The grand gates of Brightcrest stood wide open, a welcoming arch of white stone and fluttering green banners. As Keldric and his companions stepped from the dirt road onto the clean cobblestone within, the city came alive. The air, thick with the scent of baked bread, roasting meat, and hundreds of tightly packed lives, buzzed with the chatter of merchants and the clang of a distant blacksmith's hammer. Tall, timber-framed houses leaned over the bustling street, their windows looking down on a river of people flowing through the city's main artery. It was a perfect, textbook fantasy city.
Before Keldric could fully soak it in, Chad let out a frustrated groan. "Bro, I'm fading," he declared, clutching his skeletal stomach. "The catabolic state is setting in. I need protein, like, now. My gains are literally wasting away." His gaze locked onto a stall grilling thick, sizzling sausages. "Yes. Protein. That'll do."
He started marching towards it, but Keldric jumped in his path. "Whoa, hold on! You need to eat?"
Chad looked at him, bewildered. "How do you think muscles are built, bro? You gotta feed the machine!"
"He is referring, in his brutishly simplistic way, to the First Law of Thermodynamics," Specs interjected, polishing his glasses. "Energy cannot be created or destroyed, merely transferred. Our kinetic and metaphysical output requires a corresponding energy input. To put it in terms you might understand: no food, no function."
"YOU'RE ALL BONES!" Keldric yelled, gesturing wildly at them. "WHERE DOES IT EVEN GO?!"
Chad just flexed. "Into the gains, bro. Obviously." Specs blinked, adjusting his bow tie. "Ignore him. It goes into the mouth. We chew, we swallow, and voila. Eaten. The metaphysical process that converts the matter into energy post-swallowing is a fascinating, if poorly understood, field of study."
Before Keldric could argue with the logistical nightmare of a skeleton's digestive system, a booming voice cut through his thoughts. "Yo! Meat man! Give me ten of your highest-protein meat logs!" he bellowed at the vendor, before turning and pointing a thumb-bone at Keldric. "My boy Keldric's got the cash."
The sausage vendor, a large man with a magnificent moustache, eyed Chad, then Keldric. "Ten sausages? Ambitious, I see. That'll be thirty coppers."
The vendor looked at Keldric, who was now frozen in place. The entire party's expectant gazes were on him. Waiting. He hastily checked his pockets. Empty. He even checked his System Inventory. Nothing.
The cold dread of the broke Isekai protagonist washed over him. Crap. No starter funds. WHAT F@#$ING ISEKAI DOESN'T GIVE THE PROTAGONIST A STARTER FUND?!
Grabbed Bones by his shoulders. Voice a low hiss. "Bones. Money. Now. Please tell me you have some."
"Of course, Mr. Hero!" Bones said with unwavering confidence. Reached into a small pouch Keldric had never seen before and proudly produced the money: a crudely drawn crayon picture of a smiling sun giving a thumbs-up. The words 'One Hero Coupon! Good for one 'Act of Heroism' or a tasty snack!' written on it. "I made it myself!"
Keldric stared at the supposed 'money', his soul leaving his body. He looked desperately at the others. "Ok... Anyone else? Please? With real money?"
Nothing but empty sockets peering at him. This can't be happening right now! We just entered the city and we have already run into a problem!
"Darling, step back," Strut scoffed from her chaise lounge. "One does not carry currency. When one is the currency. Now watch this." She struck a dramatic pose, offering the vendor what she clearly believed was a dazzling, payment-worthy smile. "My social influence should be more than enough to acquire this... street meat."
The vendor crossed his arms, his magnificent moustache twitching with annoyance. "That's nice, lady, but my stall takes coin, not poses. You got thirty coppers, or are you just wasting my time?"
Strut's jaw dropped. "Do you even know who I am?!" she hissed. Offended.
The sausage vendor stared blankly at her, his magnificent moustache unmoving. "I don't care who you are, lady. My stall serves heroes, villains, and everyone in between, so long as they pay. In coin."
Snap and Serve, who had been straining under the weight of the chaise lounge, let out tiny, synchronised hisses of outrage. "The audacity!" Snap whispered furiously. "How dare he!" Serve added, rattling a fist, though the threat was somewhat undermined by the fact he was visibly struggling not to drop his side of the lounge.
"I am prepared to offer a brief but enlightening lecture on the optimal thermochemical reactions for sausage preparation," Specs offered, adjusting his bow tie. "My thesis on the Maillard reaction's application in open-flame cooking would surely be worth at least one of your food items."
"No! No lectures!" Keldric cut in, his voice cracking with desperation. Glancing from Strut's failed attempt at celebrity endorsement, to Specs's offer of payment via pedantry, and finally down to the crayon drawing in Bones's hand. It was a smiling sun. It was also his only remaining option. Oh, what the hell. It can't get any more humiliating than this.
He turned back to the vendor, holding out the Hero Coupon with a pained, apologetic grimace. "Look, I know this is... unconventional," he said, the words feeling like ash in his mouth. "But it's sort of all we have right now. Is there any chance...?"
The vendor stared at the coupon, then at the bizarre skeletons. His eye twitched. "Are you lot trying to be funny?"
"Funny?" Keldric squeaked. "Of course not. We would never."
The vendor had heard enough. "Right, out! All of you! No weirdos, no freeloaders, and no 'Hero Coupons' at my stall!"
Shoved away from the stall and thoroughly humiliated, Keldric looked at his team. A collective force of nature that operated on logic entirely alien to his new reality.
Chad leaned in, whispering conspiratorially. "Bro, just say the word. I'll knock him out and we can just take the sausages. He's nothing but bones compared to me, anyway."
Keldric stared at Chad for what felt like an eternity before replying, his voice deadpan. "Just bones, you say..."
He closed his eyes. Mind racing. Okay. Total failure. No money. No food. What's the protocol here? What does every broke, Level 1 Isekai protagonist do when they hit rock bottom in the first city? His [Isekai Intuition] flared to life, not as a prompt, but as a deep, instinctual certainty dredged up from a thousand stories. The Adventurer's Guild. Of course. It's the universal source of starter quests, cash flow, and exposition. The solution was right there the whole time.
He knew, with absolute certainty, what they had to do first. But first, he had to figure out where "there" was. He spotted a city guard standing by a corner, looking bored but official in his green and gold-trimmed uniform.
"Excuse me," Keldric said, approaching the guard cautiously. The guard's eyes widened slightly as the rest of Keldric's entourage came into view, but he remained professional, if a little tense. "Could you point us towards the Adventurer's Guild?"
The guard's gaze darted from Chad's flexing to Strut's chaise lounge, then lingered on Specs's unnervingly academic stare. "Uh... straight down the main road," he said slowly, as if speaking to a child holding an active explosive. "Biggest building on the town square. Two-storey oak doors. You... you can't miss it."
"Thank you," Keldric said, grabbing Bones by the shoulder and steering the group away before the guard decided to call for backup.
The journey to the Guild Hall was a chaotic walking tour of Brightcrest. As they navigated the crowded street, Keldric felt like he was trying to herd a group of hyperactive orange cats.
Each one of his companions found something new to fixate on, their personalities pulling them in five different directions at once.
"Darlings, stop!" Strut's voice filled with a rare, breathless awe. She pointed a dramatic finger at an elegant shop with a mannequin dressed in a shimmering, dark purple gown. "Is that... void-silk chiffon? The way it drapes is simply divine! An absolute masterpiece! I must see it up close! I need to know who the designer is!" She motioned for Snap and Serve to proceed towards the entrance.
Keldric quickly stepped in their way. "Strut, no. We don't have time. Or money," he added under his breath.
"But darling, it's art!" she protested, genuinely heartbroken.
"Bro! Look!" Chad bellowed, completely ignoring Strut's fashion crisis. He was pointing at the City Watch barracks, where several guards were training in a dusty yard. His eyes were wide with genuine excitement. "Look at the size of that log they're using for strength training! So raw! So functional! Can we go check it out? I wanna see what their max reps are!"
"No!" Keldric said, now physically holding Chad back by the arm. "We have a goal!"
"Fascinating!" Specs muttered, having stopped dead in his tracks to peer at a magically glowing street lamp. Completely oblivious to his surroundings. "A stabilized mana-conduit system for public illumination! The crystalline matrix they're using to diffuse the light is an elegant, if somewhat dated, design! I've only ever read about this model in 'Luminomancy for the Masses, Third Edition'! To see one in person... what a find!"
While Specs was lost in academic bliss, Linkin pulled his hood down further, trying to make himself smaller as a group of laughing children ran past. "So many people... so many loud, cheerful thoughts..." he muttered, shrinking away from the joyous sounds of the city. "The sheer, overwhelming... positivity. It's oppressive."
Bones, meanwhile, remained a beacon of pure, heroic wonder, untroubled by the emotional turmoil of his siblings. "Look, Mr. Hero! A notice board! I bet it's filled with quests from people who need our help!"
Keldric just sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. One wants to shop, one wants to lift weights, one is having a nerd-out over a lamp, and one is being actively harmed by happiness. And I'm the one who has to get them all to the same building. This is impossible!
They finally arrived at the town square, a vast, open space with a grand fountain at its centre. And there it was. The Guild Hall. It was even more magnificent than Keldric had imagined. A massive, two-storey timber and stone building with huge oak doors, upon which was carved an intricate crest of a crossed sword and shield. The sounds of clanking armour, hearty laughter, and the occasional drunken shanty spilled out into the square. It was the heart of the adventurer world.
This is it, Keldric thought, a flicker of hope returning. The place where legends begin. My legend. Hopefully.
"Okay, team," Keldric said, trying to sound like a leader. "Let's go in, sign up with an existing guild for now, get our bearings, and take the easiest quest on the board."
"Join another guild?" Bones objected immediately, planting his tiny feet firmly on the cobblestone. "Mr. Hero, we are the heroes! Heroes don't join guilds; they lead them! We must forge our own legend, under our own banner!"
"Yeah, bro!" Chad agreed, pounding a fist into his palm. "We can't be held back by some other guild's suboptimal training regimen! We need our own brand! The 'Swole Skulls' or something!"
"Obviously, darling," Strut chimed in. "We can't have our brand diluted by associating with ruffians who don't understand personal aesthetics. Our guild needs a name that conveys elegance and power."
"Logically, forming our own entity allows for complete operational and methodological autonomy," Specs added.
Keldric looked at them. He was outvoted. Of course he was. He sighed. "Right. Why do the easy thing when we can do the ridiculously complicated thing? What was I thinking..."
He pushed open the heavy oak doors and led his chaotic troupe inside. The main hall was a sprawling, noisy tavern filled with adventurers of every shape and size.
They ignored the stares and made their way to the large reception desk at the far end.
A woman with sharp features and an expression of extreme boredom looked up from her paperwork. "Help you?"
"Uh, yes," Keldric said, stepping forward. "We'd like to... register a new guild."
The woman's eyes scanned their group, from Keldric to Bones, up to Chad, over to Specs, and finally lingering on Strut's chaise lounge with an unblinking, deadpan gaze. She didn't even seem surprised. "Is this your entire founding party?"
"Yes!" Bones and Chad said in unison.
The woman sighed, a sound that carried the weight of a thousand failed adventuring parties. She tapped a specific line on a large, leather-bound rulebook on her desk. "Can't."
"What do you mean, can't?" Keldric asked.
"Does no one around here read the notice board... As per the new Guild Formation & Diversity Charter, ratified last month by the Merchant Council," she recited in a monotone voice, "Anyone applying for a guild in Brightcrest must have at least two registered human members, one male and one female, to ensure 'socio-demographic harmony and balanced representation'."
She looked up, her bored eyes meeting Keldric's. "Skeletons, for tax and census purposes, do not count towards that quota."
Why can't anything just go my way for once!
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