Approaching the town walls, it was almost eerily quiet, walking through the gates, Damien took in his surroundings, looking for signs of the town's residents. The buildings in the town were undamaged and looked completely fine, so with that in mind; he was not sure why no one was around and where they could have gone.
Glancing over at Ela, Damien spoke in a hushed tone, “Who owns this town?” Ela replied, “A group founded this town, so there isn't just one owner. However, the strongest and leader of the group is a woman named Ruby.” pausing for a few minutes and looking around, she continued, “She has red hair hence the name and has a fiery personality so if you meet her keep your eyes off her body less you want her to chop your balls off or something… Don’t think I'm joking either as I watched her do it once.”
Not sure how to respond to that, Damien just silently reminded himself not to have any thoughts about the woman should they come across her. Turning back to Ela, he asked if there was anywhere in the town they should search first for people.
Nodding her head, Ela motioned with her hand for Damien to follow before swiftly walking towards a building in the center of the town labeled “Adventures Guild” with the emblem of what looked to be a dragon. Reading the name, a look of curiosity flashed across Damien’s face before he decided to ask Ela what the building was supposed to be.
“Before the system’s descent into our world, getting stuff like food, water, etc., was pretty easy given you had the money to buy it, but now that the world is what it is, a lot of people did not have the skills required to get stuff for themselves or were to scared to adventure out so with that in mind Ruby’s group created the guild.
Walking through a doorway, Ela paused for a moment to make sure everything was clear before continuing. “The way it works is that a person walks into the guild and registers to become a member upon registration, the person will be assigned a rank based on their level… before the system fully integrated, there were only three ranks, being c - rank, a - rank and s - rank with c being level 5 a being level 10 and s being level 20.”
Before she could continue, Damien interrupted her, “So I am assuming that after the person gets assigned their rank, they can pick from tasks to do based on that rank, and the higher ranked the task, the harder it is.”
Nodding her head, Ela spoke, “Pretty much, yeah, the tasks were usually nothing special since the world was not fully integrated there were not many threats to us humans, and the most dangerous tasks were stuff like exploring areas not yet explored or killing monsters that were too close to the town.”
Damien agreed that the system made sense, but now, with the system being fully integrated into their universe, the systems would probably have to be changed as Earth was only going to get more dangerous from now on.
“Alright, we are here,” Ela said aloud, making Damien snap out of his thoughts, looking in front of him Damien saw a big vault-like door made out of solid metal. “How are we going to get in?” he asked.
With a smile, Ela explained that she and Ruby had met a long time ago, back when the world was still getting used to the system and that she and she had been friends ever since. because of that, Ela knew how to open the door.
“Step back opening the door requires the use of “free form” magic. Without explaining what free-form magic was supposed to be, Damien saw Ela put her hands in front of her before seeing the mana in the air begin to shift into the door’s crevices. Watching Ela move the mana, it did not take long until the door rumbled and slowly started to open.
“That was interesting… is free-form magic the ability to use mana without a skill or something?” Damien asked, intrigued by what he had just witnessed. “Yeah, that is exactly what it is…. Ruby was the first one to discover that it was possible and, as far as I know, is also the most skilled at it.” Ela responded with an unreadable look.
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Walking forward, Ela walked through the now-open doorway and made her way inside the interior of the room they were in. It had red carpet on the floor with chairs and tables off to the left side while on the right of the room, there was what appeared to be a bar.
Heading to the back right corner of the room, Ela stopped in front of a wooden door with the emblem of the guild at its center. Opening the door, Ela was met with a fireball heading straight toward her. Swiftly entering spirit form to dodge the attack she jumped back before exiting the form and yelling.
“Ruby! It’s me, Ela, stop trying to attack me you crazy bitch!” seeing Ela yell and speak like that Damien almost could not hold back his shock before lightly chuckling seeing Ela’s angry expression.
Not even a second after Ela had screamed, a woman's voice could be heard from inside the room, “Oops, sorry, little El, I thought you were someone else.” With a look of announce Ela sighed.
“First off, I told you to stop calling me that, and second, who could you possibly think I was that would make you instantly attack? Also, where is everyone? When we saw the town the whole thing looked deserted.”
Instead of answering her question, Ruby asked one of her own, “We? What do you mean we?” finally walking out of the room she was in, Ruby saw a man standing off to the side of Ela she had not seen him standing there before since Ela was blocking the doorway. Looking the man up and down a cheeky smile spread across her face.
Walking up to the man, Ruby leaned against his chest and spoke, “Who are you handsome?”
Upon seeing the woman, he understood why Ela had advised him to keep his eyes away from her body. Damien found that he could hardly look away; her curvaceous figure was almost more striking than Ela's own. Strangely, her eyes were a light yellow and had a slight glow, which gave Damien the unsettling feeling of being scrutinized by a predator. Quickly looking away before his… got removed, he glanced at the ceiling and took a deep breath.
“....” Not sure what to do, Damien looked at Ela, and upon doing so, he immediately regretted his actions. Seeing the dead look on her face, he pushed the crazy redhead away from him. Damien cleared his throat nervously while avoiding the death stare Ela was giving him. “My name is Damien,” he said.
“Oh, oh my, this is the long lost Damien?” Ruby said aloud, indicating that Ela had told her about him before. As Ruby was about to continue, Ela put her hand over her mouth and gave her an iratiated look.
“Ruby, we can catch up later. Now, would you please tell us what is going on with the town and where everyone is at? Why are you the only one here?” Ela asked while sighing.
“Oh… right. To be honest with you, little El, I have no clue where everyone went. The system event finished, and I was teleported back to the place where I was hunting monsters. Using my magic, I communicated with Malia, and she said everything was good in the town, so with that in mind, I continued to hunt for a while and, after a few hours, made my way back, but by the time I got here, everyone was gone.” Ruby said, displaying visible worry and confusion on her face.
Hearing her explanation, Ela also displayed visible confusion as to what could have possibly happened before she could question further Damien spoke. “Has anything like this ever occurred in the past?” he said while looking at Ruby.
Glancing over at him, Ruby shook her head. “Not that I am aware of no, but that does not mean it has not happened somewhere on earth. With the world expanding after the system arrived, a lot of new land is still unexplored by the majority of people.
“Anyway, where did you find him?” Ruby asked while pointing in Damien’s direction, “He was at one of the facilities we uncovered by the time I had killed the outside guards, he had managed to escape the building himself, surprising me quite a bit, to be honest,” Ela responded taking a brief glance at Damien.
“Impressive… alright, we have a lot to talk about and a lot to catch up on. What do you say we have a chat little El?” ruby asked while winking at Damien.
Seeing Ruby’s wink, Ela’s eyebrow twitched. “You're right we do have a lot to catch up on R - U B - Y,” she responded while spelling out each letter of her name. “E-Ela… can we talk about this?”
With a fake smile, Ela just let out a “hmph” in response before glaring at Damien and asking him to leave the room to let her and Ruby have a “chat,” deciding it was best not to stick around and see what was going to happen if he tried to stay Damien exited the room at breakneck speeds.
“Now, lets have a nice long talk.”