Prologue

Prologue

Every few moons, a few adventurers from the royal capital would come into the Great forest chasm to look for a rare type of petals from the Angora flowers — a wild species of plant found on tree barks that glows in the darkness and contains healing properties if used correctly.

     Surrounded by a diverse array of wildlife, the forest interior gives off a pleasant aspect of nature. Without prior knowledge of this woodland’s true nature, many would think it to be an idyllic setting for the simple task like picking flowers.

     Sadly, this couldn’t have been further from the truth. While the naturalistic scene of the forest appeared tranquil, a decent portion of its creatures were hostile, territorial and fleet of foot — Demon raccoons. Individually, it isn’t really a big concern, even though it’s quite big at about one meter tall when standing up with its hind legs. 
     However, when bunched up in a group, they were ranked A in the danger scale — a rating indicator that displays the likelihood of death, ranging from D being the least dangerous to S, which means even your ex-romantic partner who you're on bad terms with is going to miss you.

Even so, those few adventurers mentioned at the beginning were in a different realm of strength of their own, though still not at the level of being a hero; a title only adorned by individuals who are capable of single handedly shifting the course of history.

     These non-heroes adventurers weren't large in numbers, but they made up for individual battle proficiency. Usually, they would travel in teams of three : a frontline vanguard who delivered close-quarter combat damage, a backline who provided ranged magical or physical attacks, and a support fellow who carried items or boosted the other two.
     Sometimes, it wouldn’t be unusual to see parties of only two members. That would mean one of them would take on two roles at the same time, and most of the time, they’d also be prodigies. 
     Common sense dictates that carrying items would not make someone a prodigy, if it did, the world would be in a bad shape.

Among those adventurers, Lars, the de facto prodigy leader of his party, and Marsh decided to take on the Angora flower search quest.

     They also doubled down as an expedition party for the security department of the capital’s adventurer guild. As part of this arrangement, the guild doled out a portion of the earnings from other adventurers — otherwise also known as tax, or theft — for the party. The reason being that the expedition team’s main objective was to observe and record any anomalies and discoveries, and to do that deep inside unknown parts of the Great forest required a sizable compensation that was commensurate with the risks involved.

     As being part of the expedition meant one of them, typically the support role, needed to know at least one of the high level spells that can be only learned through one of the 3 grimoires in the Academy of the Gifted. 

     However, some would argue that the "of the Gifted" part of the academy's name was misleading, and it would be more suitable to say “of the wealthy” instead. 
     Between Lars and Marsh, the latter was the more “gifted” one, and together they formed this expedition unit to search for those petals.

When their effort fell short after spending a few hours in the forest, they decided to look for a spot to shelter themselves for the night. Suddenly, after a short walk, both members breathed with mirth, as a ray of sunshine glimmered past a gap through the prodigious amount of trees in a small area. They had finally found what they were looking for; Angora flowers. 

     After wondering whether or not to harvest them right away or not, they decided to leave the plant for now to utilize it as a source of light since it was too late in the starless night to return to the city.