she was.

“Oh… ok,” she responded.

Nobina turned to her desk, but Carina’s next words caused her to give pause.

“Nobina… Is that disappointment I hear?” said Carina, her voice turning a bit harsh.

“Huh? Oh I’m so sorry,” said Nobina, realizing she must have sounded disappointed with her response. “I’m not disappointed, but…”

“Tch… you commoners really do have distain for us nobility. Whatever. I still want you to join me for lunch. Aunai has told me that I need to ‘get along’ with you for the sake of the guild, so I’ll hold back my pride for her sake. I’m sure there has to be more than meets the eye with you.”

Nobina didn’t know how to feel about Carina’s attitude. This situation felt similar to how things were with Mimiki, only now she was dealing with nobility rather than some employee who was more senior than her. It felt odd, since she was a guest there rather than an employee under her. However, Nobina knew that she was a guild officer and that there was still a hierarchy, even if she wasn’t at her home guild.

She contemplated pushing back but knew that would merely make her situation a nightmare. All she could do was merely smile a nod.

“Ok. I’m still sorry showing my disappointment earlier,” responded Nobina.

“Tch… Whatever. Better knowing the truth than seeing someone lie about how they feel about me.”

Nobina merely returned to her desk. She knew the situation could get so much worse if she pointed out Carina’s attitude, so she decided to wait for later. Nobina was hoping a more casual setting would let her communicate better with Carina. She didn’t want their working relationship to continue to get strained due to something as stupid as the relationship of commoner and nobility.

…

Aunai was looking at all the guild managers and supervisors that were invited to the meeting. All of them were either essential to resolving the situation or did not have an essential task to perform. All of them were merely looking at her in silence, not saying a word as she talked about the topic of the meeting.

“I’ve went over the report and wanted everyone to be up to speed. There has been a dragon attack. The Village of Saphirin has been completely burned to the ground and a massive forest fire was sparked. An emergency quest has gone out to all water mages to assist with putting out the fire. They was also a request to have S-rank escorts due to the risk of a dragon appearance.”

There was a lot of chatting immediately after Aunai finished talking.

“This is crazy,” said one of the managers. “A dragon appearing now suggest that they might be seeking to expand their territory. After all, the estate is directly south of their mountain range. If I’m correct, then Saphirin being burned means they might be seeking territory outside of those mountains.”

“Bah. The fact that we have to handle this and the capital guild refuses to lift a finger to help is pathetic,” said another manager, which was a rather large looking man.

“Calm yourself Inta,” said a female manager. “It’s not just them. The other large adventuring guilds would rather not waste their own funds and power to assist what they think is competition.”

“Speaking of that, I hear that the National Guild Association is raising our fees again.”

The talk in the room started to devolve into complaints about things from the other adventuring guilds, the capital, to even the nobility of the estate. Aunai, seeing this, merely snapped her fingers. The moment she did, the room went dead silent.

“As much as I’d love for this to be a talk about how much everything sucks, I must remind you that those topics are scheduled for later. For now, I need people’s thoughts about why the dragons are becoming more active. First there was the encounter I had and now the burning of a village from a potentially different dragon.”

The managers and supervisors began discussing with each other, thinking about reasons for the dragon appearing. Eventually, Mustan spoke up, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Uh… It’s possible that they aren’t related. The previous report of Aunai indicates that the dragon warned them not to mess with him or his belongings. I doubt it would then go ahead and attack the village. It’s likely another dragon that did this act.”

“Speaking of the first dragon,” said one of female managers. “You mention that it merely stopped you because it felt threaten by something following Nobina?”

The room soon went silent as they all turned to Aunai.

She gave a sigh, realizing she was going to need to address Nobina sooner than she wanted.

“Yes… Nobina has a divine entity watching over her. I’ve had my suspicions, but I believe Nobina was brought to our world and is being watched by a divine entity as a result.”

The room erupted in chatter as all of them began talking about Nobina.

“Wait, does that mean another crisis is upon us?” asked one of them.

“She might be a hero. But why is she working as a guild officer? This is all so strange…” said another.

“Wait… divine entity? What divine entity?” asked one of them.

Many questions were appearing, but Aunai once again snapped to gather their focus.

“As much as I want to question her, I have a feeling that doing so might be a bad idea. As we know, divine entities are beings that can do whatever they wish. They still remain a power on the level of the ancient dragons. As a result, I want everyone in this room to keep the information of her otherworld status a secret. It might have been a bad idea to tell you all this at risk of Nobina’s status leaking, but that itself is still speculation as well. I’ve only deduced she’s from another world and that hasn’t been confirmed.”

“Why mention it in the first place?” asked Mustan.

“Because I don’t want my special treatment of Nobina moving forward to seem out of place,” said Aunai. “I want everyone here to be aware of why I’m doing it, since you’ll find out sooner rather than later.”

The room went silent, with only Mustan speaking.

“If I’m to be frank, this information will eventually be leaked to the public,” said Mustan. “As much as I want to believe this information won’t be leak, there’s a non-zero chance someone slips up by accident.”

Aunai nodded.

“All of you are trusted members of the Navira guild. You’ve become managers and supervisors for your own various reasons. There have been times you’ve not all seen eye to eye with me or my decisions. However, please know that I tell you this information because I believe it’s for the sake of the guild. Know that I trust you all completely to keep this a secret as long as possible.”

Hearing that, they all stood up.

“We shall make you proud,” said one of the managers, with all of them affirming their support of Aunai.

Aunai couldn’t help but smile seeing all of them supporting her. No matter what problem came their way, she knew that she had dependable people under her. She told them the truth because she believed it was the best way to ensure they were all working towards a common goal.

In her mind, Nobina was someone she wanted investigated, but she knew she had to be cautious. A divine entity was watching over her. She had an Alpha Death Hare on her side. She was even the hero of her hometown thanks to the goblin incident.

“You’re such an unknown Nobina… I wonder what role you will play while you’re here,” said Aunai to herself.