Quest Completed:

- The Beginnings

Rewards: 1 Silver, 50 XP

‘Finally.’ Connor said to himself mentally while breathing heavily, his hands on his knees. After walking for quite some time, he had managed to arrive at the fountain that the guard had mentioned. It was an huge fountain made from limestone accompanied by an equally huge bronze statue of a relatively overweight man with a sword pointing to the sky.

‘So this is the Lord then?’ Connor thought while straightening his back. ‘Damn, he’s quite fat.’

There were several benches near the fountain where several men and women sat, in comparison to the people he saw by the inn and the Adventurer’s Guild, they were wearing luxurious clothes.

‘Character Sheet.’ Connor said as he checked his XP. ‘75… This is going to take way too long.’ Next was his balance, which according to the shop’s wallet, he had 3 gold 94 silvers and 40 copper in total. After spending some on the breakfast at the Sleeping Oak Inn, a gold at the Adventurer’s Guild and finally managing to loot some off of the mugger he managed to take down and the quest reward he had received just now. The numbers on the wallet page was climbing up once again.

‘Not enough.’

The amount of coins he had was slightly less than yesterday. Even though he had earned quite a sum, according to Connor’s standards, this was not going to be enough. Unfortunately, other than claiming some quests at the Adventurer’s Guild, Connor had no idea what to do.

Steering himself, he started walking towards the Adventurer’s Guild once again to see if he could take some quests there. After the fountain quest was complete, the system had gone completely silent without any new quests in sight. That only left the Adventurer’s Guild.

By following the streets they came through in the first place while travelling towards the barracks, about an hour later, Connor arrived at the Adventurer’s Guild.

‘I am definitely going to need a vehicle eventually, if I had a pedometer with me, I am sure it would be way over fifteen thousand by now.’

Connor saw the usual activity in front of the Adventurer’s Guild people of various sizes and ages moving in and out the building with occasional people who were alone looking at the board and going in... It was almost evening and the sky was getting dark. The lights, nearly identical with LED bulbs in real life, were alit on the walls of the guild’s building. This came as a surprise to Connor for a few seconds before he nodded understandingly, there was magic after all.

Connor moved towards the Adventurer’s Guild’s Bulletin Board to see the available quests. As he got closer and closer to the board, he realized one thing.

‘Oh fuck.’

‘Oh fuck.’

‘Oh fuck.’

He repeated three times. There was a huge problem. He could not read what the quests were saying. The only thing he could see in each quest were drawings. He assumed that those drawings were some map as some points were marked with an ‘X’ but the text… completely undecipherable. Nothing less than hieroglyphs for Connor.

‘Thinking about it… I haven’t read anything…’ Connor looked at the Adventurer’s Guild’s sign once again, he had found the place thanks to the considerable foot traffic and the dangling sign. He found that there was a writing on the side of the sign, again. Hieroglyphs. He assumed that it was saying Adventurer’s Guild though.

‘Can speak, can understand… Can’t read. Can… write?’ Connor’s mind was in a frenzy once again. He nodded as he thought that the system was probably translating each word in real-time whenever he was talking or listening to someone. That was the reason why everyone spoke English. ‘I wonder if that also includes the names.’ It was definitely an interesting thought. So far, while there were different names here and there, most names he had heard of were relatively English-sounding. Richard, Jeanne… did this mean that the system were translating the names as well? Or was it completely random that the names were same as English?

‘So this means that reading isn’t translated. Safe to assume that writing isn’t as well.’ Thinking of it, Connor had not written anything since he entered this world. The only time he had used a pen, or quill in this case, was when he was trying to draw his adventurer’s badge.

Connor closed in to the bulletin board and focused on one of the quests to see if he could understand anything. Especially with the maps. The first thing in his mind was something that resembled a town or city, he would assume that would be Sethra.

NWI Synchronization In Progress

Suddenly, the box who Connor was familiar with popped up in front him once again. Which caused Connor to rise an eyebrow.

Quest Discovered:

Escort a Merchant from Sethra to Davl.

Duration: 5 days.

Required Adventurer Rank: D

Rewards: 2000 XP, 2 gold

The blue box of quest text had somewhat replaced the paper. Connor realised that it was somewhat attached to it. The only point where the blue box did not cover was the map showing the drawing of two different towns with one marked X. Some sort of drawing in between. Connor guessed this would be the best way to indicate… range between these two towns.

Happy to learn that the system could actually translate the quests as well, Connor read through the information, frowning at the required adventurer rank part. The quest rewards were fairly lucrative. 2000 XP and 2 gold. That two thousand XP could get him closer to leveling up while the coin reward could help him get by.

‘Does leveling also increase my rank?’ Connor asked himself. This was something he had not thought of so far. The system showed two different levels one was his level, which was marked as 1 while the other one was his rank, Private. If he leveled up by gaining 2500 XP. Would his rank become PFC as well?

‘My things to test list is getting longer and longer.’ Connor noted.

Quest Discovered:

Gather 5 Sethran Flowers

Duration: 1 day

Required Adventurer Rank: F

Rewards: 5 XP, 10 copper

Repeatable

After realising that he could not take a quest that required a minimum adventurer rank D, Connor started looking for other quests. The one that he had his eyes on, which was according to the map that was drawn was super close to the town seemed to be… a lot boring.

‘Gather 5 flowers? 5 XP? Is this a joke?’ Connor sighed and shook his head trying to look for other quests.

Unfortunately, most of the quests he had looked at were either gathering various resources such as wood, stone or random flowers. To be fair, these were the quests he could take at his level while other lucrative quests were available too, if only he had a higher rank.

Suddenly, Connor found a quest at the bottom of the bullettin board. On the map drawn on the quest, it seemed close to the town but also had a symbol of two swords clashing into each other.

Quest Discovered:

Nearby villagers have reported that there is a sound coming out of the cave located in the Sethra Mountains every night. Explore the cave.

Duration: 3 days

Required Adventurer Rank: F

Rewards: 100 XP, 2 silver

WARNING: This quest is potentially dangerous.

‘I also like to live dangerously.’ Connor thought before taking the paper from the board.