“Heard about your rhinothell hunt,” a man said to me as he sat at my table the next day, looking me over. I grunted an affirmative around my meal. “You seem like a capable guy. Name’s Markas.”

I swallowed, making eye contact with the adventurer and appraising him as I answered. “Deklan.”

Markas Borgilson (Lv 43)

HP: 630/630

MP: 244/244

Status: none

EXP: 1221/4300

Skills: 4-Point Magic(+), Acrobatics(+), Butchery(+), Cooking, Detect(+), Literacy(+), Negotiation(+), One-Armed(++), Ranged(+), Smithing, Two-Armed(+), Unarmed(++)

Markas was a fit, blonde-haired, brown-eyed man, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, which put him ahead of the curve for his level. He had a presence to him, and he reminded me a bit of a young Horg.

“What brings you to Haklan, Deklan?”

“Oh, you know… adventure,” I said, casually dismissive. Markas laughed.

“A non-answer if I’ve ever heard one.”

I nodded. “Well, we’ve only just met.”

“Fair enough!” He slapped his hand on the table with a grin.

“What about you? Are you from here?”

“No, I came south a couple years back,” he answered easily. “Spent my youth in the army, took the payout when the new king offered it to try something new.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Unhappy that you couldn’t go north to kill barbarians?”

He frowned a bit. “Unhappy is the wrong word. I had hoped to test myself in the war, yeah, but it’s not like I had something against them.” He sat back, reminiscing. “But spending the rest of my life as a glorified guard and maintaining the peace isn’t for me. I wasn’t sure what I would do when I left the army, but then the Guild opened up, and I took to it. Moved to Roko when they opened a branch for more excitement, then headed here a couple of years later.”

The man was a career adventurer, from the sounds of it. Perhaps I had even crossed paths with him in the capital before he left. I was happy to hear that, for the most part. He looked me over in turn.

“What about you? Were you army?”

I shook my head. “Blacksmith, actually,” I gave the man my cover story. “Did it for years, but… you know how it is. I got bored. Wanted something more exciting. Started training, found I had a knack for swinging around a big sword and hitting hard, decided to become an adventurer. Didn’t want to go north, so I came south.”

“Well, you can clearly handle yourself,” Markas said. “My party is looking for a good frontliner. We parted ways from our last defender, which mostly just leaves me to manage up close and personal.”

“What’s the rest of your party composition? And why’d you part ways?”

“Mage, hunter, and tamer. Damage dealers and transport, basically. We’re all Silver rank, and we started trying to do Gold rank quests. He… took a pretty bad hit on one of the first ones we tried, while protecting our mage. I think it spooked him. He decided to quit the party. He’s mostly doing convoy guard detail now, last I heard, working out of Roko.”

“You’ve been managing without?”

“Not on Gold rank quests, but for Silver ones, yeah. Hard to find someone sturdy and competent enough to defend against Gold rank beasts, not that there are many of them for us to take on.”

Sounds like the party needed a tank, which was not really the role I had in mind for myself, but it did fit. My sword is large enough to almost be a shield, although if I’m going to really dig into the role, I should probably get a tower shield. I shrugged. “Could be worth a trial run.”

“Excellent!” Markas pounded the table excitedly. “I’ll get the crew together. Let’s meet up back here in the evening and I’ll introduce you.”

* * *

Sitting around the table once again that evening, I met the full party of adventurers working with Markas.

“So, this is Deklan,” Markas said, introducing me to his crew. “He’s a warrior and is willing to try acting as a frontliner and defender.”

“He doesn’t have a shield,” a skinny man said, picking his nails with a dagger. “Not much of a defender without a shield.”

Markas laughed. “Well, they’d still have to get past his sword to get to you.”

“I could try using a shield,” I said with a shrug. “If it comes to that.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Deklan,” a small Al’Tiolese woman said, nodding her head. “I’m Estorra. Silver rank mage. My specialty is water.”

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Estorra was quite short, with long silver hair and light purple eyes. Contrary to what my previous life told me mages should wear, she was in pretty standard adventuring gear, garbed in comfortable clothing for the climate with some lightweight leather armor to give her some protection if something slipped through to hit her. This world had no special mage robes that could boost her magic or anything like that, beyond possible barrier enchantments which could just as easily be worn on real armor, with all the benefits actual protection entailed. She wore a magic meter on her wrist, and had a belt for potion vials.

Leaning up against the table next to her was a simple staff with a large 4-point magic circle. She had a fairly sizable waterskin with her as well, but a person could only carry so much water with them without an inventory.

“Water in the desert?” I asked. “Seems… counterintuitive.”

Estorra nodded. “It can make using my specialty in certain regions a challenge, yes. There is a large need for water mages in Haklan, purifying seawater, drawing up from deep wells, and helping to irrigate crops during heat waves and droughts. Before the Adventurers Guild opened, that was most of my work.”

“Ah. Makes sense.”

Appraising her, I could see that Estorra had expert level 4-point magic. She could probably learn ice magic, which could give some more power to her water attacks, although at the cost of burning through her magic faster. I was not sure how I could share the information with her without suspicion, but it was something to ruminate on.

“My name’s Sidel,” the other woman said, interjecting. “I help out with that, carrying more water when Torra needs it. Well, I don’t carry it, but my beasts do.”

I turned my head towards the other woman, Sidel, who was the tamer. She was from up north as well, a Horuthian who trained with the Tamers Guild and moved south like Markas had once Haklan’s Guilds opened. I actually think I recognize her, a little, I thought, but it had been a long time since I could claim to know all the tamers in the Kingdom.

She was tanned, having lived for years in Haklan, but had short brown hair and hazel eyes that could be seen all over the Kingdom. She was wiry and an average height, which would look short next to me or Markas but still towered over the diminutive Al’Tiolese mage she sat next to.

Of course, the most stand-out feature that most people would comment on was the gremline hanging off her shoulder. The beast’s head was on a swivel and taking in the room.

“And this is Piko,” she added, scooping her gremline from her shoulder, who gave out a cry of surprise as she flipped him over in her arms to hold him like a baby so she could rub his belly. Her familiar sighed, as if his tamer’s attention was a common event he had to suffer through, but soon his attentive eyes were drooping as she rocked him. “He keeps watch for us, but mostly he’s just. So. Cute,” she said, grinning down at the beast in her arms, who sighed again.

“He is,” I said with a nod. “I knew a sailor with a gremline. Good companions. You also have a tarand, to haul water?”

“Ah, no,” she said, looking sheepish. “Tarands have always been a bit out of my price range. They’re also not as comfortable in the desert and on the sand. But I’ve been a Silver rank tamer longer than a Silver rank adventurer. To get my rank, I tamed a rhinothell. She’s not the quickest, but she’s powerful, and I rigged up a sled for her to pull.”

“Even through the desert? The sand isn’t an issue?”

“If it gets too soft and loose, it can be a bit of a problem, but for the most part, she manages. There’s not much to see deep into the desert, so we rarely go that far in the first place.”

Thinking back to Hella’s rhinothell, which had survived the dracosaur battle, gained a ton of experience from it, and eventually evolved to bring her to Gold rank, I knew evolving Sidel’s rhinothell could give us a lot more mobility and easier access to the desert. I was not sure how far along the beast was towards its max level, but I still had dracosaur meat in my inventory, and now colossal kraken meat as well. Maybe I could help push that along.

I glanced at the last party member, the man who had complained about my lack of shield and who was still picking his fingers with his dagger, seemingly uninterested.

“This is Rashir. He’s our hunter,” Markas finally said, when we were all staring at the so-called hunter.

Calling the man a hunter was like calling me a blacksmith. Yes, he had an expert ranged skill, and was no doubt quite good with a bow, but anyone from Earth would look at this man and immediately identify him as a rogue, a bit like Atlessoa might be classified as, at best. In fact, I might call him a thief class, I thought. Maybe even assassin.

He glanced up, and I finally got a look at his eyes properly. They were yellow, which surprised me a bit, given that he was quite pale for a man who lived in Haklan, and I had pegged him as Horuthian. The black hair was inconclusive. Perhaps he was mixed race, like Shirel.

Shirel had also had rogue-like skills, which was one of the reasons she ended up being such a great hire for Atlessoa. Perhaps in the south, mixed race children had it harder, and it drove them to pick up the kind of skills that Atlessoa had also needed to pick up as an Al’Tiolese orphan in Roko.

“Pleasure,” he finally said, before going back to grooming his nails.

“Don’t mind Rashir,” Sidel said. “He’s a prick, but he’s good in a fight.”

“And I’m Markas, as you know,” the blond man said, thumping the table. “Frontline warrior and party leader. I can do some utility magic, but nothing special,” he said, lifting his hand to show a ring with a small 4-point magic circle. “Mostly just start campfires and stuff. It was mandatory education in the army. Other than that, I can shoot a bow, but I’m mostly a swordsman… though I can throw down with my fists pretty well, too.”

I nodded. “Nice to meet you all. Uh, as Markas said, I’m Deklan. Blacksmith turned warrior. I can take a hit and hit back harder.”

While I needed to keep some secrets, I wanted a bit more freedom to use my skills when it came to battle without it being too much of a surprise, so I had decided to stretch the truth a bit and add on to my story.

“My mum had wanted me to be a mage, actually, so I do know a bit of magic,” I said. “Mostly used it to light the forge, but when I started training, I got pretty good at barriers. I learned a bit of engraving as a blacksmith, too, so I got a few enchantments made for a good price. Barriers and lights and such.” I lifted my arm, showing my bracer, which I had set a barrier enchantment into on a steel plate earlier that day, and pulled one of my old magical flashlights off my belt to show the table.

Estorra raised an eyebrow, giving a small nod. “Barriers will help you as a defender.”

“Not as reliably as a shield,” Rashir scoffed.

“That’s… true. Once I’ve raised some funds I’ll look into buying some iron or steel and rent a forge. I can make a shield.”

“Hmm, the wood might be expensive in Haklan,” Markas said.

“Oh, I’ll just make it all out of steel.”

The party of adventurers stared at me, with even Rashir looking up.

“That… would be rather heavy,” Estorra said.

I motioned to the sword on my back. “Heavy, I can do.”

Markas barked a laugh, slapping Rashir on the back, who scowled at the party leader. “You see? He’ll make an excellent defender yet. So are we all agreed to give this a try?”

Estorra and Sidel nodded, and Rashir gave an impartial shrug. I glanced at Markas, who made eye contact with me, and we both nodded as well.

“Great! Let’s grab a quest!”