When they arrived at the gate of Crossing, the guards only nodded to Jacob and gestured them to enter. The system told Daniel that they were at level 18 and 19. He didn't know how normal people leveled up, but their access to the dungeon had given him and his friends a very good start.

As they entered and saw the first street of the village, Daniel was surprised again. The buildings looked of even higher quality than the ones in Northhill. They were on what seemed to be a main street. Most of the building had two floors and the first one was in most cases made of stone. On some of the buildings were signs, identifying them as shops or other businesses.

They followed Jacob until they arrived at a large building with the sign of a beer mug next to the door.

"Let's hope we find him here, I don't really want to check out the other location." Jacob said and gestured John to follow him inside. The rest moved a bit away from the tavern. They wanted to stay out of sight from people entering and leaving.

Five minutes later, John and Jacob came out of the building again. John was shaking his head.

"Maybe, it is still too early. We should get our disguises and then try again." Fedor suggested.

With that said, they moved to a clothes store and Daniel gave Fedor some coins so that he could change his outfit.

"I get my hair cut and we will meet here again." Daniel decided and the rest agreed.

He followed Jacob to a barber shop. It was only one hundred meters away and located in an area of the village that looked a bit poorer. When they entered, Daniel saw that there was no other customer there and the middle aged man that was sitting behind the counter stood up and gestured them to follow him.

When Daniel sat down and the barber gave him a questioning look, Daniel explained what he wanted.

"Get rid of the beard an make the hair very short." In his opinion, he would be looking completely different with a marine corps hairstyle.

The hairdresser knew his business and ten minutes later, he was finished. A small hand mirror showed Daniel the result and he had a hard time recognizing himself. After paying 20 copper coins, they left and went back to the clothes store. The others were still waiting outside and looked surprised when they saw his transformation.

"Your old hairstyle looked better. You look kind of weird now." Anna commented and Isabelle nodded in agreement. Daniel only shrugged, it was a disguise and his hair would grow back.

They didn't have to wait long before Fedor left the store. He was wearing a shining blue trousers, a red shirt and a fur jacket on top of it. In Daniel's opinion, looked a bit like a pirate. The only thing that looked normal were the new leather boots on his feet. Anna and Isabella just started to laugh which made Fedor look a bit sheepishly.

"What? I didn't take of my helmet while the rapist was present. As long as I don't show my armor, he wouldn't be able to recognize me anyway." Fedor explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Ok, enough with that. Let's check out the first tavern again. If we don't find him, we go to the second one." Jacob suggested.

They went back to the tavern and this time Fedor and Daniel entered. It was decided that it would be weird if the same people entered and left the tavern multiple times during the evening.

When they moved inside, Daniel saw a nice and clean drinking room. It was mostly populated by orderly looking people. Most of them were in conversations or eating their dinner. It felt more like a restaurant and not a pub. Fedor stood out like a sore thumb and they earned a lot of weird looks.

They looked around, but it became clear pretty fast that their target wasn't here. When they decided to leave, the man behind the bar looked a bit relieved. He was only at level 8 and probably wasn't used to cater to Russian pirates.

When they arrived outside and signaled that they weren't successful, Jacob sighed.

"Ok, let's check out the other place. But, be warned it is a lot rougher. It is a tavern that is run by a former C ranked adventurer. Other adventurer use it as a meeting spot and there are a lot of brawls in this place. Don't start something. A lot of people in there will be much more powerful than you are." Jacob explained and started to move down the street.

This time they decided to enter together. Only Isabella and Anna stayed outside, they were too recognizable. When they entered, they were greeted by the man behind the counter.

Human - C rank

Daniel didn't know what level that meant, but the fact that the man was above level 30 was information enough.

"Hah Jacob, did you retire from retiring? Was your job in the village too boring?" The man asked and then looked at John, Fedor and Daniel. "Shit, that is a huge step down. Is that your new party? As far as I can tell they are just a bunch of green novices."

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"Nice to see you, too Aleron. I didn't return to the adventure life, we just have to take care of some business together. One beer for each of us. Is the table there empty?" Jacob asked.

"Yes, you can have it." Aleron answered while filling up four beer mugs.

"Pretty quiet today. Did something happen?" Jacob asked surprised.

"Ha, you could say that. There were a bunch of tough guys here. They thought that they could behave like they owned this place just because they were above level 30. I made them cry for their mothers." Aleron explained with a huge grin on his face. Jacob only nodded.

When the beers were finished, they took them and moved to the table.

There, John started to talk in a low tone.

"He is here. Our bearded fellow. At the table in the corner with the other five people. Looks like they are some kind of experienced fighters."

Jacob, who was sitting with his face in their direction, risked a quick look.

"I wouldn't call them experienced, after all they are not yet at level 20. But, you are right, this complicates things. Two heavy armored frontline fighters, two look like mages and a rogue like myself." He determined.

"Shit, I don't really want to take out some random bystander. But, if they teamed up, we might not have a choice." Fedor commented.

Daniel was stunned. They were already talking about killing some random people.

"Maybe, we could convince them to let us have him. After all, they can't know each other for much more than a day."

"That is pretty optimistic. In my experience, assholes have a magic way of finding likeminded people. I wouldn't set my hopes high that they are better than him. Talking to them would increase our risk by a large margin." John commented.

"The boy is right. If we just kill them, it would make us murderers, too. While the risk of exposure outside the village would be small, normally we would need to address a matter like this with the baron who would then ignore it. I don't know these people, but they look like adventurers and they could have powerful friends. It's better to be reasonable first." Jacob commented.

"If they turn out to be assholes, too and they want to protect the piece of shit, it was not our decision and they would have brought what followed onto themselves." Daniel added.

"Taking on six people, with five of them right below level 20 is a bit of a risk. Jacob will you help us?" Fedor asked with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"No, only if the man is in danger of getting away. Daniel talked to me about the second dungeon level and you may look at this like a test. If you manage to do the job, it is enough for me to team up with you to clear that level. I want to see how you behave in a dangerous situation before I enter a dungeon with you." Jacob commented and the rest looked at Daniel.

"Well, I talked with Jacob about the dungeon. Let's just say it would be a huge bonus for our future if we are able to clear it." Daniel explained and the others accepted that it was not the time for an extensive explanation now.

John emptied his beer and started to talk again.

"I'll leave now and talk to Anna and Isabella. Once our target is leaving, we will follow. You should stay here to keep an eye on him."

With that, he stood up and left the tavern.

When a bit later a young waitress arrived at their table, they decided to order some food.

"Don't you dare to give her dirty looks or make advances. That is Aleron's daughter. If you really piss him of, you are dead. While he is retired, he is still capable of killing everyone in this town without much of a problem." Jacob warned Fedor who was looking at the waitresses butt when she left.

"I was just looking. No harm there, but you are right. Let's focus on our mission. I kind of treasure my life." Fedor said.

"You didn't look like that when we first met you in the dungeon." Daniel commented.

"Well, that was a fair fight. But, the way I understand it, pissing of high leveled people is like challenging a train. They won't even notice if they roll over you." Fedor declared and turned to Jacob.

" Besides, I don't get why you were so reluctant to come here. For me it looks like a nice tavern. I've been in places that were a lot worse."

"I don't know what a train is, but you are right. It is not a smart idea. It is very quiet today, normally that is not the case. In addition, I'm known here, if we follow our target from here, I might be remembered if there is an investigation. It's not exactly legal to kill someone in revenge. While the baron's men normally don't give a crap about some unknown person dying, some of them can be real zealots. We need to get rid of all evidence after the job is finished. While you can move on, I kind of like my life in Northhill." Jacob explained.

The chatter went on until the young woman came back with three plates of steaks with mashed potatoes. After only eating canned food, dry food and rabbits, it tasted wonderful. After meeting rabbits and other humans, nobody was surprised any longer that there were potatoes in this world. Probably some other traveler was just in the kitchen when he was abducted and later decided it would be a good food to grow in order to make money.

"So, if they are adventurers they will probably stay at least this night in Crossing. Are there rooms for the night in this location?" Fedor asked.

"Yes, you can only rent a room here or in the other tavern." Jacob answered.

"We should probably get a room here while the others go to the other tavern. I think one person on guard duty should be enough. The others outside don't have coin, I will meet them outside and give them enough for their rooms. You can stay here, we can take care of observing the tavern." Daniel suggested and the other two men accepted his volunteering for guard duty.

After they finished their meals, Daniel left ten silver coins for Fedor and left the tavern.

Outside he talked with the others about his suggestion and they decided that Daniel would take the first guard shift, while John and Anna would take the second. He himself was still fit because of his high regeneration. Anna and John were tired from the last days, while Isabella looked like she could collapse at any time. As far as Daniel knew, she focused more on mana than on regeneration and endurance.

After giving them some coin, Daniel moved himself in a position from where he could keep an eye on the entrance of the tavern while he himself was able to stay out of sight. He found the perfect spot in a dark corner next to a rundown building. As long as their targets weren't able to see in the dark, they wouldn't be able to spot him. He hoped that they didn't have some magical skills like Jacob seemed to have access to.

In the next hours, nothing happened. People were coming and leaving the tavern, but there was no sign of their targets. When Anna and John arrived to take over the guard duty, Daniel was bored stiff. He showed them his hiding place and then made his way to the other tavern. He was lucky that the others were mindful enough to give him one of their room keys and that the rooms were accessible from the outside. Otherwise, he would've been forced to sleep on the street. The tavern was already closed.