Chapter 9: Rewards
Marcus waited inside the room until three o’clock in the afternoon.
He stood near the window, arms folded, watching the street below. rchants pushed carts past the inn. A pair of guards walked by in steady steps. Sowhere downstairs, a chair scraped across the floor.
Three o’clock.
No knock ca.
Marcus exhaled once and stepped away from the window.
"Figures."
He left the room, locked the door, and headed down the stairs. The wooden steps creaked under his boots. The common room was quieter than it had been earlier. A few patrons sat scattered across the tables, nursing drinks or speaking in low voices.
He took a seat near the entrance where he could see both the door and the counter.
The innkeeper glanced at him briefly, then returned to wiping a mug.
Marcus leaned back in his chair and checked the position of the sun through the open doorway. Still bright. Not late enough to worry.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
At the fifteen-minute mark, the door finally opened.
Leila stepped in first, brushing a strand of hair away from her face.
"I apologize for being late, Sir Marcus...the preparation took ti," she explained with an apologetic look. And then noticed his new clothes but didn’t say anything about it.
"It’s fine," Marcus waved off her worries. "I already expected that you would be late."
"Still, to make you wait for such a long ti is improper on our part," Leila said, lowering her head slightly.
"It’s fine," Marcus replied. "Fifteen minutes won’t kill ."
She let out a small breath, then straightened.
"Sir Ivan is waiting at the estate. He sent the carriage for you."
Marcus glanced past her.
A dark carriage stood by the roadside. Two brown horses shifted in place, iron bits clinking softly as they moved their heads. The driver sat upright at the front, reins gathered in both hands.
"Alright," Marcus said. "Let’s not keep him waiting."
Leila stepped aside and opened the carriage door.
"After you."
Marcus climbed in first, taking the seat facing forward. The interior was lined with padded benches on either side. Narrow windows allowed him to see the street without exposing himself.
Leila entered after him and shut the door firmly.
A second later, the carriage jerked forward.
The carriage rolled through the streets at a steady pace.
Marcus watched through the narrow window as Berm shifted around them. The crowded market gave way to wider roads. Stone buildings replaced wooden ones. Fewer stalls. Fewer people walking on foot.
The horses maintained a controlled trot. The wheels no longer rattled as loudly; the road here was better maintained.
Fifteen minutes later, the carriage slowed.
Marcus leaned slightly toward the window.
Iron gates stood ahead, tall and black, with ornate patterns worked into the tal. Beyond them, a long gravel path stretched forward, lined with trimd hedges and evenly spaced trees.
Two guards stood at the gate in matching uniforms, spears in hand. They stepped aside as soon as they recognized the carriage.
The gates opened.
The carriage rolled in.
Marcus’s eyes moved past the garden.
The estate was not a simple house. It was a manor built from pale stone, three stories tall, with wide windows and a sloped roof of dark tile. A balcony stretched across the second floor. The entrance doors were double-wide and reinforced with tal bands.
Servants moved near the front steps. A stable stood to the side, larger than so hos in the city.
Marcus leaned back slightly.
"So he’s loaded," he muttered under his breath.
The carriage stopped in front of the main entrance.
A servant hurried forward and opened the door.
Leila stepped out first.
"Welco to Sir Ivan’s estate, Sir Marcus," she said, gesturing toward the entrance.
Marcus stepped down onto the gravel.
Two servants stood by the doors. One pulled them open without a word.
The interior was cool. Stone tiles underfoot. A wide hall stretched inward, lit by tall windows that filtered the afternoon light across polished floors. Portraits hung along the walls, landscapes, ships at sea, and what looked like family mbers dressed in formal attire.
A chandelier hung overhead, iron-frad, candles already prepared though not yet lit.
Marcus kept his pace steady, hands at his sides, eyes moving once across the space before settling forward again.
Leila walked a step ahead.
"This way, Sir Marcus."
They passed through the main hall into a narrower corridor lined with closed wooden doors.
At the end of the corridor, a guard stood outside a large double door.
He gave Leila a short nod and stepped aside.
She knocked once.
"Sir Ivan, Sir Marcus has arrived."
A firm voice answered from within.
"Send him in."
Leila pushed the door open.
Marcus stepped inside.
The office was large but orderly. Shelves filled with ledgers and bound docunts lined the walls. A wide desk sat near the windows at the far end, stacked with neatly arranged papers. Behind it, Sir Ivan sat upright in a high-backed chair, hands resting calmly on the surface of the desk.
His eyes lifted to Marcus.
"Welco to my estate, Marcus. What do you think?
"If you are asking for my impression, I’d say you are pretty rich," Marcus chuckled.
"You look like a local now huh," Ivan said, noting his appearance.
"Yeah. The mont I changed my clothing, no one was looking at ."
They both laughed.
"Now, I won’t keep you too long here since this is just
giving a reward to the man who saved my life," Ivan said. "Now our agreent was that for eight ogres and your intervention. I’m going to pay you 1,200 gold coins or in Kinah, that would be 120,000 kinah. Enough for you to buy a house here in the City of Berm and live a decent life without having to work for a year."
"I will accept that reward," Marcus said without hesitation. This was a good start for him. He said that he could buy a house in the city and have enough spare money to test how conversions would work in his system for military credits.
"But I don’t have that money on
physically, it’s in the bank. I’ll write a check for you."
Ivan reached for a smaller drawer on the right side of his desk and pulled out a bound checkbook with thick parchnt pages.
"I do not carry that amount in coin inside the house," he said calmly. "It remains secured at the Berm Comrcial Bank."
He dipped his quill into ink.
"The amount will be written under your na. You may present it to the bank and withdraw it in gold or convert it into kinah directly."
Marcus watched the nib glide across the parchnt.
"One thousand two hundred gold," Ivan muttered as he wrote. "Payable to Marcus Manfred. Oh...the problem is that you don’t have an identification."
Marcus rembered sothing. "Oh it’s fine, I inquired in the adventurer’s guild that I can have an identification so long that you can sponsor ."
Ivan’s quill paused above the parchnt.
"Sponsor you?" he repeated.
"Yes," Marcus said evenly. "The guild allows provisional registration under recomndation from a recognized rchant or noble within Berm."
Ivan leaned back slightly in his chair, studying him.
"And you wish to beco an adventurer."
"Yes," Marcus simply answered.
"Very well, you are strong enough to beco an adventurer. After all, you defeated eight ogres by yourself. I’ll put it in writing so you can give it to the adventurer’s guild."
Ivan set the quill down and pulled a fresh sheet of parchnt toward him.
He wrote without rushing.
"I, Ivan of Berm, do hereby attest that Marcus Manfred has rendered service to my estate and has proven both capability and conduct befitting provisional registration under the Adventurer’s Guild..."
Ivan finished the line, sanded the ink, then reached for a small tal stamp. He pressed it into dark wax and set it firmly at the bottom of the docunt.
A clean crest marked the page.
He slid both the check and the letter across the desk.
"Present this to the guild registrar. They will not refuse you."
"Thank you."
Ivan also gave him the check.
With two official papers in hand, Marcus could feel that he is one step closer to making a new life in this new world.
"Thank you once again, for saving ," Ivan said graciously.
"No problem, thanks for the rewards too."
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