Just before he actually started climbing the mountain, however, he heard a loud, ear-piercing noise coming from the forest to his right. Simultaneously, a notification popped up in front of him.

[Side Quest obtained: Find out the source of the noise.]

{Reward: Redacted}      'Insight Required'

"Ughh, this bullshit again!" Kai lamented. "I'm already so sick of this redacted shit, and it's only been happening for like two hours!"

Despite his complaints, nothing changed. However, he still figured it would be a good idea to check out the source of the noise regardless, as it again looked as if there was a guaranteed reward. Also, it looked like the quest was just to find out what made the noise, and nothing more. That gave him a sense of relief, as he didn't want to fight anything without even being able to see his health.

After about ten minutes of walking in the direction that he heard the noise coming from and hearing nothing, he contemplated giving up. 'What was the point?' He thought to himself. 'I have better things to do than to wander around aimlessly trying to complete a side quest.' Right as he turned around to leave though, he again heard a noise, only this time it was much quieter. He could tell it was close to him as well because he was able to clearly hear it despite its low volume. This noise was more like a whimper, and it sounded like whatever made it was in a large amount of pain. 

This immediately changed his mind. Ever since he could remember, Kai wanted to be a Veterinarian. He loved animals and they loved him, so it just seemed like the perfect job. The pet shop he loved going to had an in-house animal hospital, and he always watched the professionals at work. It was just so fascinating to him. After one or two years, the workers realized he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and one of the younger ones started showing him the ropes. After another year, Kai was volunteering at the vet, doing procedures and saving animals, and he was damn good at it too. Nothing fulfilled him more, and he planned on getting a real job there when he saved up enough to go to vet school. 

With that being said, he knew what an injured animal sounded like, and this was most definitely an injured animal. What kind of animal he didn't know, but at that point, he didn't care. He was the kind of person to help anyone or anything that was hurt or in danger, and he still held onto his creed despite knowing it was what ended up getting him killed. Miraculously, the first aid kit that he always carried with him, just in case he found a pigeon with a broken wing or something, was still attached to his belt. He quickly rummaged through it to make sure everything was still intact, and luckily, nothing was missing or broken. He thanked whatever God had granted him this mercy and ran in the direction of the injured animal.

The whimpering continued and got louder the closer he got. However, soon it became apparent that he wasn't the only one going for the animal, and it seemed like whatever else was coming was huge. Its lumbering steps shook the earth and Kai had a bad feeling that things weren't going to end well for the injured animal if he didn't get to it first.

He started running full tilt, knowing full well that his lanky, underdeveloped body was going to hate him in a few hours. When he broke through a line of trees and entered a clearing, the whimpering stopped and something he couldn't quite make out was sitting a few feet in front of him. They stared at each other, with Kai trying to figure out what it could be while knowing it was futile, considering just how much the ground was shaking at this point, making it almost impossible for him to make out anything other than its beautiful, orange eyes. 

Just as he got to the unidentified creature, a ginormous, green hulking beast with one horn protruding from the middle of its forehead came crashing out of the forest on the other side of the clearing. It was holding a massive club, and strings of saliva were flying all over the place as it drooled and sniffed the air. 

Kai immediately knew he was in trouble. Having already come this far though, he decided to see this creature to its recovery or die trying. He scooped it up, and for the first time realized there was a large pool of blood underneath it, getting bigger every second. He now realized how imperative it was to get this thing to a safe place so that he could help, as it had clearly lost a lot of blood. Running away with the creature in his grasp, he started running out of breath very quickly. He was very out of shape, and it was catching up to him. 

When he looked back for a second to see how much longer he had until the monster reached him, he noticed something strange and frankly disturbing happening. The green thing was on the ground, licking and slurping up the pool of blood like it was honey! It was so unnerving that he almost stopped and stared, but realizing that whatever was in his arms was the thing that had produced the blood and that this green disaster had clearly smelled it and came running, he knew he had to run as he'd never run before. 

While the beast behind him was still distracted, he ran far and fast in random directions, getting the blood that was still dripping everywhere to throw the ugly motherfucker off of their trail, as well as looking for a safe place to assess how bad its injuries were. When he saw a dark, gaping hole in the side of a big rock up in the distance, he finally felt he found what he was looking for. The cave ended up being fairly spacious, with a relatively small hole in the roof that gave him just enough light for him to work. When he laid the creature in his arms out onto the ground and spread out its limbs, he was speechless, momentarily forgetting how to think. He knew exactly what this thing was as soon as he looked.

It was a dragon.