Felix turned the last corner to get to the castle compound and saw something he hadn't seen since before the integration. A man and a woman stood just outside the gate into the castle compound. They appeared to be arguing with each other, though it was hard for Felix to tell from this distance.
[E - Common] Human (Lvl 3)
[E - Common] Human (Lvl 4)
Felix got within ten meters of them before they noticed him. He didn't manage to catch much of their argument, not because he couldn't hear them, but because they kept interrupting and talking over each other. Their bickering made it impossible for Felix to follow the conversation, but it had something to do with them taking a risk and being in danger, or something along those lines.
As soon as they noticed Felix approaching they quieted down but couldn't help themselves trying to get the last word in using hushed tones. Since neither of them seemed like they wanted to start the conversation, Felix did. He didn't have time for a staring contest.
"Hello" Felix said. "Oh and welcome, I guess?" he added after a few moments.
"Hi", "Hello" they said, almost in unison. Felix waited a few seconds as they looked at each other seemingly deciding on who would speak.
"I'm Noah and uh," he looked at her to see if she wanted to introduce herself then, after a moment, continued "this is Amelia. We were wondering what your requirements are for becoming a citizen of your fort. This is your fort right or could you… take us… to your leader?"
Felix cringed at that and said "Yeah of course, you are welcome to join." He gestured to the plethora of broken down buildings that made up the town, "You can take whichever you'd like or you can stay in the castle, there are way more rooms than I know what to do with in there. If not permanently then at least for tonight since," he gestured at the dark cloud filled sky.
"Oh no no, we can find a house we'll be fine." Amelia responded and glanced at Noah to preemptively shut down any complaints he may raise.
"Seriously, there are like a hundred rooms in there and none of the buildings in the rest of the fort have roofs. Just take a room at least for the night, if you don't want to move in that's cool but you can figure that out tomorrow. At least sit out the rain. Up to you, but it really is no trouble." Felix insisted.
"Thank you we will choose houses tomorrow." Noah said quickly, to cut off any more protesting from Amelia.
"Sure thing. Welcome to the fort without a name as of yet, population of three now. I know it's a mouthful, we can vote on a new name tomorrow and update all the road signs." Felix said smiling.
They immediately looked at each other at that and Amelia cocked her head. "Really, it's just you? and you really don't have any requirements to join, seriously?"
"Yeah" Felix replied then added "Wait why? Should I have requirements?"
Amelia looked a little taken aback as she said "It's totally up to you, it's just uh, unique is all. All of the other 8 forts on the map have class level requirements. When they were first revealed, there were five with class level requirements. Then three of them quickly added requirements as if they didn't know they could or didn't know their location would be shown. You are the last one left so we figured we would just ask."
Surprised, Felix pulled up his map to check the class level requirements of the other forts. They didn't seem too bad, most only required a class level of five and the highest was only seven.
"The requirements are pretty low, you could just grind out some animals and head to any of the ones with only level 5 required. Especially if you didn't choose caster as your class." Felix offered.
Both of them raised an eyebrow at the caster comment but didn't respond to that, instead Noah meekly said, "Yeah, we were kind of hoping to focus on our professions instead?" Clearly trying to gauge Felix's reaction.
"Oh cool, you guys already have professions? I haven't been able to find one yet." Felix said. They both released the tension in their bodies and smiled in relief. Apparently that was the reaction they hoped for.
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"Why didn't you just pick one up in the prep room? Just didn't like any of them?" Amelia asked.
"Wait what? I wasn't offered any, I just chose my class and was kicked out." Felix responded in bewilderment.
"Huh? In all our prep rooms The System explained the tutorial to us, let us pick our classes and professions then some basic equipment. Then for casters it helped with adding their spell to their spell list, for fighters it gave basic tips on weapons stuff like that. Then we all had to wait for someone until The System finally let us go after a few hours. Was yours not like that?" Amelia inquired.
"Yeah, funny story I was the guy you all waited for, sorry about that, I was asleep at the time. I woke up to The System dinging in my head and it told me to pick a class. I asked some questions it answered then I picked a class and was dropped in the middle of the woods." Felix explained.
"Oh shit, how did you sleep through all that and uh… is that why you're naked?" Amelia questioned.
Felix blushed a little as he realized for the first time he was essentially naked. It was difficult to remember because he had gotten so used to it.
"Oh yeah, uh sorry about that. I sleep naked and I was dragged here with just me and my bed. Also you mentioned spell list, what is that?" Felix queried.
"Not sure, we were camping with a group of people since pretty early on and we just compared our tutorials. A few of them are casters. If you really are serious about the no requirements thing then we can go tell them and you can ask them when they move in." Amelia offered.
"Yeah of course, sounds good. I guess if all the other forts have class requirements we can just become a profession focused fort. For everyone who doesn't want to fight and anyone else I guess. Just don't hurt people or steal things, that's all I think. For now at least." Felix said.
"I think if you leave the requirements as open and the disposition as friendly, eventually people will flock. Some of them are probably just worried it's a mistake or something. They should realize sooner or later." Amelia explained, then added, "you could also set a note on the town to say ‘profession friendly, all welcome' or something like that… just if uh… you wanted to."
"You can do that? Cool, yeah sure I'll fill it in tonight." Felix suggested.
Felix felt a few cool droplets on his head and gestured towards the castle, "Here follow me, I'll show you around and we can get out of the rain."
Felix walked around them and through the compound to the main castle building. He led them through the main hall and up the stairs. As he climbed the stairs he asked, "So what professions did you two go with?"
"I'm a builder. It's a starter profession but I work in construction basically. My dad used to teach me and I always liked it so, it seemed like a good fit." Amelia replied.
"I was a civil engineer and I chose a profession along those lines. I'm a…" Noah trailed off.
"He chose city planner" Amelia finished for him.
"Yeah" Noah said.
"Oh sweet any interest in planning out this fort for me? If we really are going to have people coming in droves a good plan would really pay off." Felix hoped.
"Uh… yeah, I would love to. That would be great… uh… thank you." Noah said a little excitedly.
"Wait a minute, your professions are a little too convenient, did your camp elect you two to scout the fort out because you have the most attractive professions to someone who owns a town?" Felix accused.
"Uh, kinda yeah." Amelia said after a few moments then quickly added, "we didn't mean to trick you or anything we just figured we had the best shot at convincing you we could be useful."
"Oh hey, I don't care at all, and you definitely don't need to convince me that individuals focusing on their professions are gonna be useful." Felix assured then further explained, "How the hell are you supposed to run a functioning town otherwise? Viking law? Plus, it's just upsides for you too, isn't it? Noah here get's to be the only… or the chief city planner for the whole fort and you, Amelia, get to be the chief builder, lead builder, executive super builder supreme or whatever you want to call yourself. Now they all have to bow down to you."
They both looked at each other and smiled before Amelia made certain, "Really… I can be the lead builder for the town? What if someone else is more qualified?"
"You two are the first people I have seen in almost two weeks and the first two citizens of the town, as far as I am concerned you two can pick whatever job you want. If someone else is more qualified they can just advise you or something. We can figure it out later." Felix reassured.
"Anyways any of these doors lead to empty bed rooms, there is a lot of dust in some of them but take your pick, I'm sleeping in that one over there. I'm gonna go set a note for the fort then sleep. Feel free to explore." Felix invited.
Felix walked over to the throne and opened the fort management screen. He found the custom note setting and wrote: ‘Profession friendly town, open to anyone. Feel free to come by and check it out.' With that done he opened a different setting he had skimmed past when he first opened the screen and set the laws for the settlement: ‘Be respectful. Don't hurt people. Don't steal.'
Felix was satisfied with that for now. If needed he could make it more in depth later on. The setting also said that people could see it from the map so hopefully it would discourage anyone who just wanted to steal or something. Apparently, for the tutorial, The System helped enforce the laws too. Things like be respectful though were more like guidelines and did nothing because they were too up to interpretation. The other two clauses, when violated, would cause The System to mark the offenders visibly, allowing them to be dealt with.
Finally Felix retired for the night snuggling into his cozy bed with all of his bedding, mostly intact.
I may not have brought clothes, but it just may have been worth it so I could bring this bed with me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .