Relictus walked through the town, his face calm. He had a blank expression – it was not a thoughtless one, for his eyes burned with purpose. He was irritated – all that was around him was the BGM of imprudent whispers. His timer had ran out hours earlier. Thus, he was walking directly to the Guild Hall. His black shoes pounded the well-trodden dirt – it left indentations in it, as if it were a loose layer of brown topsoil, left over the top after a shower of rain. However, the dirt was well compacted – simply the force he put into each step was enough to break the dirt.

He arrived at the guildhall’s door, and stepped in, silent. This was the same dark, quiet inn he had entered just days ago. He received hostile, piercing looks – the eyes of a group of adventurers with particularly notable muscles narrowed at him, they looked at him as if he were fresh meat, something to be pounded, grilled, and served medium-rare. Relictus exhaled sharply, a lightly concealed snicker –

“They must not have gotten the news,” he thought. “Ooh, those character-creation muscles are so intimidating!” He remarked in his head. He was mildly entertained by the almost guaranteed stupidity of the group.

As he got to the desk, he noticed that a beautiful lady occupied the booth. Her eyes shone a bright crimson, a deep contrast to her calm, bright blue hair that stopped at her neck. Glasses sat on her nose, black, elliptical frames holding in the thin glass. Evidently rather weary, likely after doing this all day, she asks, “Commissions are that way.” Accident at Table 3 started snickering, grinning at Relictus.

Rather offended, he didn’t let that show as he spoke. “Actually, I’m here to join.” The lady behind the counter gave an irked expression. “Is this some kind of joke?” She questioned. Of course, he was still in beginner gear under his dark armor, so nobody would take him seriously. The assclowns off to the side, who were busy making remarks under their breath, put looks of mock-surprise on their face as they looked at him, before trundling over to him as a group.

“You think you can join that easily, ah?” The ‘leader’ said. By now, while he had a look he probably thought was intimidating, his subordinates were grinning and snickering at him.

“If third-rate adventurers like you can get in, I don’t see why not.” Relictus responded. A vein bulged on the man’s forehead. Obviously, this guy didn’t like the chuckles that came from the crowd as the retort hit him so hard. Relictus didn’t even see him as an opponent. It was mutual, but at least Relictus had a reason.

The conversation went on, in the pattern of an aggressive remark followed by a passive-aggressive retort from Relictus. People were outright laughing at the man by the time he pulled his sword. It was a claymore, at least 5 feet long, and 4 inches wide. It glinted off of the bright sunlight from outside. Relictus didn’t care. People tried to stop the man, but he just bumped them out of the way with his… superior weight. It took just half a second for the blade to swing down on Relictus. This man was pretty powerful, despite being incredibly superficial and downright moronic in Relictus’s eyes.

Not even bothering to strike back, Relictus just brought his hand up to block it. The man thought he had won as Relictus never had time to draw, but couldn’t be more wrong, as the blade collided with Relictus’s hand and sparks flew. People looked away, expecting a horrific and bloody scene, but all that was there was the blade, stopped by Relictus’s left hand and nothing more. He closed his hand, putting all of his force into it, and completely broke off the second half of the blade. Fragments of the metal fell to the floor, and the sword disintegrated into zeros and ones. Relictus delivered a firm, but still ‘light’ slap to the stunned man’s face, and he was knocked a foot into the air, spun around a couple of times, and hit the ground hard. He was completely knocked out.

The two lackeys immediately ran, and Relictus sighed, tired. People gaped at him, he had just destroyed one of the top 5 strongest people in the guild in a single hit, and blocked a blade without any magic. Needless to say, the secretary was far more open with him after such a scene.

With that, the Guild Card was explained to him.

“The guild card is an enchanted piece of metal with the Pry system engraved in it. After your blood touches it, the card will permanently display your own status to anyone who gets their hands on your card. To keep transparency with nobles and kings, you cannot hide anything on your card. Thus, make sure to keep it from falling into the wrong hands – nobody knows just how badly it could affect you. It will also hold your money, and function as a debit card for your convenience. Your border will color based on your clearance level for commissions in the Guild, and it will display your ranking relative to other Adventurers. The colors are as such:

Gray (F), Light blue (E), deep blue (D), Orange ©, Crimson (B), White (A), Bronze (S), Silver (SS), and finally Gold (SSS).”

He took his card, and pulled his sabre from its place on his belt. People were surprised to see the wicked look of the blade, and the fact that it was one of the weapons hailed as the worst melee class-builders ever. He poked the blade into his finger, and of course it didn’t go that easily. He had to learn to recede the armor on a whim, and removed it from his ring finger. He again attempted to poke it, and a small amount of blood was drawn. He let it run down his finger and onto the card, and immediately it lit up, processing, and linking itself to him. The secretary picked it up to check on it once it settled down, and immediately it hit the floor. She had a look of utter disbelief and incredulity on her face – her eyes were wide, her mouth half-open. It looked as if she had forgotten how to control her facial muscles.

A good half a minute later, she picked it up, and tried to quickly hand it to him, but it flew from her hands and to the floor. Someone picked it up, and shouted in surprise – “SSS, class Dark Emperor, level 76?!” The man shouted. People crowded around, attempting to snatch it and confirm what it said. Before that could be done, Relictus jumped into the middle of the crowd and activated Darkness Pulse. He hoped to simply incapacitate everyone and move them away from his card, so that he could go on his way, but it instead managed to destroy everyone in a 3-meter radius, annihilating even the corpses of all 27 of the people crowding around it.

“Oooh… shit.” He tersely muttered. He picked up his card and disappeared from the area faster than anyone could see him. His PK timer was at 324 in-game hours – nearly 2 RL days. He decided that if he wanted to head for the next city to get commissions, he would take at least a couple of weeks on that. Thus, he set out on his journey, not taking the road for fear of others’ lives.

Author's Notes

Spoiler : I"M BACK! I can now get myself to a regular schedule. One chapter a day, length will depend on the content and range from 1000 to 6000 words. Yay! Anyway, tell me if you find any mistakes, and if you have any suggestions. Thanks so much for reading!