Sunshine shone through the window, illuminating the dust particlesea dancing in the air. A man sat behind the counter, taking a quick glance at his sole customer sitting in the farthest corner of the table. He was the owner of the inn and he himself was quite aware of how rundown it was, which made it seem strange why the man even chose this place to stay. He tried to peek a glance as he was curious, only to find the hooded man swishing some coins from left to right on the table. It looked like he was counting his money.

“One, two, three, four, five silver coins and twenty bronze coins.” Lazarus muttered. “This should be enough…I think?” He crossed his arms and stared at the assortment of coins on the table. He looked around, and all he could see was the dimly lit cob-web filled wooden walls and an old man behind a counter. He had originally planned to leave the inn but thought against it and continued to get odd jobs from delivering a sack of wheat and crops to cleaning places.

-’So what’s next?’- Lazarus thought to himself.

At the rate he’s making money, he’d never get enough to build the tower in five years. He needed a better job.

-’But what?’-

Lazarus hummed and cupped his chin. If this was a game, a tutorial would’ve been helpful. But unfortunately, this was his reality now. He sighed.

Most of the good paying jobs needed a formal education, connections and some identification documents which he didn’t have. With what he had gathered so far, there were only two jobs that paid well that didn’t require those documents. One required being a well known spellcaster which Lazarus knew full well he couldn’t do and the other one was… becoming an adventurer.

“Haa-...” Lazarus held his forehead. He had explored all the options he knew so far but the best one out of all of them was adventuring. It didn’t need any credentials to start with and you get to have your own credentials when you become a well-known adventurer with a good reputation. The only problem was…

“That job only pays well in Kratos…” Lazarus felt like laughing. “Why is it on another goddamn continent!?”

From what he gathered in the books, apparently there was a town called Celes that had a harbor where he could board some ships and get to Kratos. But how much would that cost? Nothing was written in the book.

“Seriously, this place really needs the internet. Haa-...” Lazarus sighed once more.

For a moment, he contemplated whether he should ride there via the carriages he learned about or just outright running there. Suddenly, The door slammed open with a bang. Lazarus turned to look, making sure his hood hid his face well as three people walked in.

At the center of the group was a large bald guy with two knives strapped to his waist wearing leather armor. The other one was a skinny man with tanned skin with a spear behind his back and the last one was a girl with a wild look. She had red curly hair, wearing hot pants and a small shirt that revealed her belly button. In her hands were large steel gauntlets with spikes sticking out at the knuckle area.

“Oi!” The bald man shouted. The man behind the counter flinched and looked away as the three made their way over but then they stopped, making Lazarus frown. The skinny man pointed in his direction and Lazarus also looked and wondered why he was pointing at his table.

-’Ah..’-

The coins on the table.

-’Shit.’-

Lazarus quickly moved his hands over them and de-materialized them from sight and acted like he was pocketing them. Unfortunately, the three snickered and made their way over, surrounding his table.

Lazarus sighed. -’A run down inn and thugs. Typical B-rated movie plot…’-

“Hey, got something for us?” The bald headed man, who was behind him, prodded his back. Lazarus’ head became hotter. This really wasn’t the time to be dealing with some low life thugs who brandished their weapons in broad daylight. Lazarus looked over to the inn manager hoping to get some help. -’Aaand–’ of course, he was already half way through the door and froze when Lazarus made eye contact with him before he bolted out, running like his life depended on it.

“Ya wouldn’t like Fido when he’s mad ya widdle boy~” The girl taunted as she sat down on the table, smiling playfully.

“Better cough up some money unless you wanna get hurt.” The skinny man chimed-in.

“Back off.” Lazarus warned. The three thugs looked at one another before bursting into a fit of laughter.

“Boy.” Fido muttered. Then Lazarus felt a tug on his back before he was lifted into the air and brought to the large man’s eye level. “You don’t seem to understand. We know you’re a criminal, why else would you rent here? In fact, you should be happy we didn’t report you to the Knights. See this?” the man pointed at his chest where an iron tag with the letter ‘IV’ was etched. “I’m an adventurer. And it’s our job to fight monsters and catch criminals! If you know what’s good for ya, better cough up some money and we might just let ya go.”

Lazarus was quite sure he wasn’t a criminal, but dealing with Knights just after getting chased by a noble girl was something he wanted to avoid. Honestly, at this point, Lazarus didn’t care. He had contemplated how he would fare against mages anyway and what a better opportunity than this? He could always cloak and run if things got hairy and besides, Iron IV was the lowest rank an adventurer could be. It was a good baseline.

Lazarus let out a tired sigh. The three thugs furrowed their brows.

“You think this is a joke!?” Fido roared, shaking Lazarus who didn’t seem to care and stared directly at the eye of the big man who didn’t seem to like that Lazarus wasn’t intimidated. Having remembered a video game he played, Lazarus snickered, further riling up the three as he said,

“If you want it. Then you’ll have to take it.”

Fido signal with his Chin. The wild looking girl nodded and patted Lazarus’ pockets. She frowned.

“Hey! Where’s the money!?”

“Beats me.”

Veins popped in the thugs’ forehead, making Lazarus snicker even more. They really were like the typical thugs in the movies.

“That’s it!” Fido snapped, his fist launching like a loaded gun, plowing Lazarus' stomach.

Lazarus flew in the air, spun and landed on his feet as if nothing had happened.

“The hell!?” Fido frowned. He was sure he felt his stomach and that Lazarus never deployed any mana barrier. He should’ve been coughing up blood but…he looked absolutely unharmed.

Lazarus dusted himself off and furrowed his and asked,

“Is that it? Surely you can do better than that right? Like…you know, magic?”

“You-!” Fido ran to him with a raised fist. Lazarus was hoping he’d use magic by now since that’s what he wanted to test, but seeing as the man didn’t seem to want to, maybe it was better to force him?

As Fido approached, Lazarus leveled his hands and tucked his elbows and got into a boxing position. The moment the large man got close and launched his fist, Lazarus swerved his head. Pissed, Fido pulled his left arm as far as he could. His eyes widened. Lazarus was in front of him and launched a quick jab to his chin.

Though it seemed light, Fido felt as if he’d been slapped by a huge brick and fell to the ground, twitching.

The other two bandits could only stare in utter disbelief.

“Seriously?” The culprit looked surprised himself. No one expected the big guy to go down with just one punch.

Lazarus looked at the other two and the skinny man was already brandishing his spear and the wild looking girl wore her spiky steel gauntlets. The two muttered something under their breath and a blue film of light surrounded their body before it disappeared.

-’So that’s the mana barrier.’-

“Rargh!” The skinny man thrust his spear and Lazarus just let it hit. Before the spear made contact with his body a small hexagonal blue light the size of a palm stopped it dead on its tracks, making the skinny man’s eyes widen in surprise.

“W-what the hell is that?”

“Hmm….” Lazarus muttered curiously. It seemed like it couldn’t penetrate his forcefield.

He smiled as his legs turned to a blur.

Watching the impact of his kick as if time had slowed, Lazarus saw a blue film of light appear all over the skinny man’s body, wrapping him like a film.

-’Is that all a mana barrier can do?’- Lazarus thought briefly before the skinny man flew in the air, crashing chairs and tables on his path before banging hard on the wall and getting stuck in the man sized hole he made.

Lazarus frowned. He thought mana barriers were supposed to protect their users similar to how energy shields functioned, but it seemed like it couldn’t absorb impact like his energy shields and only softened the blow by a little.

At this point he was getting frustrated. Were these people really this weak?

“Hey, isn’t it time you use some spells?” Lazarus raised a voice to the thugs. At some point, it seemed like Fido had woken up and tried to form a fighting stance whilst wincing in pain and clutching his stomach.

“Well?” Lazarus asked them, but only got deep frowns in response. Maybe he needed to rough them up a bit more? Lazarus recalled something in the book and made an ‘Oh’ face. “You guys wanna channel your spells? Be my guest.”

“W-we’re sorry for picking a fight. But could you let us go?” Fido finally spoke up, then grinned.

Lazarus raised a brow, immediately turning his head the moment he heard hurried footsteps. The wild haired girl was charging at him with her gauntlet raised. Curious, Lazarus raised both of his arms to guard instead of dodging.

*Dung!*

“Argh!” The girl winced and jumped back. It felt like she’d just punch an iron door!

As if he was distracted, Lazarus kept his gaze on the woman and didn’t bother the skinny man he heard that was clearly chanting a spell under his breath behind him.

“Zestus!” The skinny man yelled and Lazarus hurriedly turned his head. An orangish runic circle that the skinny pointed at him, pulsed.

Fido and the woman grinned triumphantly.

The room turned hotter as a ball of flame the size of a basketball was hurled to Lazarus at blinding speed. A loud explosion rang out and smoke covered the room.

“Serves you right!”

“He died just for pocket change. F*ckin idiot.” Fido smiled happily. But the moment he saw the expression on the woman, he frowned and asked, “And you… why are you still wobbling your hands?”

“When I hit him. It felt like I was hitting an iron wall!”

Hearing her words, Fido felt his stomach drop and his smile disappeared. “You mean..”

The three looked on with bated breaths as the smoke slowly cleared.

Upon the sight of a red hexagonal light, Fido furrowed his brows. The more the smoke cleared, the more he saw the red hexagonal light and his face paled.

There, the man stood unharmed. A small area of red hexagonal light covered his side where the fireball should’ve hit. He never saw a mana barrier look like that before, especially not red in color. Then his heart stopped the moment he heard the man grin like a maniac.

“Barely a percent of the shield energy.”

Fido didn’t know what the man was saying but it sounded like the tier-2 fireball spell barely fazed him. This was a mistake he realized. He could feel his stomach twisting. As he glanced to his side, he saw the ghostly look on Lucia’s face.

When the man turned his uninterested gaze on Fido, he felt his heart stop.

“W-wait…P-please…” Fido pleaded.

The man took a step forward.

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