CH216

As Falk went to talk to Ceselee, the group he’d been asked to work with began to approach them, making Thera shrink into her seat as they did, but before he could ask what was wrong they were called out to by the friendly voice of the skeleton slime.

“Hey there, fancy meeting you again! Glad to see you managed to survive!”

It was clear he was being spoken to, but he had no clue what they were talking about. Aside from the speaker who appeared to be a mage, the other three were a female hobgoblin wielding a large battle ax, a cat-sìth with a mace, and what looked like a frogman with a bow strapped to his back. Ben had long grown used to the large variety of unusual races and mixed-breed groups to exist in the world, but he would have thought a party looking like that would have stood out to him more, especially as he looked at their weapons.

How the hell do they even function as adventurers with stuff that low quality? He couldn’t help but think. Except for the bow, I could have made the staff at my first crafting level easily, not to mention the fact that the ax head and mace both look like they were made with molds instead of being properly forged. Are we going to be okay working with them?

He couldn’t help but worry and turned to Thera, who was doing her best to give an awkward greeting.

“Um, hello again. I didn’t get the chance to say it last time, but I’m so sorry about everything that happened.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, we probably would have done the same in your shoes,” The hobgoblin told her cheerfully. “Just glad we could help. Anyway, I’m Uzi since we haven’t been properly introduced, this here is Zite, Nobu, and Eg,” She said, talking about the slime-person, the cat-sìth, and the frogman respectively. “Look forward to working with you.”

“Likewise,” Thera told them, still not seeming comfortable and leaving Ben to subtly try and figure out just what was the issue.

“Um, so how do you all know each other anyway?” He asked as cheerfully as he could. The atmosphere didn’t make it seem like they’d harassed her in the past, but that left him nothing to work with as the frogman Eg croaked out a small laugh.

“I guess you wouldn’t remember at all given the shape you were in at the time. It must have been what, a year and some ago we helped drag your corpse back to town.”

“Clearly not a corpse since he’s here before us,” Zite said. “Though we are happy to see you doing well. Once our minds cleared we had to leave town since we usually cover ensuring the roads are safe. It’s lucky you caught us while we were off.”

That little bit of extra information made it all click in his head. Despite the far too common occurrence that was him almost dying, there was only one time a group he didn’t know had helped. Back when he had been attacked by Roan’s alseer, Thera had used her charm to make a group of nearby adventurers help drag him back and saved his life, and it looked like he was now standing in front of them.

He’d never been able to thank them after, when talking to the guild it seemed that they were a group that constantly split their time between Stonewall and all of the towns towards the gate to ensure the woods were safe, meaning that they never stuck in one place long and after enough time passed the fact had slowly drifted from his mind. Now that they were all in front of him though he was quick to make that right.

“Oh, thanks so much for the save back then, I really appreciate it,” Thera’s awkwardness instantly made a lot more sense given that she’d charmed them all when she got them to help, but they seemed to brush it off easily enough.

“Don’t worry about it,” Uzi told him. “Adventurers need to look out for each other after all. For now, let’s focus on the emergency quest. Is this the first one for both of you?” They gave a nod and she went on. “Thought so. The reason Ceselee paired us up like this was so you could join our party for the time being, it’s a good way to gain job experience. Zite, you mind?”

He gave a nod and without a word a notification popped up in Ben’s head.

<JOIN ZITE’S PARTY?>

<Y/N>

“Um yes?” He said as the unfamiliar system prompt rang out in his head, while Thera gave a far more confident agreement.

<JOB EXPERIENCE POOLS MERGED WITH OTHER PARTY MEMBERS>

He wasn’t completely sure about what change took place, but something felt subtly different within him as he agreed. It wasn’t like when he connected to someone, but it created a feeling of being joined to something else he couldn’t quite put into words.

“Excellent,” Uzi continued. “While we’ll be working with everyone in the guild, the point of creating groups like this is to watch each other’s back when it gets time to actually fight and use the chance to grow together. So long as we all work together and keep each other safe then that’s what matters.”

“Um, I’m not sure how much help I’ll actually be with any of that,” Ben awkwardly said. “I’m not a fighter at all, I’m actually just a craftsman.”

“So do you rely on magic then?”

“Nope, no magic skills. Well, I have enchanting but it doesn’t really do much in the middle of a fight.”

“You made it to rank four without any combat skills?” the hobgoblin asked with a raise of her eyebrows.

“Technically I have a couple at the zeroth level, but they’re only to help with my tool handling for crafting, they aren’t really any good in a fight. Sorry but I’m probably not going to be much help during all of this.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to climb the ranks if you couldn’t help so don’t worry about it, worst to worst you’ll be able to grab some free experience. Anyway, I’m sure you can already see, but our team is made up of an ax user, a mace user, bow user, as well as our goopy mage over there who has both light and fire magic. If you’re mainly a craftsman then mind if I ask about you?” She questioned Thera.