From what this woman told him, once she calmed down, he could gather that they were near a e Rantel, just a few days march north of it. The woman was part of an herb gathering team near the forest but their adventurer body guards were overrun by a horde of Goblins. They killed all the men and took the women to their tribal village. Unspeakable things happened there but this girl, Maia managed to escape after two days, which was when they found each other, "I don't have any money on me but it you lead me to E Rantel, I can get you a generous reward for saving me, 50- no 90 silver coins!"
Just shy of one gold… he had nothing better to do, so he nodded, "I will gladly do so, I was planning of heading there anyways"
To the adventurers guild to be precise, he needed to grow stronger and what better way than becoming an adventurer? The money was a plus. He had plenty of Yggdrasil coins but selling them in large quantities just invited trouble. Looking at the corpses, he remembered something. There was a reward for bringing goblin ears, so he cut off the ears from the wretched beings, flinching as steel cut through muscle. At least he didn't vomit this time, "lead the way then"
Bjorg questioned the woman as they were walking. There was no adventurer named Momon running around and Gazef Stronoff was not yet the warrior captain of the kingdom, so he was at the very least five years in the past, maybe more. Gazef and Brain fought four years before the beginning of the series, so he had plenty of time to grind. In the game, he might've been able to become level 100 in a year if he grinded day and night but this was the real world, things should be slower here. Still, if he focused on growth, he could reach the pinnacle by the time that Nazarick arrived here. He had to consider his path in advance. Like it was said, he preferred casters, so he would stick to that niche. Once his wizard class was maxed out, he would have to find another class, at least high tier, maybe even rare…
looking at the system interface, he saw close to two thousand job classes, some greyed out, meaning he didn't fulfill the requirements and overs being available. There were also hidden classes which weren't listed. He modified his search to arcane casters only, then further towards high rank job and still, there were hundreds of options.
High wizard was the obvious choice. It's only requirement was the wizard class at tenth level. Next he could aim for the high summoner class. It required either the basic summoner class or the high wizard class to be at least at 5th level. Summons might not have been particularly strong in Yggdrasil but in this world, where summons stayed out until killed, it was much more powerful. Should he maybe also dip into a swordsman at least a few levels? Concentrating on magic alone would only leave him open to attacks…
"What to do, what to do?" He scrolled through the magic caster classes until he found something interesting, "Echo knight, a mix of a martial and caster class… the only requirement is a level of 30 and twenty of those levels to either be martial or arcane spellcaster classes… this could work"
Echo knights could create illusions in conjunction with martial combat. Illusory doubles were a particular favorite amongst players. Of course, any good area of effect spell would shatter the illusion but in a world like this, where everyone was fairly weak, he could easily rise to the top with this kind of ability.
"We should rest here for today", Maia said as the sky began to darken. Their 'camp' wasn't much, just a bonfire and some soft dirt to lay on because -believe it or not- he had no poster beds in his inventory.
"Hehe"
"What is so funny?" Asked Maia.
"Nothing, just a passing thought… sleep, we still have some way to march", Bjorg closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.
When he awoke, the two of them shared a loaf of bread and continued onwards.
"So… where do you come from, wizard sir?"
"Call me Bjorg and I hail far far away. My master tried a new teleportation spell and I was the victim of some unfortunate arcane displacement"
"Really? What is it like where you live?"
"It is… different. Not bad, just different. Other people, other beasts but at heart, everything is largely the same. Monsters still attack, adventurers still hunt them down and the nobility are still jerks… at least I presume that last one to be true"
"It is", Maia snorted, "damn bluebloods are the same everywhere. I would bet on that"
They continued their smalltalk and Bjorg subtly extracted more and more information out of the woman. Most of what they talked about was useless but there were some hidden gems in there, like the fact that the adventurers guild was short on spell casters and that teams were fighting over them. This was interesting because it meant that he could be bold in his future negotiations, get more bang for your buck as they say.
It took them one and a half more days before E Rantel came into view. The fortress city was impressive, all right. The high walls were made of a white stone which seemed to reflect all light that hit it, causing it to look like its glowing in the harsh sunlight. There were only two ways in or out the city, straight ahead, at the front gates or out the back at the back gates. Easy to defend, hard to conquer and it had to be so, for there was the yearly war between the empire and the kingdom. As they walked closer, the guards stood at attention, "halt! Who is it who goes there?!"