I made my way through the main area of the market bobbing and weaving so that I would ignore most of the merchants that tried to approach me with their tactics of selling items, and back to another way where I found the shop that Stephenie had told me about.
The inside of this shop was just as old and torn down as Stephinie's was which told me I was most likely in the right place.
As I walked into the shop the first thing that I noticed was all of the different weapons and sets of armor that were mounted along the left and right wall.
I was able to tell that this gentleman was definitely good enough to run his own shop outside of the restrictions of the merchant's guild.
"What is someone like you doing in my shop?" I heard a deep male voice say from behind me.
This cost me to suddenly skin around out of panic, and Iand I accidentally knocked over one of the swords he had mounted on display.
"I am so sorry for knocking over your sword." I said to him as I placed it back on its mount.
"It is no big deal. Most of this stuff is just for show. I always keep the better things under lock and key."
"I was told to tell you that I was recommended to by Stephenie. She told me that you were a reliable weapon and armor smith that was not associated with any of the guilds, so I would definitely get a fair price for whatever I bought from you."
"Well , if she recommends you l, then I have to help you. Because not everybody that visits Stephenie gets recommendations to be helped find the other ungilded merchants that she knows." He said to me as he walked to the area that was behind the counter and pulled a lever that revealed a hidden staircase.
"Follow me down to my forge, and I will give you some of my good weapons and armor at a reasonable price." He said to me as he waved his hand for me to follow him down the stairs.
I followed him down and noticed that this area looked what a lot more clean and modern compared to the shop that was on the top floor.
"So I am assuming that you are a Gilded Vanguard?" He said as he started to examine me and look at the shape of my body as if he was getting measurements for armor.
"Yes that is my job. This actually going to be my first time going over to the other side of the portals."
"You do not have to worry.I will make sure that you have decent gear. Now if you have more money, I can always give you better gear of course."
"I have around one thousand Cp on me at the moment."
" What was your combat rating at the training facility?" He asked me as he started to look at weapons that he had locked away in cases.
"Eight hundred and thirty-six". I said to him proudly.
"Which weapon type were you ranked the most proficient with?".
"Sniper rifles".
"Well with that amount of money and the marksman score that you have earned during your training, the most I could do is possibly get you a simple knife, a Tech Nine M.K. one sniper. I will also give you three chips of ammo."
"What about the different types of arm that I would be able to buy from you at the moment."
"I could get you a full set of simple leather armor. I understand it is not much but the limited amount of money you have at all.I can help you with at the moment."
"Then I will except those items from you".
"That will cost you one thousand Cp. That is also including the discount that I was going to give you."
"Alright; here you go". I said to him as I handed him my card to make the nessecerry payment.
He walked up the stairs and came back down only a few moments later.
"The transaction is complete. Now that you have bought items from me, let's fit and equip them."
He then went into a locked room that he had to use a key to get into.
The door to this side room was made of massive metal, and it clearly took him a lot of effort to open up the door as if it was the door of a vault.
Only a few minutes passed before he walked out carrying a medium length black sniper rifle with a scope, but no other kind of attachment. He also had a total of three clips of ammo.
He put the rifle and the ammo on a table in the room before going back into the vault.
After a few minutes , he came out of the room with a set of light leather body armor.
"The change room is upstairs". You said as he handed me the pieces of armor.
I went upstairs and changed my clothes to put on the armor and it felt very snug as I put it on especially in my chest area.
When I got finished, I made my way to the basement of the building where he had my rifle waiting for me.
"Alright, it looks like you are all ready to go." He said to me as he grabbed the sniper rifle and handed it to me.
I put the ammo clips on the waistbelt that came with the armor set, and I put the sniper rifle on my back.
"What is your name sir?" I asked the gentleman. "My name is Destiny".
"My name is Zachary". He said me as he walked up the staircase end closed them after I followed him back to the top floor of his store.
"I am very glad to have met you today , Zachary".
Then I walked out of Zachary's store and I made my way to the portal that I had signed up to close today. It was a gamma rank portal.
This type of gate was only supposed to have a small amount of demons. They would only be the lowest rank if I were to defeat d the leader of this demonic force before the ten day time period before it changed to a white portal.
I walked up to the portal that was in a set of ruins and walked through it prepared as I would ever be to handle what was on the other side.
When I made it to the other side of the portal , I saw that the area was a barren wasteland of mountains and dead forests.
I made my way up to the top of one of the hills, and I became fully proned with the ground so that I would be harder to notice.
Now that I was set up in my starting position i looked into the scope of my sniper searching for any signs of the demons that I was supposed to slay.
As I look through the scope of my Tech Nine M.K. One sniper rifle i noticed that there was a pack of five hellhounds that were all laring black colors patrolling the valley beneath me.
I waited until I could see if there was any other type of demons that were present before I started picking them off one of the time.
After a few minutes of scanning the environment around me, I saw that there were no other demonic creatures around.
Then I loaded the first clip of my sniper rifle , which had only eight bullets in it. I took a deep breath to steady.My aim, i fired a single bullet from it.
The bullet flew in a spiral to the target and killed a hell hound as it hit it on the side of it's neck.
When the first hellhound fell all of the other hellhounds ran in the direction of my shot, which was going to limit to the time that I had to kill them before I had to swap to my combat knife to finish them off.
I felt a rush of thrill as I killed my first demon, but my journey to the top had only just begun.