After acquiring the short swords, I headed straight for the adventurer's guild for work. As soon as I entered, the room went silent and once again all eyes were on me. People started whispering to each other, those that have seen what happened between me and Azghar started retelling the story to those that haven't. My enhanced hearing allowed me to eavesdrop on their conversations and most of them emphasized my strength and brutality. This is good, now there will be no one that dares to oppose me.
I went straight to the quest board and took a look. I was looking for a 'gold' quest that consisted of hunting rare monsters in the 'Dark forest'. This would give me three things - the money reward, the monster's abilities and, of course, the thrill of the hunt. How I waited for the time to hunt, my body aching for action for those couple of days while my weapons were being prepared. I thought that I would go insane or slaughter everyone that I found, the urge to destroy growing with every day.
I found a few suitable quests, one of them read - hunt ten 'Howl wolves', the other mentioned something about a 'Wyvern', the third caught my attention by just mentioning a 'Dragon'. I took all of the quests that I found interesting and went to the terrified guild girl. "I would like to take on all of these." I said with a cold voice.
The guild girl gave me a forced smile, looked at the quests and with a worried face asked me about the party I am in. When I said that I wish to take them all on solo, she explained that to take a quest of 'gold' rank you have to have a party of at least three 'gold' ranked adventurers or at least one 'mithril' ranked adventurer. This was news to me, so I tried to make a party, but no one was eager to join and I started regretting scaring the other adventurers since there was no way that they would form a party with me now.
When I loudly pondered the idea of just scaring them into submission, the guild master, from the top of the staircase, proclaimed that that was against guild rules and that I would face severe consequences for that. It seems that he has his eyes on me after what happened last time.
All of this seemed to have amused one of the adventurers there - a girl in her 20s with shoulder length chestnut hair and a scar on her left cheek. With an amused look on her face she addressed me. "Fine, newbie, we the 'Wolf's fang' will join you on this little adventure of yours. It should be amusing. I've heard that you thoroughly destroyed Azghar, but looking at you, I find it hard to believe. What kind of trick did you use?" The other members of her group started to protest loudly, but she was firm on her decision. I guess she's the party leader.
"Oh, you weren't here then? Shall I demonstrate again? Just pick the target. And I assure you, there are no tricks." My mask, at this point, was hiding a villainous smile.
This made the girl laugh even more and she was looking around pointing her finger at anyone that looked strong while those that she pointed at tried to hide as fast as possible.
After she found no one that wanted to face me, she grinned, stood up, got a bit farther away from the table that she was sitting at, unsheathed her long knife, took a fighting stance and said. "Since there is no one here that wants to test you, I guess that honor will go to me!"
She charged at lightning speed, aiming the pummel of her knife straight at my solar plexus. So, she is a speedy type huh? I guess I could just take it, but that would be no fun. Let's show her what real speed is. Right before she connected, I disappeared, appearing behind her. "Is that the best that you can?" I taunted.
She just smiled and without hesitation tried a backwards roundhouse kick straight at my temple. I disappeared again, this time appearing at one of the tables with one of her shoes in hand. "Wow, you're really something, If all of the monsters that I had to face were as slow as you, my life would have been a breeze."
Realizing that fighting me was pointless the, now shoeless, adventurer just laughed. "You are good, it seems that what I heard wasn't an exaggeration. My name is Sara, I am a thief, 'gold' rank and I am the leader of the 'Wolf's fang'. We'll come with you, but… Can I get my shoe back?"
I looked at Sara, then at the shoe in my hand and simply said. "No." The shoe ignited and burned to ashes in seconds. "That's what you get for attacking me." This amused Sara even more.
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After Sara got another pair of shoes we started the journey to the 'Dark forest' which took us around two days. On the road Sara introduced the party members - Clive - a tall, lanky 'mage' with long, blond hair, Zen - a 'monk'/'knight' - the team's frontline. Average height, with short black hair and a scar going over his nose. His weapon of choice being a pair of gauntlets. Diana - the 'ranger' and Sara's younger sister was armed with a bow and looked almost exactly as Sara apart from having longer hair and no scar on her face.
Then Sara inquired about my job class, stating that since I specialize in speed, I am probably a 'thief' like her, a 'scout' or a 'rogue'. This put a smile on my face since I do not specialize in speed and that's what I told her. Confused, she asked what my job class was then and I had to take some time to think about it myself.
I guess having the monster skills and the skills from the 'Dragon' I prefer the close to mid range. 'Stone skin', 'Dragon scale armor', 'Rapid regeneration' and my various resistances would make me a 'knight', the 'Air barrier', 'Petrifying gaze' and the 'Flame dragon's' fire would make me a 'mage', and we can't forget all of my training as an 'assassin', adding to that my insane speed and strength plus my preference to swords would make me a swordsman. While my sharp senses would make me the perfect 'scout'
I looked Sara straight in the eyes and with a deadpan voice announced. "I'm a 'knight'-'mage'-'assassin'-'swordsman'-'scout'. This made her laugh and call me a jokester.
After the introductions came the game plan. While it's rare, but technically possible to take on three quests at the same time, we would have to decide their order. Since I had no knowledge of the ways of an adventurer, I left that to the pros. It was decided that since 'Howl wolves' live near the edges of the forest, we would start with them. Collecting 'Lesser dragon' scales was easy since we knew where to find one's nest, but it would take time since we would have to wait for it to leave its nest. And finally writing a report on the recent activity of 'Wyverns' would take a considerable amount of time, so that would be left for last. The whole expedition was supposed to take us around a month, so we were carrying a decent amount of supplies such as food rations, spare weapons, tents, and so on.
We also decided on the party's battle formation and our roles with Zen standing at the forefront and attracting the monster's attention, followed by Sara getting the ones that get through Zen, followed by Diana and Clive providing support, with me in the back holding up the rear.
When we entered the forest, it didn't take a lot of time to encounter monsters. While at the outskirts most of them were low level, the deeper we delved the stronger they became. For now, I decided to let the members of the 'Wolf's fang' take care of them since neither of the monsters particularly interested me. What baffled me was how well they worked together, they almost didn't speak to each other during combat, but instinctively knew what the others needed from them. I could see that they have spent a lot of time together.
The monsters we were looking for, the monsters that I was looking for were 'Howl wolves' - 'B' class monsters that looked like wolves and acted like wolves with the single distinction being their skill - 'Howl' that has the power to immobilize enemies that hear it.
We weren't able to encounter any of them on the first day, so when night came, we set up a camp. The adventurer's efficiency in setting up astonished me. While I was struggling with my tent, the others managed to set theirs up, start a fire, bring water, and start the preparations for dinner. It seems that I can learn a thing or two from them. While eating they shared stories, told jokes, but I could feel that while they looked unbothered on the surface, they were always vigilant of the treats around them.
After dinner we were given night watch shifts. One of us would always be up and would have to guard the camp from monsters while the others were sleeping. This idea to me, someone that had 'Mana sense' skill that always informed me of strong presences nearby, seemed unnecessary, but I was quickly overruled by the others. I guess they don't trust me yet.
I had the second shift. I spent around two hours on guard, it was uneventful and incredibly boring. When my time was up I just had to wake the next person in line and could go back to sleep.
I was woken up at dawn. Pised about the noise outside and very groggy, I got out of the tent and greeted the new day. By the time I got up, the others were already dismantling the camp and breakfast was almost done. The others looked disturbingly bright and cheery for someone that had slept for six hours at most. The breakfast time was as noisy as the dinner, afterwards we discussed the day's plan.
When we were ready to move, Diana - the 'ranger' took charge, looking for any signs of our prey. Today we were lucky, we encountered a pack of at least 25 'Howl wolves'. As soon as we saw them, Diana returned to her position in the middle. While 'Howl wolfs' are only 'B' class, they hunt in large groups making them one of the more dangerous adversaries to encounter in this forest.
We were encircled by our foes, so we tightened our formation to leave no gaps for them to get to our squishies. First the wolves used their signature skill - 'Howl', it had no effect on me, but the rest were momentarily paralyzed. Then the wolves charged at us from all directions. I was thinking of setting up a firewall all around us , but then remembered that we were after their hides, so burning them was out of the question.
The first to snap out of the paralyze was our mage, he immediately cast a spell that created a bunch of ice shards and released them in all directions. So the first one to snap out is the one with the highest mana capacity, interesting. One by one every member of our party snapped out with Diana - the one with the lowest mana capacity, being last.
Zen used a skill that attracted the monsters to him and started bashing their heads in with his fists that now glowed with a white oura. On closer inspection I noticed that the monster's skulls weren't caving in, but exploding out. That must be the destructive effect of mana transfer. Some monsters got through him and were dealt with immediately by Sara while Clive assisted with his ice magic and Diana with her bow.
The 'Howl wolves', seeing that a frontal attack was bearing no fruit, decided to attack from the rear. What a foolish mistake. I unsheathed one of my short swords, took an amateurish stance and prepared for the attack. To my annoyance, the rest of our party rotated and took on the wolves in my stead. This really sowered my mood, but it was a team fight, so there was nothing I could do.
After the wolves saw that our defenses were impregnable, they decided to cut their losses and retreat. We had killed 12 'Howl wolves' in total. My team battered, bruised and exhausted, looked very happy with the results. Now all that's left is to skin them.
Turns out that I have no ability in skinning anything, so after some time of me desperately trying my best the members of 'Wolf's fang' did the rest of the work. I didn't know how to feel, this was my first real quest and I did absolutely nothing, I contributed nothing, nada. I really hope that I get to shine in the next quests.
The only saving grace of this quest was the skill that I obtained after secretly eating a part of the 'Howl wolf'. Apparently it works on anyone no of the same class or lower, but the higher the intended target's class - the shorter the effect. This will become very useful in the future.