The five people in front of Foster stared at him, not sure what they were supposed to do or say. The first one to do something was the most surprising person of this group. While letting out a loud, seemingly quite annoyed groan, the Orc sat back down where he had been sitting just earlier, “We listen.” He said, and the Elf stared at him as if he had gone insane, “What? This guy broke your arm, and you just want to entertain him?”

“Holding grudge, ugly.” Kir replied, “Showed trust. Kir return trust.”

Clicking his tongue, the human swordsman was the second to sit down, soon followed by the Lizardman. The Elf looked at Himkijl, “What about you? Will you just listen to him as well? How do we even know that he’s telling the truth?”

“Ah, if that’s what you’re worried about…” Foster said, pushing his hand into his pocket to pull out his wallet. Most of the things he had in there when he first arrived in this world were useless now, so he just kept them separately at the inn. Now, the only things inside of it were his Guild Card and the two clear-proof coins, the first he got from the Little Undead Laboratory, and the second from beating the sub-boss of the World Dungeon.

Foster stretched his hand out toward the human, who currently sat closest to him. A bit surprised, the human took the card from him and looked it over, “He seems to be telling the truth. At the very least, it looks like a legitimate guild card.” He explained, showing the card to the Elf as well. She practically tore it out of his hands and looked it over, before staring at Foster, “And how do we know this is actually yours?”

Letting out a loud groan, Foster stood up to get the card back, “Listen, I can tell that nothing I could tell you is going to convince you, so at least listen to your boss’ guts, alright? He seems to be on board. So if he trusts me, and you trust him, then you trust me.” He said, quickly grabbing the card before sitting back down, “Can we just get to it and start talking about why I’m here now?”

Himkijl slowly nodded his head, pulling another chair toward him with his foot. His arms didn’t really work anymore, after all. He sat down on the chair, and leaned back, “What is it you want?”

“You’re a mage, right?” 

“Yes, but I’m not really in the business anymore, for obvious reasons.” The boarman pointed out, glancing down at his arms, and Foster immediately nodded, “I know, I know. I’m not asking you to use earth magic for me or anything. But considering that you’re a mage, it made me curious as to why you would have your men rob a craftsman. And not just his money, but his items. And very specific ones as well.”

The two men locked eyes with each other, and Himkijl soon replied, “What are you getting at?”

“All the items you got from Zhaine’s place were old. Rusted, and not well taken care of. To be honest, I don’t know much about dwarves, but they’re supposed to be the best craftsmen around, right? So maybe, there was something special about his items before Zhaine… got ill.” Foster suggested, before the Elf scoffed while shaking her head, “Ill? That man is nothing but a drunkard, he-“

“Addiction is a disease, to the point where it has hereditary aspects to it. If you want to be part of this conversation, shut the fuck up about things you don’t understand.” With a deep glare, Foster stared at the Elf, who was quickly taken aback. Foster was good at changing the air in a room in an instant with just the tone of his voice, a skill that came in more than handy in situations like this. He looked away from the Elf and back at Himkijl, “Point is, when you gave me the weapons back, they were clearly split up. I got the chance to look around in Zhaine’s shop before you robbed him, and while it looks chaotic, there is a certain order to things. So usually, the items should be sorted according to that order. But they weren’t, they were mixed and matched seemingly randomly.”

“So? Some of my men must have played around with-“

“You can use the appraisal spell, can’t you?” Foster sighed, getting right to the point. He didn’t want to play around anymore. The hogmir’s eyes widened for just a moment, although he was trying to react as little to Foster as possible. With a grin, the young man leaned back, “So it’s true, huh? Perfect. Listen, I don’t know why you’re hiding the fact you can use the appraisal spell, and I don’t really care about it either. It’s your own business. But… I do need you to use that spell on two items for me.”

“…” Himkijl silently stared at the man sitting across from him, “Everyone but Kir, could you please leave?” He asked, and due to the silence in the room, it seemed like everyone understood that this was a situation that they shouldn’t meddle in.

They got up, and walked to the door. Of course, they didn’t leave without the Elf getting the chance to glare at Foster one more time befoer closing the door behind them. Himkijl turned his head toward Kir, the Orc sitting right beside him, “Nobody here can use appraisal, first of all. If that was the case, then we wouldn’t have any issues. Getting an item appraised properly can be really, really expensive. We have a method of doing something similar, but… well, just show it to him, Kir.” He said, and Foster turned his gaze over to the Orc.

Kir had closed his eyes, and was whispering in a language that Foster didn’t understand. He knew that Kir probably wasn’t from here, he had a very strong accent and spoke in rather broken Argian. He probably didn’t live here for all too long yet. Soon, the tattoos that were covering his body started to give off a feint glow, as a sort of ethereal white, luminescent mist started to pour out of them until it practically covered Kir in a thin veil. Soon, he opened his eyes, which were giving off the same glow as his tattoos.

“I am… shaman. Not fighter.” He explained, and Foster raised his brows surprised, “A shaman? Oh, so he’s the one that does the appraising? Basically communicating with otherworldly beings to help him figure out what something is? But wait, wouldn’t that be a sort of magic, then? I know I’m not one to talk, but if you’re using it with your whole body like that, shouldn’t that cause to… you know… magic feedback stuff?” He asked, glancing at Himkijl’s arms. However, rather than explain the situation to him further, both the hogmir and orc stared at him as if he was insane.

“That is all?” Himkijl asked, and Foster looked back a bit perplexed, “Should I have said something else? I know a little about the core ideas of shamanism, but nothing too specific… sorry if I said something wrong.”

Himkijl and Kir looked at each other for a few moments as if they were more than just confused, while Foster was sitting there, unsure what to say, “Erm… I obviously don’t know what’s going on, so could you… I don’t know… talk?”

“Right…” Himkijl said, collecting his thoughts again, “As you said, Kir communicates with ‘otherworldly’ things to roughly appraise objects. Of course, they are usually not actual beings, but normally he converses with mana itself. Most shamans can’t, but Kir is gifted in a rare assortment of ways, and learned unique methods.”

“Mhm, mhm. Cool. But, like… why can’t you just use that to do business openly? It seems like an incredibly useful thing. You could make some good money.” Foster pointed out quickly, and now, it seemed like something finally clicked for Himkijl, “You’re not from the Empire, are you?”

“I’m not. Why?”

“…Shamanism has been outlawed in the empire. People with classes of the Shaman system are immediately arrested and are to be executed immediately.” The Hogmir said, and Foster looked back at the two in front of him, when he started to realize what was going on. He had heard a bit about the emperor while at the observatory, so figuring out the reasons wasn’t too hard, “So basically… the emperor is a religious fanatic and thinks that shamanism is sacrilegious to his beliefs. But even in Arcadum, a city where even the use of necromancy is legal, you have to hide being a shaman, huh? I don’t really get the reasoning, but it’s not like it’s hard to believe, honestly.” Foster guessed, and Himkijl was even more perplexed than before.

“That is exactly it… were you just playing, pretending not to know?”

“No, no, I was just able to guess. It’s not like it’s a rare pattern.” He pointed out, before realizing something else, “Oh, but… with this, I guess that means our cooperation has been settled. You revealing something that could cost Kir his life must mean you trust me enough. Then let me tell you of the context of what I need your help with..” Foster said, as he pulled the Lord of the Cave’s cloak as well as that purple marble out of his bag, placing them on the table in front of him, before starting to explain the situation properly.