Inside a certain forest, two figures with strange clothings that looked like (Basic) outfits worn by characters in RPG games could be seen hiding behind a bush.
“Hey Yimso, are you sure this is a good idea?” The one wearing a mage robe whispered to the one wearing chainmail armour. “Huh? Oh, of course I’m sure.” Yimso gave a wide grin as he drew out his sword. “We just need to wait for ‘it’ to let its guard down for a single moment.”
“Aight then…. .” The mage gave a sigh and said while still feeling nervous and turned his gaze away. The one besides him was a tank so he could take quite a lot of punishment but he was a mage; a class that was known to be weak in close combat. They much were better suited studying and researching magic behind closed doors or giving support from behind so his nervousness was justified. Of course, there were exceptions, but they could never compare to other classes when it came to endurance. Especially the one beside him; he was a tank.
“….” After comforting the mage, Yimso turned away and looked over the bush where around 20 meters away, a 3 meter long and 1.6 meter tall black wolf was eating a brown rabbit.
The rabbit being eaten by the wolf was not really any different that one you normally see on earth, except that this one was around 60 centimetres tall and had an over 20 centimeter long horn on its head. The horn must be the rabbit’s weapon, and a pretty good one at that at it seems to have put up a fight against the wolf, seeing that a small red puddle of blood had formed, trickling down from a wound on the wolf’s belly.
There were also carcasses of other horned rabbits close by. They were probably hunted by the wolf too.
After a while, the wolf had had its fill and seemed to have fallen asleep.
Whoosh
Right then, an arrow flew out from a tree top and hit the wolf. The arrow couldn’t penetrate the wolf’s hide though; falling to the ground after it hit its body. Fortunately the arrow was never meant to penetrate through the wolf’s hide but carry a vial which broke after hitting the wolf.
The foul smelling liquid contained in the vial instantly drenched a part of the wolf’s face, startling it awake.
“Tito, now!” Yimso roared as he rushed towards the wolf with a shield a sword in each hand from behind the bush. Right then, the man in the red robe pushed his opened hand forward and a ball of fire the size of a human head shot towards the wolf’s head.
“ROAR”
The wolf roared in anger towards the bush they were hiding in. Unfortunately for the wolf, the fireball had shot right into the open maws of the beast and set the wolf’s head on fire. Moreover, the flames, upon coming in contact with the foul smelling liquid had created a small explosion and caused the flames to burn even more brilliantly.
“ROAR” The wolf bellowed in pain and anger.
Just then, Yimso, who had reached the wolf narrowly dodged a blind claw strike from the wolf and bashed its head with the shield and quickly moved backed after giving it a kick in the face.
Slash
Right after, a lean man wearing light leather armour and wielding two short swords rushed out from behind him and towards the wolf. He also had a short bow on his back, likely to be the one that shot the arrow earlier. He had made his way towards the wolf and slashed it with his swords, leaving 2 long gashes on the side of the wolf after which he quickly jumped into the bushes.
The wolf cried out again and wanted to attack the creature that had wounded him. But taking advantage of the moment the wolf looked away, Yimso brought his broadsword down on the wolf’s neck.
BAM
The sword hit the wolf’s neck, making it kneel and tearing the skin but failed to cut through the firm neck muscles. The wolf quickly recovered and sent a paw towards Yimso.
He hurriedly lifted his shield to block. The attack hit the shield, making his arms go numb and pushing him back by almost 3 meters before he could get back his footing. Suddenly, his body was washed over by a wave of green and light while the wolf’s was covered by a grey one, greatly relieving the numbness in Yimso’s arms, while the wolf felt it’s body grown heavier in an instant.
These were the spells [Heal] and [Slow] casted by the mage Titus just now. He was hiding behind a bush with the lean looking guy who was preparing to shoot another arrow.
Yimso, sheeting his sword, held the shield with both hands and charged straight at the wolf. The wolf who had its left eye blinded by the fire glared at him while squinting its remaining eye and pounced forward with its maw, filled with knife like teeth wide open.
Yimso put the shield over his head and dived to the right, before colliding with the wolf. Just then, a fireball and an arrow with a vial of the liquid from before entered the maw of the wolf that could fit a child inside it causing an explosion even louder than before to occur.
BOOM
The wolf collapsed on the ground, twitching and continuously puking out black coloured blood. The blood from the wounds made by the short swords on its side also turned from red to black. Clearly, it had been poisoned and was quckly nearing its end.
“Whew” Breathing out a sigh of relief, Yimso dropped his shield and collapsed on the forest floor and said “Hey, Tito, Puvi! How long are you going to be watching from over there, come over and let’s finish up here!” He then turned to look in the wolf’s direction and a floating blue box appeared in front of him.
Species: Black Wolf
Type: Wolf, Beast
Level: 8
Rank: Elite
HP: 100/2550
MP: 200/200
Status: Poisoned, Fatigued, Heavily wounded
Description: A species of wolf. Its stats are focused towards agility, making it fast but sacrificing defensive capabilities. As a beast type, this creature is also vulnerable to fire.
Rustle, Rustle
After the rustle of leaves, the 1.65 meter tall mage and the 1.8 meter tall assassin walked out. “Hey, how is it going for you down there?” ‘Puvi’ joked. “Any chance you’ll be going into the light soon? Hahaha!”
“Yeah right, and who’s going to take aggro if I go?” Yimso sneered. “As if i could die sooner than you do.” He joked as he was pulled up by Puvi. “Now let’s hurry before more monsters appear.”
Although they had not gone too far in, this was still the jungle, and there were predators that could catch the whiff of blood from miles away. So they had to either wipe out the scent of blood or leave the scene after they are done. They had already learned their lesson before when they had camped out in the forest and had slaughtered a deer next to the camp without burying the entrails, leaving it in the open which caused the camp to be surrounded by wild animals pretty quickly.
Luckily, they hadn’t attracted a big animal and only smaller ones had appeared. They had quickly packed up and escaped before the bigger predators had appeared; like this wolf that they just killed.
“Here you go.” Titus handed Yimso a vial made of transparent glass containing light green liquid and drank one himself. The only difference was that his was blue in colour. “And I told you not to call me that. Call me Titus, I said” He spat.
“Thanks, ‘Tito’.” He looked at him with smiling eyes at him as he took the vial. Of course, Yimso wouldn’t reject the vial that was being given to him. He knew that it was an item, a [Health Potion] to be exact, that they had found was obtainable in this strange world they had found themselves in one day.
The inhabitants of this world seems to have been born with a game like floating interface that they could use to check out their ‘status’ or sometimes others’ too. And the three of them had discovered that they had it too. Yes, similar to the ‘system’ described in novels back on earth.
The ‘system’ had appraised them as below.
Lowest grade Health Potion
-Heals most light wounds and restores 300 Hp instantly.
“Yuck! I really wonder what in the world do they put in these things? They taste disgusting.” Yimso thought out loud while making an exaggerated ‘disgusted’ expression to which Titus just answered with a shrug.
“System, show me my status.” Instantly upon saying those words, a blue box with numerous texts appeared in front of him.
NAME: YIMSO
LEVEL: 8
HP: 620 /700
MP: 160/250
#Note: Recovery rate increases when not in battle
RACE: HUMAN
BLOODLINES: [NONE]
MAIN CLASS: [WARRIOR]
JOB: TANK
SUB-CLASS: [NONE]
TITLES:
[BEGINNER TANK]
Effects:
HP= (V)*100
MP= (I)*50
[STATS]
STRENGHT: 9
AGILITY: 5
DEXTERITY: 5
VITALITY: 7
INTELLIGENCE: 5
[SKILLS]
[PASSIVE]:
-NONE
[ACTIVE]:
-1. (1) [SHIELD BASH] (1): Attacks the opponent with the shield, doing extra damage with chance to stun the opponent.
Effects:
Extra damage depending on strength stat
30% chance to stun opponent
MP COST: NONE
-2. (1) [VERTICAL SLASH] (2): Cuts down vertically with the sword.
Effects:
Extra damage depending on strength stat
MP COST: NONE
-3. (1) [BATTLE CRY] (1): Gives out a loud bellow and casts a buff on the user.
Effects:
+20% Strength
+10% Agility
+20% Damage reduction
MP COST: 100
“Well, my wounds are healing at least.” Yimso mind shrugged as he looked at his previously wounded shoulder. He had been grazed by the wolf when he had dived to dodge the explosion.
Over to the wolf’s side, Puvi had stabbed his sword into the wolf’s chest, ending its life, then collected its knife like teeth and claws and dug out a crystal orb the size of a fist from its chest, then put them in a pouch. “Hey Tits, catch!” He yelled as he threw the bag at Titus.
“Sigh, I feel like I’m being bullied.” Catching the orb and putting it into a backpack, Titus couldn’t help but sigh and grumble as he thought about how his friends keep giving him nicknames.
After resting for a few minutes, they discussed for a while before deciding to take back the entire wolf carcass back. And so, they departed, with Titus carrying a backpack half his size and Yimso carrying an almost 3 meter long wolf carcass on his back.
“I’ll scout ahead!” With that, Puvi dashed ahead and started jumping from one tree to tree, soon disappearing.
2 hour later
“Huaah~, thank goodness we are finally out of that damned forest” Yimso sighed as he could finally see their destination; a village surrounded by 5 meter high walls made of wood.
“Gasp, pant” “Finally. W-we are finally…. o-out of… that forest.” Turning around, Yimso was greeted by the sight of Titus gasping for breath while carrying a backpack that had become almost as big as him after collecting items from beasts they encountered on the way and several plants and herbs in the forest. As for Puvi, he was carrying a small boar he had caught on the way; this was going to be their meal for tonight.
Puvi looked towards the town surrounded by walls and sighed. “Come on guys we’re almost there.” After stopping for a moment to catch their breath, they started moving again.
End of chapter 1: In a certain forest
*Note: The numbers inside the brackets on either sides of the name of the spell refer to the tier and level of the spell, respectively. Thank you for reading. Arigato!
CHAPTER 2: TURNING IN THE QUEST AND WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
“Come on guys we’re almost there.” Puvi said as he looked towards their destination.
*****
Yellow Wood Town was a small sized town with a population of slightly over 13,000 people. The city was named so not only because of the town being surrounded on three sides by the ‘Yellow Wood Forest’ which was filled with Yellow wood trees but also because the town walls to the houses of the residents were made of yellow wood, which made the whole town look yellow.
At the entrance of Yellow wood town, two slightly robust looking guards wearing light plate armour were standing guard. “Hey, I heard that they were probably coming back today.” The first guards said, turning lazily towards his companion. “They? Oh, right. I wonder if those kids succeeded. I hope they did not encounter any big trouble.” The second one replied. “Well you’d usually only find low levelled beast types in the outer parts of the forest so I doubt they had gotten into trouble.” The first guard replied.
The first guard was a middle aged man that had been a guard for over 10 years while the other one was a recently appointed guard. He was only 24 years old.
“You are probably right.” With that the second guard looked turned away and started looking around to observe for any abnormalities again. “Hmm? Speak of the devils, I think I see them… and it looks like they succeeded too.” The guard looked over and smiled faintly as he saw three young men walking in their direction. One of them was carrying a wolf bigger than himself on his back.
“Hey Uncle Tom, brother Bin, how is duty today, anything interesting happened while we were gone?” The lean young man wearing leather armour and full body tights underneath shouted out. “Nothing unusual has happened lately, other than you boys appearing of course.” Uncle Tom said. “We shall go to the guild and turn in your quests then. Good luck you two!” Yimso smiled and said to them as they walked into the town. “Well then.” Both guards nodded at them.
__In the guild hall__
Note: I hope you know what a guild is. It would save me the trouble of explaining it.
The guild hall was circular with a diameter of 100 meters. Of which, over half of the room was filled with tables and chairs, and armed men and women almost taking up all the seats, and a reception table in the middle with 2 young women and a young man seated behind it, talking with the people coming to them to pick or submit their tasks. And there was a big board with tasks put up on it while people would pick a task from them and take it to the receptionists.
These people who complete tasks from the guild and receive rewards were called ‘Adventurers’ in this world. Yimso, Puvi and Titus had also registered themselves as adventurers and taken several quests in the past few weeks. They decided to become adventurers because of ‘certain’ reasons, if you get what I mean.😉
At this moment, Yimso and his party entered the guild with the wolf they had hunted. It had been slightly over a month after they had found themselves here and they had taken in several quests from the guild. The latest quest they had chosen was the type where they needed to hunt a certain monster or group of monsters.
[CURRENT QUEST]
Type- Monster Subjugation
Description- There have been a few [Elite] Rank monsters seen in the outer perimeters of the Yellow woods which are rare to see and has disturbed the balance in the forest. Slay at least two [Elite] Rank monsters to help bring back balance.
Task Reward—
Coins- Depends on the level of monster killed
[Wind Blade] x1 Skill Book
Status: Completed. Go and turn in your quest to receive your reward.
Yimso walked over to a free receptionist and placed the wolf carcass on the table while Titus pulled out a 1 meter rat like monster they had hunted before the wolf out from a sac. “Hi Miss Tess, we want to turn in our quests. And we will also be taking the wolf carcass.” Saying so, Yimso fished out the quest paper and handed it over to her.
“The reward for completing the quests has been totalled to 470 silver coins for the wolf and rat monsters, 280 silver coins for the normal monsters, 20 silvers for the herbs and the skill book for [Wind Blade], Mr. Yimso.” The receptionist with long braided hair smiled as she handed over the reward.
After giving the receptionist a slight nod, they made their way into an inn close to the guild. The inn had four floors and had a big sign board that had ‘Iron Inn’ written on it. It may sound like a weird name, but there was a reason for it. The owner of the inn had a blacksmith friend who had helped build this inn and so most of the inn was built with iron, making it very sturdy. In exchange, the inn owner had built a shop for his friend to use in the inn itself. The adventurers and travellers liked to stop here most of the times and it was the best inn in town.
The three of them booked a storage unit from the inn counter to keep the wolf carcass in and headed to room no. 94 on the fourth floor, which is where the biggest rooms are located.
After entering the room Yimso immediately collapsed on one of the beds and closed his eyes, not even bothering to remove his chainmail armour. Even he was exhausted after carrying the wolf all the way to the inn. Not to mentioned he had even tanked the wolf on his own. His consciousness slowly drifting away, he thought about the first time they had fought a monster. Thinking a little farther back, he thought of the time before they found themselves in this unfamiliar but also strangely familiar world.
Note: Time for a flashback.
__Over a month ago__
_In a restaurant on earth_
Four young men were talking and joking and laughing together with a table filled with various foods and drinks between them. They were in the 2nd and 3rd years of highschool.
“Hey I heard three of our seniors got married this year. Damn, time sure does move fast.” A thin young man said with a smile. “Sigh, I agree, but I think it’s too early for them to settle down and start families though, tsk.” Titus said as he clicked his tongue to agree to the thin man.
“Heh, you are just saying that because you haven’t found a girlfriend yet.” Puvi sneered at Titus. “Chock, cough, cough. You… .” Titus chocked on his glass of beer upon hearing Puvi say that but couldn’t find the words to refute him so he just looked at him begrudgingly.
“Hahahaha!” Everyone burst out in laughter at this point.
In the midst of their laughter, they didn’t notice the tiny tear in space that had appeared right above them, slowly growing bigger. They were all sucked into the special tear which spat them out outside this town. The guards said they found the four of them unconscious outside the town without any signs of injuries. They also didn’t look like bad people either, so they had carried them back inside.
__Back at the inn__
“Oi! Get up you bastards, time for dinner!” At around 7 pm, they were woken up by a familiar voice.” The three of them groggily got up and looked towards the thin man that was yelling from the dining room. “You… cooked?” Puvi said while shifting his hair that almost covered his eyes. His eyes twitched as he looked at man wearing an apron. “Of course I did, why?” The man questioned. “…” Puvi didn’t reply but instead looked towards Yimso who was taking off his armour. “Uh… nothing, let’s eat.” Puvi said.
At the dinner table, the three of them were inspecting the plate of food in front of them with questioning eyes. It was curry and rice, according to what the man said. It looked and smelled exactly like normal curry but recalling all the other times he had cooked something, even before coming to this world, they were unsure of whether to eat it. “Well, looks ‘normal’ enough.” Yimso was the first to speak. He took a spoonful and put it in his mouth and froze. Just then, Puvi and Titus too put a spoonful in their mouth and froze.
*WHOOSH*
Suddenly, all three of them rushed to different directions. Titus ran to the kitchen sink, Yimso ran to the bathroom and Puvi jumped out of the window.
*Blerg*
Sounds of gagging and puking could be heard.
“Oh come on guys, it can’t be that bad can it?”The thin man wearing the apron rolled his eyes as he put one spoonful of the ‘food’ in his mouth. “…” He immediately froze too.
*WHOOSH*
The next moment, he too jumped up from his chair and rushed towards the sink. He pushed aside Titus who had just finished puking and started puking himself. “Dimmit Hikivi, what the heck did you put in it this time?” Yimso shouted as he came out of the bathroom. “Ugh… it can’t be helped can it? I’m a dark mage and am supposed to work with poison and curses so ‘maybe’ something got mixed in the food, hehe.” Hikivi said as he smiled bitterly. “You were asleep so I thought I’d try cooking today.”
They ended up having dinner at the inn’s diner that night.
__After dinner__
After they had their dinner the four of them returned to their room. The entrance would lead to the bedroom which was 10 meters long and 4 meters wide with 4 beds and 4 wardrobes. The bedroom connected to the dining room which was attached to the kitchen, to the living room which was 6 meters on each side and to two bathrooms.
They then decided to check their earnings from today. “We got 770 silver coins from the quests we turned in today. That’s the most we have ever gotten in a single trip.” Yimso said. He was quite happy with their gains. “Let’s give the [Wind Blade] to Titus then. It’s faster than the [Fire Ball] spell and it will increase the chances of our plan succeeding.” Puvi chimed in. “Okay.” Yimso then took out two intricately decorated books with ‘Wind Blade’ written on it and handed the green one to Titus.
“Thanks.” Titus thanked him and immediately started tracing the edges of the book, observing it carefully. Immediately after, a blue box with ‘Do you want to learn [Wind Blade] skill now?’ appeared in front of him. He ignored it and continued checking the book out. “And this one is for Hiki.” Yimso handed out the purple book with ‘Binding Chains’ written on it to Hikivi. “Thanks.” He smiled and accepted the book.
After checking the covers of the skill books, they both clicked the ‘Yes’ button that had appeared in front of them and the skill books flickered for a few moments before stopping.
Then they both immediately spoke out at the same time. “Status.”
__End of chapter 2: Turning in the quest and what actually happened__
