Chapter 3 - Section 1: Niflheim

Their continued stroll through the forest remained quiet his endless experimentation and pursuit of his menu for all the changes that had occurred since his, and his skills ranked up.

The DLC Niflheim did not do all too much from what he could see, as the only sighted changes thus far were that the races he could create NPC's for had increased though their cost was still far too exorbitant and the opening of a new shop within his store, which sold gear commonly found when players ran around Niflheim but even this was sold at a shocking price many times over the gear he could buy from the standard base store.

The other thing he'd learned was that his minion system was not at the level of a cheat power, while he could summon a seemingly endless number of minions under his command, he could not effectively manage them anywhere, they were now a good distance from his goblin troupe and while he could check on the status as far as how many of them survived but could not change the commands or even Hoogan's for that matter.

Perhaps they needed to be a higher rank summon or the skill itself needed to rank up first?

Still pondering he and Kurama had arrived at the new town, slightly larger than Ilinto had been but the atmosphere of the gate guards was far more agreeable than the one he's seen when leaving Ilinto.

[In the pocket of that guild master no doubt]

After passing through an exception where Kurama drew attention as being the second kobold they'd seen though clearly of a different type.

Some of the guards were overheard about how they must be the newest fashion in the large cities.

This was of course overheard by Satou and Kurama who knew they were on the right trail to find their friends.

[If only I'd added them to the party once again I could message them right now, but who knows what could happen if they max their levels without knowing it while i was trapped in the dungeon, or worse yet collapsed from level up sickness where they could be preyed upon.]

His thoughts ran wild but their destination was sound.

The Adventurers Guild.

Raisa, Primrose and Heracles all had guild cards and assuming that they did not turn on their privacy mode he could locate roughly where they were from within the guild.

After giving the job board a quick once over, and only finding low-ranked jobs there he approached the receptionist counter.

"Good Afternoon here to take a job? Or are you submitting a request?" <Guild Worker>

"Actually I'm here to use the location services of the guild, it seems i got separated from my party members" <Satou >

"Oh of course right this way" <Guild Worker>

He was led away from the desk into a separate room which held a crude map of the country without many identifiers on it and only rough ideas of where medium and larger-sized cities were, next to the map was a crystalline half orb.

"You're guild card please, along with the name or names of the persons you're trying to find, as a reminder if they are not within the territory boundaries or have their cards deactivated we cannot assist further?" <Guild Worker>

"Yes this is fine" <Satou >

Handing over his card which was held over the orb, and then the three names were spoken aloud.

On the map, a single blue speck appeared on what appeared to be the largest city in the Meritocracy.

"Seem's only one of your friends yet remains, sorry that sounds morbid, all I can say for sure is if the C ranked Adventurer Heracles is presently within the Royal Capital" <Guild Worker>

"C-Ranked?" <Satou >

[Just how had he managed to jump so many ranks in only a month]

A creeping sensation had risen up his spine as he felt something was wrong, as Heracles was surely one to stand out for spreading Helenism to this world but otherwise wasn't much interested in raising his adventurers rank at least from what he saw from his time with his NPC.

"Yes seems he must've been promoted since you were separated" <Guild Worker>

Receiving his card back his destination had been set, he was off to the Royal capital it seems.

"Thank you for your help in guiding me to my next destination" <Satou >

"You welcome and good luck in the tournament as well" <Guild Worker>

Before he could inquire further the worker had left him alone in the room.

[Well it's a meritocracy so I'd assume it's an annual martial tournament of some sort, guess we'll find out as we get closer, for now, we should find a ride towards the castle and meanwhile we can take on some escort missions along the way to increase our guild points to ranking up and catching up to Herc and the others in that way as well]

The pair quickly left the guild behind and began searching for a stable or coachman who had spare seat on towards the next town and beyond that they could book passage, worst case he could always summon his own carriage but for that he'd need to know how to drive a carriage let alone the fact he could not afford to summon another NPC to do it for him.

Kurama meanwhile seemed privy to his dark thoughts as he rested on a bench outside the coach office waiting for the return of someone who could tell him which coaches would be leaving in the morning and whether they still had seats available for the both of them.

Should none be, then the pair would simply hoof it and just run their themselves slaying whatever monsters they came across in the process.