Townee

Still feeling rather humiliated, James walked along the road aimlessly and just looked around the town for anything interesting or important. Something that he could try taking advantage of to get his gamer feelings back on track. Unfortunately for him, there weren't any quest markers or minimaps this time. Not that the game was particularly helpful in his previous life in that regard, but it at least had some indicators of important tasks or people.

The most he was able to determine after a few hours of walking around town was that this was definitely a secluded town. While it was far larger than a simple farming or forest village, it still lacked much of what would be a more profitable or important trading town or city. There were no major guilds outside of the tradesmen's one for merchants. The largest buildings were the temple of the gods and the town hall center. There wasn't even a lord's manor, which meant he wasn't even in a territory's capital. 

It was hitting about noon if he judged the sun's position correctly. His supposed father and other siblings would most likely be back soon if they had been hunting, with a few hours of wiggle room if they had some other job. But given the apparent number of monster parts and items on sale in the main market area, he felt this was definitely a town by and for hunters on the borders of the Kamanari Wildlands. A production outpost for monster parts to be prepared and shipped back to the main lands or processed into better gear here for the hunters. By the size of his new family's house and the size of his new father, he doubted the man was anything besides a hunter. Maybe a construction worker, given the size of his muscles, but that massive axe from last night said otherwise. 

With time running out on his free time and doubts that he could continue bribing Tista, he headed for the town hall first. It often held the most important quest and bounty postings in a town when there wasn't a guildhall, so hopefully it might at least hold information about the area.

The large building was only two stories tall, but it was relatively large in width and length to make up for it. Walking through the double doors, he came into a large main hall that was flanked by numerous doors. A large staircase in the corner led up to a balcony, with more doors leading off to other rooms, which he figured probably housed the administrators and bureaucrats of the town. Typically, in towns this size in the game, there was a mayor, knight, or clerk left in charge, or some combination of those that would take care of the town in the lord's stead. These kinds of places were often silver-level for most guilds to go after, as they presented a low bar for a player or guild to acquire management rights for them, but often took a significant investment to become profitable since NPC lords often enjoyed forcing heavy taxes on player guilds that managed their towns. The flavor of it was usually that they were required to show the proper deference to a true noble or some other nonsense, but every player felt it was just a terrible balance mechanic that evened out the playfield for people that went after small village rights through hard work as well as the uber lucky or skilled that walked into a noble title ahead of everyone else and got serious land rights. 

Basically, this was the pay-to-win town over the struggling slow-burn players or the lucky ones. You bribed a noble for the rights, and for the efforts of using a backend deal, you got milked for every gold coin you had. It was a great balancing mechanic at the beginning of the game, as it was unfair that you could basically skip the starting struggles of a guild, but the developers never updated the mechanic throughout the years, so every established guild was left grumbling every time they had to make such massive investments if they wanted to expand into new areas. The game heavily restricted players's abilities to climb the ranks of nobility, parsing the ranks out over numerous expansions and even then restricting where one could obtain a noble title, so these silver-level towns were most guilds only option in the late game to expand and grow their assets and bases for development.

That all said, James definitely wasn't expecting to see such an important building practically empty. There was only one young woman sitting behind a large wooden desk near the back center of the hall. The rest of the massive room seemed to echo with its emptiness. Small creaks rumbled throughout the room, and as he closed the door behind himself, a loud thud shook the dust that faintly glowed in the air from the windows behind him. The woman seemed to look back at him with boredom for a moment before waving his way with a small smirk and then going back to a small book she appeared to be reading.

Feeling slightly awkward at not knowing the woman as well as about the loud shock he'd just caused, he slowly made his way from the door to the desk and asked, "So, I was wondering if you had a map of the region I could look over?" His question was trying to sound both innocent and familiar to the woman he wasn't really sure if his body previously knew. 

The young woman, who was bronze-skinned, dark-haired, and lithe in body, wearing a simple cream-colored top with a soft blue long skirt below, raised an eyebrow at James and asked, "What, you planning to try and sneak out of town now? You know your dad won't like it if he finds out you left town, and don't get me started on how many of the guys on patrol he's trained and worked with. It's best to just give up now girl; there's no way you'd get out unseen and unscathed."

Weirded out by whatever specific problem this girl seemed to think he, or rather, Silva had previously, was so bad, she needed to get out of town. James decided to just try and push through it by saying, "No, I just need to take a better look at the region. I figured I might be able to get on my Dad's good side by sighting out a few hunts or promising areas I could make some money with. I'm an adult after all."

Another raised eyebrow followed James's statement, and the woman in front of him sat up a bit more. "Uh, sure, I guess. I just never expected you to say something like that. Did you hit your head while training with your dad or something? That'd explain the outfit at least." She gave James another once-over with her eyes, as he just shrugged awkwardly to try and play things off. A squirmy smile on his pouty, soft lips made his face appear like a puppy trying to get out of a scolding. The young woman just rolled her eyes and said, "Whatever it's fine. I'm surprised your dad never taught you that you could just walk back into the next room and pull a few out of the cabinets in there. We don't have anything detailed for the public, but the hunters have mapped the general area so well by now that it's just a matter of course to at least let the newcomers that wanna try their luck get a look at the area. Or, at least, know where they shouldn't go. Or are you looking for maps to other towns, like I thought?" She asked coyly with a smile as she got up and beckoned James over to a door on the far right of the hall.

James followed without comment into the next room and chose to ignore the comment about whatever problem this woman seemed to think he had. It was so difficult being dropped into the life of someone who had already lived it. Why couldn't he be put into a baby? Or dropped into the body of a loner or something? At least those would've been easier to adapt to and bluff his way out of things. Actually, scratch both of those. Being a baby all over again, and a baby girl at that, just seems like unending torture being trapped in your own body for years and unable to talk. The loner idea also probably wouldn't work out too well since he doubted people would just give him a place to stay or trust him around town. As much as he wanted to treat this place like the game, everyone was reacting to him way more realistically than in the game, so he doubted he could just walk into town and grab a few coins lying around to pay for an inn.

While he was thinking, the young lady walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a drawer to reveal a number of thick pieces of parchment inside. She slowly pulled out a few of them, rolling each up, before moving on to another drawer and pulling out a few more pieces. She then brought them over to one of the tables in the middle of the room and splayed them out across the wood.

"The ones on the left are of the valley and a more localized area around it. The ones on the right are for the roads back to the nearest trade towns and for everything in between. If you want anything further, you'll have to go to the tradesmen's guild and buy a map. They're the only ones that keep and care for maps of the kingdoms legally. Though I doubt they'd even sell you one since you're not a merchant or tradesman, Anyway, just put these back carefully from where I pulled them out. If you can remember, just come back out and ask me. I'm here till dusk after all. And if you just leave them out and try to leave, know that I will blab everything to your dad about what you did here, no matter the consequences." A slight darkness came to her eyes as she looked at James while smiling still. With those last words, she turned and left to go back to her desk, most likely. 

James turned to the splayed-out maps on the table and lamented his lack of knowledge. He wished the system had just given him more to work with, like an endless inventory with stuff inside, some money, or even just the damn memories of this Silva he was supposed to be. "Fuck, I thought this was supposed to be just like novels and shows I'd seen. But all I've got is the damn game interface and this dumb, underpowered body. Why can't my system just make me know everything and be overpowered like it was supposed to?" He asked in a hushed whisper while trying to match the rather loose scribbles with maps he tried to remember from the game.

**Ding**

'Host will only be 'overpowered' through hard work and leveling up. As for knowledge on the life of Silva of Hortha, daughter of Orson, Host need merely ask System for any desired information. Or Host may simply purchase a number of helpful applications or abilities that System will do its best to mimic or create in order to help the Host.'

James blinked for several moments in shock and astonishment at the words of his system and tried hard to think about what he'd just heard. Then, feeling a boiling fury bubble up from the pit of his being, he screamed in his mind while whining rather loudly through his barely held-together lips.

'WHAT THE HELL?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN JUST ASK? SINCE WHEN CAN YOU DO ALL OF THAT? I DON'T REMEMBER ANY OF THAT LAST NIGHT?!" His fury knew no bounds, as he wished more than anything at this moment that his system was physical so he could punch and kick it until it finally submitted a good answer to the awkward annoyances and embarrassment he'd been forced to suffer the past two days.

'Host was not informed as Host was given time to look over their status and then proceeded to enter a rest cycle. Host feelings were taken into account, so further information on system abilities and uses was delayed in order to give Host a proper rest cycle and allow adaptation to Host new reality as Host displayed several symptoms of mania and body dysphoria after first System activation. As for why System has not provided Host with further answers, Host has not asked.' A small robotic hum seemed to follow those rather static words, almost like a strange sigh through a voice filter. But that sound only infuriated James further at the realization that he had just gone to sleep and had never touched his system since then. Could you blame him, though? He was just dropped into a new world that was just like his old favorite game. Was it so dumb to just think he was given his old game interface as a cheat for this world and allowed to level up like in a game while everyone else struggled through a more realistic development? Another small robotic hum seemed to follow his twitching fingers and squirming lips as he tried but finally failed to hold in a scream, crying out with a loud and furious "FUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!"