Drake went to the forest again the following day, meeting up with Aria at the agreed location and continuing their journey together. Drake completed any quests he had acquired in the city as they appeared as objectives in their adventure.
Both Drake and Aria showed significant growth in their strength and were close to advancing to the next level in their respective mastery. Drake also decided not to use the training room to maintain the same pace as Aria and to enjoy their adventure properly.
Drake encountered many powerful monsters in the forest, unlike the ones he faced on the first day. Missing the adventures outside the territory, he decided to return there the next day.
Drake convinced Aria to join his group through repeated persuasion. They met at their predetermined location, where Aria wore a hat to hide her fox ears and even tucked her tail into her pants to blend in with the crowd. She looked just like a beautiful human girl.
As they reached the city, they were greeted by the twins, whom Drake informed of their upcoming trip. He introduced Aria to the twins, saying, "She is Aria," and then he introduced the twins to Aria, saying, "She is Yumi, and she is Ayame."
He left alone to get a quest for the expedition. Other than the quests that were given by the citizens that could be completed inside the territory, there were also quests whose objectives needed to be found outside the territory.
Such quests were only available from the admin office in the town square. Few players in the city or even in the territory had tried those quests but all failed. At that time, only the NPC explorers were doing those quests.
There were mostly collection quests for various materials, herbs, monster parts, etc. Since there was no concept of directions outside the territory, it was difficult to find those. Not to mention, defeating the monsters that might be guarding those.
But few quests came with Zone Compasses to guide the explorers. The Fog Zone coordinates might be recorded by the quest issuer or other explorers. These at least reduced the difficulty of finding the objective of the quest.
He came upon such a quest. The Purple-Dotted Ivy Collection Quest. As expected from its name, he needed to find the Purple-Dotted Ivy herb. It was not found in the Black Forest Territory. Normally for such quests, explorers needed to keep an eye open when traveling outside to find it.
He was not like that. He preferred not to move around like a headless chicken if possible. That’s why he chose that quest as it came with a Zone Compass pointing to the Fog Zone where those herbs were spotted.
He checked in his shop, the herb was available there. He checked its uses. It was used in some auxiliary potions. The auxiliary potions were like the health potion, stamina potion, etc, commonly found in fantasy settings. But one of its uses that Drake found interesting was that it was an ingredient for a few path potions. He had an intuition that that was the reason, the quest was placed.
He went to one of the admin counters to take that quest.
“Hi, I would like to take the Purple-Dotted Ivy Collection Quest quest”, said Drake to the person sitting behind the counter, who had a name tag saying, Charles.
The admin personnel, Charles, looked up and saw Drake. At first, he didn’t recognize him but later it clicked inside his mind who he was. He recognized him as the chosen one who was served by those sexy twins.
The twins were becoming famous among the explorers’ circle because of their delivery of monster meat to various restaurants. Drake was their leader despite his weak strength plus his status as the chosen one also made him a small celebrity in the city.
“Are you sure you want to take it? Many explorers lost their lives trying to complete this quest”, reminded Charles.
“Yes, I am sure”, said Drake.
“Then pay 10 Fog Coins as a deposit for the Zone Compass. If you complete the quest successfully, you can then return the Zone Compass and take back your money”, said Charles.
Drake just put the money on the counter. Charles received it and gave him the Zone Compass and the herb’s sketch to identify it. Drake left the building after receiving them.
When Charles confirmed that Drake left the building, he put an “On Break” sign on the counter and also left the building.
Meanwhile when Drake left the girls.
Aria was getting nervous with the twins. As a beast-man, she had sharp instincts and could tell that those two were very dangerous. She could feel that they could match some of the top fighters in the bull human tribe.
“Hi”, she said nervously in a low voice.
“Hi”, returned Ayame, while Yumi only nodded her head.
“How long have you known Drake? I met him two days ago”, said Aria trying to do some small talk with them.
“We also met young master a few days ago”, answered Yumi and became silent.
Aria no longer asked any more questions because they looked like they were not much interested in talking with her. All of them became silent. She just stood together with them with her head low like she was taught/indoctrinated to behave in front of strong people. She had a feeling that the twins looked down upon her.
‘Of course, they will not like me. I am very weak and they are so strong.’
‘Who wants to talk to someone weak like me?’
‘But they called Drake, young master. Are they his servants? But they said they met him only a few days ago.’
‘Does Drake, like strong women like them? I am sure he has no interest in me because I am so weak.’
‘I am sure he clapped that day not because he liked the way I killed that wolf, but because he thought I was strong enough to kill the wolf.’
‘If he finds that I killed the wolf not by my strength but used a disgraceful method of tricking it to defeat it, will he despise me?’
While waiting for Drake, Aria continuously had such thoughts in her mind. She thought her strategy, no matter how small, was just disgraceful because of her teachings.
They were soon surrounded by many people. The twins were famous in the city and seeing them with Aria who because of being a fox human was naturally beautiful, not any less than the twins, created a huge crowd around them.
But none dared to approach them. A day before, a daring guy dared to approach the twins. He was too confident in his charm and thought he would charm the girls and take them away from that nobody Chosen One. Because of his ego, he didn’t know how to take no for an answer. He ended up with all three of his legs broken. Of course, there was another part of the story that others didn’t know. On the night of the same day, certain masked twins visited his house and made him say goodbye to his life forever.
Fifteen minutes later, when Aria saw Drake returning, she took a sigh of relief. She didn’t know how long she could stand the silence and the crowd’s stares.
“Let's go”, said Drake, to the girls.
They sat in the jeep, with Aria sitting in the back with Yumi, and then left the town square amongst the envious eyes of the onlookers who wanted nothing more than to replace Drake and sit with those girls.
Drake took out the Zone Compass as they left the territory. Drake used his appraisal ability to check the distance between them and the Fog Zone pointed by the Zone Compass. Other players couldn’t do it but he could with his better ability given by the system.
He checked it because the Fog Zones had no fixed locations. They could teleport to any location, sometimes even teleporting even millions of kilometers away or even more. But mostly the teleportation distance was not much, and it was also not necessary that the Fog Zone would teleport. The Fog Zone was discovered recently hence the quest was placed, so chances were less that it teleported somewhere very far.
He found that the distance was roughly 100 kilometers from the Black Forest Territory. They reached the Fog Zone in less than two hours. They didn’t stop anywhere in between and drove straight to their destination as fast as possible.
A few hours earlier, when Drake left the admin building.
Charles left the building and reached one of the mansions in the core area of the city. That was the mansion of Faulrum Falmise, Patriarch Falmise’s second son.
He went inside and greeted the boy, “Hello, Young Master Faulrum.”
“Hmm”, responded Faulrum.
“Young Master, they took the Purple-Dotted Ivy Quest,” informed Charles.
Faulrum laughed out loud, and said, “They dared to take that quest. They don’t know their limits. So many explorers died to complete that quest but none survived. At least veteran (mastery in intermediate stage) explorers are needed to complete that quest and the quest’s reward is not good enough for them to take it. Just by catching a few weak level 0 monsters, they have started thinking of themselves too highly.”
Charles didn’t say anything, just stood straight. He didn’t notice before as he was too excited to deliver the news to the Faulrum to get a reward, but later he noticed the other guests in the room. There were Sword and Sheild, two of David’s lieutenants. Both of them were veterans. Some other stronger thugs of David’s gang were also sitting with them.
Not only them, he even noticed three famous explorer parties. They all had one point in common, it was that they all had at one veteran in their party. Along with Faulrum’s two bodyguards, there were seven veterans in the room. He was too scared to even speak anymore.
Faulrum turned towards his guests, “Gentlemen, I think this is the best option for us to kill them. With their skills, they will die inside that Fog Zone, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance. Kill them, and the reward I promised will be yours.”
“Thank you, Young Master. The boss will not forget your friendship”, said Sword.
“Thank you, Young Master. Don’t worry, we will kill those people who dared to offend Young Master,” said a veteran explorer, other also nodded with him. They agreed to the mission because Faulrum promised them a Mortal Skill as a reward for killing them.
“Young Master, can we play with them, before killing them”, said another veteran with a lewd expression while licking his lips.
“You are free to do whatever you want, I just want the proof of their death”, said Faulrum.
‘You b*tches dared to refuse me and insult me, the young master of the Falmise Family. First, you will die a horrible death. And then, I will soon find a way to send that bastard Chosen One after you forever.’
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