Reincarnation Of Audemars - Chapter 115

As we walked to the town square, adventurers were vying for attention as they approached us and wanted to follow us to grind and I welcomed the whole lot. Since they had better nothing to do at this moment and have no clear direction, they preferred to follow someone whom they can look up to and grind together.

After Patricia has posted a new advertisement in the town square looking for new apprentices in culinary, there were already a few takers that wanted to give it a try. Try as they may, I do not have any restrictions at all since everyone is welcome but only for the first 10 slots.

Even with a large kitchen like ours in the castle, having 12 people inside and a mentor is cramped enough. Furthermore, there is a clause that they need to sign so they would not be there for the whole 12 hours every day. They are there to learn and to go home and bring back the menu that they had learnt for the day, on the next following day.

There’s quite a number of adventurers that followed us during that day and our children had worn their Macleod Lucky Badge on their tunic to level up at an accelerated manner.

We reached the Northern Forest and I spoke to our children, “Adam, Ingles, Jane and Kayla… All four of you will split up and take these adventurers with you and split into a group of four. The Wizards may follow the madam here as you belonged to one class.”

“Rangers who are following your mentors, be careful… No friendly fire… Adam, you will take these Assassins with you and hunt in that direction, use Stealth and everyone lead by example, alright? Goodluck… Daddy would be observing from here and do some study.”

“Alright Daddy, we will strike the same number of beasts before?” asked Ingles and I nodded in acknowledgement. Soon, our children had brought and briefed the adventurers along the way about what they should do and should not do.

Little did they knew that I was following their tracks and observing them since I had more than 200% Stealth in my old attributes. The study that I would do is simple actually. The apprentices would take an oath, learn how to prepare the 3 meals and also the 3 snacks and supper on each day based on the cuisine taught.

They would try to repeat what I had taught based on small portions and each of their meal would be presented on the tables and appraised by us. Something like Iron chef as since we have only 3 rocket stoves, only 3 cooks would be able to cook at any one time. Furthermore cooking is simple but the preparation is indeed laborious.

I opened up my notepad as I sat down near them and in hidden mode as I listened to our children guiding the adventurers, and even the older adventurers listened attentively to Kayla who was much younger than them.

This is the usual mannerism where age is not a boundary but the experience that counts. Furthermore, our children are Level 2 and on their way to becoming Level 3 once they had taken down 67 wild boars, rabbits, deers, an occasional bear and also a few wandering goblins when they emerged from their hideout to investigate.

Each kill has a 1.5% progress for our children while the rest of the adventurers will earn only a 0.1% progress for each kill. That’s the hard fact, readers. Levelling up in this novel is sure difficult no matter how ferocious or mighty the beast or monster would be. Pretty sad huh?

When the sun dipped past the ridges of the mountain and as the sky turned with a reddish hue, our children came back to me along with Patricia and Adam suggested, “Could we bring them over to our castle and we can explain the training regime there? I did tell the new adventurers that only when we are Level 5 then we would start recruiting.”

“Today we only managed to get a 50% increase, and the rest of the kills were distributed to the rest of them. We would have no hurry to reach our target, right Daddy?” Ingles asked as she had gathered information from the rest of her sisters that they all managed to get 50% of their usual target.

“No worries, anyone is welcome to take a look at our training grounds. Would you think 50 adventurers per class is too much for you to handle first? How about the first 6 or a dozen first?” I suggested as it seems that our children were able to take up some responsibilities in guiding a small group rather than a horde of 50 per class. Even I myself leads 10 men per class before.

“That’s a splendid idea, honey. At least they make new friends and well… Even though it is too early for recruitment, let those children hang around ours first. Furthermore, they all seemed to be good children. Patricia added as we packed our things and went to NoOne to sell off the spoils. I stood beside NoOne as he began his normal opening speech and I followed him in a rather robotic voice, “Be wary of the dangers that lurk in this forest…”

Everyone who saw me did that laughed as they began their trade and sell off those hides and excess meats. After we had done so, all of us walked back to the Northern gate and past the town square and into the castle.

There are a total number of 20 adventurers who were with us that day and they had already completed the quests given by QM Prius and QM Rebecca. The rest of the adventurers who had already become House members are not worried at getting other quests, and they all could gain progress by paying credits.

It is a real cutthroat business and only those who could afford joins the Houses while those who are seeking adventures for free remain as to where they are as renegades. Just like the 20 of them right now. It seems that applying for memberships need credits. Then they would sit for a proficiency test and if they failed, they would not get back their fees.

The passing marks for the proficiency tests were ridiculously high, now being 95% to be in the inner circle and 90-94% to be in the outer circle, any lesser than that it’s either they change their class or become renegades.

Well, Band of Vagabonds used to be a group of 150 renegades before… Why not Castle Keating-Macleod? If there’s nowhere else to go, this castle will open doors to them. And opening doors to them, would definitely surpass the rankings and become #1 very soon.

As I had discussed with our children before, once the adventurers had pledged their allegiance to Castle Keating-Macleod, they would be bonded and if they leave prematurely, all the items that had been presented to them would be taken back and destroyed. Whatever they had learnt from the spellbooks would slowly dissipate into nothingness within a month upon leaving.

As the new adventurers were sitting in the courtyard, I counted 5 rangers, 5 Assassins, 5 warriors and 5 wizards. When I looked at them I can’t help to reminisce the time when I first transmigrated and I was all alone until I met Matilda Fitzwater and her granny.

“Haish… There wasn’t a levelling system back then. Just the 4 classes of weapons and Armours, as well as its tier from the common, rare, epic and legendary and all, could be enhanced to make them more OP than OP itself. Hah hah hah…

Right now we could just be based on our levelling up and rely on our paltry weapons and armours. If not for the Atelier, Blake and Bruce, I don’t think the adventurers would be interested to be one at all.

“Hey… Are you daydreaming?” Patricia asked as she sat beside me and held my arm. “Did you remember something from the past?” she said and this time she chose her words properly and I did mine too as I answer, “It’s been a long time, Trish. I guess you already knew about me after you had placed those points into the Insight traits.”

“Don’t you worry, honey… Your secrets are safe with me… Or would you like me to call you Sam?” she asked as she snuggles next to me even closer. “Nah… Audemars seems nice. Sam could be short for Samantha or Sammie which is a girl’s name anyway. Audemars… Would be just right… Am I right, Missus Macleod?”

“Hahaha… Yes… It is really fine with me. Whether you came from the past or the future, you are still my husband, Audemars Keating Macleod. Come on, dinners ready. We can get the rest of the new adventurers to join us as well… The cooks whipped up extra servings so it would be enough to spread the goodness around.”

And so our children prepared the tables and arranged the benches as we waited for dinner to be served and soon, it was being brought out using a trolley and we had a simple fried rice meal with black pepper diced pork which had fried earlier when our children handed over their spoils for the cooks to prepare.

After dinner as we relaxed under the moonlight in the courtyard, I popped several questions to the adventurers. “Adventurers, what is your aim of being an adventurer? Looking for fame? Fortune? Recognition? Wealth? Friends? Knowledge? Adventures? Or simply bored?”

Kayla giggled when she heard I mention of adventurers becoming adventurers because they are bored and wanted to copy cat those around them.

“Mister Macleod, we all came from different towns and had gathered here in search of something… Its called humanity and humility. We all have lost either our fathers or mother’s or even our guardians, uncles, aunties, older sister or older brother. Each of us had a story to tell, a story that would break someone’s heart and bring tears to their eyes and snot to their noses.”

“All of us that gathered here, worked hard for these past years and saved enough to have ourselves the lowest grade weapon and cloth armour. Not to be an outstanding adventurer but to follow a path that would make us believe in ourselves so that we could be a better person than we are right now.”

“Before, we do not even have a single idea on what we wanted to be, so we pulled out straws and ended up being a Ranger, Assassin and Warrior. Our fellow sisters here were assigned as wizards since we would not want them to battle in front, but rather to learn a spell or two to attack and to heal.”

“Missus Macleod, I am sure you realised that the sisters here are not Wizards yet but more to herbalist and gatherers. They wished to take up arms but we advised them against it. Right now all the Houses we had asked for memberships were turned down and we had nowhere else to go and turn to.”

“Mister Macleod, we heard from other members of the House that you are the only House that hadn’t taken any members in. We had no one to guide us and we don’t want to drift too long especially when we had basically no money at all. Please, I beg thee mercy and kindness from the bottom of thee soul.”

When these words were spoken, all 20 of them rise and went forward in the courtyard clearing and were down on their knees. The spokesperson then continued, “We deeply wishes to express our gratitude for the meal and to thank you for the hospitality, allowing us to be lead by your good children out there in the Northern Forest. We regard them as our instructors and mentors. Please accept us as your junior members.”

They all bowed their heads and I was kind of flabbergasted at the moment since I did not even probe on their background but Patricia was looking at me with approving looks and eyes on her face. She had used Insight and she can see through everyone like a clear glass of water. Everyone is expressing their truth when they were down on their knees.

Our children were hushed and in silence as they were feeling excited at gaining new friends and adventurers and at the same time feeling anxious that they were feeling a bit pessimistic on their own qualities to become leaders.

“What is your name?” I finally spoke up after I gave a huge smile back at Patricia.

“My name is Rodney, at your service, Mister Macleod,” he spoke up and bowed his head done again.

I was thinking… I’m going to have a new problem… And the problem is REMEMBERING THEIR NAMES…