The old man I was traveling with had his animals stuffed inside a carriage drawn by bulls. There was another carriage that was drawn by his son and had another guy sitting inside. There wasn't enough space to relax so I was just sitting thinking about my course of action after I entered the town.
The town, unlike the village, had much more population, shops, and resources. It even had the guilds in whom I was interested. I was specifically interested in just one though.
The Adventurer's Guild.
It was the romance of many fantasy lovers. It was the first place a protagonist would go to get information, earn money and get into small troubles, find like-minded people, and often take on some crazy quests. The true Isekai actually began from this place for anyone who was transported into a generic otherworld.
But I wasn't sure if the image I had of the Adventurer's Guild matched the actual thing though. I was destined to go there so I didn't think too hard and instead decided to check my long-awaited status.
I muttered
***Character Profile***
Name: Rio
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Race: Human(712-Human)
---
Level: 33
HP: 3300/3300
MP: 6600/6600
---
Job:
Primary: Master Swordsman
Secondary: Apprentice Spearman, Apprentice Ax user, Apprentice Monk, Apprentice Priest, Advanced Fire Magician, Advanced Water Magician, Advanced Earth Magician, Advanced Wind Magician, Apprentice Light Magician, Apprentice Dark Magician, Apprentice Space-time Magician, Lifestyle Magician, Apprentice Hammer user, Advanced Barrier Magician, Advanced Summoner
---
Titles acquired:
Lost Person, Holder of Entranos's last will, Person from a different world, Holder of ???? Sword, Ruin Explorer, ????'? ???????, Goblin Slayer, Beast Slayer, Giant Viper Slayer
---
Stats:
STR: 3300
DEX: 3300
DEF: 3300
AGI: 3300
VIT: 3300
INT: 3300
Luck: 80
Special Abilities:
Appraisal, Inventory, Map II, Logs, Entranos's Blessing, Universal Language Acquisition, Party Management, Status Management
Abilities:
Sword Technique IV, Fire Magic III, Water Magic III, Earth Magic III, Wind Magic III, Darkness Magic I, Light Magic I, Barrier Magic III, Lifestyle Magic II, Space-time Magic I, Mana Perception II, Summoning Magic III
Skills: Slash, Sprinting, Magic Manipulation, Presence Detection III, Danger Detection III, Throwing, Parry, Observation
Resistances: Venom Resistance II, Fear Resistance I
***
Well, it was as I expected. I earned a considerable amount of levels from fighting strong monsters and got a bunch of skills. Furthermore, my Abilities section seemed to have divided into new subparts namely Skills and Resistances. Presence Detection III and Danger Detection III were now in the skills sub-category.
Is Sword technique IV not a skill too? Shouldn't it also be inside the Skills subcategory? That would leave just magical abilities in the main category then, I guess. Well, it doesn't really matter, to be honest. Maybe I'm just nitpicking here.
I was interested in the Party Management and Status Management that were now listed in the Special Abilities and also the Search and Tracking function which had now been added to my Map raising it one level. Incidentally, Map was the only Special Ability with a roman numeral suffix.
First, I tried Status Management and after fiddling around to grasp how it works I hid all the extra Jobs and Abilities that I didn't want people to find out. It was my attempt at status forgery— I mean, a pro gamer move to hide the stats so that others couldn't see my true powers. I didn't know if this could bypass the church's status check but I had to do what I could.
The new status after the manipulation looked a lot more normal.
***Character Profile***
Name: Rio
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Race: Human
---
Level: 20
HP: 350/350
MP: 100/100
---
Job:
Primary: Swordsman
Secondary: None
---
Titles acquired:
Goblin Slayer, Beast Slayer
---
Stats:
STR: 100
DEX: 100
DEF: 100
AGI:100
VIT: 100
INT:100
Luck: 80
---
Special Abilities:
None
Abilities:
Sword Technique IV
***
Yep. This is a lot more "normal".
I had removed a lot of things, but with this, I could rest assured that I won't get into any trouble from an abnormal status. And it wasn't particularly weak either such that people might start to underestimate me and try to mug me.
I was yet to meet adventurers of this world. If they had stronger statuses than normal people, then I could just adjust mine accordingly.
While on my journey, I took out the lunch the old lady packed and ate it with the meat I had taken from that feast. I shared some with the other guys but they didn't have much of an appetite so I was still left with quite a lot which I carefully packed and kept back in the storage. Eating hot roasted meat on a journey was not bad. The problem, however, was the smell of animals which would sometimes protrude into my nose, even while I was eating.
… It wasn't the most ideal place to eat food, to be honest.
We camped our first night in a village on the way and left the next morning after replenishing our water and food and letting the bulls rest and eat. Nothing much happened on the second day as well. The journey was fairly calm. We met other carriages which seemed to be heading in the same direction as us. It seemed there was no risk of bandits or monsters popping out in the middle of the way like in fantasy novels.
On the third morning, we were riding in the morning when I noticed something.
Oh, what a fancy carriage.
From our side, a beautifully designed carriage moved at high speed pulled by strong-looking horses. Its size was fairly bigger than ours and it was accompanied by 4 horsemen in armor and weapons.
Were they escorting someone special in that carriage?
I didn't know but I assumed so.
The rest of the carriage members didn't pay that much heed to it so I guessed this must be a normal occurrence.
As I was fooling around, checking and arranging things inside of my Inventory, the bulls abruptly made a halt and I was pushed by the animals inside of cages.
Get off me, you weird-looking goat!
I pushed aside one of the smelly animals and moved forward to ask the coachman the reason for this sudden stop. After he pointed his hand in front while looking nervous, I noticed that the road ahead was blocked by a fallen tree. And not that far from the fallen tree was the fancy carriage standing still.
Oh, it's a roadblock. I guess that can happen at times. Should I help out? I feel like that won't be any trouble with my stats… Or not?
The 4 horsemen protecting that carriage were now all in front of it and pointing their weapons at something, or rather someone.
"It's the bandits."
The uncle said in a hushed voice to me.
"Bandits? Are they common around these parts?"
"Well, they rarely show up during our travels in these parts but I guess this time they were aiming for that merchant carriage. If we're lucky the people protecting them will fend them off and we could pass on. There isn't much distance left from here to the town. We can make it in about 2 hours at most. But right now we can't do much but prey. If those guys fall, they'll be sure to loot the other carriages behind of anything goods as well. Oh dear, it would be a shame to lose my precious animals. Dear gods and goddesses, please help us."
This was a rather serious matter. I was planning to just wait and watch, and try not to interfere unnecessarily, but if things went south, I would have to help them since there's a risk of bandits coming to our carriages next.
"Uncle, I'll be going ahead to check on the situation. You hide in the carriage with the animals and don't come out unless I say so."
"Wait, stop! They're bandits. They won't hesitate to kill you off if they find you a hindrance. Heck, they might kill you just for the fun of it."
Yeah, I figured they'll be that kind of people. Nobody good becomes a bandit and loots passerby people.
I opened my Map and it was filled with a bunch of red dots in front. On a related note, my map had its power increased after the level up and now I could see a much wider area around me. It must have been about 5 km in radius.
Thanks to that I had been filling a large section of the way from the village to here without doing any work.
There were 2 grey dots, that signified their distressed status, inside the carriage that must have been the passengers, and 4 blue dots, interloped with 4 white dots in front that probably signified the 4 horsemen with their rides protecting the carriage.
I moved a little to the forest and checked on the situation from a tree branch. About 20 rough-looking men had now surrounded the front of the fancy carriage. The one in the center, who seemed like their leader, was trying to frighten the guys protecting the carriage. He was asking them to give everything they had in possession if they wanted to live.