17 Arriving in town

"Noble?" Foster asked with a wry smile and saw that the others were looking at him curiously as if full of expectation. Actually feeling slightly sorry to disappoint them, he shook his head, "No, I'm just a normal guy. Why do you think I was a noble?"

With a slightly relieved sigh, Jenna just crossed her legs and her arms at the same time, "Well, 'Locke' is the name of a Marquess family here in Arthor. I thought that maybe if you had magic items like that, you might be a part of that family as well. And it wouldn't be the first time that a noble family did something as disgusting as that." Jenna pointed out, although Clark just smiled wryly in response to that.

"I know you dislike most nobles, but there's a fair amount of commoners that do things that are just as bad, you know?" The big guy replied.

"I guess. I was just saying..."

"Anyway." Clark started again, "It's pretty uncommon to find someone having a noble's family name if they're not part of that family. Are you from another country?" He asked, and Foster scratched the back of his neck nervously as he tried to come up with an excuse.

"I don't really... know...?" He explained, and he was immediately stared at intensely by the others, "You don't know what country you're from? I mean, you're speaking Arthorian pretty well for that."

"Ah, about that." Ernard interrupted Aaron as he kept staring at Foster suspiciously, "When we met him, he didn't have a language comprehension skill yet. And even now, it's only at... what level was it again?" One of the skeleton's heads asked.

"It's at 11 right now." He explained, and everyone looked at each other, confusedly, "He didn't have a language comprehension skill?" Jenna asked all of a sudden, "Isn't that only possible if... Ah, I think I get it... Maybe you really are a noble's child after all..." The young woman muttered, but Foster looked at them, confusedly, "But I'm not?"

"No, no, if what they're saying is true, then maybe you were born to a lower concubine or something like that. The only reason why you would have expensive things like that would be that, and I'm pretty sure there are magic items that can suppress proficiency-gain to skills. If you use that with a child, it won't be able to learn a language." Jenna explained, "If that's the case, then you might not even know if you're a noble. But still, it would explain your low skill level... Although usually when something like that happened before, the child was able to level the skill up really quickly if they were smart enough? And you don't seem like an idiot to me."

With a deep groan, Aaron just tried to get this conversation to stop already, "We'll be in town soon. Let's just sign him up at the guild and wait for that investigator from the capital. This is so much unbelievable crap at once." Aaron pointed out. To Foster, he actually seemed to be the most logical one with that suggestion.

Foster had no idea what exactly was a good thing to do or say, and Jenna and Clark were making all of these weird speculations the whole time. Ernard and Jakob were doing their best to help Foster out a bit because everyone believed those two far more than they believed Foster. But even then, Foster was just starting to freak out a bit, and Aaron getting them to stop was greatly appreciated.

Soon after Aaron made that suggestion, the carriage reached the gate of the town. After waiting just a couple minutes longer, they could make their way inside.

The moment that they got inside, Foster was able to look at the first mass amount of people that he had seen in this world so far. And well... Some of the people that Foster saw seemed pretty... unique, to say the least. He couldn't exactly say if that's really how it was or if it was just a coincidence, and Foster just thought that this was the case. Although, he was pretty sure that he could see some elves and dwarves around. Together with people that seemed VERY different from anything that Foster had ever seen or heard of before.

The carriage came to a halt a couple more minutes later, and Aaron was the first to step outside before the carriage even fully stopped. He groaned loudly and stretched while followed by Clark and Jenna, as well as Foster and the two-headed Skeleton.

Somewhat curiously and excitedly, the young man looked around and tried looking at all the things that were around here. Somehow, after hearing that magic and magic items were actually real, he had figured that the town would be far more progressed than it actually was. It was slightly disappointing, but at the same time, Foster didn't really mind that much. 'Medieval Fantasy' was still one of his favorite genres anyway.

He looked around, and suddenly it seemed as if everyone was looking at him. Numerous people were stopping and staring him down. And it seemed like that wasn't just something that Foster imagined. Everyone was really just staring at Jenna, Clark, and Aaron right now. Well, he was apparently also the one that got a few stares. These three were seemingly pretty famous around here, so of course, people would wonder why Foster was with them.

"Foster. Come on." Clark said as he held the door leading into the large building they stood in front of open for him. With a quick nod, the young man just stepped through there and took a look around. In front of him was a large, bright open room with marble floors and walls, as well as decorative banners covering the walls.

On the far side of the room seemed to be reception-desks that were protected by glass with only a small part being open that transactions were handled through.

A stairway right next to the entrance led up to the open elevated floor that covered half the space of the first floor, letting you look down as if it was a balcony. Foster could hear people laughing and speaking to each other up there, and in general, the whole space seemed pretty well-natured.

"This is the Adventurer's Guild?" Foster asked as he looked around some more. In a lot of stories, an adventurer's guild was a place where the lowest of the lowest gathered together. Those that were ready to take a life at any moment, the scummiest scum of the planet! And of course, the guild would be like that as well, dirty and stinking to no end. He was kind of glad that it wasn't like this, to be perfectly honest.

Now Foster didn't have to worry about any sort of cliché encounter happening in here. Well, maybe he did, who knew what kind of shit might go down in here in the future.

Foster quickly followed Aaron and Jenna while Clark walked behind him, and they then made their way to the desks on the other side of the room, "Good morning, Sir. How can I help you today?" The female receptionist asked.

She had deep red hair that went down all the way to her waist and eyes in the same color. She wore the regular, mostly fake, smile that most people working in customer service usually had as she looked at Aaron, "We want to have this kid sign up. He's low-level, but we're vouching for him." He explained to her, and the woman slowly nodded her head as she looked back at him.

"Of course, then I only need your guild card to verify your identity." The receptionist told him with her unwavering smile, and Aaron just stared at her with a deep glare, "Eh? The fuck you mean 'verify your identity'? Just get this done already."

With a wry smile, Foster looked at Aaron's back. Sure, he seemed pretty rude and hot-headed, but he didn't seem like that kind of famous person that expected everyone to know them. Well, that's because he wasn't that kind of famous person.

"I am sorry, Sir. But I don't know what you may be speaking about? How am I supposed to know you?" The receptionist asked bluntly, and Aaron leaned forward until he was basically pressing his face against the glass, "Beth, I swear to any gods whose name I can pronounce that if you don't stop fucking with me, I'm going to tell everyone the Pancake Story."

Immediately, the formerly so composed expression of the receptionist Beth turned sour and disgusted, "You wouldn't dare, you piece of dirt."

"Try me, bitch."

"You won't be able to try when I'm done with you."

"Hah, what are you, an idiot?"

"Die in your own fire."

"I hope that new boyfriend of yours breaks up with you after seeing what kind of slut you really are."

After that... intense exchange of insults, Foster looked over to the side at Jenna and Clark to figure out what was going on. Seeing that Foster was pretty confused, Jenna sighed deeply.

"They're siblings."

"Heh?" Foster muttered confusedly. At first he thought that they used to be in a relationship that ended really badly, like with a murder or something, but they were siblings?

"That goes a bit beyond sibling rivalry, right?" He asked with a wry smile, and Clark nodded his head as he pulled Aaron away from the desk annoyedly, "It does. And it's getting in the way of our jobs right now, so could you please stop?"

Beth's expression instantly turned from bitch-mode into a borderline ecstatic-mode, "Of course, Clark~!" She exclaimed with a bright smile as if the words from before had been nothing but a lie.

"Eh? Why're you listening to this meat-mountain but not me?" Aaron asked annoyedly with a pissed-off face, and Beth immediately looked at him with a deep glare, "Don't you dare ever speak like that about Clark ever again, you piece of low-life trash." She said, and then turned back toward Clark with a broad smile.

"Now, if I heard correctly, you want to sign this kid up for the guild?" Beth asked curiously, and Clark quickly nodded and pulled Foster up to the counter, "Yep. And we need to get it done soon as well because that two-headed skeleton is with him." Clark explained, and Beth looked past the group at Jakob and Ernard, who were just looking around the space curiously.

"Oh, he's a Necromancer? Got it, just come to the back real quick then." Beth said before pulling down a small piece of glass right in front of the small transaction-slit. She turned around and walking to the back of the space through a door.

Foster followed Clark, Jenna, and Aaron over to some other doors on their left side, one of which was quickly opened up by Beth. They were then led through a hallway to another room. In there simply stood a few chairs and a desk, so a pretty simple setup, even if it looked kind of fancy to Foster.

"Alright, then take a seat, please." Beth said and pointed at one of the chairs as she sat down on the other side of the desk and took out a few different documents as well as an engraved rock tablet, "So, these are some basic contracts that I will go through with you in a bit. First I want you to place your hand onto this tablet for a moment." She explained, and Foster slowly nodded his head.

"Sure." He said, placing his palm onto the rock and keeping it there. Beth slowly placed her hand onto the side of the tablet as well and started whispering something that Foster couldn't really understand. It was seemingly in a different language to Arthorian. But the moment she finished speaking, Foster felt his body grow colder while Beth looked at something in front of her confusedly.

"Hm... This is... unusual." She muttered quietly and started writing the information she could see down on paper by hand, "He's Level 10, and judging from his stats, it's his first class, but it's not just a base class." Beth explained.

"And he doesn't have any skills to justify that either... Or rather, he only has two skills in general, a level 5 appraisal skill, and a level 11 language comprehension skill. That's slightly..." Beth pointed out, before noticing something else that bugged her, which made her stare at Jakob and Ernard, "And he doesn't have any regular necromancy skills beside 'Draining Touch' and 'Life Detect', both of which are high-tier skills... And I haven't heard of these other two before... But most importantly, he doesn't have Raise Skeleton, so where the fuck does that thing there come from?"