As the dinner rush petered out, Sam was watching from the bar all the guests. Some were not human, yesterday when they had arrived he had seen some too. Then he had been too tired to care from their short journey to town. Now though, he had some time to take this in. 

‘Ha, demi-humans really are as most picture them.’ He thought after a while. 

He wouldn’t have had the energy to stay awake now either, if not he had had the brilliant idea to use his skills after a while.

His thoughts wandered to the dinner he had helped prepare. It was not as good as he remembered it from yesterday, but then again it was his first real meal since he came to this world. 

‘Everything tastes better when you are starving.’ Sam thought as took another bit of the bread.

Sam concentrated on his skills, Eskil had taught him how to see his own skills. It was like someone else’s thought entered his mind and gave the information. It wasn’t a voice or text, for him it was hard to explain exactly how this felt like. 

Eskil had told him that it was his soul and mana that presented itself as an idea of sorts to him and it could be a bit different from person to person. It wasn’t only information on skills that came, it was some other information too.

 

Name: Sam

Race: Human (Dragon Companion)

Skills: Dragon’s Soul level 3. Dragon’s Mind level 2. Dragon’s Body level 2. Survival level 3. 

 

Sam smiled to himself as he shifted his concentration to the new skill Survival. New information entered his mind. The skill Survival was simple, but handy. It gave hints to what was edible or not through smells and taste and so on. 

It was not omnipotent though, it was more like a helping guide. The skill acts like a thought, whatever Sam concentrates on the skill gives some rudimentary information, not what it is, but if it is useful or not for the task at hand. It worked a bit when cooking too, though not great it still helped in a new world. Combining his knowledge from Earth and cooking something ok wasn’t really hard. 

‘If I want to become a great chef, I need a better skill. The skill worked for the basic meals served here in this inn, but I would have a hard time making the broth.’ Sam thought as he saw Kita come closer. ‘Either way, I am not here to start a restaurant.’

“Good work, I think Maria has given you the ok as well as Chef.” Sam nodded to Kita as an answer. After a moment had passed, he gave her some of his thoughts.

“Hopefully, I can make a new deal though. I can’t work from early morning to late night. I need time to train my skills.” 

Sam could tell that Kita had more to say, but he didn’t push. He had finished for the day and this eve seemed to be a bit slow for the drinkers too, so Kita didn’t have too much to do either.

He could hear a small sigh from Kita before she turned her head a bit. “I made the report to the guild earlier, I didn’t write anything about you other than that I met you on the way back. I wrote that the brothers went missing in a monster attack and that I didn’t know what happened to them.” 

Sam nodded while listening. ‘If you categorize me as a monster then her report is almost the truth.’ Sam smiled as he thought Kita was smarter than she gave herself credit for.

“You wanted to join my guild, right?” Kita continued while he contemplated what could have happened to the brothers. 

Sam guessed those two died by monsters by now. But then when he thought about it, he hadn’t seen any monsters strong enough to hurt them while he lived there. He found himself unable to write them off as dead. 

“Ah, yeah, were the brothers in the same guild?” 

“No, they were not, I worked with them as we had the same contractor. I was contracted as a scout, while the brothers were contracted as warriors through another guild.” 

It seemed to Sam that the brothers were in a more mercenary guild of sorts, while Kita’s guild were a jack of all trade kind of guild.

“I am not sure, but it can be hard for you to join any bigger guild as you have no history at all around here right?.” Kita asked while she served him a mug of beer. 

“Yeah, should never have been here before.” Sam answered as he smelled the liquid, it was the same ale as yesterday. 

‘That can be a problem if I can’t join a guild as I have no prior history. Ah, I do work here now, I might as well ask the innkeeper or Maria for reference. If this works like back on earth.’ He thought while he was sipping on the ale.

Maria came into the dinner hall and Kita ran away to take some orders at the tables. Sam chuckled a bit and then waved his hand to Maria to get her attention. Maria was the landlady and handled the rooms, while her husband handled the restaurant part. Sam guessed that he could talk with Maria about a new deal.

“Everything good?” Maria asked him as she sat herself down at the bar and pointed at a bottle. 

“Yea, slow evening it seems. But that was not why I called you over.” Sam said as he opened the bottle and poured it’s contents in a mug for Maria, it smelled like mead. 

“Oh, so what you need?” 

“Well to get straight to the point, I can’t work the whole day, from early morning to late evening. I and your husband never specified how long my day should be, I wanted it specified.” 

Maria looked over the dinner hall and sipped her mead for a while. “Breakfast is never a problem, so you could have the morning free. Say you get on before lunch, when that is, is up to you and Chef. You have to help prepare for it as well. If you are needed earlier some days, you get on then. If nothing has to be prepared, you can join in just before we open for lunch.” 

Sam nodded to Maria. “Alright, deal.” As he agreed to the new deal he sighed inside as he thought that he still had to work for around twelve hours a day.

“I have another thing I need to ask about too.” Sam said as he looked down into his mug, he contemplated if the mug was half full or half empty. 

“You are one that asks a lot huh, what?” Sam told her that he didn’t belong to a guild, but that he had thoughts of joining Kita’s guild. 

He told her about the problem of not having a background and asked if the inn could stand as a reference. Maria was ok with acting as a reference as it would make paying Sam easier too.

Sam had taken a chance and acted as if it was the most natural thing to ask about. He won the small gamble as Maria seemed used to the idea, Kita seemed to not know or thought it harder to get a reference and had waited long before even asking for one.

Maria went to write a note that he could give as proof to the guild that the inn backed him. She came back just a few moments later with a piece of paper that she gave to Sam. 

“Well, here you go. Take this with you tomorrow morning, ask Kita how to get there or have her show the way.” 

Sam thanked her and bid her good night. He walks by Kita and tells her in passing his plan for tomorrow morning. 

“That’s nice… ” Kita says as her eyes turn flat. 

“Sure, I can guide you. Better to have someone that is already in the guild when you try to join.” 

From her reaction Sam guessed that she had used a reference too, but had had a hard time getting one. 

“Thanks, see you tomorrow then.”

As Sam leaves for the baths to clean himself up, he could hear a heavy sigh from Kita. 

‘Ha, she probably had it tough to get a reference.’ Sam opened the door to the bath and entered.

No one is inside, he found himself a towel to clean himself and then leave for his room. He falls dead tired on the bed and the last thought he has is that he doesn’t have to wake up early.

Sam awoke in the morning by someone knocking on his door. “Yea, what’s up?” He asked as he opened the door a bit to see who was on the other side.

It was Kita, she turned her head to the side a bit. There was no reason though as he was almost hidden by the door. 

“You better get up now if you want to eat breakfast before we leave.” She said, Sam made a yawn as answer and closed the door. He heard her walk off, while he put on his clothes.

He went out to wash his morning face and then entered the dinner hall. He told one of the kitchen girls he wanted breakfast and sat himself down at the same table as Kita. 

‘She seems to like this table, well it has a good view over the hall as well as the doors.’ He thought as he sat himself so he came face to face with Kita.

He only now gave any thought about how she looked, more than the earlier more holistic perspective he had. It wasn’t his strong suit, he usually only subconsciously took in someone’s look. 

‘She is around 5’2 and if not for her more prominent womanly figure she could be believed to be in her teens.’ Sam smiled meekly, ‘not that she is directly big in her chest area either.’

“Hey! Where are you looking?!”

Sam locked eyes with Kita before answering. 

“Well, at you as I haven’t really thought about how you looked before, or you've been wearing armor.” 

Kita's face turned a bit red, Sam couldn’t tell if it was because of anger or embarrassment, but it gave him a bit of time to take in her face. 

‘Her face tells that she is native of the region. No real hard features, maybe a bit asian european… Nah, don’t know, never been good at this.’ Sam sighed to himself wondering why he even cared. 

‘Cute is cute, why define it?.. Though I like her hair as it goes just short of her shoulders with a light brownish colour.’

"Blunt!" She said after a moment. Sam smiled at her, it seemed that she couldn’t choose to be angry or embarrassed after all. It ended in an irritable expression that she still had when they got served their breakfast.

They had eaten fast and when they walked out from the inn, Kita was all smiles again. It was a warm summer day just as yesterday, with a bit of a nice breeze. A few white clouds could be seen here and there, but nothing big.

Kita started walking away and Sam had to take a few fast steps to catch up. Sam had only his broken sandals, but had asked Chef about it and got to borrow the clogs he had in the kitchen. So he had thrown out his sandals, and was now wearing the inn’s clogs.

They arrived at Kita’s guild and passed through the doors. Sam looked around as this was his first time in a guild at all. There was a reception desk with a small line to a receptionist. The reception could probably handle three to four lines if needed, Sam guessed. 

The reception was against the left wall from when you walked in. To the right was a bar and some tables were placed around on the floor. The wall in front had a staircase up to the next floor and on the wall of the staircase a few bulletin boards were mounted.

Sam and Kita walked up to the line for the reception, it was just a few before them and Sam began to look at the bulletin boards. Sam could guess that the boards kept notes of various contracts. 

The two boards to the left had most of the contracts and Sam concluded that those were more simple jobs that didn’t need any specialisation, while the other boards held the more advanced jobs. 

He wasn’t sure if there was any more to it, so he asked Kita, in a whisper so as not to draw attention, if he was right. Kita confirmed his conclusion, though the last board to the right, that was smaller than the others, was for emergency only. Like preparation and defence of town contracts or big or special expedition contracts.

“Yes, how can I help you?” The receptionist asked when it was their turn. 

Sam thought she looked nice and that she fit the uniform of the guild quite well. He could see that Kita had a bit of a hard expression though. He came to reason that Kita and this receptionist didn’t like each other much. He smiled at her and tried to keep up a good appearance either way.

“Yes, I want to join the guild. I have a reference from the inn, The Evening Lantern!” Sam said as he put Maria’s note on the reception desk. 

“Yes, then I want you to fill in this act of agreement. We need to know what you can do as well as having proof that you have agreed to the guild's rules.” 

“Can I read it at the tables and then come back to you?” Sam asked after the receptionist had told him about the document.

He didn’t know if he could read or write. He had been able to understand people, though he didn’t know how that was possible, but gave the credit to his skills. Reading and writing was a bit different than understanding sounds, he believed. 

‘Hey, magic is real, so what do I know!’ 

“Sure, this is the agreement.” The receptionist said as she put a few papers on the desk. 

“Be sure to put in all the information asked for! If any is missing we won’t accept you into the guild.” 

Sam took the documents and walked with Kita to one of the tables. They sat down and Sam looked over the documents, he was fascinated as he was able to read. 

“Kita, you don’t have to sit here waiting for me to fill in this document. You can take a look at the bulletin boards to see if there is any work.” Sam said as he started to read the rules of the guild. 

It was nothing hard to understand, mostly that you had to act out the jobs you take or a penalty of different level would be enacted. If the agreed work had to change, the guild didn’t stop you from taking it on the spot, but saw it best if the new agreement went through them first. 

This was both to protect their guild members from bad agreements as well as protect the contractors unqualified workers. Why it wasn’t mandatory was that if it was outside the city, a need for haste for a new agreement sometimes happened.

Sam looked up for a bit after he had read through the rules, he found no faults in them. He saw Kita look at a note, it appeared that Kita had found a possible job. Maybe he can join her in it. 

He went back to the document. He had to fill in all the information they seeked, but he learned fast it wasn’t much. The things they asked for was for exempel where he was born. He laughed quietly for himself and wrote North Forest, it wasn’t wrong, as he was born there around two weeks ago.

At the part where he had to write down his skills, he paused and then wrote ‘Physical Enchant level 2, Mana Control level 2, Survival level 3’. His skills were much better than those, but Eskil had said that those two skills had similar effects as his real ones and was more usual.

Then the question about what kind of work he could do. He wrote; ‘Heavy lifting. Warrior. Jack of all trades, master of none.’ ‘I do have theoretical knowledge in magic, so I should be able to help magicians too if any such a job comes up.’ He thought as he looked over the last part he had written, it made him smile as he wondered if the people here would get it.

In the rules before, it had said that the guild wanted a yearly update of skills, jobs and work he could do. 

“Are you done yet?” Kita asked him as she arrived back at his table.

A few men had walked up to her while she was looking over the contracts and tried to get her in their parties. He had seen her totally ignore them, while she had been reading. Now they gave him looks of contemplation and envy as she had walked to him. They had probably not seen them arrive together. 

He looked around the guild a bit, there were some, but not many women inside and those that were had already partied up with others. 

‘Well, I can see why men would want a girl or two in their parties.’ Sam thought for himself. 

‘The problem comes afterward when she gets pregnant. In the best case the party just split. Worst case the question of who's the daddy? Becomes a reality.’

There had been some recommendations in the guild rules, but nothing more than recommendations in the end. 

“Yea, I am done, found any job? Want to do one together?” Sam said as he thought about the recommendations the guild had given. 

Mostly was to use potions or magic items to hinder pregnancies from happening, or even magic runes to be tattooed on the body. Though the last one was not as much recommended as the other things as it had a heavy connection with sex workers and illigal slave trade. 

‘At least slave trade was illegal in this country’ Sam thought, on earth he had lived in a country where selling sex was legal, but buying was not. So he had grown up with a belief that it was a bit wrong, hiring sex workers. 

‘Well, in this world maybe succubuses and incubuses exist. Can’t really say they can’t work in the sex industri if they want to, right…’

“Took it for granted that we were to work together.” Kita said with a smile and continued.

“But yeah, I have found a job for a scout and a warrior, it is a few days' travel to the east. A village needs help as some of their animals have been attacked, but no animals have been killed. Though the information at hand is a few days old... You are going to register as a warrior, I am guessing?” 

“Yeah, warrior, jack of all trades kinda guy.” Sam said as he stood up and they went to the reception again.