Preperations

Taking my sweet time selecting missions, I spot a recruitment campain. Apparently some nobles land is getting attacked by hoardes of undead. Since the undead are mostly weak and rely on their overwhelming numbers, his private soldiers are not enough to deal with them. The kingdom posted the mission to aid him.

There are no minimum requirements, meaning anyone can take the job, as long as they're a mercenary. Only your pay will be equivalent to your rank. Me being a bronze E rank, will get 2 silver for participation haha.

'That old woman really wasn't kidding when she said we get shit pay at the start.'

I go to the administration counter again and accept the mission. I hand my mercenary guild card to the receptionist and she updates it. When she hands it back to me, I can see a line written on the card: Mission pending.

I tap the line and a projection pops up. It shows the information of where to report to, what to expect, the different enemies to face and their weaknesses. Additionally it tells you who's the client, how much money you get for completion, the completion terms and how many mission points you get for completion.

We are instructed to gather in 10 days and the locations is around 200 km away from here. This is also why I picked the mission. It's close by and I have plenty of time to get there. This world is a lot bigger than earth, so 200km is nothing. Also the higher ranked beings can travel thousands of kilometers easily in a matter of days.

If I really wanted to, I could be there in a day, but where is the fun in that. I'll get 2 silver for the mission so there is no need to rush there. First up are preperations and then It's time for another rampage.

I walk out of the mercenary guild and head to the market. The market is as busy as ever, with all kinds of races bustling around. This picture is totally offputting, it looks like starwars or something. Even though humans are the most prevalent, i'm still not used to it.

Apparently there used to be even more, but due to a huge war 5000 years ago, many races went extinct. Bella told me that now there are only 16... or was it 26 different races? I can't remember. Anyway a shit ton of intellingent creatures are in this world and only a portion of them are recognised as a part of humanity and they make up the 16 or 26, whichever it was.

Walking around the market, I restock on different spices. We already purchased camping and cooking gear when we passed through the first town with Bella. Next I search for someone who could fix my leather armour. It got damaged due to a few close calls and wounds I got when I killed a bunch of things. Apparently they didn't like that I wanted to kill them so they decided to rebel.

I found this tailor, who deals in leather working. He is a prim and proper young man named Tom. I like Tom, he is very hard working. Once I gave him my armour, he repaired it in 15 minutes and it cost me only 1 silver. Cheap, fast and efficient.

It occurred to me, after leaving the friendly tailor Tom's place, that my view of money might be skewed. Most of my money is from plundering or selling my kills. I have never really worked for money in this world, and daily necessities are handled in copper coins, often in single digits...

Puh whatever, I still have 19 gold and a bunch of silver, time to drink. I head to the nearest pub with renewed vigor. After all, you have to celebrate the start of a mission.

I reached a pub called "Golden silver", it looks like a regular pub, except for the ostentatious name. There aren't many people in the pub because it's midday.

Swaying my tail to the smell of alcohol, go to the bar and ask for a drink.

"Yo barman give me one drink which you recommend and a good bottle of rum."

"Sure thing."

The barman hands me my bottle of rum and a glass of some kind of alcohol that I have never seen.

'Perfect, now if only there was a cutie to accompany me...'

As if on command, what looks like an adventuring party walks in boisterously.

'By the gods, there come my cuties.'

The party is comprised of 3 women and 4 men making more noise than an angry mother. The man in the lead, a young, buff and handsome looking human man comes up to the bar and orders a bunch of beer. I decide to chat him up and join their table.

"Yo, you're new. Your festive mood is ruining all the brooding going on in here. You just came back from a successful mission?" I start spewing bullshit, with a small smile, to see if something sticks.

One of the best conversation starters with a stranger, is to just say random bullshit on your mind, since once you get the conversation going, it's easy.

"Oh? Yeah we did, is it that obvious? haha." The boisterous man happily responds.

"Mhm the looks on your party members are tired, relieved and happy so you probably had a hard and fruitful mission. My name is Valia by the way, what's yours?"

"Nice to meet you Valia, My name is Xander" We shake hands. "Are you a regular here?"

"No, but I soon will be. I just started my mercenary career and I'll soon head out on a mission. This is just me celebrating the last peacful moments, before facing the risk of death. You know, gotta mellow out."

"Haha, I know what you mean. When I first started adventuring and took a subjugation quest, I was scared shitless."

He takes the platter of beers he ordered and says. "Hey you wanna join our table? Maybe we can even give you a few helpful survival tips."

"Sure, it will be fun." I empty my glass and take the bottle of rum with me and follow him to their table.

"Hey guys, this Valia. She's a new mercenary and she'll head out on a mission soon, so she'll be joining our celebrations." He introduces me to the table. They are sitting around a regular wooden table with cushioned wooden chairs.

" 'Sup Valia, i'm ..." A bunch of smiling faces introduce themselves.

"Hey" I greet them back and sit between a wizard girl and a tall woman with blonde hair, wearing heavy armour. The armoured tall woman is the only one who didn't greet me.

We start drinking and chatting. The party apparently came back from a D rank dungeon raid and they got a bunch of valuable stuff. Their party is composed of 2 tanks, a swordsman, a rogue, archer, magician and a spellsword. For healing they just down potions and apparently the spellsword, the tall armoured woman, can heal as well.

For some reason the spellsword is completely ignoring me. She has a beatiful angelic looking face, with blue eyes and long golden blonde hair in a tight ponytail. Her whole body is covered in steel plate heavy armour and she's about 180 cm tall.

I inspect her.

[Name] - Sol Delia

[Race] - High Solar

[Level] - 7

Her race is the same as Aerion after he evolved, looks like she recently evolved too. The Solar race is quite rare, so I decide to ask her why she is ignoring me.

"Hey you, is there a reason you don't even look at me?" I ask her in a neutral voice

She glances at me and looks away. "You are a demon, I don't talk to demons."

'Now this I didn't expect. Blatant discrimination. Oh well not like it matters.'

I turn to the ball of joy magician. She looks to be young, in her late teens. She has shoulder-lenght wavy brown hair, a cute face and brown eyes. She is about 160 cm tall with C-cup breasts and slender frame. She's wearing a mantle like robe, that's open from the front and she has a long sleeved casual cotton shirt and black shorts underneath.

We keep chatting and drinking. No one really interest me except Sol, but she doesn't want to talk to me and I don't care enough to push it.

As the hours go by, everyone is getting more and more drunk. I start making passes on the magician, whos name is Christina. She doesn't look like she can hold her alcohol well.

"Christina stop drinking, you are going to pass out if you continue. Have some water for now." I lean over her and reprimand her, holding my hand on her glass. Our faces are so close right now that we can feel each others breath. She looks at me for a few seconds, blushes and doesn't say anything, then she nods, not breaking eye-contact.

'Good, she's interested'

I lean back to my seat and gulp down her drink. I have had experience bringing sloshed girls home and it sucks. They either pass out or throw up and pass out.

"I'm going to the bathroom." She says and stands up.

I wait a bit, then stand up and follow her.