In Shimmerstal’s royal palace, Karato reported to the king on Shane Karosaki’s latest activities.

“Last thing I recall was Mr. Karosaki cashing in quite early on his royal favours when he let us interfere for him at the guild. After I made it clear to the guild master in what light I viewed Mr. Karosaki, I think I conveyed the message properly.”

Karato didn’t comment on the king’s words having nothing more to add to them but spoke cordially as he usually would when they were alone.

“He's already completed your request to repair the portico gates, well within the expected time. In that time his visited the guild on numerous occasions, visited the adventurer's supply shop and generally walked around becoming familiar with the city.”

“That sounds commonplace. I feel underwhelmed. Somehow, I was expecting a bit more.”

“Well, he did have an altercation with two ruffians from one of the small, local city gangs that were trying to rob him, but he bested them with little effort. Other than that, he mostly advertised services for making weapons while Grenfell was taking care of other business.”

King Leopold sat at his desk thinking a little while.

“Perhaps it is time we give him an opportunity to stretch his wings a little and to show us what he is made of?”

“He seems to like adventuring from what Olivia the guild administrator told me. Perhaps we can issue a quest suited especially for him?”

“Yes, not a bad idea. However, the quest should not be too easy either.”

“Then I'll make the arrangements. Any specific quest you would like to issue?”

“Count Braun has been requesting more marsh metal for his experiment. Perhaps Mr Karosaki can help in that regard?”

Karato smiled.

“Perfect. The Wildemere marshlands will test his skills well.”

In the days that followed I only received one measly weapon order, meaning I only had enough money to pay for my food, but little else. I could make a basic bush knife for one gold and fifty silvers, but the economy went through some sort of strange downturn at that stage and as good as my weapon making skills were, I didn’t think I could make much money out of it in the short term. I remained an unknown outside of the Dryad’s brand name and forging a new path in weapon making seemed an arduous long-term task.

Up to then, the adventurer guild offered more opportunity for making money by fulfilling quests. With Ara's help and my pocket dimension storage ring I could outperform other adventurers and make more money. Ara was a cheat because her analysing capacity made for a powerful ally when making strategic decisions and my pocket dimension storage ring, although limited to just one metre cubed, meant I carried more pack weight giving me a distinct advantage above normal adventurers.

One of the regular quests on the adventurer's guild noticeboard was rabbit hunting. Rabbits bred like… well, rabbits and farmers hated wild rabbits as any farmer does. The proliferation of rabbits could only be kept in check by adventurers since farmers had better things to do with their time. Newbie adventurers like me found rabbit hunting a perfect introduction to their new trade and learned many skills applicable to monster subjugation. Also, the city's appetite for rabbit meat knew no limit and I could continually hunt rabbits around farming areas and a few hours hiking into the forest. If I coupled my rabbit hunting activities with herb and plant gathering, then I had a good chance to make lots of money. Rabbits however, also offered me furs, something I was sorely looking for making warm winter clothing. To shoot rabbits I needed a bow and the only selection I found at the adventurer supply shop were a tired-looking hand-me-downs of the wooden variety. The military commissioned most of the decent bows in the city and the ones in the supply shop were naturally military hand-me-downs. Of course, there were the newer professional bows, but I couldn't afford them even if I wanted to. The better ones started at five gold and up, as I said, something I couldn't consider at that stage.

Second hand bow it was then and I unwillingly sacrificed my professionalism on the altar of poverty. The little bit of money remaining after that I used to purchase some arrows and spare shafts for making homemade arrows. At least I learned the skills to experiment with melting my own arrow heads and I could use the old man’s forge while I helped out with a few of his jobs.

Of course, I still wanted a decent bow, and I wasn't the type to give up too easily and wanted to make my own metal composite bow, because the only things I seemed capable of making out of wood were spear handles and firewood. None of those options offered me a good bow. That started my own quest looking for a lightweight, flexible metal for the bow that didn't bend snap at the first bit of pull pressure or laugh at my attempt to bend it. Naturally any bow couldn't consist of solid metal because no one could bend that. Rather I decided to go with a honeycomb interior that allowed stiffness near the handle but more flexibility at the ends while keeping the bow light weight. How I would produce such a marvel, let’s just say I had plans for the future and they stayed just that.

One evening as Grenfell and I sat eating dinner together at the inn the conversation about my choice of adventuring as a career came up.

“I understand why you feel you need to be adventuring and if I were in your shoes of probably do the same. If you want to make a bow out of metal, I’d suggest looking at something lightweight like Greythril which still allows some flexibility.”

“Where am I likely to find a metal like that? I've looked around at the adventurer's supply shop, but I don't remember seeing anything like that.”

“You won’t likely find it there. Greythril is used in various places, but I suggest you meet up with Schneider and ask him to track some down for you.”

Schneider, the friendly merchant I met in Obon while working in the Dryad, helped sponsor my production of razors. I previously spent some time catching up with the production of the handles seeing there was little money in making weapons at the time. When I eventually caught up with him, I’d find out where we could get hold of some dwarves to make the blades. I dream of a world where I just hand over all production over to them with me earning a minor royalty out of it and let them worry about the details. I had far more other interesting things I wanted to pursue.

The forging facility the palace arranged for Grenfell worked out perfectly. It lay nestled within a private courtyard surrounded by the high walls of neighbouring businesses. A reclusive place where we wouldn’t disturb the neighbours, and where we could work until late hours of the night if we had to. Between the old man and I, we managed to use the forge on and off as needed but we also found the premises convenient for the workshop it provided. When the time came, I could make my bow there.

As the days passed my plans developed for hunting in the forest. I daydreamed about the rabbit fur coats I would make. My mind laboriously planned each step of how I would dominate the rabbit world by hunting their cute furry tails into extinction. My impatience needed venting. My endless planning yearned for fulfilment. Finally, the day came when everything was finally ready and I could venture out into the forest with my bow, sword, and spear, ready to fulfil my destiny.

Morning one. Me standing at a farmer’s rock wall and cue the first farmer I spoke to about hunting rabbits on his farm.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“You want to do what? Nah, those rabbit fur skins are next to useless as winter gear. They make great foot liners though.”

His casual retort effortlessly razed my daydreams down like the Hindenburg. When I relayed my planning in passing conversation to the farmer working his piece of land near the forest, he didn’t mince his words. I thanked Olivia’s wisdom in advising me not to accept any rabbit hunting quests until I became more knowledgeable about how to efficiently hunt them. Not in the mood for paying fines for missing quest deadlines that early in my adventuring career, I accepted her suggestion. Even though rabbits weren’t listed as monsters, they were still viewed as pests by the guild because the farmers loathed the fluffy creature’s ability to level juicy sprouts to the ground in a single night. As a result, I could hunt rabbits with reckless abandon, then later claim the reward by presenting all their fluffy rear ends to Olivia as evidence and still get paid for it. My lack of insight on the viability rabbit fur coats as winter gear highlighted a was a major flaw in my plans but typical of my endless source of enthusiasm, I refused to surrender. I would reveal my power to ‘rabbit-dom’, and they would bow to me, their mighty rabbit slayer. The farmer didn’t know anything about my delusions of grandeur but he at least he agreed to help me trap them.

“Yeah, feel free to put out your traps around the fields if you like, but I’d suggest you rather put them out on the edge of the forest because the rabbits like congregating under the forest cover there and it’s still safer for you.”

I thanked the farmer for his agronomical wisdom, bowed to him, then continued my way towards my fiefdom as lord of the rabbits at the forest edge, about an hour’s walk from.

as he stood behind the field’s stone wall,

Ara seemed upset about something.

< I’m not the one avoiding communication.>

I wondered about that.

I remembered the first time I asked Ara not to speak unless spoken to and I think she took that arrangement too literally. At the time I wasn’t used to her voice suddenly popping up in my head. The familiar Airscan heads-up display appeared in my vision. I hadn’t activated it earlier because I felt there was no reason to. Populated areas were generally safe areas and I felt it was a pointless waste of my EE using it in that environment.

The forest turned out more beautiful than I expected. All perceived thoughts of a gloomy forest I lost somewhere in the splendour of filtered lights streaming through the green canopy above me.

I rethought my approach on chasing down rabbits with my bow which would likely be a futile affair as most rabbits tended to come out of their holes at dusk when it was too dark for me to shoot. However, if I happened to accidently come across them, then so be it, I’d do what any hunter in that position would do. My plan was to lay some traps out, then collect them early the next morning.

“Bwahahaha!”

I laughed at the cleverness of my plan as I placed the first of many traps. Collect tasty ‘rabbitses’, I would.

Day 2:

“What the?”

The next morning greeted me with an empty and sprung trap, soon to be one of many of the same. The sprung traps were not the source of my frustration. Obviously, the rabbit blood scattered around the area showed unmistakable evidence my traps once held a rabbit. However, it was the flipping wolf sign that really got my blood boiling. How dare those gutless wolves treat my traps like a greasy takeaway joint. I mumbled to myself in frustration as I reset the traps while hoping the next morning the traps would have more furry rear ends for me to harvest.

Day 3:

I confess to my blatant ignorance. The wolves weren’t stupid, and I certainly underestimated their tenacity. Needless to say, the traps were empty once again with the same indications of canid foul play. Then a bright idea came to my mind, subterfuge was clearly the way to go. Building a trap within a trap was pure genius.

Day 4:

My genius knew no end. Success came first in the form of both a trapped rabbit and a seriously enraged grey wolf, dangling by its rear leg in the air while snapping in the air at me. I originally placed the rabbit trap within a surrounding wolf trap which only the weight of a wolf could trigger. The result, the trapped rabbit acted like live fish bait at the end of a fishhook, enticing the hunter to become the hunted.

“Bwahaha!”

Bow before my intellect you ravenous wolves. I’d solved my winter clothing conundrum in one foul swoop, wolf pelts made for fine winter garments indeed. The successes of my following rabbit and wolf trapping trips improved to the point where I could confidently take on hunting requests, slowly building my guild ability points. Over the weeks my confidence in my capability improved in leaps and bounds as my dad’s trap-training sessions bore fruit. Hard won lessons already learned on earth I quickly adapted to fit my new environment. One evening, Olivia stopped me after she paid out my reward for meeting the latest quest.

“Can you wait for a moment Shane?”

I paused more because it was unusual for Olivia to stop me. Normally I would leave at that point, my mind focused on the endless bounty I made that day.

“Eh, what’s up Olivia?”

“Up? Are you talking about the roof, is there something wrong with it?”

I found that some of my Earthly mannerisms were strange to people around me and I tended to throw them out like confetti, confusing some folks.

“Never mind, how can I help you?”

“I’m not sure how to put this, we noticed that you’ve been hunting of late without using any defensive equipment and to be directly honest with you, we’re concerned you are not properly prepared.”

“Are you talking about armour?”

“Well…yes.”

Olivia’s concern referred to my disturbing lack of armour, or rather that I never wore any. I understood why she felt like that, adventurers didn’t usually operate without armour, and she was only expressing a concern for an adventurer she looked after. When she noticed my hesitation, she continued explaining.

“If you need to buy some armour, I’m sure the Adventurer Supply Shop will have something you can afford?”

“I apologise Olivia, I’ve neglected that part of my gear for a while and I should probably do something about it. I’ll just ask that you be patient until I can find something that works for me, and I’ll be more careful in return.”

I couldn’t tell Olivia that I functioned more of a support role as a skill-user than a fighter with a sword. When I thought about it, I was probably a multitasked fighter. She seemed happy that I committed to do something about it, although it would likely only happen at a later stage when I had more money to spend on gear. Even if I lacked any defensive gear, I didn’t neglect my skills training. While hunting I silently levitated my metal spheres around me like orbiting moons. With all that unfettered training I soon learned to subconsciously operate five spheres while totally focused on hunting. On more than one occasion I was able to kill rabbits at thirty paces using the spheres without them even realising they were under attack. It was nothing for me to easily wipe out a warren of rabbits from a distance.

Soon I became more accustomed to my environment, pressing deeper into the forest and feeling increasingly confident about my hunting abilities. Inevitably, the day arrived when three goblins suddenly crossed my path, about three hours walk into the forest. My first warning of their arrival came from Ara.

Ara warned me that three bogies had just walked into my range, heading my way. My detection range slightly reduced in the forest due to all the trees. My constant use of Airscan over the days reduced the level of EE required to maintain the skill and subsequently I became quite efficient in using it. In fact, I could activate Airscan with barely any EE loss as my automatic EE gain topped up my usage with ease.

The goblins didn’t realise I waited for them and despite their keen senses they couldn’t detect me because I also activated an air skill to keep them detecting my personal odour. And yes, I washed every day for anyone doubting my hygiene regime. When the goblin troop entered my kill zone at about thirty paces away, I simultaneously fired three metal spheres at the goblins’ heads, hitting them all at the same time. Two of them died instantaneously and the third barely survived and made an awful noise forcing me to quickly dispatch it with my spear. Following that brief battle, it took me three minutes just to get my breath back as fatigue suddenly washed over me, which seemed weird given I was as fitter than ever. Concerned over my condition, I quickly scanned my stats.

Name: Shane Karosaki

Race: Human

Occupation: Blacksmith

Class: Apprentice

HP: 150/150

SP: 95/105

EE: 5027/5500

Skills: Transmutation, Appraisal, Healing, Solid, Liquid, Gas, Light, Airscan

I guessed that in that moment I was so focussed that I forgot to relax a little.