When he came out from Amy's Bakery, he saw a large and luxurious carriage. Four majestic horses with ornate adornments stood in front of the carriage. Each of them had thick ropes tying them to the front of the carriage. A coachman sat at the carriage's front, holding the leash to the four horses. A burly man with a mustache stood beside the carriage's door.
Jack was surprised by the burly man as he knew him.
"Gruff?"
"You remember me!" Gruff exclaimed with a wide smile.
"You are hard to forget," Jack said. "What are you doing here? Aren't you taking care of the Warrior Academy?"
"Heh, I was just passing by there when you went to take your test there. I don't actually work there. Additionally, with more and more of you outworlders coming to apply for the class. It had been nothing but work there, why do I want to bother myself with that hassle? I got other more interesting things to do."
Jack was speechless, shouldn't he be glad many wanted to become warriors? "So am I one of those interesting things to do?"
"You are," he said with a wide grin. "I see you still wearing that tasset I gave you."
"Yes. It is good armor. Thank you again for it."
Gruff opened the carriage door. "Come on in. It's not polite to let the Knight Commander waits."
"Knight Commander? I thought we are going to see the royal advisor?"
Gruff gave him a ridicule smirk, "haha, you are funny. Now get in already."
"What's wrong? This letter was clearly saying it was from the royal advisor," Jack took out the letter he received last night and showed it to Gruff
Gruff didn't even look at the letter. "You are so na?ve. Do you think the royal advisor is someone you can meet just like that? Even if it was the royal advisor who invited you, you will only meet with his representative, not the royal advisor himself. Now get in the coach before I throw you in. I ain't gonna ask the third time."
Jack complied despite his irritation, and went inside the carriage. The inside was not less extravagant from its outer appearance. Its inside felt more spacious than what it looked from outside. The seats and its back pillows felt really soft, and they were much more comfortable than any seats he had found in this game world.
He heard Gruff gave the order for the coachman to depart. The burly warrior then came inside and sat opposite him. The carriage started moving soon.
Jack tried to pry information from Gruff about the purpose of this summon, but the guy was not telling. He just kept on chatting about inconsequential matters. Jack gave up on getting a clue from him and entertained his trivial chatters.
The carriage went pretty fast for such a large vehicle. Still, the journey took some time. Jack could see from the view out the window that they had entered the noble quarter. The journey was shaky as the carriage traveled through the uneven pavement, but it became much smoother as they traveled further into the noble quarter. From the direction they were traveling, he knew that they were heading towards the large castle that he could only see from the distance.
Jack was enthusiastic. The castle looked truly majestic from afar. He had no doubt it would be much more impressive from near. Too bad the coach's window was too small, he could only see a small portion of the outside. After seemingly a long time inside the confined space of the carriage, accompanied by Gruff's incessant ramblings, the carriage finally stopped. He heard several tapping sounds against the roof of the carriage.
"We have arrived," Gruff said.
He opened the door and went out. Jack eagerly stepped out of the coach following him. When his feet touch the ground, he looked around. His excited expression slowly waned, replaced by a confused expression.
They were not within the castle complex. Although the castle was nearby, Jack could only see a small portion of its side. Much of it was covered by its massive inner curtain wall and a part of Mount Thenias which the castle's keep was leaning on.
Nearby them was a tower connected to the castle's outer curtain wall. Gruff went to the door of that tower. He turned and looked at Jack who was still standing there gazing at the castle.
"What the heck are you gaping there for? Come here already."
He then turned back and continued his walk into the tower, Jack could still hear him muttering, "I swear, these outworlders were nothing but a bunch of country bumpkins."
Jack was annoyed, but he still followed the burly warrior into the tower. His lofty expectation of this invitation had truly been grounded to dust. The only thing that prevented him from just turning around, threw the letter away, and forgot about this whole summon by the kingdom's official, was that he had wasted the time to come all the way here. Might as well see what they were up to.
The tower inside was plain and simple looking, with minimum furnishing. Two guards were doing some maintenance works on the weapons by the shelf at the back of the room. Gruff went up the curving stairs by the side of the room. Jack followed behind him.
The second floor was much better furnished. There was a large desk at the center of the room. A robust man wearing ornate armor with a stern expression was sitting behind the desk. A large kingdom banner with a drawing of the head of some sort of horned beast was hung at the back of the sitting man. Jack assumed that might be the symbol of Themisphere kingdom.
There was another person sitting by the side of a wooden door, Jack recognized the person as the female warrior who was Gruff's aide when he went for the Warrior application test. The female warrior nodded at Gruff as he came up. Gruff nodded back.
The man in armor was scribbling at a paper on his desk. When he noticed Gruff and Jack coming up, he stopped and put down his quill. He looked at Gruff before turning his attention to Jack. Jack used his God-eye monocle to inspect the man.
Quintus (Special Elite Human, Knight Commander), level 60
HP: 310,000
He was stronger than Captain Salem. But he thought it made sense, his Knight Commander title did sound higher rank compared to Captain Salem's Knight Captain title.
"Are you that outworlder called Storm Wind?" The Knight Commander asked with a huff.
"He is," Gruff answered for Jack.
"I wasn't asking you," Commander Quintus uttered.
"Yet I answered," Gruff was not backing off.
The Knight Commander gave Gruff a steely stare. Jack could feel from the atmosphere that their relationship was complicated. Gruff was nonchalant, he simply sat on the chair in front of Commander Quintus' desk. He motioned for Jack to sit beside him.
Seeing Gruff's callous attitude, Jack wondered if the old warrior's status was not any lower than the Knight Commander in front of him. Jack took the offered seat.
After Jack took his seat, Commander Quintus didn't waste any time. He said, "I'm a busy man, so I will just get to the point. The royal advisor had asked me to give you an offer to join our Themisphere kingdom faction. What say you?"
Kingdom faction? Jack knew that in VR RPG games there are in-game factions. They were sort of like the official NPC organizations. Sometimes players were allowed to join these factions, they carried certain benefits as long as players contributed or done the faction quests. However, every game had differences in how they handled such factions. And since he knew nothing about this game world factions, he turned to the only one who did.
'Peniel, what can you tell me about factions. What's the benefit and is there any disadvantage if I join one?'
Peniel answered, "there are numerous factions in this world. Mostly they can be classified into three types, Kingdom factions, league faction, and neutral faction. Kingdom faction is like Themysphere here. It was a faction that governed a country. You can only join one kingdom faction. If you join a different kingdom faction after joining one, you will be considered a traitor by your previous faction. You will no longer be welcomed in the region governed by this faction and the NPC guards and soldiers of this faction will attack you on site. However, joining a kingdom faction also provides many benefits. The benefits are different for each faction so I cannot inform you much on this. Since your base of operation is in this Themysphere kingdom, it was a good idea to join their faction."
'But does that mean then that I can't visit other countries? Will I be considered an enemy by the other kingdoms?'
"No. As long as you didn't go and join the other kingdom, there should be no problem. Still, some kingdoms have a bad political relationship with others. If you visit a country that is hostile to Themysphere, then the authority there might cause you problems, since you represented the Themysphere country."
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