"Hey! Hey!" I started to hear a frantic girl's voice right next to me.

I immediately recovered consciousness with an extreme bitter taste in my mouth.

"Cough Cough, what happened? What's this bitter taste?!"

"I'm so glad you're ok!" The girl screamed.

"What? Oh yeah, the spider, we killed it,"

"Yeah we did, but you lost consciousness and your breathing started to get slower and slower so I fed you my potion!"

"Damn, it's true that potions are bitter as hell. How long has it been since we killed the spider?"

"It's been only around 5 minutes. Don't worry, I already dissected the spider for you and I'll give you all the parts later since you did all the work anyways. Thank you for saving me earlier. My name is Lyka Wintercolt and I'm the daughter of Duke Wintercolt," Lyka said.

When I looked to the side, I saw the spider with its stomach wide open and all of its legs and its head gone.

'Holy shit, what the fuck, she dissected that disgusting spider?!'

"Haha... Hello, I'm Jeffrey and I'm just a wandering swordsman going wherever the wind takes me,"

"Oh, a swordsman? That's weird. I haven't seen a sword like yours. If it is alright with you, will you follow me back to my place so I can check it out. Meanwhile you can also rest since you took a lot of damage!"

It was troubling. Being with a noble at my current state would not result in any good since anyone could just swing their sword and kill me.

"Umm, I apologize, but right now I am in the middle of a hunt so I cannot accompany you right now,"

"Oh, a hunt! What monster are you looking for?"

"It's not much. I'm here to train and I heard that there was a monster called the Demon of the Forest and I came here to fight and hopefully kill it,"

"Demon of the Forest?!" Lyka shouted in surprise. "The Demon of the Forest is a strong monster that only D class or above adventurers can take on! However, no one is willing to take on that mission because D class Adventurers would only be able to fight it, but not finish it. Any Adventurer above ranked D would not bother taking this monster on since there are much better quests with better rewards. The Guild is also not willing to fork out a lot of money for the sake of this monster. You look like you're around my age! I do not think you are strong enough to take that monster on!"

"D Class? Oh the adventurer rank. I think I'll be fine. It can't be that much stronger than that spider we just faced,"

"In terms of raw strength it is not much stronger than that spider, but its intelligence is much better than that of the Blue Arachne. This is the main reason why many would not want to fight it. An D rank Adventurer would barely have the strength to match it, but if one is not careful, the Demon of the Forest will exploit anything in order to kill you. While its intelligence can't match a Dragon's, it is still smart enough to formulate plans during battle which gets extremely annoying. If you are determined to fight it, I would advise you to come back with me and make a plan to take care of it,"

"No no, you saved my life with your potion. I think it would be a bit inappropriate to stay at your place since we owe nothing to each other," I said while shaking my head.

"It's alright. My quest was to kill 5 Blue Arachnes and get all of its heads. The one we just killed was the final one so not only did you save my life, you also helped me on my quest so I would like to thank you,"

At this point, I could not say anything back so I just nodded my head.

"Great! Fortunately, this part of the forest is really close to Blueberry Town so we could get there in only 20 minutes! I'll lead the way so please follow me!" Lyka started to walk away and I stood up and started to follow her.

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Along the way, I started to ask questions about this world.

"So Lyka, you were talking about ranks. Is it ok if you can tell me more about it?"

"Why? Everything is same. The ranks and such have not changed since it was created more than 2000 years ago,"

"Haha... I was born in a secluded village and it was all destroyed by a monster. I had a master who picked me up and for all the time I spent with my master, I was in secluded place where I only learned the ways of the sword," I lied. If I just told her I came from another world, she would look at me like I'm crazy.

"Oh no! What monster was it?"

"Ummmm... it was a pack of Dire Wolves. The villagers thought that they were regular wolves and were relieved, but soon everyone was getting torn apart when they realized that these wolves were much stronger regular wolves,"

"Dire Wolves... they are ferocious monsters that even C ranks can't handle if they are in a huge pack. I'm sorry for being so insensitive. I'll answer your question. There are many guilds such as the Mage Guild, or the Thief Guild, but the most prominent of them all is the Adventurer Guild as it has a mixture of all jobs. Furthermore, the Adventurer Guild also allows a person of another guild join their guild so they can be considered the bridge of all the guilds. In fact, they're so powerful that Royal Family of Piton has to be extremely respectful towards the Guild. As for the ranks, the ranking system is the same for all guilds. The lowest rank is a G, then F, then E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS, and finally SSS+. The reason why there is a SSS+ is because there are monsters much stronger than normal SSS monsters, but the guild only allow a select few to know the ranks past the SSS rank. This system can also be used for monsters too, but it's a little different. Instead of only letters, there are - and + as well. For example, that Blue Arachne earlier was a E rank monster and the Demon of the Forest that you are trying to slay is a E+ rank monster that is on the borderline of reaching D- rank. Packs are also ranked as well. A small pack of Dire Wolves can be counted as a D+ while a huge pack can be counted as a B-,"

'Hmm, SSS+, I'm guessing that whatever the Goddess wants me to do requires me to be at least in that stage to complete,' I thought while contemplating about what Lyka said.

"Is it ok if you can also talk about the geography here?"

"Sure, this is the Kingdom of Piton. Long story short, there is the North, South, West, and East which are guarded by the Dukes in the border. My father is the Duke of the South so this is the southern border of the Kingdom of Piton. There is also the capital where all the prestigious schools, royal palace, and etc. are,"

'Normally, you would have the Barons, Viscounts, and other lower ranking nobles at the border to defend it, but it seems that they are putting their final weapon at the front,'

"What happens if someone is able to get past the encirclement?"

"That is impossible. When this kingdom was created, the priority of the kingdom was to build teleportation machines and after hundreds of years, we finally succeeded in making them. The kingdom was only able to make 4, but it was enough to defend the lands for hundreds of years. As long as those teleportation devices exist, we will be able to use strategies that can deter any attack. We may not be able to use it to conquer others, but to defend our own is extremely simple,"

'There are way too many flaws with having teleportation machines as the core of the kingdom!' I exclaimed in my head.

After knowing most of the things I needed to know, I realized that we arrived to a town.

"Alright we're here at Blueberry Town!"