After I said goodbye to Lola I quickly put the rest of my money to work. ‘If I’m planning on getting promoted, and hunting more dangerous monsters, I need better gear.’

 

The old adage “Just don’t get hit” was nice in theory, but I preferred at least having good enough armor to survive one strike, preferably two… In the state my armor was in, if a spider did manage to sting or bite me, I’d die from the wound long before the poison.

 

Leatherworking needles that could pierce grade 30 hide, treated red wolf leather, and some lower quality materials to fix up my gear, tighten my ax’s blade, wrap my sword’s handle, and reinforce my boots with iron soles. Then I had to pay to rent out a forge to properly treat and sharpen all the metal, making good use of my magic in the process. I had so much work to do I felt like I was already getting close to tier-two metal magic by the time I was done.

 

‘Was it worth it?’ I sighed, opening up my coin purse. The benefits were undeniable, but sometimes I thought it would be less depressing to lose a few fingers than stare at an empty wallet. ‘Give and take…‘ “Such is life…” I grumbled ‘Guess it's time for another job…’ 

 

I looked at the empty two seats across my table where my parents used to sit. I didn't want to go back to the forest, but my hesitation only gave me more reason to do just that. 

 

“If you dig down deep and all you find is fear, make sure you're digging with your heels so you can’t run.”

 

In hindsight, that saying might very well be the reason my father ended up dead, but even so, it didn’t seem like a bad way to live. I knew the moment I let my fear start to dictate my actions I would never be able to stop it again… I didn’t have to charge into it, but I had to at least dig in my heels… So I couldn’t run away.

 

Without hesitation, I walked into the BeeHive and took a look at the quests for the great forest. From the looks of it, and how full the board was getting, it was easy to tell the situation was only getting worse. Not only were fewer people taking the quests, but due to the high injury rate and lack of medicine, the people who were taking the quests were failing. Most just seemed to be staring at the notices blankly, only there to gossip…

 

“It won't be long now before they send in the Solaris and the Crow claws.”

 

“You really think it will come to two of the great guilds being involved?”

 

“You heard, didn't you? Whitelight already sent several of their mages as healers, not that it's doing any good. At this rate, there’s going to be a cull.”

 

They both fell silent. I couldn't blame them. The idea that one of the 10 great guilds was lending a hand and the situation was still deteriorating was pretty Grimm. Even if they only sent in their rookies they were still whitelight mages.

 

‘A cull though?’ An event marked by a complete evacuation followed by letting the Discord guild just nuke everything with magic… More specifically, “nuclear” magic, tier 8 plus spells like a meteor.

 

‘I wish I could just fix this before people start dropping like flies.’

 

I took a look at the quests. There were so many, several just being various requests for essentially the same thing. Antidote for the spider's venom, Saxifrage, which was used to make the antidote, mana potions, which would no doubt be used primarily by priests so that they could cast the cure spell, and Serd lilies, like I grabbed last time, that could be used to make mana potions.

 

I grabbed a few gathering quests, making sure I wouldn’t have to go near the lake to find what I needed. The massive rewards helped me to easily get over any hesitancy I had of going back. ‘Maybe a kill quest too, I’m bound to find more wargs and spiders, if not just corpses of them.’ Flipping through the papers I came across one with several black dimons on it. ‘What’s this?’

 

[Boss hunt: Minotaur, unarmoured, unarmed. Location, Saxifrage cave.]

 

I suddenly realized why everyone was struggling to find and produce antidotes, it wasn't because of a lack of production capability, but rather that the supplies needed were blocked off by a separate threat.

 

‘It almost feels like we're at war…’

 

I took the quest off the board, looking at it more closely. “So much for no casualties…” I mumbled. ‘Three black diamonds, are you serious?’ I had hunted a minotaur before, so it wasn't completely out of the question for me to take it on, but the one I had killed was missing an arm when I found it, and I was working with two other people at the time.

 

“You're supposed to not die, remember?” A familiar voice spoke out from behind me.

 

I glanced back to see Lola. “I'm sure whoever this black diamond represents was told the same thing…”

 

She sighed. “Chika, are you out of money again? If you want you can just crash with me till this whole thing blows over.”

 

The offer was tempting, but I didn't respond. I had too many things on my mind. Besides, if I started taking too many handouts it would be the same as admitting I couldn’t make it on my own.

 

“This minotaur, what color is it?”

 

She scratched her head with another sigh. “I don’t know for sure, but I was told it was black. It’s already taken out several people on its own though. This isn’t the way to be safe.”

 

“I won’t be hunting it alone. I’ll form a party, this thing is what’s stopping adventures from getting antidotes. Everyone probably wants dead as much as they want the bounty.”

 

“And if they don't?”

 

“Then I get more money.”

Her mouth slowly closed and her eyes narrowed. “Chika, you're smarter than that… You’re not the kind of person to be so reckless.”

 

I handed her the quest so that she could process it in my name. “I don’t even know who I am, what makes you think you do?” ‘The only thing I know is that I feel like myself the most when I’m neck-deep in a fight.’’

 

“Chika…”

 

“This is the highest paying quest on the board. It's also the most important.” ‘My first official boss hunt… With my new gear, I should be ready.’ “Oh, and Lola… Since this is a C-rank monster, how about we make this a promotion test?”

 

She just sighed. “Yeah, I mean after finishing the last quest you were automatically promoted to rank E, this would take you to D for sure, you wouldn’t even need to update your card.

 

“And if my rank advances by three the guild updates my card for me right? For free?”

 

“Yeah, that’s right… So you mean you are thinking of skipping a rank? You’d have to hunt it alone to do that. Even then… Well, It’s a black minotaur, and a black diamond emergency quest, so… Yeah if you did end up hunting it alone I could get you to skip a rank.”

 

‘She caught on fast.’ “Sweet! Maybe I should skip finding a party after all and just go kill the thing..”

 

Trying to lower her voice with a growl she scowled at me, but even when she was trying to be aggressive her voice was too silky for it to sound like a real threat. “Chika…”

 

“Haha… Only kidding, of course…”

 

She let out a sigh. “I can't tell you what to do… Just be careful. There's nothing wrong with failing this one alright. I'll take care of you as long as you come back alive.” Glancing away for a second she pulled a high-potency recovery potion from her skirt and handed it to me.

 

The instant I recognized what it was I sent it straight to storage to keep it out of sight for fear of someone seeing. ‘If that’s what I think it is it could even regrow a few fingers if I lost them…’

 

 “You're way too reckless...” She muttered.

 

“I'm reckless? What the heck was that?” I groaned as she started walking away. “Hey hold up a second.” I grabbed her hand holding her back. “I need you to look into something for me while I’m taking care of this one. The beekeeper in the great forest, I think he said his name was Alden. I’m pretty sure he’s cheating people by cutting them short.”

 

She came in close and lowered her voice. “Are you sure?”

 

“Well… I guess he could just be conveniently incompetent… But I doubt it.”

“Ok, I’ll take a look at it.” She smiled, “You better not tell anyone about the potion… And you better not sell it!” She raised her voice, still whispering as she put a finger over her mouth. “Don't die alright.”

 

“You’re telling me it’s easier to give me a potion worth like 10k than it is to just come to help me hunt it?”

 

She just shrugged. “Well…”

 

“Don’t… Say it. I know…” ‘It’s actually starting to piss me off how skewed her concepts of money and strength are.’ “For the record, F-rank adventurers can’t die from stubbing their toes.”

 

She smiled brightly as she started to back away. “Then why did you reinforce your boots with iron?” She jeered.

 

“That’s because!” Before I could respond she was already sifting back through the crowd and fast at work. “The acid…” I mumbled, finishing my sentence as I clicked my heels together. ‘Plus I like this sound… But mostly the acid. I’m glad I managed to enchant them with enough resistance. I won’t have to worry about melting my toes off if I step in some loos acid now. It’ll be handy now that I’m running into spiders more often.’

 

I let out a sigh. ‘She was just messing with me, wasn’t she… Whatever, I should get going too.’