My New Life in TBATE

Rank up.

A few moments later I got a message back from

Vincent and Tabitha.

"Jaron Helstea, we will always worry about you, but we understand that you want to finish the journey. Please continue to be safe and come home quickly, we miss you and we love you."

A smile graces my face as I run the words through my head again. Then I see a woman heading towards me from the gate.

"Are you Rez? The guild master would like you to come back to the guild and debrief him on what happened. Please follow me." She says and waits for my response, which I just nod and follow her back through the gate. Arriving at the guild, I'm immediately escorted to Kaspian's office, as soon as I enter the escort walks out and shuts the door.

"You can remove the mask, no one can see you here." As I remove the mask, I guess my face betrayed my emotions more than I though based off the wince from Kaspian. Too much hiding my expressions behind the mask has resulted in not controlling my facial expressions.

"I'm sorry about what happened Jaron. Can you tell me everything that happened?" I give a nod and retell everything exactly as it happened, not leaving anything out. The range of emotions also cross his face, but eventually he just settles on a slight frown.

"I see, Maverick Marceau. He was never one of the good ones, but I never imagined he would pull something like this. Very well, I'll take care of everything with the families. Put your mask back on for a moment." I grab my mask from leg and place it back on my face.

"Emily!" He yells to the door, which quickly opens to the same woman that brought him to the guild.

"Yes, guild master?" She asks looking between us.

"Get Rez a new guild card. His rank is now AA." She looks shocked but quickly nods and bows out the room.

"AA already? Are you sure that's okay?" I ask him while removing my mask again.

"Once the rumors inevitably get out, people would be at my neck if I didn't promote you. Seriously, 100 bandits and you're surprised?" Kaspian says while shaking his head slightly with a wry grin.

"I suppose you're right." I concede easily. I mean I'm not too mad about ranking up to AA.

"Alright you can head downstairs and Emily should have finished your card by then. I'll see you hopefully at the end of your journey the next time." I just nod my head and walk out the door, at the base of the stairs I met Emily coming back up to give me my new card.

"Here's your AA card, Rez." Emily says while holding it out for me.

"Thanks." Was my only response as I grabbed it and left the guild hall. However before leaving back out the gate I stopped by the tea shop to pick up some more tea. For some reason I feel I'll need something calming while journeying with the Twin Horns.

On my walk back I had been thinking about revealing my identity to the Twin Horns mainly to clear up their suspicious, but I also really can't wait to see Jasmine's and their reactions when I reveal I'm Jaron before Arthur's adventure. Ah, momentary inconvenience for a very funny moment down the line, I think I can live with that.

Passing through the gate I head back to the square where I see the Twin Horn party talking to Mr. Zany, I approach and Mr. Zany's seems to notice a bit of tension in the air.

"What seems to be the problem everyone?" He asks looking at me for the longest before looking back to the Twin Horns.

"They seem to believe I killed our party and not the bandits." I stated bluntly and they all sputtered in disbelief while Mr. Zany looked angry for the first time I'd ever seen.