The walk was long, and not without its fair share of hardships.

For one, I fought my first natural monster. I'd like to create a long, drawn-out commentary for you, but it was only level 13. I summoned an Arcanoccultist's Bolt and killed the boar-like creature in a single shot.

I asked Sybil if the beast's body held any useful components that we could sell, but she informed me that no, it did not. While it appeared to have a rather tough hide, it didn't hold any magical, just leftover stats. We'd mostly be looking at Tier 3 monsters for anything magical or strong enough to sell well.

I just shrugged. The monster had been easy enough to kill, and it wasn't like I had really wasted anything. The mana would regenerate.

Eventually, I started to find the limits of my Fitness stat, growing tired as we walked. At least, I thought that Fitness would be the stat controlling my overall stamina. It could also be Constitution? I wasn't too tired, though, and I thought I could maintain the pace we were going at for the remainder of our walk, so I didn't mention it to Sybil.

The remainder of our walk passed in silence, save for Sybil occasionally pointing out landmarks or animals that I failed to spot. Eventually, it grew dark, and we had to stop for the night. Sybil's dad had managed to pack folding chairs that seemed to compress more than they should be able to, blankets, and an oddly shaped rock inscribed with a ritual that could create sparks when mana was channeled through it. Suffice it to say, camping had never been so easy.

As the blue sky gave way to the orange and red of a beautiful sunset, and then to a gorgeous moon, one with completely different markings than those of Earth's moon, and a sprinkling of pinpricks formed of light, I found a beauty that I'd simply lacked in my previous life. Back on Earth, I'd lived in the city, and had never quite seen a view like this. Even on the extremely rare occasions that I'd gone camping in my youth, I'd never seen anything quite like this. Maybe it was pollution? Or perhaps there were simply less stars? In any case, I was somewhat let down by the fact that there was only one moon. I'd kind of expected there to be more.

Oh well. Not everything had to be new and different. It was honestly a touch comforting, having something be the same. Normal.

Sybil and I sat under the stars that night, the crumbling remains of a long put-out fire pit smoking beside us.

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The first sign was the sound of bushes rustling in the night. Sybil was the one who noticed it first. I didn't pay it any attention, at least until I heard a branch snap, and a man let out a quiet curse. He was young. Why I could tell that much from simply hearing his voice, I didn't know, though I assumed it had something to do with my high stats.

Gripping a blade that had suddenly appeared in her hand, Sybil called out, "You can come on out now. If you were trying to get the drop on us, you failed. Might as well give up now, rather than lose your life over something stupid."

A youth slowly shuffled out from the bushes with his hands up.

"Uhh, I- I was just hunting in the area, p- please don't eat me?" He stuttered.

Ah, a racist. How fun.

"Hey, kid, tell you what, are you from a nearby village?" Sybil was above getting angry at a kid for not knowing any better.

"Uh, ye-, I mean-" the kid seemed to have a thought, and shook his head, "no, I'm on my own!"

"Are you sure about that?" Sybil squinted at him. "Oh well, I was feeling hungry anyways. I was thinking of letting you go, if you could bring us to a settlement. Too bad for you, huh?" She started slowly walking towards him.

...Should I stop her? This had to be a joke, right? There was no way I was about to watch Sybil murder a child, right?

"Uh, Sybil-"

"F-fine! I'll show you. B-but, just, don't eat me? Please?" He seemed ready to pee himself.

"Sure." She smiled at him, exposing her extra pointy canines. "Well, Jake, why don't you lead the way? And don't try to escape. I can assure you that I'm much, much faster than you."

He seemed scared that she knew his name, though I didn't know why. Everyone knew each other's names, because of our ability to Identify one another, right? Maybe he just assumed she couldn't, because she was a monster?

Jake led us through the forest, and we eventually found ourselves at a small settlement with a tall palisade surrounding it. I remembered something Sybil had told me earlier, and asked, "Hey, Sybil, aren't monsters supposed to be scarier at night? Why did we stop? Hell, how is this place standing? I haven't seen a single one."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She thought it over with a frown. "Well, they're usually attracted to larger cities. We think it has something to do with higher mana concentrations. Most of the people here in this village probably don't have much mana, or at least not a dedicated mage class. The only other thing I can think of would be a particularly strong monster guarding the area, a high-Tiered spell or ritual acting as a ward, or maybe some kind of artifact.

"Honestly, it was a horrible idea for us to stop, and I'm not sure why I allowed it. I guess we just hadn't seen any monsters on our walk, except for that first one, so I didn't think of it." She nodded at me. "I won't let it happen again."

We had arrived at the village, and a guard Inspected us as we were about to enter. His eyes widened, and he hefted a spear, pointing it at Sybil. "A Vampire? Foolish boy! Why would you lead one of their kind here?"

I put a gauntleted hand out in front of Sybil. To be honest, the armor had grown on me quickly, to the point that I'd barely even noticed I was wearing it. "She's with me. We mean no harm, sir, we'd just like to speak with whoever's in charge around here. Perhaps you have some sort of elder, or noble? Anyone who's considered a presiding authority figure would work."

He eyed me suspiciously, eyes lingering on my armor, but seemed willing to at least allow me a chance. He called something over his shoulder, in a language I couldn't understand. He then looked back at me, and nodded. "You'll have to wait a few minutes. We need to gather a force large enough to protect our elder from that... thing... you're travelling with." He gave Sybil a glare.

I put a hand on her shoulder. We didn't really touch, with my gauntlet meeting her pauldron, but I thought she'd gotten the message. I was with her, and she wasn't a monster to me.

If only other people could see past her Inspect result, to see what she was really like. She was just a person, no matter what her diet was made up of, or what her eyes looked like.

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After what felt like an hour of waiting, dozens of armored guards running about shouting orders, and the sun just barely peeking over a mountain in the distance, we were finally allowed into the settlement.

One thing that had been hilarious to watch was when Jake's parents had been fetched, and he'd received a scolding for going out at night. Said scolding had been cut short when his mother noticed that Sybil was, well, a Vampire, but it had been funny while it lasted.

Honestly? If we weren't here for a reason, I'd almost say it wasn't worth the wait. Most of the buildings were made out of wood and mud, with only a single building, the one we were headed to, having a stone foundation. I assumed it was the town hall, or something equally important to the village. Even that building wasn't on par with many of those found in the city of Woodswright. It at least appeared to be well maintained.

We entered the main building, finding a large, spacious hall, and Sybil and I quickly found ourselves urged into a seemingly random meeting room. Within there, we found ourselves met by an old man and a pair of guards in plate mail, with swords strapped to their sides. All were high Tier 2, likely the strongest this village had to offer.

After a moment of silence, the old man, Killion, spoke first. "I heard you youngsters wanted to speak with me? I hope you know that it's quite rude to drag an old man out of bed this early in the morning. I didn't even have time to change my diaper, you rascals."

Another long moment of silence passed while I tried to process what he'd said. That was... disgusting.

Killion rolled his eyes, before elaborating, "That was a joke. You were supposed to laugh. I may be old, but I'm not that old."

"Ha, haha, ha..." Yeah, this was awkward. "Sorry, sir, we were just hoping to speak with you about any issues you might be having. Monsters, for example?"

His eyes lit up. "Ah, so the Guild finally got around to sending some adventurers our way? Why, it's only been a few months. You're here to solve our problem with the disappearances, yes?"

Sybil shook her head, eliciting glares from the guards in the room. "I'm sorry, Mr. Killion, but for reasons that are obvious, we weren't allowed to take the standard Adventurer's Guild entrance tests. We're freelancers, unassociated with the various Guilds."

The elder nodded. "Yes, well, in most cases I'd turn you down, but it has been quite a long time since I sent that request to the Guild. In fact, I believe the period of time in which they've been allowed exclusivity has passed. I can pay you 10 gold pieces if you solve this problem for me, and you'll be allowed to keep the corpses of any monsters you kill. Sound good?"

I looked at Sybil. It sounded fair to me, but then again, I had no idea how money worked here. She met my eye before nodding, making the decision for us.

"That sounds more than fair. Thank you for this opportunity, sir. We'll do our best."

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The elder had left the room with his guards after explaining the parameters of the mission to us. The local villagers had been randomly disappearing in the middle of the night, leaving nothing but bloodstains in the streets. The townspeople were terrified, but as far as they could tell, only one person would be taken few days, and they were safe so long as they stayed indoors. That had been until the order had been passed for the villagers to go into quarantine.

It turned out that whatever this was had only been taking the most convenient targets, and staying inside hadn't been enough to keep whatever monster was doing this at bay. In fact, it only seemed to make the beast more hungry. Soon, they'd begun finding more and more bloodstains, finding them in people's houses and workplaces. Currently, a person would disappear every night or two, and nothing they had tried seemed to keep the beast at bay.

Staying inside, setting traps, leaving watches, creating large groups, these only served to anger the monster, causing even more lives to be taken. As far as they could tell, the best method was ordering everyone to stay separate, stay inside, and most importantly, do their best not to anger the monster. With these methods, they could limit the number of lives taken to only one every time the monster came.

With that said, they'd much prefer to not have any lives taken at all, so they'd sent out a call for a group of adventures, and waited. After two months of waiting and being slowly hunted, finally, we'd arrived. Our job was to find the monster that was causing this, kill it, and present it to the elder. Then, we'd wait, and make sure that it had really worked.

Once this had been explained to us, we'd both received notifications for a new Tier 2 quest, but I ignored it for now.

With that out of the way, I'd sat on the floor and motioned for Sybil to sit across from me.

It was time to figure out how money worked.