“Huh?” Jenna muttered quietly, “Are you serious?” She asked while staring at Foster, together with everyone else, and the young man simply nodded his head nervously. He didn’t know what else to say but to agree. It was a pretty good excuse to be fair.

“But five years ago...” Clark started while in thought, “How old are you right now?” He asked before Foster just lightly scratched his cheek, “I’m twenty.” Foster replied before Clark slowly nodded his head.

“Hmm, seems about right. So tell us, you were just pushed into the forest with those weird things? They seem pretty high-quality... It doesn’t seem to make too much sense for parents that would abandon a child in a place like this to be able to just waste things like that.” Clark pointed out, and then raised one of his brows suspiciously.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” Aaron said, putting that suspicion that everyone was feeling into words, “There’s no way that would happen. Except if it was found you have some kind of class restriction when you turned fifteen. You seem more than just healthy, so I doubt that’s the case.” He pointed out, and immediately afterward, Ernard and Jakob used both of their hands to hit the table, since both seemingly did so independently of one another.

“Aye, kid, ya tellin’ us that you think we’d lie about something like this?” Jakob asked with a deep glare, and Aaron immediately shook his head in panic, “No, no, I’m not saying that you two lied! I’m saying that he probably didn’t tell you the truth! You’re heroes, you probably just assumed that he was telling the truth despite how unlikely it is!” He pointed out nervously, trying to justify his thoughts, but that was quickly denied by even Joseph.

“Hahh... That just shows you that the education system these days isn’t what it used to be...” Joseph said with a deep sigh as he rested his head in his hand, “You think that any of those guys were good-natured enough to do that? You know how party names are chosen, right?” The middle-aged man asked, and the three adventurers slowly looked at him with a nod.

“Yeah, when and if you become a B-Rank party, the Guild chooses the name depending on what you’ve done so far, right?” Clark replied.

“Exactly so. The name ‘Fiery Glacier’ came from Georg’s flame-aura based close-quarter attacks, as well as Yennifer’s superior ice-magic. They were the first two of the party to reach individual A-Rank, so they were used as the base. But you know, their name wasn’t always ‘Fiery Glacier’.”

With a confused expression, everyone looked at Joseph before Foster slowly turned his head toward the two-headed skeleton next to him. Both heads seemed rather satisfied and nostalgic at the moment, “Right, I still don’t get why we had to change the name. I liked the first one better, personally.” Ernard pointed out, and Jakob immediately nodded is head, “Yup. ‘Frozen Hell’ sounds cooler, aye?”

“Frozen Hell?” Aaron asked with a wry smile, “Aren’t the only ones that have their party names changed...”

“Complete lunatics?” Joseph finished for him with a quick nod, “That’s right. That’s what they were. I doubt that they’d be naive to believe a story like that. But what Clark and Aaron were saying is true, it doesn’t really add up. Son, do you know the reason why you were abandoned like that? Do you suffer from some sort of disease?” The middle-aged man asked. Outwardly it seemed like he was really asking out of concern. Still, Foster was sure that he was just pretending and was really just as suspicious as the others about this. It made sense to assume that a heavily sheltered rich-kid that was then abandoned and lived with the undead for a few years was incredibly naive, after all.

With a light grumble and sigh, Foster stood up and pushed the chair back a bit with his legs and then stepped to the side of the table. Aaron immediately made his way over toward the door with a deep frown, but Foster just shook his head. “Not trying to leave, don’t worry.” He pointed out and then proceeded to place his backpack onto the table together with the headphones that were still placed around his neck until then.

He grabbed the belt that was slung around his hips and quickly undid it so that he could open his shirt up. Foster wanted to place it down onto the table, as well, but before then, Jakob and Ernard placed their hands under it. They seemed to be pretty curious about what it was, at least that’s what Foster thought it’d be.

So, he just placed the belt into their hands that immediately hit the table in response to the unexpected weight. These two were pretty physically weak on top of that, so they couldn’t bring out much force, “Aye, you were tellin’ the truth, lassie.” Jakob started, before Ernard quickly finished, “Heavier than expected.”

With a wry smile, Foster chose to just continue and then opened his shirt up. It was a bit annoying to pull it off his arms because of the weight, but it was actually easier to do than he thought because this shirt acted like regular cloth despite being so heavy and simply metallic.

But either way Foster just took the shirt off and placed it onto the back of his chair. It nearly toppled over from the unbalanced weight placed onto it, and the young man took some more steps closer toward the others.

He expected that what he wanted to show was rather obvious, but what Clark said next showed the opposite, “Hmm... I see... You are hairless, does that mean that you didn’t go through puberty?” He asked, and Foster looked at him with squinted, annoyed eyes and shook his head.

“I just don’t like having chest-hair, sue me.” Foster complained, “But look right here, right next to this huge fucking scar where my heart is are some stubbles from the hair regrowing, so fuck off.” He said annoyedly, before taking a step closer toward them so that they could see it even better.

It was the surgical scar that he had as a souvenir from one of the heart-surgeries he got when he was still a kid. Foster figured that would be enough to show that something was wrong with his body. The ‘heart’ was usually an important place in the body in a magical sense, so he figured that if anything could restrict ‘classes’, it would be heart disease.

“Wait, were you stabbed before or something?” Jenna asked with a bit of worry in her voice, and Foster just looked back at her with a wry smile, before Joseph tuned in, “It doesn’t look like a stab wound. It’s too clean for that... And if he was stabbed there, then he most likely wouldn’t have survived that attack. He’s just a low-level right now, so when he got that, I’m sure he didn’t even have a class.”

“Hmm, true. Then maybe it-“

“I just have a fucked heart, okay? It was misshapen and weak when I was born, I’ve had surgery, but it’s still fucked. I grew up pretty weak because of that.” Foster explained, and everyone in the room looked at him as if he was joking.

“A misshapen heart? Couldn’t that have just been repaired with magic if you were as rich as it seems? Why would you need surgery? Also...” Jenna pointed out, and then looked Foster up and down a few times to make sure that she really was looking at a pretty well-trained torso and then looked him back in the face, “You seem anything but sickly.”

“I’ve worked well to hide it.” Foster replied, trying to just move on from this. He felt uncomfortable when people were looking at his scar that much. Since it seemed like the others were fine with it, Foster just turned around and put these clothes back on properly. He sat down on the chair next to Ernard and Jakob, who were looking at him curiously as well.

Or that’s what they seemed like... They still didn’t have faces, so he really couldn’t say for sure.

“Well...” Joseph started with a relieved sigh, “For now, let us say that what Ernard and Jakob told us is really what happened. We still need to know what happened to release that barrier all of a sudden.” He explained.

With a nod, Foster chose to tell them the story. And honestly... he was just too tired to bother pretending with this. He’d been up nearly constantly since he got to this place. The only thing that could resemble sleep in any way being that time when he fell unconscious in the library after the Lich’s attack. Oh, and before that, when he was carried by the thing of flesh and bones.

Foster had no idea what was normal here in this place. If he wasn’t careful, he might just end up making the situation worse by trying to make it better for himself. He was thankful for Ernard and Jakob’s help already, and it obviously wasn’t a good idea to explain that he was probably from another world, but other than that, Foster just wanted to try and at least give them a believable, good explanation. There was no doubt that they would end up finding the lich’s cave, after all, so he couldn’t hide that part of it. So, Foster tried to come up with a believable story that wasn’t too far off from the truth, while also not being so obviously incriminating as it ended up being.

“That giant undead... the thing of flesh and bones suddenly attacked us, shattered the bodies of Ernard, Jakob and Georg, and then pulled me and Georg’s head toward the center of that barrier. We were dropped into the well, and then we soon found the Lich that was down there. He said he was keeping himself alive by feeding on Undead he created. I don’t know what he was planning, but apparently he just didn’t want to be alone in his last moments? Well, he died, and then fell to dust while giving out a lot of energy or something.” Foster explained while staring down at the table.

When he raised his head, he noticed that everyone was closely watching him and listening, without anyone being overly worried, scared, startled, or even disgusted. This honestly calmed Foster down a fair bit. Seemed like it was working out.

“Georg’s head was still alright for a little while. He spoke to me and then fell to dust the same way. It seems like through that energy or something, I was given the possibility to change my class into a ‘Necromancer’, but it was a special type of it. I changed my class, hoping that I could resurrect Georg somehow. But the skills that I got then couldn’t help me. Then, I managed to find a hidden exit that ended in the nest of those Lunacides, the giant undead woke them up, and then I ran into you guys while running away from them.”

After Foster finished his explanation, he just waited for anyone else to say something, anything at all. He wanted to know if he just fucked himself or not, after all. But soon, Foster just heard the creaking of the wooden chair that Joseph was sitting on while the middle-aged, heavy man leaned back and closed his eyes in thought.

Slowly he then turned toward Clark as his eyes opened again.

“Take the kid and Ernard and Jakob with you when you return to town. I’ll request someone to come to verify this story. Until then, give him an Inn and place him under proper surveillance. And have him sign up at the Guild so that those two won’t be an issue.” Joseph told him, and Clark immediately nodded his head and then stood up.

“Got it. Then come on, we should leave pretty soon. We can’t do anything against the Lunacides or that giant undead anyway.” Clark said and looked at Foster, who was nothing if not relieved that this story didn’t seem to be an issue.