The whole room was silent as we all turned to face the grinning lunatic who stood next to Bell.
She looked around at us with a ferocious determination in her eyes and a giddy smile on her face. Her silver, cat ears wiggled slightly and I could see her suppressing her tail which obviously wanted to wag.
“A dragon?” I said finally, in disbelief.
She focused on me and brushed her shining, silver hair out of her eyes. They glinted with the depths of the dark blue ocean. It was quite off-putting.
“See for yourselves.” She said cheerily.
Contact (Sally) wants to share a quest with you.
Do you accept?
Y/N
New Quest!
How To Slay Your Dragon
There have been reports of a dragon nesting at the top of the big mountain in the middle of the island. The Havar local government have tasked the Adventure Society to handle the issue.
Remember when you first got here? I told you there would be dragons.
Objectives:
Find the dragon’s lair 0/1
Kill the dragon 0/1
Reward: X1 item upgrade token, adventurer rank-up
*Speak to the Adventure Society to claim your reward. Reward payable upon the successful completion of the above objectives*
Well, shit. I thought as I read through the quest. Thinking, back, the system had mentioned dragons when I first arrived on the island.
I distinctly remembered it saying as much in the opening announcement. It was the same announcement that mentioned the map tattoos and hunters – though I hadn’t seen any of those yet unless the cultists counted.
More importantly, I was now convinced that the system added different parts to notifications for different people. There was no way it would reference something as personal to me as first arriving here, in a quest that multiple people were given.
I felt like that information was somehow important, though I didn’t know why. I’d already discovered that the system had a personality, even if it was a shitty one, during my sewer quest.
It had gotten upset that I’d burnt Stalin’s Stylish Socks when I used them to create a torch to explore the boss room.
Everything about the system seemed weird to me. Though nobody else seemed to think so. It must have just been because I was an outsider. How could a natural phenomenon that had never existed on earth, not feel weird to an outworlder like me?
“Miss Sally,” Reggie spoke up, looking up at Sally with fearful eyes. “I don’t mean to question your methods, but why is a group of temp adventurers being sent to kill a dragon? That sounds like something I’d expect someone like… well, like you, to be asked to do.”
He had a point.
I didn’t know how powerful dragons were in Celestia, but if they were anything like the creatures of legend back home then we’d need to send a team of powerhouses to kill it.
Yet, instead, the Adventure Society was sending a bunch of phase two rookies. It didn’t add up. There was no way this could be as simple as the oversights and lack of information that Director Lucas had mentioned to me before.
This felt like some sort of test.
It is a test you bellend. It’s the adventurer exam. My thoughts chided. I was right, this was an exam. Though dragon hunting still felt a little extreme.
“Adventure Society intelligence believes the dragon will be around the level 50 mark,” Sally answered, still grinning wildly. “So, it will probably be a phase three, but a weak one. That fact is the reason why I’m to accompany you.
“We’ll be taking on monsters as we work our way there so I can score you on teamwork, solo work, and tactical prowess. Once we get to the dragon’s lair we’ll do some scouting and you can devise a strategy. In other words, if you fuck up, I’ll be there to help.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The whole room sighed with relief at that last part, myself included. I’d seen Sally fight before and her power was no joke. If she was watching our backs and the dragon really was only a level 50, we’d be relatively safe.
“Don’t sigh like that!” She continued, looking around the room with an admonishing gaze. “Adventuring is never safe. I’m not some kind of safety blanket for you bunch of sorry fucks. I fully expect you to kill the thing yourselves and I won’t be jumping in unless you seriously mess up. For the record, that means someone will probably die before I save your asses. So you’d better not need saving in the first place.”
The collective mood in the room dampened again. No one wanted to be the guy who died so Sally would rescue the rest.
I wasn’t certain about facing a level 50 dragon solo, but I was at level 34 now so I was confident I could pull my weight in a team of phase two adventurers – hopefully.
I absently pulled up my stat sheet for a moment. I hadn’t checked my progress properly since before my last quest.
Status Sheet:
Name: Kaleb Akabane
Race: Outworlder
Class: Apex Predator (unique)
Adventurer Rank: Temp
Level: 34
Map Pieces 2/10,000
HP: 386/336 (386)
Stamina: 348/317 (348)
Strength: 289 (317)
Agility: 124 (142)
Perception: 120
Vitality: 256 (306)
Intelligence: 56
Personal Skills: Speak English Damnit!, Eat Anything, Minor Poison Resistance, Usurper (unique), Health Sense (common)
Class Skills (Passive): Newly Qualified Bowman (0.3%), Dagger (lvl 10), Novice Apex Skirmisher, Acid Dhampir Dagger, Acid Arrows, Environmental Hazzard
Active Skills: Perception of the Apex Predator (rare), Soul Shot (ancient)
Blessing: Blessing of Wealth
Familiars: Panda (Daemon)
Titles: Audacious Soul Expander
Admission: Pentagram [Right hand (Morningstar Hotel and Spa)]
Ah, is there any better feeling than numbers going up? I wondered as I looked through my stats. My HP and stamina were looking pretty good. However, it made me wonder how much Sally had invested into those stats at level 91.
I wondered if they were over 1000. That would be pretty damn impressive. A person would be practically unkillable with 1000 HP.
Maybe at that point, I’d be strong enough to protect my wife and child if I found a way to bring them into this world.
When I’d first arrived in Celestia, my wife had been pregnant. Nearly two months had passed since I’d arrived. It stood to reason that she’d given birth by now… and I’d missed it.
My heart hurt as I thought about them. It was hard to deal with that when I knew nothing about how to reunite with them again. For all I knew they thought I was dead, or worse… that I ran away.
I’d never do that. I grew up without a father and I’d be damned if I did that to my own child. No fucking way. For now, the only thing I could do was focus on gaining power and increasing my stats.
I needed to be strong enough to protect them… of course, I also needed power to get them here. If the system could do it then so could I… hopefully… maybe.
Gaining power. That was my goal. The only thing that mattered to me in this world. So, I guess, in order to meet that goal, I was about to go out and slay me a dragon.
“Right,” Sally said, slamming her fist on the table in front of Panda, Bell, and me. “Enough gawking. Let’s get going. This dragon ain’t gonna kill itself.”
Reggie and the other guy sitting at the bottom of the table gawked at her bravado. Neither of them looked particularly happy as they got up from the table and followed Sally out of the room with slumped shoulders.
“Hey, toots. You gonna let me down yet or what?” Panda said, scrabbling to get out of Bell’s tight grasp.
“Oh,” she replied as if he’d woken her from a daze. “Sorry Mr Panda, you’re just so fluffy. I could hug you...” She leaned in closer and whispered in his ear, “Forever.”
Who was this girl? Something about her put me on edge, yet at the same time she had such a disarming personality. She seemed pretty young, though it was hard to tell in this world.
She wore long, white robes, so it stood to reason that she was probably a healer. At least, that was the impression I got. Someone who loves pandas and seemed so… innocent, was probably a healer.
I’d complained a lot about my lack of mana since I’d arrived here, but honestly, I couldn’t think of anything worse than being a healer. It definitely wasn’t for me.
Healers needed teams. Healers couldn’t fight. If I was a healer, I had no doubt I’d have died already. Probably on the first day.
Though I guess non-outworlders wouldn’t have that problem. She’d probably completed her three quests with the help of a team. Either that, or she’d taken fetch quests and saving cats from tree quests.
I hoped she wasn’t going to be a liability on this dragon-slaying quest. Having someone to patch up my wounds would be useful, but probably not as useful as having an OP wizard shooting fireballs or something.
After all, in Celestia, it wasn’t that hard to heal. You just had to survive the encounter.
“Come on,” I said, scooting around the edge of the table. “Let’s go.”
Bell let go of Panda and he scurried away from her like a frightened bunny rabbit. She looked a little sad as she watched him go, but quickly stood up and followed us out of the room.
I lifted Panda over the glass from the window I’d shattered. I wouldn’t want him to cut his paws or anything. Then the three of us trotted after Sally and the others.
We caught them in the foyer and Sally glanced back at us with that typical battle junkie look in her eyes. I’d seen it plenty of times before on my last quest with her.
“So, Gonads, I heard you soloed a slime queen not long after we parted. That’s pretty impressive for a noob.” She said, patting me on the shoulder so hard I thought I was going to sink into the floor.
“Yeah, it ate all my hair in the process though,” I replied meekly, trying not to show the pain in my shoulder. Her light pat had lost me two HP. She was too strong for her own good.
“Is that why you’re wearing that creepy hood?” She replied. “I figured you fancied yourself an edge lord or something.”
“It’s just part of my armour. I honestly forgot I had it up.” I said, taking it off with my hand.
Sally looked at me a moment and stopped dead in her tracks. The others stopped as well and turned to look at her.
She stared at me for a moment and then burst out laughing. She had a strong, bellowing laugh as she tilted backwards and wiped a tear from her eye.
“Holy shit Gonads, you do not suit short hair at all.” She laughed, struggling for breath, “Why is your head shaped like that?”
“Shaped like what!?” I replied, hurriedly feeling my skull. It felt perfectly normal to me.
“It is shaped a little weirdly,” Bell said from beside me and I looked at her with shocked eyes. “It’s not a bad thing though. It suits you.” She hurriedly added.
Like that was going to help. She may as well have said: Oh yeah Kaleb, you’re an ugly bastard, but it suits you. Yeah thanks so much for that Bell, it’s really nice of you to say.
This was Sally’s fault. I turned back to her with a death glare which was apparently the wrong way to handle the situation because she laughed even harder.
I could feel my cheeks go red, there was only one solution.
I activated my armour’s full set bonus and turned invisible. I could only do it once a day, and it didn’t last very long because the length was determined by my intelligence stat.
However, it was worth it. As I used the valuable second or so that it gave me to storm out the door.
“Hey, where did Gonads go?” I heard Sally say from behind me.