Approaching his first raccoon, Cloud snuck up behind it hoping to catch it unaware. Yet again, his skill at sneaking proved non-existent and the raccoon whipped around to face Cloud.

Within the same moment it dashed forward, Cloud's quick reaction speed saved him from nasty claw marks that would have caused some serious damage.

Hissing at raccoon in frustration from being noticed, Cloud pulled out his new sword that he had received from the training hall instructor.

Gripping the sword in both hands—his training affording him the ability to lift the sword easily despite his size—he took a cautious step forward to test the raccoon. It stayed in place, almost luring Cloud forward with it's eyes.

Darting in, Cloud cut his sword sideways, where he imparted a glancing blow to the raccoon's left flank. Cloud could have sworn the raccoon whimpered in pain.

Cloud stood in complete shock for a moment, he knew he was the fastest messenger in the city, but had never seen his speed first hand. The only thing saving the raccoons life had been its natural battle instincts.

In this moment of hesitation, when Cloud reveled in his ability, the raccoon sprang at Cloud and bit his right thigh.

> Quote:--You have contracted rabies. You will experience increasing paralysis, confusion, and hallucinations until disease causes death if you are not healed.--

Barely registering the system message, Cloud snapped out of his musings. Circling the raccoon he looked for the moment the raccoon's attention faltered.

But the raccoon knew better, fighting by instinct it wouldn't let down its guard in the face of such swift danger.

'I need a distraction.'

Moving around the raccoon some more, Cloud inspected it. The only weak point he could find was the injury he gave it.

Quickly feinting to the left he then struck from the right. The raccoon had shifted too much weight to its injured leg and was stuck unprotected to its right.

Slicing the raccoon in half, Cloud watched it disappear. The raccoon left nothing but a silver coin.

A little frustrated from the lack of loot he looked for his next target. Before he could find one, the world tilted on its axis. Staggering a little, Cloud collapsed and found himself staring at the sky.

It would have been restful if the sky would stop spinning.

'Why is the sky moving? When did I get outside, I thought I was at Henry's home?'

The confusion from the bite had set in. Cloud couldn't understand any of his situation as he lay on the ground.

He felt feverish and dizzy, yet closing his eyes helped little with the vertigo. Opening them, he hoped the sky would still.

Pain suddenly stabbed at his right leg, and he felt jaws clamp onto his left wrist. The head connected to the fangs in his flesh shook like a dog playing with its chew toy.

At the edges of his vision, he saw flashes of red fur and a red tail tipped with white.

******

“Brother hurry!”

“Calm down Lark, we'll get there in due time. And how many times do I need to tell you; call me by my in game name. We don't need people to know we're related.”

“But then that girl you were talking to earlier might get the wrong idea, Danaus.”

Danaus looked to the horizon, attempting to appear unfazed, the reddening of his cheeks gave him away. Lark burst out laughing, holding her stomach as the muscles contracted to the point of pain.

“Stop laughing, would you? You were in a hurry and now you're rolling on the ground like a lunatic.”

“Fine, fine. Lets go.” They continued in almost silence, Lark unable to keep her snickering completely quiet.

Deciding the best course of action was to completely ignore her, he reviewed their objective.

“So now that we have finished our waiting period, we can begin hunting. What do you want to do first Lark?”

“Well, we spent a lot of time preparing, but we don't know our abilities yet.”

“You're right, we should start slow. Rabbits?”

“No, too slow. We should go for Raccoons.”

“Okay, how about over there.”

Danaus gestured to a mostly empty area of the vast field outside the city walls. Any other payers in the area were roaming other parts of the field where the creatures' population was far denser.

Walking to that section they scouted for the easiest target. Finding the most isolated raccoon they slowly approached.

Having discussed each others' skills earlier, they already had a basic plan.

Lark had chosen to be a mage, so she could do long range attacks to lure the mobs. While Danaus was a warrior, he acted as the tanker; taking damage as well as dealing quite a bit in return.

“Ice Dart!”

Lark yelled while casting, a chunk of ice shaped like an arrow head flew toward the raccoon they had selected. Missing the raccoon by a hairs width she did no more than gain its attention.

The raccoon raced toward Lark, preparing to attack in retaliation. Seeing as she was a mage the likelihood of surviving for long against physical attacks was quite low.

Danaus jumped into the path of the raccoon and sliced low with his wooden sword, damaging its legs.

“Good one, it probably lost speed from that!”

Lark stood by watching Danaus attempt to avoid damage, which was amusing from her point of view.

Not so much from the point of view of Danaus though.

“You wanna help?!”

“I think you're doing very well on you're own, don't you?”

“No! I'm dying here!”

“Okay, okay, Ice Dart!”

This time the ice pierced the right shoulder of the raccoon, causing it to stumble. Danaus jumped in and battered the raccoon, taking the killing blow. On the ground lay a couple copper coins and a slab of meat.

“That wasn't too bad.”

“Are you kidding me, I did all the work. Besides if we hadn't trained so much besides to quests we did, there's no way we would have won.”

“Take a chill pill Danaus. But we really did pretty well, and we'll do better once I can aim better.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I guess. Next one?”

“Yup, bring it on!”

For the rest of the afternoon Lark and Danaus fought raccoons until there wasn't much challenge in the fights. They could each solo a couple raccoons without risking their lives.

“Think we should go to something harder?”

Danaus thought about it for a moment. Scanning the field he spotted foxes out closer to the forest and wolves slipping between shadows beneath the canopy.

Lark wasn't even paying attention to the animals around her. What caught her attention was the sight of a little boy walking alone in the middle of the feild.

“Oh, no!”

“What?”

Danaus rushed over to Lark's side to see the problem. Following her line of sight he saw a young boy wandering the field.

“Come we should help him, Danaus.”

“Why? He doesn't look scared.”

“Sheesh, besides the fact that it's the right thing to do, he might have a quest. Why else would an NPC be out in these fields?”

Nodding to this Danaus followed Lark as the moved in the same direction as the young boy. They had automatically thought it to be an NPC since it was very rare for children to not alter their appearance.

Besides just wanting to be older, it was a well known fact that looking like a child was a detriment when it came to questing.

When the boy caught the attention of a nearby raccoon, Lark and Danaus rushed forward. They thought to save the boy from a terrible fate.

Well, that was the plan until the boy pulled out a sword that looked absolutely ridiculous in his hands. Compared to him the sword was over-sized, but he handled it astoundingly well.

“Are you sure he's a NPC, Lark?”

“He has to be, no one creates an avatar of a child.”

“Yeah,.....but I think you've just been proved wrong.”

Glaring at Danaus, Lark observed the young boy as he moved.

His speed alone was impressive. The raccoon was unable to touch him when he moved, yet for a second he was still. His mind seemed to wonder and the raccoon took advantage, biting the boy who instantly moved out of range as to avoid another attack.

“Damn, how does he keep going?”

“Danaus, just cause you're a wuss over a little bite, doesn't mean he's going to be.”

“Wait a minute. Those things have rabies, and it's hard to fight when you can't see straight.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know the third raccoon we faced, where I had to get healed right after?”

“Yeah but that was because you got dizzy from low satiation.”

“No, I was watching my satiation the whole time when I was feeling dizzy. When I got healed, the healer in the guild told me to be careful about rabies and get it treated straight away.”

Watching some more, the boy finished the raccoon, then picked up the loot. Moments after he toppled over, then rolled to his back.

“And there he goes.”

“Geez, lets go help him.”

Approaching the boy, they were still a ways off when the situation got worse.

Two foxes had bounded out from the nearby bushes, taking advantage of the poor health of the player; the foxes began attacking his limp body.

“Ice Dart!”

Lark attacked the farthest fox, though she managed to catch the attention of both.

Slipping from behind Lark, Danaus began assailing the closest fox with a succession of blows, while Lark kept her focus on the other.

The foxes weren't as easy as the raccoons, as a higher level creature they displayed higher intelligence and stronger attacks.

The siblings fought each fox on their own mostly, yet often assisted one another to cause a distraction or deflect a scratch from a fox.

Slowly they damaged the foxes until they were out of breath and loot lay in the grass.

Lark picked up the loot from the foxes while Danaus lifted the boy into his arms.

“This kid is tiny.”

Danaus remarked, which was evident when comparing him to the adult that was Danaus. Lark was a little shocked though, when witnessing the fight, the boy didn't look so small.

'Maybe it was the distance...'

They rushed the boy to the healers guild as neither of them had any healing ability.

“What a looker this one is, if only he was a couple years older.”

The healer commented to her friends as she took care of the boy. Some of the older healers began fussing.

“What an adorable little boy.”

“Where did you find him?” The healer tending to the boy asked.

“Just outside the gates, he was fighting a raccoon.”

“Lucky, he must have a good quest.”

“I don't think he's a NPC, I'm pretty sure he's a player.”

Immediately the healers gave Danaus a doubtful look, as if to say 'What player would want to be so young?'

The siblings spent the rest of the day into the evening waiting for the boy to wake up.

Danaus used the time to study for his upcoming exam, while Lark read up on an ice spell she was interested in learning.

One of the older healers approached her as she completed the chapter, closing the book to take a rest.

“Wouldn't you be interested in becoming a healer? You could tend to these to lovely boys when they get injured so you don't have to keep coming here.”

Class Change!

You can convert to the class Cleric. If you accept it, you can learn skills for the class such as healing allies as well as various forms of buffs and debuffs.

Do you want to convert to Cleric?

Giving the healer a sad look, Lark declined without a second thought. No matter how much the healer pestered her, she didn't change her mind.

Not even the prone form of the young boy could convince her that she—of all people—could be a healer.