“Noona,” Drakov leaned over, inches from her face as they walked deeper into the woods.

“What?”

“Can I touch them?”

“No.”

“But I just watched a horrible scene of you trying to eat a raw, bloody organ, and it was gross and disturbing, and I deserve this.”

“No.”

“Noona!” he whined in a higher-pitched tone.

Guin leveled her eyes at him, unimpressed by the aegyo that was being expressed as he brought his hands up to his chin and half-pouting, half-smiling expression.

“You’re pathetic, dongsaeng,” she told him, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Once.”

“Yata!” he exclaimed and started petting her ears and smooshing them around.

Guin felt her face grow warm as they twitched under the touch. They were extremely sensitive, and it was a whole new feeling. She didn’t hate it; she didn’t love it, either. Drakov, being the respectful young man he was, giggled a bit and soon stopped—looking extremely satisfied with himself. A small part of her didn’t want to reveal her fox form to him for fear of his reaction being similar to Tea’s, but she also trusted him to act with a little more propriety than Tea had.

“Happy?” she asked him, though she didn’t need his answer to know what the grin across his face meant. “Good. There’s a pack of Moarbits over to the side. I don’t know what this new class of mine can handle, so I am depending on our teamwork to keep us from dying.”

“You did pretty well on the one you ripped apart,” he said cheerfully.

“I got lucky,” she mumbled, not really wanting to be reminded of what she had done. “I got a crit before it noticed me. I doubt I’ll have the same luck with more than one enemy.”

Drakov nodded and started casting a few buffs on each of them. “I don’t think those traits are gonna affect you as much as you think they are,” he told her, then shrugged. “My buffs should help mitigate them a bit. You need to physically skin them, too, right?”

“Thanks, and yeah,” she said, then called Liorax out. The two-tailed cat appeared, grinning in her face.

“You have need of me, Tatterskin?”

“Combat buff, please,” she asked flatly, and he poofed into nothing again.

“That’s a weird spell,” Drakov said. “Why do have a pet? I want one...”

Guin blinked. “You have Veil Sight?”

“Of course,” he grinned. “How else could I be a dragon master?”

“...Is that your class name?”

Drakov shook his head, looking a bit sad. “I wish,” he said and puffed out his chest. “Nah; I’m a ‘Servant of the Dragon of Jade Spire Peaks’!” he said with vigor, then relaxed with a laugh. “It’s a cool class, but man, oh man, does it need a better name.”

“A... Servant?” Guin asked as the face of the kind, sad Pastor Jormund flashed through her head. “I see,” she looked down. “But, the servants of the Mist Moon Mountains are spear wielders. Are the Jade Spire servants a ranger class?”

“Oh! You know about the Servant classes!” he exclaimed. This one and Tea would get on well, she thought in amusement, checking her friends list quickly to see if the little garule was on, but he wasn’t. “It seems that the Servant classes can use any kind of style; it’s just augmented by the power of the dragon that they serve, which applies to the elements of the clan whose territory they inhabit.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Then, for yours?”

“The Jade Clan elements are earth, wind, and light.”

“Interesting...” she muttered. She couldn’t remember the Mist Clan’s elements. Perhaps the same could be said of her class. Since it was given by a legendary creature from the Mist Clan territory, would those elements be the strongest for her, too? “Well,” she went. “No use worrying about it now. Shall we have a go at these things? I want to get my professions up so I can upgrade my class.”

Drakov nodded. “Okay! What tactics should we use?”

“Let’s stick to the idea that I’ll tank for you until that proves to be a bad choice,” she told him. “Let me pull and do some damage before you attack. If you start getting attacked, let me know, and I’ll pull back and try to regain agro. If you start dying, start kiting, okay?”

“Wakarimasu!”

Guin cast [Spirit Shield], then found a group of three Moarbits. Like the tutorial, the Moarbits in this area weren’t aggressive and would generally ignore players unless the players attacked first. They were, however, now pack aggressors; If you attacked one, the others in a certain area circumference around the attacked creature of the same species would attack as well. Crouching on the ground, Guin did a quick surveillance of the area.

According to her estimates, there were three in the immediate area and a few solo pathers they could pull by moving, for a total of seven possible mobs. The weaknesses that her class gave her aside, these Moarbits were level-one critters; they weren’t anything like their corrupted cousins. In theory, level 15 Drakov should have been able to one-shot them.

She looked at Drakov with a questioning glance. He nodded and nocked an arrow.

Her instinct was to fox form and ask questions later, but the reality was if she was tanking, her fox form would do more harm than good. What she needed was some area of effect abilities—and the only one she had now was [Swipe], with her spear.

And so, she did.

Running forward, she executed an arcing [Swipe] that hit all three targets at once but with little damage. The three Moarbits roared at her furiously—a horrible screeching sound—as they bared their teeth. One started rushing her, antlers forward. Unable to pull her spear back in time to intercept, Guin tried to sidestep it. It swerved toward her, only to have an arrow strike clean through its little body, killing it instantly.

She had no time to praise Drakov, however, as the other two swarmed at her feet, biting her health points away bit by bit — doing much more damage than she remembered them doing before. Growling, Guin kicked at them and tried to hit them with her spear. It did little good, however, and a couple of crits from them sent her into a flurry that was even less effective.

Luckily, Drakov had taken the chance to move into a better position to fire at them and quickly ended their little lives.

“Jerks,” Guin spat, sending her spear back to her inventory. Drakov laughed from the other side of the clearing.

“I’m not sure that spear is doing you much good,” he chuckled.

“Oh, you hush,” she told him, taking out her skinning gear. Drakov helped her tie the creatures to trees as she went about her work skinning them. The process was much faster—though perhaps a bit sloppier—than when she had done it back at the hunters guild, but thankfully, it was also much simpler. After she had finished her skinning work, the leftover corpse turned into a treasure chest with the meat and bones already sorted into neat little packages.

“Once you get passed the beginner level, you won’t need to physically skin them, either,” Drakov told her, rocking back and forth with his hands in his armpits as he watched on. “I don’t miss those days.”

“I had been wondering how they would streamline it. Can’t see it being an attractive part of gameplay unless people really like doing it,” Guin said.

“Especially with the bigger beasts,” he agreed. “It would drive up prices, though. Even just making the physical process part of the entry-level ability is enough to scare most away.”

“What level is your skinning now?” Guin asked, pulling down the skin on the last rabbit.

“I’m still intermediate,” Drakov shrugged. “These little things won’t help me level. Rabid Wolves and up are what I need now.”

“We can do rock-paper-scissors for the high levels,” she told him. “I don’t want to hold you back too much.”

“Works for me. Aren’t Stell and your other friend coming? Won’t they help? How much of the spoils do you think they’ll take?”

Guin shook her head as she packed the goods in her pack. “Stella’s not one to get her hands dirty. Or work hard,” she grumbled. “If she takes a profession up at all, she’d probably take Alchemy—solely for the purpose of being able to screw around with people.”

Drakov snorted in amusement. “Of course.”

“Then there’s Bahena.”

“Bahena?”

“Our roommate,” Guin told him. “She’s a garule—I think I’ve mentioned her before to you.”

“Ah, yes,” he said.

“Let’s see how much we can get done without them,” Guin said, pulling out her spear again and letting it rest on her shoulder. “I at least want to be at a point where the XP is better for everyone.”

Drakov did an exaggerated bow. “Lead on, my Noona.”

Guin clicked her tongue at him.