The next day, after having breakfast at the inn, Luke and Alice went to the guildhall to meet Lana. As soon as Luke and Alice entered, the guild assistant beckoned them to the front and told them a man named Gragus had come to meet them about joining the party. The guild assistant had a pretty excited face when she talked about Gragus, Luke found out later why she was so excited. Luke, Alice, and Lana sat down at a table by the corner again and Gragus came.

Gragus was an older man but Luke doubted that he was older than Alice. He seemed to be about 40 years old, large, and had two swords around his waist. He was tall and had a shaved beard that made him look like some sort of a model on Earth’s standard. Luke understood why the guild assistant was so excited when she talked about Gragus. Luke wanted to get to know the man so they proposed to meet again at lunchtime and get to know each other over some afternoon drinking.

Luke was 13 years old and drinking in this world. Granted he only drank in small portions, it felt weird to be drinking at 13 but what 13 years leaves home to go fight monsters. He was kind of used to talking with more people but talking with Gragus was different, Gragus was a man with a lot of experience as an adventurer and his life in the royal army was even more surprising. The man had been to many places and lived the life of a soldier, heck he had even been into a few dungeons. Luke felt like he could respect him as his father because he was about the same age as James at 43 years old. Gragus was an interesting fellow, he spoke like he was in the army. He was loud and clear as possible. Luke didn’t mind the occasional stares at the bar.

Gragus had served in the army and decided it was enough time in the army after twenty years. He didn’t want it, he never even found a girl to marry in all his years because there was so much moving around and he was constantly busy. He had visited the local bars once or twice a week to find a woman to get together with but that was about all he did in life. He wanted more, he wanted a wife and a nice house somewhere peaceful. So he decided to go on and be an adventurer for gold to buy land and a house with. It was going to cost him a lot. He would have to bribe the nobles with gold and gifts to buy land outside of the capital. Gragus had about 1/50 of what he needed to buy the land and house materials. He came across a poster for a B rank party and decided to check them out to see what they were made of. He was very disappointed but figured it would work out since there was an elf and another experienced person. The kid named Luke was smart and he was probably the child of some noble from the way he spoke but he felt that this kid would be the one to slow down the party.

Luke felt the feeling of being looked down upon after lunch. He figured that Gragus or Lana might think he is a kid still because he was so young. He wanted nothing but to prove to them he was useful but he decided just to act as nothing happened. His teammates were good and they could probably go into a dungeon without any worry but he wanted to really know them so the first quest would be an extermination quest. There was a forest outside the capital and near it was a B rank dungeon. The “right outside of town” turned out to be a 30-mile hike to the forest with a dungeon in it. It was a tiring hike and it would have been worse if Luke hadn’t gotten the magic bag to store everything into. It was a handy little bag that just fit in as much as he put in, he didn't know what the limit was but it was probably around 20 to 30 kg per bag. The party made camp 5 miles away from the forest, just to be safe, and went in to find some magical beasts. The first one they ran into was a rabbit. Then they ran into his friends. His thousand friends with red eyes said “fresh meat”, like a college senior at a freshmen welcome dinner. Luke knew he would be dinner if the stupid rabbits were carnivores and it turned out they were. Lana said, “be careful guys, these rabbits only stop after eating all of your body”. Then the rabbits started screaming “Eeekkkkk” and Luke knew it was over for them but he still chanted a fireball that incinerated about 100 of them as soon as they lept towards them. Alice put a barrier of wind on the path of the rabbits.