We arrived at a long line with dozens of armored guards. From looking at the people, a lot of them looked like they were refugees. Logic dictated that raiders hit more than Alcion. That didn’t make me feel any better and I hoped they could all see their families again, even if that was unlikely.

  The line was taking forever. All I wanted to do was find an inn, get a hot meal and sleep in a nice bed. It had taken us almost a month to get here. My body ached for a bed more than the meal. Renna was standing with her arms crossed and an irritated expression. I decided not to bother her, and we moved up as more and more people were let in.

  Judging by how nobody was getting denied, it seemed we should have no problems getting in. I hoped I wasn’t jinxing us by thinking that way, but we were kids, surely the guards wouldn’t have many questions for us?

  Finally, we made it to the guards. As we stepped forward, one of the guards stepped in front of us and looked down at us with a strange expression. “You traveling alone?” the guard asked.

  “We are,” I said.

  “Where are your parents?”

  “They were taken by either North or South Ornea.”

  The guard looked at us sympathetically, as I expected. Nobody would turn down children, especially ones who lost their parents. “You may enter. Be safe,” the guard stepped aside, and we walked right through the gates.

  I looked up at the walls and saw a line of archers standing there, idly chatting with one another and occasionally looking over at all the people. The security of this place was no joke, well, at least that’s how it looked. I wondered how many refugees may be spies from the enemy.

  Whatever, that isn’t my problem. Now that we’re in, it’s time to find an inn.

  Once we stepped through the gates, I found myself staring. There were thousands of people walking about. I hadn’t seen so many people in one place since my old life. I figured there would be more people, but there were a lot more people than I was expecting. Renna’s mouth was slightly agape, which she quickly closed when she noticed me looking at her.

  We found ourselves dodging people who didn’t give us a second glance. Yup, this was like a big city in my old world. People had their destinations and didn’t care about anyone around them. Hopefully there was an inn with an open room.

  Renna grabbed my hand and held it tightly. “I don’t want us to get separated in this…” She paused for a moment. “We don’t have a way to find each other otherwise,” she said.

  “Good idea,” I said and looked around. It would be a good idea to have a meeting spot in case we did get lost. “If we do get separated, let’s meet at the front gates. We can find another spot later.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  With that settled we continued walking. I made sure to keep a close eye on the people around us to make sure none of them had any funny ideas. If someone thought we were easy pickings, they might try kidnapping us.

  Once we got through the initial group of people, the area started to die down a little. There was still a crowd, but now I could see a bit further ahead. I won’t lie; this is another instance of me hating being in a child’s body. I couldn’t see over anyone’s head!

  “I think I see an inn!” Renna pointed to a building with a sign that read ‘Malvons Inn’.

  “Let’s see if they have a room,” I said. We weaved through a few people and made it to the front door. I opened the door to see a man standing at a desk. Not far from him were a couple dozen tables, with half of them filled with people. It looked like there was a kitchen close by as I could smell something good being cooked.

  “Do you have any rooms available?” I asked.

  The guy looked down at us and looked around, likely trying to find our parents. Eventually he shrugged. “Six copper for a room with one bed, a silver for a room with 2 beds,” the guy said.

  “We’ll take the room with two beds,” I placed a silver coin down.

  “Aight, that’ll get you one night. You’ll be provided dinner for today, but any other food you want will cost ya,” he took the silver as he spoke.

  “Understood, thank you,” I said.

  The guy motioned for us to follow him, and we walked up a flight of stairs, and at the end of the hall was a room. He opened it with a key and waved us inside. “You need to give the key back before you leave. I recommend locking the door when you go to bed. If you need anything else, I’ll be downstairs.”

  “Thanks,” Renna and I echoed.

  Then we were alone. The first thing I did was dive onto one of the beds. Ah, a bed. While the mattress wasn’t as nice as I would have liked, it still felt like heaven. Finally, no sleeping on the ground!

  “Why did you only pay for the night?” Renna asked.

  “I wanted to make sure this was a good spot to stay before committing ourselves to an inn,” I replied. My body was getting tired, so I forced myself to get off the bed. Sleep would come later. “I’ll get us a few more days when we eat. I think this spot will work out.”

  “Please do. I don’t want us to lose this room because you decided to be overly cautious,” Renna said.

  “Well, we have time to go ask around for help, then we can register at the guild before we come back and get some food,” I said.

  Renna’s eyes sparkled the moment I mentioned registering at the guild. “Let’s go!” she said, grabbing my arm, and before I knew it, I was out the door and had to stop her so that I could lock the room. I didn’t want our stuff to get stolen after all!

  For the next hour we asked around to see if anyone would be willing to help. Yeah, that idea went out as well as I expected. Most people said to put in a notice to the guild. The problem? We didn’t have the money to put a job on there! Nobody would want to go rescuing our village for a few silvers.

  Once I realized this was a waste of time, we headed toward the guild. We got directions from a stranger, then headed toward the center of town. Once we made it there, we didn’t need to ask where the guild was.

  The guild was a giant building, with a couple of signs on the front. One sign showed a sword and fireball. The second sign showed a monster that I didn’t recognize. It made me think of a minotaur, except this one had three horns instead of the two you’d expect to see in a movie. Whatever, at least we found the guild.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Let’s go inside!” Renna once again grabbed my arm and ran straight toward the guild.

  I got myself out of her grip and straightened myself before opening the door. We didn’t make it very far when two men stood in front of us, blocking us from getting to the front desk.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  “What are two kids doing here?” The big guy asked. He had a giant axe on his back and tattoos over his entire body. This one looked like trouble.

  “we’re here to form a party,” Renna said. She was puffing her chest out and had a giant grin on her face.

  That caused the two men to laugh. Renna frowned, and I wanted to groan. This was not what I wanted to deal with.

  “Listen, kids, you should head out while you can. Neither of you would last a day out there,” the big guy said.

  “Would you get out of the way? We came here to register, what happens afterward is on us,” I said.

  “I recommend you heed my friends warning. You’ll need some training before you can do this job,” the skinnier guy said. He had similar tattoos to his friend’s, though he didn’t carry a weapon. I assumed he was a mage, which made me wonder if he was stronger than me.

  Renna looked like she was about to hit one of the men, so I stepped in between them. “Please get out of the way.”

  “Fine, have it your way,” the bigger guy said, and he stepped aside.

  Renna and I walked past. I was expecting them to try something, but they really let us pass without any more trouble. Phew. The last thing I wanted to do was cause a scene in the middle of the guild. I’m not sure about the laws around here but I didn’t want to get arrested.

  With those two out of the way, I got a good look at the people inside. There were at least twenty people. Most of them carried swords, with a few not carrying any weapons. There was a random guy with a spear.

  Perhaps there weren’t many mages in this area? It seemed melee fighters were the vast majority here. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that had also been the case in my village. Elias had once told me that most people didn’t have access to a book that could teach them magic.

  “How can I help you two?” the teller asked. He was a skinny man, who looked like he hadn’t held a sword in his life. There was a name tag on his chest with the name being Salvador.

  “We’re looking to form a party,” Renna said.

  To my surprise, Salvador didn’t question our age and took out two small stone-looking tablets. “What name would you like?”

  “Uh,” Renna said.

  Neither of us had thought of a name. How did we not think of that? “One moment,” I said and closed my eyes. What would be a good name? Something that involved us searching for the villagers of Alcion might be good. “We’ll be named The Seekers.”

  If Renna was bothered about the name, she didn’t show it. That was good, the last thing I wanted was to fight over a name.

  “All right, put these stones in one of your hands and grip it tightly for thirty seconds,” Salvador said and handed each of us a small stone tablet. It was small enough to fit in my pocket.

  I gripped the tablet as hard as I could in my right hand. It didn’t feel like anything was happening. I silently counted to thirty and opened my hand. The tablet had four lines, all written in the local tongue.

  Name: Thorian Ashford

  Race: Human

  Class: Mage

  Guild Rank: D

  I was surprised at the accuracy. “Excuse me, how does this tablet get this information?” I asked. I showed him the details listed on the tablet.

  “The tablet identifies this information from the user’s mana, which is why I told you to hold it for thirty seconds. Since this tablet is new, the guild rank auto assigns to D rank.” Salvador said.

  “Does this mean we’ll be restricted in what quests we can take?” Renna asked.

  Salvador shook his head. “The guild rank is more about reputation. If you wanted to join another party, but they were A rank, they would likely reject you due to your current rank. You can grab any job you want. Each job will have a rank attached. There are five ranks. D, which is the lowest. C, B, A and S. There aren’t many S rank jobs in this region and if there are any, you shouldn’t touch them.”

  Interesting. I would have loved to know how these tablets were created. How it was able to get my name, race and class was fascinating. I saw no point in asking Salvador, the odds of him knowing the more intricate details weren’t likely. It was possible that most people didn’t know. I pocketed the tablet and saw Renna do the same. She was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Thanks for the help,” I said.

  “No problem, good luck!” Salvador said.

  Renna nudged my side. “Let’s check out the quests before we leave.”

  “Sure,” I looked and saw a board with papers on them. We walked up to them and began reading the jobs.

  For a town this big, there weren’t that many. I counted seventeen jobs currently open. Some of them were what I’d expect, such as hunt some monsters. There were a couple jobs to find a missing person, which listed their last known location and one job that was recruiting to fight for the Dracaena army. The missing person quests paid about the same as the monster ones, though I would venture anyone missing was likely due to a monster or some sort of attack.

  “Let’s ask around. Maybe someone knows about the attack on Alcion,” I suggested.

  “Whatever you say,” Renna said. She had taken out her tablet and looked at the information on there. She sure was happy to finally be an official adventurer.

  “Oh look, the two kids didn’t take any jobs. Lose your nerve?” the big guy from earlier said as we walked by.

  Just ignore him. I thought and looked over at Renna. She didn’t glance at the guy and kept walking. Phew, sometimes she could be hot headed. I was glad she was keeping her cool.

  With that done, we started asking around about the raid on Alcion. Most people knew nothing, which wasn’t surprising to me. We walked around asking for a while before we finally got some information.

  “Sorry, I don’t know anything about Alcion,” an elder man said.

  “It’s fine. Thanks anyway,” I said.

  “Did you say Alcion?” A young man said from behind us.

  I turned to see a soldier, clad in armor standing a few feet away. “Yeah, do you know something?” I asked hopefully.

  “Are you both from there?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Sorry to hear that. We found the boats where the raiders came from. They were smart enough not to come back, as we were waiting for them. Unfortunately, we missed them coming in. The last thing our scouts reported were the prisoners being escorted into South Ornea,” the soldier said.

  “How come you didn’t launch an attack to save them before they got too South Ornea?” Renna asked.

  The soldier grimaced. “That’s… More complicated. The situation isn’t black and white at the moment. I’m not even sure if we’re going to attack or stay here and see what the Ornean’s are up to. I hate to say it, but you’ll likely never see the people from Alcion again. They’re out of our hands now.”

  “That’s stupid, why would you allow your own people to remain prisoners? If-”

  “Thank you for the help!” I pushed Renna aside. Pissing off a soldier could cause problems I didn’t want to deal with down the road. “We’re trying to organize a search and rescue ourselves. If you can think of anyone interested, please send them to Malvons Inn’”.

  With that, we scuttled away without another word. “Why did you interrupt me?” Renna asked. She was glaring at me. I won’t lie; it was scary when she got this way.

  “We need to approach this carefully,” I said, choosing each word carefully. “If we made that soldier mad, he might cause us problems. It’s not his fault the prisoners were taken to South Ornea.”

  “You realize the two of us can’t save our families alone? If the soldiers did their job, we wouldn’t have to find a way to get money to hire our own help!” Renna said.

  “It’s above his head, hate whoever’s in charge. Please don’t take it out on the soldiers, we have enough problems to deal with as it is,” I pleaded.

  “Fine,” Renna said.

  It was time to say something that would cheer her up. “I say we head back to the guild and take a couple of jobs. The sooner we start making money, the sooner we can get some help.”

  Renna’s expression changed from sour to giddy in the blink of an eye. “Oooh, that’s a great idea! I say we take some monster slaying quests; those should be easier than trying to find missing people.”

  “Yeah, we can do that,” If the monsters were too strong, we could always retreat… Hopefully.

  We walked back into the guild, and the first thing I noticed was the two men who had bothered us earlier. Thankfully, they only glanced at us before returning to their drinks. The bulletin board was missing a couple of jobs that were there earlier.

  I looked at the list and saw a D ranked job to kill a bunch of goblins in a forest. The notes detailed there were roughly thirty goblins, with the numbers going up every week. Interestingly enough, there was a giant goblin leading them. I was surprised to read that, who knew goblins could be large? The pay was better than I expected it to be. The reward was fifteen silvers. I wondered how high the numbers would have to be to be considered a C ranked job.

  “We can do better than that,” Renna said right when I went to grab the job.

  “This one pays well. Let’s make sure we can handle a D ranked job before going higher.”

  “Fine,” Renna said.

  With that, I grabbed the job, and we left the guild. Those two guys were looking at us with odd looks. I was thankful they did nothing else. Tomorrow would mark our first quest as official adventurers. Thirty goblins should be easy and then, we could see about taking a harder job.

  ? Overpowers: Magical Girl Crossover [Grimlight Progression Urban Fantasy/Genre based Power System] ?

  by Moawar

  He, Life, had a simple job.

  His responsibility as an Overpower was to make sure that fiction stories and the characters in them follow their dictated path. He always did his job well enough, not more or less than was needed.

  His latest assignment, however, would, in retrospect, prove to be his most challenging one of all.

  He would find himself in a unfamiliar world. There he'll have to quickly adapt to guide Nozomi.

  The strongest magical girl with the potential to accidentally destroy those she seeks to protect in her fight against evil.

  What to Expect:

  -If you like the psychological aspects of Madoka Magica and the mixing of different genres a crossover story brings then this story is for you