Once they get out of the house coin in hand, they finally rejoiced. "Old man acting as if we didn't do him the favor." Damian was tired of low ranking jobs already. They walked through the crowd one last time on their way out. On the way out, they saw Charles.
He was in a crowd celebrating. The people didn't have much, but they began giving out little wooden toys to the children, the air wafted with the smell of fresh dinners from almost every home in the entire village being cooked all at once.
"We are not staying for food. " Andrew said it before Damian could ask. "You guys are so lame, we deserve it!" As they passed Charles, he was juggling rocks to impress the locals.
He would've kept it that way if all attention wasn't drawn from him to those passersby.
"The adventurers!" From the moment someone in the crowd shouted that it was over.
The festivities still happened, but these were village celebraties. "Oh great." Charles said, before walking over to them.
'Let's stir up the crowd one last time before their departure.' "What is the name of our group here? The people want to know the names of their saviors?" "Were the torchbearers" Donnie said, reluctantly embracing the name before Damian said it in a more embarrassing manner.
"An….Interesting name! Give it up for the torchbearers, saviors of the hayridge village!"
talking one last look at these faces, Chase smiled.
'This is how it should be. Helping people and connecting with the people a care for.'
Walking away, all of them came to a realization. "We didn't plan for a carriage to get here."
Nobody said it but now that they were at the edge of the village they were all thinking it.
As they stood on the road waiting for a carriage to pass by, Donny walked up to Chase.
"Listen, I know that we needed to earn our own things back there, but that can't happen ever again. People are brutal and if they know you are weak, mentally or physically then they will extort you.
"Yeah, my bad" Chase knew it was dumb when he did it. And they had to be told outright. Imagine someone who didn't care about being transparent, sending them on a quest that actually could get them killed if they were careless?
Chase brought his gaze to Damian and Andrew "I'm talking to everyone. I promise that if I even catch a glimpse of foul play in any way that puts our lives at risk, the person responds will die and we will leave, collateral be damned."
Damian heard that and his face turned serious beneath the helmet. "Likewise, especially with our "condition" we gotta protect our own"
Andrew nodded in agreement.
He simply had no choice but to put his teammates above others. Hooves clacking in the distance was heard. "And it looks like we have our ride" Andrew said in excitement.
Getting back to mint stone village, everyone was tired. But going from the depressing and poor hayridge to the vibrancy of mint stone was always a plus.
Once they got back into the guild building
The receptionist looked at them confused
"What took you so long?" "Oh boy I'd love to tell, but the Torchbearers are quite tired" Damian said with the most confidence.
It took everything in her power not to snicker, she looked to Donny to see if he approved only to see him avoiding her gaze. It was definitely true.
Half laughing, she pointed to the rooms "Okay torchbearers hand me a silver and you can be on your way to a room"
"Ma'am, can we take a combat aptitude test next week?" "Of course you can!!" "Cool, one room please"
Chase wanted to get a good feel of what his system could do before he started really going
To the big leagues.