“Huh!” A female voice echoed inside a cramped room. A woman in silver-like armor, was on a knee, inspecting a large corpse in front of her.

“Kebfa, don’t touch it. We need to get it examined,” a deep voice appeared behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Y-Yuu… I didn’t know you knew the captain of the Blarchx guards…” A lizard humanoid whispered, clearly nervous to be in the presence of these three guards.

“Don’t be nervous, they’re nice people. You too Jacky.” Seeing how timid they were, Yuu tried his best to calm them down. He was still curious about what Chrisel’s background was as whenever he would wander the city, while some were relaxed around him, a lot who didn’t know him were scared.

After the group subjugated this goblin creature, they headed immediately to the guards at the gate. He asked them to get the trio to help him with this situation.

When the three did arrive, he explained the situation to them. At first, they had their doubts, but when they headed into an empty room, with Yuu taking out the corpse, their eyes were in shock.

This creature was over nine feet, forcing the group to lay it on its side. The room that felt spacious before became more cramped with a large corpse.

Curious if he had any clues in what it was, he looked over to Chrisel, “Do you have any leads on what it is? It looks like it got stitched up in some sort of experiment.”

“Hmm, it kind of does. But sadly, there aren’t really documents on anything like this, nor experimented goblins. At most, you have shamans who will experiment, but never on their own kind,” he said as he scratched his head.

“Worst case scenario, someone is the puppet master of both the bandits and goblins,” Bedgard spoke up.

“Possibly…” Chrisel sighed. “I hope that isn’t the case, but with this thing suddenly appearing… I just hope that this creature is from some crazy shaman fooling around instead of an actual intelligent being.”

Walking away from the corpse, Chrisel patted Yuu’s shoulder while smiling, “Either way, we have to thank you, Jacky, and Jqonle. And also the three of you, Jane, Lenna, and Jehbon. I’ll put in a good word at the guild after I’m done with work. Also, please keep this confidential.”

The six of them nodded before starting to head out. Even though there was no reward for taking down and bringing back vital information, Yuu didn’t mind as long as it helped the city while the others didn’t dare to ask for any.

As the group walked, Jane turned towards the collective, smiling towards them, “I guess we’re departing here. If you’re reporting to the guild, just report honestly, leave out that big fat meat, and put in Chrisel’s name. The guild receptionist should understand and just ask him later.” She and Lenna began walking away with nothing but a wave towards them.

“You three are really lucky, surviving against that as newcomers,” Jehbon said with a smirk. “Make sure you stay safe,” he waved towards the three. Even though he was with the two adventurers, he was most likely only partying with Jane and Lenna temporarily.

With Jehbon leaving, Jqonle decided to also leave as the quest was finished, “Thank you for this experience Yuu, Jacky. If you ever need me, this old lizard will come help.”

With the lizard heading in a direction towards the market, all that was left was Jacky and Yuu. They were both heading to the guild, so he decided to take this moment to ask her something, “Hey, Jacky, do you know what’s with Chrisel’s background?”

“Eh!?” She asked in a surprised manner, “I-I thought you were close to him. Ah, sorry if that sounded rude,” she looked away after realizing the stumble of words spewing from her mouth.

“To an extent we are, but I’m not really from around here. I only met him recently and I’ve been hearing a lot about his background from bystanders.”

Understanding the situation, she got a bit closer to him before talking in a more whispering voice, “His family is pretty scary. Most people do like Chrisel, but they wanna stay away from him because his family head is a viscount. While slavery is kinda looked down upon here, they openly enslave people and show them off, and sometimes they even dare to publicly execute people for little reasons.”

“Are most noble families like this?” he asked with a more serious tone. While he did trust Chrisel and didn’t think every noble was corrupted, he was curious about the reputation they wield in this kingdom.

“At least in the public eye, not really. News does travel really fast, so most of them probably just hide their tracks as much as possible. But there are some that do support us.”

Hearing what she had explained, he had a bit of a better understanding regarding power in this kingdom. “Hmm, thank you, Jacky,” he gave her a gentle smile.

“Y-you're welcome,” she said while blushing. Upon entering the guild, she thanked him for the journey before quickly walking away quickly. She was most likely not used to these situations of talking with someone she only just met the day of.

Heading towards the guild desk, he saw Caryne sitting at the desk, looking bored and kind of sleepy like usual. Noticing him approach her, she looked up, “Huh? Finished already? How’d it go?”

“It went well, though it was definitely… interesting,” he told her a quick summary of what happened, only mentioning the goblins being killed. He also told her that Chrisel could tell her more.

“You sure it went well? Sounds like something went up,” she stared at him, curious about the events that happened.

Seeing how he stared off to the side with a nervous smile, she didn’t barge into what happened as it most likely was confidential information if the captain of the guards was involved.

“Well, keep up the pace, you most likely will get a test for a promotion sooner or later,” she laid back on her chair, as she spoke to him in a deadpan voice.

Preparing to leave, he heard Caryne speak in a more gentle and quick voice compared to her usual monotone lines, “Stay safe.”

Hearing this he smiled and waved towards her. With the recent events regarding the bandits, goblins, and much more, death was gonna come faster to some people. Especially adventurers as they had to be exposed to danger a lot of the time.

Not only that, but he had heard that when Caryne had worked at the guild ages ago, she acted much more cheerfully. But being a receptionist for adventurers meant creating and also losing relationships at a constant pace.

Though there was not much he could do other than staying alive. Though it did make him miss his old friends and family when he thought about the scenario.

Not wanting to think about it too much, he quickly headed towards a vendor who he had spoken to before. Even though the vendor was a frail old man, he sold some amazing skewered meat.

“Can I get one- ow, I mean two please.” Getting lost in thought for the past hour or so, he almost forgot Leah was on his head.

“Hrm!” She jumped while making an angry noise.

Patting her head he apologized, “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

Seeing the two of them, the old man smiled while handing him two skewers, “You two really make good companions.”

“Hrm!” Leah jumped into the conversation.

“She’s definitely a pain, but it doesn’t get lonely at times- ow!” Yuu scratched the back of his head. Even though she had a soft squishy body, she has been getting a bit stronger lately with her hits.

The old man laughed and decided to grab another skewered meat, giving it directly to Leah. “Here little slime, take one.” Seeing Yuu about to pay again, he waved his hand, “Just take it. If you want to repay me, come back again, this old man gets lonely sometimes,” he looked at the two while smiling.

Even though the old man looked like he could belong in a retirement home, he was still serving food out in the open. Most likely, he didn’t have someone to care for him. At least from what he could notice since he met him. He thanked the old man and left for the inn.

As tiring as the day has been, for the past hour or two, he enjoyed constantly talking with the people around him. Even though he didn’t want to think about his home back on Earth, he did feel a bit conflicted. At first, he wanted to live a new life. Which he got, and he enjoyed it a lot. Yet at the same time, he felt homesick.

“I wonder if any other Crossers feel the same way… whether they want to go home or just stay here.” While he was thinking, he saw a slime slowly glob a piece of meat from his skewer.

“Hey!” He quickly came back to reality. If he got distracted one more time, his skewer most certainly would be gone.

“Hrm!”

He quickly realized that he had been standing on the street holding the skewer in his hand for an entire minute. He understood that she was most likely worried about him thinking so much and not moving. He patted her head and thanked her before heading back to the inn, preparing to sleep and close the night shut.