The next morning, because I’d stuck with juice all night, I did not have a hangover. Of course, there were other bodily functions I had to take care of from having too much fruit juice. Things best left unsaid.

By the time I reached the Adventurer’s Guild, Murr and Kron were already sitting at a table taking bites out of their breakfast. When they saw me, the pink haired catfolk held up another piece of parchment that listed a quest.

As I sat down, I said, “This one isn't from your family this time?”

He scowled. “Hey. I’m not going to upset the guild master again. Once was enough.”

“Once was too much,” Kron said.

“Also, why go on a mission so soon? I was thinking that we’d take our time leveling.”

Murr smirked. “This is a training mission. One where we test our skills on the difficult foes in order to develop our skills.”

I swallowed. “What is it?”

“We, my friends, are going to collect wild honey from giant bees.”

Kron, with the straightest face I’d ever seen, said, “It sounds like it will bee a good mission.”

We all just looked at him for a second. He took a bite of his food and acted like he hadn’t just randomly thrown a pun out there.

I turned back to Murr and frowned. “Why is that a good training mission?”

“Think about it. What are bees known for... other than honey?”

“Their bees-ness,” Kron said. Once again, the dude didn’t crack a smile.

Murr pointed to the golem and looked at me. “Are we just going to ignore that?”

“What?” the golem asked casually and blinked like he didn’t understand.

I decided to get us back on track. “In terms of combat, they’re known for swarming.”

“Exactly!”

I narrowed my eyes at the rogue. “What are you planning?”

He stared at us, eyes glittering with excitement. “What is a good way to mitigate damage? By avoiding the attack altogether with dodge skills! You, Kron, and myself need better dodge skills, because you aren’t using a shield.”

I winced.

“Hey, don’t think of it as a bad thing. It’s just different, which can be advantageous if we can figure out how to use it right,” Murr said. “If you can’t wield a shield, then we’ll all learn to dodge. And, as a rogue, my dodge skills should be top-notch. Right now, I only have a rank X aura skill and I can’t stand it.”

Kron pushed his dish to the side and stared at me with his blue, glowing eyes. “We were discussing this before you came here. You’re our tank, but that doesn’t mean that you need to carry us on your shoulders. We need to protect and defend ourselves when necessary.”

“Exactly!” Murr looked excited.

I grinned. Somehow, I’d managed to find myself a team that supported each other and compensated for each other’s weaknesses. I’d thought that Kimmi, Bradvin and Dos would have done that for me, but they’d had their own plans. Actually, now that I remembered them, I realized they hadn’t come back to the inn last night. Maybe they’d gone somewhere else?

“So, does everyone have their signed contract?” Murr’s voice pulled me out of my reverie.

Kron placed his parchment on the table in front of Murr. “I’ve already had my family’s lawyer look at it. It’s solid.”

I pulled mine out and handed it to the rogue along with the bag of coins from our first mission. The catfolk split everything in three and handed us each our share. He even took his own share.

“From this point on, we place 15% of everything we earn into the Guild Bank as party funds to pay for things like lodging, food and if we need some extra money to afford better weapons or armor. The rest we’ll split evenly between us,” Murr went over some more of the terms in the contract. Which was just standard for adventurers. “Fortunately, the guild takes the taxes out for us, so we don’t have to worry about that.”

Ak! I’d forgotten about taxes. What was that saying, again? ‘Nothing is certain except death and taxes?’ Though I’d managed to get around death by being reborn, I still had to pay taxes.

“Next, before we go on this mission, does anyone need to buy anything?”

Kron frowned. “How long will we be gone for?”

Murr pulled out a map and a measuring tool. It took him mere moments before he said, “There is about a 2 hour travel time between us and the quest location, so, we’ll be over 4 hours, but I don’t see us taking longer than 10, depending on how long we stay there.”

“I have a tent in case we need to stay overnight, and rations for myself, however there is something I need to buy. A better set of armor.”

The two looked at me.

Murr grinned. “I know just the place. We can stop by there on our way to the mission.”

I eyed the catfolk, who looked like he managed to run away after eating cream. “This isn’t one of your parent’s places, is it?”

He smirked. “I talked to them yesterday. They decided that they weren’t going to pay for anything. In their words, I needed to learn about consequences and take some responsibility.” He did air quotes around the last word. “However, they did give us a token. With it, we can buy things below cost in their stores. So, let’s do our best to stick it to them.”

“Neither one of us expected you to pay for anything except your fair share,” I said.

Murr’s ears perked up.

“Technically, I did wonder if your parents might help us out, but I never expected them to,” Kron said. “And to answer your question, I’m good. I’ve been saving up mana potions and rations for years because I had a feeling I’d be a combat healer instead of a non-combat one. Frankly, I’m more worried about what we’re going to do about gear.”

“What about it?” I asked.

“Part of why it takes so long to reach high levels is that you need equipment that matches your rank or you won’t be able to fight. After level 160, it becomes impossible to find good gear at stores. You have to pay obscene amounts of money to have it custom made from the best craftsman.”

I froze. He was right. Gear was important. Almost as important as leveling and having the right skill set.

Back in my past life, video game developers would make monsters drop semi-random gear. Even if it wasn’t the best possible choice for a character type, it would still allow a player to keep grinding away at levels. Monsters here didn’t do that.

Now that I thought about games from my past life... they rewarded everyone for completing system quests. Those didn’t exist in this world... at least not for other people.

I had received a quest. Hell, I had even received swords. I didn’t think it was odd at the time since that was how things worked in the games from my past life, but this world was different. It was real, if insane.

The hidden quest I had received mentioned a Special Item. Did that mean, if I managed to suffer through six more Sack-Tap and Kills without crying, I’d get a weapon or armor for my trouble?

It might be worth it to try.

“We’ll have plenty of time to figure out the gear situation later,” I said. “For now, let’s complete this quest and work on creating some dodging skills.”

“Actually,” Murr said. “We might not have too much time since we’ll have to start leveling at twice the speed of those who aim for level 160.”

I shook my head. “We don’t need to level like that. We can level almost linearly, at 75 levels every year, and take our time getting to each one.”

Kron shook his head. “Actually, I think Murr has a point. I mean, the average adventurer aims for 80 in four years while we’d have to do that in one.”

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“Okay, this is getting confusing. Let’s keep it simple.” I scratched my head. “The normal way of doing things is earning 40 levels your first year, 22 your second, 12 your third and just 6 during your last. And you’re proposing that we change those numbers to be 160, 88, 48 and 24?” I scoffed. “That’s too extreme.”

Murr shrugged. “Maybe it is, but I think that will give us the most ideal time table.” Then his eyes dilated, and he stared off into the distance as if seeing an invisible demon. “We can figure it out later. I’m getting the zoomies! Let’s go!”

Then he stood up and bolted toward the door so fast it caused several Adventurers to jump out of his way.

***

Apparently, catfolk really did have to suddenly go running because Murr dragged us several blocks away, running the whole time. He only stopped when we reached his family’s armor smith. After picking up some heavily discounted K rank armor that had a similar style to my previous set, we once again traveled to the bunny dungeon.

There were several well-documented roads and pathways through the forest, so, while most of our trip to the beehive was long, it wasn’t too difficult. The hard part came after we left the pathways and I had to use everything I’d learned while growing up on the frontiers to navigate our way through the thick forests.

Finally, we reached a shadowy area with several massive bee hives the size of a house. Actually, I even saw a door. The nearest hive must have taken over an abandoned hunter’s shack.

Bees the size of my fist buzzed around everywhere like peaceful yellow honeybees. One even flew over my head, their legs covered in pollen dust.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1040145434984841286/SPOILER_bee_copy.jpg]

“Is anyone here allergic to bees?”

Kron pointed to his face. “Golem.”

I turned to Murr. His cat ears swiveled around crazily.

“Would I have taken this quest if I was? Now shush. I’m trying to find a good place to start smoking them out.”

He brought out his slingshot as well as a handful of blue tinted balls. Then, in rapid succession, he fired one after another. Each one landed in key-areas of the hive. White smoke billowed out from the shots and covered the mound in its entirety.

The low level buzzing sound that had been coming off the structure increased until it was like listening to the Flight of the Bumblebee while in the center of an orchestra.

I stared at the catfolk in horror.

He cleared his throat nervously. “Wait for it!”

The bees all exited the hive. Most of them were the fist sized ones from earlier, but three of them were round fuzzy bees the size and shape of basketballs.

“The hell are those?!”

“This is bad!”

Murr threw a few more of the blue shot at the giant bees. It seemed to incapacitate two of them, but missed one of them. It flew our way, and fast.

“Run!” Murr took off in the direction we came from.

“Why?” I asked as I followed him.

“Do you want to fight it this close to the hive?”

And get attacked by its fellow Bee-balls?! Hell no.

Kron caught up to us, but he looked like he was straining.

Murr stopped in a clearing and turned around.

“Okay, Sam. You’re up,” Murr said. “I gotta go collect the honey before my sleeping smoke bombs stop beeing effective.”

I almost did a double take. No, I must have misheard it.

“Sam, go bee a good tank. I got your back,” Kron said.

Okay, that one I know I heard.

Murr ran off just as the massive yellow and black bee-sketball came buzzing out of the forest like a furious buzz-killer.

I expected it to go right for me, but it went after Murr instead. Not good!

I yelled at it, using my taunt, “HEY! YOUR MOM SHOULD HAVE USED PLAN BEE!”

“That made zero sense,” Kron said.

Yeah... Different world. Fair enough. “But it worked!” I pointed to the fluffy bumble-butt that spun around. Its black eyes turned red, and it flew towards me like I was his number one enemy.

It flew at me. A massive stinger extended from its round black bottom. Then it swooped down to attack.

“Eeek!” I ducked. Its aura-enhanced stinger scratched my new helmet, giving me a nasty headache.

I pulled out my swords. The next time it came in for the attack, I blocked it. When it tried to get around my swords, I swung at its center. It zipped upwards, but not before I shaved a little fuzz off its ass.

That made the red in its eyes increase in brightness. The deep buzz it made grew higher in pitch. It started to increase its speed and attacked in tight spirals.

It took everything I had just to block its repeated strikes.

“I think I made it a bit too angry.”

“Perhaps if you wax poetic and spout some buzz worthy compliments it won’t bee so angry.”

“Can you stop beeing so punny?”

“I don’t understand.”

As I blocked another attack, I could only get out, “Pun denier!”

He chuckled darkly and ducked under a stinger. “Haven't you heard, Sam? Mages cannot resist pun!”

Wait! I had heard that before! And the only to get a mage to stop punning was to pun harder.

“In coming!” Murr returned with another two buzzing bee-balls bouncing up and down in fury. “Sam! Why are you practicing blocking when we’re here to dodge?”

“You try dodging this thing!”

“That’s the plan, dongus.”

“Did you get the honey?” Kron asked.

“Barely. I woke these two up in the process.”

Once the two new bee-balls were in the mix and flying in highly effective aerial attack formations, I had to really focus on dodging. Left, right, backward, and forwards — any direction there was, I had to move in it while holding my swords. Sometimes I even had to dodge while blocking two other bugs.

At one point, another two of the giant pollinators joined the fray. They continuously went after Murr. Then the catfolk vanished from sight and appeared next to me. He whooped and kept running.

How the hell did he do that?!

Wait a second, was that an aura dodge? Maybe I could do something like that as well. I’d been thinking about this too simply, just waiting for the skill to arrive once I’d rolled and sidestepped enough. I needed to be active about it and think about the kind of skill I required.

While I needed to dodge, I shouldn’t do it like a rogue. I needed to dodge like a tank. Someone who doesn’t move a lot and makes hits miss by a simple tilt of their head... wait a second. I needed to become a dodge tank!

That was what I’d forgotten from my past life! I needed to become a lithe type of tank that, instead of taking hits and healing, did everything in their power to avoid taking damage. And they did all that while still keeping the enemy focused on themselves!

Creating a good dodging ability just increased in priority significantly. Instead of wildly dodging, like I had before, I focused on dodging while only moving the tiniest amount. Using aura, I increased the initial speed I could change directions at. It was almost easy. Almost.

I still had to focus on where the attacks were coming from so I could avoid them by the perfect amount. That was a distraction, but a necessary one.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t always successful. A few of stinging attacks landed on my armor, causing me to feel a slight amount of pain as some of the aura slipped past.

Once I’d taken enough damage, Kron sent a healing spell at me. The small pains that had accumulated over the fight vanished. I almost felt like I could go another half hour.

Not long after that, as my muscles ached and my breaths quickened, everything seemed to click together.

Instead of me purposefully using my aura to increase the strength of my muscles, my aura moved on its own with just a nudge from my will.

The bee-ball that had swooped down to attack me aimed for a weak point in my armor. As my body moved to the side on its own, it completely missed.

Congratulations!

Through training your body to dodge the smallest amount possible, you have created a new Aura Skill!

Dangerous Dodge! - Rank J - Use this skill when you need to dodge out of the way and look good doing it!

“Woot!” And it wasn’t weirdly named!

“You got one?!” Murr asked.

“I did, and it’s rank J!”

“Nice!” The catfolk shot a smoke bomb at another bee that was trying to join the party. It fell to the ground. That just brought home how in control of the situation Murr was.

“Kron, how about you?”

“Not yet!”

Murr grinned. “How much you wanna bet that I can get ten times multiplier from each of these bees before Kron creates his dodge skill?”

“Hey! Don’t get snob-ee. I almost have it figured out.”

A flanking pair of bee-balls rushed at the pink haired catfolk, but he used his new skill to suddenly appear a few feet from me.

“Come on, Kron!” I said. “I bee-lieve in you. If you can dodge a ball, you can dodge a bee!”

“Buzz off!”

“Bee more positive!” I said.

Murr started to shoot small iron shot at each black and yellow bug. A short time later and he said, “That’s four times. Hurry, Kron.”

He cursed under his breath. Then, as a bee aimed for his chest, he vanished and appeared a few feet to the side. He held his arms up to celebrate, but another bee swooped at his head. He awkwardly ducked down.

“Woot!” he said while crouched low. “I did it!”

“And before I finished getting ten times!” Murr shot a few more bees. They started to aim for him more, so I once again used my taunt.

“COME AT ME BEE-RO!”

“That one didn’t even work well,” the golem complained.

“Worked well enough.” The bees turned their attention towards me. I had to use Dangerous Dodge repeatedly.

“Come on, let’s end this bee-utiful fight,” I said.

“Not until I get my ten times multiplier.” He shot another black and yellow blurr. "And don't think I didn't hear that."

Kron sent a life steal spell at one of the balls. “Where are you at now?”

“Nine times. Except that one is eight.” He pointed to one that was buzzing high in the air.

After a few more shots, he grinned. “Ten!” As he readied to aim at the first bee, a dagger flew at it from the shadows of the forest. It thunked into the bee-ball’s fuzzy side. One after another, daggers flew into the sides of the bees.

“Damn you! These are mine!” He started shooting them down as well. Unfortunately, as the bee-balls bounced their last bounce, Murr had only managed to take down two while the other three were stolen from him by the person in the shadows.

A familiar catfolk girl with brown hair and golden eyes stepped out into the clearing with a smirk. This was the same girl who instigated the argument at the AllChurch. She chuckled. “You were just taking so long that I thought you needed help.”

Oooooooo. By the look on Murr’s face, shit was about to go down.