Blood Assimilation

As she watched the smiling grey-haired middle-aged man and Randy, Zophia was more confused. But she did not pry for more information and instead turned her body slightly around, seemingly ready to leave.

After all, her task was completed as soon as she brought Randy over. However, she still waited for a while.

Noticing that she was still standing there with Randy, the grey-haired middle-aged man said: "Ah, thank you for your hard work, Zophia. I'll take it from here, so you should go back and handle things downstairs."

In response, Zophia bowed and respectfully said: "I was only doing my job. Then I will take my leave now."

"Hm."

With that, Zophia quickly left the room. Now, only the two of them were left alone.

However, Randy was still standing there, not moving an inch, and at this time, he and the middle-aged man exchanged a glance.

The middle-aged man suddenly said: "Why don't you take a seat, young man. You don't plan on standing there, are you? That won't do. I can't have my guest standing, now, can I? Take a seat over there."

The grey-haired middle-aged man pointed at the seat right across from him.

"Alright." Randy did continue to be humble and went and sat across from him.

After he sat down, the grey-haired middle-aged man spoke: "So I am assuming that you heard the gist from Zophia, am I right?"

"That's right" Randy nodded.

Hearing his response, the grey-haired middle-aged man spoke: "Before we discuss your first request, let's talk about something else. How much do you know about our city's situation?"

"Not much, sir, since I only registered in this city recently." Randy replied.

"Ah, right. You said that you were a villager until recently. Hmm… I suppose you might not know too much about the current. Also, stop calling me sir; You can just call me society leader like everyone else."

"Alright, society leader."

"Anyway, let me enlighten you about the current situation…"

Thus, Randy listened to the society leader's recount of the current situation which encompassed past events. Randy found this information very useful since it would help him adjust to this world more quickly.

The society leader said a lot of things but if he had summarized it, it would go like this:

The human race and the other races in this world had been at constant war with the demon race and other aggressive races for the past few centuries.

Throughout their bloody war, the demon race had won many times. The human race and the other races ultimately lost so many people on their side in the process.

Because of that, on the surface, there was peace between the human race and the non-aggressive races like the long-eared humans, who lived mostly in the Elferous forest, and the beast human race. However, secretly, they were actually at odds with each other in regard to the war situations and the conscription of forces on the battlefield.

The long-eared humans, who had an exceedingly long lifespan, unlike the normal humans but less fertility rate when it came to reproduction, decided to remain neutral in this war between races. That was because they had lost many of their kind. Therefore, in order to preserve their race, they also closed off their connection to the outside world in consequence.

The beast humans, on the other hand, although they were a very barbaric race that liked violence more than anything, their kind have contributed a lot during the previous battles up until recently. That was because the werewolf kings decided to side with demons just like the vampire race did 300 hundred years ago.

As for the vampire race, although they like to ambush and drink the blood of humans, they were not very aggressive enough to kill the humans after they had their share of blood since they needed them to be alive to produce more blood for them.

However, all of that changed a few centuries ago when the demons started worshiping new gods that they hailed as their demonic gods.

Before then, the demons and other races of darkness worshiped the god of darkness and although once in a while, they wage wars with the humans regarding territories, it was mostly peaceful otherwise.

But one day, out of nowhere, it seemed like their connection to the god of darkness had been severed. Their current gods, the demonic gods, granted them power beyond their imagination and thus unleashed their violent natures causing the demons and other races of darkness to go on a rampage to kill off all the other races in their word.

When that happened, only the church of light within the territory of the humans was barely able to fight off against the demons with their light attributes, which were the weakness of the demon race and other races of darkness. However, it was not enough to defeat the demons, who seemed to have gotten stronger than ever, even though they were already physically stronger than humans before.

Left with no other choice, the church of light and the royal family decided to depend on the other organization like the mercenary guild, the assassin guild, and the dungeon hunters in the society to handle some of the demons that invaded the human territory or simply partake in the war when need be.

Furthermore, Alpheotus City was situated in the northern region of the human territory and close to the Meistic forest, which connected to the demon continent, albeit only the insignificant section of their continent. Because of this, Alpheotus City received commissions to handle any stray demon that tried to invade the human territory from the Meistic forest.

At this point, Randy spoke doubtfully: "I see… But how does this have anything to do with my current situation?"

"Well, I have a request that I'll like for you to accept if possible." The society leader stated in a serious tone.

"A request that you'll like for me to accept?"

The society leader responded: "That's right. This request is our society's unofficial first request. Although you only registered yesterday and officially received your dungeon hunter card today, I can tell that you're not an ordinary young man from your initial attributes. So how about it? Would you accept this request from me?"

'As I thought, it has nothing to do with my first request, huh? Otherwise, he wouldn't have said unofficial…'

Randy pondered his words for a bit, but then he spoke doubtfully: "But I haven't heard the details concerning the request, so how am I going to accept it?"

"You're very sharp." The society leader praised and then continued: "Indeed, I haven't told you the details because this request is quite similar to the ones that the other members are planning on partaking in right as we speak. In other words, you would aid the people from the church to search for their missing captain as requested from us."

After saying this, the society leader looked at Randy and observed his expression for a bit before adding: "Don't worry. You will get paid quite handsomely if you all succeed, meaning you do not have to take many actions during this request, but you will still be paid the same amount as everyone."

Randy turned silent as he pondered for a bit, and then he replied: "Sorry. Although I understand your intentions, I don't think I want to get involved with this kind of request if it is not required of me to do so."

The grey-haired man was surprised for a moment and spoke in a regretful tone: "Then how about this, I will give the request to get rid of the magical beasts near the Meistic forest. As you might have already known since you came from that direction, there are many villages near the Meistic forest."

Randy nodded as he recalled Klara's village, which was very close to the forest he arrived in when he came to this world.

The society leader explained: "Generally, the Meistic forest only served to connect the human territory and some insignificant part of demon territory, and there had been no incidents in the past because of that. But recently, there had been many reports of vampires sighted in the Meistic forest, which might be the reason the people from the church came to the Meistic forest this time, most likely to search for their roots."

"Putting that aside, the most important thing to note about the current situation was that the weaker magical beasts that normally resided within that Meistic forest had started escaping for their life with the sudden appearance of these vampires.

"As a result, the villages situated near the Meistic forest were the first to be attacked by the magical beasts that had escaped the Meistic forest, and the casualties are increasing, even as we speak."

"So if you do not want to partake in the request from the church, then I will implore you to help with the eradication of the aggressive magical beasts that escaped the Meistic forest. Of course, this is a reoccurring request, so there's no need to worry about the time, and you can kill as many magical beasts as possible near the Meistic forest. And as long as you bring back a part of their body or their entire corpse, you will be rewarded accordingly."

The society leader finished with his explanation and looked hopefully at Randy.

When Randy heard the other party's words, he realized that even though he declined the request to aid the people from the church, the society leader still managed to get him to go to the Meistic forest, albeit near it.

Not to mention, this time, he cannot simply refuse this time as this was a reoccurring request that many people had completed once or twice before. Meaning it would be rude of him to decline this kind of request.

'How sly…Although hunting magical beasts is not a bad idea since I wanted to test out something anyway.' Randy commented in his mind.