I had my quests. Which meant I had free passage through the waygate back to the forest. Which was a nice perk, but not all that useful since portal travel was pretty cheap anyway.
As I re-entered the great forest encampment I couldn't help but notice the atmosphere had changed since the couple days I had been gone. There were far fewer people in the area, and the ones that were all seemed to be weary and dragged down. Likely not willing to try and finish whichever quest they took, but afraid of the consequences of failing a quest all the same.
I stopped by the inn first. As I walked in the door the smell of alcohol and smoke filled the air thick with smog. Usually, everyone would at least smoke outside, but it seemed that no one cared much for the rules anymore.
At first glance, I could easily make out a party from a well-known lesser guild. “The steel reavers,” as well as several other loners and small parties, each sitting with nothing in front of them, most staring blankly into space.
The atmosphere was so chilling and quiet that the sound of me opening the door and my boots hitting the creaky old wood floor caused everyone to look. I paused and chills went through me. I had never had so many eyes on me at once. I told myself that it was all just in my head, but it didn't make me any less nervous as I walked up to the party board and posted a notice.
[Looking for a party: Boss hunt: Minotaur: Saxifrage cave.]
I stepped back to look at it and make sure it was good when I felt a hand firmly placed on my shoulder. “Minitaur hunt? Interesting.” A large man said, looking over my shoulder. “Fat chance of getting to that cave though.”
“So you're interested?”
He scoffed. “Sure, why don't you tell me what your plan is for getting a knight through that forest alive.”
“So you're a knight?”
He looked over to some of his friends and they all started laughing. “It doesn't matter what I am. The point is, that the only safe way to fight one of those things involves at least three members, one of which is a knight with heavy impact-resistant armor. Slap a support mage casting magic on him and he can protect your party. Then you have a third member to make sure you can bring it down before your support runs out of magic. That means all three need to be able to get through those freaky spiders and come out the other end with enough energy to still fight the boss.”
I understood him perfectly well, but that wasn't really the main issue. Before long a crowd gathered. They were all likely just bored with nothing better to do, but it was sort of exciting. With so many people interested all I had to do was convince just one or two and the quest would become relatively easy.
“Most of them can be avoided just by traveling through the trees. I could use magic to help even someone wearing heavy armor climb one. Taking out a couple of spiders here and there isn't difficult or draining, so we should be able to get there without a problem.”
“Climb the trees?” He asked, already dismissing the idea as sat back down with his guild.
Everyone else stuck around though. “Ok, so what then, after we get to it? You aren’t the first to have tried this.”
‘What then? I mean…’ “We kill it, what do you mean? There could be any number of reasons why other adventurers failed, but that doesn't suddenly turn the minotaur into a dragon.”
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Another large man growled out from the corner… It was Ashton. He was alone though, meaning his party was probably still recovering. “Just like George said, we need three members. It would be easy to get a healer, so I guess you just need a knight right?”
The crowd slowly thinned. “I could work with anyone. I'd just like to not have to fight this one alone. An assassin would be great too, or even a ranger. I’m fast enough I could even take the minotaur head-on for a while.”
They seemed to be becoming more hesitant and I was starting to become more nervous. I could feel my legs start to shake. ‘Why are they so insistent on using that one method… It isn’t even a good way to fight them.’
“So. What is it exactly that you do? Are you a support mage?” One of them asked.
“No, not exactly. Although I know a bit of all types of magic. I can also use a sword, and I'm pretty good with throwing weapons.”
“Unless you have a cannon for an arm that won't be that useful against a minotaur.”
I tilted my head. “I mean, it'll be useful enough, I could hurt it pretty bad before we even start fighting it. I can increase the velocity of the spear with wind magic, like shooting it out of a bow.”
A few of them scoffed and snickered. “Yeah right. If you were a C-rank adventurer I’d believe that, but then again, if you were you wouldn’t need a party.”
It didn’t matter what I said, most of them were already walking away. There were only a few people left. “Its hide isn't as thick as you seem to think it is,” I sighed looking at the only three people still even considering it. “So, what about you then?”
Out of the remaining group, there was only one assassin. Naturally, since he would be perfect for the job. He spoke first. “Give me eighty percent, get me to the monster and back safely, I'll kill it myself and we’ll call it good.”
I stopped my jaw from dropping. “eighty percent?”
He crossed his arms. “I won't go lower. Besides, you only took this quest to help out the people here right? Get the antidote back into production. Why else would you pick up a quest you couldn't do alone when you didn't already have a party?”
I couldn't lie, that was one of the reasons, but for the most part, I just wanted the money. “That's just a bonus. I don't need a party. It's just less risky if I have someone else with me.”
“eighty percent or I walk,” he repeated.
I shook my head. “Start walking...” It was a shame, but the most I was willing to give up was 45 percent. Usually, it would be more like 25 percent when you hire help, especially considering I would do most of the work. I looked over to the other two knights.
One of them placed his hands on his hips, taking a wide stance. “You're a mage, so can you cast lightning lance, or if you know more support magic can you fortify my defense?”
I shook my head. “No, I'm not really a mage, I just know some magic. I could only fortify you for maybe one or two hits depending on how strong the minotaur is. I do know Lightning Spear, the lower tier variant.”
Another one walked up closer. He seemed clean-cut, more like a traditional knight than all of the adventurers that had been sucking down alcohol. “Uhm, I don't mean to be rude, but as you seem to have a rather unique skill set, maybe it would be best if you just showed us your adventurer card.”
‘Well… It was bound to happen eventually…’ I nervously pulled my card out of my storage. They were clearly surprised at my use of spatial magic, but not enough to say anything. “Here…” I showed it to them. It was a bit embarrassing… The card had full identification. That meant height, weight, gender, and of course a picture of your unobstructed face… It was also enchanted to change certain things like maximum mana capacity automatically. Things like what magic you knew had to be manually added by updating the card though.
It felt a bit like I was revealing everything to them, and in a way I was. On it was every stat and skill I had minus metal magic.
“I'm sorry uh… miss... Don't take this the wrong way, but your marks are just too low for me to be able to fully trust that the two of us could handle this quest alone. Even if there was a third I’m not sure I would be confident taking it on.”
I lowered my gaze. ‘At least he got my gender right… Even if it was listed on the card.’ “No that's… It's fine… I'm used to it…”
As he turned and walked away I could clearly make out several of them grouping together discussing how they should form their own group to go and hunt it themselves. Most were just joking, but some were serious. I didn’t think anything could have hurt my pride more.
My whole body felt like ice, and my legs wouldn't stop shaking as my chest started to tighten again. ‘Why did I ever think this would work…’ With a deep breath, I turned and walked out of the building. ‘There so narrow minded…’ I took a look at my card again to see for myself. Like Lola said it changed itself to show I was rank E now, but the card didn’t even list my stats, so all they had to go off of was my skills. A whole bunch of “Useless” magic. ‘It’s them right?’ Picking up my feet I slowly trudged out of the building. ‘Getting laughed at isn’t so bad really, worse things have happened… I guess I’m hunting it alone after all.’