Caley rushed over to meet Kyle as he limped through the doors of the Adventurer’s Guild.

“Oh, my gods, Kyle,” she said. “I heard about what happened. Are you alright?”

“Well my foot and back hurt but other than that I’m not feeling too bad,” he replied with a tired sigh.

“Yes, I heard that you were injured from Fervah and the others,” Caley nodded. “Are you sure that you should be up and about?”

“He probably shouldn’t be,” Fi grumbled from her spot around Kyle’s shoulders.

“Don’t worry about me,” Kyle sighed as the two women glared at him. “Who do I need to talk to to get my reward for the Emergency Quest?”

“Well, normally you would just have to talk to me since I was the one who recruited you for it but because of how things ended up escalating Alistair wants to speak with you,” Caley replied. “I can take you to him if you want?”

“That would be great,” Kyle agreed. And they made their way over to the large staircase up to the second floor where Alistair’s office was.

“Uh, do you think that you can get up here yourself, or do you want a hand?” Caley asked nervously as she looked at the tall young man who was still using a cane to get around.

Kyle was about to say no but then he felt Fi’s coils tighten around his neck. When he glanced down at the furious look on her face he immediately realised that if he said no then Fi was going to give him a piece of her mind and he really didn’t want to deal with that right now.

“Sure, I’d appreciate it,’ he sighed and Fi nodded almost imperceptibly as he took Caley’s proffered arm and leaned on her slightly as she helped him up the stairs.

“Alright,” Caley puffed once they had made it to the top of the staircase making Kyle blink as he realised that she probably hadn’t increased her Level more than a couple of times which meant that her Stats were much lower than his own which probably made it much more difficult for her to help him up the stairs since increasing your Constitution not only increased the amount of damage that you could take but also increased your density making someone with a high Constitution much heavier than a normal person and since his Constitution was currently double that of an average Level 1 adult human he was considerably heavier. And that was without including his Strength Stat which increased his muscle mass making him even heavier.

“Sorry Caley,” he said quickly. “I didn’t even think about how difficult helping me upstairs would be for you.”

“No, it’s fine I should’ve asked for help,” she replied. “I honestly didn’t think that you would be that heavy.”

“Yeah, we probably should’ve mentioned that Kyle has been investing in his Constitution,” Fi sighed.

“Well, anyway let’s go and see Alistair,” Caley said as she led the way down the hallway to Alistair’s office and knocked on the door. “Excuse me sir. Kyle is here to see you.”

“Come in then,” Alistair grumbled from within the office and Caley opened the door so that Kyle could go inside before quietly closing it behind him.

Alistair glared at Kyle for a few seconds before sighing heavily and gesturing for him to take a seat which Kyle did.

“Well then, how are you feeling?” the bespectacled man asked.

“A bit sore and tired but Zerah and Yuliah did a good job patching me up,” Kyle responded honestly.

“Well that’s good,” Alistair nodded. “Now I hear that you did something pretty reckless?”

“Well, yes I suppose,” Kyle agreed before flinching when Alistair slammed his fist onto his desk sending the piles of paperwork that had been sitting on it flying around the room

“Do you even understand how important you are boy?!” Alistair roared. “You are the first Chosen of the first Goddess to appear in nearly a hundred years!”

“Look, I’m sorry but I couldn’t just abandon Findar when I thought that I could save him,” Kyle said as he looked down at the desk in shame.

“Look kid,” Alistair sighed. “I know that you’ve been through a lot lately but you are too important to throw your life away for the son of some merchant who got kidnapped by monsters because he decided to do something stupid.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Kyle sighed sadly. “But the fact of the matter is that I did survive, and I even succeeded in saving Findar.”

“From what Garvin and the others told me it was a close thing,” Alistair pointed out and Kyle hesitated briefly before nodding in agreement when he noticed Fi glaring at him. “You do realise that I actually sent them to keep you safe, right?”

“Yeah I figured,” Kyle nodded.

“I’m honestly surprised that they let you try something so reckless but like you said, you did succeed in saving Findar,” Alistair admitted. “In fact, Findar’s father Mister Ferian, of Ferian Transportation made sure to give me a couple of extra rewards for you.”

“Wait, Ferian Transportation!?” Fi exclaimed excitedly. “That’s one of the biggest Merchant Groups in the Kingdom!”

“Yes, it is,” Alistair sighed. “Now you may be wondering why Findar’s father let him make a trip with only a couple of Adventurer’s as guards. As it turns out his father was giving him a test, which he failed.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Kyle sighed. “He seems like a good kid, but he acted foolishly.”

“I agree,” Kyle sighed. “I think that he felt that he had something he needed to prove to his father and he ended up making a bad decision- scratch that- a really bad decision that got someone killed.”

“An excellent observation,” Alistair nodded. “I also think that his father is putting too much pressure on him that he didn’t have when he was younger but unfortunately there isn’t much any of us can really do about it.”

“Yeah,” Fi nodded. “I suppose that it might be a good idea to keep in contact with him though.”

“Probably,” Kyle agreed. “It definitely couldn’t hurt to have a contact in such an auspicious company. Maybe we should introduce him to Hal as well since that would help him a lot. It might even mitigate some of the damage that Findar did to his father’s company as well.”

“That’s a good point,” Alistair nodded. “You see, this is exactly the sort of thing someone as important as you should be thinking about. Now, you’re still too weak for us to announce exactly what you are. If we did then there are a number of rather unpleasant groups who would try to use you for their own purposes but that doesn’t mean that you can’t start building connections now that you can use later when we decide that you are strong enough to reveal your true nature.”

“Well, even if you didn’t tell them I’m willing to bet that Temdar and the others have worked out that I’m a Champion,” Kyle pointed out.

“Well I didn’t tell them about it before sending them after you and the other Party but yes they did manage to work out that you were a Champion,” Alistair admitted. “That’s fine though. There’s a reason that I chose them to back you up.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Gerdan’s uncle is a high-ranking member of the Adventurer’s Guild so we’ve been using them for special tasks like this for a while,” Alistair chuckled. “So, you should definitely keep in contact with them if you can.”

“Okay, that makes sense to me,” Kyle agreed as he glanced down at Fi who was also nodding her head thoughtfully in agreement.

“Good,” Alistair nodded. “Now that I’ve ‘thrown the book at you’ a bit let’s move onto your congratulations; you both did an excellent job.”

“Wait, I thought you were angry at me?” Kyle asked and he blinked in surprise at Alistair’s sudden change in mood making the other man laugh in amusement.

“Well I am,” Alistair chuckled. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not also impressed with the job that you did. I honestly can’t think of anyone at your Level who could manage what you did or even someone up to 5 Levels higher than you are now. You are both impressive and incredibly lucky.”

“Well I don’t feel particularly lucky right now to be honest,” Kyle muttered as he looked down at his injured foot.

“Trust me when I say that you were indeed lucky that not only were you able to save someone who had been captured by a new breed of monster that was about to achieve Boss status without any deaths,” Alistair pointed out. “Yes, you were injured but things could’ve gone far worse.”

“That’s true,” Fi agreed as she recalled how Kyle had barely managed to deflect the mana beam that the Abomination had fired at him so it only burnt a hole in his foot instead of killing him. However, she decided not to mention this to Alistair since he seemed to be in a better mood now.

“Anyway, this is the reward that we were going to give you if you managed to complete the request,” Alistair said as he pulled a relatively large sack out of a drawer and placed it on his desk in front of Kyle and Fi. From the clinking sounds that it made as he put it down the sack was quite full of coins but as it turned out this was only the beginning of the rewards that they were getting because next Alistair pulled out a small ticket and a familiar looking crystal out of the same drawer. “And these are from Findar and his father.”

“They really got me a Skill Crystal?” Kyle asked as he eyed the small glowing crystal that Alistair had put down on the desk alongside the ticket and sack of money. “What Skill would they have even decided to give me?”

“Oh, it’s one that will be quite useful to you I’m sure,” Alistair chuckled as Kyle picked it up and let Fi examine it.

“Oh, he’s right, this will be useful” Fi said with a smile. “It’s the Riding Skill.”

“And the ticket can be exchanged for a mount that costs up to 80 Gold from the stables in town,” Alistair explained as Kyle eyed the Skill Crystal with a raised eyebrow.

“Wait, really?” Kyle asked. “Any mount so long as it costs 80 Gold or less?”

“That’s right,” Alistair nodded. “Findar mentioned that you were probably going to move on once you had recovered so he wanted to make sure that you could get around as easily as possible. His father also saw the usefulness of a rookie Adventurer with a lot of potential like you do having a good relationship with his company.”

“Well, should I even take it then?” Kyle asked. “I’m afraid that I don’t know that much about Ferian Transportation. Are they a company that I should trust?”

“That’s exactly the question that you should be asking,” Alistair said with a pleased nod. “And my answer is that you can trust them for the most part. As with any large company they have a few shady parts but less than most. So, in this case it would be better to have a good relationship with them than a bad one.”

“Okay, then I’ll accept the rewards,” Kyle said, and Alistair nodded in agreement. Having a connection to a company like Ferian Transportation might even be helpful when he finally got strong enough to take his revenge on the Empire.

“That would be for the best,” he agreed. “Is there anything else that you want to talk about?”

“Well I’m pretty badly injured so I’m planning on sticking around for a bit,” Kyle mused. “But maybe I could help out a weaker party once I heal up a bit by acting as a Mage. What do you think?”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Alistair nodded. “It should keep you out of trouble while allowing you to get stronger. I could also talk to the City Guard and ask them to let you join one of the party’s patrolling the area outside of the city.”

“Well, I think that I would prefer the first option but that sounds interesting as well,” Kyle admitted as he glanced down once more at Fi who had a conflicted expression on her face.

“While you are correct that helping out weaker Parties in the Dungeon would be more beneficial to our growth it would also be considerably more dangerous,” she pointed out.

“That’s a good point which is why I suggested that I could try getting in contact with the guards,” Alistair nodded. “Let’s just see how it goes though. Zerah already told me that it will be a couple of days before you’re able to do much anyway so we can revisit your options then if you want.”

“Okay, yeah that makes sense,” Kyle admitted with a sigh as he stood up. “Well, I suppose that we shouldn’t take up any more of your time Alistair, so we’ll see you in a couple of days I suppose.”

“Sounds like a plan to me Kyle,” Alistair agreed. “Make sure you get plenty of rest. You’ll need it.”

“Don’t worry,” Kyle chuckled as he hobbled towards the door. “I will.”

He opened the door and walked out to find Fervah and Laurence waiting for him outside.

“Oh, hey guys,” Kyle greeted them. But their attention was more on the cane and his very obvious limp than anything that he was actually saying.

“How’s your foot?” Fervah asked worriedly.

“Still sore but it’s definitely better than it was,” Kyle answered with a sigh. “Zerah and Yuliah did a pretty good job patching me up.”

“Well that’s good,” Laurence nodded as he finally met Kyle’s gaze with his own. “What were you planning on doing now?”

“Well, I was thinking that I would head over to the Stables and have a look at the Mounts that they have available,” Kyle replied as they started heading back down the corridor towards the staircase that Caley had helped him up earlier.

“Okay, that’s cool,” Laurence said. “We got a pretty big reward too, so I guess that doing something like that makes sense if we want to be able to get around easily. Is it alright if we come with you?”

“Sure, why not,” Kyle agreed. “But you might have to be a bit patient with me.”

“Yeah, Caley mentioned that she helped you up the stairs and that you would probably need help getting down,” Fervah nodded. “Which is why we were waiting for you up here instead of downstairs.”

“Well thanks,’ Kyle nodded. “Where is Carly by the way?”

“Oh, she’s out doing some shopping with the reward money,” Laurence replied as they approached the stairs. “We used up quite a lot of our potions during the Quest.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Kyle nodded. “I was hoping that I would get a chance to thank her for stabilising my wounds but maybe that will have to wait.”

“Well if we don’t manage to meet up with her on the way to the stables, I’ll let her know,” Fervah said as she and Laurence started helping Kyle down the stairs.

“Thanks, you two,” Kyle sighed. He wasn’t fond of being helped like this, but he knew that he needed to rest his leg as much as possible if he wanted to move onto a different town any time soon.

“Hey, we’re only alive because of you,” Laurence replied. “Don’t worry about it.”

“To be fair I can say the same thing,” Kyle grumbled making Laurence and Fervah chuckle in amusement.

“That might be the case, but you definitely helped us out first, so all we did was return the favour,” Laurence replied.

No one really paid any attention to the three as they made their way down the stairs. It was far from unusual for Adventurers to get injured and need help to get around, but Kyle couldn’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable being helped out this much by people that he barely knew.

As soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs Kyle told the other two to let go of him. Fervah and Laurence glanced meaningfully at each other but chose to do as he asked when Fi nodded at them.

“So, what were you planning on doing once you’ve healed up?” Fervah asked as they headed down the street towards the stables.

“Well, I’m pretty much at the point where I won’t be getting much out of the early Levels of the Dungeon here, so I was planning on moving on,” Kyle replied. “I want to get stronger as quickly as possible.”

“So that you can avenge your parents?” Laurence asked cautiously.

“Yes,” Kyle replied shortly as his face twisted with rage as he recalled what the Empire had done to his friends and family making both Fervah and Laurence gulp nervously.

They were silent the rest of the way to the stable and when they were inside Kyle immediately walked up to the counter and showed the Rabbit Beastman behind the counter the ticket that Alistair had given him.

“Can you show me the mounts that I can exchange this for please,” he asked.

“Of course, sir,” the Beastman replied respectfully once he had confirmed that the ticket was authentic. “And what about your friends?”

“We both have some money to spend so we’d like to have a look at some of the cheaper mounts that you have for sale,” Fervah explained.

“Ah, then follow me please,” the Beastman said as he stepped out from behind the counter. As he did so Kyle noted that he was wearing a badge with the name Dermot written on it and assumed that was the man’s name.

The three Adventurer’s followed Dermot deeper into the building where the animals were kept. At first Kyle was surprised by the sheer variety of mounts they had available. Not only were there a wide variety of horses which were the most common type of mount since horses had existed on almost every world prior to them being combined there were more exotic creatures as well.

Fervah and Laurence immediately made their way over to the horses which didn’t surprise Kyle or Dermot at all. Kyle on the other hand had his eye on a couple of the more interesting mounts including a large lizard-like creature with six legs known as a Phantom Chameleon. The other resembled a massive boar with oddly elongated legs called a Mountain Razorback.

The Mountain Razorback was a mount that had been traditionally used by Dwarves long before the System fused the worlds together and could move almost as fast as a horse for much longer lengths of time. They were also a lot tougher than a horse and their massive tusks could eviscerate an enemy with horrifying ease.

As for the Phantom Chameleon this creature was a monster that had been Tamed by someone with the Beast Taming Skill and was even more dangerous than the Mountain Boar. Not only was it faster than the average horse but it was able to use magic to turn invisible and had a venomous bite as well as a long prehensile tail that was more that capable of crushing most of its enemies to death.

Both of these mounts were technically classed as Combat Mounts which meant that they could Level Up and grow stronger like their owners could which made them much more expensive but if Kyle was going to buy a mount then he was going to buy the best one that he possibly could.

“What can you tell me about these two mounts?” he asked Dermot who looked nervously at the Phantom Chameleon for a split second before answering.

“Well, they are both in your budget,” he replied carefully. “In fact, you can afford any Mount that we keep here so you don’t have to worry about that. However, I’m afraid that I can’t recommend you picking the Phantom Chameleon.”

“Why not?” Kyle asked as he looked at the massive lizard. In truth he was most interested in this creature. Not only was the monster itself rare but Beast Tamer were even rarer and sold their services for massive amounts to rich nobles who wanted a monster that would be loyal to them. Which was why it was so odd for it to be here.

“Ah, because the Beast Tamer who captured it didn’t do as good a job as he thought that he had and it, uh, killed the noble that had bought it from him,” Dermot replied as he wrung his hands nervously.

“So why the hell is it here then?” Fi asked as she turned to glare at the increasingly nervous Beastman.

“Because it only arrived the other day and we’re still clearing out a place for it,” Dermot replied. “It’s not like we can release the thing. We were hoping that we would be able to hire another Beast Tamer to Tame it again and see if takes properly this time.”

“Well I’m not in any hurry,” Kyle replied with a shrug. “If you can do that sometime in the next couple of weeks then I’ll happily pay you some extra out of my own pocket. If not, then I’ll take the Mountain Boar.”

“Well that’s not a lot of time,” Dermot replied. “But I’ll do my best.”

“Sounds like a deal,” Kyle said before turning to the others. “However, it looks like my friends have some questions of their own to ask you.”

“Of course,” Dermot replied. “Well then. If you’ll excuse me.”

Kyle shook his head as he watched the Beastman almost run away from him before turning back to look at the Phantom Chameleon which was watching him with a single bulbous eye. The monster was more than large enough to carry him and the claws on the end of each of its six legs were tipped with claws that looked like they could disembowel him with ease. All in all, the coal coloured creature was quite an intimidating specimen of its species.

“Are you sure that you want this thing?” Fi asked nervously as the monster turned its attention to her.

“Yes,” Kyle replied. “Don’t you see the intelligence in its eyes?”

“Yes,” his companion replied. “I’m assuming that that’s why the Taming didn’t work properly.”

“Most likely,” Kyle agreed. “But that also means that it would be an incredible ally for us to have.”

“Well you’re not wrong there,” Fi agreed. “But that’s only if they can Tame it properly.”

“Well then let’s hope that they can,” Kyle chuckled before turning around and walking over towards the others. “How are things going over here?”

“Well, we’re going to have to have a chat to Carly, but I think that we have a pretty good idea what mounts we want,” Laurence replied. “We’re ready to leave if you are.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Kyle agreed. “See you later Dermot.”

“Of course, sir,” Dermot replied with a smile. “I hope to see you all again soon.”