Road tales

I moved to the front of the cart so I could see the face of the man who gave me a ride. It was covered in wrinkles just like the man's brown hair was covered in grey—not fully, but half and a half. He was probably half and a half between his birth and the death from old age, too.

"You must want to join the Guild, eh? All young lads like you do," the man said, snapping his horse's reins to urge it to speed up from a crawl to a slightly faster crawl. He appeared to be as eager to chat as I was.

"The Guild?" I shrugged, not knowing what to say. I wasn't even sure what the Guild was, except that it was everywhere, as far as I was concerned. "Maybe."

The man laughed. "Don't pretend to be innocent, it's written on your face. I was like that when I was younger. Listened too much to the recruiters' tales and tried to enter and become an adventurer, to slay monsters and earn riches unimaginable. Ha! Good thing my pa caught me before I could get to it. Oh, did he give me a good rod… But now I thank him for that. Foolish business, all that adventuring, foolish. You'll just end up without an arm and a leg, or in your grave."

So this is what it was! The guild of adventurers. Now I understood, and I nodded eagerly to myself as that realisation reached me.

"Hey, why are you grinning like that? Do you WANT to end up a cripple?" The man gave me a suspicious side-eyed look. "You are a weird one."

"No, I was… I just had a thought. I was nodding to myself. Of course I want all my limbs attached!" I waved my hands at the man before he threw me away. But now I was curious. I didn't want to raise suspicions about myself, but I wanted to find more about the realm I was in. Good thing that the guy turned out to be so talkative. "So… is it really so dangerous to be an adventurer?"

"You bet! I don't know what else people expect. Have you ever seen a monster? A kobold, at least? There's quite a few of their villages around. Nasty bastards. Don't come out of the forest often, but lumberjacks and hunters have to watch out. You'd look at one and think: 'it's as small as a kid, I could beat it with one hand!' And then hop! There's a dozen of them, with their spears and knives, and you're dead!" The man smacked his palm with a fist. "And that's just kobolds!"

"That's nasty. Then stronger monsters must kill you just a sneeze, right?"

"That's right, pal, that's right. I see there're some smarts in that head of yours. Say, a dragon can really kill you with a sneeze, hah!"

"How?"

"Don't you know? Dragons have vile breath. Fire, poison… all sorts of things. People have to bring huge shields to defend against that if they want to kill them safely, or use magic ones… Oh, what adventurers do to get to dragons and their troves, and how many end up in their stomachs instead…" The man shook his head ruefully.

In my mind, I already did calculations. Magic breath… that sounded like a wonderful ability to have. Animals from the forest had a lot of interesting and useful abilities—that I yet couldn't afford to level up to where they wouldn't be just a dead weight—but they were limited. Like that 'Berserk' ability showed, only monsters had the best stuff, and as kobolds showed, not all the monsters.

We kept chatting as the man's cart drove towards our destination, and as more and more other travellers passed us in both directions on the road. The man was eager to complain about the youngsters running away to become adventurers, about youngsters in general, about taxes, about weather, about poor harvests, about rising prices on hop and so on and so on. Still, there was some useful information. Like the realisation that the coins I stole would barely be enough to live in the city for three days.

Well, I will just have to rob some more. Cities were good for doing crime. Worse comes to worst, it wasn't a problem to sleep on a street for me. A cold ground was much better than a burning one, and I was well used for later.

In fact, ever since its beginning, this venture to the mortal realm was like a walk in a park compared to most of my life in Hell. The only problem I had with it was the danger of death—and, of course, the fact that I fucking lost all that I worked so hard to achieve and conquer!

But I will conquer it again. It would be even easier in the mortal realm. It would be prudent, though, to avoid attention from the gods. I didn't know how much attention they paid to the workings of the mortal realm, but at least I had zero resemblance to the slug I reincarnated into first. As long as I didn't eat anyone where they could see, I thought I would be fine.

It was with these optimistic thoughts in my head the cart I rode reached the walls of Glesk. Shoddy wooden buildings sprawled out of them like water from an overflowing cup, and several guards looked through the contents of the carts of the traders coming in. There was a line five carts long, while people who travelled on their feet or horses were given a free pass.

My temporary companion sighed. "Well, that's my stop. Damn that new tax. Good luck to you, lad! And if you do decide to join the Guild, become a paladin. The best class you can pick, with good magic and abilities. Now, go, unless you want to sit there until the gates close for the night!"

And with that cryptic advice, I jumped off the man's cart and went into the city.