“The demons actually sent an SSS-ranked adventurer party to stop you. It’s a miracle you survived.”

Yeoman stared at the guild master sitting across from him. The two were separated by a wooden desk with documents heaped upon it. Yeoman didn’t respond to the guild master’s comment, letting out a sigh instead.

The guild master leaned back and sighed as well, crossing his fingers and resting his hands over his chest. “I’ll let the king and the rest of the guild masters know. Your effort was commendable, and the risk you took was tremendous; however, the king won’t reward you since you didn’t achieve your goals. As such, I’ve taken it upon myself to offer you some compensation, a token of thanks for your time.” The guild master leaned forward and opened his desk drawer. He pulled a pouch out and dropped it on the desk. There was a metallic clinking sound as it hit the wood.

Yeoman stared at the leather pouch. There was a golden glint coming from the tiny opening within the top. Gold was valuable, one piece enough to last an average family ten years. Even if that golden coin was resting on a pile of copper ones, it was still a generous compensation; however, Yeoman couldn’t help but feel insulted. Was gold enough to make him forget everything that happened? He had been exposed to death in the previous stages, but to witness such a callous slaughter, it made him question the value of life.

“Look, it’s not your fault, alright?” the guild master asked and leaned back, scratching his head upon seeing Yeoman’s expression. “Sometimes, things happen, and we have to move on. Get something to drink; you deserve it.”

Yeoman grabbed the pouch. It wasn’t heavy at all, not with his increased strength. It felt as light as a feather. This was all the guild master thought the goblins’ lives were worth—a few measly metal coins. Yeoman wasn’t particularly attached to the goblins at first, but he had interacted with them a lot over the past two months, and they slowly rubbed off on him. They were as enthusiastic as puppies upon seeing him, and they competed with each other, trying to gain his approval with their faulty knowledge of the alphabet.

“If you stay in human territory, you won’t have to worry about demons hunting you, even if they are SSS-ranked adventurers.” The guild master nodded. “Also, your party is currently on an escort mission. They should be returning within the month. The money I gave you should be more than enough for food and lodging until they get back.”

Yeoman could tell the guild master was hoping to bring the conversation to an end. “Thanks.” Yeoman paused. “The woman who went with me…, what was her name?”

The guild master scratched his head again and stared at Yeoman with an awkward expression. “I don’t know.”

Yeoman blinked hard. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting. “How long have you worked with her?”

“Several years.”

“And you don’t know her name?”

“You worked with her for two months, and you don’t know it either!” The guild master slapped his hand on the desk and pointed at the door with his other hand. “If there’s nothing else, you can leave now.”

Yeoman nodded, feeling a little less bad—but still bad—about not learning the receptionist’s name. He left the guild master’s room and went down the stairs to the lobby. A few people glanced at him as he walked through the building, but they turned away soon enough. Yeoman guessed they must’ve been people who were part of the original plot. The abductees would be too busy with missions to linger around. However, he was an abductee who had little to do. The end of the month was a week away, so until Cody and the rest returned from their mission, Yeoman could do whatever he wanted. It was a shame he didn’t want to do anything. He ignored the missions on the wall and exited the adventurers’ guild. He spread his wings, leapt into the air, and flew towards the inn.

Since the innkeeper had never seen him, Yeoman doubted he’d be let into Cody’s room just by saying he was part of their party, so instead, Yeoman landed on the roof of the inn, trying his best not to break it with his weight. He shuffled around until he was comfy; then, he sat down, brought his knees to his chest, and spread his wings, letting them soak in the sunlight. He rested his chin on his knees and held his shins with his arms. Yeoman had absolutely no plans of moving, not until Cody and Ella returned. The sun set. The moon rose. Yeoman’s thoughts slowed. A week passed. Yeoman didn’t move, not even bothering to practice his katas. No matter how good he got at them, could he stop magic with a punch? No.

“Yeoman?”

A familiar voice pulled Yeoman out of his stupor. He sat up straight and folded in his wings. There were a few loud chirps coming from behind him, and he turned his head to take a look. Two birds were staring at him, cheeping. Apparently, they had been using one of his wings as part of their nest. “Sorry,” Yeoman said before shaking his head. He jumped down from the roof, landing in front of his party. “Hello.”

“How long have you been sitting up there?” Ella asked. Her eyes narrowed as she ran her gaze up and down Yeoman’s body. “You look mossier than before. I guess living with the goblins must’ve made you look like one of them, eh?”

Yeoman didn’t say anything.

Ella frowned. “What’s wrong? What happened to you?”

“Alright,” Cody said, glancing around. He pushed at Ella and Yeoman. “We can discuss this inside. There’s no reason to provide other people free information.” Aakash, Kat, and Joanne followed them inside. The entrance of the inn consisted of a counter, and off to the side, there was a hallway. Cody nodded at the innkeeper and went into the hall, leading the group past a gigantic living room and up a flight of stairs. He opened a door, and everyone filtered in. The room didn’t have much, just a large bed in the center and a small table with a chair. There was one window, but it was covered by a wooden shutter.

Cody went to the corner of the room and crossed his arms. Kat, Joanne, and Ella sat on the bed while Aakash took the chair, leaving Yeoman standing by the entrance. “Alright,” Cody said, his voice barely above a whisper. “How’d your plan go? Did you raise some goblins?”

Yeoman exhaled through his nose. “The goblins are dead. Swirling Wind, the SSS-ranked party from The Blue Mage Raised by Dragons, attacked us under the demon lord’s orders.”

“You survived?” Joanne asked. “How? It’s not that I’m doubting your story, but we’ve actually encountered a high-ranked party ourselves, and they’re not people we can deal with.”

“I killed Lan in the second stage and obtained his Ravenwood Ring,” Yeoman said, gesturing at his hand. “It lets me teleport once a week. After the demons attacked, I teleported away.”

“So, you wasted your time?” Aakash asked with all three of his heads, his voice vibrating. “Over two months have passed, and you have nothing to show for it?”

Ella glared at Aakash. “Hey. We’re a party. There’s no need to attack one another.”

Yeoman cleared his throat, causing everyone in the room to jump from the thunderous sound. “I became the goblin king,” he said. “The goblins performed a ritual on me, and I got upgrades worth about six thousand points.” He pointed at his throat, which was bulging compared to everyone else’s. “One of them was the howler monkey’s ability to produce loud sounds.” He gestured towards the wooden staff on his back. “I also got a magical staff.”

“Can I see?” Cody asked, stretching out his hand.

“You all can,” Yeoman said, taking the staff off his back. He handed it over, not too particularly worried that anyone would try to steal it; after all, they were all stuck in the same boat. “I also got a wyvern gene fragment. It requires one hundred fragments to make a gene.”

“Oh, we’ve got lots of fragments,” Kat said, her ears perking up. “It turns out, everything we kill has a guaranteed drop chance of a fragment. Cody thinks it’s the aliens copying the leveling system of The Blue Mage Raised by Dragons. If we kill enough things, our strengths will increase.”

Yeoman glanced at Kat. Then he moved his gaze over the rest of the party. They didn’t look any different compared to how they looked two months ago, at least, not physically. They had better gear, each of them wearing armored tailored for their bodies. Compared to them, Yeoman looked homeless wearing his single pair of pants. “It seems like things went well for you guys?”

“Eh.” Cody shrugged and passed the staff to Ella, letting her read its details. “We’ve done alright, certainly better than every other earthling brought in here with us. We’ve completed fourteen D-ranked quests so far, so we just need to do one more, the promotion quest, before we can reach rank C. If we continue at the same rate, we’ll become rank B near the end of the fourth month, rank A by the fifth month, S by the sixth, SS by the seventh, and SSS by the eighth. Of course, I don’t think things will go that smoothly though.” Cody shook his head. “There’s likely going to be a period where we’ll have to grind some mobs, use their fragments, and upgrade our strengths.”

Yeoman wasn’t sure how Cody calculated his ranking by continuing at the same rate. “Why does it take less time to become rank A than rank B?”

Cody raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t you paying attention? Oh, wait, you were fighting the guild master.” He cleared his throat. “The number of missions cleared required per rank decreases as you go up. We have to do ten C-ranked missions to get to rank B, but only five B-ranked missions to get to rank A. Then it’s five missions from that point onwards.”

Yeoman thought about it and decided it made sense. The number of missions completed didn’t really matter later on. Someone could’ve cleared a thousand A-ranked missions, but if he couldn’t reach a certain level of strength, he’d never pass the promotion mission. An image of a pale face with two pairs of silver horns came to Yeoman’s mind. In a year, could he grow strong enough to defeat the leader of Swirling Wind? It wasn’t even a year anymore; there were only ten months left until the stage ended.

“An upgrade in strength and a staff,” Aakash said and sighed, handing off the wooden weapon to Kat. “It seems like you haven’t wasted your time.”

“I also got this,” Yeoman said, untying the leather pouch from his waist. He hadn’t even checked how much money the guild master had given him. In fact, he didn’t want the money at all; he just wanted the goblins back. However, he knew that couldn’t happen. He went to the table and opened the pouch. “The guild master compensated me for trying.” He flipped the pouch upside down, letting the coins fall onto the wooden surface. Around twenty coins bounced onto the table, clattering and clinking.

“Two gold and twenty silver?” Joanne asked, her eyes widening. “That’s more than what we’ve made!”

Yeoman was surprised at how quickly she had counted the coins. Not all of them had stopped moving yet. He pressed down on a silver coin that was about to roll off the edge. Only a measly twenty-two pieces of metal were needed for the guild master to pay off the debt in his conscience. Yeoman could tell the guild master didn’t want anything else to do with the incident. It was similar to a settlement offer from a large corporation paying off a village after polluting its water source.

“How much have you made?” Yeoman asked.

“Each mission pays about five silver,” Cody said with a grimace. “We’ve been prioritizing money-making missions as well since upgrading our gear is a much better increase in combat ability than genetic upgrades.”

Yeoman nodded. It made sense. Rather than killing a hundred tigers for claws, why not just buy a pair of metal claws that were probably sharper than the tiger claws? However, gear could only carry someone so far, but Yeoman suspected Cody knew that. “After you get the right gear, you were going to grind some fragments, right?”

“That’s right,” Cody said. “A lot of web novels have that saying about grinding an axe: it doesn’t waste time to sharpen your axe when you’re cutting down trees.” His eyes narrowed at his party’s blank expressions. “I’m paraphrasing, alright? Don’t look at me like that. I’m sure it looks and sounds better when written on a scroll in Chinese letters, okay?” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, the promotion mission happens to fit our requirements. It’s exterminating a kobold camp. While we’re there, we should wipe out all the kobolds for their fragments. It’ll be perfect for us to increase our strength, and at the same time, it’ll cripple everyone else’s progression into rank C.”

Yeoman exhaled through his nose. Another extermination. If the kobolds were anything like goblins, then they were sentient as well, capable of feeling emotions. Yeoman didn’t know if he had it in him to slaughter a whole species.

“What’s wrong?” Ella asked, patting Yeoman’s arm.

Yeoman shook his head. “I’m just a little tired.”

“Zombies don’t get tired,” Kat said.

Yeoman glared at cat-headed woman before looking at Ella. “I’m a bit weary. I’ve witnessed a lot of death, and I feel like it’s weighing down on me.”

“Knowing this world, it’s probably the ghosts of the goblins clinging to your shoulders,” Ella said and nodded. “We’ll go to a priest and see if he can exorcise them.”

“Are you sure the priest won’t just cleanse him instead?” Joanne asked. “He is a zombie.”

“Why does it have to be ghosts? It could be PTSD,” Kat said. “Traumatic events can trigger negativity and emotional numbness.”

Yeoman exhaled through his nose again. Great. He was either haunted or traumatized, exactly the kind of condition he hoped to be in. “I’ll deal with it myself. Thanks for the concern.”

Cody nodded. “I hope you can figure it out within the next two days. We set off the day after tomorrow.”