After he was done with the ore shopping, he visited the Hunters Association to pick up ten monster hunting quests as usual. Now that he was a Gold-rank Hunter. He could pick A and S grade difficulty quests. S-grade was still too difficult for him unless he had Samuel or an equivalent native accompanying him. But even then, it would still take too long a time dealing with monsters in the S-grade list.
So with Peniel’s info, he took the A-grade hunting quests of which he was most likely encountering along his way.
Next, he headed to Ellie’s Restaurant and Amy’s Bakery to pick up his profits. On his way, he received a message from Dylan.
“Dude. Where are you? I got a quest that you might be interested in,” his message said.
“That’s rare of you to contact me about a quest. Let me guess, this quest involves fighting?” Jack replied.
“That is correct. It appears your brute skull is not so empty. So, are you interested? I will decline it if no one helped me on this one. It says here in the quest description that upon completion, our guild will receive a native Scrollmaker that is willing to work inside our Guild Headquarters.”
“Scrollmaker? What grade?” Jack’s interest immediately perked up.
“Grade? Is it important? It said here, Advanced Expert.”
‘Ah… One grade lower, such a pity,’ Jack thought. If it was Basic Master, he would have gone over to where Dylan was. He needed a Basic Master Scrollmaker to have Commander Quintus teach him his sword skill. But since it was only an Advanced Expert, it was not enough to make him delay his faction chain quest.
He sent a reply to Dylan, “I’m not available at the moment, I will ask Jeanny to arrange a team to help you with that quest.”
“Without you? Hm… Fine then. Just make sure she doesn’t send useless people.”
“Don’t worry. Just send your quest description to her and she will arrange suitable experts to deal with your quest. There is no need for me to come personally. I know you miss me. There is no need to find an excuse to see me. We can meet once I have some free time.”
Dylan simply sent him a one-word reply, “Bye!”
Jack laughed at the reply. He then sent Jeanny and John a message about Dylan’s quest. Jeanny said she will contact the kid and make the arrangement. After experiencing the benefit of having Kirsi inside their headquarters, having another native with a high-grade Scrollmaking skill was enticing. The players with the highest Scrollmaking grade in their guild were still at Basic Expert.
While he was chatting with them, he remembered something. He told them to issue a red notice to all their guild members on a dwarf player named Sinful Pleasure. Anyone who encountered such a person in the wilderness was to kill the guy on sight. If he was encountered inside a safe zone, he should be tailed until he was in the wilderness before killing him. This was to be done regardless of his level.
Jeanny and John were rather confounded by Jack’s request.
“Expert, did this guy kill your sibling or something? I don’t expect such an extreme request from you,” John said.
Jack explained Sinful Pleasure’s nature to them. About what he used to do when he was in the real world.
“I will relay the notice. Contribution points will be awarded to anyone who successfully makes a confirmed kill,” Jeanny said without hesitation after hearing Jack’s explanation, and then added, “More contribution points will be given if one managed to capture the dwarf alive. We will then imprison him inside our Guild Headquarters’ jail. Let him rot there for eternity!”
‘Damn, girl! You are even more vicious than me,’ Jack thought. He also relayed that Sinful should be back to level 1 by now, and his last known location was in Travinste. However, Jack was not sure if Sinful had set Travinste as the place to resurrect after dying.
Jack soon arrived in front of Amy’s Bakery. He had been gone for almost a month since the last time he collected his shares. There was four weeks’ worth of profit in Amy’s Bakery. While for Ellie’s Restaurant, there was three weeks’ worth. The total coins he received from those two venues were 187 gold coins.
After deducting the coins he spent to buy ores and other necessities, his purse now had 454 gold coins. By the time he returned to this town again, he expected he would be able to perform the last upgrade to the restaurant.
Amy nagged at him to spend one night and tell her stories again, but this time Jack declined. He would love to, but after what he learned, there was a sense of urgency that drove him. He apologized to the girl and said that he promised he would chat with her when his affairs were done.
He also reminded her to not be too friendly to unknown strangers, especially outworlders. Not all outworlder is kind and trustworthy, especially the dwarf named Sinful Pleasure. Amy remembered the dwarf after Jack mentioned him. “He seemed like a nice fella,” Amy said.
Jack stressed to her that that was the danger of an Outworlder. Some of them might appear nice on the surface, but rotten on the inside. Unless she had confirmed with him that the outworlder was truly his friend, Jack asked her to stay on her guard towards any outworlder stranger.
After picking up his profits, Jack didn’t think he had any further matters to deal with in the capital, so he headed to the Zone Portal. He teleported to a small town inside his teleport list that was the closest to the marked destination on his map.
From there, he summoned Pandora and galloped off.
With Pandora’s speed, Jack spent around two days before arriving at his destination. It was a village surrounded by tall mountains. The village was rather small, so he just spend one day checking everything out. He showed Aubelard’s photograph to a few key people which included the village chief. After making sure Aubelard was not in this village, Jack took off the next day.
He spent another three days to reach his next destination. That included the time he spent to kill new monsters and complete the quota needed for his hunting quests. Even though he didn’t do much grinding, his Archer class still increased two levels. He was a level 17 Archer by the time he arrived in a small town that was beset by steep hills.
The town was called Thesylvania. It was smaller than the border town, Thesewal. No walls protected this town and the houses were situated sparse from each other. Wild shrubberies and trees occupied the space between the houses. It looked very much like an unattended town. There were very few townsfolk in sight. He felt as if he had entered a ghost town. Those few that were seen gave him odd stares.
Jack unsummoned Pandora and continued on foot as he observed the town. It was late afternoon and the sun was blocked by steep hills. He supposed this town was only exposed to the sunlight for a short time during midday when the sun was at its highest.
“All right, let’s head to the information collection center,” Jack said.
“Where is that?” Peniel asked in confusion.
“The tavern,” Jack answered.
He tried approaching the locals to ask for direction, but many ran away when he approached. Some went inside their houses and locked their doors.
“The heck,” Jack cursed. Bewildered by the townsfolk’s reactions.
After much difficulty, he finally managed to speak with someone who didn’t avoid him when he approached, a small girl. The girl pointed her finger in a direction, Jack figured that should be where the tavern was located.
While he was looking in that direction, he was startled by a shriek. He turned and saw a woman come running before snatching the girl, pulling her away from Jack. The small girl was calling the woman, mom, who continued dragging her away frantically as if saving her from a beast. The woman and the girl then disappeared into a house. The door was slammed shut.
“What the hell was that about?!” Jack exclaimed in confusion.
“Don’t know,” Peniel shrugged. “The mom probably thinks you are a bandit.”
“How can such a charming man like me be misunderstood as a bandit?”
“You do have that menacing aura. She probably thinks you are a beast who is about to devour that little girl.”
Jack ignored Peniel’s mocking. He looked again in the direction the little girl had pointed. “Okay, let’s find this tavern,” Jack said.
The tavern was a house that was repurposed into a place of gathering. Its outside appearance was not that different from the other houses around. If it was not for the large signboard hanging above the door, Jack wouldn’t have known the place was a tavern.
The door was in an open position, probably to indicate that the place was open. Jack went in and found a wide hall. There was a bar counter on one side while the rest of the hall was filled with tables and chairs. Only one of the tables was occupied by a couple, the rests were empty.
Jack didn’t find this place’s lack of customers strange. It was still early. Most folks only came for drinks at night after work hours. He went to the bar counter, a bartender was there cleaning the place.
The bartender, who was a rough-looking middle-aged man with a face full of beard, frowned when he noticed Jack approached.
“Good day,” Jack greeted him with the warmest smile he could summon.
The bartender didn’t return his greeting. He instead scrutinized Jack from feet to head. “Adventurer?” He finally asked.
“I am,” Jack said. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the couple suddenly turn to him when the bartender called him an adventurer. Jack didn’t pay them any mind, he asked the bartender for a drink.
Instead of preparing his drink, the bartender just stared at him with hostility.
