"....what?"

"Just follow me."

I looked on as the golden-haired elf walked back towards the "guild" building, or so they called it. It made sense since guilds were a thing in the medieval to technically modern era. If there were merchant guilds I didn't see much wrong with having an adventurers guild either. 

From what I knew, guilds were groups of talented merchants and craftsmen that came together and took on tasks and trade for a fee, so maybe this was sort of similar?

With all technicalities aside, the hell is a party? Like, are we talking about the alcohol type parties? 

Ross noticed me frozen in place as the elf girl kept on getting further and further away, not bothering to look back and see if I was following or not.  The girl was just toying with her sword idly and walking away gracefully, like she was some kind of princess out of a fantasy world or something. That would have been funny if not for the fact that there was a possibility that she could have been one, at this point I wasn't putting it past anybody to challenge the impossible.

I think I can toss all my common sense out the window at this point.

"Lass, I think you should go with them. I won't be around for long but she should at least be able to help you with your growth and stop you if it get's too out of hand."

I looked up at him in pure confusion.

"Ross, what the hell's a party?".

Maybe it was just my imagination but for a moment Ross looked at me like he was looking at a child that had just stepped out into the real world for the first time in their lifetime. The soldiers that were standing next to them had similar expressions to his, it wasn't even them mocking me, it was just them being completely shocked at me not knowing what "party" meant.

Is this supposed to be common sense?

"Er, Ms.Hero in this world it is common sense to go out in a party to complete quests for the guild. It would be much too dangerous going by yourself since even lower ranking monsters would excel in one-on-one combat. Or you could get overwhelmed by hordes."

Okay....

"So, I understand that this is common sense here but I just literally came from another world, so why do you expect me to know this?"

The soldiers, especially the younger ones, smiled awkwardly.

Hal stepped up again, bearing the same expression of his fellow soldiers.

"Well, most of us grew up on stories of the heroes party defeating the evil demon lords over and over again. To us, it is essential that a hero has a party since they would be the beacon for all of humanity..."

So to sum it up, I wasn't fulfilling their childhood fantasies of a hero and their friends beating up a demon?

"Okay, well with that aside, I guess I'll go follow her."

What the hell is going on here!? I just got revived an hour or two ago and I'm already getting kicked out by Ross and drafted into a random girls clique? 

I really didn't know what to think of this chaotic situation, but all I knew how to do was go with the flow and not against it. I just hope I can catch my breath sometime soon, I felt like I was holding my breath in me throughout the whole time I was here. 

I jogged off after the girl and turned around to wave a quick goodbye to Ross and the soldiers, to which I was assaulted by a boatload of farewells like I was going off to war or something.

"Farewell Ms.Hero!"

"We'll be praying for your achievements!"

"Don't forget me!!!!!!"

I covered my face with my hands as a redness started to spread across my cheeks.

These guys are so embarrassing.....

---

"So, you decided to come? I shan't judge you for your habit of following strangers like a puppy, for we are all adventurers after all."

I don't think following her was a good idea now.

I was currently following the elf girl, who's name I found out was Elynea after she reintroduced herself with some frustration,  through the lobby. 

She had previously informed me on our way back here that most adventurers guilds were much shoddier in both appearance and utilities than this one. The only reason that this one was so well built was because of the Church and Pope peter, who was the second most important person under the king. This place was dedicated to train "special" adventurers that were especially aligned to the light.

The reasoning behind this was that most demons were especially vulnerable to light or holy magic, making the church the single most important place when a demon invasion inevitably comes.

We started to walk through the guild hall towards one of the many bulletin boards that had roughly cut parchment paper stuck on to the board. Each of them had pictures that were drawn by hand with ink and a small description on the bottom along with a number with what I assumed was the equivalent of a dollar sign.

There were two other's that were waiting near the board. They, similar to Elynea, wore full combat gear but what they had on looked vastly different to what she was wearing, they were also quite different in terms of size as well.

One of them was quite short and stout, carrying a battle-axe and was wearing fully plated bronze-like armour that covered everything minus the beard and mouth. 

The other literally just looked like a kid that was dragged out of a nearby school or college and plopped here with a bow slung across his shoulder and a dagger sheathe fastened to his waist with a bit of rope. 

So, in conclusion, this was the oddest ragtag team I had ever seen in my entire life, though it wasn't like new things like this surprised me anymore. The most surprising thing so far was the fact that I just found out I had enough power to literally end dozens of peoples lives the same day I arrived into this world, that was both surprising and terrifying to have. 

"Ey elf, where were ye? We were about ta take off without ya!"

Elynea rolled her eyes at this man's talk. To me he had a sort of northern accent, though I wasn't even exactly sure what I meant by that, it was just a feeling that was nagging me.

"unlike you, I tend to actually do useful things instead of tinkering with useless pieces of metal. This here is the newly summoned hero, I managed to "convince" her to come along with us for a quest."

"Did ye really? Well, I'll be! Nice to meet ye Hero, my name's Thogir and this young lad over here is William, we like to call him Will"

"Do you really believe that I'm a hero just because she said so?"

This was the first thing I had to ask because from what I could tell being a hero was exceptionally rare if there were only 56 of us in the world. It wouldn't be someones first instinct to believe someone that claimed to be one.

It would be like claiming to be a billionaire back on earth, though there were probably more billionaires than heroes at this point. I still didn't know how long I was floating around in an abyss

The man set his axe to the side while taking his helmet off. Though I had thought that he was a bit old due to his beard looking like a rugged version of Santa Claus, he didn't actually look quite as old as I imagined him to be.

"Our family o dwarves have a special ability called detect lies. We can tell if someone is lying to us, this ability has made me life much easier."

Elynea narrowed her eyes as her ears twitched at this.

"And why were we not informed of this?"

Thogir stared back at her.

"Ye think I would trust ya if I didn't have this?"

"Why you-"

"Okay, I think that's enough!"

Somehow I was the one who got between them and stopped them before things got out of hand. They had both instantly gone for their weapons the moment they started to argue, which made me extremely worried about what the bar culture of this place would be if a small argument could lead to this.

Elynea looked at me before sheathing her sword again.

"Apologies, I let this dwarf get the better of me. It seems I must train my anger a bit more so as to not be baited in by such threats"

Talk about passive aggressive! 

So far, Elynea hadn't been outright hostile but she was definitely rude. Though I could argue that Thogir started this whole thing, Elynea escalated everything through the roof.

"Er-Will, what are we doing now?"

The young boy, who had brown hair with a smooth trim, was looking at the board instead of paying attention to the elf and dwarf fighting. Looking closely at him, I was fairly certain that he was human. He didn't have any weird traits so to speak, but I wasn't going to take any chances. 

He looked back at me before unsticking a piece of paper and handing it to me.

---

REQUESTING ADVENTURERS TO HELP THE VASSAL STATE OF AGRESTIA!

     Agrestia is a vassal state of Tauron, governed by Lord Terence. We are currently in dire need of protection due to mass amounts of bandit outbreaks being set up everywhere. We are the furthest state from the capital and therefore cannot obtain regular army personnel or royal guards. The strength of the bandits range from rank D - E.

Many of them do not have fighting power but travellers are often held at knife-point. Even the newest adventures can deal with them if they have any fighting experience, so the danger level is set at E.

Requirements: You must patrol the paths that lead to Agrestia for 5-6 hours a day, defeating or retreating bandits away until we can obtain support from the king and build a standing army.

Reward: 5 Silver per day +1 Silver for each bandit defeated. Your stay will be paid for by the Lord.

---

"That....actually seems like a pretty good deal. Wait, how does currency work here anyways?"

I hadn't thought about it before, but money would definitely be different here than back on earth. I knew silver was worth a ton back on earth, but I doubted that was the case here based on how much was being given as a reward.

At this, Thogir walked up

"Our currency goes up by ten. 10 copper for a silver, then 10 silver for gold, this continues on with Mythril, Orichalcum, and Adamantite. A inn generally costs a silver, though those are generally shabbier. A days worth of food probably costs around the same for a casual meal, but could be cheaper if you cut corners. Depends on ya, though since we are all just starting out as official adventurers this request does indeed sound decent."

GRRRRR

"Speaking of food, me stomach's starting to rumble. How'bout we go grab some grubb then hit the road? The meal's on me"

I couldn't help but voice my agreement, I was starving as well.

---

Damon P.O.V

I was drifting again.

This time I wasn't in a black space, but instead, a pure white space. 

"Damn it. At least I managed to get the lizard before dying though, hopefully Char's alright"

Suddenly a system message popped up.

Your quite the unusual demon lord aren't you?

"ummmm"

Interesting, we shall be watching your journey.

Now I was going full on panic mode, I didn't think that the system had sentience! 

Wake

---

"AHHHH!"

I woke up with a start, almost face-planting onto the castle floor before catching myself.

Wait, castle floor?

I looked around to find myself back in my castle on the exact same chair I was using before we left.

"Holy crap, is this like some Re:Zero crap?"

Did I just die and go back to some checkpoint? That was definitely possible right?

"Master, you're really stupid sometimes."

"Yeah I know, wait! WHO SAID THAT!?"

I almost fell down again from the sudden shock of another voice in the room with me, as I turned to look for the source of the voice a half-blackened skeleton entered my vision.

".....Char?"

This was most definitely Char, now I felt like his name was more fitting than ever. Half of the bones on his body had become a charcoal black, while the other remained a pearly white. However, this wasn't the extent of his changes. He also had a much larger staff and a lush, purple cloak with a hood instead of his shoddy, ripped clothes. He also now had what appeared to be eyes, which were a dark red that made him look demonic.

Looking closely, the "eyes" were two orbs floating in the middle of his eye-frame where the pupil would have been.  I could actually see what he was looking at now, but he looked incredibly intimidating now, even more-so than before.

"Did you evolve again?"

Char nodded.

"I evolved into a rare species. A magma lich, but I can also use my other previous elements so I have three elements that I can utilise for my magic"

"Well, I guess I have a hella strong subordinate now."

"Indeed"

"Don't agree with me when I'm saying how strong you are, it sounds snarky."

"Apologies master"

---

And I may or may not have taken a two day break but we are back! Each chapter will probably have both Artia's and Damon's perspectives to keep it fresh.