<Jackie’s POV>

We had decided to split up our party into two, so that we could level up and complete quests faster. So Jared and I decided to party up as we were of similar levels. I would have preferred to party with Ken, though it doesn’t make much of a difference. We decided to start with 5 quests of hunting down corrupted sprites. [Subjugation: Kill 10 corrupted sprites. Proof: magic stone. Reward: 15 silver. Rank: D]. They were elemental in nature and could manipulate the four elements.

Jared was the vanguard, as I was a ranged archer, I was always ready to snipe a little distance behind him. We would hunt parties of three to four corrupted sprites, where I would keep them distracted and Jared would try to sneak attack them. I don’t understand much about formations or synergy like Megzie, but I think Ken and I would be more compatible.

Jared and I had the strategy of speed. Which was fine for small monsters like sprites, but I think for bigger monsters, it would be a pain. I hit another sprite that tried to fly away and it got KO’ed instantly. One hit one kill. This was probably why our ‘speed’ strategy was working. And those that I missed, Jared took care of. The first fight was a little confusing, because the sprites would keep flying randomly. But it made for a good experience for my archery skills to level up and as a practice run for bigger issues. The only problem was when they threw skills at us. We had no other option but to dodge. 

Luckily as both our agility stats were above thirty so it wasn’t that difficult to see their trajectories. And above all that we made sure to not get surrounded by them. But mostly as we were a tad bit faster than the corrupted sprites, we were not as much under pressure as we’d have thought. The fact that there were two of us was also a plus point of course, it decreased how many monsters each of us had to face. 

The most tense fight that we had was when one of my arrows hit the wings of  a sprite, and hence her water ball trajectory changed and managed to hit Jared. We were lucky that it was a water elemental sprite. But, because he was surprised, he almost got hit by a stone throw aimed from an earth elemental sprite, but I used my damage attack skill to try and either destroy, or change the stone’s trajectory. Well it worked like a charm, but it still looks like I need to be more careful while aiming.

We both leveled up to 17 that day and our experience to level 18 was halfway filled. I put 3 free stats to int and the rest to agility. 

I was sure I’d get to level 19 by tomorrow and so would Jared. He had slightly less experience points than me, but we’d both still make it to level 19, easily.

We came back to the AG and noticed Megzie and Ken. We waited together, while Jared went to submit our quest completion. Over dinner we exchanged ‘war stories’ and cracked a few jokes at Ken’s expense. That night I slept like a log.

The next morning we decided to tackle both corrupted pixies and imps as they were closer to each other. We had high hopes of exceeding our quota for the day. Corrupted pixies were easier to deal with than corrupted sprites, in the sense that they couldn’t fly, but they were annoying because it was taking a toll on us to keep dodging them. Their aiming trajectories were better than the sprites though, so we decided to tackle groups of 3’s.

We did exceed our quota by the end of the day, and hence successfully leveled up to 19. I put all my stats to luck, because it was looking way too pitiful, haha.

As we had reached our goal, and we were exhausted with two days of efforts… Both of us decided to rest the next day and let Megzie and Ken catch up to us. Since one of our aims was to level up to 20, that's almost done.

Another aim was to make our party synergy and coordination better… So after a rest day, on the day after, we would go hunting as a party. Finally, being able to hunt with Megzie and Ken! I was getting bored of it being only the two of us. Well, more than getting bored, it was too strenuous with just us two, especially since neither of us focused much on defense.

So we came back that night for dinner and it turns out Megzie had injured herself in a fight… Jared and I were really worried, but she didn't seem to have a scratch on her. Turns out other than MP regeneration, we also had HP regeneration. Although HP had slower recovery compared to MP, it was still amazing.

The next day I lazily got out of bed around the time lunch was being served. Jared did the same. We chatted a while and then decided to see if we could buy any games that could alleviate our boredom. So we search around the shopping plaza for something, anything! All we found were decks of cards, so we brought two packs. We also brought poker chips, so that we could play without actually gambling. I complained that where was the fun in that, but got shot down.

We munched on junk food while we got back to the 'The Sleepy Comfort'. We went and played a few rounds of rummy in my room with a pack of cards. And then waited idly while chatting a little, for Ken and Megzie to show up. After they arrived, Jared and Megzie got into a huge discussion about party, formations, synergy, yada-yada-yada. “They can be such nerds at times.” I told Ken. He rolled his eyes, “Tell me about it”. Ken and I spoke amongst ourselves, thankfully he’s just as lost as I am.

I mean it’s important of course, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not for me. So it makes sense that at least someone from our party does the discussions, strategies and all, thankfully it wasn’t me. And, thankfully I wasn’t the odd one out, I had Ken who was just as clueless, if not more, with me. Eventually, we headed in for the night, in anticipation for clearing quests as a party, tomorrow.

<Megzie’s POV>

It’s been 13 days since I died and my new life as an adventurer began. Today is the day we’ll all hit level 20. And after today’s fight, we have to contest against the ‘challenge room’ because, apparently, you get no more experience after you hit level 20, until you clear the ‘challenge room’. So we were all thinking of doing that tomorrow but for today, we’ll hunt as a party. We’ll be forming a party after quite a few days of gap. In fact, the last time we formed a party to hunt was over a week ago.

I hope everyone still remembers our formations. Well, we should be fine, because we discussed them last night in detail. I muttered ‘back and front pincer, left and right pincer, defense, divide and conquer against two enemies, divide and conquer against three enemies. We added another divide and conquer formation last night... The divide and conquer against multiple enemies. Basically, we’d split them up evenly among the three of us (Jared, Ken and I) and Jackie would assist from behind. As soon as the numbers dwindle, we’d coordinate with each other and then fall back to a different formation, accordingly.’

Now we had 6 formations up and running, but we’d mostly use the most recent one, because we were fighting against multiple monsters. Also we would complete quests until the last of us leveled up to 20. We needed around 400-500 exp each. And the monsters that we would hunt today, the boggarts would give 30 per monster, that would be split amongst the 4 of us. That got me thinking, ‘So, for all of us, we would need a combined experience points of approximately 1800 exp. Which means we would have to kill around 60 monsters together.’

60 wasn’t an impossible number, now that there were 4 of us, so I was optimistic. As for boggarts, they were mysterious creatures… The were the tallest monsters (other than the horned wolves) we would encounter. Their bodies were made of spinning air, kind of like mini tornadoes/twisters. Their approximate height was around 7 feet, they were shapeless beings who basically looked like shadows and cyclones mixed together. They could only attack with wind related skills and would drop green colored air-magic stones.

It would definitely be a unique fighting experience, that’s for sure.