10.3 - The Final Exams and School trip

Kendra

"I'm so mad! My group is full of useless people. I ended up doing everything myself. Steef couldn't put up the tent, Rino was supposed to look for food, but she wandered around trying to find phone service. Chad went off and hung out with Kyle, and he came back sick after finding mushrooms, thinking they were magic mushrooms to get high. Daichi came back with firewood and nothing else.

Kenzie's group already has a smoking fire and a freaking pig to eat. We got nothing! It took me 45 minutes to build this darn tent with Steef using the wrong parts. Daichi couldn't make a fire. Rino and Chad haven't come back. This is the worst!

The second challenge was even worse. Neither of us knew math, navigation, or could read English. Luckily, Rino found a spot with cell service, and we had to walk 2 kilometers away from camp to get to it. So we ended up cheating on a third of the questions. We didn't even finish the damn scavenger hunt. This was an utter failure.

The night went better as we didn't have anything to do but relax. Luckily, Kenzie and his group shared meat and rice with us since we found little herbs and no protein. I think I'm going to kill my group when they're sleeping. Ah, maybe not. I don't want to go to jail. Going to sleep was even worse, Daiki and Steve both snored, and it was hard to fall asleep. This group!

I arrived in my room in the House of Dreamweaver, put on my armor, and strapped my sword. Then I went to the hall.

"Hey, Kendra! What took you so long?" Kenzie greeted me.

"Steef snoring kept me up! I'm going to kill that kid," I snaped at him.

"Now, now, you can't do much about snoring. It seems like you're ready to go on a quest."

"Yes! I need to release some of my excess anger. Let's go!" leaving Silica behind we snuck out; We arrived at the Guild of Moonlight, went to the board, and found no quests. I wanted to leave before Silica could find us.

"Tsk, nothing again. We've been doing lots of quests lately, and it seems like there are no good quests left. The town must be full of herbs. We have too many bronze ranks in this small town. We need to get promoted soon."

"Hello, Mackenzie and Kendra. Here for a quest? It seems like we don't have many. Since you arrived, the town is completing more quests than usual."

"Hey, Nana, do you have any bigger prey we can hunt or a silver quest?" I asked.

Hmm, Nana went to the silver quest board and skimmed. "There is a quest for Satyr horns and imp killings. The imps are bronze rank, and Satyrs can be anywhere from bronze to gold rank. It's a silver rank hunting quest that is always going on. There have been sightings of them 15 kilometers north of here."

"Let's do that," I nodded, urging Kenzie to agree.

"I don't recommend it, but if you play it safe and don't go too far in, you three should be fine. But you should also bring Yumi and Haruka along just in case," Nana advised.

I don't think she realizes that Silica is not coming on this adventure as we ditched her in the hall. Haha, Kenzie is all mine today. I would bring Yumi and Haruka along, but they don't have horses and will slow us down and they did spend a lot of time with Kenzie today, so let's lie and just say we did bring them and do it ourselves. I also overheard Sara and Rino talking about how Sara and Haruka might have a crush on Kenzie, so they are definitely out! Maybe this is my chance to tell him how I feel?

"Are you sure you want to do this quest just the two of us? It could be dangerous, you know. What's gotten into you today? You're way more pumped up than usual," Kenzie asked.

"I'm just really excited to do a quest with just you and I today, that's all. Need to spice things up once in a while, you know."

We arrived roughly fifteen kilometers north of Moonlight. It took us about two hours riding horses to get here and another twenty minutes to find our first encounter—a lone goblin.

"I'll take care of this," I whispered as I crouched and sneaked over to the lone goblin's blind spot. With a swift strike, I pierced its back and chest. It dropped to the ground without making a sound, its breath gone after the blade went through.

"Well done, Kendra! You have really improved since your sword test. You're almost as good as Zero with assassination," Kenzie complimented.

***

In Greek mythology, Satyrs are creatures that are half human shaped and half goat. They are said to use charm magic to draw in humans using music. They would steal their belongings and other things.

Finally, we found the Satyrs. There were quite a lot of them, gathered on a big hill with stone slabs and tents. Some were even playing music. Satyrs are magical beasts that look like half horses and half humans or Goats. Nana said they are lazy creatures that play music and practice dark magic arts. They also have imps that they use. The imps are about 1 foot tall, less than half the size of a regular goblin, and some have the ability to cast spells.

“Are these considered monsters or creatures or a race of chaos?” I asked. Kenzie didn't really know either.

There were about 5 Satyrs and 10 imps, too many for just the two of us to deal with. We slid back into the trees, looking for more of them. A little way down, we found 2 Satyrs and 4 imps.

Kenzie communicated telepathically by touching my shoulder, "I will shoot one of the Satyrs with a fire spell and follow up with a wind spell, knocking down some of the imps. Then I'll use my sword. You take care of the other Satyr."

Since I couldn't talk telepathically and didn't possess any magic, all I could do was nod in response. Kenzie and Silica had been communicating telepathically quite often lately, and it was starting to drive me nuts. However, when I did get the chance to communicate telepathically, it meant I got to hold hands with Kenzie, so I couldn't complain about that.

I slid back into the bushes, concealing my presence and preparing myself to attack from their blind side. Giving a subtle head tilt to signal that I was ready, Kenzie began his casting. It took him about 1 second to form the magic circle and 1 second for the spell to fly and hit its target.

1! 2! 3!... I burst out of the bushes, trying to make as little sound as possible and gain as much ground as I could. Boom! An explosion struck the left Satyr, confusing as all eyes searched for the source of the magic. Meanwhile, I sprinted in the opposite direction, blade ready. With a swift strike, my sword pierced through the other Satyr. In just 4 seconds, two Satyrs were down.

Wesh! A strong breeze knocked down two imps. I quickly pulled my sword out and struck down one of the standing imps. Wack! Tisk! The other imp managed to deflect my strike, hitting the side of my blade before fleeing.

"Tisk! one got away," I muttered in frustration.

Taking a closer look at the fallen Satyrs, I noticed they resembled humans, albeit more like long monkeys with red fur. Their feet were hooves, and they had horns. After dealing the final blows to the incapacitated Satyrs, Kenzie asked, "The horns are the most valuable, right?"

"Yes, that's what Nana said," I replied, attempting to snap a horn off. "This is harder than bone. We need something like a saw." We struggled to remove the four horns from the two Satyrs, resulting in more damage to the skulls than the horns. It took us 15 minutes to snap them off, much longer than it took to kill the creatures in the first place. Not sure if it was worth the effort.

"What's this around their necks?" Kenzie questioned, pointing at a talisman.

"Looks like a talisman. This one has one too," I said, plucking it off. It was a necklace around their neck. We will ask Nana about it later.

We ventured around, searching for smaller groups of Satyrs, but none had less than three members of Satyrs. Since we had spent half a day on this quest, we decided to head back to Moonlight City.

When we presented the four horns to Nana, she was surprised. "Kenzie, Kendra! Where did you go? Silica was looking for you two, saying you ditched her."

"We went to look for Satyrs like you said," I replied.

"That's a silver rank quest! I thought at least you would have brought Silica along and maybe Haruka as a healer. Geez, it's dangerous out there."

After enduring about five minutes of scolding and lecturing, Nana took the horns and rewarded us with two silver coins for all four. It was good money but removing the horns had been heavy labor.

"These horns are pretty beaten up. Did you struggle to remove them?" Nana asked, inspecting the damaged horns.

"Yeah, we ended up nearly smashing the whole skull before they came off. We even tried using our swords to cut them off, but nothing worked."

Another adventurer was eavesdropping on us getting yelled at and was enjoying his drink. He stood up, a bit short for a man but not as short as a dwarf. He was around 5'3", shorter than me. He approached us and said, "Hey Nana, give the kids a break. They're just trying to make a little extra coin. Listen here, kids, the best way to cut off a Satyr horn is to use an axe. Place it on a rock, give it one good swing, and poof, it should come off easily." He demonstrated a swift arm motion, showing us how it's done. "Wow, that's really helpful information. I guess we'll need to buy an axe for next time," I said gratefully.

"Thanks, mister! Do you know what this is?" I asked, pulling out the talisman.

"Oh, that's a Faun's Charm. It's not worth too much. The wooden ones are worthless, but the higher rank ones are made of metal. Some even have gold if you get lucky. It is said that Faun charms protect the wearer from harm and provide resistance against charm and temptation," he explained.

We also questioned what was the difference between creature, monster, and chaos. In the short: Creature was more like a beast and a race a wolf, cow, and Satyrs were considered creatures. Monsters were fast spawning things that rapidly reproduced like goblins and orcs. The chaos was a totally different matter as they were a race from an invading world, they came in many forms some intellectual and some not. It wasn't much of a help, but monsters and creatures were almost the same thing and chaos came from other worlds. We learned many things today, after thanking and apologizing to Nana and the kind adventurer, we returned to the house of Dreamweaver. To another glare and speech.