Reincarnation_RPG Page 4

  The thief licked his lips. He was scared, but not enough to talk. John threw the last of his sleep powder into the thief’s face. He hit the floor hard, but John wasn’t too concerned, considering the thief had stabbed his bed. He took off the thief’s glove and found what he was expecting, a silhouette of a hawk with an open eye. The symbol of the thieves’ guild. The easiest thing to do would be to kill these three, but then others might come for him. No, he knew what he needed to do, and he had to get it done tonight before anyone else came. He tied up the three convicts and sent each one out the window. He was only on the second story, so he didn’t think they would break bones. Since they came through his window that was the way they were going out, and he didn’t want to upset Reka again tonight.

  Once they were on the ground, he hopped out, landing nimbly besides the unconscious men. He went around back and looked for anything he could use as a cart. The best he could come by was a plank of wood that was just large enough for one of the thieves. He grabbed it and tossed each of them, one on top of the other, and started to drag.

  The thieves’ guild of a thousand years ago had a marking system for where you went to find their hideout, but John didn’t have all night to search. There would be false markers, dead ends, and false leads to the thieves’ guild.

  “Show me the way to the thieves’ guild,” he said, and an arrow in his vision appeared, pointing the way. This was the first time since the dark forest he had used his waypoint skill, and he was happy to see it still worked.

  He reached a building with a silhouette of a hawk with an open eye carved into one of the stairs, making it easy to miss. John was about to open the door and stopped himself. This was the thieves’ guild. He had just taken out what he assumed were three prominent members of the guild, and he was just about to knock on their hideout. He gave it some thought and cast a wind gust spell strong enough that it tore down the door and lit the inside of the room.

  “Honey, I’m home,” John yelled out. He was disappointed when he saw there was only one person in the room. He yanked the board and the thieves into the house and dumped them on the floor.

  “I believe these are yours,” he said to the person sitting on a chair that faced the door. The moon lit the room enough for John to see the layout of it. The room was a mess, with dust spread everywhere; tables and chairs were sprawled out and turned over.

  The person in the chair was clad in black leather, like the ones who had broken into his room. John squinted and looked at the eyes that were visible.

  “Saarka, is that you?”

  She sighed and looked at the bodies sprawled on the floor.

  “Have you come to kill me as well, John?”

  He looked at the unconscious thieves and back to Saarka.

  “They’re not dead. Not yet anyway, but I’m getting really tired of people trying to kill me when I have been nothing but nice. The next person who tries to kill me gets to learn what’s it’s like to be roasted alive on a sword spit.

  Saarka’s eyes narrowed.

  “Which one tried to kill you?”

  John pointed at the one with the empty scabbard.

  “That was not the plan.”

  “You don’t say. Well, everyone’s alive, so let’s call this square, and I’ll be on my merry way.”

  Saarka licked her lips and stood to face John.

  “No.”

  “No!”

  John summoned a tiny blue fireball and threw it into the room. He fed it mana and the fire gorged on it, growing larger. The fire didn’t spread to the kindling around it, but anything that met it withered and turned to ash. He didn’t feel like killing everyone here, but it was time people started to understand he had the title ‘god killer’ for a reason.

  “Kill us and every kingdom will know your face.”

  “You’re bluffing,” John said as the fire grew large enough to block his line of site to Saarka.

  “I stole a copy of your adventurer’s scroll, the one that blew up. Reka had already pieced it back together, and I stopped by and stole a copy of it, or did you think I wouldn’t have an ace up my sleeve for someone with the title Dragon Slayer? I gave it to one of the members, and if I don’t stop him, that copy goes out to everyone. Your face, status, and title.”

  John killed the fire. He could see a few strands of Saarka’s hair was sizzling.

  “What do you want?” John asked.

  “Something that will benefit both of us.”

  “Doubt it.”

  “You want to go home. I want to help you, and in exchange, I come with you, and you keep me safe.”

  “That’s all you want? To tag along.”

  “You want to go home, but don’t know where it is. You haven’t heard of the Demon King’s story, which means your home is far away. I don’t know if you noticed, but this place has been picked clean, and where you’re going, there will be riches aplenty,” Saarka said.

  “I don’t even know where I’m going.”

  “For those who have no knowledge, the obvious place to go is where knowledge is stored. The library of Gleydion is the only library in the world that could have the knowledge you seek. It’s one of the furthest kingdoms, but also one of the richest, since they can still use magic, which means, if I go with you, there will be economic opportunities of a lifetime.”

  John knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but it a giant pain in the ass if people came looking for him. It also might not be bad having someone who doesn’t stick out stay next to him to make sure he didn’t draw attention.

  “Fine, come find me tomorrow for breakfast. I’m going to get some sleep. And I’m not paying for your door,” he said, walking down the street back to his room. He tiptoed around his traps and flopped onto the bed falling asleep immediately.

  The next day, he woke up to the sound of clattering plates.

  “Hi Saarka,” he said, without bothering to look at her. She had stepped in one of the many traps John had hidden in his room, rope that had been infused with air magic, trapping whoever stepped into them to the ceiling.

  John stretched and got out of bed, moving to the bathroom.

  “Good morning. Are you going to cut me down?” Saarka asked, suspended from the ceiling. All his traps had the shadow skill placed on them. Now that the sun was shining, they started to come in full view and were easy to step over.

  “No,” John said from the bathroom.

  He heard some grunting, followed by a thump on the floor as he finished in the bathroom.

  He walked out to see there were plates full of food that had fallen on the floor, and Saarka was picking up the pieces that didn’t have dirt or bits of broken plate in them. The dagger she had used to cut the rope was already back in its hiding place.

  She set the plates on the table and made sure to watch her footing as she fetched a chair from the other side of the room.

  “The polite thing to do in the mornings is knock.”

  “True, but who has traps set up in their bedroom?”

  “Someone who’s had their life threatened daily.”

  “Dorsac has been properly scolded for his transgression.”

  “As long as he doesn’t want to come back for retribution.”

  “He would find that difficult,” Saarka said, pausing on the last word for emphasis.

  John went and grabbed the plate of breakfast food. There were boiled eggs, sausage, bread, and some kind of vegetables that John didn’t recognize. He used his analyses skill on it.

  Breakfast of Fort Trellis. Don’t eat the vegetables if you know what’s good for you.

  John looked at the text for a while. This was the second time it had acted odd. He was unsure what that meant, but he left the vegetables alone.

  He turned to Saarka and used analyze skill.

  Saarka merchant. Level 15. Known to some as the leader of the Fort Trellis thieves’ guild.

  Ok, that might have been useful to use earlier.

  “You mentioned a
library last night,” John said.

  “Yes, it’s in Gleydion, one of the kingdoms furthest from here.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “There’s a caravan that will be here in two days.”

  “Why are we waiting for a caravan? Let’s just go.”

  Saarka gave John a look that he was starting to interpret as ‘Are you crazy. This is something a child should know.’

  “We can’t. Normal people can’t just go from kingdom to kingdom. Travel inside the Kingdom is considered safe, but when you get closer to the border, the roads are not maintained and wild beasts, monsters, and tribes make it a habit to find anyone on their own and kill them. If someone were to walk to the next kingdom, they would either have to be a survivor of a destroyed caravan or…”

  “Or what?”

  “Or somebody that would be of great interest to all the kingdoms.”

  “Ok, point taken, so we take the caravan.”

  “Except the caravan will only accept merchants or adventures of Rank D or above as body guards.”

  “So, we have two days to raise my rank by one. That doesn’t seem too hard.”

  Saarka gave him the look again.

  “Have you seen the request board,” Saarka said, motioning for John to follow.

  “What about you?”

  Saarka tossed him a card while they walked downstairs. John caught it and saw it was a merchant card. It looked similar to his own, with her picture, but instead of stats, it had information that looked similar to what John considered to be stocks in his world. It had the year’s gross, annual, and net returns. He couldn’t read it very well, but she definitely had to be making more money stealing. He handed the card back to Saarka when they were in front of the request board.

  “I will work as a hired hand on the caravan, as an assistant. Now, tell me what you see on this,” she said, pointing to the request board.

  There was only one request on the board, and it was for Skewer Rats. Skewer rats were similar to regular rats, except for being more aggressive, having reptilian tails, and they were the same size as a Pitbull. There was nothing else on the board. He was not close enough to get a rank up based on one quest as a rat exterminator.

  John ordered two drinks for them, and they sat in the back booth away from prying ears.

  “How do we get my rank up with only this?”

  “We’ll need more quests, but they are rare around here. You’d need an army of skewer rat quests to get a rank up.”

  “I’ve got it,” John said, snapping his fingers.

  “I need rotting fish, peanuts, cloth, string, and a mortar and pestle,” John said.

  “Good luck with that.”

  “You’re not going to help?”

  “The deal was I tag along and you protect me. I’m not your errand girl.”

  “Well, that doesn’t bode well for our relationship. We only have two days,” he said, taking out two silver pieces.

  “You handle this, and I’ll show you something that’s worth a fortune,” he said, handing her the money.

  John went over and grabbed the quest sheet from the board and set his waypoint marker for the building that had made the request. It only took twenty minutes to reach the spot.

  It was a tool shop that seemed to specialize in farming equipment. John put the piece of paper on the counter in front of the old man that was minding the shop. He looked like he was on death’s door. Wrinkles covered every part of his face, but his long, hooked nose was his most prominent feature. He was thin and wiry and did not seem especially friendly. He looked John over and pointed to a floor trap behind the counter.

  “They’re in there. A whole nest of them. Been breeding for three months now. If you die down there, no one’s coming for your body.”

  “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be fine,” John said, opening the hatch and jumping into the basement. He was immediately assaulted by the sound of dozens of munching mouths and low growls.

  The hatch above him closed.

  Well, no need to worry about showing off.

  John immediately summoned flames to his hands and saw a horrible scene of rats clawing around the entire basement that was larger than he originally anticipated. He quickly extended the flames from both hands and made a flame thrower to kill everything around him. He had to turn it off when things started to get a little toasty in the enclosed space. The heat made it hard to breathe, and while John had the highest stats in the game, he still needed air.

  The flames did their job though, and he had enough breathing room to draw his sword. The rats started to jump at him, and John just started hacking at them. One by one, they went down, while their bites did little to his health bar. He still felt the little pricks and stings of their bites every time, and his bar went down little by little. He wasn’t in danger of the skewer rats, but his breath was becoming ragged. His arms were sore and slow from swinging. His stamina was waning, and his body felt numb from the bites, like getting stuck over and over with a sharp needle. He had killed thirty of the stupid things, and they were still coming.

  This is ridiculous; just die!

  John summoned a small tornado into the room and tossed a few weapons from his inventory into it. They were mostly weapons with lower stats than the katana he wielded, but he could never bring himself to sell some of the weapons that just looked cool, and now, they were serving a purpose. The swords flung around wildly in the tornado and cut at any of the rats that got in the way. He turned off the tornado and got on his knees, picking up the weapons that had fallen to the floor and put them back into his inventory. He sighed as he looked over his leather suit that had been filled with tiny teeth like holes. He knocked on the hatch and waited for the old man to come back to let him out.

  It was only a few seconds before he opened the hatch, and John jumped out.

  “Did you have enough, youngin?”

  “It wasn’t easy, but they’re dead.”

  The old man looked stunned and peered down into the hole to see the corpses that had piled up in the room.

  “How in the name of the high priests did you do that?”

  “I’m stronger than I look. Now, would you sign off on the guild request?”

  The man went back behind the counter and took the request John had laid there. He pricked his thumb with a knife and pressed it against the request. John checked his skill card and saw the job had been added to the side of his card, but he remained at rank E.

  The old man went to pull out the silver piece that was promised as the reward.

  “You can keep the money,” John said.

  The man immediately put it back, but turned to John, his eye furrowed in confusion.

  “I’m new to the adventuring thing, and more than money, I need the experience. Tell your friends if they have any jobs to put them in at the adventurer’s guild. I’ll be happy to take them; just pay the guild fee,” John said, heading out.

  All he needed now was what Saarka was supposed to fetch. He headed back to his room. He took off his military suit of leather armor and laid it on his bed.

  Hope this works, he thought.

  He cast heal on his suit and found the holes began to repair themselves and stitch back together slowly. He noticed his mana bar drained by 16,000 points, leaving him almost dry. The suit was a high-grade item. He was happy he didn’t have to part with it, but it would take a night of rest to replenish his mana. As he put the suit back on, he heard the door open, and Saarka came in. She had already made it back with a surplus of the supplies he had requested.

  John sighed.

  No rest for the weary, I guess.

  He set to work creating his concoction. He skinned the fish and ground the bones, while Saarka watched over his shoulder.

  “How is this going to make a fortune?”

  “This is to get my rank up to D. Watch and learn.”

  John grabbed the peanuts and put them over a fire, letting them roast before pouring them into the pest
le, creating peanut butter. He grabbed a spoonful of it and handed it to Saarka, while he put the fish, flesh, bone, and peanut butter into the strips of cloth and tied them off with string. When he was done, he turned to see Saarka licking the spoon clean. She stopped when she saw him looking at her, and she set the spoon aside.

  “It’s alright, but how is that a fortune?” she asked.

  “You really are a thief and not a merchant. The fortune isn’t in the peanut butter, but the production. You are the only person in his word with the recipe. We’ll make a batch of it to sell on the caravan. Now, help me with this,” he said, handing her a dozen of the bags he had created.

  “These need to be placed in the basements of any resident homes.” He pointed to his stack.

  “These, I’ll be taking to the forest.”

  “What will that do?”

  “Tomorrow, there is going to be an infestation of Skewer Rats and only one person in the adventurer’s guild who’s proved he can take care of them.”

  “Not very heroic,” Saarka said under her breath.

  John’s eyes narrowed. He had been summoned to this world as a hero to be killed instantly.

  “Who said I was a hero?”

  “No one, I just thought...”

  “You thought wrong. I care about getting home. This world can burn for all the trouble it’s given me.”

  “No offense meant. I’m just here for the coin.”

  “And you’ll have plenty of it,” John said, taking his pile of rat bait and heading to the forest.

  It was still daylight, so he had plenty of time. He went out and looked for anything that resembled a nest from the game. The Skewer Rats were nocturnal, but he did find something similar, if not exactly like the nests in the game. They were mostly just large holes in the ground that were about the size of a Skewer Rat. He placed the bait near the entrance and spread out a few leading to the city. Now, all he had to do was wait to see if any requests turned up tomorrow. There would be Skewer rats flooding the streets, and it would take some work, but it would be more than enough to get his rank up.

  The next day, John woke up to shouts and the clattering of feet coming from downstairs. He jumped out of bed and got dressed.