Don the Hero

Chief Mayweather arrived at the scene as quickly as he could. He hadn't been expecting their arrival for another day or so. As soon as Chief Mayweather saw the group, he could tell who was the leader. Chief Mayweather quickly went up to greet Bart respectively.

"Viscount Bart, it is an honor to have you settle here in our humble abode..." Chief Mayweather had done his research. Bart's grandfather Merlin Beach, had founded Beach town over 500 years ago when Vernia city was not even called a city. He was best friends with the founder of Vernia city and had help him make Vernia into the booming armor and weapons industry it is today. Due to his contributions, the founder who was a prince at the time had awarded his friend the title Earl of Vernia city. He also gave him a large chunk of land which has been turned into the largest industrial site in the whole city.

When Chief Mayweather discovered this he almost had a heart attack. He had gotten all the able adults in the village to prune up the place and had asked the inn owner Maggie to fancy the inn up a bit. He was about done when he heard from the kids that the expedition group had already arrived.

Chief Mayweather stared at Viscount Bart nervously. He noticed that Bart did not seem angry about the late welcome in fact, he looked quite amused.

"This is the first time I have been welcomed by a swarm of children, this is quite an interesting village for sure. " Bart said this and laughed. Chief Mayweather could only sigh.

"I am glad that you found us amusing. I am Chief Mayweather, Level E3 fire user and the appointed leader of this little village. " Chief Mayweather bowed again to show his respect. It was a tradition in the new era for people of different groups to introduce each other by revealing their strength. It showed respect and caused less deaths by people disrespecting experts. Viscount Bart approved of Chief Mayweather's introduction.

"As I said before, I am Bart Beach level E7 Earth Knight" He then turned to the black armored men who had yet to take off his helmet.

"This is Florence, my right hand man. He is level D3" Chief Mayweather Quaked. Viscount Bart then turned to the lady in a black armor robe and said

"This is my most trusted mage, Megan. She is a level D5 fire mage" Unlike Florence who stood there immovable and mysterious, Megan was a little more approachable. She nodded at the Chief and then smiled as she waved to the children. One smile killed many again. Chief Mayweather was trembling as he smiled and nodded back to Megan.

He had thought himself impressive. Other than Solomon and Teacher Zen, very few were as strong as him but compared to Viscount's group, he was just a worm.

Luckily Chief Mayweather had a thick skin and was able to recover from the blow after a few seconds. After some small talk with the Viscount, Chief Mayweather and the horde of village children gave the viscount at his party a tour of Laire.

They skipped most of the residency areas and public building and got right to the more eye catching areas. Chief Mayweather first showed them their weapon's shop. Which impressed the Viscount. Not only was Solomon the same rank as him, but he was also a metal user with high rank forging abilities.

Viscount did not hesitate to try and recruit Solomon. This request was to Viscount's surprise met with a very polite decline. Chief Mayweather let out a little smile. He knew how lazy this blacksmith was, if it were not for the fire siblings, he would rarely leave his little shop.

Chief Mayweather then showed him their martial arts Building. After Teacher Zen took Maryline as his Disciple he did not hesitate to move into the martial art building and make a home for himself in Laire village Which made Mayweather very happy.

Even though Teacher Zen was more skillful than Solomon, Viscount did not try to recruit him. one reason for this is because beach town already had lots of Martial arts teacher and one more would only cause more competition. Unlike Forgers who were always welcomed, experts needed to abide to some rules. This is why Viscount and other Nobles would usually just recruit from their own town.

The final destination in Chief Mayweather's tour was the newly made Tri village arena. Although it was going through some construction, Malcolm was more than honored at showing Viscount around. Viscount Bart was more than a little astonished with the layout. Viscount had seen many arena's in Vernia city but none of them were as unique as this one. They were meant for fights between enemies and or to impress big families but never for entertainment purposes.

It was not that no one had tried before. Entertainment fights were usually fought to the death in the dark lanes of big cities but they go out of business quickly. They would boom with popularity and soon the Guild would get a whiff of it. As soon as they do, the Arena, the main founders and all the winners of this kind would disappear without a trace.

Any none death related entertainment arena just did not interest most experts. It was seen as useless and a marketing gimmick with little pros for them. It was only in smaller communities where there were no experts that such a business plan could survive. Even then, it's not that easy to innovate a usually gruesome and sometimes illegal sport, into a fun and challenging one that even the average Joe could find fun.

Viscount Bart had to acknowledge that he was quite interested in how Malcolm had come up with such an idea. At Viscount's inquiries, Malcolm could only politely decline giving him an answer. Viscount admired Malcolm's professional attitude and confident smile. If only he knew that Malcolm's back was completely soaked in sweat. Even if the Governor of Vernia city himself asked him, he would not tell them without crying a little.

After the tour, the party finally rested in Laire's only inn. Maggie gladly greeted the guest and gave each of them a stern handshake. Due to Mayweather's pleas, Maggie tried to spruce up the place. The usually loud and mucky brown scenery was painted a new bright brown and the drunks were kicked out the day before. The liquor had just been imported and shelved. Maggie who usually sported comfortable baggy clothes, wore a nice humble dress and lightly put on some makeup.

Chief Mayweather and the kids did a double take when they saw her. With long sleeves hiding her muscled and scarred arm and a gentle arm, they could barely recognize the retired sailor. Some of the adventurers were also confused. She seemed so sweet and ladylike yet their hand was still tingling from their handshake.

Maggie gave the group a large table to rest in while she and her employees put their stuff in their rooms. The children did not hesitate to crowd around them like a mob Even their poor Chief was pushed to the side and abandoned.

"Blue hero! You look like Blue hero from the comics! Can you tell us about your expedition?" A little boy asked without restraint. A teenager right behind him gave him a big knock in the head. before bowing and apologizing to Viscount Bart.

"Very sorry Sir, Viscount Sir. My brother does not understand how the world works yet ha ha ha.." Viscount Bart only laughed at the scene.

"It's okay. I am sure everyone else here is also curious about what happened in the Dark forest." Viscount looked around at the crowd of sparkling eyes with a smile. Even that teenager was staring at him with anticipation.

Viscount turned to his party and gave a signal to one of his knights to order some drinks. The knight quickly stood up and bowed before getting some drinks and arriving back quickly. He then handed a beer to Viscount, then Florence and Megan before giving beverages for the rest of the party. After taking a sip he finally started to talk about the expedition.

"Since you guys seem to really want to hear some stories about adventures, I will happily tell you some. Now this trip to Evan Forest was a long one. Just a journey to get there took a week. Just so you know, this forest is riddled with danger. Although it hasn't been ranked yet by the guild, my Grandfather already predicted that it should be a level D forest. Although the outskirts of Evan forest is quite empty, the deeper you go, the more crowded it becomes. Our group was tasked by Vernia city to try and map out the forest for the guild. Since it was predicted that Evan forest only had 3 levels, we decided to take the job as for challenging ourselves." At this point, Viscount smile and laughed in self mockery. Some of the kids felt a little chilly at the sudden change in Bart's disposition.

"The first layer was quite empty; we only saw a few level G monsters roaming around. The second level was a huge shift from easy to hard mode. We fought monster day in and day out. There was no place safe enough to sleep so, we ended taking turns sleeping and fighting off against monsters at times. Level 3 was even worse." As he started thinking about it, he took another gulp of beer. His party faces all turned grim. Florence still wearing his helmet stood still like a statue with his arms crossed.

"The quantity of monsters decreased heavily but their level was much higher. In Level 2, most of the monsters were level F with some Level E monsters sprinkled around. In level 3 their levels were at least in the low level D's. You might not know this but as your strength level gets higher, it becomes harder to level up and each level up brings a higher boost. Level G and the beginning of Level E is easy but after Level E4, it becomes harder and harder to level up. It is even more the case for Monsters yet that crazy forest had so many Level D monsters... If we were just adventuring, then we would have already left but we were there on a mission. We continued to fight our way through strong monsters and tricky plant magic. The hardest battle was probably the one with the Level D6 6-foot Tiger striped Tarantula. It took Florence's high defense and Megan's high ranked skill, Fire ball to get out of that one. Of course I Killed the thing with my great sword and harvested it for its troubles." As Viscount said this, his party shivered at the thought of their noble salvaging the spider.

He made it sound like a quick but the actual battle was 8 gruesome hours long. They had lost 4 soldiers and 10 more were injured after that fight. Bart was so desperate that he even used some high ranked magic that he had not fully trained yet. Luckily Megan had just mastered Fireball which luckily was a weakness to the tarantula's poisonous webs. After the monster was almost dead, Bart used his strongest earth-sword skill to pierce the spider's heart. After conforming that he was dead, he mutilated every part of the spider's body and ordered the chef to cook everything that was not profitable.

As the Party remembered the maniacal laughter that Bart had when he was eating the spider's flesh, they felt a little sick. Luckily Bart did not see his party's faces as he was telling the story to the mesmerized children.

"After mapping out the general layout of level 3 we thought we had finished out job and were about to leave when we realized that we had entered a new level." The kids gasped as they heard this. One kid was a little confused.

"I thought you said the dark forest had only 3 levels..."

"Well that was what we had thought, it turned out that there was a 4th level. To be honest, we could have just left right there. We were only asked to map out the 3 levels after all. We could have told the governor about the last level and after telling him about the real horror that is Evan forest, he would send a stronger party to map out the rest. But," Viscount sighed in regret. Some of the children's heart dropped as they could guess what Bart was about to say.

"we didn't."