Damien was now dressed in a casual all-black outfit consisting of a short-sleeve shirt, pants, and shoes that looked strangely similar to high-top sneakers from Earth.
Taking some time before attempting to do anything important, Damien toured the city with Zara, who was now only around half his height, and frankly, extremely cute.
Damien didn't know until a couple of minutes ago, but most beasts could freely change their size within a certain range after they acquire their 1st class. It's just that most don't choose to get smaller since being bigger was usually a sign of dominance.
Zara only decided to shrink because she could see the fear on the faces of those around them and she didn't want to deal with anything annoying while they were relaxing.
However, this move of hers still ended up causing quite a few disturbances for them. You would think that Damien, this extremely handsome man, would cause plenty of heads to turn and women to flock, but that was wrong.
Handsome men were everywhere on Apeiron, after all, mana had the effect of beautifying people. Although Damien was significantly more handsome than usual, it wasn't enough to make women go mad for him.
On the other hand, an extremely cute wolf with silky smooth and fluffy fur that seemed to be begging to be pet was a fatal attraction. Not just women, but families with children also fake up occasionally and attempted to pet Zara, but she wasn't some pet.
Damien attempted to warn the people, but they decided not to listen and quite a few of them ended up with minor injuries as consequence. Naturally, Damien protected the kids, but he didn't spare a glance towards adults who didn't respect other people's privacy.
After a couple of incidents, Zara gave up and just hid in Damien's shadow as they explored. She would still be able to see everything that was happening, it was just a shame that she couldn't walk around with Damien.
While they toured the city, Damien was pleasantly surprised by what he saw. Most of the buildings were only 2-5 stories tall, as skyscrapers weren't a popular concept in this world, but the whole city had a nice feel to it.
Shops lined the streets selling various goods. Clothes, weapons, potions, and many more items were on display. Damien also saw the occasional tavern and restaurant, making him crave cooked food, but he decided he'd visit them later.
As he reached the center of the city, Damien saw the appearance of fewer and fewer establishments, as the ones that were present were the more high-end services. And then, he laid his eyes on a building larger than almost every other one in the city. This was the Adventurer's Guild.
He felt the urge to walk in immediately and continue forward with his goals, but he knew he should take some time to relax. He was finally out of his cycle of constant work, so he should relax when he can. Damien spotted an inn nearby and booked a room with some of the money he had gotten back from Alan.
Although Damien told him to keep all the change, Alan still gave half of it back to Damien. He was a considerate guy and figured that Damien would need money for his stay in the city. Damien liked this trait and ended up only taking one-fourth of the money.
The currency in this world was as Damien had expected. It used a system of copper, silver, and gold. Above gold were the white gold coins, but those were reserved mostly for the upper echelons and nobles of the empires.
1 gold was 100 silver and the ratio was the same from silver to copper, but the ratio between white gold and gold was 1000:1, making it a coin used only for massive or extremely expensive purchases.
Damien's room was only 10 silver coins, as he had chosen a mid-sized inn to stay at. His room was also relatively normal. It was no bigger than a one-bedroom apartment on Earth and contained a connected bathroom. When Damien entered the room, he immediately flopped down into the bed.
'This city is really nice. If this is the standard for big cities in this world, then I'd be satisfied, but it's only the second biggest in the empire. I'm not even in the capital yet. Damn, and here I thought I'd end up meeting some giant figures using my heavenly protagonist luck' Damien joked to himself.
He liked to view himself as the protagonist of some story, but his luck has always been too dogshit for that to be possible. Only recently had his luck become at least semi-normal.
'I've had my fun today, so starting tomorrow I'll get back into work. First, I join the adventurer's guild. I can make quick money that way and acquire better information. Plus, it's the best place to sell all these beast corpses.'
Damien looked into his inventory where hundreds of corpses were laying with no purpose.
'I could easily sell them to some random butcher or something, but I doubt they'd be able to buy this amount. The guild is stupid rich so I'll get the best prices there.'
As Damien was thinking, Zara came out of his shadow, returning to her full form and relaxing on the floor. Damien grinned seeing this and hopped off the bed, opting to use her back as a bed instead. After all, teasing Zara was too fun and he could do whatever he wanted for the next week.
Zara grunted to show her dissatisfaction, but honestly, it was just a front. Although Zara didn't necessarily like being ridden on, she didn't mind much if it was Damien. If anyone else tried though, they'd probably be killed without hesitation.
Damien also knew this, which is why he acted without reservations. Even if their contract technically made him superior to her, he didn't enjoy treating her that way.
She was his companion and the one person he could trust his back to in this new world. He wouldn't make her do anything that she was uncomfortable with.
The next morning, Damien walked out of the inn with a miniature Zara and headed to a restaurant to have his first bite of cooked food in years. Zara couldn't quite understand this concept, but hearing how excitedly Damien spoke about it built her anticipation as well.
Damien chose a restaurant called 'The Nightingale'. Since it was situated near the central area of the city, it was relatively expensive, but he had gotten the recommendation from the innkeeper, who claimed it was one of the best in the city.
It was also relatively close to the guild, so it was convenient for him. Entering the restaurant, Damien was stunned by its elegance. Frankly, with the set of clothes he obtained yesterday, he didn't fit in at all.
His appearance made many guests turn their heads his way, but seeing his get up, their gazes turned to disdain. Damien ignored all this and walked up to the reception. "Table for 2 please."
The receptionist was also looking at Damien with disdain, and almost immediately responded. "We don't serve dogs at this establishment."
Damien was already getting pissed off. This wasn't even a cultivation world but people here wanted to go around offending strangers for no reason. But he didn't have to do anything. Zara growled ferociously and released some of her bloodlust, causing the receptionist to fall to the floor covered in a cold sweat.
Damien didn't even bother being polite anymore and directly walked towards a table and sat down, with Zara jumping up to the chair in front of him. Although the scene was quite comical, nobody laughed. Many of them were still scared of the bloodlust that was released.
Damien and Zara always concealed their auras, as it became a habit from the dungeon where nobody wanted to be swarmed by beasts because they were careless. For this reason, nobody could immediately tell their power level. Their bloodlust was on an even greater level.
It had been mentioned countless times that the only option in the dungeon was to continuously kill. Not to mention Zara who had killed hundreds of beasts and had a naturally feral aura, if Damien released his bloodlust, that receptionist who was only at first-class might've fainted on the spot. His kill count had far surpassed the thousands.
The waiter soon arrived and took their order while being baffled. They had ordered enough dishes to feed 6-8 people, but there were only 2 of them. Still, the waiter saw what had happened previously, so he kept his mouth shut and accepted their order.
When the food arrived, Damien was already salivating. He immediately dove in, not caring in the slightest about table manners. His razor-sharp canines dug into the meat and he swallowed without any thoughts about choking.
Another useless perk of his enhanced throat made to breathe dragons breath was the ability to eat without worries.
Damien was in a daze at the beautiful tastes in his mouth. The succulent meat and the dripping juices were something he savored as much as possible before he took the next bite. Zara was in the same boat.
She, who had never eaten anything but raw meat, was in another dimension due to the variety of flavors she was tasting.
After 20 minutes of voracious eating, the duo got up and left for the guild. Damien had left the money on the table since he couldn't be bothered to interact with the flies that worked at the restaurant anymore.
Unbeknownst to the two, there was an individual who had been able to see through their concealed auras.
This person watched them with an interested gaze from inside the restaurant, becoming more interested by Zara's bloodlust and the fact that Damien's hidden aura was more bestial than the actual beast next to him.
That person let out a light chuckle. "It seems I'll have some fun company on my journey later."
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