All door-ways, before going forward, should be looked to; for difficult it is to know where foes may sit within a dwelling
The Hávamál
David instantly slammed the lid shut as the sight and smell of the mutilated head had made him feel quite sickly. He had to cover his mouth with both hands, just to swallow down the vomit that was about to erupt. He turned towards the snickering mage with a confused expression, he was making his feeling of disgust known towards the young mage by giving him a frown; David was looking for an explanation.
"Naturally my sister isn't a degenerate psychopath as to gift you a head for fun. She harvested this head so that you can turn it into the local Bounty Hunter Guild" Darius explained reluctantly with a mocking smile, he was having too much fun seeing David squirm.
"Bounty Hunter Guild?" David said with a puzzled voice as it was the first time he had heard of this type of guild.
"You..." Darius was looking at David as if he was a fool. Darius sighed before he began to explain, even if David didn't ask for one, he wanted to show off the knowledgeable side of himself.
"The Bounty Hunter Guild offers up payment for killing or capturing known criminals that are up for bounty, since it was a waste of gold to leave the head behind, my sister decided to wrap it up into a nice little gift so that you can register the kill in your name" Darius said as they were just finishing up their meals. He had gotten up to take a short break inside the bathroom.
David used this time to thank the caretaker for taking care of JoJo while he was unconscious. After Darius had finished, he told David that he would take him to the Bounty Hunter Guild. David was curious as to how this Guild is like compared to the one he had already been in, so naturally he agreed to go; but before they left, JoJo said one final goodbye towards the caretaker. He was waving towards her with enthusiasm until him and his master had left the building.
Alongside the way, Darius was frowning and grunting in displeasure constantly because David was constantly stopping along the way, admiring the towns wonderous atmosphere. David noticed that there were many security guards posted in almost every corner of the town. He thought that this Lupia Town, although smaller than a city, has strong security.
In contrast to Vermont Town, security was lacking, the streets were dirty, poor beggars litter the street with hardly anyone giving them spare changes. In Vermont Town, he had noticed plenty of suspicious looking people, actively sneaking in and out of the town. Security was lacking, and the overall mood was down, there were also plenty of old buildings that were on the brink of crumbling down. The only place that seemed to maintain themselves was the Dungeoneering Guild Building.
David sneered at the thought of the elvish woman, she did not do a good job at maintaining the town. Instead, he felt that she was didn't care about that town. But in Lupia Town, was perfectly in harmony between the commoners, the businesses, the Guilds and the Milton nobles. Everything seems to connect where no one is discontent. But this was his thought after only seeing and hearing everything on the surface, he didn't know what lurks underneath.
Thirty minutes later, the three of them had managed to find themselves in front of a tall two-story wooden building. David thought that It had a sense of style as a big western cabin used in snowy regions of his old home planet. Something a rich lumberjack would live in. He saw a big bronze title above the entrance. 'Bounty Hunter Guild'
Walking inside, he could instantly smell the scent of blood as there was in-built prison with many bloody and miserable people chained downed. These were the criminals caught alive by bounty hunters. David had thought he had seen wrongly; but there was also a small kid chained up inside one of the prisons. He frowned and wanted to immediately ask about what was going on, but Darius reluctantly explained.
"The Bounty Hunter Guild is general known as to be upfront and in the light. They're funded by the law, so they are given a portion of the people’s taxes just to pay for the bounties reward. The Guild itself does not generally make much money which is why many people respect them and are happy to pay the taxes. While the Assassins Guild which is similar to them, is more behind the scenes and in the dark, they don't discriminate between good and evil, young and old, they make profit for killings. So, this kid might had done something fairly bad to be put on bounty since this upfront guild only collects criminals" Darius said with a non-caring voice.
David was still bothered by the thought of locking up a child, but he didn't know the whole story of the situation and decided to handle his business first. They walked up towards the counter where a tall muscular man stood.
"How can I help you?" The tall muscular man said in a nonchalant voice.
"Just a membership card and to hand in a bounty," David said as he was knowing what to do due to Darius instructions. The bounty officer then took out a similar looking crystal to the one he had used to get his identity card in the Dungeoneering Guild.
This time, the crystal looked to be a little bit smaller, it was darker in colour. After the bounty officer placed a familiar blank card inside the slot of the crystal, David then placed his hands onto the crystal as he knew what to do. The crystal began to glow brightly for a few minutes before it went back to normal.
The officer took out the card before taking a quick glance at it before handing it towards David. The blank card had turned green, the same colour as his identity card.
David Lee / Age 18
Bounty Hunter Rank: F
Bounties Kill/Capture
F: 0 E: 0
The officer explained that he needed to rank up his Bounty Hunter Rank if he wanted to be able to hand in D rank bounties as being F rank would only let him hand in F to E rank assignments. The officer had then giving David a free bingo book that was full of pictures and drawings of criminals with their bounty price. In total there were more than two thousand criminals inside the bingo book. The officer quickly explained that these were only F to E grade criminals that had been on the run for quite some time. The officer pointed out a wooden board at the side of the building. On it were fresh bounty requests of criminals that had recently popped up.
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Finally, after looking through the wooden notice board and remembering all the F grade targets faces, he then gave the copper box to the officer. When the officer opened the box, the officer wasn't too surprised to see the mutilated head and he didn't seem too bothered by the smell and sight, he then took the head out of the box calmly.
"The head is too mutilated to do a visual confirmation, so I have to use a new tech to test his DNA" The officer said while pulling out a giant crystalline like technology. David was confused as to what was happening but waited for the officer to finish what he was doing. The officer then placed the head inside of the weird technology and pressed a button. The tech began to glow with red lights scanning the head, this process only took a few minutes before stopping.
George Melks / Age 31
Class: Bandit
Subclass: Chef
Average Attributes: F+
David was surprised to hear a robotic voice come from the tech. The officer quickly searched through his own bingo book to find the culprit.
"Hmmm, here it is... Bandit Sub-Leader of the Ravaging Cavalries, George Melk’s with a Bounty of 345 gold coins" The officer said calmly as he tore out a page of the book. David saw the drawing of the person on that page and it looked exactly like the person he had killed.
Below the picture was a description. It further said that George Melk’s was a family of chefs and when he was young, his parents were kill by nobles, ever since then he had to live on his own in the dark. He joined the Ravaging Cavalries when he was 10 and moved his way up to become a sub-leader years later. The gang is known for raiding villages as a cavalry unit then disappearing and in a flash.. The gang grows a level higher in combat when they are fighting as a unit on their horses. It is recommended to fight them dismounted.
David felt lucky that the horses were scared away in that fight or else he would have been easily diced into fine mincemeat. The officer then said that the information’s about the criminals in the book are gathered by victims or witnesses, and not every bounty target has this much information on them inside, some criminals can also have just a few words or less. Sometimes the information is outdated and can't always be trusted.
The officer then asked for the Bounty Hunter card, he had then placed it in another crystalline tool to register the kill. This didn't take too long before he received his card again.
Bounties Kill/Capture
F: 1 E: 0
"Ok, here is your payment, but because of using the low-grade DNA testing device, I had deducted 25 Gold coins. The membership card is free but upgrading it cost money. You can upgrade your card to Bounty Hunter Rank E when you have a kill/capture count of 50 for F rank, or 10 for E rank. Having E rank will let you hand in D rank assignments and let you have a 5% discount from every Bounty Hunter Guild store." The officer explained slowly.
David then took the pouch of 320 gold coins and placed it in his bag, he was dumbfounded as a criminal that had almost killed him was worth around the same amount of gold that he had eaten this morning. He wanted to know what was in that buffet meal to have costed that much, at the same time he felt depressed that a person with such a low bounty had almost done him in.
He then looked around what they were selling. There were many weapons and traps, but they were all vastly overpriced. The officer smiled wryly, saying that because they basically make no money, they had to at least make a profit with their wares. David quickly placed the overpriced wares into the back of his mind because he simply had no use for them currently.
"Uh... Can I ask what that kid did to be locked up" David asked curiously, looking towards the young boy inside the cage. The boy looked to be around nine years old with long black hair. The boy noticed someone looking at him, so he turned to face who it was. David just saw the boys red eyes staring coldly at him.
"Him? He stole around five thousand gold coins worth of food from a few businesses around here. But since he cannot pay it back as he already given them to his fellow orphans to eat. The automatic process is to hold him for a few days till someone pays off his debt, if no one comes in the next seven days, he will be sent to the mines where he will be forced to work off the debt" The officer replied.
"How long is the mining sentence" David said with curiosity.
"For his kind of deed, the sentence is usually around five years" The officer said in pity, he too didn't like the situation, but the boy stole from the rich and usually crimes against rich people is harsher.
'Five years?' He thought that he had heard wrong, but unfortunately, he was forced to let problem go. He was curious as to how this boy that looked to be around ten years old; stole the food in the first place. So David made sure to remember name of the boy, he was surprised to learn that his first name was King, and that he didn’t have a last name, most orphans didn’t have last names.
David was thinking about recruiting some underlings as he was considering on making a major play. He had come into realisation that having an organisation is the main source of power. The Guilds, the Nobles, the Schools, Gangs and others. They ruled this world by having a vast amount of wealth and people behind them. So, he thought that since his dungeon was closest to Vermont town, he was going to have to build up an organisation to take over the town. This way he could he protect his dungeon in more ways than one.
He would never forget how he was played a fool by the Guild Leader, so he would have no problem kicking her off her seat. A girl like her, on top of a hill would not bother themselves with the lowly peasants at the bottom of the hill. This makes it so the peasants down below can remain unseen and unnoticed. The Guild Leader should had taken him seriously instead of attempting to have him killed with a risk-free play.
Now that he had survived her plot, he can round up all the surrounding peasants at the bottom of the hill to kick her off her throne. It was actually very normal for a Noble to be this domineering, so he would just be playing his part.
This was easier said than done as he had not completely gone down the road of vengeance as he was still clear headed. He was just thinking of one of the many possible paths he could take to secure his future. Many people will be after his head for just having a title, and he doesn’t trust anyone or any organisation because they may have some sort of ulterior motive.
But first, he wanted to recruit King. The more he learned about this boy, the more he was sure of it. He had learned from the officer that the boy went from business to business to steal a handful of food from them, he then took it back to his orphanage where they ate all the evidence. After a few days of going unnoticed, he was finally ID by a witness. He then went on the run and hid in all various parts of this town avoiding the tight security. It wasn’t until the business owners got tired of waiting that they upped his bounty, this caused a D Rank Bounty Hunter to personally act. Now the boy was sitting in this jail cell, awaiting his fate.
He gave one last glance to King, if he could get him, then he could recruit all the local orphans as they respect King. He wouldn’t force anyone to join him. He was thinking of giving them jobs, this job would include gathering information and acting as spys. But he would also show that they can be welcomed as his family and that he would treat them right. He knew what it was like to be an orphan, but he also knew what it was like to finally have a family take him in.
He briefly thought about the twins as they were also turned into orphans. The Nobles that killed their parents made a mistake by letting them lives. Just another example of someone at the top of the hill who looks down at all the peasants at the bottom. He saw the anger burning bright in Maggies and Malcom’s eyes, they had not forgotten what had happened, and that Noble, whoever he was, would soon regret leaving behind the roots.
After leaving the guild, David finally knew what his purpose in this world was.