-----
"Wait, HUH?! You completed the Quest?!"
The receptionist in the Adventurer Guild was left flabbergasted once we came back almost four hours later, with the quest completed. Ambil himself walked out of his forge and accompanied us to testify we did a good job.
"Of course they completed the damn quest, lass!" Said Ambil angrily. "If I come here to tell you they did it, THEN THEY DID IT!" He slammed the table. "Now give them their reward! They deserve it! Plus some more."
"A-Alright…" The blonde girl sighed, walking away while trembling before Ambil's presence.
"If she ever discriminates you guys because you're not humans, just tell me. I might have a declining family business but people in here respect their elders." He smiled. "Well, I ain't that old though…"
"Haha, thank you, Ambil, I didn't thought you would step up for us." I smiled.
"This is surprising coming from the grumpy grandpa that treated us like shit before." Rita smiled, giving him a cocky smile.
"T-That's…! Well, I just learned you guys ain't that bad! That's all." Ambil rubbed his nose as he looked elsewhere, clearly embarrassed of himself.
"I guess you have to be nice with the people that's about to help you get out of bankruptcy." Mark teased him, crossing his arms.
"T-That's…" Ambil muttered. "Well, it was a quest from the Divine Spirit, don't blame it all to me! I haven't forced you do to anything…" He crossed his muscular arms.
"Sorry for the wait, here's your rewards, distributed evenly with everyone." The receptionist walked in, bringing forth the rewards with herself.
She gave us one bag of coins each, and also three Fiery Bronze Ingots too, which was the "extra reward" that Ambil had put up for those that were really competent, oh, also completing these Adventurer Guild Quests give EXP just like normal Quests!
Ding!
[You've completed the Adventurer Guild's Quest [Assistance Request from the Ember Family Forgery]!]
[You earned 100.000 Gold]
[You earned 2.500.000 EXP]
[You gained [Fiery Bronze Ingot (D Grade)] x3!]
[You earned +1000 Adventurer Guild Merit!]
[Your Adventurer License has improved from F- Rank to F Rank!]
The moment we got the rewards, the Adventurer Cards glowed brightly, their dark bronze color changing to a slightly brighter one, as the F- letter became just F!
"C-Congratulations, you've ascended from F- to F Rank Adventurers! Yaay…" The blonde girl clearly didn't seem to like seeing demi-humans being competent.
"Not bad, we've got tons of ingots now." Mark said. "I guess we can repurpose them on the forge."
"Wow, so this is what it feels like to earn my own money." Brisingra was surprised. "I barely helped at shaping and sharpening some weapons and I earned this much? Amazing…"
The dwarven Princess was rather surprised of pulling her own weight and being rewarded for her efforts. I can tell she must feel surprised, seeing how she had a life of luxury as a princess back at her home.
"Yeah, it's great, isn't it?" Acorn was just as happy.
"I only cooled down things and I got paid this much?" Nieve as surprised.
For NPC, 100k Gold is a lot of money, it's mostly little for us Players because we sell each other things at millions…
"Ah, I also wanted to place some new Requests." Ambil said, quickly placing them on the table, and paying the fee.
"S-Sure…" The receptionist muttered.
And as she placed them, we went immediately to pick them up. They were all sorts of quests, from helping in the forge, to enhance flames, to make molds, to craft weapons, armor, and so on.
It was a trick we talked with Ambil, about making him set up quests for the work we were already going to do for him, and in exchange, we get Guild Merit and rewards, abusing the System!
Of course, to properly do this you need to befriend an NPC with at least some funds, something not many Players out there can do.
"Eh?! You're accepting the quests right away?" The receptionist was surprised, raising an eyebrow. "Ah… Well, there's no rule saying you can't so… A-Alright." She changed her attitude the more Ambil glanced at her with a deadly glare.
And as we were getting almost ready, suddenly…
"Well, well, well, would you look at this?"
"I can't believe my eyes."
"Has the old man Ambil walked out of his cave for once on his life? Incredible."
A trio of petulant young men suddenly walked in, surrounding the much smaller Ambil, because of his Dwarven Blood, they were taller as pure-blooded humans, and they used this to their advantage, glaring at him down as if he were walking garbage.
"Move! I don't have anything to talk with you guys." Ambil complained.
"Hoh? So rude, I can tell why your forge's about to go down soon." Laughed the first one, a cocky blonde with blue eyes.
"Meanwhile, we recently got ourselves a big deal, the Magician Guild just asked us for another batch of a hundred staffs and magic weapons! And what have you done lately, Ambil?" The second guy asked, similar to the first one but with green eyes.
"I bet he just told these freaks to bring him some company. I can't imagine what else would this blistering fool ever call these monsters to his house for!" Laughed the third, the other two bursting into laughter. He was just as the other two, but with red eyes.
"Tch… S-Shut up!" Ambil roared angrily, gritting his teeth. "One thing is insulting me and another is insulting my friends! Just because you're getting sales doesn't mean you're competent, you damn Forgery Brothers!"
"Ambil…" Rita sighed. "We are his friends?"
"Ah, I guess this is why he didn't like to step out of his forge…" Mark sighed.
I couldn't let them bully our patron while we stood there doing nothing! I quickly stepped in, asking who the hell were these gentlemen.
"Forgery Brothers?" I asked, walking in, and standing right besides Ambil.
"Oh my, excuse me for not introducing ourselves, madam." The blue-eyed man spoke. "We are the Forgery Brothers, Adman, Cassin, and Helpes. We run our family business of the same name at the other side of the city. I remember when our parents used to tell us that we were nothing compared to the Ember Forge, oh, how things have changed now…"
"Heh, well, it's not like things are getting any better, right? You've done some good deed in helping this idiot get through." Laughed Cassin. "Eventually his place will close down, so how about you come help us in our forge later?"
"We'll make sure to treat non-humans fairly…" Smiled the third brother, Helpes, as he approached me and attempted to touch my hair. "Some of you may be rather beautiful, I have to admit…"
"Don't you dare touch me." I waved my hand; his arm quickly being hit by my hand and pushed back.
Yeah, unlike other Players, I can harm NPC because of being a World Boss, something nobody here knows, of course.
"Y-You bastards! My place's not going down!" Ambil cried furiously. "Stop annoying me, you bunch of flies!"
"Oh well, keep crying, old man, you're going to the streets at the end of the month, just a week from now!" Laughed the brothers.
"And you, demi-humans… you better watch out. You're not welcomed here." The second brother whispered to me.
I resisted the urge to blast him into smithereens, as I smiled back at him as gently as I could.
"Oh? We'll see about that." I giggled. "Let's go." I called my friends.
"Are you sure about this? They're getting too ahead of themselves." Mark began cracking his knuckles.
"You know we can't harm NPC, let's go." I shrugged, pretending I didn't had the power to do so.
"They were so rude…" Brisingra sighed. "Well, I am not a Player, so I could probably smack them down… But that would be unsightly."
"Y-Yeah…" Acorn sighed. "Though, I'm getting tired of being called a freak!"
"These humans need someone to teach them a lesson on etiquette." Nieve seemed as angry as this morning.
"Ugh… Thugs like these get fucked easily in the streets, how can these guys just walk around?" Rita complained.
As we walked back to the forge through the streets below the setting sun, Ambil sighed, apologizing.
"I'm sorry about that… Those guys are always like that, well, not like the other ones aren't that different, always calling me names, bullying me… Even at my old age, they don't even respect me…" Ambil gritted his teeth, gripping his fists. "I might act all high and mighty but I'm… I'm just a loser that can't even make a sale…"
"Well, that's about to change." I smiled, patting his shoulder.
"Yep, leave it to us, gramps." Mark nodded.
"We're here to help you!" Lily smiled.
"Ah…." Ambil was about to cry, his eyes looked really teary right now. "S-Shut up! Why do you get all corny out of nowhere, you damn brats?! Now let's just go back home and have some dinner, I'm starving!"
He cleaned his face with his hands and started walking straight back home, trying to ignore us. But he seemed rather happy though.
"Oh well, let's have a meal with him and then let's log-off for today." I said, just before something strange happened.
FLAAAASH!
Shadows and darkness started spreading across the dark alleys where we were walking across, the sky above seemed to freeze, as we felt the presence of both miasma and nether spreading across…
"What's going on?!" Acorn cried. "Lady Achlys, is this your doing?"
"Eh?! Not at all! These shadows and darkness… feel much different than what I use!" Rita panicked as well. "Wait, what's going on over there?!"
"W-What?! Ugh! ARGH! Get off me you damn…!"
And Ambil, who was a few meters away from us, was suddenly wrapped on black tentacles, emerging right from the shadows! Everyone else seemed to slightly panic, as things were changing too fast! We were being ambushed!
"AMBIL!" I ran towards him, only to be stopped by the shadows themselves.
ραndαsnοvεl.cοm "Groooaarrgh!"
Dozens of humanoid-shaped figures emerged, made completely out of miasma, with creepy, sharp-fanged smiles, and spiraling red eyes!
They quickly started slowly walking towards us as we found ourselves completely surrounded by them, who seemed to be emerging almost endlessly from the darkness.
"Oh well, I made it here at long last…"
And a masked man emerged from the shadows, laughing. He revealed his right arm beneath his black cloak, it was completely pitch black, made of some sort of miasmic substance, emanating a foul aura of malice, as black flames appeared from his arm, shaping into chains.
"Time to get rid of the uninvited guests."
-----
Foll𝑜w current novels on fre(e)w𝒆bnovel