(Nov 14)

Recently, I feel like I’ve been a bit too… inactive.

I know that on November 28, we’re going to go meet up with Kenava, but we have 2 weeks until then and I don’t want to just do nothing in the meanwhile.

I don’t want to become too lazy and dull my senses before then, so I feel like I should get out there and do something.

There were also a few abilities I thought up so I wanted to test them out.

The thing is, they’re quite dangerous so I wanted to be far from the city to use them.

Normally I wouldn’t do this, but since Sven was my friend and also my boss, I asked him if I could do a quest or an out of the city task.

Adventurer guilds would usually do quests for people and people would give requests to guilds, but sometimes the city would also have soldiers do it depending on what the conditions are and if it concerns the authorities.

Like a few months ago, I had to go protect a village from monsters and met a hippogriff; that was a job the city gave me to do as a soldier.

I wanted another one of those. Something like a subjugation mission where I could get some action.

Sven was reluctant; he knew that a lot of things had recently happened and he was worried about sending me off.

I told him that I would be fine. Within the last two weeks, things have become a little bit more normal and my wife can handle herself now.

He wasn’t totally convinced though.

So, to convince him, I told him that if he was worried, he should go on the mission with me.

“Go with you?”

“Yeah. I want to do a mission, or a quest or whatever the city has to offer, and if you’re worried, you can come along. Act like a chaperon and watch over me.”

Sven took a minute to think, and finally he agreed.

“Alright Anthony. Give me a day or two to find a suitable mission the city has available and I’ll let you know.” Sven said.

And so, I’m now waiting for Sven to find a good mission for me to do.

(Nov 15)

It didn’t take long for Sven to contact me.

In fact, it didn’t even take a day.

When I got to work today, Sven gave me the good news.

“So I got us an assignment. It’s a subjugation quest and it was marked as B ranked. The details requested a B ranked officer and a group of D – C ranked troops, but you told me you’re A ranked now, so you should be able fill in that gap. Plus, I’m here as well.” Sven told me as he handed me a piece of paper with all the details.

Wow, this was the perfect mission I was thinking of.

It’s a subjugation so I would be able to get active, and its B ranked, which I think is the perfect difficulty.

I’m an A ranker now, but this is my first-time doing a quest higher than C.

I was surprised Sven was able to find such a perfect mission in such a short amount of time.

“Yeah, this mission was requested by a tribe of beastkin. They live quite far, and the pay isn’t great since they don’t use our currency. And you know how people are with beastkin, people tend to avoid them, so this quest hadn’t been taken for a few weeks since adventurers priorities the more important and favourable requests, and the city doesn’t have the resources to send off soldiers easily.”

Beastkin, eh?

That makes sense then.

Beastkins (beast + kin) are people that are half animal, half humanoid. They have a mostly humanoid body, but possess certain animal traits like animal ears, a tail, maybe even claws or fangs.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

They’re classified as a secondary type humanoid species, but a lot of scientists debate on whether or not they should technically be primary humanoid or not.

It’s because primary humanoids are the three main humanoid races: humans, devils and fairies and all of their offspring (like demons, elves and etc).

Secondary humanoids are all species that have a humanoid body, and is also capable of intelligence, thought, emotions and is able to communicate and live a civilized life like orcs, dryads, succubus, dwarves and etc. However, they are quite rare and all secondary humanoid species take up about 0.1% of the civilized world population.

Tertiary humanoids are species that have humanoid bodies but are considered monsters and don’t live civilized lives like ogres, goblins, zombies and such.

Beastkin are classified as secondary because they don’t fall into any of the three main primary humanoid groups, but their distant ancestors were primary humanoids, which leads to the debate of whether the beastkin should be primary or not.

Personally, I have nothing against them or any secondary humanoids, but I can understand why people think somewhat weirdly of beastkin.

If you think about it, they’re half humanoid and half animal. That meant somewhere in their family tree, one of their ancient ancestors… fucked an animal.

Which resulted in a half animal half human breed.

I mean, I think that’s slightly weird, but hey, who am I to judge their… culture.

Anyways, I don’t discriminate, a request is a request, and I’m going to do it.

So it’s been planned, I will do this quest.

I leave in two days, on November 17. It’ll take about a day to get to the forest that the beastkin reside in, and it’ll probably take a day or two to help subjugate the beast and then return back home at around November 22 or 23 with a few days to spare before the Kenava meeting.

This was the gameplan.

(Nov 16)

Today I was busy packing a few bags with clothing, some snacks, my sword and a couple tools.

My wife also made me some food to bring along which I gratefully packed in as well.

I am a little worried for my wife while I’m gone, but I trust her.

With the new drugs that William made for her and the restraining collar that she’s wearing around her neck, I highly doubt anything will happen.

Plus, this won’t be the first time I go on long trips.

Tomorrows the day I go, so I’m going to sleep early to get up early.

(Nov 17)

Woke up late today by accident.

No worries though, I was able to quickly sort my things and rushed out (after kissing my wife and Gabi goodbye) to meet Sven who was also late.

The sun was still rising over the horizons as we left the city gates on our horses.

I probably could’ve ran the way there but Sven was much less athletic then I was so he’d probably get tired quick and needed the horse.

The trip was pretty slow, so Sven and I talked a lot. This honestly reminds me a lot of when we were still in school.

I spoke with Sven for the first time during a school assignment where our teacher assigned us partners and I just happened to be with him.

I was slightly afraid of Sven at the time due to him being the leader of the bullies, but we surprisingly got along well.

We’ve been friends ever since and we’ve been on a TON of mini adventures.

Like one time Sven and I travelled out of our camp and into the forest to go swim in a lake. I remember myself nearly drowning! Those were the days.

I’m glad to be able to go on another adventure like this with Sven despite being grown up now. Not often are you able to just go out and adventure as an adult, unless you’re an adventurer that is.

Now it’s lunch and we’re sharing a few sandwiches as we sit in the shade of some tree.

We’re probably nearly halfway. Only several more hours to go.

.

By the time we reached the forest, the sky was turning red and the sun was disappearing into the horizon.

It wasn’t night yet but the trees covered the sky and so it was quite dark.

We traversed passed the dark trees with torches lighting the way.

Since this forest was the beastkin’s territory, it wasn’t long before we encountered them.

“Halt! Who’s there!?” Someone shouted out from deep within.

“We’re from the kingdom! You guys sent a request to subjugate a beast? We’re here for that!” Sven shouted back.

As he replied, a few figures emerged.

They were, of course, beastkin.

All of them possessed some sort of animalistic trait such as ears, tails, paws or etc.

“They finally sent people? It took you guys long enough… wait, is it just you two?” One of the bearskins questioned.

They looked around, trying to see if there were any more soldiers or anyone with us, but no, it’s just me and Sven.

“Hey! What’s the deal with this?! Are you guys not taking this seriously? The hell are we going to do with two extra people?” The beastkin shouted out.

I don’t blame them for thinking that we were just two random soldiers, but I’m confident me and Sven would be comparable to at least a group of soldiers.

“Tch. 2 more people is better then nothing, I guess. Follow me, I’ll lead you to our village.” The beastkin muttered with disappointment and headed deeper into the forest.

It was clear they weren’t too happy; nevertheless, we still followed behind.

After a short walk, we arrived at a wooden wall with a large gate.

“Open up! It’s the hunting squad!” The beastkin we were following shouted out.

On a nearby watch tower, I saw a few shadowy figure move.

“Halt! Who are the two… human?” A voice asked back.

“Apparently they’re reinforcements from the city.”

“Reinforcements? Only two of them?”

A brief silence fell over the forest.

“Let them in.” Another voice finally called out.

The gates opened and an elderly beastkin approached us.

“Hello, you two fine young lads must be from the city. I welcome you.”

This elder beastkin was quite small and was holding a wooden crane. He had droopy cat ears so I’m assuming he some sort of feline beastkin.

At first glance, he looked quite frail like some old man on the verge of death, but the magic being emitted from his body told me otherwise. He may be old, but he’s a warrior.

No doubt that this elder beastkin was an A ranker during his prime.

“Hello sir. Indeed, we are from the city. We have received your request for aid in subjugating a beast?” Sven politely asked.

The elderly beastkin nodded.

“Yes. A beast has been attacking us lately...”

“What kind of beast?”

“It is a massive snake as thick as a several trees and as long as a river... a legendary beast we call… Agora.”