The Village of Antarah

We had reached the village by late noon. It was an open place, with only a large gate there supported by a long wall. It looked quite old but the point is, there was no guards or anything which was obviously very suspicious. But truly speaking, that's what we hoped for.

"What do we do first, find a guild?" I asked.

"Yes and we need some quick money too, to buy my sword. Or a dagger at least," said Erio.

"Rather collect some information about people in this planet. You two are way too simple,"

Am I? But she wasn't wrong of course.

I entered through the gate first and peered through the entire village at once. And that was well, not beautiful. The village had zero symmetry with their construction. The houses were built here and there just like the markets and other sites I didn't know about. Instantly disappointed, I sighed. However, the environment wasn't bad though.

And again, there weren't as many people as I expected.

"I see no people here," Erio said.

But I was seeing quite a few, his eyes are just bad.

"There are many. Four at the first market, two right below this hill down there and uh, Crystal Eyes! Huu, there are people in all houses. Come on,"

Both Erio and Aisy stared at me with a huh face as I said this. That sort of gave me a sense of superiority, you know.

As I walked we found the main attraction of this village to be perhaps this gigantic tower established in where I assume it to be the center of this village. Erio and Aisy really couldn't spot a single human being walking down the path for an another minute though.

But at last, we did discover the civilization in this new world, which was, medieval.

Erio stood by a market expecting to enter it while I asked Aisy if she wanted to make a bet about their language.

"I only bet when I am sure,"

"That ruins the point, Aisy,"

Erio was somehow confident that they will speak in our own language so he moved forward.

"Hello!"

'What?' taking a peak at Erio he added, 'Are you a traveller?'

This blew my expectations. That was NOT a language I knew before, but I just understood what he said, somehow, in some way. Erio was just as surprised but he knew losing his composure might raise suspicion.

"Right, I am. Where's the weapon the shop here?" Erio asked that man in that language.

"East,"

This was such a revelation. A brand new language, I don't know how I know, I just. Know it. With that, Erio came back, smiling. "This is a code language for us from now then," and it really was.

"But the next problem is that where is east? Does sun raise in the east in this planet too?" Erio asked a valid question.

We could just ask someone but I had another plan. Also I wasn't particularly interested in visiting some weapon shop.

"Shouldn't we split up? We will gather more information about this village in a lot short time. We will re meet here," I suggested.

"True, we should do that," Erio appreciated my suggestion while Aisy remained silent and thus consenting. And I reached a conclusion by then, she talks even less than me.

So we split our path after that, with Erio to the left, me going straight and Aisy to the right way. The village is vaste apparently and we gave our word to regather after the sun sets. And thus, I was free at last.

I bade them bye and went on my path. As I said before, the village had zero symmetry. Also there was almost no significant structure other than that tower to speak of.

If I still had to talk about something I would mention how as far as I could see, the people were acting strange. Very few number of people were out in the road. Those in markets also closed their shops one by one while it was not even afternoon yet. When I opened my Crystal Eyes I discovered how in each house people were sitting in circles almost as if they are performing some ritual. Not to mention, how that tower slowly getting crowded with more people gathering there with an unknown flower in their hands. I hoped to figure out what is happening by myself but that turned out to be a fruitless effort. After a while, I caught a little boy to ask about this who just ignored me and that shattered my motivation to ask other people.

The village was an empty shell, boring and uh, unsymmetrical again. After randomly roaming around for a while I decided to go and really check out what's happening at the tower while taking somebody's interview if I could too.

And that's what I did. Reaching the tower I found almost a hundred people, some of which looked like priests, all sitting down trying to concentrate on something perhaps.

In such an awkward situation I was in, trying to find someone to talk to, somebody approached me instead almost like a blessing from heaven.

"Are you a traveller?"

"I am,"

Hearing my answering he was about to go back and mind his own business but I interrupted him.

"Could you tell me what's happening here?"

He looked at me with a cautious look as if I said something I shouldn't have said. I, pretty sure did though. He didn't reply for a while and rather sent death stares to my eyes. After a while when I guess he figured out how he should respond he tilt his head to the side and said,

"Its a ritual our country observes in this day of each year in every village or town. Everyone of the village will gather tonight here to sacrifice for the arrival of the Heroes. I assume you are a foreigner, no. An westerner, aren't you?"

"I am,"

"That explains," he went back to where he was heading after that.

I thought I was just lucky that he convinced himself I was not someone suspicious. Safe, in a word.

I made a sincere plan to come and observe their ritual at night. Well, actually I just had nothing better to do while it might give me some hints, right? At that point I was sort of feeling disappointed on myself for lacking communication skills. Even if I was like Erio, the amount of information I could gather by then would be well, quite helpful.

What did we lack? I stopped and thought for a second.

An ally from this world. Something just sparked through my brain as I came up with some ridiculous plan.

Whatever, I couldn't perform that then, I thought. But could I?

I left the tower right after this. Approximately I had around two hours left before I had to come back so I knew exactly what to make out of this time.

I went far forward and opening my Crystal Eyes I took a quick grasp of the village area and what is where. Trying for a while I even saw the two going around standing before markets and places. I didn't need to search for too long to as I expected long before, there was a guild in this village which looked quite old though.

But that raised a new possibility to me. That civilians are in this system as well, or was it just the heroes? And there's an another thing I wondered for my whole past life.

If the previous one is true then how come living an entire life they still end up as level 40-50? And sadly you see, they don't reach even that much as well most of the times in the isekai tropes I read. I reached level 5 or maybe 6 in just 1 day. So what stops them? A major debuff, perhaps?

This is just all that was going across my mind as I was approaching the guild. I closed my eyes beforehand as I noticed a little part of its outside wall turned into crystal.

Going inside, I didn't see the scenery I wanted or expected to see. There were a few tables, two bulletins of quests hanging on two different sides of the guild. Some old men gossiping loudly enough to ruin the mood. And finally at the counter, there was no cute girl. Everything I read was fake, reader. All fake.

Instead there was an old lady, perhaps I was fourty years late to get reincarnated but who cares. I went up to her, "I want to sign up,"

With my arrival if this lady wasn't shocked enough, listening to me those old men behind looked at me with a surprised face as well. Why, I wondered. Cause nobody ever comes to join this guild?

"My, it's been a whole year since a new adventurer wants to sign up. Sure just wait," she headed back to a room beside in a hurry.

I was spot on.

Also was there really a need to join this guild before consulting my teammates? I didn't really see a demerit of it though. While she was out, I reached back to the bulletin to see what kind of quests are there.

Few of the first ones simply sounded new to me as I never heard the names of such monsters in A class quests. Then there were quests about taking out a ogrelord, alpha foxes etc in B rank quests. Many of the C ranks caught my interest though. As they included deadbulls which I expect to be the bulls i fought last night and a Giant slime hunt has a big reward of 15,000 coins.

Is 15,000 alot though? I didn't know yet. Then there were D rank quests about catching ogres, goblins. And lastly E ranks, that had hiring temporary bodyguards or catching slimes.

The lady came back with a paper in her hand, and with a pen that was... flying? She was a psychic! I didn't wait though.

I went and filled up the form registering my name as only Silver from the city of Dumbledore. Yes, the city doesn't exist, of course. But someone once told me,

"If you don't know what you are doing, neither does your enemy,"

"You are ready, just a registration fee of 200 coins and you will begin as an E-rank adventurer!"

I should have expected it coming. Being a brokie, I had to make up an instant story for her to believe in me.

"Oh, well. Could I give you the fee later? Also I was previously a C rank adventurer. So might I just take up a quest and you reduct the fee from my price, please?" I suggested.

"Sure, of course, do as you please!"

She believed it more easily then I expected her to. But with that, I had the permissions I needed. I bade her bye and pondered what I should do next. Any form of entertainment would need money. And I don't have have that money.

The old men invited me to have a seat with them although I refused it. Actually I should have gone with them trying to hit up some informations.

And still, there was about one and a half hours left. So I took up a mission to see if I could get some money. I was practically blocked otherwise.