Chapter of today!

It will explain quite a few things people have been commenting about for ages. ^^

Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 34: Magic Institute

When Makoto reappeared inside Azalon he was about to explain his sudden disappearance the day before but there was no one there besides him.

He was inside the Labyrinth again, instead of the golden room.

Did it kick him out of the room after logging out?

Certainly confused, Makoto started to search all over the surrounding walls but no matter where he shoved or which brick he pressed, the wall stayed the same.

Could it all just have been a dream?

Did he even meet the Lamia or was it only his own imagination?

Makoto was unwilling to believe that he had imagined the whole thing but why then was he not back inside that golden room?

So many questions he had no answers to.

After half an hour of examining a normal brick wall, he decided that it was time to leave the Labyrinth.

Real or not, if he could not find the way back right now, maybe it was a sign to take care of something else on his list before returning again.

Stopping by at the Inn he normally stayed in to finish up his Tasks, his level increased to 22.

"Excuse me Sir, do you know how I could get to the Magic Insitute?"

The Innkeeper flinched after turning around and looking at him, it seems he still remembered the mood he had seen Makoto in yesterday.

"Y-Yes, if you go to the 32nd layer and head a bit north from here you should find it without any problems, you can also just ask around as nearly everyone knows it."

Evading eye contact with him while talking, the man pretended to be quite busy and wiped over the same table at least 5 times.

In a way Makoto could not even blame the Inkeeper for the way he reacted towards him, it was to be expected after letting off so much killing intent yesterday.

"Thank you very much."

The smile he gave towards him did nothing to better the situation at all.

Deciding to just ignore it and let him be, Makoto left the establishment and stepped onto the busy road where masses of people welcomed him.

One thing he did notice was that there was slight differences with how people dressed and looked on each layer together with the actual structure and nature of the surrounding buildings.

At the lower layers there was normally only small stalls, shops or whorehouses.

The higher one climbed, the more drastic the change in overall design and size of the surrounding buildings grew.

Layer 10 could be called middle class, layer 20 was a part of the richer population and above 30 was mostly government buildings, jewelry stores or noble housing.

Layers 40 and above were mostly empty because not many people set up shop there, it was too inconvenient for the majority of the population to climb that high in the first place and a lot of parks or gardens that belonged to a noble took up a big part of the actual space needed to build a house.

It was very interesting seeing this sort of pyramid system in actual place from peasant to noble, from lowest to highest layer inside Elisante.

Naturally there also was quite a lot of guards on each layer but there seemed to be a lot more criminal activity on the lower parts, as the above 30s rarely ever had a guard except the ones that stood before specific structures or houses.

All in all, Makoto had to ask twice for some directions to find the Institute.

The building itself looked very much like a mix between a Cathedral and a Palace with the staggering height of nearly 70 feet and going through more than 5 layers, its entrance being on layer 32 like the Innkeeper had said.

The entire thing was well guarded but they let Makoto pass through without even another look.

At the foyer he could see an elderly woman sitting behind a desk, currently reading through a few documents.

Clearing his throat to get her attention, Makoto started talking.

"Excuse me, I would like to talk with the Head of the Magic Institute if that is possible."

The woman looked at him slightly confused before responding.

"May I ask why exactly? Maybe someone else can help you? You have to understand, the Head of the Magic Institute is a very busy man and without even stating your business I can not allow yo-"

"I am here to inquire why the fucking bounty on my head has still not been cleared even after I died, is that reason enough?"

He interrupted her threateningly and immediately all the guards inside the room drew their swords.

Not happy about the current situation at all and realizing that he had gone too far he was about to apologize, but before he even had the chance to do so, the elderly woman at the reception desk decided to stand up and quickly fled the scene while the surrounding men started to slowly close in on him.

Feeling like his hand was very much forced in the matter, Makoto drew his own blade.

If they just straight up attacked him for being a bit rough with an old lady then he would make sure not to go down alone, because lets be honest, that is no reason to attack someone in the first place.

With tension rising inside the entrance area and new guards storming inside the building after being informed by their comrades, the current situation looked very bad for Makoto.

"Enough!"

A thunderous shout went through the entire room and immediately the guards relaxed.

Confused about who had given the command, Makoto looked around until he saw a white haired middle aged man with a big pot belly, accompanied by the elderly woman who had fled the scene.

It seems she went to get help.

"Forgive my guards for their rather rash actions, there has been some tension at the border to the east so we can even feel it here in the capital, why don't you come with me to my office and we discuss your problem?"

Still a bit wary of the guards that all seemed to stare at him, Makoto sheathed his sword and followed the middle aged man.

Soon enough he found himself sitting in a comfortable chair, inside the most luxurious office he had ever seen.

Strange objects with different golden letters beneath them explaing their origin and nature filled different shelfs all around the room while a mountain of documents was currently piling up on a nearby desk.

"Now, first of all let me introduce myself, my name is Rhobos Grandel, Head of the Magic Institute and First of my House, how may I be of assistance to you?"

Crossing both his arms before his chest, Rhobos was looking at him.

"My name is Makoto, thank you for earlier and I wanted to ask why the Bounty on my head has not been cleared even after dying to Bounty Hunters, would you be able to explain how and why that happened?"

Noticing the spark in the man's eyes after Makoto stated his name, he expectantly waited for a satisfying answer.

"Oh I do recollect reading that request, if I remember correctly the bounty on your head has not been claimed yet."  

Confused how that could be, Makoto motioned the man to continue.  

"First of all, let me explain how the Bounty system works in some more detail.

You have to understand that that there is two different kinds of Bounties, capture and kill requests.

Now, the capture requests are a lot more rare than kill requests as it is most of the time a lot more difficult to deliver a live target than it is to bring a dead one.

Next up we have the records that are kept for when every Bounty is put out and on whom, if you put out a Bounty request on someone, you are unable to put any kind of request on that person again for a time of 6 weeks, they are pretty much safe from harm until the 6 weeks are over.

The only way to go around this is to overcharge the request, it essentially means paying a lot more than the initial reward for the bounty to the Magic Institute as a certain 'handling fee'.

This overcharge system is mostly used with Foreigners as not many races on the continent have the ability to revive.

Now let me give you an example to make it more understandable.

If you put out a Bounty of 5 Gold on somebody, there is the initial handling fee of 5 Silver for every single request, so all in all you will have to sign a contract and spend 5 Gold and 5 Silver for a simple kill or capture request.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Lets say you want the person dead a second time, maybe a possible rival or someone that has crossed you, we will charge you not double the initial reward but 10 times the reward.

That means you really would have to want the person dead as the previous example of 5 Gold and 5 Silver would shoot up to 55 Gold and 5 Silver, just to kill someone twice.

If you want someone dead 3 times, you will have to pay 100 times the initial reward, making it 505 Gold and 5 Silver."

Makoto immediately noticed an interest fact about this unique system, it allowed the economy to stable itself out quite well as an incredible amount of money would leave the circulation by charging 10 times the reward money.

Sure, the question remained if it was really worth it but just thinking about how many people just loved to see others suffer, there would always be someone willing to pay a price like that.

"So if my Bounty was not claimed yet, could you tell me if it was charged twice?"

Rhobos smiled and complied without any hesitation.

"Yes of coruse.

Your death has only been requested once but why it was not claimed is beyond me, if it really is as you say."

Makoto did not need to hear it from the Head of the Magic Institute why the Bounty had not been claimed as he could imagine it quite well after remembering the words from the guards stationed at the gate of Elisante about Chaotic players.

"If you ever get branded, know that you can piss right off if you turn up here, even if you are a Bounty Hunter, Chaotics are not welcome!"  

The group of three that had killed Makoto probably dragged his dead body all the way to Elisante, only to find out the same thing, that they were not allowed to enter the city.

Having no other choice, they had to carry his body to another village and do Tasks to get rid of their Chaotic status only to not make it back to Elisante in time.

Knowing that his Bounty would be reset, they probably went to an Inn, accepted it again and went to his last spawn point, just thinking logically and Marahel being the closest Village to where they had found him, it was the place to look for him.

That would also explain wjy he saw them running towards him with so much panic in their stride, they probably had been playing for more than 24 hours and all they really gained from it was doing a few Tasks, everything else was just transporting his body from one place to the other.

Noticing the evil smile that appeared on his face just thinking about those three getting exactly what they deserved, Makoto decided to focus his attention back on Rhobos.

"So would it be possible to claim my own bounty now and get it over with?"

He asked with a mischievous smile on his lips.

Clearly amused, Rhobos broke out into loud laughter and needed a good moment to calm down.

"No, I am afraid that is impossible.

What use would Bounty Requests have if everybody could just turn themselves in to claim the reward?

Even if you ask a friend I strongly advice against it as the Divine Beings are opposed of this greatly and will punish you and this acquaintance of yours accordingly."

Makoto did not need a lot of convincing to abandon the idea.

The term 'Divine Beings' could very well be meant for a system that was in place to keep an eye out for actions like claiming your own reward.

Just thinking logically, if you could record your own first person view, what was really stopping them to putting a system in place that kept tabs on all players to make sure no exploits happened, similarly to how the NSA kept tabs on everybody and everything.

No Company liked it when players exploited the game in a way or form, that was something like a kick in the balls for the developers and they mostly lashed out by straight up banning a player and denying them the possibility to access the game.

Not willing to risk that with Azalon, the first Virtual Reality game, Makoto decided to stay clear of anything of that sort.

"Thank you very much Sir for taking the time to explain how everything worked, I will remember that."

Giving Rhobos a curt bow, he was about to leave the room when the man behind him called out to him.

"And where do you think you are going, Makoto?"

Confused about the change of voice and attitude, he turned around and looked at the overweight middle aged man.

"Excuse me?"

"I asked where do you think you are going.

Guards! To me!"

Immediately after the shout, a group of armored men stormed into the room, swords drawn and at the ready.

Noticing that something was not right, he started getting a very bad feeling.

"See Makoto, I was the one who issued that little Bounty on you, on the request of my little brother of course."

Showing him a bright smile, Rhobos walked around the table and approached him.

"I don't think I understand..."

"No? Well let me put it in terms so someone as dimwitted as you may follow what I have to say.

I knew of my little brothers activities and the Cult he put together, naturally I never supported the whole thing but he was my little brother so out of love I personally put an incredibly high Bounty on your head to make sure you get killed, just like he wanted it.  

Even more so after I heard what you did to him in Talis, I have to say it is a strange twist of fate that brought you right into the one place that you do not want to be.

May I ask you, did you even know his name? No surely not otherwise you would know never to harm a Grandel, our bloodline has deep ties and I always loved my little brother."

Completely stunned, Makoto was unable to respond as he looked at the man before him, seeing his before calm expression twist in ugly ways that made him look grotesque and disfigured.

"How dare you kill my little brother, you are not even a commoner, just another foreigner that thinks he can do as he pleases, goddamn insect beneath my shoe!"

Slapping Makoto across the face once was not enough to calm down Rhobos and he ran up and down.

Unable to retort as over a dozen sword blades pointed at his heart, all he could do was stare at the man before him.

"You will learn what it means to anger the house Grandel!

I have to say it really is good fortune not even having to waste a single Copper on you, the Divines really must be at my side to deliver my brothers killer right to my doorstep.

I will make sure to cancel your Bounty but that will not be important for you anymore.

Guards!  

Get him to a nice Cell down below and make sure to take away all of his weapons!"

Many arms grabbed his shoulders and practically dragged him out of the room.

For the first time in all of this, anger exploded in Makoto after realizing what would happen to him.

Turning his head around he was able to see the overweight man watch his escort with a big smile.

"I will remember this Rhobos Grandel!

Damn you!"

Shouting and throwing himself left and right, Makoto tried his utmost to escape his current situation but there was too many guards that held his arms, muscles like iron kept him from even moving an inch.

His screams could be heard in the entire Magic Institute until they slowly grew quieter and an eerie silence quickly followed...

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