Shit, I have to come up with something quickly.

"Eh...My name is Jack Rattin!

They kept staring at me without any reaction, and I tried preparing myself for a fight that might happen at any moment.

"OH BROTHER! THERE YOU ARE!" A female shouted behind me.

I turned around and saw a girl in a cloak. Was that the person on the other side of the swamp? I raised my hand and waved nervously back to her without saying anything.

"IS THIS YOUR BROTHER?" The soldier shouted back to her.

"YES, WE CAME FROM RATTIN TOWN; HE FELL INTO THE SWAMP, AND I THOUGHT I LOST HIM!" She shouted back.

The soldiers looked at the paper, and one of them in the back said to the one in the front:

"It is not the human we are looking for. It is just a farmer from the countryside close to Rattin Town."

The crap on me probably covered a little bit of my look because I hadn't found any water yet to wash my face.

"Well, you have come too far outside of the town. Return immediately." The soldier in the front told me, and they turned, riding past me.

I relaxed and tried to understand the situation. At the same time, the girl came closer to me, and her expression wasn't directly satisfied.

"So, you are Taz Van Polan from Earth," she uttered.

"Eh...who are you?" I asked her.

She removed the cloak, and the shining armour covering her upper body shone with the sun, reflecting all the bright light towards my eyes. What a show-off!

"My name is Lily Rattin, from Rattin Town. I am the daughter of the headmaster of the town."

"Okay...so, what are you doing here?" I asked her.

"I got the message from Earth to pick you up at this location. My job is to take you to the town."

"But...they were looking for a human; you look like a human. Are you a human?"

She pushed her hair back on both sides, and her ears were long, pointing upwards, which was abnormal for a human.

"We are rats," she responded.

I took a step back and tried to envision a rat in front of me, but I didn't manage to get a good picture in front of me. I couldn't imagine a rat.

"Okay, so what now?" I asked her.

She started to walk in the same direction the soldiers rode with the horses.

"The Queen of Valiant hired me to come and get you. Follow me! I will take you to Rattin Town; you were lucky to be covered in dirt from the swamp; the paper they had in their hand was a picture of you. I suppose they had a problem recognizing you because of all the black dirt on you."

At least I get some guidance, but this isn't good.

"Eh...How did they know I came through a portal here?" I asked Lily while walking a couple of meters behind her.

She didn't even bother to turn around before answering me:

"Yours, Berks, and Zark's blood is in the system here. When you go through a portal from Earth, an alarm will get triggered. You can thank Berk Van Polan for that; he arrived here in Valiant, the other world, a month ago. Chaos started when the most wanted man in Hell, Valiant, and Earth just came through an official door to Valiant. The havoc he left behind him made Valiant demand from Earth that they need to know when one of you three Van Polans escapes here. There are many hidden portals on Earth with backdoors into Valiant, and you came through one of those backdoors. Of course, the alarm went off directly, but you are only number three on the wanted list. So it's only search, find, and apprehend. Of course, when it becomes dark today, there will be a lot of bounty hunters around the woods and in Rattin Town looking to find you later."

Right, so Berk, who helped me with a mission one year ago, made some chaos in another part of this world.

"Where is Valiant located?"

She stopped and turned around to face me.

"Did they not tell you anything about Valiant?"

"Eh...I mean, my knowledge is that I am in another world. Haha! I mean, how important can it be?"

She looked uncomfortable with my answer.

"You are in a world between Earth and Hell. Why do you think this world is at different levels with three other parts of the world that you can enter from Earth? Security has been at the top since the war here 30 years ago. Many humans also live in Valiant; what do you do on Earth without knowing all this?"

Shit, play it cool, Taz. Don't let her know you were forced to take this assignment.

"Well...I am a private investigator."

She laughed at my comment.

"I thought they would send a warrior here with a higher class than the A-level hunters. Why did they send you here?"

"Eh...Well, maybe I am a warrior."

"I don't think so; your eyes do not show death. Have you ever killed before?"

Pfft, she underestimates me.

"Maybe I have!" I responded.

She laughed again at my response while walking away from me.

It was almost dark outside, but we arrived in a town. Many houses were made of wood, and the signs above the entrances looked like they were not from this century. All the signs looked handmade, I think. It looked so bad that I did wonder if they even had electricity here.

After walking for a while, it was so quiet; maybe it was because we arrived in town so late. Should I call it just an area of a couple of houses because it was not big enough for my eyes to be called a town?

She suddenly stopped, turned around, and smiled at me before saying:

"Well, my mission is over now. We have arrived here at the destination I was paid to take you." She pointed to a house that went from quiet to very noisy in a second.

I looked at the house and saw it was shining inside, and it sounded like several people were inside.

"Eh...what am I going to do in the house?" I asked her.

She sighed for herself and looked a little bit pissed off from my question.

"Look, this is a guild for criminals. Missions of uncertainty arrive in this guild that regular hunters usually don't want to do. It is called high-risk missions. It was created for criminals to earn money from the kingdom. It gives poor people a chance to earn money to survive. When I heard that Earth was going to send a super hunter, I didn't imagine a 20-something-year-old sent here to get killed."

Wow, that was a humiliation on another level. I do not look 20 years old; I am 23 years old. I should look older than 20.

"Okay! It seems you don't look satisfied that I came here. Can you at least explain what I will do in the guild?"

She sighed again before explaining:

"I only got instructions to get you to the guild so you can sign up as a hunter. Afterwards, you were supposed to get Faz to carry out your mission to the Dungeon. That is all I know."

"Eh...do you know where I can find Faz?"

"I saw him two months ago in the guild. I haven't seen him since. There is, though, a wanted poster on him. He had a favourite hunter he usually travelled with, and the hunter died on a mission, which echoed rumours that Faz was the one causing the death of the hunter. A reward is on his head, so Faz ends up here at Rattin Town to disappear for a while from the spotlight. That is all I know. Good luck." She said. She turned around and walked away, leaving me alone there like an orphan.

The rain started to pour down, and I looked up in the sky, thinking, how does it rain here if this world is between Earth and Hell?

I feel like It's some miracle if I manage to survive this shit. I still thought I needed to get answers to what happened to my family, even if it cost my life. I walked up to the door, and when I was going to open the door, I felt immense pain in my stomach, and for some reason, I was looking into the sky. I coughed, put my hand over my mouth, and noticed I was bleeding. When I tried to look at the house, something jumped up in the air towards me, and I rolled quickly to the side and tried to gather myself to stand up as fast as I could. I picked myself up and saw a man dressed in leather pants, with his upper body covered in hair, posing with a sword in his right hand.

"To even be able to enter the guild! You have to pass Panun, the rat swordsman."

I coughed blood again and thought to myself that I may have come to the wrong place. A couple of people or some looked like mixed creatures, I guess. A beautiful blond lady came forth and started to yell out:

"STOP IT PANUN! YOU ARE GOING TO SCARE AWAY AGAIN SOMEONE WHO WISHES TO BECOME A HUNTER."

Well, she had a point in that.

"I don't know who you are, but what have I done?" I asked the Panun guy.

His long hair was covering his eyes in the rain, so he cut with his damn sword his hair to get a clear vision on me and licked around his lips with his tongue.

"Eh...I don't do bondage!" I commented to him.

"You have two options! If you want to enter the guild, you have to beat me. Or you turn around and never come back. I must warn you that I will go for the kill. I will give you a moment to decide what you want to do."

What the Fudge is going on? I just arrived here and have to fight. Also, that bastard must have kicked the door or something that made me end up on the ground covered in mud from the rain. I prepared myself for an upcoming fight and tried to hide the pain in my stomach.

"Well...If I have to go through you to enter the guild. I am ready to fight for it." I commented before taking my stance.

Am I down on my luck or something, getting in trouble directly on the same day, and now I have to fight to survive? Maybe the thought about suicide mission was a correct assumption.