Chapter 16

A Guard Captain's Introduction

The captain of the guard sat behind his large solid wood desk, watching as I caused the mana in the area to funnel into me, filling my nearly empty core. I tasted a surprising amount of light and earth mana from the area.

Once I had filled up my core, I was still physically tired, but I was no longer feeling like I was inches away from starving. The air and life mana surrounding me called to me, both of them offering to restore my stamina. I resisted the temptation, being tired was fine, I didn't want to risk losing myself to the whims of the mana while I was in the office of the captain of the guard.

Moments after I stopped drawing the mana to me, the captain cleared his throat.

"Are you ready for our conversation? I believe that was quite a lot of mana moving through here just now. In fact I'd hazard a guess that anyone with any ability to investigate mana patterns within a half mile is wondering what just happened."

I shrugged, I would keep that in mind for the future. I really wasn't used to worrying about other people being able to feel what I was doing. Which, now that I thought about it, was really pretty stupid.

"I feel much better, thanks for giving me the time. The goddess did not warn me that the oath would drain me like that."

The old guard's eyes widened a bit.

"She spoke to you?"

I nodded

"She walked me through the oath."

The captain covered his face with his hand for a moment.

"Would you mind telling me what your mission is? Our little town hardly seems to warrant our lady's attention."

I tilted my head to the side, this town did not seem little, I would definitely have to alter my expectations. The captain looked nervous. I decided to go for as much honesty as I could give the man.

"The goddess wishes for eventual peaceful relations between the Spirit Beasts of the wild, and humanity. She wishes for us to join civilization. I am supposed to be an example. A Spirit Beast Adventurer. Hoyt told me you need Adventurers right now? I think she led me here specifically."

The guard captain's lips were pressed together when I started speaking, but at the end he looked a little optimistic.

"You are right, we desperately need Adventurers right now, the damnable war with the elves has drained us of men able to venture into the wild and cut down the various threats that they contain. You may face some push back from the civilians, your mark will likely protect you from the worst. At least the Adventurers left in Brightwood will likely treat you well."

The man seemed to consider things for a moment then seemed to make a decision. He leaned forward, pressing his hands together. "You should probably not declare what you are until you've established yourself a bit. But… you look like a beastkin, do you know what that means?"

I shook my head, I had some guesses though, and those caused my ears to flick back, and set my tail thumping against the couch.

He took in my rather transparent body language.

"Beastkin are seen as subhuman. All demihumans are, but beastkin carry strong animal instincts, because whatever animal spirit they bonded with in the womb bonded so tightly. It has become standard practice to require that beastkin to wear a control collar keyed to local law enforcement, and their class guild's leader when they enter towns in this kingdom."

I growled at the thought of someone putting a collar on me. I didn't even know exactly how they were meant to impose control. But none of the possibilities were worth considering. By the time he was done speaking my claws were on full display, I managed to avoid puncturing anything with them by crossing my arms.

"I will not submit to such a thing." I growled the words.

The captain nodded.

"I will make certain that the guard does not ask you to. I witnessed your oath that should be more than sufficient. But you will have to understand that people want to feel protected, and they will wonder where your collar is. Some may try to goad you, which seems like it may land on fertile ground."

The man looked at me pointedly. I nodded, I understood, people could be assholes, it was apparently universal.

"You'll likely find even well meaning people will treat you with the respect they would a small child."

He sighed.

"And if they know you are actually a beast, you'll likely get it much worse. I will order my men to keep it to themselves. The Adventurers guild should be a friendly enough place, a lot of beastkin are assigned as Adventurers. The Brightwood guild might just be the very best place for you right now, the leadership has currently landed in the hands of a demihuman."

He took a moment to glance at a clock he had on the wall. I was surprised when I noticed the thing, it looked so very modern. I wondered for a moment if some reincarnator somewhere had circumvented the technology rule, but I realized that I felt mana in it.

The clock read 3:30. I found it interesting that the way they told time was exactly the same as on earth, I'd guess the days were the same length too. I was idly wondering about the respective length of the seasons as well. When the captain spoke up.

"I would like to get this done as quickly as possible. Given your… origins and your oath, I believe I should tell you what will land you on the wrong end of the law…"

What followed was an hour long lecture about the concept of property, violence, bathroom use, and many other absolutely normal rules that a beast from the wild would definitely not know, it was very kind of him. When he covered the rules of how one had to act around nobility, I did hit a bit of a snag. Turns out this world was one of the ones where people were supposed to be absolutely submissive to the ruling class.

The captain who during the talk had actually gotten around to letting me know he was known as Callum, told me that submitting to nobility was something the System endorsed. They had class skills much like my Aura of the Apex, but it made their subjects feel how superior the nobles were.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

When I informed Callum that I thought I would probably be immune to such an aura. He told me that I had best pretend I wasn't. I couldn't keep my tail from lashing at the thought of bowing my head to anyone. I realized that had the potential to be a problem in the future if I didn't get a handle on it. I also resolved to stay out of public spaces as much as I could until I was more certain of my self control. I had done well this far, but the idea of meeting someone who really pushed me terrified me.

He assured me that Brightwood did not actually receive many visits from the noble in charge of the region. The town's headman was not considered nobility by the System, and while he demanded respect, he was tolerant of people speaking back to him. His primary concern was keeping Brightwood running smoothly.

He went on to explain rules on road use, carriages and carts, he explained how animals were property, and I was to leave any animal in the town proper alone.

I was happy when he got to the regulations on magic use. Magic was a gift from the Great Mother, and the holy System. As such its use was freely permitted at any time, as long as it was not used to violate any other law. Thankfully there were rules against using magic on others without their consent outside of life saving measures or self defense.

It went on, and on... When he finally finished with the laws he looked at the time again. The clock read 5:30.

"There's just one thing left to do." The man said, sounding more than a little ready to be done with the whole thing.

"Let's get you some identification, shall we? I'll do us both a favor and set you up with an identification crystal. They are quite expensive, but I'll go ahead and bill the temple. It is their job to see to the needs of marked ones when they are doing the Mother's work after all. I'll be back in a moment."

Callum left the room, and I closed my eyes as I waited patiently for his return. I could feel people moving around outside the office, it had been something of a distraction while the captain had been reciting the local laws. I counted them, there were nine minds within my sensing range. I couldn't tell anything about them beyond their relative location, most of them seemed to be on the floor above me. A few left the area I could sense before Callum returned.

As soon as the man walked in the door my attention was drawn to the crystal he held wrapped in a cloth in his hand. It smelled absolutely delectable, it struck me as similar to the mana that came from the System when I leveled, but distinctly different. I wanted to eat it.

"This is an identification crystal, they are produced in the capital, I hear no one uses paper for identification there. But getting things like this shipped from high tier areas is fairly costly. Once you bind it to you, you can use it to project your status. It is connected directly to the System so it can log your residence history, and any crimes the System has determined you would be wanted for. You determine what parts it will display, but it will always show the truth. As long as you keep to your oath, it should help you avoid misunderstandings in the future."

It seemed like an amazingly useful object for my needs, a little big brother for my taste, but I didn't complain. I had to hold myself back from shoving it in my mouth when he handed it to me. I followed his instructions, and flooded it with my mana, receiving the binding prompt I had with my clothes. I cringed as I hit accept, expecting to be hit by a mana debt again, but it didn't come.

I could feel a small artificial mind bloom in the crystal. It spoke directly into my head, mechanically asking me what I wished to display. I mentally asked for my basic status, and it projected itself in front of me. I thought about it shutting off, and it winked out. I could also dismiss and summon the crystal with a thought. I would never have to worry about losing my identification.

Callum watched me play with it, and smiled. "Good, you figured that out very fast. I think that covers what I wanted to get done for you. My shift is long past over. I will personally introduce you to the Adventurers guild if you like. They should have a room your size there. They do have to account for beastkin."

My ears, which may have been drooping a bit with the boredom of the last couple hours perked up, and my tail swayed at the prospect of actually getting outside. I wanted to get on with things, hopefully the Adventurers guild would work like it did in fiction. Which seemed like a safe bet since a helluva lot of other stuff did.

I realized I wanted very very badly to venture back out of town and hunt some prey. I had gotten hungry while Callum was talking. But that wasn't all. I just needed to get out, I hadn't even been in the town for a day. I hadn't even entered the town proper. I already didn't like it.

As Callum led me through the streets toward the Adventurers guild, the discomfort increased.

I had no idea how I was ever going to convince real Spirit Beasts to endure a town. I heard so many people talking. The air too, was filled with so very many smells, a lot of which I really wished I couldn't identify. The streets were lit brightly with what looked, and smelled like crystals made of solid light mana, they were housed in cages that offended my senses slightly, I had no idea why.

The town, at least according to the guard captain, did have working sewage, running water, and flushing toilets. Modern conveniences run on mana. I mentally thanked whatever reincarnator had introduced those ideas. They were way too Earth accurate to be just convergent technical evolution or something.

Sense mind which was a mild distraction while I was in the guardhouse quickly became a completely overwhelming flow of data about the location of minds around me as I walked. Each new mind that entered and exited my perception practically screamed at me to notice it. After a certain point I had to ask Callum for a moment to collect myself. My distress must have been fairly obvious from my flattened ears, squinted eyes, and tail that kept trying to curl itself around my legs.

While we stood off the side of a road in what I vaguely recognized between all the distractions was a tradesman's district of some type. I forced myself into a meditative state. I did not touch my mana, I simply focused my mind on allowing all the information my senses were throwing at me to flow through, not every piece of information needed my attention. I could allow my instincts to parse out the important things. After a little while focusing, things did finally become more tolerable.

When I drew myself out of my trance the captain was waiting patiently, and the world felt less taxing. My ears still laid flat on my skull, because it was still damn loud to my sensitive ears. But my tail had stopped attempting to trip me, and I could focus on taking in the important aspects of my surroundings.

As I continued to follow Callum through the town, I paid attention to the buildings. They weren't all crammed together, the whole town was divided by walls that I was just tall enough to see over. It seemed each section was related to a common class. I read the names displayed on plaques as we passed, they were all very simply named by the jobs they did. The smithing guild, the jewelers guild, the miners guild. Each compound was tailored to the class that occupied it, and there were clear differences in both size and quality of construction between them.

I saw a currently closed and empty, gigantic sector that was the fighters guild. From my vantage point, I could see a lot of open space in their section. The few buildings that they spared space for seemed sturdily built, multileveled but not terribly fancy. I wondered what they did, wouldn't they compete with the adventurers once there wasn't a war on?

Either way we finally reached the Adventurers guild. It was a very large walled compound. I could see it was much larger than the fighter's guild. The first building I noticed, and the largest one in the compound, was a circular structure that made me think of a smaller, more closed off version of the old Roman coliseum. I wondered if the resemblance was intentional. It was the closest building to the wall, and dominated my view until we passed it.

I was surprised to see how much open space there was between the coliseum looking place and the three other buildings that I could see lit up in the distance. The sun had set some time before we reached the compound, and the street we were walking on was rather well lit. I couldn't make out much of the unlit space between the buildings, but I could tell there were trees dotting the area, and well manicured grass on the ground in the places I could make out.

We walked along the wall for quite some time before arriving at a large open gate. The previously bored looking man at the gate grinned wide when he saw us walk up to him. He looked at me, then looked at Callum.

"What kinda trouble have you brought us tonight old man?" He said in a boisterous voice, he sounded quite pleased by the prospect of trouble of any sort.

The captain sniffed lightly, "Janus, this is Angel. He just got to the city this afternoon. He'll be staying for a while. He's a goddess marked adventurer. I have personally witnessed him take an oath to the goddess. His identification is in order, I set it up myself. Now, I have had a long day. So I leave him to you."

Before leaving he turned to me, and wished me luck.

My tail swiped a bit at being dropped off like luggage. I was expecting a bit more from a guard captain's introduction. But I reminded myself to be grateful that he did that much.

Janus was looking me up and down. I returned the favor. He was broad shouldered, heavily muscled, and shirtless. He had long shaggy auburn hair, kept loose, framing a face that held a chiseled jaw, and piercing green eyes. He had a pair of axes hanging from his belt. His lower body was clad in a pair of leather pants that I'm half convinced the man must have painted on. I'm not ashamed to admit that in my previous life I would have definitely been staring. From the scents clinging to him, I certainly wouldn't have been alone.

I felt something about him pushing against me as he evaluated me. I truly met his eyes for the first time, and saw the challenge in them. This man very much wanted to fight me. My lips pulled back slightly, my instinctive reaction drove me to accept the unspoken challenge immediately.

I took a deep breath, pushed down the beast inside, and stepped back. Still looking him straight in the eyes I held out a hand.

"Nice to meet you Janus, I believe I am in your care."

The poor man looked so very disappointed as he shook my hand.

"Ahh yeah Angel, I'll take you to see Samuel. He'll get you sorted. He's taken the lead spot around here since the king's army came and took practically everyone for that damn war. He's pretty high level for Brightwood, so I guess he earned it. But he won't spar with me. So he's an asshole." Janus grinned at me. "You'll spar with me later, I can tell you're cool."

As we walked toward a stone building that looked like some form of meeting hall. Janus gestured to the enormous circular building that I had noticed as we approached. "Guild here isn't much compared to what you see in a big city, but they spared no expense on the arena, it's got some amazing enchantments that let us go all out in there. We totally don't have to hold back when we spar!" He bounced a little as he said the last bit.

I just quietly looked at the arena as we walked. Janus' obvious excitement was infectious, and I couldn't help being a little excited about the prospect of having a tussle with the man. I even reasoned that I really needed to learn how to fight properly.

I might be able to call on the mana to do fantastic things. But every time I asked the mana for something I felt more tied to it. I already always felt the call of the mana to join with it, lose myself to it. Maybe with practice I wouldn't have to lean on it all the time, time would tell.

By the time we reached the door to the meeting hall, I had convinced myself that sparring like Janus, and my instincts so desired, was a fantastic idea.

Janus didn't open the door so much as burst through it, I was impressed that it stayed on the hinges. He shouted into the large, fairly empty room, "Hey Samuel! Got a new guy here!"

The small gathering of people inside all turned to look at us.