In Learslake

They seem to know my parents. That one… Seems to know me as well. He has a low, heavy voice.

"You know my parents?" I ask.

-"Of course!" Says the loud one. –"Back in the day we were all a team. Nana was stronger than anybody else, always. Didn't your parents tell you about our adventures?"

"They told me nothing about their past", I admit.

-"Your mother is named after the seven mythical moons. The rest of us just decided on a nickname after we ranked ourselves based on our abilities. Your dad, Ichi, was at the bottom! Hahaha, oh, how stronger he became since then, although we all kept our nicknames regardless".

-"It was a stupid decision to even come up with those nicknames. They serve no purpose", the man with the lower voice says.

-"Then why do you still use them, Roku?" The loud one asks him.

He doesn't answer.

-"It's for Yon isn't it?" The loud one answers himself. -"My name is Ni, and while I'm possibly the weakest one of our former team members, my teammate over here is one of the strongest, only second to your parents".

-"I possibly surpassed Ichi. Not Nana though", Roku says with a quiet, heavy voice.

He seems like the strong-yet-quiet, proud type.

"What are you guys looking for in Learslake?" I ask.

-"We are on an information gathering mission. There may be a dragon on the loose…" Ni says.

-"Don't tell more than you should", Roku swiftly replies.

-"Possibly! Maybe. We don't know for sure yet. A few disturbing sightings were reported lately and the guild itself sent us on a mission to investigate. We are level 5, we should be fine. As long it's not a dragon that is", he explains.

-"There's no way to know yet. The reports were too vague and inconsistent with the details". Roku adds.

Luna is more knowledgeable about the world, so she whispers to me: -"Rune, dragons are the strongest monsters to have been discovered. They have a weird behavior pattern that makes them fight everything and everyone, even each other. That is why there are so little of them".

"Well if I can consistently not die while throwing daggers at it, then maybe I can defeat it even as a level 1 guild member", I say jokingly and wink, forgetting I'm not whispering.

-"You throw your dagger?" Roku asks.

"At the monsters, yes". I answer.

-"Is there a skill-build for that?" he keeps going.

"Something like that… Haha…" I smile awkwardly, trying not to be suspicious.

It's better not to ask people who know my parents about the world quests. I don't want my parents to get a note of what is happening until I can fully explain it, and show I didn't betray their effort of teaching me everything. And I feel I'm close to that.

-"We are heading to Learslake for an item gathering quest", Luna says, realizing I would prefer to change the subject of the conversation that almost became about my skills.

A few hours pass.

We arrive at Learslake. It's a beautiful place. I never imagined a swampy area to look this civilized. The greenery here is massive, and the entire town is surrounded by a forest, like an island in a sea of trees.

-"Good luck you two!" Ni says as they walk towards the north of the town. Roku keeps walking with him and says nothing.

-"Yea, you too!" Luna says back. "Be careful on your mission", I yell to them.

-"Rune, sometimes it feels like your parents are celebrities".

"It does… It really does".

-"Let's get straight to the forest. Time to hunt some monsters", Luna declares.

We go to the forest as Luna goes over the details of the quest.

-"Sky champions drop their beaks, and rarely - their tail. They look like a big yellow bird with no eyes and two tails. I don't think they can drop both of the tails and it should be relatively hard to get even one. Our quest is to get 50 beaks and 1 tail".

"No problem! Let's do it!" I reply, feeling energetic. We just spent hours on a wagon so I'm dying to move a bit.

-"And! Don't forget about the weapons shop owner's quest. We will need to find a rare red one amongst those yellow birds and get its' beak too", she adds.

"Alright. Shouldn't be too hard to spot one in the midst of the colors here, yellow birds and green vegetation".

Luna buffs me, and I start glowing. I start hitting some random sky champion. Each of them has 150 life points. In the northern areas of these forests there should be much more dangerous monsters. These, however, are relatively easy to deal with although the amount of items we need to get is rather tedious.

They fly a bit faster after getting hit, but they consistently stay in the air. We just keep running behind them as I throw my daggers continuously.

After around an hour of chasing these birds and collecting their beaks that fall from the sky – we notice a sky champion tail, lying on the grass. Luna picks it up and says: -"Nice! That's the rare item. We need a few more beaks, and then just to look for a red bird", she concludes.

We keep going and after a few minutes we get all the items we needed besides the red beak.

"Okay, I can't believe we didn't see a red one after all this time", I say.

"Luna?" I suddenly don't see her in my vicinity.

-"Rune!!! Over here! I found one!" She yells from afar.

I quickly catch up to her and I throw a dagger at the red sky champion. My last dagger. My actual only dagger.

"Oh no! Luna, the buff ran out, that was the main dagger, I didn't notice!"

-"Leave it to me", Luna says as she prepares a spell.

We continuously hunted and rebuffed, and the moment we got separated, even for just a second, we forgot about the need to renew the buffs.

Luna charges a fire blast and hits the bird, which is now falling from the sky.

Luna quickly buffs me as I run to the fallen red sky champion. I grab the dagger that is stabbed in it, and it tries to take off.

-"Rune, I just increased the duplication skill. It now has a 24-hour duration. I already buffed you so feel free to go at it from a distance", she says.

It's smart, since I don't know how these birds attack while on the ground. I keep throwing glassy daggers from a distance, making it harder for it to take flight again. I quickly defeat it, and a red beak drops. Both our missions are now complete.

-"Yay! We did it Rune!" Luna yells towards me, jumping on me, turning it into a hug.

"This was our first mission together! And the second one too, I mean… Let's do that always. Forever".

-"Together." -She completes my sentence.