“Ilise, stay behind me and don’t freak out.” I tell her while gripping my hilt tightly while scouring the area.

“O-okay…” I heard her say while she walked behind me. “What are those things!” She then panicked while pointing towards the eyeballs on the trees.

“The Guardian uses those to find us anywhere it can’t see… I think.” While I was still trying to find the monster, the eyes all began looking towards us.

Once again, the blue mushrooms started popping out of the ground and off the trees while voices started echoing through my head “Weeee seeee yooouuu!”. It didn’t bother me but when I peered behind me, it looked like it might be giving Ilise a headache as she had a hand on her forehead.

I continued to look around to find it while the mushrooms were coming closer to us. After looking all around and having the mushrooms really close I decided to do what made it come out last time. Just like earlier, I ran towards the groups of mushrooms and made them fly with my blade.

While hacking away at the mushrooms, instead of the voice in my head changing at all, it stopped from the piercing roar I heard off in the distance. Once I heard the noise, I quickly jumped backwards to try and find it. I was looking all over the place when suddenly out of a tree top I saw a black figure fly out and towards me.

With both its hands behind its head, it flew through the air towards me. Instead of giving it a chance to get the upper hand, I began drawing out mana towards my arms and legs. I still wasn’t used to controlling the mana and barely completed it before I brought my guard up to block.

The guardian swung its hands down to crush me but only to be surprised by the sword not budging. Once it realized its attack was blocked, it quickly jumped back. After blocking the attack, I went on the offensive and rushed towards him, making a sweeping strike. I stumbled forwards before the attack connected, letting the guardian block in time. While thinking about the mistake I made, I quickly distanced myself.

Even though it was a sloppy strike, I saw a shallow cut upon its forearms. I began liking magic more since before I couldn’t easily block or scratch it. While in thought, I lost track of where it disappeared to until I felt a shadow growing underneath me. Once I looked up, confirming it was the guardian flying at me, fist ready.

Right before it landed, I darted forwards causing him to miss and land behind me. Before it could figure out where I went, I quickly turned and let my blade carve its way into its shoulder.

The guardian began screeching out and flailing its arms behind, trying to hit me. As I pulled my blade out, I felt it’s fist hit me square in the jaw. With the feeling of my sword still in hand, I flew backwards.

I stabbed my blade into the ground, breaking the momentum. The guardian and I stared each other down as I got up, pulling my blade out of the ground. With the brief moment of no one attacking, I started drawing more mana out towards my body. Before I finished, the guardian began rushing towards me. Not wanting to let it get the upper hand, I charged towards it as well while finishing drawing the mana out.

As it came flying towards me, fist ready, I made a spinning slash once in range. I felt my blade cut along its arm that missed as I made my way around it. It was a bit rough with the speed I’m not used to yet but I managed to land each strike and was behind it once more.

I slashed at its hind leg, causing it to drop to one knee while it screeched out. Before it could recover, I focused as much mana as I could to my arms and then swung at its neck. It’s hide was still stiff but with as much strength as I could muster, the crimson blade began carving through. When I felt no more resistance, I watched as the head fell to the ground. When the head hit the ground, everything shifted back to normal including the guardian’s body. Shortly after, I heard two things crash against the ground near the trees. When I went to check it out I found the body of what the guardian actually was.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I stared at the head which had more than one eye, two where they would normally be and one sideways on its forehead. The body’s fur was dark brown and it was smaller than what it was before. Once I confirmed things were safe, I looked behind me and saw Ilise following a safe distance behind with a somewhat shocked look.

Before walking towards her, I grabbed the head of the guardian and lifted it up in the air while shouting “Is this enough proof?”.

Ilise was taken back for a second before she broke out in a giggle while answering me “Hehehe Yeah, that will do.”.

When I heard that’s all I needed, I began walking towards her. After I was near her, I walked past her towards the carriage with her now following behind. While we were on our way back to the carriage, I heard Ilise from behind me “Wow, I haven’t seen you fight but that guardian thing seemed pretty strong itself… Are you sure you don’t use magic?”. She then quickly corrected herself “No… that wouldn’t make sense, I was there when we tested you for that.”.

I was happy she wasn’t going to pry about it so I just commented about the guardian “It had the upper hand when we first fought. This time, I just understood what I had to do.”.

“Is that so…” I heard Ilise say in a quiet tone. “That place was really weird, all the colours in that place just shifted… and those eyes…” while she talked about the eyes, I could hear her shiver.

“Yeah, that place was unsettling…” is what I said and was the last thing said while we walked towards the carriage.

When we got back to the carriage, I forgot that the campsite was still up. “Oh… I forgot about this. Let’s quickly clean it up and get back before it’s too late!” I heard Ilise say from behind. After placing the head of the guardian in the carriage, I then began helping clean up the campsite.

It didn’t take long to pack everything up and when I looked at Ilise, I saw her satisfied while she began walking towards the front of the carriage. “Are you ready to go?” She said while turning towards me. I nodded to her and in which, she began getting into the coach while I climbed into the back.

Once we were on the road, I got stuck staring at the head of the guardian while lost in thought about the mysterious girl that showed up. I was curious about a lot of the things she said, one being why other humans would freak out if they saw her. Another about being banished from the forest or how she said we would meet again.

I was deep in thought about many things that I didn’t even notice that we were close to Marawa. It was almost pitch black outside when the carriage began to slow down. The thing that broke my concentration was when I heard Ilise from behind me “We’re back at the guild.”. I was surprised that we were already back but when looking out the parted cloth, I did see it being very dark and a building wall with how Ilise parked it.

I climbed out the back of the carriage while hearing Ilise jump out of the coach herself. “Sadly it’s too late for someone to be tending the counter at this time so let's just go back to the inn for tonight.” Ilise voiced out to me when I was walking towards the guild with the guardians head in hand. After hearing her, I turned around and began walking towards the inn since it would be useless to go in the guild if that was the case.

When we got back to the inn, to our surprise Luttin was still at the counter and greeted us when we came in. “Good evening to the two of you, I suppose you were successful in your quest.” he said while looking down at my hand holding the head still.

I nodded to her words while Ilise asked him something “Are you always at the counter? Do you never get to sleep?”. Her words were filled with worry.

“Oh no need to worry about me, miss. In fact I was about to do a little bit of maintenance before I went to sleep here.” He said while giving Ilise a reassuring smile.

“If that’s the case then, I hope you have a good night Mister.” She said while walking towards the hallway.

“The same to you, Miss.” He said while bowing his head to her. He then turned to me “You have a good night as well, mister adventurer.” he said while I followed behind Ilise.

When Ilise stopped to open her door, she turned to me “Well Crim, good work on your promotion quest and I’ll see you tomorrow!”. She had a smile on her face as she entered her room.

After she disappeared behind the door, I then went in front of my own room and entered. Once inside, I placed the head of the guardian on the nightstand and my sword against it as well. I then sat on top of the bed, crisscrossed and began to meditate.

Slowly after some time, I opened my eyes and found myself within my subconsciousness with the large ball of energy in front of me. Once inside I began to think about how I used my magic and how I could improve upon it. I started with the thought of how long it took to guide the mana through my body to the appropriate places and how I should practice it to get faster at it. With a goal now set, I closed my eyes once again and began drawing mana out of my pool and guided it through my body.

I practiced guiding mana through my body time and time again to eliminate the possibility of being caught out while doing so in a fight. While I was practicing, another thought came into my head about if I stored a lot of mana into a body part, would it reinforce my strength a lot more or make me even faster? I then put that thought to the side and focused more on the control of mana first and made sure to make a mental note to find someone or read some books about the magic I use.

I didn’t know how long I was practicing for but I was woken up by knocking on the door. I opened my eyes to see daylight pouring into the room and began hearing the knocking again. After getting out of the bed, I grabbed my blade and opened the door.

When I saw that on the other side it was just Ilise, I placed my sword upon my back. “I wasn’t expecting you to actually be here, I thought you went to go practice somewhere again.” Ilise said. “But since you’re here, are you ready to go to the guild?” She then said afterwards. I nodded to her and went to grab the head of the guardian while Ilise said something else “We will get the quest finished up and then afterwards let's get something to eat! I completely forgot to eat something last night so I’m starving!”. I then nodded to her, feeling the same way she felt about being hungry.

Once I had the guardians head in hand, I walked out the door and past Ilise, taking the lead to the guild.