Chapter 69 Looming Trouble

While the first two's status boards left him a bit surprised in some areas, especially about Iolana's race, the third one was the one that answered some questions while making him have more questions.

|Name- Merle

Race- Human

Level- 101

Existence Level - Gold

Titles- C Rank Adventurer

Class - Flamebourne Mage

Health – D+

Energy - C+

Strength – D-

Agility – C-

Durability – D-

Intelligence - C

Condition- Suspicious, Slightly Annoyed

Magic Tiers- Fire Tier 2.

Skills- Fire Magic (Extreme), Magic Control, Flame Summoning.

Unique Skills- None. |

'I see, so that's why they are a C rank Party. Not all of them are C rank but one is. And the other girl, she's a half elf? I didn't even notice a difference.'

He looked her over for a bit before noticing a small piece of metal on her ear that reflected light,

'Perhaps?'

Appraising it, he found the result he expected.

|Earing of Transformation;

Type: Artifact

Effect;

Using the stored magic power in the earring, it transforms a part of the body into a form that the user desires. The larger the scale of transformation, the greater the magic power consumption. |

"Well, that answers a lot more questions."

Evan spoke out loud after appraising the girl's earring before turning his gaze to Merle and continuing.

"While I normally use a sword, I'm gonna be going with hand-to-hand combat for this dungeon as my sword is not exactly in the best shape.

I possess a bit of knowledge in fire, lighting and shadow magic. Lastly, I have a skill that lets me shoots out beams of energy.

That's all."

The young hero stood up and began to walk out of the room after saying all of that. He was simply telling them about himself as he had appraised them and found out about them.

With his knowledge as a gamer and the experiences of the previous hero he had, he could already predict how they would fight and how it would be best for himself to provide assistance when raiding the dungeon.

"Huh? You're just going to leave?"

Merle spoke up after seeing Evan walk to the door but Evan didn't even look at her as he replied.

"I can already predict your fighting style. Iolana's the tanker, Nodin for physical damage and knockbacks while you handle long range attacks while being the team's main firepower.

Since I'm using my fists, I'd be the close to mid range damage dealer so that Nodin can focus on being long range and you just burn everything we come across with your magic."

He then placed his hand on the doorknob and was a was abut to open it but the loud voice of the guild master stopped him in his tracks.

"Evan!"

Turning around, the eleven-year-old narrowed his eyes at the guild master, he really didn't understand exactly what this guy had in store for him.

"Are you familiar with Lord Geto?"

"Huh?"

His question was unexpected, leaving Evan slightly stunned.

The 'Lord Geto' that he spoke of was the lord of the Geto territory, a baron who inherited his title from his father a few years ago after a bloody succession battle with his brothers.

"I don't.

You should know that I've only been here for two months. When would I have time to get familiar with the lord that barely leaves his castle?"

The guild master nodded at Evans words before taking out a card from his desk and typing a few things into it.

The next moment, Evan received a message on his guild card. He took it out and saw that it was a message from the guild master in front of him.

[I understand, I just wanted to be sure. Be careful, he was the one who gave the order for your quest difficulty to be raised.

While you may not know him, he seems to be hell bent on making things difficult for you.]

Evan's eyes narrowed in displeasure. Some unknown baron was targeting him for no reason, even trying to get him killed by telling the guild master to make his quest harder.

He clicked his tongue and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

'I have no recollection of meeting this bastard. I also haven't done any attention-grabbing things since I came here besides requesting a rank promotion.

Why's he out for me?!'

Evan's anger only increased as he looked towards the territory lord's castle in the distance before turning his gaze back to the street as he made his way to the nearest blacksmith shop to get a pair of gauntlets.

He also decided to get a potion that increased mental resistance as the dungeon boss of the Spider Nest, was a monster who possessed a very irritating mental attack.

◇　◇　◇

As Evan lay on his bed that night, he received a 'connection request', or as he'd like to call it, a 'call', from Eliza.

Over the past few months, they had been contacting each other regularly and if Evan was to believe what she told him, then she had grown far stronger than Evan had expected.

'I should really add her to my party when I start moving in earnest. I've got 22 more levels till I reach 100.

After that, I can head towards the north, to prevent one of the 'Eight Disasters'.'

He thought to himself as he answered Eliza's 'call', the mellifluous voice of the older girl flowed into his ears as she screamed out excitedly.

[Evan!!!]

Evan's body flinched upon hearing her loud shout. He took a moment to calm himself before asking Kuro a small favour.

'Can you set up a barrier that prevents sound from leaving where the small area around me?'

The shadow spirit jumped out of Evan's shadow and infused magic power into its paws before circling round Evan once and jumping back into his shadow.

[Evan?? You there?!]

Evan's mystic eyes that allowed him to see the flow of magic, allowed him to see that there was indeed some sort of barrier around him now.

After confirming this, he screamed back at the over excited teenage girl on the other end of the 'call'.

"Would it kill you to talk like a normal human being for once??!!!"

[Eeekkkk!!!]

Evan took a deep breath afterwards before speaking normally once again.

"Hello there, how are you today?"

[S-scaary...]

"Hmmm?!"

[N-nothing! I'm fine, fine as always!]

Evan let out a small chuckle as he heard the teenage girl instantly become meek.

[Stop Laughing at me!]

"I would when you stop being silly."

[I'm not silly!]

"Of course, you aren't."

While he agreed with her declaration, the sarcasm in his voice was just too much for her not to notice.

[Evan!!]

And so began another day of bickering between the two children, something that happened virtually every time the two spoke to each other within the past few months.

Evan and Eliza had been contacting each other at least twice every week ever since he left Luka. While most of her party members were not aware of it, her party leader definitely was.

During the time she spent apart from Evan, the girl had considerably matured physically and strength wise, or so she claimed but Evan didn't really buy it.

The death of one of her party members earlier in the year was what acted as the trigger for her change, and also the reason she strived to become stronger, to prevent herself from meeting an early grave like he did.

She always boasted about her strength to Evan and how she was seen as one of the rising stars in Merdin Dungeon city adventurer community.

'I doubt she even knows how useful her 'Child Series Skill' is...'

Of course, Evan couldn't care less about her boasts and always waved them off as the rant of a teenager, conveniently ignoring the fact that even if one added his age from his previous life to the time he had spent as 'Evan Del Eris', he wasn't an adult yet.

[...and then we decided to go ou- Are you listening to me, Evan?!]

"Yeah, yeah. I am."

Evan snapped out of his thoughts upon hearing her loud voice, not bothering to hide his disinterest in whatever she was talking about.

"I'm quite tired today, had to search for a new weapon. I'd talk to you soon, okay? Maybe in two or three days, I have a dungeon exploration to do."

[Three days? It's the final lap of the trip so yeah, we would definitely talk in three days.]

Evan didn't bother to understand what she was taking about and cut the connection before laying on his bed and delving into dreamland almost instantly.

◇　◇　◇

"He's the same as ever, huh?"

Eliza nodded in affirmation to the voice that came from behind her the moment Evan cut the connection.

She stared at the bonfire in front of her and placed her guild card in her pocket before turning her gaze to the speaker.

"Why don't you come with me?"

"No need, one of us has to stay back and make sure things are on the right track here. Even more so when I just discovered that they already know quite a bit about those symbols I showed you."

"You said your family was researching them, right?"