Chapter III: A Day In The Wintervale Woods.

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After accepting the chieftain's quest, Ares spoke with a few of the village's guards about what type of monsters were out there, and if there was anything he should know about them.

Of course, the majority of the guards weren't the most forthcoming with the information, and in short, had told him to piss off, but eventually, one of them was kind enough to tell him about the creatures that lurked in the woods.

There were dozens of monsters that lived in the woods surrounding Wintervale, but the one that has been troubling the chieftain the most was the Kobold.

They were a reptilian race that wielded primitive weapons, and stood roughly around the height of three to four feet. They usually are never seen alone, and if they are seen by themselves, it is because its comrades are hiding, waiting to spring the trap they had set up.

It was also worth mentioning that once he was done speaking with the guard, his quest had changed. Instead of it asking him to investigate the growing numbers of monsters, it was now asking him to investigate the Kobold, and to kill twenty-four of them.

This had surprised Ares, for he didn't expect the quest to change this dramatically, but if he was being real with himself; he was okay with this change. 

However, there was one thing he was curious about, and that was what did it mean by investigate the Kobold? Was it asking him to look for the Kobold's stronghold or something along those lines, or was it asking him to follow some of them around and listen in on their conversation? 

He wasn't sure, but he did think about it while leaving the village.

Once inside the woods, Ares practically changed characters and stopped walking so nonchalantly, and began to look for signs of life. 

He didn't know how long he did this for, but after what felt like thirty minutes, he picked up a trail.  He wasn't entirely sure what type of creature it was, but the two things he did know was that it wasn't human, and it was alone, which ruled out the possibilities of it being a Kobold, for they traveled in groups.

Nonetheless, Ares followed the tracks, and that was for one reason and one reason only.

Experience. 

Sure, he would get experience for completing quests, but if he was going to become the best player on Exelcia Online, then he was going to need to grind levels too, and right now, this was the best time to grind them, for no one could come up, and straight-up murder him for no reason at all.  

After spending about twenty minutes of hunting, Ares found a clearing, and in the clearing was not only the creature he was tracking down, but what he assumed to be its family.

The creature he had been following for a while now was a six-legged wolf known as the Eni. They were a little bit bigger than that of a normal grey wolf, but smaller than that of an American Mastiff. Their fur was brownish-black, and they had red eyes. 

Upon seeing what he assumed to be the Eni's wife and kids, Ares hid behind a tree that was on the edges of the clearing. 

He had ended up creating a small fraction of noise, which had gained the second Eni's attention, but it didn't move from its position. Instead, it looked at the direction Ares was in for a couple of seconds before averting its focus elsewhere. 

"Alright," He thought to himself as he lifted the scabbard from his waist up a bit, and began to slowly, and quietly unsheathe the shortsword. "I can do this." 

 When he was researching about what kingdom to start in, he had found a lot of blogs about the Aeroston Kingdom, and why it supposedly sucked ass. Apparently, from what bloggers claim, the monsters in the Aeroston Kingdom are harder to grind than the starting out monsters in the other kingdoms, such as the Espera Kingdom or the Gelon Kingdom, and how almost all of them barely drop any good items for defeating them. 

However, there was one thing that caught his interest, and that was how in almost all the blogs he read, the failure to mention the experience you would get.

Well, a few of them did mention something about the experience you would get, but he didn't read anything bad, which was one of the main reasons why he chose to start in the Aeroston kingdom. 

Sure, it wouldn't be easy to grind in the Aeroston Kingdom, and the loot wouldn't be the best for a while, but he didn't need it to be easy, nor did he need the best gear at the start of the game. All he needed really was a place he could farm levels without any interruption and this kingdom had that. 

 Besides, even If he had located a good grinding spot in another kingdom that had yet to be discovered, it would only be a matter of time before other players would catch wind of it, and he'd be forced to either share the XP, or find a different location to farm.  

With his heart steeled, Ares unsheathed his blade and rushed the monsters. 

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Eudora had a bored expression written on her face as she listened to her second in command talk about increasing the kingdom's taxes by 2%.

She was wearing a set of armor called The Valkyrie's Armor, which consisted of a white breastplate with gold and pale blue accents and matching, fingerless gauntlets, boots, greaves, hip guards, pauldrons, and winged style hair clips. She wore black clothing underneath the armor, and had pale blue cloth wrapped underneath her hip guards, all of which are clad with pink lacing along with her hair clips.

Resting against her throne-like chair was a staff like spear she wielded called, The Staff of Myrddin. They were both exotic items, which was the best type of gear in the game, that made her practically impossible to kill.

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Sitting on her left with several sheets of paper on top of the table he was sitting behind was a handsome man with dark blue hair who was cladded in a full suit of white and gold plated armor. He wore a cape that was also white that had a streak of gold going down the center. Strapped to his waist was a bastard sword. 

This was her second in command Arthur, and the ones sitting in chairs behind the large round table with the two of them were high ranking members of the guild/kingdom, Nirvana. 

The bored expression she had written on her face had not gone unnoticed by any of her officers, but none of them dared to tell her to take this seriously, for those who had done so in the past had found themselves guildless, and banished from the Nirvana Kingdom. 

As Arthur finished up his explanation as to why the taxes should be raised, he looked to his queen who still appeared to be bored, and said to her. "So what do you think?" 

 "Hmm?" She hummed after noticing that everybody's eyes were on her. 

 Although he was a little hesitant, Arthur responded. "About the increases in taxes. Do you think it's a good idea?" 

Eudora at first said nothing, and tried to recall what he was saying earlier, but ended up failing.

Eventually, she just shrugged her shoulders and told everybody. "I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention. I was thinking about something."   

Arthur withheld his sigh upon hearing this.

"If you don't mind me asking," One of her officers started. He was three chairs away from her on her right, and wore a full suit of white and dark blue plated armor that had griffin engravings. On top of the table in front of him was a helmet with dark blue feathers. "What were you thinking about?"

He had silver hair, and covering his left eye was a black eyepatch. He had three claw-like scars that went from his forehead down over his left eye and to his jawline. His right eye was orange in color, and he was the Commander of the Griffin Knights of the Nirvana Kingdom.  

 "Mmm, nothing in particular really."  She answered truthfully. "I was thinking about what I want to have for lunch, and maybe grinding out to level 270 since I'm close." 

While a couple of them did grow a little irritated by this, none of them spoke their minds. Instead, they kept their annoyed comments to themselves.  

"I see." Was all the Commander of the Griffin Knights said in response to the information. 

"Yeah." She affirmed before getting up out of her chair. "Anyways, if you wanna raise the taxes by 2% Arthur, then go ahead. I could care less how much they are raised by as long as it's not turning the people of Nirvana against us." 

"I understand," Arthur told her as he stood up as well. "I will do my best to make sure that doesn't happen." 

"Good." She asserted with a small smile before grabbing her staff and heading to the exit of the room. "I'm going to go grind now so don't message me, and if you do it better be about something important, okay?"

As she said the last part, she had come to a stop at the door and looked at them all to make sure they understand.

"Understood."

"Got it."

"Okay." 

These and a couple more were the responses she got from her officers, which had caused her smile to grow a little bit.

"Excellent." She declared before continuing on her way with a spring in her step.

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As Ares rested against a tree, he said in a tired voice. "Stat Window."  

Character Name: Ares. Title: None. Alignment: None.   Level: 4. Profession: Classless.  Reputation: 1.  Health: 43/150.  Stamina: 22/150. Mana: 88/150.

Strength: 13 Perception: 11. Endurance: 13.  Charisma: 11. Intelligence: 12.  Agility: 13. Luck: 10.  Courage: 2. Perseverance: 2. Fighting Spirit: 1. Willpower: 1. Mentality. 1.

Attack: 7-10. Defense: 8.

 Magic Resistance

Fire: 0%. Water: 0%. Ice: 0%. Earth: 0%. Dark: 20%. Holy: -20%. Poison: 100%. Lightning: 0%. Wind: 0%.

In the past hour and a half, he had gained five new stats, and had gone up three levels.

This pleased him greatly and made him smile.

"Inventory." He then said out loud causing the stats window to disappear and to be replaced by the inventory window.

"Eni's Fangs, Eni's left eye, Kobold's throwing spear, Kobold's broken club, Kobold's scale, Kobold's claw." He thought to himself as he read what loot he had acquired in the past few hours.

Needless to say, he wasn't impressed by the items he had gotten, nor was he surprised. He knew he was going to get shit items, so his hopes were not even close to being up in the slightest.

"I can probably sell a few of these to an alchemist, but the rest I might as well drop. They'll just take up space and are junk." Ares told himself as he thought about what to do with the loot he had gotten from killing monsters. 

It wasn't long after he thought about alchemy where he realized he could have been picking up plants along the way. 

Letting out a somewhat disappointed and annoyed sigh, he muttered. "Fuck me." 

He wasn't one to curse a lot, but in this situation, he had felt like it was needed, for there were tons of plants he had passed by earlier that looked interesting.  

 As he started to wonder about possibly going back and collecting some plants, he got a notification.

—As the sun finishes setting, you feel your bones become stronger, allowing you to take more attacks than before.—

He wasn't surprised by the information, for when he was researching about the undead, he had read about how they were able to see at night perfectly. However, what he did find to be curious was the fact that this wasn't listed as a benefit at all, for when he had played as a Jester he had to be a lot more careful at night, or else he'd end up dead. 

"Hmm, I don't want to use one of my poison potions to recover my health, but this is the best time to hunt." He thought with a scowl as he had the inventory window disappear. 

His stamina was already close to being halfway done from recovering, but his health had barely gone up by ten, which was troubling him greatly. 

While letting out another sigh, he crossed his arms, and said to himself. "I'll just wait, and let my health slowly come back over time. Better to do that than to waste a potion that can instantly heal me."