After about walking for twenty-odd minutes and being scrutinized by almost every villager along the way, Connor and his guard entourage had arrived at the barracks.

“Rol, tell the guards to send in the inspectors to the zone to check for any damage.” The heavy knight that seemed to be the guard-commander -or at least that was what Connor assumed- ordered to one of the soldiers next to him before the soldier nodded and started running towards the barracks in advance.

Just as Connor and the entourage were getting in the barracks, several armoured guards walked out of the building with people wearing robes in tow. In total, there were four armoured guards and three mages. The mages’ had different coloured robes, two of them were wearing white while the one walking at the far back wore grey.

‘Huh, mages then. Class system? Literally the same with all the other games and TV shows.’ Connor thought to himself as he commented on the robes that the mages were wearing. The Mages turned their heads to look at him while walking out, noticeable frowns in some of their faces as they scrutinized Connor up and down. Connor did not miss this. ‘Finally questioning my attire now?’ he said to himself. He was still surprised though. Even though he could somewhat pick up their intentions while they scrutinized him, no one still audibly voiced their opinion about the gear Connor was wearing. No one asked why he was carrying an MP5. Even considering the odd time period and the possibility of the villagers not knowing an MP5 is, someone would question the weird item… right?

After the mages left, Connor was brought to one of the luxurious “holding rooms” the barracks had. It wasn’t a dungeon or a jail as he initially thought. It was basically a room with cushy sofas and a table on the side. The soldiers brought him there and told him that they would be with him in just a few minutes and even asked him if he had any requests. Considering that he was “apprehended” by the city guards, Connor did not expect this sort of treatment.

Walking around the room he was left alone, Connor started thinking. The door did not have any sort of knob where you could turn and leave, so it was definitely a one-sided door, it could only be opened from the outside, which definitely meant whoever they put in here was to be in here until they were let out by the guards. The room smelt nice, there were two sofas, parallel to each other with a medium-sized table in the middle. A window, that had iron curtains in front of it, but a window nevertheless. Right next to the window a desk with a chair.

‘No matter how you think, this looks way too luxurious to be a jail. Considering how clean it is, it isn’t rarely used as well.’ Connor thought to himself. If the room was this clean, it meant that it was being cleaned regularly. Either the janitors or whoever cleaning the barracks worked really hard and was a very awesome person or that this place was being regularly used. Which Connor assumed, nobles or people with high status were constantly put in this place every now and then.

Interesting enough, when before they were putting him into the room, they took Connor’s dagger and asked if Connor had anything else. Connor just shook his head and they let him go that easily. Even in the “timeout room” Connor still had his MP5 slung on his back while his M9 was still in its holster.

He walked to one of the sofas and sat. Thinking about what to do next. The quest did not seem to complete itself so walking all the way to barracks and seeing what the barracks looked like was definitely not enough for the system to recognize Connor as a town explorer. As Connor slumped on the sofa, he tested the various features of the system for the umpteenth time. Help page, contacting a GM, logging out… Nothing worked as he received the same error responses.

Out of curiosity, he opened the shop screen to see if there were any differences to the last time. Scrutinizing each page one by one, he could not see anything new. ‘I really hate the developers for these prices. Do I have to be a king or something to be able to afford a tank? What the hell is this?’ Connor complained once again. He looked deeper at the vehicles tab this time around, even though he had ignored anything other than the bicycle last time, he closed it as soon as he saw a basic ATV, Quad actually cost 25 gold.

‘25 gold for the vehicle itself. How the hell am I supposed to refuel it? What if the batteries run out? What if I need spare parts?’ Connor questioned himself as he thought deeper into the situation. It was true, what would happen after purchasing the vehicle? Would it spawn right in front of him? Would it spawn with a full fuel tank and ask him to refuel it later or would he need to buy fuel with it? ‘How am I even supposed to buy fuel? There is nothing here.’ Connor asked before remembering the other menu option, Misc. For sure, a jerrycan was in there and cost 50 silver. Per piece. Unfortunately or fortunately, it did not state how big the can was. Which made Connor think whether it was a one time purchase or it refilled the vehicle completely and destroyed on use.

As he was pondering, Felix, the presumed commander of the knights, walked in.

“Sorry for bothering you for this long sir. The mages have now finished their investigation. There doesn’t seem to be any magic usage during the brawl you had with those people. However, according to the inspectors, there are very precise holes in the muggers’ body. What happened?” Felix asked Connor as he turned around on the sofa. Their investigation was odd. Even though mages said that they had double-checked, there was no magic involved. This was very intriguing as the small holes on the dead mugger were very precise and some of some holes had continued to the other side of the body. Which meant that something had gone in and exited from the other side. Arrows… were possible, but a ranger would definitely need to imbue some magic in their bow or arrow to shoot it this strong, not to mention that the holes did not seem to be caused by an arrow as the damage was quite on point. A tiny hole that could bring a huge man down.

“Ah, I used my weapons to handle them.” Connor nonchalantly answered Felix which caused even more questions to pop up in Felix’s head. “Sir, I am sorry but I am having a very hard time believing you were able to cause that much damage to a man with the dagger you gave us. The injuries do not add up.” Felix said, it was true, the damage was way too precise and on both sides, an entry and an exit wound. It was impossible to do it with a dagger.

“Oh. No, no. I did not use my dagger. I-”

‘Hold on. Do I really want to say that I shot them with my trusty MP5? Would they even understand what an MP5 is?’ Connor’s mind was in a frenzy. So far, everything he had seen had implied that he was in the regular medieval ages, other than the magic, of course. Chance of them knowing anything about guns were zero, if not in negative levels in the first place. ‘Do I explain… No… Nothing good happened to the people back then.’ Connor thought as he remembered the witchhunt of middle ages. Even the slightest discovery could result in the person being excommunicated by The Church and labelled a witch or devil which quickly became their demise as they were hanged shortly after. Although Connor did not know whether if a Church even existed in this world, he did not want to risk it.

“Sir? You took them out using something else? Not magic?” Felix queried.

Connor was thinking of an answer but could not come up with anything feasible. Next best step was to twist the question and answer differently.

“Ah yes. I did not use magic nor the dagger.” Connor answered.

Felix’s eyebrows rose at the answer. ‘Brat… what did you use then? Did not use a dagger, did not use magic… Did Goddess Cylria descended and get rid of him for you? What is this bullshit?’

“Did you use an artefact or something, sir?” Felix asked a follow-up question. It was pretty common that some nobles did have family heirlooms or artefacts that were found in various places throughout the world. Some were useless, like never-ending ink. But rumours said that King Reginald had an artefact that allowed him to detect lies whenever he was speaking with someone.

Connor suddenly heard and felt a lightbulb go on top of his head.

“Yes. I used an artefact I had in my possession. Unfortunately, I don’t have it anymore, it was a one-time thing to save my life.” Connor quickly thought of a lie using his past experiences while playing games, it was very common to have items that could save the life of a player for once and then disappear immediately.

“I understand, sir. I humbly apologize for our lack of security. Costing you to use your artefact.” Felix bowed towards Connor. It was a very believable lie.

“Sir, may I ask your name for record-keeping?” Felix asked. It was a very usual question. The investigation was done, a bad guy was dead. A noble was, hopefully, happy. Time to close the case and record it.

“Connor.” Connor replied.

“Connor…” Felix repeated and waited for Connor to continue as he stretched the last syllable.

“Ah, Connor Ironheart. Sorry, didn’t think right for a second.” Connor replied.

“House Ironheart…” Felix started thinking.