A New Identity

Chapter 8

A New Identity

27 days later

Adventure Guild, Water Town

It has been a month since I decided to be an adventurer and a little less than 4 weeks since I started my life as an adventurer.

I must say I have not been bored.

While my life at the capital was quite luxurious, it didn't have the joy of sheer freedom, I get to experience it without the eyes of every noble watching my step, wanting to capitalize on my mistakes.

I can do anything and everything (under law or sometimes around it) without explaining myself to anybody (read: father/king). I can flirt with any girl. I can go to the brothel anytime I want. There were no nobles trying to hurt me by taking my favorite girls or commenting on my behavior.

Hell, I don't have to listen to anyone and be polite. I could just tell them to fuck off without facing any reprisals. I could get shit faced drunk and no one would bat an eye.

I didn't know what I missed for being a prince before this. Still, I got to say being a prince and learning everything to survive in this world was a good trade-off for not having full freedom.

But after tasting this freedom, I have decided that I am never going to the capital unless it is work-related even if the King begged me on his knees.

I really liked my new situation that much.

While I miss foiling the plots of nobles and sometimes getting them killed, the freedom without the title of the 2nd prince hanging over my head is really something else.

I must say I am getting the hang of it.

Its been a month since I was exiled from the capital and since then, I have never looked back at my life at the capital.

In the last month, I have completed 30 quests, in total. Most of them were of porcelain rank but few were obsidian too.

In the first week alone, I completed 6 quests (one quest per day) as I was still settling in at that time. Naturally, this led the receptionist to think that I was good enough and she stopped nagging me for taking sewage quests. Thank god for small mercies.

But even then, I only got to do obsidian rank quests recently when I proved that the completion of porcelain rank quests were not flukes. The receptionists were also unwilling to give me obsidian rank quests as I hadn't formed any adventurer party. Only after 2 weeks of completing 12 porcelain quests, was I able to convince them to give me higher-ranked quests.

Still, I was happy with the number of quests, I had done in less than a month. That might look like a low number but trust me, it was quite a high number. I only left easy quests for the newbies so that they don't die in completing a higher-ranked quest which I take myself.

Most newbies take more than 2 months to complete these numbers of quests. And I did them in less than half the time. I could have done them faster but I decided to take a break every 7th day so that I don't burn out. My rate of completion of quests was more than 1 quest per day even with the 4 days off that I took to recuperate in the last month.

With a horse to travel fast, the rate of completion increased quite a bit. Since I got the horse, I have been able to complete 10 quests in just 5 days with 2 quests per day.

I would have completed more quests if I had gotten a horse sooner.

Unfortunately, I was only able to get the horse a week ago and it was only due to luck otherwise, it would have taken longer.

I was not surprised.

I knew it wouldn't be easy getting a horse, especially in a town. If I had been in a city, I would have gotten it easily. But there wasn't a city anywhere near the water town except for the capital. In fact, I don't think there is any other city in the kingdom except for the capital. There might be some large towns but they won't match the size and population required to be a city.

Not many want to lose a faster way of transportation, especially people living in the towns. In this age, horses are the only safe way of traveling fast. Some use bulls but they are quite slow. Only traders use them as they need to transport their products which are heavy and not something horses can be used for.

At first, I didn't even know where to even get a horse. I asked around but no one wanted to talk to an adventurer. Only when I asked in my civilian get up, did I start getting the answers.

Unfortunately, there was no horse breeder in the town and no one was willing to sell their own horses.

I thought of a replacement but was surprised by the results when I asked around. There were a few ways around purchasing the horse but they all came with their own problems.

I thought of renting a horse for the duration of the quests but the owners charged exorbitant prices for even a day. Moreover, if something happens to the horse, the person renting has to pay for the loss. And I could just guess the price the owners would charge if they think they could get away with it. And those are the minor problems. The main problem was that no one was willing to give a horse to an adventurer. They just don't trust them.

I really can't fault them for their mistrust but it was seriously getting ridiculous.

In the end, it was by some form of luck that a Horse Breeder passed the town with a group of 9th rank adventurers who were protecting him.

At first, he tried to give me weak and old horses for high prices but I was not an amateur. I knew everything needed to know about a good horse. My trainer back at the capital made sure to teach me that when he taught me horse riding some years ago.

Still, somehow the word leaked that I was looking for a horse. The horse breeder knew that I was a little desperate and thus refused to budge an inch in the prices. I had no choice but to refuse to purchase the horse as I refused to pay a sum enough for 2 horses for just a single sickly horse. The horse breeder thought he was being clever by acting cool. I knew he thought I was just bluffing and would come back to purchase the horse due to my desperation.

He was not wrong.

I was thinking along the same lines but only a little differently.

I learned that he was in the town for only a day. And thus planned accordingly.

Only when he was going away, did I come back. But not in my adventurer getup. I came in my civilian get up.

I never showed my face while working as an adventurer and always had my helmet and mask on. And whenever I needed to go to a grocery shopping, brothel, or any other place, I would go in my normal attire with only a sword and my hidden wand. In this time and era, having a sword is quite normal. Bows and arrows are even more normal seeing as hunters use them regularly. So no one connected me to my adventurer persona.

At first, I did this so that I could get the people to talk but after thinking for a bit, I realized that having a civilian identity would be a great boon. So, only 2 days later of my arrival, 'Kaito' came into this town looking for work. 'He' made enough appearances to get the people used to him while remaining aloof that no one suspected him. And whenever someone would ask a personal question, he would give half-truths and change the subject subtly which I was easily able to do considering I had to compete with the nobles in the capital.

Most people don't suspect anyone from the start and just agree to any answer that is given. Seeing as he lived in the outskirts of the town with his uncle and helps him in farming, no one suspected him of anything. 'He' only comes to the town once or twice every week.

In any case, due to this, no one has been able to know my identity.

And I was counting on it for fooling the horse breeder too.

..

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