Having returned to my room in the guild hall, I sprawled out across my bed as I thought back to my agreement with Hunganner, and his son Frenklof (Fren - cl - off). Hunganner agreed to pay me 20 copper pieces for working the afternoon and evening shift. Of course he agreed to allow me to return to the guild hall for a meal between the two shifts, and the closing of the shop would be roughly around ten at night, when the village's patrols come through and do their last business patrol. My afternoon shift would have me working alongside him in his forge, learning how to properly melt and forge different metals alongside his son, while the night shift would have me working the store front as he and his family have their meals and relax together.
I was perfectly fine with this since I would be gaining so many copper pieces each day, and then after I closed up the shop, I would be able to make my way out to see my undead and work on crafting them proper weapons and tools. Of course, I would be starting the work tomorrow, and I still had a few months left before I began my true apprenticeship with old man Otto, so I figured I'd be able to rack up quite the fortune during now and then.
Looking at the ticking clock on my wall, I began to think back as to why Otto wanted to speak with me after dinner. After spending a few minutes of thought, I couldn't come up with a reason since I wasn't doing poorly in his class, and without knowing what exactly the reason was, I decided to put it out of my thoughts so as not to bother myself with it. I would learn in a short hour or so.
After going down and having my dinner, I eventually made my way to Otto's office. Finding him working away brewing new stamina potions to restock the guild's warehouse, I knocked on the door to announce my presence.
Turning around to glance at me, Otto gave a smile before returning his attention to the potions. "Come in Eric. I'm glad you came. I was beginning to think you had gone back out into the wild instead of coming to see me."
Hearing this, I shivered upon thinking that Otto was the pervert who had assaulted me. Before I could ask him though, I figured I should try to gauge how much he knew about me.
"Relax boy. I'm not going to hurt you or inform the guildmaster that you aren't classless… You do have a class not given by the class stone, don't you?"
I raised my eyebrow after hearing this. So, he wasn't entirely sure that I had a class, meaning he probably didn't know that I was a necromancer. Of course, he could be entirely playing this off so as to manipulate me, and as such, I figured I would play along with his game.
"What would make you think I have a class, teacher?" I gradually walked up towards him, making sure to stay out of reach, but getting close enough to make it appear as if I were watching the potions alongside him as we talked.
Giving me a sidelong glance, Otto spoke. "The fact that the guards have reported to me about you going out into the woods at night. What? Surprised to find out that they would be telling me this?"
I nodded my head in response, remaining mute to see how we would continue.
Shaking his head, Otto gave a heavy sigh before finishing his last potion and turning his attention to me. "You stupid brat. Of course they would report back to me. Especially when they see you continuously bringing in the same type of herbs each night. They would eventually start asking about why we were gathering them, and why I didn't just buy any from the market, or have an actual request placed on the quest board. You're lucky they came to me, and I was able to claim that it was a test I was having you do to become my apprentice." Otto karate chopped the top of my head as he glared at me.
Rubbing the slightly sore spot, I was surprised that he had reached me so quickly but then I remembered that he was quite old and most likely had quite a number of levels under his belt.
"Sorry about that teacher. I wanted to gain experience in finding different herbs in the area since I probably wouldn't be able to afford placing any orders on quest boards in the future." I gave a quick response trying to see if I could mislead him since he didn't appear to be sure about me having a class.
"Oi! Don't try deceiving me! The second reason why I think you have a class is because of my granddaughter." Otto glared at me deeply before he responded to me.
I was shocked, and immediately assumed that his granddaughter was the one who was stalking me. But then, when did I meet his granddaughter? "Teacher, can I ask what your granddaughter has to do with me having a class?"
"My granddaughter was unable to reach the class stone before her deadline roughly half a month ago. My daughter informed me that she had ended up awakening a class without it, one that they had never heard of before. They had reached out to me in the hopes that I could see if there were any records of her class in the guild's library; however I found nothing. But then, after what I learned of what my granddaughter went through, I realized that you, as well, had experienced the same fate as her. So boy, are you going to continue trying to deceive me or are you going to be a man and own up to the fact that you have a class and are in fact not classless?"
Hearing the old man speak about what happened to his daughter, I quickly noticed that the timeline somewhat matched since I had begun experiencing being stalked a little over half a month ago. As such, I couldn't rule out his daughter being my possible assaulter, but I had to return myself to the main focus of what Otto was trying to talk to me about.
With a deep and hearty sigh, I nodded in response to him. Nodding his head with a smile, Otto appeared to become cheery as he finished boxing his potions for storage. "Finally, the last reason was because I noticed your leveling up. I must say, I've never seen anyone level up to level 6 in only a few weeks. Care to share what class you have?"
Hearing this I released another sigh. I noticed this and realized that I had been sighing quite a bit in the last few weeks. "I'm sorry teacher, but I don't feel comfortable sharing my class."
Nodding his head in understanding, Otto picked up the box of potions, getting ready to make his way to the guild's storage room. "Well, if you ever want to run the instance dungeon Cavler's Swamp, then you can always ask my granddaughter and her friends. They will definitely keep your secret as long as you agree to keep my granddaughter's."
Hearing that I could possibly do a dungeon, I began thinking of the pros and cons of teaming up with other people. The cons were quite vast, with my party finding out that I'm a necromancer, a monster class, and possibly reporting me to the guild and authorities. While the pros was the fact that I could join a dungeon raid without anyone getting too suspicious since it would appear as if I had a party to protect me from the dungeon's monsters.
Hunganner and his family already knew that I had a class, and now Otto also knew I had a class. I figured it was only a matter of time before someone found out what exactly I was, and let's not forget about my random stalker who has also been watching me. Otto had been a great help to me the past few months, and I figured if he could vouch for his granddaughter and her friends, then I could at least see how it would go. Of course, I wouldn't schedule doing a dungeon run until at least after I had spent a day learning from Hunganner and informing them so they could prepare for the worst.
"And how would I do this teacher? It's not like I've ever met your granddaughter, let alone her friends."
With a light chuckle, Otto paused at the doorway. "But you've already met two of them. Amira and Billie. The two of them are in your morning class." Otto left the room as I paused in complete shock upon hearing this. My mind began to run as I tried placing who they were and realized that the two had been the pair that I had assumed were already a party. Knowing that two of my possible party mates were my classmates, I began thinking of how they would react to seeing my class, and after my few interactions with them, I could only think that it would end terribly.