22 The Atlanta Kingdom

Max and Elly were standing in front of the entrance of the kingdom, which was guarded by a few knights, in front of them was a gate as high as mountains, blocking any intruder from attempting to tower over it as it was also heavily guarded.

"Halt!" one of them shouted, "who are you?"

"My name is Max Evans, I'm an adventurer, and this is my partner, Elly," Max replied, he didn't know how to communicate as he was a stranger to this world, but he hoped his experience with similar interests in his past life would allow him to get past them without any hitch.

"An adventurer huh..." the knight mumbled, "what brings you to our kingdom?"

"I'm here to sell some monster cores and get a room at an inn, we've been walking for days now," Max sighed, he was tired and just wanted to rest, trying to show his visible exhaustion to the guards.

Elly couldn't help but notice the gazes the knights had on her body, probably because it was rare to see a half-goblin, and even more so one that left its forest as the tribe normally wouldn't allow them to.

Eventually, though, the guards nodded after inspecting their bag and let them pass, but not before telling them to be careful as there were many thieves and robbers in the kingdom, and that they shouldn't trust anybody who looked suspicious.

And so the two adventurers entered the Atlanta Kingdom.

"Woah..." Elly looked around in awe, she had never seen such a big city before, the houses were all made out of wood and stone, and there were hundreds of people walking everywhere, most of them either adventurers or merchants.

"Let's find an inn first," Max told her, "then we'll figure things out."

[Completed goal of reaching Atlanta, congratulations Host!]

[New goal: selling the monster cores and finding an inn for the night]

Max tried to keep his composure, but he really wanted to shout in excitement at the view of all the different races of people walking the streets, it was something he had only seen in fantasy, yet it was right in front of his very eyes: elves, dwarves, succubi, beastman, etc...

"Come on," he grabbed Elly's hand and led her through the crowd, trying to find an inn to stay in, "we need to find a place to sleep."

"O-ok..." the half-goblin girl replied, visibly taken aback by Max's sudden action.

And so they walked for a few minutes until they found a nice-looking inn, it was called "The Flaming Lion", and it seemed like a pretty good place to stay in.

"Hello!" the receptionist greeted them with a smile, "how may I help you?"

"We'd like a room for two for the night please," Max said, trying to take the initiative while his companion hid behind him, seemingly shy from interactions when they weren't with her savior.

"Sure! That will be 5 gold coins per night," the lady replied.

The money of this world is gold coins just like you would expect from any fantasy world, and each one was worth around 100$, making it the only way to exchange goods in the world of Luciana.

And this was Max's biggest issue: HE HAD NO MONEY, he prioritized rest before actually selling his items, meaning he was now left with nothing but the filled bag in hand.

"Um... c-can I pay with monster cores...?" he tried to explain while pulling out some of the crystals from his bag and placing them on the counter.

"Sorry sir, we do not allow such payments, please come back once you have exchanged the monster cores for gold coins," the receptionist gently bowed and informed the boy, which almost made him way to go into a rage, he had walked so far to sleep on a bed, and they had the audacity to block him so close to his goal?

"T-thank you miss..." Elly stuttered, grabbing Max's hand and dragging him outside the inn, she didn't want him to cause a scene and get them kicked out, "w-we'll come back later..."

The woman smiled and waved at the duo as they left.

***

Max and Elly were now sitting on a bench near the inn, wondering what to do next as they didn't have any money to spend, the sun was setting on the horizon and the sky was slowly turning orange, which meant that it was time for them to find a place to sleep, and neither of them knew where to go.

"What should we do?" Max asked, "I don't know anyone here, and I have no idea where to sell the monster cores..."

The boy was still holding the bag in hand, he had every piece of the puzzle and only needed to assemble it now.

[Maybe ask somebody?]

His divination was right, he needed to conquer his shyness towards strangers and get his shit together, he had already survived long enough in the Flavip forest, so interactions with people wouldn't kill him.

And so with the entire determination of the world, Max, alongside Elly who followed him, observed his surroundings and decided to strike up a conversation with anyone who looked friendly enough to answer him.

But it looked like the world really wanted to see Max cause havoc, because as soon as he took his first three steps, he bumped into somebody else.

"I'm sorry-" he tried to apologize, but he was cut off.

"Another annoying kid huh?" a buff-looking man with black hair and a mustache, alongside visible muscles anywhere you watched, the fruit of an intense training, replied, "We've been bumping into lots of them haven't we fellas?"

He talked to his two companions, who were people with the same physique as him, each of them wielded a heavy sword and looked like adventurers.

"Ohhh, look at this, big bro, it's a half-breed goblin!" the youngest one pointed and approached Elly, closing the distance in less than a second.

"ARGH? We got disgusting goblins in our kingdom now? They let anybody enter it seems huh..." the third and final one finished while holding his nose with two fingers and acting as if he was vomiting.

But unfortunately for the three of them, they had met the worst person they could have met at that very moment: an already irritated Max who didn't like people talking shit about his partner.