I had finally made it to Dokam and asked to sell my iron ingots and as I handed them the ingots I pulled out a small handful of the green powder and placed it on a plate they provided me saying "I want to know what this is and how much it is worth. Also could you hurry it up I really need to leave as quickly as possible, I have some rather urgent matters to attend to." I said as I paced the room thinking of the fight with the adventurers orchestrated by the person on the rooftop. I was trying to think of what to do now. I wanted to try and find out their identity because as it stood I didn't even know who my enemy was and yet they knew who I was. A rather disadvantageous situation to be honest.

As I was lost in thought I heard some footsteps and looked up to see the staff walking back with a small pile of copper coins as well as the plate with the green powder. The staff spoke up and handed me the coins saying "The ingots were worth 4 copper each for a total of 92 coppers, please confirm it sir. And in regards to the powder you brought us I am afraid we will not purchase it. We do not deal in Temrot Crystal powder." I took the coppers and saw that I had a total of 1 silver and 2 copper. Did my inventory automatically convert the currency I have? I pulled out 1 silver and put it back into my inventory then pulled out 100 copper then put them back. I can freely pull out whatever currency I want as long as I have enough of it in my inventory, that's useful.

I stopped getting sidetracked and asked the staff what was on my mind. "What's a Temrot Crystal? Also why won't you purchase it? I could have sworn this was valuable with how that person was using it for alchemy or whatever at the self serve Blacksmith area." I was just muttering to myself but the staff heard and instantly grabbed my shoulder before practically yelling at me. "You saw someone using Temrot?! Where?! Who were they and what did they make with it?! T-this is bad...You were not mistaken were you?! Are you sure that someone was using this particular crystal powder and not something else?!"

I was shocked into silence by the person's surprising response. The hell is Temrot exactly? I decided to respond to the questions he asked me and said "I don't know who it was, they were wearing a cloak and had their hood up, completely hiding their face and any defining features. I don't know if this was what they were using dude. I just walked up and saw a pile of this shit on the ground near where he was working and thought it could be valuable so I grabbed it all and came here to sell it. But can you tell me what the hell Temrot is? I'm pretty lost here man."

By this time other staff had arrived and knew what was going on, everyone was equally agitated. I didn't know of any Temrot from the game, I would know if it existed in the game due to me basically living in it, so it was probably something unique to this world. This world kept showing me that it's not just a carbon copy of the game but an actual world with living people in it.

One of the other staff that had came over sometime during out conversation piped up, finally answering my question as to what Temrot was. "Sir, Temrot is a type of crystal that is typically found in places with demonic creaturers such as a dungeon with demons, or in the demon realm but no one can get access to the demon realm so the only way to get Temrot is from dungeons. Temrot is typically used for necromancy, or other demonic rituals. It is a favourite alchemy ingredient for Corrupt mages who follow the demonic arts."

I was surprised that this powder was found in places with demons. Those god damn demons just won't leave humans alone even after fleeing from the human realm. I remembered that although demons appear in dungeons, those are merely dungeon creatures and only a replica of demons, not actual demons. That fact confused most people at first including me at first. The real demons had already fled to the demon realm, never to be seen again. I sighed and said "Well I have a bunch of this stuff and I certainly don't want any of it after finding out that corrupt mages use this stuff. I'll just dispose of it at the adventurers guild and tell them what happened. Hopefull they can find who was using the Temrot."

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The staff handed me the powder and looked visibly relieved to not have to be responsible for the Temrot, and told me "That would be a good idea sir. With the Monster summoning crystals being found near the city, this might be a clue to catching whoever it is that's placing them around. Do take care on your way out." I put the powder into my inventory and waved goodbye and left. Shit kept on popping up, first the unknown person finding out who I was and then the encounter with the adventurers and now some corrupt mage was in the city doing who knows what. "Why can't this shit happen in some other city? Y'know, one where I ain't living in?"

I heard no response other than the howling wind. I felt like a moron and quickly headed in the direction of the inn. I wanted to let the others know what had happened. I just hope nothing happened to them before I got back.

~~~

I had finally made it to the inn and walked in, but what I saw was rather shocking. There were holes in the walls and several deep gouges marking the various surfaces in the building. It looked like a rather big fight had gone down. I carefully walked in and saw that the door to the cafeteria was blown to splinters, and in the cafeteria were several people cleaning up blood from the floor. I saw Herald and Ray and ran over to him upon seeing their states. "Herald, Ray! You guys ok?! What the hell happened here? This place is a mess!" I got to the 2 and now that I was closer I realized they were more injured than it seemed from afar.

Ray had a large torn chunk on the back of his armour and several stab wounds, 3 in his stomach and 1 on his left arm. Herald, on the other hand, was better off, but his armour wasn't. His trademark shield was now literally a piece of scrap metal, it was crumpled with several large dents and some holes as well. What the hell could punch a hole through several inches of freaking steel? The steel armour he was wearing was dented in numerous places and had 1 place it had caved in from a large hit.

Herald coughed a bit and said "Don't worry Zane, we're fine. It's Ronia that you should worry about." He then had a worried expression as he looked towards the stairs. "We were having a chat on what we should de. With our situation going to dungeons could be dangerous so we wanted to have a plan but some drunk adventurers came in and got rowdy. It just got worse and worse until we decided to call it a day and leave, but Ronia bumped into one of them by accident and they made a massive scene about it, complaining how we should compensate them for the injury."

I listened with and the more I heard the more I was certain that this was the doing of that hooded figure. He probably had a friend that came here to do the same to them as he did to me. I heard Ray continue the story after Herald paused while clenching his fists and looking rather angrily at the bloody spot on the floor. "Long story short is that they tried to grope her and that ended poorly for them, but one of them used a device to call some friends over. They started attacking us trying to basically kill us for no good reason. Ronia was snuck up on during the fight and got stabbed in the back. The knife had poison and now she's sitting upstairs with some priests watching over her trying to heal her."

I was so shocked at what had happened that I forgot what I had came to tell them. The people that wanted us dead really didn't care if they had to sacrifice dozens of adventurers to kill us. This incident made me recall some bad memories of a rather notorious pking guild from the game. They were the absolute worst and the scourge of the game. As I was remembering the pieces of shit I remembered one the things they loved to do, attack weakened adventurers who were finishing some boss fight or just very injured.

They would swoop in and kill the whole group when they were the weakest and steal all the loot. I then remembered that Ronia was upstairs and unguarded. The only people near her were some priests, and I highly doubted they could fight. I suddenly had a terrible feeling and started running for the stairs. "Please don't be too late!"