3.4 -Magic test: Night Five

On the fifth night,

I arrived at the great hall. It was almost empty, with only President Midori, Kendra, and the class representative present. Kendra looked visibly upset, likely because we had planned to go on a quest today.

"Good morning, you're the last one to arrive," Kendra said after making eye contact.

"Hello, good morning. My family wanted to go out for dinner at a restaurant. Did you know that Haruka works as a waitress at a diner near Merlo St? Where is everyone?" I asked curiously.

“Come to think of it, there was a rumor she was working as a waitress, but I thought it was just a rumor. I believe Ryota's group went to the warrior hall, but he didn't say. Rino and Sara's group went shopping. The others haven't arrived yet," Kendra replied.

Silica was already dressed in her full adventure gear, wearing her black leather outfit, and having her staff lying on the table. I went into my room to change into my brand new outfit, a gray robe with leather protective gear. I glanced at the broken mirror and proudly clipped my bronze adventure pin onto my collar. I gave myself a little pep talk, "You've got this. It's just your first quest. You've done this a million times in games." Looking at my reflection, I winked as I left the room.

I met Kendra and Silica at the entrance. Kendra was staring at me intently, perhaps because of my new gear. I must have looked quite impressive. We left Kendra, separating our ways when we reached the warrior arena. She was still mad, probably feeling left out because Silica and I were going on a quest without her.

As we walked into the adventure hall, it wasn't busy at all. Only one table was being used.

"Welcome back, Goddess Silica!” Miss Nana came rushing over, the enthusiastic voice called out. "Ahh, Mackenzie, I heard you passed your magic test. Unheard of, passing the magic test in only four days. Congratulations!" Nana exclaimed, giving Silica a big hug. It seemed like she wanted to hug me too but held back.

"We're looking to do a quest for the two of us," Silica replied.

Miss Nana escorted us over to the nearby bulletin board. On the wooden board, only ten papers were pinned up.

"I will review the quests for Mackenzie since Silica has already heard of this. Quests are divided into levels, ranging from bronze to platinum. Since you’re only bronze, you can only do bronze quests. In the bronze category. Everyday quests include killing goblins, and quests that come in from the public, which can vary. A new request came in two days ago, looking for water lily, a herb for potions," she pointed to one of the papers.

“Another beer!” a man shouted from the occupied table, even though it was only 10 in the morning. “I'll let you guys ponder your choice, come to the desk when you have one” as she skipped off getting a new beer for the gentlemen.

There were only seven quests available for bronze, ranging from killing goblins to wolves in the north. There were also local help tasks such as barn cleaning and other upkeep, and lastly, the new herb quest. The silver quests involved bigger creatures like hobgoblins and trolls, as well as escort missions. Silica and I agreed to take the herb gathering quest. The paper had a description of the herb and directions on how to harvest it. The lily flower was a blue plant with a puffy end, and we needed to collect the bulb. It was often found in freshwater rivers and lakes.

"Is there a water source nearby?"

"There's a river five kilometers south of the town. We could follow the river to find some,"

"Sounds like a plan,"

We left the adventure guild and started walking south toward the river. To exit the city, we had to go through a checkpoint. After checking our bronze badges and reasons to leave, they allowed us through.

"Why do we have to go through a checkout to leave?".

"There are lots of monsters around here, and you need permission to leave and reasons to enter a city. Must be common for the village to discover identity and purpose when people visited. You don’t want criminals coming and going.” As we were walking Silica started telling me tales of her adventures. From the sound of it, she arrived a year ago and has done about thirty quests with Luke and Anna, and has killed over 100 goblins by now," she remarked.

"Wow, 100? What are they like?" I asked curiously.

"Let's see, they're small and aggressive. You'll find out when we meet them."

Meet them?" I questioned.

"They populate rapidly, and there's a horde of them all over here. They're typically scared of humans and often run away. Don't worry, I'll keep you safe,"

We continued walking for over 30 minutes, and the road became smaller and smaller while the forest grew thicker and thicker. We decided to take a shortcut that was supposed to lead us to the river, but it seemed like we had gotten lost.

"Do you have a map?"

"Forgot it," Silica admitted, looking worried but trying to keep a straight face. Eventually, we broke free from the forest and reached a river.

"Silica, keep still. You've got a spider in your hair," I alerted her.

She screamed like a little girl, smacking her hair to knock the spider off. "Is it off?" she was flustered. I put my hand through her messy, dark green hair, removing the cobweb. I combed her hair with my fingers and finished by pulling it over her ear. "All done," I said, showing her the small amount of spiderweb and spider on my finger. "Thank you," she muttered back, remaining still and red blushing.

There was no pollution like in the real world with plastic and bottles. The water clear and pure, allowed for being able to see rocks at the bottom, making me believe we would be able to drink it without needing to boil first.

As we continued, we encountered two goblins on the other side of the river. The water was too deep to cross without swimming. The goblins, small and green like infants, about 1 meter tall, they noticed us and growled before fleeing into the forest.

"Creepy little things, aren't they?" I commented.

"Hard to imagine them destroying small villages," Silica added.

Goblins grew fast in number, when their population grows in numbers the food supply rapidly decreases. They would often arrive on human land to steal livestock. There were also stories of them stealing woman and children, making it safer for them to stay inside.

We walked along the riverbank and saw the lilies on the other side of the river. We must cross to get those, but the water was too deep. We continued following the river where we spotted two goblins lounging by the river. They appeared more mature than the previous ones, about four feet tall. I looked into Silica’s eyes and spoke telepathically, "What do we do?" We were able to speak telepathically to each other now with eye contact. "I'll shoot the one sleeping on the ground, and you kill the one sleeping on the tree."

Silica stood up confidently, focusing on her target. The thought of killing crossed my mind, and I knew I had to act. Silica began casting her spell, and I followed suit, channeling my fire magic. She unleashed her fireball first, hitting the goblin squarely in the stomach, burning it. It screeched in pain and agony but later fell over twitching. My fireball followed, landing on the shoulder of the sleeping goblin, rudely awakening it. The goblin roared in pain and anger, locking its gaze on Silica before charging towards her, covering the 15-meter gap in an instant.

Reacting swiftly, Silica raised her staff and struck the goblin, sending it flying back five feet. Paralyzed from the impact and the fire, the goblin was shriving in pain. Fear overtook me, rendering me immobile as I heard the screams and witnessed the terror of the goblin's presence. Silica approached the creature, unleashing another fireball that hit the goblin in the chest knocking it unconscious, barely alive. drawing her knife blade from her left hip. With a quick stab to the goblin's chest, aiming for where its heart should be finishing it off with a prayer. She then walked back to me and handed me the blade. "It's best not to let it suffer," a hint of regret in her eyes.

I took the blade and approached the goblin with the scorch mark on its left shoulder, the smell of burnt flesh lingering in the air. The goblin, still alive, moved its body to recover from the two blows. Its crying eyes met mine, and I felt a pang of sympathy. Raising the blade, I closed my eyes and drove it down, feeling bones break and the blade sliding in until it reached the hilt. A gush of liquid marked its final breath. This is what death is. Kill or be killed! That was the saying.

“What do we do with the bodies.”

“Leave them, the wolves will come” She cut off the right ear of the one she killed and did the same to the one I finished. “we have to cut off the right ear of what we kill so the guild can confirm that we got them”.

The atmosphere was heavy as we searched for the herb, it didn’t take much time to find some. It still was only mid day as we completed the collection amount. Returning to the guild was still challenging as we got lost trying to find our way back. We could have completed the quest in two hours, but it took us over four hours as we wandered trying to find a path back to town.We handed over the bag containing about twenty herb bulbs. "How was your first quest, Mackenzie?" the guild member asked.

Still shaken by the encounter with the goblins, I shrugged it off and smiled. "It was fun until we got lost and couldn't find the river, haha."

"Did you bring a map?"

"Silica “forgot it, haha” as she tried to pass off a laugh to forget her mistake. We came across two goblins. " Silica put the two ears on the desk.

"I'll go get your quest reward," she said and returned with four silver coins and ten copper coins. "Here is your reward, four silvers for the herbs and ten coppers for the goblins. I guess goblins don't have a high bounty on them." She also handed me an extra map.

We went to pick up Kendra, who was in high spirits and engaged in a duel with the master combatant. "Well done, Kendra. As you requested, I believe you're ready to take the test next time you arrive. Don't let Silica beat you, all right?" the guild member congratulated her.?" the guild member congratulated her.