Black Sword and Fragments [Vol. 1: Unforeseen Conspiracy]

Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Cursed Sword!

Another three days have passed since Allastor became a full-time Adventurer, and right now, he is on the highest floor of Adventurer's guild and is about to take his first quest. In those past three days, he used the chance to get familiar with the Adventurer's guild and its rules and regulations. 

Allastor realized that the lowest floor or the underground floor is also the floor of registration for the aspiring adventurers. A registrar will be accepted as an official adventurer if they can prove that they already can feel the magicules in their surroundings. And it is just so easy to prove, it is because compared to a normal human, their surging magicules are much stronger. In addition, it can be proven on the registration floor that a human can now feel the magicules if they will just simply show their Magicule mark. In the Kingdom, only the people who become a ranker or can feel the magiciles have this mark on their body.

Aside from that, Allastor realized that on the second floor is the large pub or restaurant that is only exclusive for the Adventurer's guild's Adventurers and officials. There are lots of dishes that can be bought here. And it is also known that every dish here was made of high-class ingredients. 

On the other side, on the floor where Allastor is currently in or the third floor, is the floor on which the Adventurers can take their quest. Just like the ground floor and the second floor, this floor is also made out of wood. howbeit, this wide wooden floor is still amazingly crafted. Its wooden ceiling looks elegant, and its walls were also ancient-looking. And on the stairs from the right side, is the balcony facing towards the pub floor. There are ancient text and symbols written on the fence of the balcony—making it emit a royalty feeling!

But, even though some of the designs from this floor are amazing, Allastor's attention isn't focused here. He can be observed standing in front of the wide wooden board—flipping the hordes of papers pinned on the board.

“Sigh. Most of the quest here was hard and can only be taken by silver ranker Adventurers...” Allastor is still flipping the pages of papers when he said that. Wrinkles can be observed forming and disappearing from his forehead every time he changes his position. 

Right now, Allastor is standing in front of the wide Quest board, because only on the quest board does the quest paper can be taken. On these quests, papers are written the quest details. It was pinned on the quest board so that the Adventurer can freely take which quest they would like to finish. And about where these quests came from, they came from the Kreo Kingdom's community's request. 

Quest papers have a different category from each other through their content. There are about collecting herbs, metallic materials used for blacksmithing, and Magicule beast hunting. And of course, the quests that can only be taken by a particular adventurer are dependent on their ranks and levels. One of the Adventurer's guild's government's rules is that Adventurers should consider their ranks and levels when accepting a quest.

At the current moment, Allastor was only a Level one Bronze ranking adventurer, causing him to have very few choices from taking his first quest.

“Hmm... Barakuda-dolphin fishing?” Allastor is only present inside his world as he shrugs and flips the quest papers, finding the appropriate quest for his level. “This one is for Silver rank! I can't also take this one.”

“Collect and gather fifteen pieces of Grass monster's flowers...” Allastor whispered while holding his chin. “I still need four or more levels to be able to get this quest. It wasn't for me as well.”

“Collecting One hundred pieces of Kobold-armies' Life-cores from the Frost dungeon?... Who the heck made this one? There are not many Gold rankers here from the kingdom, let alone from the Adventurer's guild. Only a group of them can finish this quest.”

“Collecting ten pieces of summer-wolf's hide and skull... This one wasn't for me as well.”

His search for a quest lasted for a few more minutes. And after a moment, he finally found the perfect quest for him! He smiled at it as he immediately plucked the paper. 

nonetheless, his eyes popped out as he turn around! Hordes of Adventurers were at his back with their foreheads wrinkled.

Allastor's face turned into a cringe as he realized something. He told to himself, “I forgot that others are waiting for me to finish...”

A bald Old man approached the young man. Even though he is already old, his body was still masculine. In addition, he is still emitting a strong magicule energy—proving that he isn't your average Old man. When Allastor met the sharp eyes daggered at him, he immediately felt nervous. 

“Are you done, Kid?”

Feeling embarrassed, Allastor responds. “Y-yes!”

“Is that so? Then get out of the way.” The Old man said with a lifeless voice as he shrugged away Allastor Frauzz. 

Allastor immediately avoided the people as he find his way downstairs. As Allastor is shunning away from people, he heard their shouts and mockery towards him. They said that he was so slow, and some are saying that if it wasn't for Allastor being too young, they will discipline him right away.

Allastor's face turns violet as he feels goosebumps running down his spine.

Suddenly, the mockery stops when a girl wearing a familiar uniform appeared. She directed her magicules on the noisy adventurers, and Just like what Allastor felt, all the adventurer's on the floor felt fear. 

“Shit, that's one of the Lookout officers here.”

“What the hell is that magicules? Is she a beast?”

The adventurer began exchanging whispers about the sudden happening. It was not long either before the whole surrounding became silent.

The lady in a Lookout officer uniform gently smiled at Allastor Frauzz. “You all right?”

“Y-yes!” Allastor gulped as he bowed, “thank you.”

*****

When he has left the Adventurer's Guild, he breaths in a lot of air. His manner of breathing was so deep to soothe his emotion. And as he sighs...

“Wew. That scene is scary. If it wasn't for the look-out officer, they might beat me up literally.” Lazily said the young man as he sighed. “I should be quick next time when picking a quest.”

He shook his head and look at the brown paper he got just a moment ago. “But wait. What will I do again according to the quest?”

[Quest]

[Collect five tails of Devil rats] 

[Additional information: A Devil rat is one of the weak species of Magicule-beast, their level reaches approximately from Level 1 to Level 3. This Magicule beast can be found in the Kurnell Forest.]

Warning: You should be careful with the Green Cougars. Not long ago, a group of Adventurers reported the sightings of these beasts inside the Kurnell Forest. Their Level can reach from Level 4 Bronze rank up to Level 13 Silver rank.

•Reward for Quest completion: 1 Silver coin.

•Reward for the collected five tails of Devil rats: 2 Silver coins.

Required Level to accept the quest: Level 1 Bronze rank to Level 13 Silver rank. ΔΔ

Aside from the written information on the quest paper, two different species of Magicule beast were drawn in detail. It was the Devil rat and the Green Cougar!

When Allastor stared at the picture of the Green-cougar, he felt chills run down his spine. In addition, he also feels scared of the fact that these pesky Green cougars were certainly much stronger than him as stated in the information he had read. In his three days of observing inside the Adventurer's Guild, he heard to some adventurers about the Kurnell Forest, it was also mentioned that the Kurnell Forest is the ideal training ground for the Novice adventurers who want to train. yet, he did not hear that there are strong Magicule beasts currently residing inside the so-called Novice's ideal Training ground. Now, how can it still be an ideal training ground for a Bronze ranked like him?

Even though Allastor wanted to return to the wooden building to return the ridiculous quest he has, he still didn't do it. He doesn't want to return right now. He is very uncomfortable with the judging eyes of the adventurers inside. Aside from that, he also lined up for a long time just to get this quest, and for him to change the Quest he had chosen, he had to line up for a long time again.

Allastor stored the quest paper inside his Space bag. And as he sigh, he drew an earnest smile from his lips, and after that, he started to walk away from the Adventurer's guild.

As he walked, Allastor had thought of something.

“Hmm... This is my first quest and also my first journey as an adventurer. To be safe, I should look for a formidable sword.”

That's right, Allastor is thinking about his weapon. His only weapon right now is the training wooden sword that Ishara gifted to him when he was only five years old. Even though he knows to himself that he isn't smart enough, still, he is also not dumb enough to fight the Magicule beast with his current weapon. After all, a training wooden sword is still different from the real sword used for a real battle. Allastor wants to buy a weapon he could use for a real fight. As much as possible, he wants to be careful about his adventure. He is still a Level one Bronze rank so he needed to be much more careful when hunting these Devil rats. 

In this world, the rankers were ranked according to their strength. There are four ranks known inside the whole Kingdom of Kreo, and they were known as Bronze rank, Silver rank, Gold rank, and Platinum rank. Each of these ranks was divided into Levels. A ranker having a Level one to Level ten of strength is what they called Bronze Rankers. And if they reach Level eleven, they will be called Silver rankers. A Strength of the Silver rankers can gauge from their starting Level eleven up to Level thirty-five, and for the Gold rankers, their Level starts from Level thirty-six up to Level fifty.

And about the Platinum rank, when a ranker reaches the strength of a Level fifty-one, he or she will be known officially as a Platinum ranker. Despite that, even now, only a scarce piece of information was known about the Platinum rank. Information about the peak level of a Platinum ranker is unknown, and it is also much unknown which rank is next to the Platinum.

When Allastor was gathering information, one of the things that got his interest was the Platinum rankers. He found out that there are currently three rankers who have already reached the Platinum rank in the Kreo Kingdom, and they were also serving under the King. Those three rankers are very well known inside the whole capital. However, their names and titles were not that famous outside the Captial.

*   *   *   * 

Aside from the ranker Allastor Frauzz, in the wide field of the Kreo Kingdom's capital is also a new morning for the Merchants to flex their shop's products and supplies—trying to attract the attention of customers.

Even though it is still early morning, a lot of people are already gathering here. There are already carriage drivers waiting for their passengers, hordes of buyers gathering in the shops from the hallways and side of the roads, an adventurers, and as well as the Royal Soldiers roaming around to watch and guard the area.

Allastor is ike the Royal Soldiers roaming around the streets, but his purpose is different. He is roaming around to find a cheap sword he can use. Even though he desires to go to a Blacksmith to buy a reliable sword, he can't. Right now, he has only eight Silver coins left that were given by his Aunt Isabel and he also needed to save some for his food and shelter, and if he goes directly to a Blacksmith, he knows that it would only charge more money.

In the Kreo kingdom, money is divided into three classes. A Copper coin or the cheapest among the three, a Silver coin is not too pricey nor it is too cheap, and the last one is the Gold coin which has the highest value among them. A hundred pieces of Copper coins have an equal value to that of one piece of silver coin. When it comes to Silvers coins, one hundred pieces of them are only equal to one Gold coin.

*   *   *   *

After more minutes have passed, Allastor successfully found a tent shop to his liking. He halts for a moment to see some of the weapons on display. A simple Spear, a Bow and arrows, a simple-looking Swords and Axes. After that, he looks at the Merchant's old man guarding the tent shop. The Old man's eyebrows and head hair were almost gone. The only hair that is left on him is his white mustache and beard

When the eyes of that Old man and Allastor met, it was as if the Old man already knows what was on the young man's mind. “Young man, do you perhaps have a liking for my weapons?”

As a response, Allastor shook his head. “Not really, but I am looking for any kind of sword. As long as the price won't exceed five Silver coins.”

The Old man paused for a moment. “Oh, I didn't expect that. Even you staring at my product for over a minute already, you still wouldn't like anything here, huh?” He grab one of the pointed spears and inspected it, “although, I  can't blame you. These are already the third and Second-hand weapons I just repaired, that is why they don't look desirable. But still, I'm sure that they are all in a good shape and quality.”

“You don't have to worry.” The old man smirked and grab another weapon, but this time, it was a thin sword. He passed it to Allastor. “You can have that one.”

Allastor's ears are almost clapping when he has heard what the old man said.

“A-are you sure?” 

“Hmn.” Earnestly nodding response of the Old man. be that as it may, in his mind, he wants to try something.

When Allastor saw the nodding Old man, He couldn't hide his happiness. his eyes sparkled as he began inspecting the sword. However, just like what he is expecting, its design is so simple just like a typical sword. The only difference it has from the other sword is it is a pure black sword.

having said that, Allastor's brows almost jump when he felt unknown energy coming from the sword. It was as if the sword is becoming heavy on his hands, and he aswell slowly feeling tired. 

“Why do I feel like this sword is absorbing my Magicules?” Immediately asked by Allastor. He was still staring at the sword with an earnest but confused expression.  

The old man smirked. “Hoho, so you also noticed it, huh?”

To be continued... 

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