The next day, before heading to the library, I stopped off by the Guildmaster’s office. Unlike some places, I’d found out that the local GM was a friendly person. While the term wasn’t used, he had an open door policy, so as long as there wasn’t anything too pressing, he’d talk to anyone.

Though there was a caveat to that. He hated it when people wasted his time trying to get close to him to try and use him for their own means. That didn’t mean he didn’t work with people, but those with ulterior motives were not well liked, and ‘politely’ invited to not come back unless there was an actual reason for a visit.

I entered after receiving an answer to my knock, and was a little shocked by the sight that greeted me. The pair of men in the room looked like they hadn’t gotten any sleep last night, having panda eyes that were by no means as cute as the word suggested.

“Morning?”

I greeted them hesitantly. Jacen waved, while Raiden gave a grunt as he stood up.

“Your money’s on the table, including a breakdown if you’re interested in that. Now give me your card so I can finish things and go to bed.”

I passed the card to him, but he handed it off to Jacen who started fiddling with the guild’s computer to update the quests I’d completed. It wasn’t technically a computer, but realistically it seemed to function the same, so it was easier to call it that.

“So you really didn’t sleep last night? Why?”

“Because some idiot over at the Merchant’s Guild spilled the beans about having obtained some wyvern parts, and everyone wanted them. We had tons of visitors, all night long, and they tried to get us to sell them something we didn’t have. Even the lord got in on it, summoning me to his manor, then insisting I sell stuff direct to him.”

“Huh? All that trouble over some wyvern? I know they’re not exactly common, but why were they interested in something that should be at most uncommon?”

He stared at me. I looked back, raising my eyebrow. Shaking his head and sighing he explained it.

“Wyvern aren’t too rare, no. But they’re annoying to find and even worse to kill. Even if they’re only sub-dragons, they’re still dragons. Taking down one safely requires a group of rank eight adventurers… and you had the tongues of a dozen of the things.”

Yep, the trophy to be turned in for wyvern subjugation was the tongue. I don’t know who decided it, but there ya go. Apparently the things were tasty if cooked right. Or at least that’s what’s said. I tried it after reading about it, but either I failed at cooking it the right way or it just didn’t suit my palette. I’m able to enjoy the rest of the edible bits just fine. Fortunately I only cut a bit off the end of one of the things, so I was still able to turn the rest in for credit.

“Ah, and so they thought they’d be able to get stuff like meat, hide, claws, or whatever else from you since someone had killed a bunch of the things. Well, if you want I don’t mind selling some of it. I’m not going to be able to use all of the stuff myself, and if I do end up needing more, I’ll just come ask you where to find them.”

Raiden’s eyes glistened with tears as he expressed his gratitude. Those merchants must have been a pain to deal with. Or he was so tired he wasn’t thinking straight. Probably the later. It’s crazy to think mere merchants would be able to bother a powerful warrior and GM under normal circumstances.

I’d collected my magic bag from the table, and found the other three inside the first. I dumped the money in my storage and separated them, then started loading up the bags with stuff. Two for perishables, meat, jars of blood, and organs, another got filled with hides, and the last with other parts like claws and teeth.

I was only able to stuff about a wyvern’s worth of perishables, but was able to fit two and a half hides, the half was a set of wing membranes, while the last bag had two wyvern’s worth of claws and teeth and most of the skeleton of one.

After filling them, I dropped the bags on the table. I’d let them handle it from here. I’m sure they wanted more than this, and I could have pulled out more bags, but I wasn’t going to admit to more than the four I’d already shown. Magic bags are not rare, but they are pretty valuable.

The things were difficult to make, and as easy to break as a normal bag. They could be cut or torn as easily as anything else made of the same material. Plus if you stuffed them over capacity, they’d eventually burst. It was why I hadn’t stowed three of the bags into one after filling them.

Unlike in D&D, the bags’ spacial enchantments wouldn’t cause destruction if one tried to put one in another, but the capacity was shared between them. Spacial magic is weird.

If one has two bags, each of which can hold a hundred pounds, and fifty pounds are put in each, one could be stored in the other, but the weight would be carried over, making the outer bag be at capacity. Same thing if there were five bags holding twenty pounds.

OK, well, technically they’d be slightly over capacity, because the bags would have to be considered, but you should get the point, ya?

It works the same when the bags are stowed with one’s spacial storage skill, except going over has the possibility to make the mage explode if they don’t dump stuff out. Plenty of warning signs though. When one goes over capacity, there’s a drain on the mana pool, so the mage would notice it, especially when they’re getting low on mana. The lower one’s mana, the more tired they get. It’s a different kind of tiredness to being physically or mentally tired. Unless you’ve experienced it, it’s difficult to understand.

Reaching and slightly exceeding the limit is actually one of the ways one trains their item box skill. It’s not a fun experience, but the results can be extremely rewarding.

When I was raising my skill, I did it by the ocean and filled mine with water, and ended up filling my stomach with mana potions to enable faster training of it. The potions helped keep my mana pool from bottoming out and exploding me, though I had to rest between sessions. I had to be able to eat real food, since one cannot live on mana potions alone.

…

Where was I?

Oh! I dropped off the bags.

They were very grateful. They’d also ensure my privacy on this matter, returning the bags with my gold after everything was totaled up, though it might take a few days to do so. I’d have gotten more money selling directly to merchants, but I didn’t really care. Plus I’d get credit for some quests that had gone up.

Speaking of quests… I looked at the card Jacen had returned to me to check where I was at. I’d been sitting just over rank four’s threshold before. Now it showed me as 5*,6*. Why were there asterisks next to the numbers?

“What is this rank? Why are there two listed? Also, I thought you couldn’t jump me to a higher rank.”

“We can’t. The mark next to your rank indicates that you’ve completed enough quests to reach the rank, but are pending the exams to reach them officially. You gave us more than enough stuff to reach rank six. Especially since taking certain quests awards more points, like taking out villages. Especially solo.”

“We’ll put something together for your exams when we can. Not today. I want to drop these off downstairs and take a nap. I’ve got three hours before I have another meeting, and I need a clear head for it. Or at least clearer.”

I got shooed out of the office by the old men, so I made my way to the library. Other than meals and sleep, I spent the next two days there. I figured I may as well skip hunting this week, and dismantling, since I’d long since cleaned any old kills.

On Thursday I got my magic bags back, along with a bunch of money. My card was then abducted temporarily to give me credit for the wyvern parts that had matched up with quests. I was that much closer to ranking up again. Dangerous monsters that had lots of usable parts really are the best way to rank up quickly, not that I really cared too much about that. I’d already reached my goal, so I’d been planning on leaving soon, but with the rank promotion exams pending, I’d stick around until I got those taken care of.

The exam to reach rank five was scheduled for the end of this month, and the rank six one was still undecided. Although, if I failed the first exam, I’d have to wait three months before I could try to get rank five again, so I hope whatever quest I’m given isn’t too bad. All I’ve been told is that it’s a group exam, not a solo one.

Until the time of the exam, I decided to keep to my usual schedule…

The decision was altered as the reason for the soldiers outside the city became known. They were there for training. Specifically for heading into the woods and getting some experience fighting humanoids, goblins and orcs…

And I’d taken out the villages they’d intended on cleaning up.

The Guildmaster was not happy with me.

The area the soldiers were intending on heading towards were not commonly traveled, so it didn’t get too much attention from the guild. That’s why I’d headed that way on my outings. However, it seemed that the army had the same thought and had sent scouts out to various areas to scope out where it would be best to hold the training, and this area had been picked.

And now those same scouts had gone to verify which villages were still there… and found that they were all gone. They’d figured on one or two disappearing, either due to adventurers, or from tribal squabbles, but to have all six scouted locations gone? There had to be something going on.

So they’d come knocking on the guild’s doors, which led the GM to knock on my head with his fist. I’d caused them big problems. So I was also expected to provide a solution.

Naturally, I hadn’t actually broken any rules or laws, so it wasn’t like I was really screwed, but he still expected me to fix the problem.

I was issued a designated request, one I couldn’t refuse. Find the army new targets to use for training.

Since I had some kind of ability that let me get around fast, though I had never actually spoken or been asked about it due to regulations, I should be able to go and find monster villages far faster than the army scouts could, then take said scouts to those locations so they could verify the details for themselves.

So I went scouting.

Instead of being able to take a nice relaxing break, I was flying over large tracts of wilderness, hunting down monsters for other people to fight. It kinda frustrated me, but it was a job.

I spent two days flying around, going back and forth over the forest leading up to the mountains. I could have called it after the first day, but I used the trip for my own benefit as well. Just because the job was forced on me didn’t mean I wasn’t getting paid. I was. For every village I found.

I found ten villages the first day, all but one a goblin village, though there was a couple that barely deserved the name, only having thirty or so residents, but they’d be good warm ups for the troops.

The second day I was deeper in and found more villages, including not just goblins and orcs, but a pair of kobold dens and a cave with a small group of ogres.

These as well as other points of interest were located, all being noted down on a map with details written down on a clipboard. Whatever they didn’t feel like clearing up, I could come back and take care of myself.

And then I found the dungeon.