CHPT 69: I’m a.....Hero

"It does NOT sound like a supervillain name! It sounds cool." The lady behind the desk said with a hurt look on her face.

Claude sighed in defeat and said, "Very well. I'm sorry if I offended you by judging the Hero names you spent so much time thinking of."

"It's no problem. As long as you get strong." She said with a big smile on her face that seemed to light up the dark and intimidating atmosphere inside of the Guildhall.

"Now, the last thing you need is your rank tag, which tells other people where you stand in terms of power and progress in the Tangents or Infested Areas. Also, as you progress you'll get new perks and discounts in shops!" She said while reaching around for something in a drawer of her desk.

"Hmmmmmm, the discounts must be used to encourage people to get stronger." Claude thought.

"Aha! Here you are." She said while she handed him a bronze tag. It had a dull glow under the faint light surrounding them and it looked about as aesthetically pleasing as a block of dirt— yet, he found himself being filled with pride and motivation.

"I'm a....Hero." He thought to himself. He had to fight the urge not to cry in front of the pretty registry girl since he realized his father wasn't able to see what he'd achieved.

"Hey ALLTRASH! The fuck outta the way, other people got stuff to do." A burly man in scratched navy blue heavy armor said.

He felt Frosty's hackles raise in agitation at the man's raised and aggressive tone of voice. It sounded like rocks being ground together and made Claude want to rip his throat out. His mental link to Frosty was telling him the PitWolf felt the same way.

He took a quick few deep breaths instead of acting out his initial way of handling the situation. As he began to calm down, Frosty followed suit.

"Erm.... thanks for all the help uhh—"

"Ilka, please call me Ilka." She corrected while mean mugging the man who yelled at Claude.

"Right. Well, thanks for the help Ilka." Claude said as he quickly left the line— while suppressing a low growl.

Once he left the line, he stopped and looked around the Guildhall. His nose was constantly taking note of the smell of clean polished wood beneath him. Despite all the Heroes stomping in and out of the Guildhall with battle worn footwear, the floor looked very well taken care of, hinting at the amount of dedication whoever cleaned the place had.

The second— more prominent smell he was aware of was the Heroes themselves. Different leathers, rawhides, and metals flooded his nose, along with the faint smells of intense emotions he didn't particularly enjoy.

The wide and expansive main floor of the Guildhall rose up at least 50ft, a little bit below that held a well made wooden railing that looked like it guarded a second floor. It seemed to be of little importance since all the Heroes were on the main floor.

Directly in front of Claude and across from the door sat a plain wall with a large board on it. The board held papers of varying colors with writings and little strip pull offs attached to them.

"The Quest Board!" He thought.

"[Thats correct, now get over there and see if there's any openings for an Assassin.]" Arne said.

"Right."

Claude and Frosty walked down the unoccupied space of the main hall with chairs and tables full of Heroes on their left and right, eyeing them intently.

Claude was simply left in awe once he reached the Quest Board. The papers held info on the quests including anything from; D to A ranked Tangents or Infested Areas with a wide variety of enemies. Some of them he hadn't even read about at the University which scared him a little. The bottom of the papers had strips with different symbols, a lot of the papers had missing strips— in fact most of them did.

"Arne, what do these mean?" He thought.

"[The symbols are there to show you which positions need to be filled in a squad including; Damage, Tank, Healer and Mage. The terms encompass all the classes and make it easier for people who aren't coming with a full team to still complete missions in a fairly safe manner.]" Arne said.

"Makes sense."

He looked at the D rank Quests placed at the bottom of the board— more like the whole lower half, and looked for openings in the Damage position. Unfortunately there weren't too many, the positions with the most openings were Healer and Mage which was to be expected. But there were only a couple papers with a strip left open for the Damage position.

He read over one of the papers with a Damage opening to see what he'd be facing.

"D ranked Tangent in the forests south of SkyHaven. High chance of being inhabited by Goblins."

"Goblins, I've read about that race quite a bit. Let's do it." He told himself. As he reached out for the strip with the Damage logo stamped on it, he felt the burning gazes of a handful of people on his back. He quickly looked behind him and found a group of individuals standing above everyone else who sat at their tables drinking.

Their looks screamed, "We don't want you, don't touch that strip."

"Hm, they must have a squad member on the way or something." He said as he took his hand away from the paper, he heard the light clanging and rustling of their armor as the group sat back down.

He searched a little more and found one involving low level Skeleton Soldiers.

"Interesting..." he said before reaching for the remaining Damage strip.

"We don't want you, Alltrash!" Someone yelled from across the room. The Guildhall radiated with light chuckles and hoots at the clowning of his Hero name.

Claude stood up straight and quit looking at the board completely as he realized the problem.

"They all were listening to hear if I was new or had experience." He said quietly.

"[Realistically, it's life or death in the Tangents. They can't risk taking in a newbie.]" Arne said.

"Then what the fuck am I supposed to do!" Claude raged.

Slowly, he began to be flooded with negative thoughts and ideas that furthered his anger, embarrassment and feeling of premeditated defeat. He bared his teeth and growled quietly while they grew and sharpened under his cloth mask.

"[Claude r—]"

"These stingy downtrodden bastards aren't going to be the reason I die under the full moon, I know that much! If they don't feel like taking a chance on me, then I'll take one on myself. FUCK YOU ALL!" He thought while reading over a Quest he planned to do alone, illegally.

As he turned with plans to storm out into the night and solo a Tangent, he came face to face with a broad shouldered man flanked by a small group of Heroes.

"Hello, I thought we'd make your life easier and come to you instead of watching you get denied all night. Anyway, nice to meet you. I'm Chadwick and I'm my teams Squad Leader." The tall square jawed man said as he reached out to shake Claude's hand.

"Rr—"

Claude tried to speak and had to stop a growl from coming out of his throat.

"Ah! Sir are you alright? Your hands are bleeding." One of the female squad members asked from behind Chadwick.

Claude looked down and saw his hands were balled into a fist and leaking blood.

"[Claude, your claws!]" Arne said.

"Shit!" Claude said as he tried to calm himself.

Suddenly Frosty nudged his hands with his wet nose and whined just loud enough for only him to hear. The action started to calm him immediately.

"Sorry, buddy." He thought as he opened his— now clawless, hands and wiped the blood on the back of his pants.

"Erhm..sorry about that. It's nice to meet you Chadwick, I'm Clau—....uhh... I'm Carter." Claude stuttered out as he shook hands with the man. His confident brown eyes studied Claude intently.

"These people behind me are the rest of my Squad that will introduce themselves on the way." Chadwick said.

"On the way?" Claude said.

"Yea, we've got a Tangent but we're short a Damage position. Our last one...hasn't shown up in a while." He said with a faint look of sadness.

Claude's nose was suddenly drowned in the dark and stale smell that seemed to radiate off the group.

"Sadness. Their last Damage dealer must've been killed." He realized.

"Alright. Im happy to fill the position." Claude said.

"Great, if you could take the strip off the paper in the bottom left corner then we can head out." Chadwick said.

Claude turned and found the paper with one remaining Damage strip hanging from it. He pulled it off and read the information at the same time. His eyes widened as he finished reading the paper.

"No way. We're facing an Undead Race???"