“And that’s basically all. I’m guessing you understand why I don’t want to just have anyone appraise these things, right?” Foster asked, “I don’t want to deal with troublesome stuff.”

Himkijl looked at the magic items laying on the table in front of him, finally giving a short nod of approval, “We will do this for you, but not for free.”

“I mean, I can pay if you want, I don’t really care that much about money.” Foster grabbed a pouch from his hip and threw it onto the table. It contained all the coins that he usually carried with him whenever he was out. But Himkijl quickly shook his head, “It’s not money we want from you. I don’t know if I should believe what you said in regard to where these items came from, but for now, I will assume that you are telling the truth. We will find out in a few minutes anyway.” Himkijl pointed out, “Rather, we… I, want you to help us. I did what you asked me to, and removed anyone that I can’t trust from this organization. The rest… they are people that I truly trust. And they are like us… good people that ended up in a bad situation.”

“So? What is it you want, then?” 

Himkijl looked Foster straight into his eyes, and then voiced his will, “I want you to form a guild, and let us be part of it.”

Unsure whether or not he heard the hogmir in front of him right just now, Foster leaned forward and even glanced at Kir to gauge his expression, “Erm… say what now?”

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? You want us to work ethically, and protect the people instead of… well, you know.” With a bitter expression, Himkijl slightly bowed his head forward since he couldn’t gesture with his arms, “So please, help us do this.”

Foster leaned back, knowing now that he didn’t misunderstand what was asked of him, and then let out a loud, deep groan, “Dude, I meant that I want you to adjust what you’re doing, not change completely. I’m not a good enough person to help all of you turn legit.”

Persistent in what he wants, Himkijl did not give up, “We can still protect the people as you want all the same, if not more when we can stand there where the public can view us. We can’t form a guild like that. It just… wouldn’t work, trust me. But under you, someone that the world dungeon itself clearly acknowledges as special enough to create a unique boss monster for? We would flourish wonderfully. After all… when given the choice, would you really stay a criminal?”

Foster’s heart jumped a beat, hearing Himkijl’s last question. Would he stay a criminal? The answer for that was obvious. He was literally given the perfect new start, in a whole other world without a trace of his existence. And just a month after arriving in such a place, he had already associated himself with a new criminal organization.

“I…” he started, “I’m… scum. I am not a good person. Neither am I special or unique enough to be acknowledged by something great like the world dungeon. The only two things I’m really good at took me my whole life to learn how to do. I’m not even that smart. I’m just lucky, or unlucky, depending on how you want to see it. I will never be able to help you be what you want to be.” Foster said with a light scowl on his face, as if he was disgusted by Himkijl for even suggesting that the reality was anything other than that. He turned his head, looking at the window. It was so dark down here that the window could have been just another wall, and the amount of light getting in here would never change, even though it should still be bright out around this time. The only thing he saw was his own reflection in the dirty glass, and his disgustingly green eyes staring back at himself.

“But there is someone else that might be able to.” He said, turning back away from the window, “I’ll talk to him about it. He’s the leader of my party, and if there’s anyone that can help you get to where you want to be, then it’s him,” before Himkijl could comment on what was said, Foster tapped the table in front of him, “Are you going to appraise this for me, or not?”

With a slightly nervous expression, Himkijl turned to Kir and nodded his head to him. The orc stood up, grabbing what seemed to just be a book from one of the shelves, before sitting back down. He took a few breaths to calm himself down, and then Kir quickly closed his eyes, and started reciting the same sort of ritualistic prayer as he did before, entering that shamanistic state. When he was done, he grabbed the first of the two magic items, the cloak. He ran his fingers over it, took in its scent, and basically tried to interact with it as much as he could in this relatively simple manner.

He started whispering something at some point, and although Foster could tell that Kir was speaking, he couldn’t understand or even really hear what was said, ‘So this is him talking to the mana, then?’ he wondered for a while, until Kir placed the fur cloak back onto the table.

With his injured right hand, he flipped the book in front of him open, revealing that it wasn’t a book at all. Rather, on the left side, there were a few sheets of paper pinned to the cork background, and on the right was a wooden box. It simply looked like it was a book from the outside, though. Kir pulled the lid off the wooden box, and revealed the black ink inside of it. Carefully, he placed the tips of all his fingers on his right hand into the ink, but only enough to cover his fingerprints.

Kir then pressed the tips of his fingers onto the paper on the left side of the fake book, carefully drawing patterns onto it. Once the page was more black than the off-white beige from before, Kir pulled the page away with his clean left hand, placing it to the side, before grabbing the small purple marble with that same hand.

But this time, probably since he could easily hold it with just one hand, Kir kept holding onto the marble while he repeated the same process again on another sheet of paper. It didn’t take long for him to be done with this either, slowly placing the marble back onto the fur cloak to stop it from rolling away on accident. Keeping his ink-covered right hand away from his body, the orc took a few more deep breaths as the glow that had illuminated this whole room faded away from his eyes and tattoos.

“Very powerful, for where they from.” Kir explained, seemingly rather exhausted, before looking at his hand, “I get water.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Foster said, leaning back to grab an empty bowl on the desk behind him, “Mind if I use this?” He asked, looking at Himkijl, who quickly shook his head, “Alright then. Aster, could you fill the bowl with water for me?” 

Himkijl and Kir looked at Foster, confused at who he was talking to, since he didn’t even avert his eyes from where he was looking before. However, soon, the small spirit pushed its way out of the hairbun on its contractor’s head, climbing down to his arm. Without much further ado, Aster started to fill the bowl with water, before Foster gave it to Kir so that he could clean his hand.

“More importantly, what is it that you… well, wrote down, I guess?” Foster asked, looking at the two pages of paper, “Recognize writing?” Kir asked, clearly surprised, and Foster shrugged.

“I’ve never seen that before, but it just makes sense for it to be writing, right?” He replied, “More importantly, what’d you find out?”

“Ah, right. Erm… let me try to read that for you.” Himkijl said, leaning forward to properly see the pages, “This manner of writing belongs to an orcish shaman tribe, the one that Kir is from. I came across a few of their hunters during my travels, and they invited me to the tribe. I stayed with them for a while, and they taught me the way to read this writing, at the very least. Kir is still learning Argian, so translating this is usually a bit tough.” He explained, although Foster didn’t really care that much about who of these two told him about this.

Himkijl looked the first of the two pages over, before starting to smile, “At least there is undeniable proof that you were speaking the truth now. It was acquired on the fifth floor of the world dungeon, and is made from the hide of the King Mole, but transformed through the dungeon’s own mana. It’s enchanted with low-level blunt force resistance, and has a special aspect on top of that. It’s sort of weird, but as long as they’re standing on solid rock, not dirt, pure metal, or the likes, they have a tighter grip on that surface.”

“Hm… seems useful enough.” Foster muttered, before thinking to himself while Himkijl started to read through the second sheet of paper, ‘Lynol sometimes slides a bit over the ground when he swings his sword too hard. It would probably be perfect for him. He also likes cloaks a lot in the first place…’

While he was lost in his thoughts for a moment, Foster noticed Himkijl’s expression as he stared onto the page, “This… this is…. a dangerous magic item.”