Chapter 102: (Heroes) Ingrid Rose City

Alex left the cabin residence of the former Eve Priest and his wife, the bird beastkin Lyra, feeling dejected.

He was afraid of this battle for domination between kingdoms, where soldiers' lives are extinguished like cutting grass and nobody was safe. If he was to return home though, the human kingdom needed to win.

This wasn't some simple goblin extermination quest, which he could solve with planning and some hard work.

He held onto dreams of being the hero of the battlefield, swooping in and saving everyone from a perilous situation, but the best he could do now was create basic medicines and weak acids.

His sword and other weapon aptitudes were so terrible he couldn't even learn the Swordsmanship skill, or any others. He learned Throwing, but his ability to throw daggers or hatchets was average at best.

Leaving the area, he made his way onto one of the kingdom's highways and made his way towards the nearest city. The old man and his wife had filled up his depleting rations, enabling him to survive for long enough to reach the city.

Hearing the trot of toroton hooves, a fantasy oxen like beast which grew twice the size as earth horses and had countless times the strength and stamina.

Alex looked over his shoulder and saw a procession of several caravans with large, arched tarp covers approaching down the road and waved at them to stop.

In front and alongside the caravans was a mercenary group on warhorses, each fitted with thick armor and ready to jump into battle at a moment's notice.

The warhorses themselves were monsters known as longstriders and were faster than most Second Step monsters. They had razor sharp teeth and would tear flesh with them.

The driver of the forefront caravan began to slow down the beast before stopping beside Alex. He looked down from his seat high up on the caravan and addressed the young man who was blind in one eye.

"Can I help you?"

The merchant was a rough looking man with a thick beard covering half his face. He had amber eyes that gave away his beastkin heritage, although it was impossible to tell what kind.

The mercenaries remained silent and just went alongside their employers wishes. Several edged closer to Alex however, ready to attack should he turn aggressive.

"Can you please give me a ride to the nearest city?" Alex asked while warily glancing at the mercenaries with their hands on their weapons.

"We aren't going to Violet Terrace City, but Ingrid Rose City, much further off. Sorry, I can't help you."

"That place is fine too!" Alex hurriedly answered before the merchant started moving the caravan again. "I will go there then."

The merchant glanced down at him and struggled with his thoughts. His beard twitched several times when some of his partners called out from behind.

"What's the hold up? Hurry up and keep moving!"

He looked down at the young hero and stated, "20 copper."

Alex hurriedly pulled out a small handful of copper coins and tossed them up to the merchant before climbing up on the front seat beside the driver.

The merchant just nodded his head and whipped the torotons to get moving again.

"Are you sure about this? We aren't responsible if he attacks you."

The merchant looked at the young hero, who merely responded, "I'm only <Lv. 3> production class."

There were some doubts as it was all too easy to lie, but a significant amount of the distrust in the air seemed to dissipate.

The merchant didn't ask Alex any personal questions and let him ride alongside him. Alex was thankful of this as he didn't know how to explain his situation without giving him the image of a deserter.

~~~~~

⠀

The journey with the merchants took almost a week as they bypassed several cities on their journey to Ingrid Rose City, a large dungeon city of 3 million residents and a central hub for traders and merchants alike.

During the meal times of their journey, Alex got to know the merchants better, but he was told several times to mind his own business when he asked questions that were considered rude.

The merchants had a couple dozen slaves, but they seemed pretty well fed and weren't mistreated in any way. Of course, the slave mark engraved in their body would punish them should they not follow orders, but that was a separate issue.

Alex had glanced in the back of one of the wagons at one point and spotted crates full of armor, weapons, and some high level demon corpses.

"Is there a problem?" Several of the mercenaries asked behind him, ready to silence him in at any time.

"N-no, of course not."

Alex understood exactly what these merchants were. They were the kind which looted the battlefield and brought back any valuables to resell.

It wasn't explicitly illegal in this kingdom and especially in this world filled with war, but it was heavily frowned upon by many merchants and locations.

A sword forged from 'clean' iron and a sword pried from the fingers of a corpse had very different values.

It was illegal to sell such weapons without designating them as 'battlefield equipment', but many would have them cleaned or even reforged and do just that. This only increased the notoriety of this kind of trading, but people were too susceptible to greed to accept smaller profits.

'Who am I to judge someone else for their actions,' Alex thought to himself with a sigh and made an obvious display of ignorance to state that he wouldn't mention anything in the future.

~~~~~

⠀

Alex split ways with the merchants at Ingrid Rose City. It was here that he stood in the middle of a bustling fantasy city with all kinds of exotic races passing through its streets.

There were all kinds of people wearing large suits of armor or carrying around giant mage staves, sometimes both. The city extended beyond the horizon and giant defensive pillars rose into the sky alongside the wall.

Wagons carrying monster corpses passed up and down the streets, but even the stench of blood was quickly washed away by the smell of exotic food.

It was highly advanced for a fantasy world too. They had light poles for night lighting, and all the basic infrastructure. There was no electricity here due to the extensive use of mana, and many of the upper districts even had underground mana lines connected to houses, so their magitech appliances could be directly plugged into sockets on the wall.

Alex didn't understand life here, but he knew from all of the literature he had read, that joining the adventurer's guild was the most common approach.

"Excuse me," Alex intercepted a beautiful elf on the street, "do you know where the adventurer's guild is?"

The elf looked at him in disgust, her nose twitching in annoyance at his body odor after having not bathed properly over the past week.

"It is, that way," The elf spoke in broken human language, pointing down what looked like a main road in the city.

Alex hadn't expected her to immediately fall head over heels in love with him, but he still held naïve hopes that it could be the start of a longer conversation with the beautiful elf. The frank disgust she directed towards him was a significant blow to his ego.

Walking down the street for almost half an hour, Alex reached a place where all the main guilds held shops. There was a merchant's guild, mercenary's guild, and several others. Each one had pretty modern looking advertisements on the large windows out front, inviting people to join their guild.

He continued on to the adventurer's guild where he joined a short line of people at the front reception desk.

"Good morning, how can I be of assistance today?" A young blonde woman with a tight sweater that hugged her large breasts asked with a standard smile.

"Ah, good morning, yes. I would like to join the adventurer's guild."

"Not a problem, sir, just fill out this form and bring it back along with your citizenship card."

"Umm…"

"Is there something else?"

"I can't… well, you know… read or write."

"Are you illiterate, in this day and age? Did you not go to school?"

The woman looked at Alex as if he were a barbarian, while he could only sigh and nod his head.

"You can ask one of the other adventurer's in here for their assistance, I suppose. To be illiterate, this is such a rare occurrence."

Alex hurriedly accepted with a stomach full of shame. He could feel all the adventurers' derisive gazes on his back and wanted to find a hole to crawl into.

"Th-thank you," Alex stuttered and took the application form before leaving the guild.

He then found an inn to stay at and paid a cheap fee for several nights. He approached the kind middle aged innkeeper and asked for her assistance in filling out his application.

She also looked at him incredulously as apparently even the kids in the slums could read and write, but still helped him nonetheless.

He returned the following morning with his application filled out and returned to the same receptionist, the blonde beauty today wearing a low cropped top that showed enough cleavage to stimulate Alex.

"You've returned, do you have everything?"

"Y-yes, here."

The receptionist checked everything before taking it to a desk where it was placed atop a large device which buzzed as formations lit up and completed the registration process.

An adventurer's card was the ejected from the machine, which the woman returned alongside his citizenship card.

"Here you go and welcome to the adventurer's guild. Do be aware that we are always here to help."

"Well…"

"What? Do you need something else? Shouldn't you find a party to join and start completing requests? Do you wish to book an assessment exam?"

"No, the thing is… Shouldn't you explain to me the rules, and how ranks work?"

"…Did you apply without even knowing the rules? Ranks are something everyone understands, why would I explain them to every new applicant?"

"Hey!" One of the people waiting in line called out in annoyance. "Hurry it up, would you? I have places to be and manticores to slay!"

The receptionist was feeling a headache coming on, so she pulled out a small booklet and handed it over to Alex.

"Here, this contains all the basic rules and what you should know. It's on me, so read up… or have someone read it to you first before coming back, okay? If you will excuse me, there are other customers waiting."

"R-right, sorry."

Alex bowed awkwardly before leaving the adventurer's guild once again. It was only his second day in this town and he was already feeling like an idiot.