home

search

Chapter 26. A whole new world awaits.

  The supper and subsequently breakfast were quiet affairs, the whole group, minus the two recovering girls, ate mostly in silence, either still too tired, as it was the case in the evening, or too excited for the things to come, as it was in the morning, to be in the mood for small talk. They ate and then retired to do whatever it was that they wanted to, waiting for the tutorial to end. It was around midday that a loud ringing began, resounding across the entire area every few dozen minutes, as a system message popped up for every gifted within this particular zone, notifying them to return to the village as the tutorial had been cleared and they would finally be allowed to proceed further.

  In another couple hours, everyone had returned to the village, including Velka's group, who were still glared at by every other group or person who were passed by said group. The faces of her group were sour as well, though at the same time they were already no doubt planning how to get their operation online once on the other side, perhaps even joining up with whoever carried a similar goal and had already established group with their own personal power base and supporters.

  Soon enough, Anastiela appeared once again, standing by the side of the village chief who a few moments later transformed into his true form, removing the disguise worn and displaying his angelic self in full glory. His own set of angelic wings spread out as though getting flexed after such a long time of being suppressed. His handsome face and sky blue eyes attracted many of the girls present, though he still paled in comparison to the six winged female right besides him.

  "I see that everyone has arrived. I congratulate you for finishing your tutorial trials and holding on this long. In just a few moments, each of you will be transferred to the town of the beginning where groups from powerful organizations might express their interest in recruiting you to their cause. As the ones who oversaw and sponsored this particular trial, our own vassal guilds will be there as well. Look for a flag with angelic wings on it if you have any interest in becoming part of our cause. Once again,congratulations and may success and good fortunes be upon you all."

  Then, each and every person was enveloped in bright light, dissapearing a few moments later from their own places, a number of notifications flashing pash all their eyes.There was one particular title that everyone received- Survivor.

  Survivor- You managed to survive the tutorial. No matter if you were a lord or a pauper, you survived, ready to plow through life and all the still coming hurdles, growing stronger with each one overcome. Vitality+1.

  Unlike others who were sent to a large hall that seemed to have some sort of a banquet organized, Jack's party saw them arriving there, but were sent on their own way, soon enough finding themselves in a small forest clearing, the words of Anastiela reverberating in their minds as she had once again congratulated them on their achievement and left some directions towards the nearest town from their arrival place. According to her, the town was a mid sized one with all the necessary facilities and without any powerful overlord controlling it as the city itself was located between three competing nations and was considered the neutral zone where they would hold whatever peace talks they would need. It was to be noted though that the remaining gifted from their tutorial zone had arrived not too far from their own location- a small city few days travel from the place they would head to soon enough.

  "A nice place to start our journey, all things considered." Jack smiled as he took stock of their situation. "Anything else of interest besides the 'Survivor' dropped in your hands?" He had yet to check the rest of his own notifications as he questioned.

  "Pioneer and Record breaker." Kaede answered a minute or two later, after she had done inspecting her own system notifications, seconded in her response by the rest of the party.

  "Same as mine then, with a little extra on my side. Those do give some nice extra stats so we can only be thankful for it. Let's head on out then, yea? The sooner we reach the city the sooner we can plant our roots."

  Pioneer- you paved the way, creating the path for the rest of your tutorial groups to follow. Free attributes +1.

  Record breaker- People always obsess over silly things that they decide to rank and compare. You broke one suck ranking, taking first place on it. Free attributes +2.

  Jack had acquired another title, one he received after slaying the hobgoblin goliath.

  The new champion supreme- You challenged the tutorial zones monster boss to single combat and won, in an overwhelming fashion no less, etching your own place in the hearts of every monster around you, only suppressed by their rage and bloodlust. Free attributes +3.

  His words were echoed in agreement by the combat group and the farmers, with Carla staying close to the two, slightly trembling girls who were obviously scared by the number of guys around, only slightly calmed by the number of girls around and the smiles that they sported and Jack's voice that strongly reminded them of the Blurry Figure. Jack noticed their apprehension, so he added "Girls, do make a protective circle around Carla and the duo, will you? Especially make sure no one approaches them once we enter the city."

  "Kay!" exclaimed Fumiko as she quickly darted over, taking place in one of the supposed corners, quickly accompanied by Izumi, Chiyo and Emi, each taking their own corner, forming a protective square around them. The farmer group stood then between Jack and the girls, leaving Kaede and Kenji to take place in the rear, with Kenji being the one to finish up their procession.

  Then, following the instructions left by Anastiela, they headed out, walking through the thinly forested area, a large tree with twin peak serving as their waystone. Pine trees, some oaks and birches took the larger number of trees they passed, with numerous different species of birds chirping as they had nestled in the branches far above the groups heads. Sometimes, in the distance, Jack noticed a fleeing rabbit or another critter that had been startled by their addvance, their movement clearly not in any shape or form meant to be stealthy.

  In less than thirty minutes, the group was out of the wooded area, finding themselves at the foot of a large lake, a decently sized city walls coming in their sight and roofs of multiple buildings peaking over said walls.

  "Seems large enough. Let's hope they have enough unclaimed space in it's vicinity. No way in hell will we find what we need within those walls." Jack concluded quickly, already sensing an issue with the place.

  "The question is if whether or not said place outside the walls is secure enough." adeed Izumi.

  "Would not worry about it all that much. Not only can we fortify whatever property we acquire, we can eventually make our home to be considered impenetrable fortress by everyone laying their eyes on it. And I mean both the home itself and the garden that will no doubt surround it." Jack grinned as he explained, their pace remaining the same as they continued their approach to the stone walls.

  Soon enough they were in front of a large and open gate, a couple of armored guards standing and watching over them.

  "Halt! Who goes there!" one of the guards called out, his gaze locking on the oddly dressed group that was approaching.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Is this the first time you see fresh gifted arriving in your city?" Jack asked as he rolled his eyes, clearly not biting it.

  "How are we supposed to know you are actual gifted? Too many frauds pop up around the same time a new gifted waves arrive." the guard replied skeptically.

  "Really?" Jack questioned, his tone half questioning and half mocking " Are you going to say there are no procedures that would allow for it to be tested in mere moments? If that's not the case, call for someone who has the brain cells and authority to deal with it. Or maybe this token from archangel Anastiela would do?" Jack added, flashing the token before the guards face, his eyes going wide and face paling a bit at the sight of the token, going doubly so at the name drop.

  "M-my apologies sir gifted, but we have to be careful around this time. Plenty of frauds sneaking around with less than savoury motivations."

  "Whatever. I need to know where we can sell some things and acquire some proper registration to avoid similar hassle in the future."

  "Of course, of course. Please follow me." the guard bowed his head as if in apology and called them forward.

  In less than a few minutes they were lead in another building just on the other side of the wall. The building was made of simple brown brick with similarly brown shingle roof over it. Inside was a single room, equipped with a small altar of sorts in one corner and a desk, manned by average height woman of around thirty years of age. The woman was quite lithe, with dark hair and of average beauty, clearly paling in comparison to Jack's female companions. Simple glasses sat on her nose as she lifted her gaze from whatever document she was reading as Jack's group was lead inside.

  "Vicky, a group of gifted here to be registered. Take care of them." the guard informed the woman and once again bowed his head towards Jack's party and excused himself, returning to his duties. The less he spent around them the higher the likelihood his offence would be forgotten.

  "Greetings honourable gifted. My name is Victoria and I will do my best to make sure your time is not wasted here. Please come along so we can get through the procedures and get you on your way." she spoke as she stopped at the small altar. "Please, one by one stand here and place your hands on this small orb." she continued as she demonstrated without actually touching the orb,

  "Once you touch it, your name, class and summoned status will be read and a card will be formed that will then serve as your identification. Appraisal is a rare skill and cannot be relied upon to track people entering or leaving cities."

  As Jack's group stepped up to the altar and placed their hands on the orb, allowing it to do it's thing and collecting their new identification tokens, Victoria noticed how protective the girls were of other two among their group. Clearly something had happened that warranted such behavior. Thus, she walked over to Jack who was standing a bit aside and waiting for the rest to get through before he would proceed.

  "What's the matter with those two, if you don't mind me asking?" she quietly questioned.

  "Some absolute scum got to them before they were rescued. You don't want to know more." Jack replied in just as quiet voice, painting quite clear picture in Victorias mind.

  "Hope those bastards got what was coming for them." she added, clearly angry as well.

  "Not nearly enough pain, but they will not do it to any other girl." Jack replied, not delving any deeper in the details, though Victoria did not need them.

  "Good." she nodded her head in approval.

  "By the way, we might have some bits and pieces to sell to get our hands on some coin. Anyone in particular you could suggest?"

  "All merchants are scheming bastards, the question is who just looks at immediate profit and who thinks further into the future. Which kind are you looking for?"

  "Well, the latter would help me out more right now, then again, rarely would you be in need of the former." Jack shrugged and replied.

  "As expected. Look for 'Ramia's goods'. The old man is shrewd but has a good eye. Should be exactly what you are looking for. Reliable as well." Victoria explained as she walked back towards her table as Jack walked over to get his own registration complete. Once at her station, she fished out empty sheet of paper and wrote down some instructions to find said place. Then, she asked the group over and requested their new identification cards to be presented. Each ID was then held over a small tablet that displayed the same info, though Jack did notice there were a few extra, though empty right now, sections.

  Victoria, noticing Jack's locked gaze, smiled slightly and explained for his group as she handed over the instructions she had written down once done. "If you ever get a bounty placed on your head this will display the amount, why and who had placed it. Mind you, not all bounties are a reason to try and apprehend someone or deny them entry into someone elses city, like for example a rare class holder that certain organizations might be tracking for their own reasons or crafter that just refuses to deal with them and earns a bounty to be roughed up for his 'arrogance'."

  "Or perhaps a bounty of 'beware insanely dangerous individual?' Those probably exist as well, I would recon." Jack asked.

  "They indeed do. Good instinct." Victoria nodded in agreement. "No problems here. Have a nice stay and good luck in your endeavours." she added, guiding them out of the simple building.

  Once outside, Jack handed the instruction to Chiyo, depending on their scout to minimize the time spent on blundering around the town, they had plenty of things to solve and heavily limited time, their spatial storage from tutorial zone having only a dozen hours remaining at best before it disappears. Thus, with Chiyo's skills deployed, they managed to find the suggested shop in a relatively short time, as the group found themselves standing in front of the sign mere fifteen minutes later.

  Much like most buildings they had seen so far, this one too was built of the same brown bricks and covered with the same brown shingle roof, though if one paid more attention, they would notice that it was just in a tad better condition, as though someone was taking a particularly good care of it. The windows had clear and pretty glass in them, well polished and clean, no doubt it was washed on the regular. The doors, though once again of simple brown colour, were clearly quite new as well, since when compared with the hinges that had a bit of rust on them the age of the two parts did not match at all. And, despite the apparent rust on said hinges, the door opened quietly and easily, dangling a melodic yet gentle banging of a bell, informing the owner of this establishment of new possible customers.

  Much like outside part, the inside was also well maintained and neatly kept in good condition. The walls were made of wood, an additional layer to no doubt give this place more pleasant atmosphere and different feel than most other buildings in this town. Accompanied by a faint fragrance of flowers and relatively high amount of light that came in through the windows the overall feeling the place gave off was more than just good. It was also quite obvious that such custom style had cost quite the pretty penny for the owner, though it also confirmed Victorias words about the man being focused on long term profit and future. Why would you want to spend time haggling and selling your hard earned loot in a place that reeks of old wood and parchment, or monster parts or whatever else similar establishments would when there is a much better choice at hand?

  The walls were covered with several shelves that had all manner of miscellaneous items displayed on them, accompanied by a small, yet clear and obvious enough note that indicated said items sale price. On the far end of the room, a counter stood, hiding behind it elderly man and another few shelves with even more items displayed there. The shelves behind the owner even had glass doors and rune work on their walls, clear to the eyes of customers, damn near screaming- I contain valuable items and am thus well protected. Don't even think of trying anything funny!

  The elder behind the counter was still reading his book, those aged eyes not once leaving it to check out his possible customers, as if he was calmly waiting for them to take in his humble shop and realise it's splendor, allowing them to subconsciously mark the place as one to visit more often. And to be honest, Jack's group was doing precisely that, before they advanced further inside until they stood in front of the counter. It was then that the elderly gentleman placed down his book and looked at them, a gentle smile on his face, reminding an ordinary and simple elder, though the sharp gaze and spark of life that radiated from his eyes once he locked them on the guests told an entirely different story.

  "Welcome to Ramia's goods. How may I help you fine people? Are you here to buy, sell, or perhaps you are in need of advanced appraisal, worried a freshly acquired magical item of yours is cursed? Do tell old Ramia what is it that you desire."

  Jack smiled as he too appraised the old man, no doubt mirroring what he had done just now, his words a clear warning and promise he should not be messed with, not that Jack's party had any desire to do so to begin with. They were all, except maybe Jack if forced, quite proper and honourable and would never even consider either stealing or threatening to attain what they wanted.

  Jack Raja(?)

  Age- 27

  Species- human(?)

  Level- 14

  Class- Twin aspect of Creation and Destruction(EX)

  Stats unassigned: +11

  Attributes:

  Strength- 24 (14+7+3)

  Vitality- 22 (12+8+2)

  Dexterity- 21 (15+6)

  Intelligence-7

  Spirit- 25 (20+5)

  Skills- Wisdom of Creation and destruction(EX), Choice of the creator(EX), Eyes of procurer(EX), Matter storage(EX), Arukain language(C), Spark of inspiration(EX).

  Spells- temporary spatial storage (shrinking)

  Titles(unlocked): The real Monster, Big Game Hunter, The brilliant rookie, The insane Solo. The actor. Executioner. Survivor. Pioneer, Record breaker.The new champion supreme.

  Gear: amulet +2 vit: weapon- Gundao+3 str.

Recommended Popular Novels