The road to Ketaren City was pretty uneventful and safe. Merchants travelled the route frequently and no bandit was dumb enough to attack a mercantile transit group. Therefore no bandits could be found on the long stone road as it was rare to see anyone travelling by themselves and if they did then they were likely very powerful.
Ryan, though now extremely rich, was neither in a group nor extremely powerful so he was a prime target for anything that wanted free XP. Thus Ryan was forced to move at his highest speed towards Ketaren, though this was the same speed as a normal person so on the flat surface of the road anyone or anything could catch up and kill him.
Eventually, on his journey along the road, he ran into a mercantile carriage pulled by thin old horses. The carriage was wooden and slightly rotting, if a bandit saw it they would feel pity and give money to the carriage owner instead of robbing them. But Ryan wasn't that warm hearted.
Ryan walked up in front of the carriage and stopped the horses by standing in front of them. If the horses were even the tiniest bit stronger or faster they would have run him down without hesitation.
"What are you doing young man?" The old man making the horses move said with a small smile on his face. His head was balding and like his horses he was pretty much a skeleton wearing a thin layer of skin. With eyes as dark as coal and teeth as white as snow, the old man looked both young and old at the same time with only his wrinkles betraying his age.
"I was just going to ask for a ride if it is possible. Can I get one?" Ryan replied, his face lacking emotion as his eyes bore into the man's soul.
His Inspect worked and the man's information appeared.
[Shamus Maccilligan]
HP:? Lv:?
That was extremely alarming. If he couldn't see the man's level then he must be at the very least 50 levels higher than him, it was a good thing Ryan hadn't tried to attack him and start gaining souls to unlock the stages on his axe.
"Sure thing youngster, get inside. Just so you know, my grandson is in there as well but don't worry about waking him up. He is a very deep sleeper" the old man said with a large creepy smile on his face. His bony fingers wrapped tighter around the reigns of the horses and he stared intently at Ryan. The smile plastered on his face grew in length for every second Ryan stood there until the majority of his face was a smile.
Despite this, Ryan was no longer afraid of the man. He had figured out who the old man was.
That man was the Wandering Captor; an old decrepit man that travelled along deserted roads and attempted to imprison anyone he could find. He would get them into his carriage and then they would be teleported to another dimension where his clone would torture, rape and eat them, the man driving the carriage would feel all the things his clone felt in the other dimension. Fortunately, there was a way to get away from him, stay off the roads. Even if you walked along side the road then he wouldn't be able to find you or attack you, this wasn't common knowledge until someone accidentally discovered it when they tripped while trying to get into the carriage and fell off the road. It was extreme luck that not many people would be able to experience in their lives.
Ryan stepped off the road and flipped the old man off as he faded away not to return. As the old man faded into nothing he started to scream obscenities at Ryan and rip pieces of his wrinkly skin off causing blood to flow and his creepy smile to twist into a face full of ire. Ryan continued running alongside the road for another hour until he finally reached Ketaren.
Ketaren was the first large city that Players would visit before going to find the Royal cities and working primarily from there. Almost always full of noise, Ketaren was a merchant's dream. Rich people and nobility came here to buy goods unavailable in the Royal cities, as well as this the adventuring business was massive here and even residents of Horizon became adventurers to get money.
Due to the massive amounts of goods that came here, there was also a black market that sold almost anything and every few months they held an auction for rare and never seen before materials. And one of these auctions was coming up in a day or two, no player knew the contents of this auction as at this point no one knew it existed or had the money to join in. This was because, while there was a feature to convert Horizon currency to real money, there was no way to buy coins with credits. Because of this, everyone started at the same point and major businesses couldn't just buy millions of credits worth of gold and break the economy.
But before the auction took place, Ryan had a few things he had to do. In Horizon it had been 8 hours since Ryan joined, but in the real world, it had only been 2. There was a time dilation of about 4 times, this meant that one day in reality was 4 in Horizon. That was why Ryan's previous debtors didn't want him playing at night as that was an extra 2 days worth of money and they weren't able to increase the interest by Horizon time and milk more money from him.
Before he actually entered the bustling city, a pair of guards that stood outside the gates raised their spears at him and called out.
"You are tainted with the essence of the undead! Leave or pay an extra fee"
"I'll pay don't worry. Don't get ya panties in a twist, also what do you mean I am tainted. That doesn't sound amazing and I would rather not be if possible." Ryan replied.
While walking towards the guards, he realised he was still almost completely naked except for a pair of white boxer shorts and equipped some rags that he had picked up from the lair but not found worthy of his attention until now. Along with the rags, he pulled out a gold coin and flicked it towards the two men with a cool look on his face.
"Well, it is just a feeling that guards are trained to have in order to defend against dark magicians who wish to enter our cities. But you obviously aren't a dark magician so we will let you pass."
Hmm that's strange, Ryan knew only two skills to do with the dead and only one to do with the undead so that shouldn't have alerted the guards. Maybe it was something he picked up from the lair, huh who knew.
After getting past the guards he entered the large city.