I wake up in my new room and check the sun last I remember the positioning of my window faces the east I chant a spell

“Oh Lord Lontihol give me protection from the sun as your daughter of the night”

As I feel the magic coating me I push aside the curtains of my window to see that the sun is giving an orange color. I cover the room with the curtain and decide to go outside to grab breakfast outside, making a mental note that I need to buy my own food to use the kitchen here.

I grab my book, my cloak and get outside of my room and make my way outside. Seeing that there are only a few shops that are open at this time of day I pick one randomly and go to a place called Ghil’s meat and bread. Once i entered I smell a variety of meat inside and see that there aren’t that many people here yet. Suddenly a voice calls out.

“Another customer this early? Must be my lucky day or something, come here miss and say what you want from this place.”

When I look to the source of the voice I see a Binma his height almost reaching the ceiling of the place with reddish eyes, mohawk hair and with his clothes are that of a cook. I heard Master told me that their species are one of the most aggressive Von, getting a muscular body for the males while the females tend to be toned or lean. But this person doesn’t seem to be that aggressive at least. Their skin color are range from green to reddish canyon and this Binma over here seems to go for green.

I got a bit startled when he calls out to me , but I go to him and asked.

“Is it okay if I order a lot in the morning. I tend to be gluttonous.”

“As long as you pay for it I’m good for it as long as my stock doesn’t go away.”

“Can I see the menu so I can see i f I can pay for it?”

“Sure sure here it is.” He hands me the menu and I look at it

They have a variety of meat and some bread as well, there are a couple of combos and even some sandwiches as well. They all seem tasty. I have a large stomach for these kinds of situations.

So I tell him what I want.

“How about 1 of everything here and don’t worry I can stay here for awhile anyway. To start with how about those sandwiches they seem fulfilling.” I smile at him, he startles for a bit and replies

“Didn’t expect that but I sure hope that you have the money for this to calculate that you have maybe 15 silvers for all of these?”

I hand him the silvers immediately from my pouch and immediately pick a seat that is somewhere a bit inconspicuous and away from the windows.

I bring out my book that Master left me and begin reading it from where I left off. Last I remember I was starting at the magic section. Master taught me the basic fundamentals of magic but he didn’t teach me about the magic from our goddess Larin yet hopefully this section will help me on a few things.

As I start reading the food I ordered delivered to me by the Binma from earlier and says.

“ More is on the way I guarantee you that.”

“ I don’t mind, I have time anyway.”

I begin munching down on the sandwich while reading the book.

I put my focus on the book while making sure no one gets near me except for the binma that reminds me I didn’t exactly get his name yet I’ll ask when he comes back.

********************************************

I finished eating everything I ordered and I feel full as it is sadly I’ll just be hungry again later in noon I guess I can still try buying food for myself in the afternoon and cook it back at the inn tonight if this Santi will let me.

I got the Binma’s name earlier while I was eating, his name is Mrionong. He seems like a nice person to be honest. I finished eating maybe at around 8 or 9 am I think the sun is in full view but isn’t above me yet.

I’m going back to the guild house to see if this Santi person has come back yet. Hopefully he doesn’t pry too much into me.

I arrive at the guild house and See that Sylia is working the reception again. There seems to be maybe about 20 people on the ground floor right now probably waiting for other people. Sylia greets me.

“It’s you again Prina, how’s your rest last night?”

“Slept like a baby, thanks for the recommendation for the place. Is the Santi person here yet?”

“He’ll probably be arriving at around noon if we’re going by how he normally is. You still have time to do something else for now.”

“I’ll go back to the inn then, I’ll study a few things while waiting there.”

Sylia goes back doing her work at the desk as I turn my back to her and go on my route to the inn again. Along my way I observe my surroundings as a way to pass the time while I’m moving you never know what you can find. I find children playing around, people walking to their own destinations, their chatter and some people hanging around.

Arriving back at the inn again I go into the lobby and see 4 kids hanging around. They see me and a girl among them calls out to me.

“Hey you’re new here right?” She holds out her hand and says.

“My name is Karan.” I put my hand to hers and proceeded to shake as I replied to her.

“Mine is Prina, nice to meet you Karan.”

“Nice to meet you Prina, let me introduce you to our group, the big kid over there is Vran, the scrawny one over there is poru, then the other girl there is named Truqie.”

“So I take it that all of you together here is a party?”

“Well we’re planning to be one together once we put in maybe 1-2 years training.”

“That’s great. I hope you become a famous party one day.”

“Prina, do you want to hang out together? You know to know each other better here besides we’re living together here in the first place.”

“No thanks I need to go back in my room and read a few things”

“Such a shame I was hoping to know you better since you’re new here and everything besides we don’t get too many people your age coming here, most of the people that grow up around 15-16 goes out of this place anyway.”

“We’ll probably meet for the next few weeks at least. Anyway it’s nice meeting you people and I’ll take my leave.”

I go to the stairs and go straight to my room. I relax on the floor when I closed the door and locked it. I still got a few more hours before this Santi comes back, might as well do my daily prayers to Larin and read the book again.

******************************************

I went back to the guild house around noon and started lounging around the lobby while making sure that no one noticed me. It is when I’m reading that I suddenly smell a large amount of blood coming to the guild house.

Then I notice a guy going in the guild house radiating that smell. He seems to be a Quaraman like me based on his appearance, wearing simple leather armor, a bag at his back, a dagger and a sword at his hips. Appearances aside he seems to be talking with Sylia at the reception.

After talking for a while, Sylia points at me and he walks towards me. The weird part, nobody seems to notice him while he is walking, no one stares at him or even gives a glance to him. Once he is in front of me he gives me a quick look and introduces himself as he holds out his hand.

“Hello there, my name is Santi and I would be your mentor starting today, nice meeting you Prina.”

“Likewise mister Santi.”

I take his hand and proceed to shake his hand.

“No if you don’t mind can we take our conversation somewhere else?”

“No I don’t.”

“Great then let’s go upstairs and take our lunch.”

I stand up from my seat and he leads the way upstairs until we get to a place where there are lots of people eating and discussing with each other. So I ask Santi.

“So what is this place exactly seems to me that it’s like a tavern?”

“Well you’re right actually but this where employers and a mercenary gets to talk with each and discuss terms if they want to get a more personalized contract and the like. But for now this is where we get lunch.”

“Okay..”

Santi scours the room and motion to me to follow him as we pick an inconspicuous spot. He motions to me to sit first as he sits on the opposite side.

“We should order our food while we’re at it. I’ll also treat you just this once since I’m going to be your mentor. Is there anything in particular you want to eat?”

“Anything is fine as long as it’s in a high quantity”

“And how many is that exactly?”

“Maybe the whole menu?”

“Fine I’ll get on it.”

He stands up from his seat and proceeds to go to the counter to order.

As I observe him, the same thing happens when he approaches me, no one notices him as he walks by them until he gets to the counter and talks to the guy over there. Once he gets back to his seat he starts asking questions to me.

“Based on what Sylia tells me, you are my next apprentice or student or whatever it is right?”

“That’s what they say to me, yes.”

“After this I’ll be testing your skills if you don’t mind”

“I’m fine with that but where exactly are doing this?”

“There’s a place in this city where it’s inhabited by the Zokun and they have been running around for awhile there so it might be a good place to test you and see how you react.”

“We’re not doing it in a training ground or whatsoever?”

“No we’re not”

“May I ask why though?”

“Nope and that’s all you’re getting from me”

He seems to be secretive about it or something I can’t exactly gauge what he feels about the subject.

As we wait for the food I ask him

“So how long have you been doing this anyway?”

“And why are you asking that?”

“I want to know about the guy who is going to be my mentor for the next few months or something.”

“You’re not going to need that information. It’s unnecessary.”

“Fine.”

We wait until we get our foods and proceed to eat them in silence while Santi seems to be relaxed right now but he doesn’t exactly let his guard down either.

****************************************************

Now we’ve finished eating so me and Santi went down and went to the reception to meet Sylia. Once we get in front of Sylia, suddenly Santi speaks.

“So Prina what do you know about being a mercenary?”

“Uhh mercenary take contracts and stuff and proceed to do them to help a town, city or people essentially.”

“You’re right about that but in actuality we’re just people who takes jobs that nobody would do in the first place, exterminating Zokun, hunting down criminals outside of city limits on the basis that we’re doing this as a job and other odd jobs but not all jobs you’ll see will be legal so you gotta watch out for those. And most importantly you will die at one point during this.”

“So not all jobs are legal, and we’re doing the dirty work and we’re gonna die at one point?”

“Good you’re listening. Since I need to check your combat skills we need to take an extermination contract in the abandoned part of the city.”

Sylia then proceeds to rummage under the desk

“Just wait a second I’m getting those in a moment.”

Then she suddenly puts a bunch of papers on the desk.

“Here’s what you requested, I trust Santi enough that he knows what to pick.”

“So Prina, what is your knowledge about the Zokun?”

“Just the basics I think?”

“Name the Zokun that you know.”

“Uh the goblins, dire wolves, undead, maybe the rats and I don’t know I can’t seem to name them actually”

“If you’re going to do some extermination it’s best to read up on Zokun local to the area in this case the area around Winstow. So we’re getting the goblins, they look humanoid enough and they hunt in packs in the abandoned city.”

He picks up the papers and hands some of them to me.

“You should also look as well, can’t be the one doing this all the time.”

I look through the papers and see that there’s an assortment of contracts, some looking for some stuff in the city, lost and found, a different Zokun contract, guarding a place, and other stuff as well.

At one point Santi picks a contract in his hand and hands it to Sylia, she gives a concerned face.

“Are you sure about this Santi? won’t she get a hard time for this?”

I take a look at the paper and the amount of goblins. I could understand why Sylia seems concerned, the amount of goblins is around maybe 50. I speak out.

“Hey hey I don’t know how to gauge the strength of the Zokun but dealing 50 with only 2 people seems to be suicide for me.” Santi replies back to me

“You’re going to get help from me. I’ll teach you how I run things like this if we’re going to be together for the next few months.”

“I suppose I’ll have to trust you then.”

“So with that Sylia we’re taking this one and we’ll be back before the day ends.”

“That’s fast.”

“Well it takes an hour or 2 to get into the part of the city, and maybe a bit of simple preparation. You’ll navigate for us and I’ll do some tracking. How does that fair for you?”

“Seems alright to me I guess.”

“Great then we’ll set out once Sylia finishes the paperwork for us.”

As we wait for a few minutes Sylia then says to us.

“It’s fine you can go there right now.” Santi beckons to me and says.

“Let’s go Prina.”

We go out of the guild house and go on our way to the abandoned part of the city.

******************************************************************

“ So tell me why does this part of the city exist in the first place?”

I ask Santi while we are walking around the area tracking the goblin group.

“There was a time where Winstow got involved with a war and got besieged at one point based on what I know. Didn’t exactly study history enough to know what happened but the city ended up with casualties and a part of a city decimated and they haven’t been able to push back the Zokun then.”

“When did this happen exactly I don’t exactly remember any war happening recently”

“I think it was 12-15 years ago if I remember right.”

“I see.”

I’m checking the map again to see that we are going to the right path. Based from what I’m seeing we’re just a few minutes away from where they are last seen. It’s a good thing that it’s been cloudy for the whole afternoon. I didn't expect that when it’s been sunny all morning. At least I’m not going to be tired during this contract.

We arrive at the destination and I get more stressed that the encampment appears to be abandoned and left by a couple of things such as scraps and some rudimentary equipment. Santi assures me

“Don’t worry there’s always a trail for these Zokun, always they’re not always that smart enough that they leave trails most of the time. Let me handle this part and don’t worry I’ll teach you how to track in the coming months.”

I can smell their scent from the encampment and see where they are going but I want to leave that to the professional. He crouches and tries to observe the surroundings until at one point he beckons to me to come over and whispers.

“Okay here’s the plan for now, see these tracks?” As he points to the many oddly shaped footprints that have like 2 long toes in a v-shaped manner.

“Yeah I see them.”

“For now we follow these, and if either one of us hears any noises we immediately stop and go to higher ground like one of these buildings around and go on top of the roof. Understand?” I nod to him

“Good now let’s go before the trail goes cold.”

We follow the trail through the many alleyways and streets this city had back then. It feels eerie to say the least like it feels to be inhabited by spirits and such. I haven’t seen one so to say but this area makes me feel I’ll get to see one of these if I keep hanging around here. Then I heard a noise, no it seems to be like chattering in some unknown language I haven’t heard of as Santi suddenly stops and whispers.

“Okay we’re here already.” He points to one of the taller buildings and says.

“That’s where we’ll observe the enemy and prepare our assault. Let’s go and remember to stay quiet when we get to the building.”

We go inside the building and Santi crouches and pulls out a dagger. I pull out my sword and move along with him and we sweep the building room to room from bottom to top until finally we go on top of the roof and see the goblin group. It seems to be that they have been walking around together. There have been various goblins in there, some are big, some are holding staffs and most of them just get crude weapons. I don’t know how to exactly handle this.

“So how are we going to do this?” I ask Santi.

“Well since they’re moving together at a relatively slow pace, we can make some preparations to deal with some of them, but you’re the one making those preparations not me, I’ll only help with the cleanup understand?” I nod at him.

“First off lay some traps along the path they are taking doesn’t matter what kind of traps as long as it either kills them or inhibits them in any way. Take out the ones with the staff first. I leave to you on how to do those things. Now get on with it before sunset comes back”

I leap off to the next building once he finishes speaking. I make my way to the goblin group as I leap off from building to building. I need to start making a battle plan at this point. So to get this straight there are around 50 goblins in this group some are using staff, some are those big guys, and the rest are just the average goblin.

Santi says to use traps, maybe magic, I don’t have the stuff to make proper traps so might as well. Target the guys with the staff, and I think that’s it. Better not use the magic Master used for now.