As a mercenary group, facing casualties in their journey was a common thing. Moreover, the one who died was not one of their original members. There was no mourning procession to comfort the deceased. It was such a cruel world. But that was how it worked.

There was still a long way for the group to arrive at their destinations. Going through Dark Cave was only one-third of their journey.

It only took them one hour before they arrived in the nearby town. Smilden was a town where many players gathered here. There were two reasons. First, it was the Dark Cave. Although it was a difficult place to hunt, Dark Cave was one of the popular hunting spots.

It was because Dark Cave's monster was slightly under level 300. When a monster had a level over 300 and above, their health would rise significantly. So, above level 300, it was rare to find a solo player going hunting because it was not worth the effort.

The second reason was that Smilden had an arena duel. The arena duel was managed by the kingdom, and it used to lure the talent throughout the kingdom. The one that was in Smilden was one of the arena's duel's branches.

"We will take a rest in this town for one day!" The guard's leader said to his group's members.

"Take a rest and don't cause any unnecessary ruckus here. Tomorrow morning, we will gather by the gate. Don't be late!" The guard's leader reminded the members.

It was such a generous group. They had paid all of the inns here. Auron thought that this mission must be worth a lot for the group wanted to pay all of the inn's expenses.

The group arrived at Smilden in the morning. They had almost a full 24 hours to stay in this town. With that said, All of the group's members went on their own destination. The guard's leader and his gang moved out together and went to the nearby bar.

Meanwhile, Auron's first destination was the weapon store. He wished that he could find a weapon that was good and cheap. However, to find such a thing was not easy.

After circling around the town, Auron could not find what he was looking, Right now, Auron was in front of the inn. He was thinking about what to do.

Auron could not find anything that piqued his interest in the town except the arena duel. In the end, he decided to visit the arena duel. After all, the arena duel was one of the places that he had to go in the future.

Several minutes later, Auron arrived in front of a vast building with a lot of people around the area. Except for partic.i.p.ating in the arena, players could make a bet in the arena's fight. So, a lot of gamblers also visit the arena to gamble.

Arena duel was one of a place that a player must register. The reason was that there was a ranking in the arena. The higher a player climbed the ranking, the famous would he be in this kingdom.

When one had arrived at the higher ranking, many offers would come to them, such as a quest or present from the town or city. There was even some real-life company that could use them as a brand amba.s.sador.

One more thing that made the arena duel was an exciting place that the partic.i.p.ant didn't have to use their real ident.i.ties or face. The arena gave them a privilege to create a persona when they were registering the first time.

That persona was attached to the player's character. So, when the same character visited another arena duel at the other towns or cities, they would use the same persona.

However, when that player deleted the character, then the persona and the record of that character would be cleared. That was what happened to Auron. Since he deleted his previous character, his last record had been removed.

Auron was thinking of waiting until he levels 400 or above to register once more at the arena. However, the opportunity had come to him now. He was thinking of just, at least, registered first today.

Auron looked at the current player's ranking in the arena duel. The ranking was more or less the same as the one before he deleted his character.

The raised in the level cap was the one that made this happened. A lot of players were aiming to reach level 1000 first, so they had no time to play in the arena before they reached that goal. Maybe, occasionally, they would play one or two battles in the arena, but that's it.

Auron arrived at the counter, when the man by the counter asked, "Who will you bet?"

The man gave Auron the list of the battles that were scheduled for today. However, Auron said to the man, "I want to register."

The man looked at Auron carefully and pointed to the nearby room, "That way!"

"Thank you." Auron thanked the man and went to the room that the man had pointed out.

Auron knocked at the room and went inside. There was no one except one female staff there. "May I help you?" The staff asked.

"I want to register," Auron said, his intention.

"Okay," The woman didn't waste a lot of time. When she knew Auron wanted to register, she led Auron to the next room.

It was a small room that had the same layout as the duel arena. What made it different from the real duel arena was the missing spectator's seat.

To join the arena duel, Auron had to partic.i.p.ate in a test. And, this room was the test room. Soon, Auron would undergo the test.