Walter immediately set off from the tavern at the break of dawn. He only put on his clothes and fixed his appearance before he left. He didn’t even bother to order and eat breakfast. Luckily for him, he already knew how to tie a cravat beforehand so he was able to leave in a timely manner.

His destination was the Adventurers’ Guild Base. There were some details pertaining to both the guild and adventurers in general that he wanted to check. Other than that, there was also another piece of critical information which he sought which he could only reliably receive from adventurers.

Since it was still early morning, the streets were not as bustling as yesterday afternoon. Thankfully, he already had a vague directional awareness of where he needed to go. He also did his best to avoid dark alleyways, it was best to avoid unsavoury encounters while he is without a secure form of protection.

Although he may or may not have gotten lost in the process, Walter eventually found his way to the Adventurers' Guild after about roughly half an hour of walking. Ignoring the glances from the passerby adventurers, he passed through the doors and entered the building.

The reception room inside was rather spacious, mostly consisting of a lounge that also acted as the waiting area. Spaced out around the room were four different groups of adventurers consisting of around three to six people. These four groups all had at least two magic casters, one of them usually being a cleric.

Interestingly, apart from the cleric, these magic casters did not wear a robe or coat like the other magic casters that Walter previously met. Instead, they also wore gambesons like the guards and some of their fellow adventurers. Walter wouldn’t even have realised that they were magic casters if it weren’t for their gloves that had those ‘runic’ symbols inscribed onto them.

Perhaps Walter spotted others like them before but just didn’t notice it, thinking that they were not magic casters because they wore armour. Thinking logically about it, he now realised that there was nothing really stopping mages and the like from wearing proper armour as protection.

The false stereotype set up by fictional media within his original world that depicted sorcerers wearing robes was just that, a false stereotype. The only magic casters Walter met so far who didn’t wear protective armour was Karazhan and the clerics but those two both had their own reasons to justify why.

According to Karazhan, his coat was specially designed by him to become as durable as steel, all thanks to his mastery of the arcane arts. While Walter had no idea how any of it actually worked, he was highly interested in these ‘magic clothes’ for lack of a better term.

Unfortunately, these clothes need to be consistently charged with a magic source in order for it to work. In Karazhan’s case, it was his own body that provided the ‘arcane mana’ necessary to keep his clothes active. Since Karazhan was the only magic caster that Walter knew that had enchanted clothes like this, it was likely that this was a feat only accomplishable by a select few.

On the other hand, the clerics wore those white garments with golden outlines for a completely different reason. The totally impractical reason of their ‘teachings.’ They believed that their patron deity, ‘Hyperia’ will bless and protect them as long they adhered to their religious tenets. Whether it actually protected them, Walter really couldn't care less.

All of that information was processed within his mind in less than a few seconds. Once again, he had to thank his newfound ability to slow down his perception of time. It would have been really awkward if he was just standing there in the open, just thinking to himself after entering the building.

Regardless, Walter made his way towards the reception counter after subconsciously fixing his cuffs. Standing behind the counter was a female attendant with brown hair which was tied up into a ponytail. Although she appeared to be in her late thirties, perhaps even early forties, she still appeared to have a youthful aura about her.

“What will it be sir?”

The attendant soon questioned Walter as he approached her.

“Do you want to submit a quest or do you wish to become a member of the guild? Keep in mind that it is not mandatory to be a member to complete quests submitted on the board.”

“Neither.”

A look of apparent shock appeared on the attendant’s face when she heard Walter’s answer. It even took her a short moment to respond.

“Neither sir? Then… how can we help you?”

Walter glanced off to his left, looking at the board that had numerous papers stuck onto it. These papers were all actually quests that any adventurer may pick up. With that in mind, he turned back to face the attendant and gave his reply.

“I don’t wish to submit a quest. Not yet anyway. I only want to ask you how the quest system works.”

“Oh yes! But of course. I sincerely apologise for the misunderstanding. It’s just that it’s rare for people to ask me these kinds of things these days.”

The attendant quickly regained much of her composure and a friendly smile soon returned to her face as she explained things to him.

“All one has to do is submit a quest here at the reception. These quests can range from simple monster subjugation quests to dungeon exploration quests. How dungeon spoils are split up are decided by the employer. As long as it is legal, we at the guild will accept it.”

Walter remained silent as he listened to her words, dedicating them all to his memory.

“We at the guild like to maintain a policy which grants quest givers a degree of freedom when submitting their quests. Payments to the adventurers are decided by quest givers but a fee calculated by the Guild must also be paid to us. Due to Guild policy, payment of these fees must be done upfront.”

“And what is the fee cost based on?”

It is only after she finished speaking did he pose her a single question. As one would expect, she replied succinctly.

“The fee will be decided on the difficulty of the quest.”

Probably sensing that Walter was going to question why, she quickly spoke up again to explain to him.

“This is because of two reasons.The first is that the difficulty of the quests tends to dictate the chance of an adventurer accepting the quest. The second is that higher difficulty quests also tend to have higher casualty ratings. We at the guild like to maintain our supply of adventurers.”

“Hmm… I see.”

Walter couldn’t help slightly smiling upon hearing how the Adventurers' Guild’s ‘quest system’ operated. Although it would be a stretch to say that this was exactly what he wanted, it should suffice.

Apparently the attendant saw that he was now content with the information he just learn for she soon spoke up again.

“Will that be all sir?”

Walter only gave a silent nod as his answer before he proceeded to walk away from the counter. He didn’t immediately return home after he exited the building’s door however. Instead, he approached one of the adventurer groups that was standing near the Guild’s entrance, seemingly preparing to leave and go on an expedition.

Spotting his approach, one of the members of the group, a man wearing leather armour, spoke up.

“What do you want? As you can see we are about to leave.”

His voice had a slightly irritated and disrespected tone to it, a fact which surprised Walter. Although he wasn’t a true noble, people still saw him as such and treated him with some degree of respect out of fear of reprisal. However, this adventurer didn’t seem to care if he was a noble, causing Walter to feel slightly intrigued.

Nevertheless, he put that thought aside for now and just replied casually to the adventurer.

“Nothing that should take up too much of your time.”

Another female adventurer, spoke in place of the man. Like her male counterpart, the tone of her voice sounded slightly annoyed and held no respect for Walter.

“Heh. Only if it’s worth our time.”

In response, Walter only silently flicked a single gold franq into the air before catching it in his open palm and presenting it to the adventurers.

“Will this suffice?”

The adventurers fell silent when they saw the coin, unanimously nodding after a short moment of silence passed. One of them even tried to prematurely grab it out of Walter’s hand. Of course, Walter  closed his hand into a fist and hid the coin from the adventurers’ sight before it could be taken.

The original adventurer opened his mouth again but he was interrupted by Walter before he could even say a word.

“Thyvin Eikthyrnir. Everything you know about him. Now.”

…

At the castle district of Belmud, a single man sat at the central courtyard of the castle gardens, his feet casually relaxing on the ‘footstool’ of a prostrating skeleton. The man had short golden blonde hair which matched his golden coat while the skeleton wore a full set of rusty plate armour. Atop the skeleton’s back was a soft pillow which the man rested his feet upon.

The atmosphere was mostly serene, with the only intruding noises being the sounds of the garden trees and plants rustling under the light morning breeze. There were also the soft, continuous sounds of water trickling down the garden fountain, a magnificent marble statue that sat at the centre of the gardens.

The sun had finally appeared over the looming castle walls, casting some light onto the statue. The statue was rather grand in its design, consisting of a man who rode atop his rearing steed. His mount was a horse with two wings sprouting from its back and stretching outwards, a pegasus.

On the other hand, the man was wearing a full set of plate armour and was adopting a heroic pose, his hand pointing his staff into the air. Ornate carvings and symbols were etched onto every corner of his armour, supposedly perfectly replicating the armour the real-life counterpart of the man’s armour.

The staff was no different, intricate patterns were carved onto every section of the staff while a sophisticated diamond was attached to the staff’s end. From there, water would continuously poured out of the diamond and onto the pool base below.

The staff was known as ‘Gungnir,’and the man wielding it was ‘Nido Eikthyrnir,’ a great archmage of history and the founder of the noble Eikthyrnir family.

He was also the ancestor of the man sitting in the gardens.

Glancing up at the stone imitation of his ancestor, Thyvin Eikthyrnir could feel a mixture of both pride and contempt. Yet he did nothing to vent or confront these feelings. He has grown used to it already. He wouldn’t have persisted for so long if he didn’t.

Pursuing the art of necromancy has cost Thyvin a lot.

And when he glanced at the rather pathetic skeleton knight that was supposed to be the result of the price he paid, he was beginning to wonder if the cost was really worth it.

“I thought that I would find you here.”

However, the quiet serenity of the scene was interrupted by an invading voice that came from behind Thyvin. When he turned around to face the invader, he saw another man who like Thyvin, had golden blonde hair and wore a golden coat. Unlike Thyvin, the man’s hair was longer, the symbols inscribed onto his coat were different in design and were blue in colour.

This man was Leistro Eikthyrnir. One of the respected arcane archmages of the Eikthyrnir family, as well as Thyvin’s older cousin. That being the case, Thyvin wondered why one of his family members came to see him. They didn’t exactly ‘love’ him to say the least.

“What do you want Leistro? Can’t you see that I’m ‘busy’?”

“Just shut up and listen to me.”

Seeing no point in arguing with Leistro, Thyvin pressed his lips together as he waited for his cousin to speak.

“I didn’t think that this would be possible but there’s someone who wants to see you.”