The wind rustled through my hair.

“These can’t be it?” Asked Amelia looking from the quest paper to the lizard and back to the paper. The lizard was about the length of my forearm and quite skinny. It did have a distinct red scaly body.

She looked back at the paper. It didn’t quite match the hugely, scaled and armoured creature sketched on it. The picture was somewhat crude but that did little to hide the large teeth jutting from the creature’s mouth as well as its massive claws.

“Like hell it is,” I chuckled. Amelia had said it in a way that I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.

The blacksmith shop had issued a private quest to us to bring back the metal from the lizards. I doubt fighting them would be much of an issue but It seemed finding the red rock lizards would be a bigger challenge.

Wulfhad opted out of going saying he wanted to work on some changes on the machine.I pointed to the right.

“I can see the quarry over there,” I said.

We walked to it and dropped down into it. There were rough marks in the stone. It looked man-made.

“Did this used to be a mine or something?” I asked Amelia.

“It was used during the construction of Ariadne, especially to build the outer wall. Rocks were hauled for long distances there. The red rock lizards probably made these marks,” she said. “They probably moved in once it became deserted.”

I heard a commotion up ahead. Several startled voices. Sensing their manas I made out 8 people. One large beast was in the midst of them.

“Let’s hurry!” shouted Amelia sprinting. A giant crimson lizard the size of a truck was surrounded by a group of men. The lizard had a massively armoured back and a clubbed tail that swung dangerously through the air.

The men had lassoes that they had around the creature’s body. The lizard reared its head pulling one of the guys off of their feet and into the air. The man was flung above the creature’s head. He was heading straight for the creature’s now open mouth. There was no way for him to escape from it. That is if no one did anything about it.

I darted forward. I leapt into the air and caught him. He was frantically panicking in the air and nearly leapt out of my arms.

“Hold still!” I snapped to the man. I landed on the ground a couple meters away from danger and put him gently on the floor. It took him a couple of seconds to come back and after which he promptly stood up. He patted himself over, the surprise that he was unharmed was clear on his face.

“Thank you young man!” exclaimed the man. “I would have been a goner without you.”

“You're welcome,” I said.

Two men jogged up. “You alright Carl?” They said.

“Thank you!” they said to me.

I heard a roar from the lizard. It had been frozen from the legs down. The men looked shocked at the unexpected event. That must have been Amelia. I could see her staff raised in the air.

With the creature now under control the men were able to quickly get it under control.

“I can’t thank you enough for your help!” said a man. I turned around. A man in a cowboy had and a moustache was walking toward me. He wore a leather jacket and riding boots that seemed out of place in this medieval fantasy world.

“My name’s Rorshack,” he said. “I’m the leader of this mottled gang of adventurers, we go by the name of the Ranchers.”

I took his hand. I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at his name and looks.

“I take it you’re fellow adventurers as well!” said Rorshack.

Stolen story; please report.

“Yes, I nodded,” we were hunting red rock lizards as well,”

“Really!” said Rorshack surprised. “ I didn’t know there were multiple quests out for them,”

“It’s a private quest,” I explained.

“Private? Private quests can only be given to those that are B rank or higher, you must have a pretty high rank .”

“You could say that,” I shrugged. I didn’t tell my rank on purpose. Considering how rare it was, saying it would bring unwanted attention. It probably didn’t matter but if being in this world had taught me something it was that people were always looking for ways to use other people and trust gets you nowhere.

“I cannot in good faith keep the loot from the red rock lizard,” said Rorshack. “You guys not only assisted us kill it but you also saved one of my men.”

“You should have it, you guys were here from the start,” I said waving it off. “ It would be wrong of us to take it.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Well then, I humbly accept it, thank you mightily!” said Rorshack. “ If you ever need help, don’t hesitate to ask. The Ranchers will always be available to help, you have my word,” he said resolutely.

“Well then, I’ll be on my way,” I said.

I met up with Amelia. She was melting the ice that she had cast on the red rock lizard.

“The leader of the party told us to keep the beast but I said that they could keep it, is that alright?” I asked her.

“That’s fine, I would feel guilty taking this away from them,” she responded.

“Thank goodness,” I said. “I realised that I should have checked with you first, we do need the resources after all.”

“Yeah probably.”

I winced when she said that. I got that I shouldn’t do that again. We walked for a bit in the quarry but we didn’t stumble upon any lizards. Using my mana sense I could make out several of them hiding beneath the ground only a couple of meters from us. Since explaining how I knew they were there would invite further questioning I chose to remain silent. It wouldn’t do t underestimate Amelia’s intelligence as well.

“Do the red rock lizards live in caves?” I asked Amelia.

“They do sometimes, they have the ability to burrow through rock and can build them, they do make temporary burrows just underneath the ground when they sleep. The issue is that there’s no way to detect them. Red rock lizards do have relatively high doses of mana in their bodies but they dilute it with the rocks on their back which makes it too faint to be detected. No one sorcere alive is able to detect them for that reason. They are usually discovered by accident or using certain animals.”

“What do you mean with just under the surface, is that important?” I asked.

“That’s it!” She exclaimed.

She hit her staff into the ground. Whispers of frost feel out from it in tendrils. I felt a chill in the air. Ice bloomed in a circular form from her staff.

“Red rock lizards are cold-blooded!” She said excitedly. “It’s why they stay so close to the surface, they need the heat from the sun!”

Part of the ground exploded. Three red rock lizards rose through the ground, churning up rock and debris with their powerful claws.

I charged forward and bulldozed into one of them. Since there were three it could quickly get out of hand, its best that we wittled down their numbers. I punched it square in its jaw sending it careering back further. It swiped at me but its large claws were far too slow. I punched its hard back. One of the rocks cracked.

Something felt weird though. The way it responded to mana was off. It reminded me of something, it felt similar to something I experienced with Olivere.

I jumped onto its back. I planted the palm of my hand squarely on its back. I poured a portion of my mana into it. The rock loosened and fell out. I knew it! They responded to mana the same way those bugs had. I let mana run through my hands into the creature. The creature roared. The rocks on its back fell off and crashed to the ground. I extended two fingers. From it a small glowering blade of mana grew forth. I plunged it into the back of the creature. The blade would have cut through it's armour and all either way but the knowledge I gained in finding its weakness was still useful. I learnt from Olivere not to underestimate nature and to learn as much as you could from it. The blade grew longer while in the lizard and punctured through the other end. The beast fell to the ground dead. I had made sure to puncture its heart with my strike.

I closed my eyes. The next step would require a bit of focus. I extended thin strings of mana from the blade into its body. They swam through its body, slowly slicing through anything that came in its way. I wrapped them around the sack I was looking for and pulled it out of its body. I grabbed it with my hand. It was the size of a large sack of potatoes. This is what we had come to collect. It was the stomach-sack of the creature. Red rock lizards eat metal and break it down in their stomachs. I prodded the sack and the dense liquid inside sloshed a little. There should be stomach fluids along with a dense concentration of iron inside.

I dropped it temporarily on the ground to help Amelia out. She had frozen the two. She had conjured an iceberg above one of them clearly in order to crush it. The second one was frozen solid beneath the first one. The iceberg smashed into it with a great force, crushing the top one. The second one was still alive so I ended it with one punch. We then extracted the stomach-sacks by smashing the bodies open. Since the stomach had such a high iron concentration it wouldn’t break as easily as the rest of its body.

I stared off into the distance.

“ School huh … “