I quickly walk over to the board and check the jobs.

Iron Rank Jobs

* Need rabbit meat, 2 copper per or 3 if blood is drained.

* Looking for able bodies for delivery unload 1 copper per hour.

* Looking for local plants in woods (pay varies)

* Church of Leki looking for test subject (pay varies)

* Looking for help at refugee camp outside town 2 copper per hour

* Need swamp lizard paste 1 copper per ounce

Bronze Rank Jobs

* Find goblin camp location south of town 1-2 silver depending on info

* Seeking archer for training my son 5 copper per hour

* Need help moving ingots 4 copper per hour

* Always looking for caravan guards (pay varies)

Now what should I pick… I’m not really sure what would make me enough money to live in this town. I’ll take this moving ingot job, it can’t be that hard.

I quickly grab the slip off the wall and head over to Dunthor.

“Hey Dunthor, can I do this job? I ask him.

“Uh let me see, yeah it is bronze ranked. Be warned though, there have already been three people to try that job and each one of them could only last an hour. It’s been up on the wall for well over a month.” He replies looking at the slip I handed him.

“Oh… Is it really that hard?” I ask with a puzzled face.

“Yeah, they’re orchium ingots weigh about 80lbs each.” He replies quickly while leaning over the bar pointing at the slip.

“How much does it cost for a room at an inn… Also I don’t even know where I am.” I ask after some thought.

“The place you are in is Ghum, Town in the Tri Kingdoms mostly known as a merchanting town, the town guards take care of most issues that's why this guild is so run down. Not much work for adventurers here, but there is enough to go around for the few still here. Anyways the typical cost at an inn is 4 coppers a night, but since you’re a demi you’re probably looking at triple the price.” He replies with a grim look.

Fuck. I need to rethink my options.

“Okay on second thought, what’s with the refugee camp.” I ask while picking up the slip. Maybe I can stay there for free if I help them.

“Ah that’s actually an odd one, the refugees aren't citizens of the Tri Kingdom, they fled from the ongoing war in Drux Kingdom to here. They’ve been stuck outside the city on the east. No one has taken that job yet. It's been posted for 3 weeks so I don’t have much info on it. Bunch of humans with next to nothing, so I’d assume they need help gathering supplies and possibly help with injured men. Sorry, but I don’t have much to go on though.” Dunthor replies after some thought.

“Alright.” I quickly go back to the list replacing the ingot job with the refugee job and head back to Dunthor. I’ll take my chances.

“I’ll take this job.” I say placing the slip down on the bar.

“Okay, if you fail to complete your first job at iron rank you get demoted, but since you are only iron rank you won't be able to take another job for a week.” He says as he writes my name on the bottom of the slip and slides it off the bar.

“Okay. Can you give me directions to the camp?”

“Yeah no problem. Take a right out of the guild, go 9 blocks down to the main road then follow the road to the right all the way out of the city. Oh, also I should’ve mentioned this sooner, but to enter the city it costs 2 copper, but for you they’ll try to get you for more. Usually adventurers get free entry, but yeah…” He slowly fades out the last bit.

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Well shit. I already accepted the job and I have no money…

“You don’t happen to give loans do you?” I ask with a frown.

“Sorry kid, nothing against you, but guild policy…” He says with a small frown.

“Okay, I’ll make do then.” I grimace and walk out of the guild following the directions he gave me.

The guards at the gate didn’t have any problem with me leaving the town. They were more than happy to throw me out of the town quite literally when I walked to the gate. I quickly start walking towards a bunch of roughspun tents set up a couple hundred yards from the main gate. The eastern gate of Ghum was massive standing 18’ high, with a wall surrounding the whole town; it stood at 20’.

Arriving at the refugee camp I’m met with a scene of a few dozen people with meek looks upon their faces. Most of them are women and children washing clothes in giant tubs of dirty water. A couple of kids are running around playfully while others are sitting beside tents staring at the ground. Very few men are walking around, but of the few that are around they are all elderly. Damn, looks like the war has been rough on them.

I walk up to a woman who is just walking out of a tent with a young baby straddled in her arms.

“Excuse me, I’m here about the job.” I ask politely as she turns towards me.

She turns towards me, but with one glance at my arm she immediately lowers her head and rushes back into the tent she came out of.

“Uh… okay.” I say as I walk over to a elderly man smoking out of a pipe.

“I’m here about the job requesting help from the adventurers guild.” I say again politely to the man.

The man blows out a huge cloud of smoke before he answers.

“Then you should head to the large tent in the middle.” The man replies with dimly lit eyes taking another puff off his pipe.

I make my way over to a large tent that is in much better condition than the surrounding ones.

“I’m here about the job.” I say as I poke my head in the tent.

“Oh perfect some…” A young lady probably around age 23 with brown hair and blue eyes replies. She is looking up from some sort of wooden contraption with strings running all across it. She lets out a huge sigh. “At this point I don’t even care that you’re a demi.You’re the only one who has come and we desperately need the help.

“Uh, thank you?” I reply with uncertainty.

“My name is Amilia, you can call me Am. We need someone to help gather firewood and water. Most of the people here are women and children and quite frankly we don’t have the brawn to do it. We’ve been managing the water, but the firewood has been an issue. We’ve already cut down a majority of the smaller trees and the larger trees just aren't in our capability. Can you help us?

Cutting trees down? Doesn’t sound too hard. “Yeah I can help get you the firewood you need, but I do have a request.” I reply.

“What’s the request?” Amilia asks, a hint of fear in her voice.

“I’d like to stay here if that’s okay. I actually don’t have the money to get back into the town.” I say with a frown.

“Oh… Uhhhhh'' She takes a long pause thinking “Yeah, I will have to make some arrangements, but that will work. I’ll have to drop the pay down to 1 copper an hour to cover food expenses though.” Eh it's probably the best I can do for now at least she’s being friendly.

“Sounds fair to me, just let me know where I can sleep when the time comes. For now just show me what I need to do.” I say while walking back out of the tent; Amilia right behind me.

“If you will follow me.” She says once we get out and walk towards the woods, grabbing an ax from the corner of the tent.

Emelia and I quickly make it to the edge of the camp. There are a couple skinny tree stumps scattered around where smaller trees have already been cut down.

“Just cut down the large ones, cut the logs to half the length of the ax with the saw resting against the tree over there. Then split the logs into the width of the ax head. If you know water magic, drain the water out of the logs. If you don’t know it, just leave them stacked. I will dry them later.” Amilia walks away after the speal leaving me with the ax and saw and I get to work.

I walk up one of the larger trees and slam the ax into it biting into the wood. This won't be too hard. I notch the tree as I saw someone do on some youtube video and proceed to fall in perfectly after a few minutes of work. I quickly saw the branches off the trees and piled them off to the side moving onto sawing the wood down to logs. Finishing that I split the wood and stack them into a nice neat pile. I proceed for a few hours before Amilia comes with some food.

“Here, you definitely deserve this. You’ve managed to do more work than we’ve been able to do in 3 days.” She says while handing me small piece of bread and a bowl of some type of soup. “I knew it’d be worth hiring someone.” I guess all that misery I went through helped temper my body.

“Thanks.” I accept the food and sit down on one of the larger tree stumps eating my meal.

Amilia left shortly after handing me the food. After finishing the meal I placed it on a stump closer to the edge of the camp and continued to chop and cut more wood throughout the day.

* Skill Ax wielding lvl 1 acquired-

* Skill Woodworking lvl 1 acquired-

Amilia shortly returned with more food as the sun was starting to pass over the tops of the trees.

“Uh… so about your living situation. I kind of ran into an issue.” Amelia says as I start to eat.

“Mhmm?” I reply with my mouth full nodding towards her.

“No one is comfortable having you stay with them because you’re a demi.”

“Figures. I get ostracized for what I am, not who I am.” I reply with a sigh. “Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out. It's not the first time. How much did I make today?”

“Well so far you’ve made 1 silver 8 copper, but with the food I brought it leaves 1 silver 6 copper. That's 2 copper per hour because I said you could sleep here, but no one is comfortable having you stay in their tent.” She quickly replies.

Okay, so to get into the town that would be 8 coppers I’m guessing leaving me with 8 coppers and an inn would be 12 coppers. I don’t have enough. Fuck. Guess I will just sleep in the woods.