Merlin continued down the road, but his attention was still locked on the individuals being hunted by wild boars.
One of the individuals tripped over, quickly getting crushed under the stampede, and the rest of the group continued running without even looking back.
The rest of the group suffered a similar fate as a much larger wild boar quickly caught up with them, crushing them all under its hooves.
Merlin made sure to not get too close to the horde as he watched them stomp on the corpses angrily. But after a few moments they all began walking back to their original positions further away from the road.
Merlin was staring at the giant wild boar and regretting that he hadn't yet bothered to grab a harvesting skill.
'I'll do it the next time I visit Orchomenus.' He made a mental note to himself.
Once the boars moved well away from the corpses, Merlin wandered closer to see if they had dropped anything. But as his poor luck would have it, they didn't drop anything.
Merlin continued down the road, the rolling hills shifted into farm land as he approached the city. He made his way over the bridge, noticing that there were still a few fishermen out at this time of night. He continued towards the city, where he was surrounded with an endless sea of barley once more.
He walked through the gates, greeting the guards as he entered the city. Merlin made his way back into the mercenary guild, where he was greeted with the same receptionist as before, although she appeared to be tired.
"Oh, you're back already?" She asked with a yawn. "Did you bite off more than you could chew?"
"No, I'm here to turn in my completed quests." Merlin pulled out all five quest forms, placing them on the counter. The receptionist noticed that the forms were all marked as completed.
"I've got physical proof, if a god's seal isn't enough for you." Merlin reached into his inventory and brought out the hobgoblin heart.
"No, no. That's plenty." The receptionist awkwardly coughed before pointing out specific locations around the counter. "Please put all the goblin ears in the collection basket over there, and the heart in that box."
Merlin did as he was instructed, he placed the hobgoblin heart in the box inscribed with magic circles, before walking over to the collection basket and holding his inventory above it.
The receptionist, and everyone paying attention, watched as a hundred and forty goblin ears suddenly appeared into existence, before they all collectively slumped into the collection basket.
"That would be forty-five silver pieces. Is that all for today?" The receptionist asked while placing a bag of silver coins on the counter.
"That'll be all." Merlin said as he grabbed the bag of coins and walked out.
He threw the silver into his inventory before clicking on his copper coins and converting as many as he could into silver, adding another twelve silver pieces to the pile. His wallet now came to a total of one hundred and four silver, and two copper.
"That's quite the nest egg." Merlin mumbled to himself, realising he had enough silver coins to immediately make a platinum coin.
'The Arcadian currency is so simple.' Merlin thought to himself as he made his way to the western gate. 'They should just keep currency this simple for the full release.'
Merlin began wondering what sort of changes would happen after the beta test ended, and became curious if any of his actions would severely influence the world of the main game or not.
As Merlin continued to the gate, he saw a group of familiar looking players making their way through the gate, and out of the city. They didn't seem that happy, but it was understandable when he thought back to how brutally they died.
Merlin followed along, summoning his ball of light before leaving the city.
The group of players gave him a few glances, but it didn't seem like they were that interested in interacting with Merlin, so he ignored them. Eventually the group split off from Merlin and set out on their revenge match against the giant boar, while Merlin continued down the road into the forest.
Merlin perked his ears up as he traversed the road. He heard the usual noises expected from the forest at night, the rustling of leaves, the strange chirping of various bugs, and the various noises from a clear overabundance of owls.
Merlin pulled the glowing bracelet out of his inventory and began playing with it as he walked. He shook it hard enough for it to shift from blue to green, but could only manage a slight yellowish-green before he grew too tired to shake it. It was ultimately a useless magic item, but it was slightly entertaining.
Roughly thirty minutes later, Merlin could see hundreds of lights scattered along a large hill, illuminating the large, yet open, city of Megalopolis.
The city struck a nice balance of nature and civilisation, although there were several hundred buildings scattered about, they were so spread out that it never felt cramped, especially when compared to cities such as Macedonia.
And scattered around the city were several ancient ruins, and fortunately every ruin was left untouched by the city's expansion. It was clear that Megalopolis was full of individuals who appreciated their history, something Merlin could respect.
But the most impressive feature, and especially one that towered over all the others, was a massive stone wall, roughly twenty meters in height.
This was the main defence of Megalopolis, as the city chose to not be surrounded by walls. The large wall spanned past the horizon, as far as the eye could see. Its main goal being to protect the east from the frontier, the wilderness west of the walls where powerful monsters ran rampant.
Merlin continued walking until the treeline parted, opening up to more rolling hills. As Merlin continued down the road, he noticed that it quickly came to an end, just outside of a large building labelled the "Merchants Association".
The road split up into several different paths of varying widths, but Merlin knew where his main goal was. He began following the paths that lead closer to the wall, walking by several ruins that he briefly glanced at with excitement before continuing on his way.
One thing Merlin noticed while walking around the city was that almost everyone was armed. And as he got closer to the wall, he noticed that more people began appearing with bows, staves and wands.
This was because Megalopolis was home to both the wizards college and the rangers guild, both of which Merlin intended to enter, but the rangers guild was his first goal.
Merlin walked towards a building labelled "The Rangers Guild", although the building appeared to be more of a barracks than a guildhall. It was quite a large building with an even larger walled off facility behind it.
Merlin walked into the building, unlike the several other guildhalls he had entered, this room wasn't tainted with the scent of alcohol or tobacco smoke, rather the area had the pleasant aroma of a forest.
There weren't many people within the first room, a couple people sitting around filling out what seemed to be a form of some sort, and a young woman sitting around at a desk who had been staring at him since he walked into the building.
The woman had long red hair, bright blue eyes and was wearing a dark blue tunic. Merlin approached the woman at the desk, and as he got closer, the woman's curious gaze shifted into a smile.
"Hello there, welcome to the rangers guild!" Her voice was cheerful and lively, she seemed extremely friendly. "Are you here to submit a request, or are you looking to register?"
"I'd like to register, please." Merlin said as he gave her a smile.
"Sure sure sure!" She said repeatedly as she searched for something under her desk. She came back up a few seconds later with a sheet of paper and a pencil. "I'll just get some basic information from you and then I'll lead you to the training room."
"Do you need any assistance with reading or writing?" She asked while handing Merlin the form.
"No, I'm fine. Thank you." Merlin replied as he quickly began filling in his information.
It asked a few basic questions, such as his name, age, physical activity, reason for wanting to join, etc. Merlin filled it in as best as he could before handing it back to her.
"Uh huh, everything looks good." She said as she checked over the form. She nodded her head before standing up from her chair and sticking her hand out like she was waiting for a handshake. "Welcome to the rangers guild! My name is Tuli, you can ask me for help whenever you need.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Merlin." Merlin shook her hand and returned her greeting.
