Act X (ch 3)

I looked foolishly at this world. I thought the corruption and the despair were easily replaceable. If at all removable. Impossible.

I have read novels of heroes living to gain eternal peace, but it's not real. Then why am I tasked with that false truth?

I came to think of this, as the City of Salius… to describe it in one word; greed.

I could immediately tell there was a divide between the rich and the poor. There was no illusion, the poor were left to die on the roads. The rich lived in an entirely different area separated from hardship.

My goal wasn't to help them. It was to cleanse the world of demons.

That said, the conditions were pretty rough.

I was pickpocketed mere minutes of walking along the dirt path of the slums. The slums made up 90% of the entire city. The person who pickpocketed me was a mere child no less than 13. Suppose money was hard to get for them. Then I will gladly lend it to them.

Maybe if Amelia wasn't traveling with me. Right after the boy stole our money, she charged him and swiped the money off his hands.

It caused a big commotion, and it looked like the crowd of people might help rob us so I quickly grabbed Amelia's hand and we dashed away.

Our goal was to obtain a stable income. Out in the slums, there could be job opportunities but it wouldn't pay enough for the journey ahead. Since we were traveling a lot, becoming an adventurer sounded perfect. Huhuhu… the idea of becoming an S-class adventurer appealed to me. But I guess this place had to need for any sort of thing. I went across the slums to find nothing. I was unable to reach the upper class without a special pass so I had to think of something else. We spent a decent amount of resources reaching here so there was a bit of trouble.

We could use Amelia's sword to travel somewhere quicker, but that might cause some unwanted attention. The broadsword can't go up very high so people could see us flying past them if we were going to do that.

With no good choice left, the only thing to do was to leave the city and try another place. We reached the gates again and noticed a commotion at the entrance.

It was easy to enter the city because there was no security due to the entrance being in the slums unless you were a noble or something. And due to that people are typically robbed right off the bat.

The same thing happened to us.

There was a group of men brandishing knives surrounding two cloaked people.

Worrying if the situation might escalate I unraveled my sword in case, but then the men started to back off scared.

One of the cloaked ones pulled out a large battle axe once covered in cloth. My heart took another beating. My head started to spiral out of control. Again. I recognized that person but the memories wouldn't appear. Who was that?

The situation quickly dimmed and the group of men dispersed. The cloaked person wielding the axe picked up the cloth on the ground and wrapped the axe, hoisting the axe on their back.

"Theo Miligram, I thought you fell in battle two years ago." The clocked person took off their hood and revealed a woman with black and white hair. What? What does she mean by that? I have never met this person in my life. That was what I wanted to say but I could tell something was amiss.

I walked closer but stayed on guard. The second person took off their hood and ran up to me. I prepared my sword but then lowered it to see who it was. It was a younger girl with blonde hair and bright green eyes. She seemed delighted to see me but I couldn't exactly recall her.

"Theo Miligram is it really you? I'm glad you're alive." She smiled at me. It scared me.

Far from that, it horrified me. What the hell was going on I kept asking myself.

They must have gotten me mixed up with someone else. Maybe my body was not my own and I took someone's life and body from them. Yet they both called me Theo.

"Are you alright, you appear rather pale…" The girl shared her worry and looked at me the same way.

"I'm fine, it's just…" I didn't know what to say. Maybe I could play along and lie, but this whole mess was so abstract. I felt lonely. But why?

"Umm sorry could we talk somewhere else"

The two people agreed and we left the City and stayed near the outskirts

"Theo, may I ask who she might be?" The girl asked.

Oh, I forgot. Amelia hasn't said a word since I met up with these two.

"This here is Amelia, I met her while traveling around." Amelia nodded in agreement.

The other two nodded as well. We continued to carry our conversation to more important matters. Both of them became adventurers and were hired to guard a merchant who would be leaving the City of Salius.

The issue is there's word of a rebellion forming. Nobles and merchants have been attacked by the rebels every time they tried to leave the city. The guards they have hired proved useless and so they had to resort to using adventurers.

Honestly, I thought adventurers would be ranked like F to S, but it seems they use tiers or in another way levels. Mari, the one wielding the large axe was a level 6 adventurer. The girl; Riche was a level 2 adventurer.

I asked them how I could become an adventurer. Listening to what they had to say I surmised it into two simple paths.

Accomplish something worthy of being an adventurer, discover a new dungeon, defeat a powerful beast, or go to one of the many adventurer guilds and register.

Registering requires you to pass and complete one quest of your choosing. Depending on the difficulty of the quest you can start at a higher level.

I told Amelia that I had planned for us both to register as adventurers as it seemed to be the best way to make some income while exploring the world.

Once it got dark, I planned on leaving for the forest nearby for shelter.

But Riche stopped me and told me that we could also come to the inn they were staying in.

They led us to the upper floors of the city where the nobles lived and headed inside an inn. Well, it seemed more like a hotel. I offered to pay a little of the costs, but then Riche told me that it was fine.

Amelia went inside our room first then I followed.

The inside certainly reeked of richness.

Fortunately, there were two beds. I wasn't exactly keen on sharing one with Amelia.

We both got into our beds and slept till morning.

Crack!

After some time had passed and I just about fell asleep a window located in the room had shattered. It woke me and Amelia up immediately. Undistinguishable figures started to pour out of the broken window frame and held weapons.

I just wanted some sleep in a bed for once.