Honestly, nothing worthy of note happened when they tried passing through the guards and the crowd of D-ranked adventurers. Like Kayden had predicted, those D ranks immediately came begging, and as Alice had argued, by having the whole party just blatantly ignore them, they were helpless to do anything about it.

Well, not everyone in the party ignored them.

“Sorry, boys! Unfortunately, you do not even qualify to follow the great me! Captain Tianos!”

‘That wasn’t necessary…' The rest of the party thought as one.

The guards briefly glanced through the party and spotted the B-ranked Adventurer’s pass immediately on Louis’s neck. Knowing that they could let this particular party pass, the central guard coughed into a fist and began to tell his rehearsed speech.

“Due to the recent discovery of the new dungeon, there has been a drastic drop in the adventurers who periodically hunted down goblins. This has led to the rapid growth of the goblin population these past few days. To target the massive rise of adventurers heading for the new dungeon, the vast majority of them have invaded the western territory, so now they are all over the place!”

“Ah! I see… So that’s why…”

Back when he had gone with Ezekiel to the plains for his test, not once did they spot a goblin, even though the plains were a well-known goblin hunting spot. Since most of the adventurers had moved away, the goblins who needed to plunder resources naturally moved as well.

Ezekiel frowned. Something didn’t make sense.

“Why would goblins move here? If there aren’t any more adventurers clearing them out, doesn’t that give them the opportunity to launch an attack on the city? I figure that that would be a better way to obtain resources.”

Ezekiel didn’t know how goblins usually behaved, but he assumed it should have acted like any other intelligent beast. The best time to attack is when the inhabitants are no longer there to defend their territory. This was typical behavior that the fiends back in the Southern Continent had, which was why any human life was so important. They needed the manpower to defend any lands they had.

“Ah… Sorry, but adventurers aren’t privy to that information. But don’t worry, there are guards defending the city, so you don’t have to worry about an attack.” The guard replied.

With that, Ezekiel was helpless to question anything else and could only choose to believe them. They walked on in silence as the sounds of the D-ranked adventurers once more beseeching them droned on in their ears.

One of them even tried rushing past and latching onto one of the members, but was swiftly obstructed by the alert guards.

“You’ll regret this! Don’t look down on us D ranked adventurers!”

Kayden turned his head around to look at them. A spoken threat was still a threat and he himself knew that lower-ranked adventurers could beat higher-ranked ones. After all, was he not the one that defeated Brandon, a B ranked adventurer, with only the help of a fellow C rank?

“Appraise.”

 

The rest of their party similarly had laughably low levels and stats. One mighty kick from the Barbarian and not one of them would have survived. He laughed aloud,

“Yeah, sure! Come back when you can actually pass through this area!”

Louis didn’t miss this chance and mocked the D-ranked adventurers too, leading them to clench their teeth in frustration and helplessness. Cathy looked a little bothered, but nothing came out of it.

“Kayden, I have something to say to you.”

The familiar voice of the System resounded in his ears, and the tone of the voice sounded serious. Careful not to speak aloud for all his party to hear, he cupped his mouth and whispered,

“What’s up?”

A quiet sigh followed by a deep drawing of breath could be heard. It was quite weird to hear a disembodied voice take breaths.

“I wasn’t able to tell my previous user since I couldn’t communicate my thoughts back then, but now that I can, let me give you a warning.”

“Your previous user… You mean Matou?”

“Right, don’t try to pick fights with people, even if they seem weaker than you. Matou had this problem where he got overly arrogant with the abilities a System can grant, but let me get this straight, my abilities aren’t omnipotent. There are people who can avoid my appraisal ability. Furthermore, just like how you stole me from him, others can steal me from you, too.”

Kayden’s mind started to spin. The System’s words could essentially be boiled down to “Don’t offend anybody, because you never know who you might offend.” It was sound advice, and he knew the state that Matou ended up in, so he didn’t have any qualms about listening to it.

“Alright,” he whispered into his hand. “I’ll take note in the future.”

“You… talking to yourself again?” Ezekiel walked up beside him and casually brought up the topic. So casual in fact, that Kayden did a double-take with what he just heard. His eyes widened and he hurriedly peeked at the other members of the party to check if they overheard. He didn’t want them to think he was crazy, or else there would be much trouble to deal with. In fact, Alice already thought him abnormal and Cathy knew that he talked to himself.

Alice and Cathy were chatting away happily at the back, and the occasional laughter could be heard from them. Louis on the other hand only seemed to be admiring his greatsword, which could only be as great as him, Kayden was sure.

It seemed that none of them had overheard anything, and he sighed in relief. He gave Ezekiel the side-eye and grunted in acknowledgment of his question.

‘Tsk! This guy won’t ever let it go. I think he suspects that something is up…'

He put on a confident front and voiced his opinions.

“Look, does it matter if I talk to myself? I’m not a spy giving away our secrets or anything, not that there are any secrets, to begin with.”

“You don’t have to give me the full story,” Ezekiel encouraged. “But it would clear up some suspicion if you had a full explanation for me. What if everyone found out? Better you tell me all about it now than suffer the consequences later.”

Kayden bit his lip as he racked his brain, trying to think of a way out of this situation

‘Aren’t you basically saying you want the full story? Is this a threat? Weren’t we comrades that fought against the great barbarian together? Explaining the System will pretty much mark me as insane, I need to think of a good reason for this.’

“It’s… because… I was talking to my master.”

“Your master? You mean the A-ranked adventurer?”

“Yeah!”

“Really? Is your master’s name ‘System’?”

Kayden nearly tripped after hearing Ezekiel mention the System. Beads of sweat started dotting his forehead as he stuttered,

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you so surprised? You already know I can hear things from very far away, and it isn’t that much of a stretch for me to be able to hear the exact words you said.”

“R-right…”

Kayden was still a little bit off-kilter after discovering just how poor his attempt at hiding the System is. There wasn’t anything else he could do but tell the truth…

Or a half-truth.

“It’s a weird ability I have… Whenever I appraise someone or something, the ‘System’ will tell me some information about them.”

“Appraisal? Indeed, I have heard you say the word ‘Appraise’ multiple times…” He appeared to be in deep thought. “Illusion, Transformation, and appraisal? That’s three very distinct abilities you have. That’s very impressive, even for a genius…”

Kayden thought back to Matou, who could use every single element, in addition to healing magic.

“Is it? The city lord’s son is way more impressive than I am, and besides, doesn’t Cathy have many different abilities too?”

Cathy had the ability to transfer wounds and speak into people’s minds. From what he knew, she had even more tricks up her sleeve that would take too much time to explain. Shouldn’t that make her more impressive than him as well?

“Cathy’s different. While she can do many different things, each individual ability isn’t that effective. All her spells fall under the support category and don’t leave much creativity for their use. Yours, on the other hand, are already pretty useful by themselves, but you have all three of them.”

Kayden pondered for a while before deciding that Ezekiel was right. Illusion magic allowed him to escape and ambush easily. Transformation magic, although he was still not too familiar with it, could serve him as a weapon, shield, or escape depending on what he turned into. Lastly, the appraisal ability served as powerful utility, though the ability wasn’t really his.

From an outsider’s point of view, wasn’t he nearly some kind of unparalleled genius?

‘No, I shouldn’t let this get into my head. At this moment, what I should be praising is not myself, but the God of Thieves! The System that he has bestowed on me is so powerful! Truly a great inheritance!’

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. My appraisal ability was bestowed upon me by the religion I follow.”

Kayden was referring to the miracles\ that most Gods and Goddesses possess, which allows them to bestow certain magical abilities to their followers. Naturally, different religions granted different boons, and who knew how many types of religions are out there?

“Hmm… I’m not a religion expert, but Cathy does have an ability from the Goddess she follows. I’ll ask her about it later.”

Without giving Kayden a chance to reply, he quickened his pace and walked ahead of him.

‘He’s planning to tell more people about this?’

Grumbling outwardly, he adjusted the sack of equipment that hung on his shoulder to a more comfortable position. He stared ahead at the back of the ranger and carefully considered him.

There wasn’t much to say about Ezekiel. He had a serious personality and rarely cracked jokes, as expected of someone who had been living in the south. He was also very wary, as seen from his keen eye that tried to ascertain any motives that Kayden might have. That summed up all that Kayden knew about him.

He could certainly obtain more information about Ezekiel if he used the System’s appraisal ability, but the target in question would discover it immediately. Not wanting to come off as more suspicious than he already seemed, he didn’t want to unnecessarily cause trouble.

‘Wait. Why do I even care about this? I should just scan him and be done with it! Appraising people should be a very normal thing to do if you have the ability. It shows that you are cautious!’

He immediately opened his mouth and spoke the triggering words. Like always, a blue screen with information pertaining to the target appeared before him.

 

Very decent attributes. Though notably, the amount of mana he has looked pitiful when compared to Louis’s, not that he had any right to judge. His amount of mana sat at a disappointing number of 101.

“His estimated PMDN is C/D/B/C. Note that while combat isn’t one of his greatest strengths, his intelligence and wisdom, coupled with his long-ranged support and clairvoyance, more than makes up for it,” The System explained.

He was well aware of those facts, which were similar to his observations of the ranger. He looked away from the blue screens and saw the ranger in front of him had his hand up. The fingers formed a very rude gesture directed at Kayden himself.

“This guy…”

Kayden returned the gesture, and both of them continued facing off like this until Kayden’s arm got tired and he eventually let it drop to his side.

‘Sigh. Who’s idea was it to join a party again…?'