“You go get registered, I think I see the soothsayer over there.” Taro explained cheerfully, quickly abandoning Zach to fend for himself as he stood awkwardly in the doorway of the Hero’s Guild.
Most Hero’s Guild’s were split into two sections, an inn with a small tavern for adventurers to rest and recover in, and a section for administration, handing in quests, redeeming rewards and anything that required someone to do boring paperwork.
The Porus Hero’s Guild had the administrative section just by the entrance. A hard stone floor took up around a quarter of the floor space and designated it as the administration area while a simple wooden floor was for the designated Inn space.
Despite this clear distinction it was a particularly busy day and many assorted adventurers, mercenaries and self-proclaimed heroes were spilling out into the administration area, all chatting loudly and drinking heavily.
Zach felt like he was in an overpriced nightclub as he saw Taro disappear into the crowd and groaned, he wasn’t a fan of these overcrowded social events, even in this fantasy world.
There were all sorts of people in the Hero’s guild, most were just powerful individuals who funded their personal projects with whatever missions were available in whatever Hero’s guild they happened to be near that day.
The name Hero was more of an aspiration for the guild than a proper descriptor, but that was the name it had been stuck with for nearly 2000 years now ever since the first Hero founded the Guild.
It was probably the only institution other than the Adamonic Church that had branches in every continent. Though due to being an entirely secular organization the Guild was allowed to operate in lands that violently rejected the Church.
As such it was where travellers from all corners of the planet found themselves. It was also one of the few organizations that would as equally accept a Human into its ranks as it would an Elf, Dwarf, Goblin, Dhampir, Beastkin and everything in between.
However despite the international and multi-racial nature of the Hero’s Guild, there were still certain expectations for who you’d find where. In the heart of Furinch, Elves, Humans and the occasional Beastkin was all you would normally expect.
So the small groups of people stopped talking as they noticed the odd blue skinned man with metal hands that was Zach, they stared as the man walked by to the receptionist's desk. The short woman looked up and gave Zach a wide and naturally friendly smile as she stopped writing her report to greet him. She was trained by the guild to be accommodating to everyone, regardless of their appearance. This stopped Zach in his tracks at how big and natural her… smile was.
“Hi there! What can I do for ya?” Dawn asked in her usual cheery tone. Despite her important role in handling the requests of people from every corner of the planet, the guild had hired her for the reason they hired most receptionists. She was heavily endowed eye candy for adventurers to gawk at wherever in the world they might find themselves, after all it was the first hero’s decrees when establishing the guild.
“H-H-Hi, I’d like to join, this, thing.” Zach stammered awkwardly, the beaming receptionist, Dawn, looking up at the strange looking man nodded. She was a naturally smiley woman, a naturally bubbly and bouncy personality, a really full and well rounded woman, the kind of woman you couldn’t grab fully in your hands but loved to feel regardless.
Personality wise of course.
“Absolutely! Can I get your name, species, classes, and level?” Dawn asked pleasantly, grabbing some paper work from beneath the counter, Zach trying not to stare at the natural bounce of her chest.
“Uhhh, just one minute.” Zach turned 180 degrees to where Taro had just been standing, only to see that he’d been dragged off into a drinking competition by some of the rowdy adventurers.
“H-hey! I’m just looking for the Soothsayer!” Taro begged as he had a bottle shoved into his face.
“Not a chance! Yer tellin’s us how you’z defeated the demon lord!” A grizzly looking beastkin warrior with the ears of a bear atop his head.
“Yea! You’s can find em later! We’s gotta know now!” A short and lithe halfling demanded as he jumped on top of the large beastkins shoulder before being pushed off. Taro sighed and took a drink to try and get them off his back.
Zach turned around another 180 degrees to face Dawn again, and lowered himself down to her level to whisper in her ear.
“Look I’m new around here, how do I know my class and level?” Zach asked in a hushed voice, he nearly asked how to learn his species but managed to stop himself from sounding like a complete psychopath.
Though Dawn’s smile dimmed slightly as she gave Zach a concerned and confused look.
“You should just be able to open your inventory… OH! I know!” Dawn remarked suddenly getting an idea as to what was happening.
“You must be from Wonga right? You guys don’t have inventories like that. Don’t worry it’s super easy! Just imagine a little name and number that represents your skills and the guild will do the rest!” Dawn explained helpfully, Zach just nodding along cluelessly.
“Aha, yeah… yeah Wonga. That’s me. Wonganite… Wongstralian? Wongese?” Zach muttered to himself before shaking his head and focusing on imagining his inventory with an information section.
“I mean I already imagined it as a PC so this can’t be a crazy step up.” Zach thought to himself as he willed the menu into existence.
Its UI was identical to the folders system but with a new window, a massive list of stats that went into a concerning amount of detail.
Hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, bicep size, shoulder width, fat percentage, groin hardness…
Zach quickly closed the inappropriate tabs before turning back to Dawn, who looked to the side blushing slightly.
“I-If you could just tell me your name, species, classes and level please?” Dawn repeated, quickly returning to a professional tone of voice after a slight stumble.
“Y-yeah I’m uh, Zach, Zachery Macdonald, I’m uh… a… Homunculus?” Zach said, surprised at the answer. The menu seemed accurate, it displayed his name as Zachery despite having the Demon Lord’s body, so he could only assume that his physical body was that of a Homunculus.
“Yes?” Dawn prompted.
“Oh right, I’m a level 99 Spellblade.” Zach laughed. Dawn blinked as she looked at Zach, then looked at his see through menu to confirm that it was in fact accurate. She wondered for a moment if he was faking it, but that would require already being a level 80 magic caster to override the effects of the guild’s automagic status detection.
“I-I see, well under guild rules I can’t give you any rank higher than silver to start with.” Dawn explained, shocked at what such a powerful warrior was doing only now signing up to the Hero’s Guild.
“Is he actually from the Demon Realm? Maybe he’s deserted the Demon Army?!” Dawn thought suddenly panicking, looking at the blue skinned and silver haired man. She turned away, quickly inscribing a guild tag for the strange man and handing it to him, waiving the joining fee just to get rid of him quicker.
“If you have any problems don’t hesitate to ask me, the small jobs board just outside, the higher ranked jobs are just to the wall there!” Dawn explained quickly, making her leave the second she finished her explanation, leaving Zach holding his new Hero’s Guild tag confused.
“Thanks…” He muttered as he looked around for Taro, seeing he had gotten fully invested into telling the tale of how he slayed the Demon Lord to the ever growing crowd.
With a groan Zach decided to try and buy a drink and listen in, grabbing his pouch of coin he walked over to where he’d seen people getting drinks in the Inn section of the Hero’s Guild. Once he arrived he didn’t see anyone until he looked behind the counter where could see was a pair of grey striped cat ears bouncing atop a head of some long luscious grey hair. Throwing his pouch of coins onto the counter he coughed to try and get the woman’s attention.
“Just a minute, just a minute!” Autumn, the beastkin barmaid, shouted from beneath the counter as she struggled to find more glasses for the ever growing crowd.
“I can't believe every time I’m at the bar we get some Myhtil ranked showboat to deal with… And of course today it’s the world’s biggest showboat!” Autumn grumbled to herself as she grabbed an arm full of glasses that hadn’t seen the light of day for years. With all the glasses in hand she turned around, stood up and closed the cabinet door with her long tail before dumping the glasses on the counter behind her. Then finally turning back around to Zach, the beastkin woman jumped back in shock.
“Howdy.” Zach said nonchalantly.
Autumn froze, her tail standing on edge. The man was drenched in the scent of Demon Magic.
Zach’s usual smile faded as he let out a dejected sigh and hung his head low.
“How much will this get me?” Zach asked, clearly being in the body of the Demon Lord was going to cause more problems than he’d anticipated.
Autumn sniffed again, he stunk of demon but his demeanour and attitude was definitely human.
“Sorry, Beastkin instincts, you reek of Demon Magic… I hope that’s not because you’re a demon.” Autumn laughed nervously, eyes darting down to the pouch of coins, eyes widening as she started counting coins. It was filled with Adamance, Mythril and Gold coins, enough to buy half the buildings on Porus’ main street.
“But a very, very handsome demon if you are one…” Autumn muttered as she kicked into flirtation mode.
Zach looked up and laughed slightly.
“Well this must be a dodgy harem Isekai, who am I to say no to the call?” Zach thought as a smirk grew on his face.
“Really? Good to know I guess.” Zach said, still clueless that Autumn was staring at his pouch of coins.
“Y-yeah… Hey there’s this GREAT bathhouse just down Main Boulevard, off on Incompret Street, tell them Autumn sent’cha and they’ll give you a great discount! Good friends of mine!” Autumn stumbled, she hadn’t seen this much money in her life, even in the Hero’s Guild’s vault and this idiot was throwing it around like it was nothing.
It was going to be easy pickings for the rest of her tribe.
“Oh yeah? Any cute cat girls like you there?” Zach asked flirtatiously. Autumn visibly cringed and gagged as Zach leant in, he really was drenched in Demonic Magic that offended her sensitive Beastkin nose.
“After you wash…” Autumn gagged.
“Not a problem! I’ll be back soon!” Zach proclaimed as he grabbed the bag of coins and threw it back into his odd looking inventory.
“It’s Autumn by the way.” Autumn sighed as she waved him goodbye.
“Alright Autumn let’s call it a date!” Zach declared snapping his fingers, Autumn stifled a groan as he left.
“Yo Cedrick I’ll catch you later.” Zach shouted from the edge of the crowd where Cedrick was talking about the tale of his epic journey, having become fully intoxicated from all the drinks everyone was buying for him.
“WHERE I FOUGHT THE EVIL KING IN THE PIN STRIPES! I FREED THE ISLAND FROM THE TYRANT AND THEN I-” Taro shouted drunkenly to the equally drunk and cheering crowd. Zach shrugged and made his merry way to this bathhouse, smirking to himself all the while.
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“Of course they got animal people here, super forward too, just what I want. Wash off the demon smell and then it’s time to get some action!” Zach thought deviously, why should Taro be the only one having fun right?
With a skip in his step he walked through the main street of Porus. The main street of Porus was the only place in the city where aristocrats, commoners, merchants, adventurers and horse drawn carriages walked together, even then the blue skinned man with silver hands stuck out like a sore thumb.
It was easy enough to spot the bathhouse, it was a brightly lit up and only a somewhat seedy looking establishment. Zach first spotted the large illuminated letters down one of the many small roads that shot off from the main street, though it was clearly on the side of town that wasn’t particularly well off.
Zach noted how people were avoiding Incompret Street, it was a dingy ally with an ominous aura to it, very much the place petty criminals would congregate.
“Meh, it’s not like I have anything in my pockets. Even if there’s a way to pickpocket from an inventory I have to imagine the Demon Lord has some special ability keeping him safe.” Zach thought to himself as he walked into the dingy alley with hardly a care in the world other than not accidentally breaking anything again.
Zach noted a small hand written sign for a bathhouse pointing further into the alleyway which he followed until he saw a mean looking beastkin standing outside a door. He was as tall as Zach and twice as wide with a nasty spattering of scars on his arms.
Zach attempted to walk in without saying anything but the bouncer quickly stepped in front of the door.
“What business you got with us?” The bouncer, a dog-like Beastkin named Rough, growled.
Zach groaned, figuring it was whatever weird stench he had on him.
“Autumn sent me here, said I needed to clean up.” Zach explained with a sly smirk.
“OH! Why didn’tcha say so! Get in there!” Rough exclaimed, his stern face suddenly lighting up as his dog ears rose and tail wagged in excitement.
Autumn only ever sent big targets their way afterall, they were going to be eating well tonight.
Zach entered the poorly lit up establishment, though his eyes could still see clear as day revealing the slight state of disrepair the bathhouse was in.
“Is this like a family run thing or something? Man Autumn’s family must be dirt poor, no wonder she said I should come over, they need the business.” Zach thought as he kicked his boots off at the entrance as Rough attempted to be inviting to their new guest.
“H-Hello! Autumn’s friend, yes?” The short squeaky woman with large mouse ears asked anxiously.
“Yep, that's me! You got mates rates here yea?” Zach asked, opening his inventory and throwing his pouch of gold onto the counter without a care in the world. The mousy woman cocked her head but just nodded along.
“Y-yep! Absolutely!” The woman exclaimed as she quickly grabbed a handful of coins, eyes dashing between the man and the money to see if he started questioning anything.
1 gold coin, nothing.
2 gold coins, nothing.
5 gold coins, a slight eye brow raise.
“W-would you like the full massage and sauna treatment? It’s half off! Only 6 coins total!” The mousy woman stammered, trying to ease the suspicion of the man who stunk of demonic energy.
Zach laughed, the small woman had barely made a dent in Zach’s very full sack of coins.
“Well if it’s half off how can I say no?” Zach shrugged, letting the mousy woman grab the final coin before getting his sack back in its inventory.
“Besides, it only costs 6 of the grayish blue looking coins, that can’t be worth too much.” Zach contemplated, despite how dodgy the situation was, the worst that was going to happen was him losing 6 of his 100’s of coins of indeterminate value.
“Just this way! We’ll call you when we’ve prepared!” The mousy woman squeaked, pointing to a lit up rock pool near the back of the building, the bubbling pool of hot water was fully enclosed and clearly the cause of the slightly moldy building.
“Yeesh, they need a way better doorman and cleaner no wonder they’re not getting any business.” Zach thought as he kicked off his clothes in the small changing room, leaving only his underwear on he jumped into the hot water and much like the sauna at the Demon Lord’s castle he didn’t feel the heat much further than a very slight warmness.
As he relaxed he heard the patter of steps approach, turning back he saw another beastkin woman, she had purple hair, mandibiles, antennae and mantis like claws for hands.
Her red eyes widened in surprise, the Insectoid Beastkin needed to think quickly.
“Just passing through.” The insectoid woman said bluntly. Zach quickly looked away.
“Sorry.” Zach apologised, unsure what he’d done wrong as he awkwardly tried to look forward and at the musty wall.
The insectoid woman quickly scuttled to the backroom where the rest of her Tribe was watching with baited breath, slamming the door shut as she took a deep breath, her face remaining neutral still.
“What happened?!” The mousy woman, Forest, asked anxiously in a hushed voice.
Zach turned his head around, unsubtly trying to listen in. Rough’s face dropped as he pointed to the Insectoid woman named Purple, placing his large finger over his lips to indicate her to be quiet.
“Oh I accidentally walked into the wrong room, silly me.” Purple said her performance was stunted but it was enough to alleviate Zach’s suspicion.
Silently Forest and Rough sighed as they switched to miming out their plan.
Rough pointed to Purple’s mandibles, then at Zach, shrugging his shoulders to indicate it was a question.
Purple shook her head.
Forest grabbed her large mouse ears as she started to pace around from the stress.
Suddenly she got an idea and ran off to another room.
Rough looked at Purple and shrugged before following her.
Forest was frantically throwing the tribes various items behind their makeshift wardrobe, which was really just a curtain draped across the room to split it in half.
Rough looked utterly baffled, Purple however got the idea and played along.
“Wow, you sure are doing a great job preparing the message room, I’m sure it will be the best message ever.” Purple said in a monotone and utterly unconvincing tone of voice.
Unconvincing to anyone but Zach anyway, who rubbed his metallic hands together giddily, wondering what kind of monster girl he’d be greeted with next.
Rough suddenly got the idea, tail wagging in excitement as he grabbed his tools that had been unceremoniously dumped on the other side of the curtain.
If they couldn’t sneak up on him to knock him out, they could just let him come to them and be ‘massaged’ with a ‘special ointment’ instead.
Forest finished with what meagre decorations she could find to give the illusion of a somewhat legitimate massage parlour, with a couple of candles strewn around a singular bed she’d raised up with some planks and hastily joined together.
Forest pointed towards Purple aggressively as she ran off to their so-called hot spring. Much like the entire establishment it was a scam, an abandoned building they’d been squatting in long enough that the guards they bribed to not patrol down Incompret Street forgot to tell new guards about the bribes up for grabs.
Zach was curious enough to see the glowing rock located at the bottom of the spring, the hastily patched together hole that was fed through sewer water being pumped from underground and purified through the phoenix egg the tribe had been ‘borrowing’.
“W-w-we’ve prepared your massage sir! So sorry for the interruption earlier! Our masseuse is new and-”
“Oh nah don’t worry about it, s’all good.” Zach shrugged as he got up and grabbed a towel, Forest not being able to help but raise an eyebrow at why he’d kept his underwear on.
“Well then… right this way.” Forest squeaked, bowing and pointing to the direction of the “massage table”, which was just through the main room and into the previously closed off room behind the counter.
“Odd place for it.” Zach remarked, causing Forest to laugh awkwardly.
“Alright if this is a scam then I’ve probably wasted a bit of money, whatever I got loads left. If it’s the price for the darling Autumn then so be it. May as well get my money's worth while I’m here." Zach shrugged.
“Well you see this is actually a recently renovated place and we’re still in the process of remodeling. That's why everything is a bit messy so I deeply apologise for all of that and I hope you can forgive us for the-” Forest explained panicking that their cash cow had caught on.
Zach stopped listening to the squeaky voiced woman and entered the backroom, where a singular message table was located in the middle of a somewhat dry room lit with candles, with a velvet curtain cutting the room in half, and the insectoid woman, Purple standing motionlessly by the table.
“Welcome.” She said with the enthusiasm of a fast food worker at 2am.
“Oh hey you from before.” Zach said, looking at her clawed fingers didn’t look ideal for a massage, but considering his indestructible body they’d probably have a better chance than the mousy woman standing besides him. Laying down face first on the makeshift massage table, Rough poked his eye out from behind the curtain, his pick pocketing tool belt on and sword at the ready.
Inventory pick pocketing was a complicated process, but it required the target to be unconscious and still alive. Typically Purple would use her poison to paralyse their targets and have either Rough or Forest forcefully unlock their inventories using a variety of magical doohickies that they half understood.
The sword was there in case Zach woke up.
“Ready when you are.” Zach exclaimed as he rolled his shoulders.
Purple grabbed the vial of the most paralytic poison they had in their junk pile and doused her claws in it, her natural poison immunity keeping her from feeling the worst of the effects of it.
Quickly she started performing what she thought a message would be like, with Zach barely noticing it.
“Hey feel free to dig real deep, I’m kinda a tough guy.” Zach smirked as he closed his eyes, waiting to feel something in his back.
So Purple started pushing into Zach’s back with all her might, absolutely soaking him in enough of the paralytic poison to kill most adventurers.
Zach turned his head around, to see if she had actually been doing anything, only to be greeted with her desperately trying to now slash his back with her increasingly stiff fingers.
“Yeah that, I’m starting to feel something.” Zach said with a laugh, closing his eyes and enjoying what felt like light tingles on his back.
Purple’s blank face started to twist as the frustration mounted, Rough noticed this and quickly stepped in, deciding this required a rougher touch.
Cracking his knuckles, Rough started slashing at Zach’s back with the full strength his years in the underground fight scene provided him.
“There we go!” Zach exclaimed as he felt some tension in his neck go away from the gentle but firm strikes he felt. Rough let out a growl and quickly switched to his sword, hitting Zach’s back with a full strike attack.
“Trying to kill me and rob me? Man Autumn has some nasty friends. Whatever, I'm finally starting to feel something so I can’t complain.” Zach thought as he let himself relax while being attacked by a man in a bloodied frenzy.
A loud crack sound stopped Rough’s flurry, looking at his sword he saw that the blade had snapped in half.
The three scammers looked at each other in bewilderment.
“Is that it?” Zach asked smugly, not moving from his spot.
“Just one moment sir. You seem to require more specialist equipment.” Purple explained, the frustration lining her voice as she grabbed another sword for the utterly baffled Rough.
Purple rolled her fingers in the air and pointed towards Zach aggressively before making a slicing motion at her throat.
Rough nodded slowly, they were going to keep attacking him until Rough or Zach broke.
And so the next hour consisted of Rough attacking Zach with as much power as he could muster, breaking a sword, and Purple throwing him another one so the onslaught wouldn’t end, Forest desperately trying to keep the abandoned swords from hitting the ground and hiding them as they were discarded by Rough.
All the while Zach felt the stiffness practically melt away as he was gently caressed by what he decided to imagine were Purple’s claws, despite the pile of broken swords forming on his peripheral vision.
…
“A-Autumn, Didsh you shee Zach?” Taro asked drunkenly as he tried to stand up straight, using the bar counter to support himself.
“Oh yeah! We’re going on a little date, such a cutie. He’s just cleaning up, you'll see him later~” Autumn cooed as she handed Taro another drink.
“Wah? But I didn’t ashk for thish?” Taro asked, confused before being dragged back to the party by one of the boisterous dwarves wanting to hear more about his time in the Dwarven mountains.
“That creep is travelling with the Hero? Just my luck. Whatever, we’re gonna ditch this town soon as we get the money.” Autumn thought with a malicious giggle.
“Oi! Autumn Shift’s over! Get outta here so I don’t gotta pay you over time.” The guild manager shouted from the back office.
“Oh but my dearest, most favouriteist manager! I could so use the overtime pay~!” Autumn cooed as she waved away the customer that was standing behind Taro and walked to the back.
“You’re already bleeding us dry. Get outta here.” The elven manager grunted angrily as he clocked off Autumn from the schedule. Autumn walked through the back office and saw that Dawn was waiting for her by the back entrance, she quickly grabbed her coat to cover up her guild uniform and joined her co-worker.
“Hey! I heard from one of the other girls you were flirting with that Zach guy!” Dawn exclaimed, a mixture of shock and excitement coming through her voice.
“Oh absolutely, I mean did you see his… Shoulders.” Autumn said, quickly cutting herself off before saying she was just interested in his money.
“But you know he's a homunculus right?!” Dawn asked incredulously as the pair walked through the back alley and back onto the main street.
“Nope, can’t say I’m particularly picky either.” Autumn purred as she made her way to her apartment to get changed for her date.
“You always go after the weirdest dudes Autumn.” Dawn sighed as she walked the other direction to go get dinner before her second shift at the guild.
“Needs must hun, needs must.” Autumn shouted back sarcastically.
Who'd YOU go on a date with?
