"Hey, you. You awake back there?" The carriage driver calls out to Hiroki while he was lying down on the carriage seat and facing up at the sky.
Hiroki opens his eyes to see the clouds covering the sun for a short time and feeling the rumbling from the carriage going through a rough dirt road. He sighs while slowly sitting up and grabbing onto the side of the carriage to help himself up off the seat to sit himself up.
A woman sitting on the other seat was facing towards Hiroki and speaks out to him "You're finally awake. We've arrived."
The carriage driver found the woman walking on the road and asks if she was going to the same location as Hiroki. She said yes and paid the driver to get on board and sit on a separate seat from Hiroki and greets each other. She is a young woman with light brown hair and green eyes. She wore a full set of silver armour with black accents across parts of her armour. She wears a headband across her forehead. Her weapons is a broadsword with bandages across the handle for grip and a dagger on the back of her waist, which also has bandages on the handle and a golden hilt.
Her name is Karlamine. But many call her Karla for short.
Hiroki took off his helmet to get the good view of the whole place in front of him. It was a large town with a population of at least several thousand people, while the city he was living was over ninety thousand. Kuoh Town is another perfect area for regular adventurers to go because this place is one of the only areas to have more hostile creatures, because of the nearby dark forest that spawns in different types of dangerous creatures. Nobody knows how these creatures suddenly appear in the forest, but many would just blame it on the Demon Lord.
"This your first time coming here?" Karla asks him
"Yes." Hiroki looks back towards her and responds "This is my first time outside the capital, so all this is new to me."
"Really? You've just started as an adventurer?" Karla asks while looking a little surprise
"Yes."
Her eyes look to the side of his face at the scar across the side of his cheek. The stitches are already gone but the scar remains where it is. "So you've never had any experience with combat?"
"I've been training for a long time with the sword and other equipment, so I hope that's enough for whatever I'll be fighting."
"Hmmm, an amateur. I myself was like that when I started. I've been in four quests lately and I'm still treated like I belong with the other lower ranks."
"There's a ranking?" Hiroki asks
Karla nods "Yes. You'll start off with the lower rank and then work your way up the top. They're going to ask you a few things first before they give you a rank and assignments."
"That's fine by me."
And so the two would finally get off the carriage as soon as the driver said "It's the end of the road for the both of you." And calls it a stop at the stables. Both got out and walk together inside the town and got a look around the place to see a new layout of what Hiroki would later call it home.
Karla decides to help him out by showing him around some important places in town. She took him to see the location of the blacksmith, the inn for him to rest and the adventures guild. He can explore the rest of the town by himself during his spare time so she only offers him locations of the main important places right now. As they arrive at the front door to the guild, Hiroki bows his head to Karla and expresses his thanks to her, while she looks away from him, embarrassed at him bowing his head to her like this in front of the others.
"This is it." Hiroki says to himself when opening the door first and entering the interior of the adventures guild.
Inside he found all kinds of adventures from strong veteran players to rookies like himself. All of them was sitting around by the tables, talking to one another and enjoying the meal brought to them by the guild members. This place was friendly, and both sides, from rookie and veterans are all talking to one another as friends.
"I could get used to this." Hiroki says to himself and looks forward towards a woman standing behind the counter.
The woman by the counter has long white hair and blue eyes. She wears the typical guild uniform of women, which consists on a white long-sleeved and button-down shirt with vertical linings, red ribbon on the collar and long black pencil skirt.
"She's the one you have to talk to." Karla replies while walking past him and approaching her with a contract paper in hand. Hiroki would follow and stays behind her to watch how things play out. Karla says to the woman "Contract is complete, the man signed it." She places the paper on the table and shows proof of success by the man's second signature at the bottom.
"Congratulations on a success." The woman replies happily and takes the contract off her hand. She opens up a drawer and begins the process of adding Karla the money as promise on the contract. However, she calculates with her fingers and takes some of the coins away and keeps it to the guild, for they must keep a short percentage of the payment.
"Thanks." Karla takes out a pouch and slides the gold coins into the bag and walks away.
"Can I help you?" The woman by the counter looks to Hiroki
Hiroki steps up to the counter and responds "I'm new and just got here. I'm here to join the adventures guild."
"Oh? You're a recruit? Well, if you're going to be part of the guild then you'll be needing to fill this out for us." The woman checks behind the counter to find the paper and soon offers it to him. Please read this and sign it that you understand the rules and agreement when joining the guild.
"Right. Thank you."
"My name is Momo Hanakai by the way. Welcome to the adventure's guild."
"Thanks. My name is Hiroki." He turns away and goes off to the side to read the rules of the guild.
While he is busy reading the document in front of him, Karla sits down by the table next to another adventurer who happens to be an expert with swordsmanship, as well as getting some attention with the women. His name is Yuuto Kiba. He is a young man with short blonde hair, blue eyes and has a mole underneath his left eye. He has his own sword and wears a white dragon plate armour with purple accents across parts of his armour.
"Hmmmm, so they get twenty percent of the rewards of my contracts." Hiroki thought to himself while checking the details in the document "Well, guess it's not a big deal. I'm not really here for the money. I also have to pay to be part of this guild. Only a couple of coins. Other than that, everything else seems okay." And just like that, he asks for a pencil and starts adding his signature on the bottom and offers Momo the coins for the requirements.
"Excellent. Welcome to the guild, adventurer." Momo takes the document and smiles happy towards him. "And if you like, I could give you your first assignment."
"I'm ready for anything." Hiroki replies and Momo pause for a moment and smiles back at him
[Seven minutes later…]
"I am not ready for this…."
His first assignment as an adventurer was to clear giant rats inside the sewers. He was walking through the tunnels with a torch and trying to search for the rats while trying to stay clear of the water.
"This has got to be the worst assignment for any adventurers…" Hiroki says to himself "I'm so glad my brother isn't here to see this. He'd probably bring up on every conversation and telling me I belong in the sewers…." The thought of that made him stop for a moment and left sadden at the feeling of his brother still haunting him.
"Even though I'm far away, why does this thought of my brother always bring me despair?"
But then he changes his attention towards something in the distance. He approaches with caution with his sword ready and found what he was looking for. He discovers four large rats in the distance, all screeching towards him and starts running towards him, while only one of them decides to retreat. He drops the torch to the side and ready his shield to quickly block the moment one attempt to bite his legs. He quickly attacks first by striking the first two rats and blocking the third one from biting his leg. He made sure not to sustain any damage or else he would suffer from a terrible disease. He return to being focus on fighting the rats and had to deliver a few strikes and stabs to finally put them all down. Of course, he was force to continue up ahead to search for the other rats and easily kills them when only one at a time rat would attack him.
After continuing to fight and track down the rats, Hiroki finally made it in circles and found no more signs of any rat infestation. This gave him the chance to finally climb his way out of the sewers and return to deliver the report. However, he was told to go around the back in the training grounds at the back of the guild and not go through the front door. When he made it there, he got to see some skirmishes between some adventurers fighting against one another with hand to hand combat or sword training.
The guild leader was outside with another member of the guild beside her, watching the fights and looking out to see Hiroki entering the scene. The leader is Sona Sitri, and she and the woman beside her are wearing the same standard uniform as what Momo was wearing at the counter. She appears as a young woman with a slim figure, having black short hair put to a bob cut and violet eyes and wears glasses.
Sona looks towards Hiroki and approaches him. Hiroki comes towards her, takes off his helmet and replies "I've finished the contract as I was told."
But then, Sona stops and looks at him with a cold expression in her eyes. She raise her hand towards him, causing him to stop for a moment and left puzzled by this. He soon lifts his head up high to see a sudden blue magical symbol appearing above his head. Soon, a blast of water came down on top of him and floods his whole body. This water was enough to fill up a bathtub, and the blast of this water brought Hiroki down to his knees.
"Sorry about that." Sona says to him "That was to get rid of the smell."
Hiroki spits out the water in his mouth and looks up at her. He sighs deeply and responds "Well… Could've warned me first before you did this…"
"Would you like another?" Sona asks and the symbol was still hovering above his head.
"So that's why they don't want me coming through the front…. Okay."
Sona splashes him again with only half the water from before. After it was over, she allows him to use one of the vacant buildings they own and let him dry off his clothing. He returns to the outside training grounds and watches the others while letting his armour and equipment to dry out, and wears a new set of regular clothing to replace his wet clothes.
Hiroki got a chance to see the other adventures in action against one another. He witness Kiba, without his armour, clashing against Karla with only swords. While Kiba was showing to be in the lead by pushing her back, Karla changes tactics by showing off her magical traits by turning her sword into a flaming sword, which forces Kiba to retreat to avoid the burns.
"I thought that woman was a rookie, but she's good with the blade." Hiroki thought to himself while staring at Karla and continuing her relentless assault against Kiba.
Karla pushes him back against the edge until he starts changing tactics and suddenly conjures another sword out of nowhere and almost strikes Karla through the chest. She saw the second blade on time and forces herself to back away and force to defend herself against Kiba as a dual-wielding maniac.
"Impressed?" Sona asks while sitting down on the bench next to Hiroki
Hiroki turns to her for a moment and responds "Yeah. They're great." He then looks forward and continues to watch
Sona crosses her legs and her arms and replies "You should fight the winner next."
Hiroki scoffs and responds "No… I won't last long against someone like that."
"You could at least try. Have some confidence in yourself."
"I know my level and experience." Hiroki replies "And I know I'm nowhere close to their levels right now."
"Then you best get to work training to learn what kind of abilities you possess. Everyone here has their own sets of characteristic abilities for themselves. You'll find yours eventually, and you're going to have to fight them one way or the other to learn how strong you've become."
"I know. By the way, that magic you just did earlier. I've never seen anything like that before. How did you learn it?" Hiroki asks
"It was part of my family." Sona replies while moving her left hand out to look at the palm of it "I was born with this power. I can do a lot more than just create a gust of water."
"Really?"
"Would you like to see more?" Sona looks to him and smiles with an evil expression on her face "Stand very still and I can conjure a water dragon for you to fight."
Hiroki leans away from Sona and left frighten "N-Nope. I'm all good. But will you be using that on me again if I go down in the sewers?"
"I have a rule for every adventurer to not enter the building while covered in filth. If you don't clean yourself, then you deal with me."
"So, you're in charge of this place?" Hiroki asks
"Yes. I am Sona Sitri. I run and operate the guild, and all of my employees come to me for help." Sona stands up and looks back to Hiroki "Here's some advice. Don't do all the challenges by yourself, or you'll get yourself killed eventually. I do not wish to add your name on the wall. It's nice to have some new faces around, so you best be careful on your next contract." After that, she turns away and walks back inside the building.
Hiroki watches her leave and turn his attention back towards Yuuto Kiba and Karla. Yuuto won the fight by knocking her down to the floor and aiming his sword towards her face. She was force to concede the battle, which made Yuuto lower his sword and replace it with his left hand to offer her some help to get up off the ground. She takes his hand and rises up off the ground, then congratulates him a well-earned victory against her.
Hiroki had to wait quite a long time for his clothing to be clean and ready, but this was enough for him to leave this area and go out to check around the place. The guild promises to protect his gear until he comes back, so this gives him enough time to check around the city and see so many different types of people and adventurers walking past him.
By the time he got back his armour a gear, it was starting to get late and thought of finding a place to rest. Hiroki goes straight to the inn to rent a room for the day, but discovers he is too late to find any room available for him to rest. This made him unhappy and should have went straight to the inn to pay for a room first before exploring the town. In the end, he found no empty room available for him anywhere and left exhausted finding nowhere to sleep.
"What a disaster…" Hiroki says to himself while leaning against the edge of the bridge and looking out at the calm water below. "My first day here and I feel like I'm homeless…. Guess I got no choice…" Hiroki turns away and moves off the bridge and goes to some alleyway to sit down against the wall and crosses his arms. "It can't be helped…"
While he closes his eyes and tries to fall asleep, he opens his eyes again and feeling a little sadden at the thought of his family and his abusive brother. He asks himself "I wonder what he's doing? Probably trying to get closer to that woman I saved. He's probably already trying to win her heart by completing so many quests. I wonder if he'll ever come this way…" That last thought made him frighten at the thought of his brother showing up, which causes him to grip his arms tightly.
"Excuse me. Sir?"
Suddenly a woman calls out to him and catches his attention towards her and changing his expression to calm. He looks out to see a woman standing there, looking back at him with a concern look on her face. She was a lovely woman with golden eyes and white hair put to a ponytail. She was a little pale and wore a red-coloured corset-style leather clothing with a skirt and stockings with the same matching colour and was holding a closed umbrella in her right hand. She was showing off quite amount of cleavage, due to the large size of her breasts that almost made Hiroki lower his eyes for just a moment and quickly snaps back to her golden eyes.
"Can I help you?" Hiroki asks her
"Are you looking for a place to stay?" She asks him and responds with a yes. She smiles and replies "Then this is your lucky day. I have a room available for you. Had a feeling I'd find someone like you trying to sleep outside in the cold. That's usually what rookie adventurers would end up doing."
Hiroki was suddenly surprise by her generosity and rises up off the ground. He asks her "Why help me?"
"Well, if you've got the coin then we'll both be happy in the end. And there's nothing wrong with helping others, because eventually you'll be rewarded as well." She smiles and offers her hand out to him.
Hiroki offers his hand and gently places it over her hand. He smiles and replies "Thank you. You're too kind."
"My name is Valeria Karnstein. It's nice to meet you."
"I'm Hiroki."
And so she takes Hiroki out of the alleyway and into a warm place he hope to rest in tonight. But while the two leave this area, none of them realise that someone in the distance was watching them and looking unhappy at what is transpiring here.
Hiroki walks with her back to her place, where the building was a small house with a second room and offers him a bedroom on the second level, while she takes another bedroom below. Of course, she asks for him to pay before allowing him to enter, which he gladly pays her with the right amount of money h still carries and makes himself at home. He tries his best not to cause any problems or do any damage to her home while he starts removing his armour and gear when making his way into his bedroom. She wishes him a goodnight and remain downstairs to make herself something to drink. Hiroki removes his armour and chainmail and collapses onto the bed, feeling so much better now that he could finally rest on a comfy bed.
"This is perfect…." Hiroki says to himself while rubbing his face against the soft pillow. "What a nice woman…. And what a –" He then pauses for a second when thinking about her cleavage and causing his face to go red with embarrassment at the thought of her breasts.
But while Hiroki was trying to sleep, she was sitting downstairs on the couch and smiling while drinking her coffee. She looks up at the ceiling and changes her eyes to darker red. She uses her new eyes to see through the wooden ceiling and see Hiroki in the bed as a red form of energy. She slowly opens her mouth a little and shows off her vampiric fangs as she was starting to feel anxious to sink her teeth into his body to drink everything out of him. She decides to be patient and wait for him to be asleep first before pouncing on top of him to hold him down and attack.
Once she finishes her coffee, she rises up and takes the walk up the stairs. But then she stops when hearing loud noises of someone knocking on her door. She turns around quickly and hisses with anger to hear that sound interfering with her work. She tries to calm herself down and change her eyes back to normal, then returns back downstairs to deal with this first. But the moment she was about to open the door, she stops and looks at the door with her red eyes and says to herself "I smell a dog."
Just as she says that, the door comes flying off the hinges and knocks her down to the floor. Hiroki heard the noise and quickly lifts his head up off the pillow and pauses for a few seconds if he could hear another noise. He starts hearing more noises happening downstairs and decides to get up to investigate. He came at a worst time as a strange man stands over Valeria and waves a phial of white water through the air in front of her to splash it at her face, which causes her to scream in pain over the water melting through her skin and burning her.
"H-Hey! What do you think you doing?!" Hiroki raise his voice and rushes over to help Valeria who drops down on her knees and covers her face with both hands.
The man standing in front of them is a young man with a large physique and appears in his late teens. He has grey hair with long bangs that covers his yellow eyes. He wears a black coat with white fur on the top, wearing a white shirt underneath it and wears black pants with a black belt. He also wears metal boots with metal knee pads leather gloves.
"You stay away from that woman, if you know what's good for you." The man says to him and steps closer to them
Hiroki left his weapon back upstairs and quickly stands in front of the stranger with his clenching fists ready to fight. "I won't let you hurt her!"
But then Valeria decides to use this opportunity to finally get what she desire from him, which happens to be his blood. She quickly wraps her arms around him and quickly sinks her teeth into his neck. He cries out over the sudden stinging happening to his neck and left confuse as to what is happening to him right now.
"Is she stabbing me!?" Hiroki asks while grabbing onto the top of Valeria's head with his right hand to push her away.
The stranger attempts to interfere, but Valeria attacks by creating shadowy tendrils from her back and extend them around herself and Hiroki to attack the stranger. The end of these shadow tendrils have sharp ends and easily pierce his flesh and forcing him outside. He was hit four times, one through the shoulder, two to the chest and one through the leg.
Meanwhile, Hiroki tries to force her to let go by grabbing onto her hair and pulls her hair forward to force her to let go. In the end, she held onto him for several seconds and drops him to the floor while Valeria backs away from him. She looks up at the ceiling and swallows the rest of the blood in her mouth and sighs in relief. Hiroki hit the floor and grabs onto his neck but cannot get up. He was left shaken and feeling weak over the loss of his blood.
Valeria sighs again while looking down at Hiroki "Everything was great until that dog showed up." While she talks, her injuries on her face starts to heal so quickly to leave no marks on her face. She turns her attention back to the stranger getting back up off the ground and decides to attack him again.
Hiroki remains on the floor and keeping his hand against the wound on his neck and starting to struggle to keep his eyes open. "Am I really going to die right here? This can't be happening…."
Thankfully, a blue magical symbol appears near Hiroki and out came Sona Sitri. She looks down at Hiroki with a cold expression on her face and conjures a different spell to suddenly heal his injuries until the wound on his neck was completely gone.
Meanwhile, Valeria continues pushing the stranger back and keeping her distance when he keeps trying to rush at her. Suddenly a blast of water came from the front door to her house came towards her and knocks her hard against the nearby wall. When trying to get herself back up, the stranger rushes towards her and comes in with a left punch across her face to knock her back to the floor.
"You're a long way from home." Sona replies while standing there with her arms cross and looking unhappy towards her "You should know better than going after a member of the guild. Now you've got blood on your hands."
Valeria hisses towards Sona and looks back at her with anger while rubbing the side of her face from where she got hit in the face. She replies "I don't take orders from you! I can do whatever I want!"
Sona sighs and replies "Unbelievable." She then looks to the stranger and says his name "Loup. You don't have to waste your time with her. I'll finish her myself."
Loup nods and agrees to back away to leave this fight to Sona. Valeria was ready to defend herself and prepare to attack, but Sona easily defends herself by creating the blue magical symbol in front of her to block her attack. She counters by releasing a blast of water from that symbol and takes the form of several water dragon serpents. All of them come towards her and latches onto her by biting her on all parts of her body and lifting her in the air. She cries out in pain over the serious bites happening across her body, but tries to counter by using her own blood against Sona. She manipulates her own blood that was going through the water serpents and create her own blood tendrils that break apart the watery serpents. However, Sona conjures another serpent and made it big enough to easily finish her off with one good bite. The serpent consumes the top of her body and bites through her waist, then lifts her up and swallows her whole to leave her inside the watery neck of the serpent. She lost too much of her blood and was unable to do anything, which eventually ends with her dying inside the watery serpent.
In the aftermath of this battle, her body was completely burn to a crisp and left with nothing in the end. Loup took Hiroki somewhere else and left him asleep on a small comfortable bed, while Sona returns to continuing her duties for the guild. By the time Hiroki woke up, the sun was just rising and a new day begins.
"You're awake. At last." Loup was standing nearby against the wall with his arms cross and standing next to the open window.
"You… From before…"
"The names Loup Garou. That's all you need to know." He replies
Sona enters the room and looks over to see Hiroki awake "You've got yourself caught in an awkward mess."
"What did I just –"
"It was a vampire." Sona replies "It lured you to her home and attempted to bleed you dry. You're lucky Loup caught her first and called for my assistance."
"T-Thank you." Hiroki replies and looks down to his body and touches his neck to feel the marks.
"I used healing on your neck to stop the bleeding. You still got those two bite fang marks on your neck and I can get rid of it if you want. I can also get rid of that scar on your face, too."
". . . ." Hiroki touches the side of his face to still feel the scar. He looks to Sona and responds "Just…. Get rid of the fang marks."
"Really? You don't want that other one to be gone?"
"Yes. It's a reminder. That's all I can say."
"As you wish." Sona steps closer and places her right hand against his neck. She starts healing the skin and completely getting rid of the marks on his neck. While she is doing this, she says to him "Perhaps this should be a good opportunity for you to finally interact with the others. Starting today, you and Loup are going to team up."
"W-Wait. What!?" Both Hiroki and Loup both say at the same time.
To be continued…