Frei strolled in the direction of the town gate, backtracking on their steps while his hot head kept cooling down. Before he reached the gate, he was able to see the situation more logically.

  The rash action he was about to take was just plain stupid! Even if the Dragon Emperor did exist and had a way to circumvent the blood bond, what was he supposed to offer him in return? A chewing gum that would smite him with its ingenuity? Big dreams were for big heroes and he right at this moment was just a silly love-stuck vampire anomaly. He had to take it one step at a time, big leaps were for legendary figures that ended up with epic gory deaths when attempted in real life.

"i will report to the Baroness, taking it one small mission at a time. We both have an eternity of time after all." Frei tried to stay optimistic, even if his goal seemed to be utterly unreachable. Given enough time, he would surely find an easier way with no need to chase down Dragon Emperors, Devils, Gods and whatnot.

"Where is the Baroness? Is she not supposed to be on a visit in this town?" He stopped abruptly and turned around.

"Thank goodness! His brain rebooted!" Crow almost shouted and had to still his voice mid-sentence, before other people noticed that he was a talking cane.

"You make too much noise just because of a minor incident like that." Frei tried to play down his recent emotional outburst.

"Yeah? I am curious how many coins do you have left, you put quite a few on that counter and I do not think that she will return us anything after you have held her by her throat." Crow reminded him and Frei looked around with unease to distract himself from the embarrassing incident.

"I still have some, let's find. . . "

"No let's not! Do you realize that all your party is missing, most of them killed by vampires and now some of them are vampires themselves? Do you, a vampire anomaly in hiding want to report that to the highest authorities in the region?" Crow asked him coldly.

"When you put it like that, no." Frei gulped and put the cane on his shoulder to prevent people from overhearing Crow, enabling him to talk almost directly into his ear.

"I think so, just take a stroll around the place and let me think of something. It will be for the best if I will be the one who plans our next adventure." Crow seemed to Frei like a kid that was suddenly given a responsible task and was taking it very seriously, but he had a point with the Baroness, so it would probably be for the best if he was the brain of their adventuring duo for a change.

  Frei walked leisurely forth, making his way along the main street. There was significantly less people than before, because it was already dark and most people could not be bothered to produce any form of artificial light and went to sleep instead, or were just too poor and buying candles or other means of illumination would be wasteful. Frei was not surprised, he expected nothing much of this rural town not far away from the mountains.

  After some time, they came to the same place as before, but managed to go a little further before the people in front of them blocked their way again. Although this time, Frei could see the cause of the mob gathering here and to his surprise, it was not the Baroness.

"Tsk, the street is clogged because of some clown in shiny armor?" Frei wondered aloud, while he watched a tall human in a shining golden armor with deep blue cloak hanging on his back slowly walking forward like he owned the street, holding his helmet under his arm to show his pretty face that was surprisingly matching his attire with golden locks of hair on top of the cloak and azure blue eyes looking directly ahead. He was the definition of a knight in a shining armor and the aroused mob was parting in front of him as he went, people shouting praise everywhere he went. The man carried a torch in one hand that caused his armor to shine even brighter in the darkness of the coming night.

Frei was sick of it, it looked exquisitely fake. The man reminded him of a disco ball.

"That is Marcus Azan of The Order of Soloniel, you should show him some respect!" A young man next to him overheard Frei and began to preach in his direction.

"What is so good about him?" Frei asked and watched the man getting worked up due to his ignorance.

"The Order of Solonie protects us all! Hunting those who practice dark magic or deal with dangerous items, they are our shield against undead and all the other evils trying to devour our realm! How can you not know Marcus Azan? He is the only official Knight of Soloniel from this town! The least we can do is to appreciate the work the order does for our safety." He received a lecture right away and the nearby people began to look at him strangely.

"Ah, I see, I have not recognized his uniform. It is too flashy." Frei slowly backpedaled, glad that the excuse seemed to work.

"I too think that the knight order should be more humble with their attire!" He saw some people giving him approving nods before he walked away, leaving the mob of the knight order's fans behind him. The Marcus guy had been giving some sort of a motivation speech to the new recruits on the square and Frei happened to miss the entire event.

He did not regret it at all.

"It might be fun to join that order, or at least its branch." His cane whispered into his ear making Frei nearly choke on his saliva.

"What?! Why would I join some group of lunatic warriors of light? And you complain about my insane ideas!"

"No, just think. You need to raise levels and gather useful spells and items. Where else to get your hands on anything that involves dark magic? They would provide you with information to destroy the items and you would steal them instead, acting like you have destroyed everything! It is ingenious!" The cane bent slightly left and right, Crow was without doubt smitten by the idea.

"Do not forget my origin! What if they . . ."

"What if, what if . .. How are they going to find out? You need just to expose your ass to the sun and they will be out of arguments. They will find out nothing. If I remember it right, you can actually eat, you just need a little bit of blood here and there and that is it." Crow was like a politician that sensed a weakness in his opponent and tried to press his advantage.

"What about my improved healing and dark-attribute spells? It is bound to be suspicious." Frei imagined how he would feel surrounded by members of some holy order, it made his skin crawl.

"You can just keep using the ordinary ones instead and honestly, your regenerative powers are not that great." Crow scoffed, Frei felt that the sword became too confident since the moment he let him plan their next move.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"So would I simply say, hey sorry sirs, I am taking the items for myself or something?" Frei said in a voice he imagined the guy in shiny armor would have spoken.

"What about that thingy of yours where you disappear stuff into? We will work it out."

  Frei thought about what Crow had said and could not get it out of his head. With an organization hunting users of dark magic, he would have a wide net of informants at his disposal and he had some space in his inventory where no one would find the stolen items. The more he thought about it, the more efficient it seemed to be. Why to arduously search himself when someone could search for him?

"Otherwise, even though there are surely some obvious targets, try and steal treasures for example from the Waldorf's Vampire Count. Something is telling me that similar operations would not end well." Crow continued and Frei could clearly see his point. Usually, treasures and powerful spells were not simply lying around on the floor. They had their owners that had managed to keep them all this time certainly not because they looked beautiful or asked someone nicely.

Frei only gulped without an answer.

Maybe he should just try and be someone's servant, that way he would level up as well, yes?

"No, I am not some little scared mousey!" Frei thought when he remembered the statue with its lance held high to pierce the sky. Fine, he might not become a Dragon Emperor from a gladiator, but that did not mean he had to settle with the fate of a house servant!

"Fine, I will join The Order of Soloniel to get my hands on something juicy, it will be for the best!" He tried to encourage himself while turning a corner, almost bumping into a few men that were standing in a circle, discussing something.

"Fearless! That, my comrades, is the right mindset. I like that guy!" One of them pointed at Frei, he had obviously heard what Frei had just said.

"A random idiot with a silly cane trying to join that order to get his hands on their gold? You have to be joking! A delusional fool."

"If you have what it takes, you can join us." The leader ignored the speaker and walked closer to Frei, measuring him with his eyes.

"Are you from a knight order?" Frei asked and two of the men burst out laughing.

"Holy order?! No way, we are about to rob a temple and need a hand. Judging by your clothes and the way you ignored that arrogant prick in the armor, you will have nothing against borrowing some of their gold." They were sharper than Frei had expected and he cursed himself for not being more careful. It appeared the streets had many ears and eyes in this town.

Were they after gold? Frei's smile froze when he heard that the people in front of him were not grave robbers or dark mages, but some ordinary thieves. It was hard to judge what kind of people they were, as he had too little experience with human settlements of this world.

"Thanks for the invite, but temples are not my thing." Frei gestured with his hands, his palms facing the group.

"Don't you tell me that you honestly wanted to join some order? Another brain dead idiot!" The leader's attitude changed and the smiles on their faces disappeared, except for a single one belonging to a man that sighed and spoke right after while all of them watched the dumbfounded Frei.

"It is good to see that not every poor man on the streets is a thieving scum. Seize them!" He spoke, yelling the last two words. It had an effect of a bomb.

For one second, there was an ominous silence after which the leader shouted in alarm while turning around. He ran away as if his life depended on it.

"A rat from the order! Run!" The circle of men broke apart and every single one of them except for the one who yelled began to run in a different direction. Simultaneously, there were armed men that appeared from all corners of the street that tried to block their escape.

In a daze, Frei watched what was probably a planned operation of the local police. Naturally they were certainly not calling themselves police in this world. Frei almost yelped when he felt a hand landing on his shoulder.

"Honestly, I have not expected that. You will certainly not be able to enter The Order of Soloniel, but there might be a chance for you to join our order instead. Based on your looks, that in itself will be enough of an achievement." Frei looked closer at the man who he had mistaken for one of the thieves.

  He wore tattered clothes not dissimilar to Frei, but his body was too well trained, not fitting the image of a thief or a beggar. He wondered why the group had not noticed such a discrepancy, but he would have most likely not noticed himself unless provided with a clue. With red hair and blue eyes, the man stood out a little, the combination being quite uncommon. His wide grin was all over his face, it seemed that the operation was a success. or he simply wanted to finally get out of the dirty rags he wore.

"It will be my honor." Was all Frei managed to squeeze out of himself, the late evening's events being too abrupt and he was still emotionally spent due to his encounter with the prophet.

He walked along with the man who for some mysterious reason seemed to like him and listened to his explanation.

  The knight orders in human lands seemed to function as the professional part of an army, their members highly trained and constantly maintained in good shape. Their duty was to maintain order, do odd jobs for the nobles, hunt criminals and serve as officers in the army in case levies were called upon. The roles were interchangeable, but different orders specialized in different areas.

  The Order of Soloniel was a collaboration between humans and angels with its highest ranks mostly consisted of a mix of angels and humans. Its main purpose was to protect the realm against significant threats like rampaging dragons, undead armies, magical disasters and more. Often they sought the best talents to groom them into elites, because the character of the threats they fought meant that numbers were meaningless. It did not matter how many knights tried to calm down a dragon if it could kill them by sneezing. Their main duty consisted of education and selection of promising knights. To a large degree it became a symbol of high status to have a member of one's family as a high ranking Knight of Soloniel. As the result, the number of the battle ready knights of this order was few, but their power was very high. The order was also famous for accepting anyone who was strong enough and had the right intentions, except for demons and vampires.

  The Order of Dawn, was the watered down version of the famous Order of Soloniel. It was a purely human order that tried to emulate the glory and ways of the famous order with varying success. It had a bad reputation of having its head stuck in the sand when a truly dangerous threat appeared, because it lacked the powerful elites that commonly drifted away, joining The Order of Soloniel. This was also the reason why the rivalry between the two orders was not high, as the more powerful order treated The Order of Dawn as its training course for humans, leaving the old members of The Order of Dawn bitter about the situation, but lacking any strength to actually bite back.

  The Order of Eridor was founded by a noble with an obsession with magic and researched anything related to magic, serving directly under the king. As Frei's companion talked, he realized that the order was probably a caricature of The Sigil of Meridor, the original game was owned by Galacron after all. Little had they known that by making fun of their competitor from reality they had basically recreated their enemy in here, as Frei listened to the knight, he realized how close that was to the truth.

"Yeah, The Order of Eridor is on the rise as of late. A lot of newbies joining them for some reason." The knight had obviously no idea why that was, but Frei could guess it easily. He had noticed that all the people that came here seemed to be from The Arcane Universe and it was only natural for those who had something to do with The Sigil to assemble under an organization that bore a striking resemblance to it.

  Meanwhile, they had arrived at a huge building made of large blocks of stone that dominated the area, it was not far from the center of the town. The Order of Dawn was under the king, not the local baron and as such, it was never directly in the center of cities and towns together with the local forces. In fact, the base here seemed to be quite oversized for an ordinary town. The reason for its bulk was probably the vicinity of the border and the mountains infested with undead, forcing the king to have here a significant presence in the form of his knights.

  "We are here, come in the morning to see the commander. I will vouch for you, but you cannot stay in the barracks before that. " The knight gave him an apologizing look. "You are from another town right? I would have just told you to come here on your own otherwise."

"Yes, this will be for the best. Thanks for your guidance mister. .. " Frei looked at him curiously and the knight immediately reacted.

"Oh, how rude of me! Valen." He clenched his fist and patted his chest with it while giving Frei his name. "See you tomorrow!"

"Tomorrow." Frei nodded and walked away to get some place to sleep at, his head bloated with information. Was that some kind of a tutorial to introduce the knights, or what had remained of it? "Guess I will see tomorrow after I have found out where I am going to spend the night."