Prologue - Section 2 - Otherworld Gambit

I spent the rest of the evening discussing with them: at first the answers were curt short and not really very informative, but finally when food arrived I was able to get proper answers out of them.

Starting with their names and corresponding classes:

Quinella (Acolyte {Healer})

Roseanne (Fighter {Warrior}

Anthony (Sorcerer {Mage})

Larr (Archer {Ranger})

and their party name: <Marked Wolves>.

[Whoops sorry Roseanne i mistook you for a man, but with you being all fully armored like that it's hard to tell genders apart]

Seems all the quests posted here appear easy here but all of them are missing plenty of information so when you go out on the job they are many orders of magnitude harder than you'd ever expect resulting in this group having failed.

The last couple of jobs paying the job fail penalty and are now also on probation from the guild.

If they fail one more job before clearing their record they will be evicted from the guild losing their only current source of income.

If they could they'd leave the country but for that they'd need money which has run dry paying the penalty fees, and cost of living in the city.

At this rate the party's afraid of failing falling into debt and then becoming slaves as a result, the men would be sent off to the mines most likely while the women would become shop tenders or if willing become prostitutes.

They told me about the Kingdom of Mire where i was currently located, and the surrounding lands as well, just as I'd thought before Mire is a Cesspool, Human Supremacy reigns and all other races are barred from entering the country let alone living here and those that do are killed on sight, slavery exists and it's likely half the slaves in the country were forced into it at least the slavery system appears to be rather reasonable in that there are only three types of slave possible;

{Debt Slaves: Those who fall into debt sign away their life where they earn a salary from their Master until they've earned enough to purchase their freedom, full human right guaranteed and the master must provide basic essentials.}

{Criminal Slaves: Those who've committed crimes that were non-lethal such as like Theft, Smuggling, Racketeering are enslaved corresponding to the nature of their crimes for a duration of time, during which no salary is given but basic essentials must be provided. The key difference is the contract between master and slave where the terms do not require consent from the slave}

{War Slaves: Are captured soldier who are enslaved after losing a war. Since they usually are all employed by the country that enslaved then and pressed into front-line service for future wars they are giving Human rights, and basic essentials corresponding to regular army soldiers, every so often a war slave can be purchased outside the army as a body guard or mercenary}

Of the surrounding lands some are even worse ones, but 2 bordering nations are pretty good.

Emti Empire to the north is tolerant of all races and has freedom of religion, but Mire's been posturing lately and war is highly likely relatively soon.

Meritocracy of Joqet to the west it's a country where service is everything, the only ones who are looked down on are those that do nothing, they're race tolerant to all except demonkin, their state religion is to the Eella the Goddess of Water, two great rivers run through their territory and they border the great ocean so fish and seafood is plentiful in their lands, that being said it's not like worship of the other gods was forbidden or anything.

Well my course is set after all the tingly bad feels I've gotten around the city, coupled with the information from the <Marked Wolves>.

I feel it safest for me to get out of Mire as soon as possible so I'll plan to set out west as soon as I can to the town of Stata on the border before heading across the mountains into Joquet, but I'm only Level 1 so perhaps I should see about leveling up along the way, but the <Marked Wolves> had stated everything here was hard to deal with and their party is ranked C in the guild so someone like me who would only be G rank could never survive alone.

Should I hire a team to accompany me along the way or risk it and go solo until I make my way across the border?

I sifted through the information and making my plans as I lay on my bed.

[If I see them in the morning I should make a request of the <Marked Wolves> to act as my escort, that way they can stand a chance succeeding at a job, plus a good excuse to get out of the country while earning a decent wage as well three birds with one stone as it were]

'Yawn' "Ngh" <Kokei>

Sleepiness began to overtake me as I laid there in the dark, making me yawn however during my second yawn I outstretched my arms and made a sweeping motion as i swiped down bringing my hands to my sides, my eyes were closed but a light was now shining onto my face.

[Did someone enter my room?]

Opening my eyes slowly I found the light was not coming from an intruder but instead a menu like one you'd see within a game, oddly enough it seemed to only be illuminating my eyes since when i looked around the room the room itself remained shrouded in darkness, but to me this was even better because it was a menu I was all too familiar with, this was the Character menu for the MMORPG: Yggdrasill.

At present I was still laying on my bed in the dark staring at my character page where it showed my Equipment, Status, and Inventory.

Along the top of the screen were additional tabs, for Magic, Alchemy, Crafting, Skills, and lastly the in game store where you could spend real money via a credit card to purchase equipment/skins/mounts/ pretty much anything in the game itself.

Inside the game you'd normally have to walk to a vendor or store to purchase goods in town but for a onetime cost you could unlock the game store for your character even when you were in the field, the drawback was that the selection was almost totally random changing daily, as well as when you change fields or zones, this also saved you time since upon unlocking higher levels of the store you could access restricted areas where you could perform job changes, character resets, and even guild functions within it, without having to waste time returning to a city just to perform some tedious actions.

[Not sure if the rules still apply as they used to but here goes]

Raising my hand I tapped on the in game store tab

The screen changed but it changed to look like a Wooden Gatehouse gate that was closed flashing in front of the closed gate was a system message

[[In Game Store Currently Locked: 5 White Gold to unlock Level 1 Store]]

I didn't hesitate as soon as I saw I reached for my bag and pulled out the white gold coins first I placed them in my inventory the coins showed up on the screen so I returned to the Store but there wasn't an unlock button… taking the gold out of storage I stared at the screen…

[Ah maybe here??]

Bringing the coins up to a slot in the bottom corner of the screen, the coins went in with no hesitation and above the slot a count of entered currency displayed as soon as all five coins were placed, an unlock button appeared on the store screen.

Reaching out I pressed the button, an animation of wooden doors swinging open presented itself on the screen before showing the surrounding passing by finally stopping before a common shop front it reminded me of the peddler's stall from earlier the animation was nostalgic since everything used to look like this because you watched the world through a screen but now here in this world the only time I'd see an animation like this would be when I accessed and 'Walked' around the virtual marketplace.

Once the screen settled on the storefront a sub-window appeared with various tabs on the left 'all items, Consumables, Weapons, Armor, Accessories, etc' on the right a display showing icons with prices of all items available for purchase.

[Hm this is good I can get whatever I need anytime I want as long as it's in stock, and it doesn't look like there are limits to how much i can buy except for the amount of real world money I have, but I need to be careful I'd love to buy everything I can right now but I've only got a few white gold coins left right now and I need to save as much as I can so I can hire escorts to protect me… perhaps there's something I can buy here that I can sell in the city to make some quick cash, that's perfect I can pull off the typical Isekai money making scheme]

Mulling the idea over I clicked the consumables tab.

[Well for medieval fantasy setting the easiest would be to sell salt, sugar, spices, or even alcohol

'Scrolling through the list'

It might be a risky gambit since I don't know the market price but I'll purchase a collection of everything and hope for the best and keep my fingers crossed that i don't attract to much attention doing it]

Placing my remaining white gold coins into the store, I spent all of it on a 1 Kg bag of Fairy Sugar, a crate sized box of Common Spices, and 3 bottles of dwarven wine called Durin's Bane.

After completing the purchase, all the items appeared in my inventory and when I selected them they materialized in my hands.

Fearing that the containers would appear foreign needing me to swap them out to hide their origins I had to look upon them now, but thankfully they all appeared like containers I'd seen out in town, but the wine bottles were earthenware with corks the name and vintage carved in the stone with a cork sealing each bottle, the sugar sack was fine burlap, and the spices were all in tiny hinged boxes, 7 spices in all housed within the main wooden box.

Storing the lot of them in my backpack I turned back to the screen.

[Now how do I get rid of the menu so I can get to sleep…]

Flailing my arms in front of me didn't work the screen refused to go away, until finally I pushed my arm out with my palm open as if I was pushing something away as I did the menu faded before disappearing darkness once again filling my eyes.