The First King of Beasts

"Thank you for dropping me." The girl said as she came down from Dustin's back. Nothing romantic or anything of the sorts, just a little shyness as people around looked at the pair that came landing from seemingly out of nowhere.

Dustin who had dropped the girl just looked at her and nodded his head before heading his way. As his figure disappeared, the girl turned to walk, but almost fell before balancing herself. Maybe her legs nearly gave out, or she was just affected by Dustin's speed seeing as she wasn't used to such. She continued on her way as repeatedly she would moved as though about to fall and then hold herself again and then continue on.

Dustin on the other hand had reached his house, which was located some way off the main town and into the forest area within. The place was completely isolated from every other place, and since the second stage started some days after he moved in, there wasn't really any memory about the place or much familiarity. Seeing the big empty house, a thought came across Dustin's mind'

'I wonder how Sil is doing... He's probably fine, no need to worry over what I can't influence.' Dustin said in his mind before carrying on into the interiors of the house.

The place had gathered an untold amount of dust as he was away for so long. Really, if anyone told him that a house in the middle of a very dense forested area could gather so much dust, he would disagree strongly. With that Dustin began the cleaning of the house... Which he gave up half an hour later. The place wasn't just some bungalow or a small piece of property, it was like a mini castle, and cleaning every inch of that place wasn't something he was about to waste his time doing. There was only one way to fix this problem, and Dustin knew just the right person to meet. 'Might be a good time to report.'

Inside one of the offices in the Town's hall, a deafening screaming erupted from within as a blonde lady almost lost her footing, but managed to hold on to the ground. The same lady who had screamed quickly dashed towards the door where a young man could be seen standing. After an awkward stare down just after shouting like some other worldly goat, the blonde girl was all over Dustin who was still standing at the open door just staring forward at nothing. After about ten seconds must have passed, Dustin couldn't help but let out a sigh.

"Yes Elva, it's me. Now stop molesting my form." Dustin said, with a normal voice carrying no specific emotion.

Elva slowly walked away from Dustin after some additional seconds of checking his body like she knew it. All the while, Akara just stared blankly at Dustin for some seconds before coming back to herself, and a small smile bloomed on her face. "To think you would reappear after all these years. I really believed you to be dead Dustin, seems I was wrong." She said, unable to wipe the smile off her face even after trying to a few times.

'Geez, why are they so happy to see me? Don't remember us having such close relationship for them to feel heartbroken after I went missing... Probably just thinking too much.' Dustin said in his mind as he made his way towards a seat.

When he had sat down, he turned to focus his gaze on the city lord and spoke, "It is natural that you would assume that. After all it seemed I was out for a fairly long time." 𝒇𝑟e𝙚𝑤𝙚𝐛𝗻𝐨ν𝚎𝘭.c𝐨m

"Six years." Akara clearified, to which Dustin answered.

"So I heard."

Three of them continued their talk and catching up for a while, and finally from a knowledgeable source, Dustin was getting all the gist he needed as one who had been absent for years. Also during the talk, Akara and Elva would ask where he had been all those years, but Dustin would just wave it off and say "In a no man's land." That was all he gave them really, no other answer was given to the question. When they saw that he wasn't going to say, they chose to leave him alone and focus on other things.

From what Dustin learned from Akara, it seemed the situation was much more overblown than what he originally thought. There were many negative things that were happening around, and the positives weren't much. Not like this bothered Dustin in anyway, apparently he didn't really care much about it. From what he was told, after every adventurer, or majority of the adventurers left the town, they went to other parts of Na'ash and continued their exploration or whatever it was they were doing.

Akara also mention that there had been guilds that were created all around, which was normal as people tend to band together to overcome hardships. Out of these Guilds, there were a couple that stood as the strongest. Amongst these strongest, there was a particular guild that Akara warned Dustin about, and it was the one known as The Genan Guild.

According to Akara, there were a lot of rumours about them, and even though over the years some of their deeds had been brought to light, the ones that remained hided were much more and much darker. Not like it was a bother to Akara or the people inhibiting the land, the natives, as it never really affected them directly, and if it did it would be minimal at most, but the other adventurers suffered it the most.

'I wonder which guild they are a part of?' Dustin asked in his mind, but then again, 'they are strong themselves, so I doubt they joined a guild. If anything, they would have created one.'

"Very interesting indeed. Actually, I do need people to help me clean the old place, it's covered in dust like a cocoon." Dustin said. ƒ𝘳ee𝔀e𝚋n૦𝐯el.c𝗼𝓂

"Don't worry about it, I'll get people to take care of it, and in the mean time you can just find somewhere else to stay." Akara said with a little nod.

As though remembering something, Elva blurted out just as Akara was done speaking, "Oh yeah! You must not know this seeing as you just came back and all, but there is a kind of ranking system now that is in place for the adventurers, and it is very important. Why don't you take a look?" Elva said.

"A ranking system? I seem to remember something like that, or has it changed?" Dustin asked a little curious.

"Just check."

"Sure."

'System...'