7 Request & Preparations
Nothing's better than a cup of coffee in a cool summer morning gazing at the streets getting more and more crowded as the Sun goes higher up into the blue sky.
People do say that as one grows up, he or she would almost always forget about most of the things happened in their childhood, the time when humans are most pure and innocent, the time when one does not have the need to think about meaningless stuff to survive in the society.
However, there are people who hold dear to their childhood and memorize all the precious memories happened.
A childish promise of marrying each other when grew up.
A vow of sworn siblings until the day of death, or maybe just an exchange of gifts for a farewell.
Happy or sad, childhood memories always hold a special place inside Ren's heart.
Sipping his coffee after breakfast at the inn, Ren continued to stare out of the window, into the distance smiling. The weather sure is nice today. There is no clouds up in the blue, blue sky.
「Fufufu......I wonder what kind of fun will I meet today......maybe I should change my race to an Orc and scare the kids? Or maybe go to peep on the public women bathroom......」
Thinking about the possibilities of things he can do today, Ren finished up the coffee that he judged 'delicious' and got dressed. Ren is now back in the simple armor God gave him before sending him to this world.
「I need more money and buy more fancy-looking armor......」
Certainly, even if these are just novice armor, with Ren's power, he can turn it into absurd heroic armor that not even Demon Lords can penetrate.
「But as expected, a little bit flashiness works better in women's eyes」
Ren's intention is obviously not because of the performance of the armor, but the effects it bring when he's dressed in cool-looking armor with the title of S-rank.
Thinking about hogging all the ladies and living a carefree life, Ren got hyped up and energetically went to the Guild to look for requests.
♦ ♦ ♦
「Oh! Mornin' ! 」
「Ah. Good morning, Ren-san」
Returning Ren's greeting, Yuka scooted over for Ren to squeeze in and look at the request board. The two put their hands on their chins and skimmed through the contents posted on the board.
Tracing Yuka's line of sight, one would find her only looking at requests with rewards of over 30 gold coins.
In Arlean Kingdom, an average D-rank adventurer earns about 2 gold coins everyday. With that much money, one can relax for the rest of the day with average meal and a small inn.
Then the ones above D-rank would have some spare money for their necessities since they would make around 6~18 gold coins everyday. B-rank people are said to be the most relaxed as their requests aren't too difficult while the payment isn't half-bad.
Then come A-rank and S-rank.
People with big income of 23 gold coins and above per day.
Their lives are luxurious with high-class hotel and fancy restaurant meals. On top of that, their equipment are cuts above all other adventurers as well as their skills and experiences in battles.
Of course, great rewards come with great risks. Their requests are ones that involve monsters that can cut a human in half in a blink of an eye.
Be it subjugation or material collection, their working environment are places where a normal human can never survive more than 2 days. Yet their line of work take averagely a week to finish things up and go home.
That said, the ones that survive these kinds of requests become heroic figures in people's eyes.
Elder Orcs attack in the Western Forest · 34 gold 25 silver coins.
Sudden increase in number of Dark Slime in the Western Plains · 29 gold coins.
Unidentified Goblin Warrior seriously injured 3 A-rank adventurers · 32 gold coins.
Yuka made up her mind and grabbed the last one. The rewards were not that good for her rank, but right now there is no S-rank requests available for Yuka.
The last request she went on was a special one passed down to her directly from the guild master. Thus the payment was 50 gold coins.
Other than those kinds of special requests, there are rarely any extreme requests for S-rank to abuse. Thus, normally, S-rank adventurers settle themselves at around 30 gold coins.
「Alright!! I'm taking this! 」
Seeing Ren snatching a paper from the board, Yuka sudden felt curious about what Ren picked.
Normally she wouldn't care about other people's business, but in her eyes Ren is a mysterious man. He came out from nowhere, displayed master swordsmanship, used absurd magic and then drooled at food like a kid.
In other words, she has no idea what's inside his head at any time given.
He truly is a mess of personalities, but that's exactly why it makes Yuka so curious about what kinds of request would a person like Ren take. Thus she asked honestly
「Oh me? I took this」
《Black Apples Gathering》
Black Apple is the core ingredients for high-quality Exlixirs. They grow from the root of dead Treants deep inside the Abyssal Woods. This request is ranked as S since Abyssal Woods is the home of Falère, descendants of the Wolf King.
Reward for each Black Apple: 3 gold coins.
Minimum amount required to turn in the request: 10 Apples.
No limit on how many can be turned in as long as it meets the minimum requirement.
「Oh, that's a decent one, be careful with the parasites」
「What? Parasites?」
「Yes, also......」
Yuka spent a few minutes explaining about the things Ren should be wary of inside that forest. Ren listened carefully while nodding. He's new to this world, so information gathering is very necessary.
The two walked over to the counter to confirm with the receptionist that they're going on these requests.
It is possible to take several requests at a time, but the limit is three so that one can't monopolize too many one-time request. Of course, with the exception of requests that are always in demand like herb gathering or low-level monsters subjugation.
「Whew...thank you for the information...good luck on your trip, Yuka」
「Yes...Ren-san also take care...but if it's you then you should be fine...」
'You could even lift that kind of troublesome curse after all', Yuka swallowed those last words since this whimsical man named Ren already dashed out of the Guild with the face that literally said 'I found my new toy' before she could say anything else.
「Haha...it's been a long time since I saw someone blocking Yuka-sama's mouth like that」
The receptionist nearby giggled as this is a rare scene to witness. Normally, Yuka's strong willed personality would overwhelm all other men talking to her.
That's why a plain-looking man such as Ren making Yuka swallowing her words back in made the receptionist surprised.
In fact, what made him even more bewildered is that when he confirmed Ren's adventurer card, Ren was listed as Unranked S while his armor is that of a novice F-rank brat.
Unable to comprehend the situation, the receptionist went back to his work after seeing Yuka off to her request.
♦ ♦ ♦
After getting directions from Yuka and the guild receptionist, Ren dashed out of the Kingdom and is now jogging towards the Abyssal Woods in the far south.
Naturally, his Strength stats is on 650 so that he won't run out of stamina too soon.
In fact, Ren has been jogging with decent speed for more than an hour yet he's still smiling healthily without gasping for breaths.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Thinking about how convenient his ability is, Ren stopped by a river to see if there's any strange fish.
「Wait, what the hell is that ! ? ! 」
Seeing a blue fish squirming idly in the calm river, Ren broke a tree branch and held it in his hand.
Crouching down, Ren pulled up the Status of the pretty-looking fish.
《River Queen》
HP: 1200/1200
MP: 950/950
Rare · A field-boss level monster reigning over the river network. Born from a mutated individual among the community of Sapphire Koi fish.
Strength: 95 (1600)
Agility: 102 (1705)
Intelligence: 91 (1434)
《Skill · Limit Release》
「Huh? Its stats is kind of strange......」
Looking into its skill, Ren found out that this tiny blue fish is a disguise of its true form. When it activates the skill, its shape will change and the stats will change drastically.
Grinning in curiosity, Ren pulled all his stats on 2000, set his HP as 60,000 and readied his fire attribute sword.
Then using the tree branch he picked up, Ren poked the fish so strongly that it drowned and hit the river bed.
The monster instantly raged around splashing water everywhere while drastically increasing its size and shape.
Soon lights wrapped around the cute fish and a big explosion of lights emerged making Ren take a few steps backward. Granting himself a few spells for both offense and defense, Ren was prepared to face the monster.
Then from the radiating lights a beautiful mermaid emerged floating mid air thanks to magic, orbs of water orbited the beautiful blue haired woman as she looked at Ren with an angry look...
...or so is what Ren expected and had a delusion of. But in fact, reality is cruel
「............」
「Gurayuuuuuararaaa ! ! ! ! 」
The thing was some kind of amphibian with frog-like limbs and snake face. Its tail has pointy spikes and it breathes using the throbbing gaps on its neck.
The thing actually has a kind of human-like torso and it stands on two legs. Aside from the weird face, it has a figure somewhat the same to a woman.
As the monster let out a groan, it kicked the ground and dashed at Ren with the speed of a cheetah.
「............」
「Urooooraaararaa ! ! ! ! 」
Quietly pulling out his sword, Ren invoked the fire attribute wrapping the sword with a scarlet aura. As the tip of the sword was lowered near the ground, the grasses around it burnt to ashes.
Dodging the weird tongue-attack of the river monster with his high Agility, Ren side-stepped casually and pointed his sword at the River Queen. The thing groaned vexedly and turned back to attack again.
As the monster closed in, Ren swung his sword side-way creating a red line midair.
「Your Tits Are Disgustingly Saggy So Get The Fuck Away From Meeeee ! ! ! ! 」
Having his delusions of a beautiful River Queen mermaid shattered, Ren sliced the monster into half as the two intersected mid-way. The cut surface of the monster was burnt and its internal organs sprouted out.
The corpse of the monster turned into light particles, and those particles returned to the river waiting to reunite and spawn the new River Queen after a fixed period of time. Sighing in disappointment, Ren put the sword back in its sheath and sluggishly continued walking with his shoulders drooped.
「What the hell was that, I expected a river mermaid......mergh......I guess I need to study about this world's monsters more before trying something like that again......」
Making a mental note that he would read more books about this world when he returns, Ren called up his status to pull his stats back down to 250. Carrying a really big presence around would be troublesome to move in secret.
Though he could just use a skill to hide his presence, Ren deemed making the stats lower is more simple and besides, it's not hard for Ren to manipulate the status during emergency.
But then a certain status screen caught his eyes. It was Ana the guild secretary, her status still has the charm effect as 60 since yesterday.
The way Ren's ability works allows him to call up status screens of people he met at least once no matter where he is.
That's why he can call up Yuka's and Ana's status without problems while he can't call up the status of a person he never met before. Staring at the charm debuff, Ren sighed.
「......well...that wasn't a really wise choice......」
Shaking his head, Ren tuned the charm effect down to 7. This equals to a strong friendship, or a close friend.
The reason behind this is that Ren wants to at least keep a good relationship with Ana while she can still choose her loved ones on her own.
Ren resumed jogging along the river and enjoyed the scenery.
♦ ♦ ♦
「Hmm......so this is the Abyssal Woods huh......」
Arriving at the outer most edge of his destination, Ren stood and beheld the beauty of nature.
It took Ren nearly 7 hours running nonstop, with 4 hours of being as fast as half the speed of sound, to arrive at the forest just before dusk. The Sun is already all prepared to set.
The beauty of the Abyssal Woods is actually more emphasized during night time, since a lot of living beings with dark-attribute inhabit this place.
From where Ren is standing, one can clearly see the fireflies that are actually blood-sucking parasites flying around flickering 7 different colors during the interval of 7 seconds. On the ground was all kinds of luminous fungus glowing shades of purple and blue, some of them even sprouted legs and started moving around. The interior of the whole forest was dimly lit up with these kinds of creatures wandering about. It was the kind of beauty the same to a flower luring insects with its sweet dews.
「Man......how much money can I earn if I take pictures of this and show it to people on Earth......」
Admiring the beauty of nature when night time comes, Ren called up the status of his armor and started preparations.
For his breast plate, Ren increased its overall defensive strength and added the effect of nullifying damage.
《Unique • Simple Breast Plate》
Physical Defense: A+
Magical Defense: A+
An enhanced simple breast plate, can block all types of damage of all attributes.
Damage nullification is activated whenever damage received exceeds S-rank.
Same goes for Ren's arm guards and gloves, Ren enhanced all their defensive stats and added a unique effect.
《Unique • Simple Arm Guards》
Physical Defense: A+
Magical Defense: A+
A pair of enhanced simple arm guards, can block all types of damage of all attributes.
Increases Punching power while adding explosion effect on hit.
《Unique • Simple Gloves》
Physical Defense: A+
Magical Defense: A+
A pair of enhanced simple gloves, can protect hands from all types of damage of all attributes.
Increases Punching power with Electric Shock attribute.
Since Ren is going to walk around inside a forest at night, he decided to make his boots perform better.
《Unique • Simple Boots》
Swiftness: A+
Agility: A
Speed: A
A pair of enhanced simple boots, greatly increases Swiftness and supports footing.
Though Ren also granted himself some skills and spells to further protect himself, these preparations are for the time when Ren seriously runs into a pinch that he can't really use the status screen.
It's better safe than sorry, thought Ren nodding at the enhanced stats of his equipment.
Taking a few steps forward, Ren entered death's house itself. A surprised present from the forest awaits him.