Everyone around them immediately gasped as soon the man introduced himself. Everyone present there had heard of the great spearman. After all, he was one of the first people to head into the dungeon where the werewolves encountered their first A-ranked night creature... the Juggernaut.
The Juggernaught was a dozen feet tall nightmarish creature with unbelievably strong defence. However, its offensive abilities were even worse. It also took about a week to finally kill the monstrosity.
But by the time that was achieved, out of the 100 adventurers who participated in the raid, a quarter of them were annihilated and numerous souls were left crippled for life. Markus Finnely was one of them as he lost an eye to the monster. But he was also the reason why more than seventy members survived the battle.
In short, the man standing in front of them was a living legend. Someone whom all of them looked up to and for someone like him to appear in front of them was a bit overwhelming for everyone.
Well, everyone but Ashton, who did not have a single clue about who Markus was. However, judging by how everyone was acting up and that the old man's stats were hidden, he decided to treat the man with respect.
"The pleasure is all mine, sir." Ashton respectfully replied.
"Oh my, I never imagined a Bismark would address me as 'sir'." Markus joked before heartily laughing.
Immediately the people around them had found something new to talk about. It was their lucky day... probably?
"Great. You went ahead and messed with royalty. Good going, Virgil. We got new classes and now we're gonna die even before we got to test them out." The woman with the bow smacked the hammer guy right in the head.
"Oh, shit... I grabbed someone related to the king by his shoulder..." The hammer-wielding man mumbled absent-mindedly, "I'm so dead."
Before everything could get overly complicated, Ashton cleared any misconceptions they had about him being related to the king. After all, Jonathan did not seem like a man who would have enjoyed having a son like him.
"I'm a Bismark only in name. His highness is only my patron, nothing more."
"Still, for him to send a recommendation letter for you, he must value you quite a bit. After all, he did not even do it for any of his children."
Ashton did not know anything about a letter but judging from how pleased Markus looked, Jonathan must have written something good about him.
"Either way, I have been informed you obtained Bronze rank in your first attempt and hurried here to find a quest. You are quite ambitious, Mr Bismark. That being said, I think I have the perfect quest for you."
Just as Markus said that a new quest appeared on the screen. It was a subjugation quest alright, but an extremely rewarding one. Twenty thousand blue units as the clearing reward and on top of that, whatever they found inside the dungeon would be theirs.
However... the requirements were a bit troubling. It needed to be a five-member team with at least three of the members having bronze rank or above. Ashton was hoping to get into a low-rank solo dungeon as he needed to focus on levelling up the rest of his genes. However, with a team that was certainly not possible.
"I was thinking about solo-"
"Don't worry, I'm sure some of these people would likely accompany you two." Markus interrupted Ashton.
"Two?"
"You don't think his highness would let you go on a rampage, do you?" The knight standing next to him replied, "I'm not just your escort. I'm also a Silver ranked adventurer, which means I'll be looking after you in every single dungeon trip."
'Great... just what I wanted.' Ashton sighed heavily, 'Nothing ever goes right in this accursed world.'
He actually thought Jonathan would let him do things his way. But it didn't seem like that was going to happen anytime soon. Maybe, it was another one of Jonathan's tests to see if he was loyal to him or not. After all, he was psychotic enough to actually do something like that.
"Fine. Let's look for teammates then-"
"Excuse me, but we overheard your conversation and were wondering if we could be a part of the team?" Virgil, the hammer guy asked while scratching the back of his head, while the rest of his party members smiled awkwardly behind him.
Ashton was not in a good mood anymore so he decided to throw a verbal jab at the man, "This is not a place for kids like me right? So piss off!"
"I-I only said that because I didn't know you were a Bronze ranker like myself. Hehe... otherwise I would have asked you to join our squad instead."
"If you don't want them to join we can join you instead!" A different group roared at the top of their lungs. Followed by another and another.
Ashton didn't know why all of sudden these many people wanted to join him when they were not even paying any attention to him before. Then it hit him. Not only did the subjugation quest give better rewards than the rest of them, apparently, but Markus had also already registered the quest under Ashton's name.
Which essentially meant there was only one way for any of them to participate in the quest. They had to form a team with Ashton and no one wanted to miss the opportunity to obtain such high rewards.
'They behave more like jackals than wolves, to be honest.' Ashton thought before turning towards Virgil, 'This guy doesn't look too bad. He has decent abilities and on top of all that, I know he genuinely was looking out for me when he stopped me earlier.'
Ashton pondered about it for a little more time before coming to a decision as the knight and Markus both had left the decision on him.
"Fine, you can join us... Virgil was it?"
"Yes, sir... *cough*" Virgil proudly banged his chest... but he might have been overly enthusiastic and hit himself too hard.
'Oh boy.... what have I gotten myself into?'