“Boyfriend?” She paused for a couple seconds. “No. Adventurers don’t have time for romance. It, complicates things.”

Hmm, well that’s a shame. Ugh, why am I pervin’ over a girl anyway? We finished, formed a party to hunt some kobolds, as they were almost always too high in population. So, they served as the perfect kill quest for newcomer adventurers to advance from rank F to rank E.

To kill the kobolds, you needed a party of at least three people, so Solina found Tina and Adam again. The three of them appeared to be doing better, but at times, I could still see the morose in them; they missed their comrades who died from the orcs. Another man, ranked C, joined us. The party needed a C-ranker for the lowest in order to judge if the new F rankers were worth the adventurer badge.

I kept quiet about it and let Solina do her introductions. She pointed to me. “Hey guys, this is Deidre by the way.” She whispered to them. “We’re keeping her identity secret, okay? So just think of this person as the real Deidre from now on.”

Adam greeted me with a one-handed version of the prayer gesture because he held something in his other hand. “Thank you again for saving us. I already gave up on my own life, and I thought Solina was as good as dead too.”

Tina nodded in agreement and came closer to me. “Now that you look less, um, you know, we can form an official party. If um, you don’t mind. Let me properly introduce myself with gratus.” She clasped her hands together and bowed, and I realized that gesture was what they called gratus. “I’m Tina, a D-ranker wizard.”

“I suppose I should do the same.” Adam smiled. “I’m Adam, E-rank archer.”

“Well,” I formed a gratus, “I’ll follow along. I’m Deidre, F-rank warrior. Nice to see you healthy.”

At that point, they both stared daggers at Solina. “You made her register as a warrior?” Tina grilled the playful girl. “Why?!”

“Oh, calm down.” Solina rolled her eyes. “Deidre carried both of you like you were pieces of paper. She’s not a normal girl, okay? And, she’s fulfilling double roles anyway.”

Adam was about to scold Solina as well, but he stopped and nodded his head after thinking about something. “Actually, that makes sense.”

The man who waited grew tired. “Are you all done yet? Let’s get this done. I have another initiation to do today.” He tried to sound kind, but put us under pressure anyway.

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We walked there instead of using undead warhorses because of the man’s presence. I should brainstorm a good reason to use Dreadhoof while in this vessel. Can’t keep walking everywhere.

After close to an hour of trekking through the forests, we finally saw a group of seven kobolds. They were about the same size and build of goblins, but a little more hunched over. “Their hides are tougher on their back. Good luck,” the C-ranker said.

Huh? He’s not helping us? Oh well. “Lina, you ready?”

“Yup, buff me up!” She smiled excitedly.

I cast Conceal and Camouflage on Solina and Adam, but not on Tina. Her Fire Lance, a novice spell, was a good attention-grabber. We used it to draw the kobolds’ focus on her and have them fall into harm’s way.

We started with her Fire Lance and my Water Jet. One kobold rolled on the ground as he was set on fire. Another screamed in pain after getting a stream of concentrated water in his eye. It startled the other kobolds and three of them charged towards Tina.

She casted another Fire Lance, but missed. Adam’s arrow caught one in the head, and Solina’s dagger stabbed one in the neck and another in the back.

I ran into another one and swung my sword, and surprisingly, it cut clean through, like a hot knife cutting butter. The other one tried to run away, but I cast Binding of Bones and finished it with a stab to its back.

The first two kobolds we injured were finished off by Adam and Tina. We continued like that for another two groups of kobolds and in the second group, there was a bigger kobold variant. I opened my grimoire manually, instead of having it float about in front of the tester. Greater Kobold? Well, that’s an easy naming scheme.

I asked my party to let me handle this group by myself, so the tester would have no reason to doubt my potential. Besides, after I got the hang of hunting monsters, it was pretty fun. The greater kobold was followed by two normal kobolds. Instead of using subterfuge, I opted to approach them directly and draw my sword. A direct confrontation was the best way I could think of successfully becoming an E-rank. I reckoned we already proved to him that I could be useful in covert missions and playing nicely with other groups when it came to strategy.

The tester was very much against this at first, but he eventually let it go on the fact that my party members were so confident in me.

The kobolds either used their claws or crude stone spears. I rushed in and swung. Admittedly, I wasn’t the fastest person, so the greater kobold dodged easily. That being the case, I decided to incorporate Water Jet into my fighting. I learned that it was a perfect distraction. It either caused enough pain for enemies to drop their weapons and become unable to fight, or it at least made them flinch. So, I cast Water Jet on one of the normal kobolds, cast Binding of Bones on the greater kobold, and attacked the other kobold. Slicing the other one who bellowed in pain from Water Jet in half was easy.

Finally, the greater kobold alone was left. I really am a wizard huh? No matter how much he struggles to get out, the binding won’t budge. It even gets tighter if he fidgets too much. I pondered for a minute about my level of power compared to that of an average wizard. I’ll ask Tina later. I raised my sword, and dropped it down onto the greater kobold’s head – a quick death.