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I Came, I Ran
Making Money

Making Money

Before the boy even entered, he heard a lot of noise coming from the bar. It was like all the bands in the world decided to go to this one bar and compete with each other by all playing at the same time. That was really the only way to describe the cacophony of sounds coming from the bar, but the boy wasn't deterred.

The boy stood a few meters from the bar, not really sure if he wanted to go in. But then, as he looked around for other, quitter options, he saw two guards approaching, making a routine patrol of the area. The boy then decided it was better to not stick around on the streets anymore and went on into the bar.

And it was even louder on the inside. The boy saw lots of humans in the bar, eagerly drinking and talking with whomever they knew or pleased; but the boy also saw some stranger races. Little people with long, stuffy beards, large, lizard looking folk whomst carried weapons that were bigger than the boy, and even one golem looking motherfucker that was playing cards with somebody in the corner of the bar.

Thankfully, everybody seemed to be too busy with their own machinations or too drunk to pay any attention to the new person who just entered the bar. The boy proceeded towards the bar table, on which he saw several people serving. He approached one of the servers, who looked to be an old woman, who was carrying around fifteen glasses behind the table, them all empty.

"Umm, Excuse me?" There was no response from the old lady, nor the people working around her.

"Excuse Me?" Said the boy again, this time catching the attention of not the old woman, but a young man who seemed to be wiping the glasses people drunk from clean.

"What can I do for you, sir?"

"Yes, hi. Are you offering any rooms for people to rent out right now?"

The young lad looked to another, older server, yelling something incomprehensible to the older server, before turning back at him with a pleasant smile.

"We currently have a room right under the bar, ready for use. But I must warn you, you will hear all of... this."

"Oh, thank you, but I have a sure-fire way of dozing off even with this level of noise. So how much will it be?" The young lad yelled at some old server, presumably the same one, again. After getting his response, the lad looked at the boy pleasantly again.

"It would be five Rujas, good sir."

The boy then opened his bag of looted items and looked over his coins. He saw some gold coins, some silver looking coins, and some bronze looking coins. But then he looked for letters and saw that some of the coins did start with "R", so he grabbed those and handed them to the lad. The lad counted it up, before handing the boy a key and telling him the number "thirty-one".

The boy thanked the young lad, pocketing the keys and heading over with his bag to where the stairs should be. He was pushed by a large lizard fellow, but as he was too tired to cause an incident, just kept on heading towards the stairs, which he eventually reached. The way up was faster, as there were no people in his way.

The boy looked around, trying to find the number thirty-one. Eventually, the boy found the room, and as promised, it was right under the rest of the bar. He unlocked the door, heading in and locking it behind him. He threw his bag into the corner of the room, before looking to the nearest wooden surface.

He found a suitable wooden cover that held some strange lit light source on top of it. He removed the light source, before pushing the cupboard to be right in front of the bed. The boy walked in between the two objects, before placing his hands onto the cupboard. The boy breathed in and out several times, before he closed his eyes.

He then smashed his head as fast as he could into the wooden surface, slightly cracking it and sending him stumbling over the edge of the bed and onto it, unconscious and sleeping.

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A terrible headache met the boy as he woke up. He then connected it to his way of falling asleep yesterday, and he sighed; it was a terrible idea, but at least it worked. The boy got up from the bed, stumbling around until he found his bag. Opening it, the boy still found that his bag of goods was good, nobody had stolen from him as he was sleeping.

The boy grabbed his bag again before heading out of the door and downstairs, finding the place to be desolate. There were some people around, most passed out drunkards, but other than those, he was the only one awake. The boy then found the same young lad, who was polishing glasses, just as he saw him do before.

The boy approached the bar, sitting right in-front of the lad.

"So, where can I get some work in this town?"

The lad, knowing that he was asking him, thought for a moment. "Well, if you like to make a lot of coin in a short time but also nearly die while doing it, you can go to the recently established adventurer's guild. But if you want to make less coin, ask around there are far too many jobs to be listed right here."

The boy, after hearing out the young lad, though for a moment. 'Well...living the peaceful life sounds nice, but I already was doing that, and it got me nowhere.' The boy, then asked the young lad on how to get to the guild and was promptly given directions which he memorized to his best ability.

The boy then proceeded out of the bar, and towards the adventurer's guild. He did get lost midway, but then asked around, and was redirected towards the building, which was on the basically in the middle of town, right in-front of the bazaar. The boy looked at the building and found it to be quite large.

The entire building looked like it held court cases rather than house adventurers. It was plain old brown wood, with some white painted on the edges of the wood. In front of the building, was a sign of a figure holding a sword, which probably represented the job of the guild in these parts. The boy also noticed how there was a lot of traffic going in and out of the place, showing how there was a lot of adventurers in the place.

The boy breathed in and out before entering the building and noticing that it surprisingly spacious. There was a bunch of adventurers sitting at dining table, discussing matters that the boy could not overhear. He also saw some people looking at what seemed to be a large wooden board with several papers. Finally, there were also booths at which adventurers interacted between the supposed workers in the building.

The boy also saw signs above each both, all showing different "words". The boy, confusingly went over to one of the lonelier, two people groups sitting at a table. One was a boy in a heavy suit of shiny armor. He had his helmet placed on the table, revealing him to be a twenty or so year-old man with brown hair and decent teeth.

There was also a sorceress, as far as the boy could tell by her clothes and the staff beside her. She wore a blue robe with yellow accents that had a strange, almost flame like pattern going down the middle of it. The robe left area for her to show of her cleavage, to which the boy then noticed how large the breast of the girl were. 'She must use magic to keep them from falling off...'

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The boy lastly noticed how she wore a classic, sorcerer's hat, which had all the same colors as the robe, but without the strange pattern. The boy went up to the man in the suit of armor, having his questions at the ready.

"Hello good sir, may I ask you to help me out here? I'm new." The man looked at the boy at first with the expression "who, me?" The boy then confirmed that he was in fact referring to him, before the man understandingly asked what he wanted.

"Well, I can't really read the language around here really well, and I was wondering if you could help me what those signs over there say." The boy pointed to the signs above the booth, and the man looked over before slightly chuckling and translating the signs. After asking again just to be sure he memorized it correctly, the boy went over to the registration booth.

'Hello, this is the registration booth, yes?"

A young lady turned to the boy, smiling as if she was required to smile on a daily basis. "Why yes, what can I help you with?"

"I have a few questions before I do anything serious. First, do I have to be a member to take the sheets on that board? Do I get paid for completing them? What are the benefits of being a member?"

The girl was a little overwhelmed by the boy's barrage of questions but recollected herself after a few seconds.

"Well, no you don't have to be a member to take on the requests on the board, yes they do give you money as stated, and you get protection by the guild if you join, and some insurance."

The boy thought it over; 'There really is no benefit to me joining, huh?' So, instead the boy asked if he could go and take any request, to which he was met by a yes, but he would have to sign a contract for every quest he took. The boy didn't question it; he knew he wouldn't want to be liable for someone else's life.

The boy headed over to the board, taking a long hard look at the papers, and then turning back to look at the people in the room. 'I can't understand a word on these...'

The boy then noticed how the man and the lady he talked to were still sitting on the same table, but another person had come over to their group; it was an MMA fighter, or what looked to be like one. The man, as far as he could tell from where he was looking from, had no armor of any sort on their chest, just bulging muscles. They had long, dirty hair, and wore baggy, dark orange sweatpants. Lastly, with the one hand that the person placed on the table, the boy saw multiple bandages wrapped around their palms and wrists.

The boy, completely surprised for moment, stood there and stared at the group. Snapping out of his trance, the boy walked up to the group, just as the fighter was about to leave. The boy caught the attention of the man as he was approaching, seeing the man make a slight smile as he stood in-front of them.

"Hello again; I was wondering if you could come help me read some papers?" The man's smile grew upon hearing this, he bowed his and head and stood up to go and help; but then the fighter put their hand on the man's shoulder, putting him back down in his seat. "I'll help you kiddo."

The boy then examined the fighter; and saw that it was a woman. She showed a sort off happy predator smile, leading standing up and motioning the boy to lead her to his objective. 'Why can the knight show me? Why does it have to be the exhibitionist?' Upon arrival, the boy asked woman to read him the papers on the wall, all the while trying to stare at her.

After all was done, the boy took exactly one paper that he thought he could do, thanked the semi-naked woman and headed back to the registration booth. The boy found the same girl standing there, and asked directions to do what the "quest" requested. And after finding out everything, the boy grabbed his bag, signed the disclosure paper, and headed off into the forest.

'What the hell is a Coribo, anyway? Maybe a fantasy caribou?' The boy thought over why the quest specifically asked to kill ten of these creatures, and why to bring only their claws back; but he wasn't going to argue on how to make money. Upon approaching the town gate however, the boy remembered that he was here illegally, and that would have to get out a different way.

The boy then noticed a rather wide alleyway, that was also pretty empty, and an idea popped into his head. The boy started to run into the alleyway, dodging and weaving through a select few groups of people, of which he almost knocked over a small person in a red robe. Once in the alleyway, the boy ran until a few meters from the wall, at which point he jumped and crashed into the wall, grabbing onto the ledge and bringing himself up.

The boy saw a few guards walking the walls, but none of them were close enough to stop the boy or see who he was. Mischievously smiling, the boy jumped over the wooden spikes that counted as a railing, going around the wall to the west side of the town and finding the west gate, at which point he turned left and started his hunt for the "Coribo".

The boy walked for a few minutes before finding his first animal; of which he wasn't sure if it was a coribo or not. It was large, had a form of mist coming down from its icy blue fur, and large tusks on its head. The boy then realized that he was looking at a boar that most likely had something to do with ice magic. Fighting it might not be needed, but the rewards looked pretty nice, so he approached the animal anyway.

The animal heard the boy as he was approaching, making a sneak attack impossible. The boar then slightly tilted its head, showing its tusks to the boy, kicking its feet into the ground, signaling it was preparing for a charge. The boy was not deterred by this and got into his fighting stance, ready to take on the boar.

The boar charged as expected, the boy slightly changing his form to catch the tusks of the boar as it was charging him. The boar was faster than expected however, forcing the boy to jump over the boar as it was coming towards him. The boy's arms were grazed by the sharp points of the tusks as he jumped, but it was only a light sting, so he shrugged it off. The boar charged right through a tree, snapping it into pieces and making the boy reconsider fighting the animal head on.

But then the boar ran around in a half-circle for the second charge, aiming for the boy again. But the boy ran to the boar this time, as it started to run towards him; the less momentum the animal has, the less damage it will do. The boy caught the boar tusks mid charge but was quickly overpowered and brought along for the ride; the destination if which was a rather thick tree.

The boy, upon realizing what the boar was trying to do, flung himself to face the same way as the boar, grabbed both of its tusks and pulled into a different direction with all his strength. The boar, not expecting this move, tripped up flew for a few seconds, turning onto his back and sliding into the tree, all the while the boy jumped off the boar's body.

The boar crashed into the tree, cracking it and making it fall onto the boar. The boy stood on his spot for a few moments, then slowly approaching the boar, who laid stilly under the fallen tree. The boy kicked the face of the boar for a few times, before realizing that it was unconscious. The boy sighed, disheartened that he didn't kill his prey.

But he still wanted his reward for defeating the creature. The boy then snapped of a heavy branch from the fallen tree and started to hit the boar's tusks as hard as he could. Several times the boar almost got up from his slumber but was knocked out by the boy smashing its head with his club. The branch broke after a while, but so did one of the tusks, meaning that the boy now had a stabby-stabby weapon.

'Why the fuck did I just...whatever.' The boy then grabbed the particularly sharp tusk and pushed it into the boar's throat; this didn't work. The fur of the boar was too thick, meaning pushing the tusk through it would be impossible with the boy's strength. So instead, he ran back twenty meters, and prepared the tusk as a spear.

The boy ran, with all that his legs could carry him with, aiming the tusk for the boar's throat. And the final moment came, the tusk piercing the boar's throat, it eliciting a squeal and waking up due to the extreme pain it felt. However, the animal was too late, the tusk was several inches into its throat, it was already bleeding heavily from its throat, unable to move under the weight of the tree on top of it. It died a slow, painful death, one that lasted for a minute straight.

The boy didn't like what he heard, but yet understood that he couldn't avoid it; he was unskilled in the art of murder. Sighing, the boy went up to the boar, using his broken branch to break another, slightly smaller branch from the tree, and then using that brunch to break the other tusk. A familiar message appeared when he broke off the second tusk.

[A successful hunt! You have killed an opponent of higher level than you and have received 50 EXP!]

With both tusks broken, and the boars body bleeding out on the ground, the boy grabbed the put the tusks in his bag and headed off towards the forest again, ready to kill whatever the hell a coribo was.

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The search ended with the boy killing a few more ice boars, as he had grown to call them, and getting eight tusks in total, all of varying sizes. The boy was also 100 EXP away from reaching level one apparently, so he was eager to see what would happen once he finally reached the required amount. But for now, the boy had to get over the wall again.

The boy did the same procedure as the first time he got into the town, and successfully made his way back to the same bar. The boy made a quick remark of how loud it was, paid his fee and went up to the same room, where he unpacked and went to sleep without smashing his head in the cupboard. His exhaustion was enough to drive him to sleep.