After planning out what he'd do over the next few days, Colt left his room and headed downstairs to eat.
The restaurant was filled with people from different races.
Since this was the academy city, competition was fierce. Everyone tried their best to stay afloat.
That meant prices were high—but as long as the food was good, Colt didn't mind.
From the red-haired receptionist, he learned that she owned the inn together with her husband and brother-in-law.
Of course, there were three more workers in the large inn.
The two brothers worked in the kitchen during dinner hours and took on other duties when things were quiet.
They weren't beastkin like her, but humans.
The menu wasn't fixed either. Each meal offered three options.
When the beastwoman asked what he wanted, Colt simply told her to bring one of each. Then he handed her ten extra copper coins, since the room price only covered a single meal.
She looked at him like he was joking—until he actually paid. Then she disappeared into the kitchen to pass along the order.
The restaurant was packed.
With four floors and ten to twelve rooms per floor, the inn could host a lot of guests. Add a few outside customers and a full house was only natural.
Fortunately, the food matched the crowd. Colt wasn't disappointed.
Once he'd finished eating, he left for his next destination: the Adventurer's Guild.
As expected, the Lofpus branch was much larger than the one in Harton.
The building had multiple floors, and unlike in smaller towns, there was no need for a separate reception area for high-level adventurers.
A-ranked hunters and above had an entire floor to themselves.
Thanks to the sheer number of reception desks on the main floor, adventurers almost never had to wait—unless something unusual happened.
Colt had timed his visit for the evening, knowing it would be even less crowded.
He had three reasons for coming here.
First, he needed to register his hunter's license again. It would take time for Harton's Adventurer's Guild to send his information to the other branches.
Second, he wanted to check the quests. Not to take one—he just wanted to see what kind of dangers were active in the area.
Especially now that he'd killed Kayden. A different enemy might appear in response.
And third, he wanted to get a sense of the average hunter level in the city.
More experienced and higher-level hunters tended to take their quests in the evening.
Even though night was riskier for most, that only applied to the weaker ones.
For the strong, it was the opposite. They were far more dangerous after dark.
So, by coming now, Colt could better gauge the average level of the better hunters.
He already knew the strongest person in Lofpus City—after himself—was the headmaster of the academy.
The man was probably around level 255 by now, which was exceptionally high by this world's standards.
Every fifty levels brought a bottleneck. And each time, the life force—or experience points—required to level up increased dramatically.
People didn't really notice the jumps at level 50 or even 100. But beyond that, it became much harder.
Even knowing all of this, Colt would likely be forced to sit through the explanation in almost every lecture at the academy. It was basic knowledge, after all.
When an existence reached level 200, breaking the 199 bottleneck, it was celebrated, and their name was heard in certain circles.
So the headmaster, breaking through 250, was a celebrity.
Still, Colt wanted to get a feel for the rest of the population's strength. Just in case.
He stepped into the Adventurer's Guild and approached the first open reception desk to register his license.
In a smaller or more remote city, a C-1 rank license would earn a fair amount of respect.
Here, it was just average.
At least, until the receptionist glanced at the age column on his license.
She blinked and stared at Colt, clearly trying to confirm whether the information was accurate.
It seemed to be.
Still, she kept her composure like a true professional and handled the procedure efficiently—unlike the staff in Harton.
With the first task complete, Colt turned to the second.
He walked over to the massive quest board, where more than a hundred requests were posted.
He couldn't go up to the upper floors where the high-level quests were, but that didn't matter. He wasn't here for specifics.
If there were something like Kayden around, it would be mentioned even down here, either as a major quest or a warning for low-level hunters.
Satisfied, he moved on to his final task.
Leaning against the curved wall of the mostly circular main floor, he began to observe.
For the next hour, he quietly checked the levels of the adventurers passing through.
So, the average is around 130 to 150. B-1 to B-3 rank.
That was good to know.
There would be some crises in the academy city in the future.
There would be incidents in the academy city in the future. Even though he hadn't lived through them in his past life, he'd heard things.
He had some idea of what to expect.
With that, he left the guild and set off to complete his final errand.
As he stepped into a narrow alley, he became invisible.
He wanted to check the black market.
---
The black market was a necessity in every city.
If the authorities tried to shut it down completely, it would just resurface elsewhere, uncontrolled.
That would lead to price fluctuations, instability, and even social unrest.
So city officials allowed it to exist—quietly—and kept it under tight control.
That was why Colt decided it was best if no one saw him there.
He wouldn't enter while invisible, of course. He just wanted to make sure no one had seen his face beforehand.
He pulled out a random mask from his inventory. It was a blue one he'd bought from a theater in his past life.
Without much thought, he slipped it on before exiting the narrow alley from the other side.
At first, the streets looked empty—just more tight, twisting paths with no sign of life.
But Colt knew better.
When he turned into one of the side alleys, his surroundings shifted.
He hadn't moved through space or anything like that. This was a high-mid level concealment array.
From the outside, it was nearly impossible to detect.
There were methods to see through it, of course, but few could actually use them.
Still, the black market wasn't immediately visible.
The first thing he saw after stepping inside was a red-light district.
It served both as a cover and a profitable business.
Men and women alike tried to catch his attention, calling out from various... establishments.
Colt ignored them all and kept walking.
After several minutes, he reached a dead end.
That was the second concealment array, even stronger than the first—low-high level.
But its function was the same.
When Colt placed his hand against the "wall" at the end of the alley, it passed through.
Despite their high level, these arrays focused solely on deception, which made them relatively easier to cast.