Chapter 17 - Rich

Bartender, as soon as she saw the crystals, became incredibly pale. She was showing Kyle the best beast cores she ever saw, and they were all smaller than the smallest that Kyle has taken out.

If Kyle's cores were the size of the grape, then her cores were the size of a pea, they were on a completely different level in quality. Kyle didn't know that and brought up the random cores that he found in his storage pile. It was stocked to the top, and so the first thing that was on the outer permitter he grabbed were this 10 cores.

She looked at the cores and then at the Kyle and back again, and she couldn't speak for at least a good minute. After a prompt from Kyle, she regained her composure and said, "I will buy all of these crystals for 1 gold, and I will also, for free, tell you all the information that you want. If you don't like this deal, then get out of my tavern!" The bartender was thinking about something in her head and was contemplating if Kyle will sell her this amazing cores for such a low price.

"Okay, that sounds fair, I guess." Kyle nodded his head and accepted the deal.

The bartender wanted to cry, and after giving him 5 gold coins, she said, "It is very rare to have gold coins, and they are worth at least 1100 silver coins. The rest I will give you in silver. She counted the rest of the money, even taking some from under the counter where she stored the money that customers paid for the ale. After the money were given to Kyle, she greedily took the beast cores from Kyle's hands and put them into the separate box and into the room behind her. "Thanks for this deal, maybe with this I can finally break through to the next level and move to the city!" She seemed genially happy.

"No problem. Now about the questions?" Kyle needed to understand things before he could move forward.

The bartender, as if still ecstatic from the transaction, couldn't get her head in order, "Oh well, of course! My name is Marta, and I have been an owner of this tavern for over 30 years! What exactly would you like to know…" Marta wanted to get the name of such a stupid adventurer that agreed to such transaction with beast cores.

"Kyle. Just Kyle." He didn't want to give away the surname Lin that was given to him by his teacher. He had no idea if it meant anything in this world. "My main questions are, is this a human village and human territory? Are there any more villages around this area? What kingdom is this and why I can see dwarfs and even elves here?"

Marta looked at him with wide eyes, "Well, that is too simple of questions. I thought you wanted to know more about the wilderness, well, alright. You are right now in a small village that we locals call the Last Village as it is on the most outer perimeter of Kingdom of Rivendale. The Kingdom itself is not specific to a certain race, and any race can live peacefully in it. Our kingdom is one of the ones that got established very recently after the Splinter wars. Also, due to the sudden increase in power of the beasts all around the world, we have got only one trade path with other kingdoms left. You must know what is the most interesting fact about the Rivendale Kingdom, right?" The bartender stared at him, awaiting a positive answer.

"No. I have come from another kingdom and arrived through the wilderness, and in the process lost a sense of direction. This is my first time hearing about your Kingdom of Rivendale." Kyle made up this lie a while ago.

Marta looked at him as if he was a demon, "With your strength? Travelled through the wilderness? Impossible…" But she didn't want to ruin her good relationship with this idiot, so she decided to take it as Kyle said, "Well then you are in for a surprise. The Kingdom of Rivendale has been created by a coalition of 10 other Kingdoms to explore the forests of north-east. It is one of the most mysterious areas of the continent. The world of Game has constantly been expanding, and beasts have been reproducing and filling all of the new areas. The Kingdoms and civilisations have all been born in the middle of the world in the centre of continent Unica, that is where we are right now." Marta kept on pouring more ales, and there were already nearly 20 mugs ready standing on the bar.

Marta continued, "As you can image not many people would be willing to explore this area and so around 300 years ago after the first 5 waves of settlers got killed by the beasts, all 10 of the kingdoms made a decree. Any criminal, any deserter or those that were sentenced to death, or a slave can choose to become a citizen of Rivendale and become a free citizen that had to live in the kingdom forever." Kyle was stupefied at this explanation.

'A nation of criminals and killers? That is a very dangerous place.' Kyle understood that he had to be as careful as possible in here in order to survive; he couldn't bring any unwanted attention to him.

Marta saw that Kyle was getting nervous, "Don't you worry that much about it! Even though the immigration of bloodthirsty criminals is immense even to this day, most of the folks here are the slaves that wanted to be free." Marta smiled and said carefully, "It is still very dangerous, but you can still find good people here. So, don't be surprised when you see so many different races in here. It is either that they escaped living peacefully without a constant discrimination here, or it is that they joined the adventurers guild."

That was the first time Kyle heard about Adventurers guild, "And what exactly is adventurers guild? Why would people want to join it?"

"First off, you get a benefit of being able to do quests that get submitted all around the world to the guild. Those are the tasks that pay for the resolution of some problem or gathering of some rare materials. Only those with an emblem of the guild can do them. Also, you can freely travel nearly anywhere where the guild has been established without being penalised for what race or what character you are." Marta enviously looked at the bunch of people behind Kyle, "We have been getting more and more adventurers to our village in the last decade due to the constant beast flood. They have been getting stronger and stronger too. It is all going towards people establishing a village even closer to the areas that the adventurers are exploring nowadays."

Kyle couldn't get something straight, "What is the reason for this people to risk their lives? Is it about the money? Also, how did they started becoming stronger? Is it also because of rare materials?"

Marta started laughing, "Don't tell me you don't know about the system as well? What type of dumpster did you crawl from?" Marta went into a laughing frenzy, making everyone in the tavern momentarily look at both of them.

"All people in this world, when born have the Live System. It is what lets people to grow. Every time they beat a monster, they get experience and can level up. For sure you have one as well? Most of the adventurers here are level 0, but you see that elf in the cape? She is the leader of their guild; she is level 1." Marta looked at the hooded elf in admiration. "If you want to survive in this world, you need to cultivate and reach higher levels of power. If beasts don't kill you with your small strength, then bandits and other beings will kill you."

"And lastly, why are they here? This is the most dangerous and unexplored area that is full of experience and treasures that are still up for grabs!"