'I believe this should have made four hours in total. Boy, now I'm starting to feel the fatigue really kicking in... Surely, I won't be getting ambushed by some random monsters on the way back.' Soren thought to himself, as he stuffed another dead squire into his inventory, before making his way back towards the settlement to turn in all of his collected kills and hopefully manage to rank up, so he could obtain more quests. He was expecting that something might have happened on his way back, but to his surprise, it was an uneventful return to settlement, or rather, it felt a bit too uneventful for his liking. Fortunately for him, all his worries were for naught, since he did encounter a couple of roaming vermins that futilely tried to attack him, but ultimately fail, due to the stat difference between the two of them.

Once Soren entered the settlement, he made his way towards the Hunter's Guild and immediately dropped all of the rabbit and corpses in his inventory, with a loud noise that forcefully woke up the sleeping clerk and surprising in the process, from witnessing the pile of rabbits and dolls in front of him.

"Say... You didn't happen to get any help from the others, did you?" The clerk asked cautiously, as he examined the headless corpse of a rabbit.

"The only others I've me up until now are you, the guard who's chilling by that one entrance and the alchemist Manny." Soren responded, while leaving out the hooded figure, since he didn't know much about his appearance, let alone if he was part of the settlement. While answering, he also felt a sudden chill crawling down his spine, causing him to shiver and twitch a bit, before it completely stopped.

"Alright. Can't do or say much about it and seeing the clean kills on the rabbits, it seems that you're good enough to hunt them without having to worry about risking your life about them. You could try working a bit on your squire kills, but their corpses don't need to be fully intact. Let's see... We've got forty five Hopping Rabbits and fourteen Lazy Squires, so doing some number crunching... Most rabbits are in great condition... Squires are in decent condition... I'll round your rabbits to 3 bronze coins and your squires to 2 bronze coins and 10 coppers, so in total, that's 5 bronze coins and 10 copper coins." The clerk explained, as he gave him a small sack with the coins he earned.

"Wow... That's quite a bit. By the way, how long will it take me to get to the next rank?" Soren asked curiously, as he needed to have some kind of idea about his current progress.

"Hmm... To be honest, you could just rank up to Black rank right about now, since you have had the strength for it for quite a while already, but its better if you hold off a bit and build a bit more strength, then you can just take the rank up quest for the Purple rank, effectively skipping the entirety of the Black rank."

"Skipping it entirely!? Wait, why can't I just rank up now, do a couple quests, build some more strength and then try to take the rank up quest for the purple rank?"

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"Two reasons. First, you'll need to complete a minimal amount of twenty Black rank quests of similar difficulty as the Gray rank quests, to even gain access to the the Purple rank-up quest. Second, skipping the Black rank allows you to obtain a few hidden benefits, such as making you a bit of a more notable candidate for future expeditions, because of your high potential, as well as custom requests from our customers. Granted, Manny is the only person that makes personal requests, since she's our only non-combatant, so she might be your only supply of custom requests for a long time, assuming you take this path."

"I get it, but what's the difference between the gray and black ranks?"

"Not much of a difference between the two of them, difficulty wise. Gray rank is meant to be an entry rank that checks if you're capable of hunting basic critters. If you pass the check, then you're welcome to the black rank. The black rank though requires you to put the effort to grow strong enough to enter the purple rank. Of course, if you've already put the effort to hunt and grow from the gray rank alone, it makes the black rank kind of obsolete for you, hence the skip. For your information, there won't be any other rank skips, as the ranks from purple onward have different requirements."

"Good to know... By the way, do you happen to have a beastiary or a monster encyclopedia or something along those lines?"

"We do have one. Do you need me to look for a specific monster or would you like to search through it yourself?" The clerk asked, as he pulled a thick book from below the counter.

"Can you look it up through a verbal description?" Soren asked curiously, as he wasn't sure how the monsters were sorted and didn't want to go through the hassle of looking through every page.

"Only if you're descriptive enough." Once he heard the clerk's answer, Soren proceeded to explain the beast's appearance and characteristics and once he mentioned the beast's tree eating ability, the clerk found the beast Soren was talking about within seconds and started to describe it. "The beast you probably witnessed, is probably a Voracious Cutter. They're fairly common in the forest's depths, although they can still be found occasionally in the forest's outskirts. They are also known as tree eaters, as trees are a favorite delicacy for them, despite being carnivorous beasts. Although they're neutral beasts, they're pretty easily provoked, either by intruding in their territory or by interrupting their tree feasts and once provoked, these beasts will continuously pursue their targets, even abandoning their own territories at times, for the sake of hunting down their aggressor."

*gulp* 'I was really close to f*cking up own account.' Soren nervously thought to himself, as he couldn't believe how close he was to screwing himself over, just for the sake of curiosity.

"Anyways, I hope this inquiry helped you. Do you wish to look up for a different monster?" The clerk asked, as if he was completely unfazed from the chilling description he just gave.

"Uhhh... A-Alright, what about this little fella then?" Soren asked, as he took out one of the armadillos he had killed, while attempting to suppress the fear of nearly screwing himself.

"Oh... That's a Cowardly Roller. They're not exactly rare, but if you don't have any magic to quickly deal with them, then you're better off ignoring them. Their shells can be made into some pretty decent armor, especially for rookies, since it gives high physical resistance. Honestly, I suggest you hold onto this little fella and if you can get a couple more, you can give them to our blacksmith to make you some nice protective gear. Granted, you'll still have to pay for the armor yourself." The clerk explained joyfully, as he sensed Soren's uneasiness and wanted to lighten the mood a bit.

"Thanks... That's all wanted to ask. Seriously, thank you for the information." Soren stated gratefully, as he knew what he would need to do, once he came across one of the Cutters again, before leaving the Hunter's Guild to log off, but not without one last surprise for the road.

You have earned +1 Affinity Point with the Hunter Guild's clerk [Stephen].