Swords, magic, and martial arts

A bald, burly man in fur armor excitedly pushed open the door of the "Frostwolf Fangs" tavern and swaggered in.

"Hey! Why didn't you close the door when you came in!" the tavern waitress shouted as she walked towards the door.

"I'll be more careful next time!"

The bald, burly man talked as he walked, and after entering the tavern, he went straight to a boy sitting by the fire warming himself.

"Rhodes, today is truly our lucky day. In this freezing winter, someone still wants to hire us and has promised to pay us a maximum of one hundred gold coins. With that much money, we can live comfortably for a long time. What do you think?"

The boy turned his head and nodded.

Rhodes was a time traveler. Before he traveled to the other world, he went to bed as usual, but when he woke up, he found that he had traveled to the other world.

Fortunately, after transmigrating, he also inherited the memories of the original body's owner.

Before Rhodes transmigrated, his parents had already passed away, and he didn't have any true friends. He was also single, so for him, transmigrating was simply about living in a different place.

He has been in this world for seven days, and in those seven days he has gained a general understanding of its situation.

This world is completely different from the world he came from before. This world has a recorded history of nearly 10,000 years, but it is still in the feudal era.

Furthermore, magic, an unscientific phenomenon, exists in this world.

Although magic is not as powerful as Rhodes imagined, there are many people with spellcasting talent. Even an ordinary farmer might be able to cast a simple spell like Flametongue.

There are four powerful nations on this continent, each with its own distinct culture and appearance that is clearly different from those of other nations.

Rhodes is currently in the Northern Kingdom of Nord, which is divided into nine provinces. Apart from Dragonfire Province, which is directly ruled by the king, each of the other provinces is ruled by a lord who is loyal to the king.

At the very center of the continent lies the Roman Empire. Although it's called an empire, its land area is smaller than that of the Kingdom of Nords. The Roman Empire is similar to medieval Europe, with many knightly orders recognized by the emperor. Each order has its own distinct faith and spreads its mission across the continent.

To the west of the Roman Empire lies the Kingdom of Fish, the wealthiest nation on the entire continent, possessing the world's most advanced technologies in metallurgy, textiles, shipbuilding, and agriculture, and its trade is extremely prosperous.

To the east of the Roman Empire lies a vast, boundless grassland, dotted with countless small tribes. Decades ago, the most powerful tribe on the grassland conquered most of the tribes, forming the present-day Anu Kingdom.

The wars, large and small, between the four countries have never ceased.

The people of the Nord Kingdom are particularly fond of courting death—no, it should be called adventure. Nords are born with a love for thrills and worship the strong, revering martial prowess. Many young Nords dream of becoming great adventurers.

Rhodes was transmigrated into the body of an ordinary adventurer, whose name also sounded like Rhodes. The original Rhodes hadn't died but was transmigrated into by someone else, and his soul had disappeared.

The bald, muscular man standing in front of him, who looked like Kratos, was named Baron and was Rod's uncle.

Baron was very kind to Rod. Their relationship wasn't like that of an elder and a junior, but more like that of an older brother and a younger brother.

Baron's personality was almost exactly like his appearance; he was a mindless brute. Even though Rhodes had been in the world for seven days, he hadn't noticed anything wrong with Rhodes.

Rhodes started going on adventures with Baron when he was eight or nine years old.

He remembered that he used to live in a large manor, where his butler always took care of him. After the butler felt that he didn't have much time left, he handed Rhodes over to Rhodes's uncle, Baron, who happened to be passing by.

Rhodes had never met this uncle before, but the old butler who raised him trusted Baron completely. As for why Rhodes did not inherit the manor but went on an adventure with Baron, neither the old butler nor Baron explained it to Rhodes.

The two began their adventures together. Now Rhodes is sixteen, and Baron has just turned thirty. Just seven days ago, Rhodes from another world transmigrated into the body of Rhodes in this world.

Let's go back to the conversation between the two of them.

"You didn't even ask who hired us, or what they wanted us for. That's not like you," Baron said.

"I trust you won't betray us," Rod said.

"Then let's go find that person now." After saying that, Baron immediately pulled Rod away from the tavern.

It's winter now, and the winters in Nord are very cold. Most adventurers choose to spend the money they earned from the previous year's adventures in the city.

Enjoy drinks in a cozy tavern, and occasionally find a few beautiful women to keep you company...

Rhodes and his companions are currently in Icestone City, a small town in Nord with a population of several thousand.

Icestone City is located in Snowwind Province of the Nord Kingdom. The Nord Kingdom has a small population, and a city with a population of a few thousand is considered a medium-sized city in the Nord Kingdom.

The city has relatively complete public facilities, including public toilets and sewers.

With public toilets, the streets will remain clean, unlike in medieval Europe where there was excrement on the streets.

Soon, Baron and Rod arrived at an inn that was much more elegantly decorated than the tavern they had stayed in before.

Baron led Rod to the second floor, and then knocked on the door of the innermost room on the second floor.

"Please come in," a man's voice came from inside the door.

No sooner had he finished speaking than the door clicked open.

Baron and Rod entered the room. The room was large, and inside was only a middle-aged man dressed in fine clothes sitting at a table a dozen meters away from the door, drinking tea.

Rhodes looked around in confusion, but couldn't find the person who had opened the door for them.

The middle-aged man noticed Rhodes's confusion and explained, "This is a simple application of magic I created. You're here to discuss that mission, right?"

The man's face was extremely pale, as if he hadn't seen the sun in a long time. He had very obvious dark circles under his eyes and a receding hairline, looking like a programmer who had been working overtime every night.

"That's right, sir," Baron said.

"I am a merchant from the Kingdom of Fish. On my way here, I was robbed by a band of bandits who stole my goods."

I'm currently hiring adventurers everywhere, hoping they can help me reclaim my cargo. If you'd like to join my party, I'll pay each of you ten gold coins.

"If you can render the bandit leader helpless and hand him over to me, I will give you an extra hundred gold coins," the merchant added.

Although wars frequently occur between nations on the continent, cross-border trade is still permitted by all countries. Many merchants take risks for high profits.

Most of the bandits in the Kingdom of Nord adhere to certain principles; they generally only rob the rich and not the poor, and they try their best not to kill.

Rhodes was somewhat skeptical of what he was saying. In the Kingdom of Nord, one hundred copper coins equaled one silver coin, and one hundred silver coins equaled one gold coin.

One hundred gold coins was a huge sum of money for them. They might not earn that much even after struggling on the brink of life and death for a whole year.

This task is definitely not that simple. From the merchant's words, it's clear that he plans to find many adventurers to steal back his goods.

Rhodes wasn't sure if a merchant from the Kingdom of Fish could actually afford to pay that much money.

He had some doubts about whether the businessman would ultimately pay the money. And why was this businessman doing international business all by himself? Why couldn't he even find any guards who knew who he employed?

"We accept your employment. So when do we depart?" Baron agreed without hesitation when he heard the businessman promise to pay so much money.

What a brainless brute! He didn't even ask how many bandits there were or what their equipment was like.

"It's winter now, and I don't think those bandits will be able to sell my goods in the next few days. I also need to recruit more men. Please come find me here in three days," the merchant said.

"Sir, we don't know your name yet," Rod asked.

The businessman seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying, "You can call me Otto."

Rod and Baron left the inn. On their way back, Rod asked Baron:

Don't you think there's something wrong with that businessman?

"Of course I know he has problems, but he pays me a lot of money."

"You agree to things even when there are problems? Aren't you afraid he won't pay you?"

"Don't worry, if he doesn't give me the money, I'll beat him until he does."

"What if he doesn't have a single penny?"

"..."

…………

When Rod returned to the tavern, it was already evening. He ordered a roasted rabbit and some bread for dinner.

The Kingdom of Nord is vast, but sparsely populated. Most of it is covered by forests, which are teeming with a great variety and number of wild animals.

In other countries, civilians are not allowed to hunt privately, and poaching is a crime, because the land and its produce belong to the lord. However, the Kingdom of Nord does not have such laws; hunting and logging are permitted for civilians.

Many Nords start hunting from a young age, and many make a living from it.

From a young age, the Nords honed their archery skills through hunting. As a predominantly carnivorous people, the Nords possess great strength, making the vast majority of them excellent archers.

The archers of the Kingdom of Nord are the strongest on the continent. In war, unlike archers from other nations who use volleys of arrows to create pressure, they use precise shots to directly reap the lives of enemy soldiers.

On the battlefield, even the Roman Empire knights clad in plate armor dared not charge against organized groups of Nord archers.

Although the roasted rabbit meat was of very good quality, it wasn't salted enough, so it tasted bland, and there were no spices like cumin. For someone like Rod who prefers strong flavors, it was not to his liking.

Although Nord is located by the sea, Icestone City is inland and far from the sea, which makes salt relatively expensive, and spices are generally unaffordable for ordinary people.

On the first day after he transmigrated, the tavern sold Rhodes half-cooked roast meat. Rhodes asked the tavern owner for well-done roast meat, only to be met with a surprised look from him.

So Rhodes explained the dangers of eating raw meat to the adventurers in the tavern, and the adventurers listened to Rhodes's explanation as if it were a joke.

They've been eating this kind of food for many years, and their ancestors did the same...

Finally, under the threat of Baron's fist, the tavern owner began selling Rod the well-done roast meat.

The bread sold at the tavern is very hard, probably because the wheat bran wasn't completely removed during the flour grinding process. Neither the tavern's chef nor Rod can solve this problem.

The food in this world is awful; they only know how to grill and boil. "If I ever opened a restaurant, it would be packed every day," Rod thought to himself.

After finishing his meal, Rod listened to Baron and the others in the tavern bragging before going upstairs to rest.

Rhodes hadn't fought since his transmigration, and the thought of wiping out bandits in three days made him a little nervous, even though Baron was a powerful figure in his memories.

He fell asleep quickly as he thought about it.

In his half-awake state, Rhodes vaguely heard

"Beep. Martial Arts System fully charged, charging time: seven days. Initiating user body information scanning..."