The guards didn’t spare me more than a glance. On a street bustling with people, very few people did. Everyone walked on their own businesses, not minding someone like me, just another traveller, another peasant youth gawking at everyone and everything.

And gawk I did. There was just so much interesting things. The buildings made from wood and bricks with often not just one, but two or even three storeys, the colourful signboards of many shops, the people in rich clothes mixing with the ones wearing armour and weapons even here in the city. It was such a lively place compared to what I was used to. At the same time, the memories that awakened more and more in me with every increase of my INT and with this new stimuli, told me that this wasn’t such big of a city in comparison with… something. ​​

My feet followed the main stream of people on their own, and soon I reached a square full of stalls with food. My stomach grumbled from a single look at them, though I ate from my supplies on the road. Sweets, baked goods, beer sold by kegs and by mugs…

With a last longing glance, I focused on my primary goal. I had to find an exorcist. Now, who’d know where I could find one? My eyes caught a sign of a couple of guards looking over the market’s crowd and I made a beeline towards them.

“Are you lost?” one of them asked me at my approach, eyeing me suspiciously. “We aren’t guides for every farmer boy who ran away from home.”

“Oh, ignore him! Dames here drank so much yesterday that he’s still hangover,” the guard’s partner smiled at me. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Do you know where I can find an exorcist?”

“Exorcist?” Now both guards did a double take, but it was the friendlier one who spoke. “You think you are cursed?”

“I’m totally sure I’m—”

‘Wow, what surety. You are sure as fuck,’ Pest’s sarcastic voice after his long silence made me flinch and bite my tongue. ‘Will you be as sure if I say I’m your damned blessing? Che.’

I ignored him to the best of my ability. Soon, very soon, I will be rid of him. I looked at the guards, hoping that said exorcist wasn’t too far away.

“Oh, then you should head to the Guild as soon as you can,” the friendlier guard said, pointing towards the middle of the city. “But they will squeeze you dry for it. I hope for your sake that you have plenty of money or you will have to take a loan. Well, they will explain it better at the Guild than I can.”

I frowned. Loan didn’t sound that well, but I nodded. “Thanks,” I said without thinking twice and left towards the pointed out direction.

Funny how I had some politeness even after all that happened. Some habits just never disappear.

⠀⠀

The Guild was impossible to miss. It had four storeys, for a start, and a huge signboard with “Adventurers’ Guild” written on it. There was also a painted wood cutout next to its entrance, portraying a cheerful and buff man with a sword and some pieces of armour strapped on top of his clothes, lifting a severed head of a giant lizard (the head was as big as a toddler). At his feet were several piles of yellow coins and a writing on a free space on the wood said, “Become an adventurer, become a hero of your own story!”

I turned away from the cutout and went to the door, when Pest’s voice made me pause.

‘Alright, you won, Hell-boy,’ he said in a more dejected tone than I’ve ever heard. ‘You fucking won! You can just exorcise the fuck out of me now, and I will be out of your hair, and you won’t lose even a minute of your fucking sleep because of killing me.’

I let my hand drop and snorted. ‘Exactly! If anything, I will sleep much better without you in my head. I really hope you have some physical form so I could eat you before you get sent to the afterlife. And I really hope you will get Hell…’

‘That’s the fucking point! I won’t!’ Pest whined out. ‘Curses don’t even have souls to go to the afterlife. Exorcising me will just kill me dead! For good!’

I grinned. ‘That sounds even better.’

“Don’t stand in the middle of a way!” someone threw at me at the same time as they pushed at my shoulder, sending me staggering a couple steps away. When I lifted my head, I saw a man in polished armour giving me a dirty look as they walked inside of the Guild.

I shook my head and stood next to a wall, away from the people who were walking in and out of the building. ‘I thought you accepted your fate, Pest. Why you would start pleading for your life now? If that’s all you wanted to say, I’m going to the exorcist.’

‘No! Wait. Listen. I… I can be useful to you if you keep me alive, I fucking swear! Remember what I told about elites? I can empower you. If I got some EXP to level up my abilities, I could do some fucking cool magic. And you don’t want to take a loan from the Guild, you just fucking don’t. They will squeeze you dry. These fuckers always do.’

‘I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. You’ll just leave me to die as soon as you find someone who can kill me.’

‘Riiiight. Well, you don’t have to! If you just go into the Guild’s magic shop, you can buy some contract paper and we can make a magic contract. It will be absolutely fucking unbreakable, ask anyone in there! And it’s bound to character sheets and intent, so even I could sign one. You can write whatever the fuck you want in there. I just want to live, ok? One day, someone just MUST kill you! I can work for you until then. Doesn’t that sound fucking fair?’