Report - Solet' Luna
Some say that this quest is impossible, so the Guild Master decided to change some requirement. Others say that magic is a cheat and would make the test meaningless. I knew that Vicious just said that I'm taking too much of a risk, however, after getting ambushed by the Golden Rose, I realised that, without any preparation, I was as weak as a chicken, and would die to something as simple as a single stab from a poison-covered dagger. Without Solet, I am nothing without magic.
So, I've decided to partake this examination without using magic, any pieces of equipment, not even a knife, not a single bottle of potions, while still recovering from the previous injuries. I would like to try to simulate the previous struggle. If not for my weak constitution, I would have applied the same poison to myself, just to test my own limit.
In the middle of the night, I set off, cloaking in a plain brown robe, not telling anyone about anything. Although it might make Vicious and others worried about me, I wouldn't allow anything to go wrong, such as another ambush from the Golden Rose, or someone trying to stop me from doing this 'training'.
"Drop me near the northern forest, the closest place to the Gem's Ravine." With that sentence, the rider turned to look at me deep into the eyes. I stared back at him. Although the cloaked was concealing my feature, I was sure that he flinched at the dull look in my eyes. I was dead-serious, and he respected my request, not asking anything and slowly drove the horses.
As I watched the carriage departed, I was left alone in the middle of the road, knowing full well that the night was still young, and most predators would take this opportunity to go hunt some preys. Without any hesitation, I walked alone, into the darkness that was the northern forest. Without any witnesses, without any trails.
The first night was as one expected, sleepless and long. Although it was bad, I felt at peace, knowing that the next would be progressively harder, as I got closer and closer to the deadly Ravine. I did not research any of the wildlife here, and to make it harder for me, I also played a little trick so that Solet would fall asleep for a while. He would surely object this quest and held me back, so I had no choice but to drug him.
Sure enough, I quickly encountered my first problem. In the restless wood, I could not start the fire, in order to not be the centre of attention. However, I could not see well in the dark, and before I knew it, a pack of dire wolves had already surrounded me. Their howls echoed the forest, inserting their dominant as they moved in a circular motion, trying to confuse me.
In my hand, there were only two things. A piece of stick that I had sharpened, and a sharp rock that I found. Everything seemed to be yelling at me to accept my fate as a weakling and to use magic to save myself. However, I would never yield to such provocation. I lowered my body and stood in a combat stance, extending one of my hand outwards while pulling the other closer.
Suddenly, a heavy groan exploded as one of the wolves jumped towards me, bearing its fangs at my neck. I closed my eyes and focused everything at my sense of hearing. With one side step, I spun around and used my stick to stab its passing back. My other hand also grabbed its head and tried my best to flung it to the other side.
As it could not withstand the force exerted on it, the stick broke and got stuck on the wolf's back, creating a huge cut from my flinging motion. I endured a sharp bite on my left leg as the other wolf took the opportunity to steal a part of my flesh. Strangely, that wolf did not continue to assault me but went back to gobble down its meat.
I felt an intense pain on my leg, threatening to give in and causing me to lose my balance. However, I could only scream soundlessly and keep battling with the pain as I rushed towards the injured wolf. The wolf laid against a tree as its breathing became weak and soft. The pool of blood emerged from its wound, causing the other wolves to divert their attention from me to the easier prey.
Still, without that stick, I would be dead meat, so I once again went into the feast of the wolves. Taking advantage of the first one to arrive at the dying wolf, I pulled out the stick and rolled backwards, trying to avoid any strike that might come. Although I did not get bitten again, my shoulder got scraped by the small rocks, cutting open various small wounds.
Feeling sore all over my body, I quickly ran as fast as I could and climb onto a sturdy-looking tree. I knew that these wolves would be coming to get me after that feast, and I did not have any more strength to fight them, without using magic that is. If these guys could climb the tree, then I guessed the world would be too unfair.
It was fortunate that my previous injuries did not reopen during the combat, but I also accumulated more injuries, and that was only the first night, not even the first 24 hours. I tightened my new wounds with a few vines and leaves I collected before sitting down and relaxed my mind.
After testing that the branch was strong enough to support my weight, I slowly closed my eyes and rested. Occasionally, the strange sounds of wildlife would cause me to open my eyes and surveyed the surrounding. I would never dare to fall asleep while being this defenceless. The sleepless night went on, and my mind gradually drifted into a drowsiness state. Nevertheless, I could not sleep because of the burning pain that would shock my mind awake every time I moved my legs.
As the sun approached from the horizon, I could hear a creaking noise, and before I knew it, the branch snapped in half and fell onto the ground, causing me to lose my balance and also injury my wrists. A very pathetic start of a new day. On the other hand, the pain extinguished my drowsiness, so that's a silver lining I guessed.
The wounds had already dried, so I did not have to be too alerted for any wandering wolves, and coupled with the time of the day, which most predators would be sleeping or hiding in their cave, I decided to walk on foot towards the Ravine. On the way, I spotted a group of goblins, but could easily avoid them by laying low and crawling through the bushes.
There might be a goblin settlement around here, so I decided to take a detour and that caused me a long time to safely navigate through the forest. Along the way, I picked up a few fruits that I remembered and ate it to push back my hunger, although I hadn't eaten yet for the day, I believed that I could still carry on and tried to hunt some wildlife.
Knowing almost nothing about traps and hunting, I could barely set a lure trap for ordinary wildlife like rabbits. In the end, after so many fails, I managed to have two rabbits for the day. Thankfully, I knew enough about their body structure that I could easily dissect them with my sharpened stone and stick.
The same stone also helped me lighting the bonfire, which was harder than I expected, spending almost the same amount of time as hunting the rabbits. The taste of its meat was not that great, coupled with the taste of dirt and weeds, it was barely edible. I refused to drink blood and could only use them as a lure to divert the deadly predators away from my camp.
Before dusk, I spent time joining the sturdiest vines I could find together, forming a portable bed, and scattered the useless meats and organs on the faraway places from my camping site. Hanging the vines on two trees, I covered both myself and the ground below me with leaves, in case I fell again. And like that, another sleepless night went by.
The next day passed by in a flash, and before long, I've arrived at the Gem's Ravine. It was beautiful, filled with greenery I had never seen before. However, knowing my condition, I probably shouldn't be admiring nature.
Good news, I found a desolated cave, probably abandoned by a large beast that had moved away from this small ravine. If nothing unexpected happened, then this night, I would be able to taste the sweetness of sleep and dream. My body trembled under the prospect of good night sleep, and I quickly went out to hunt and bring back more woods and leaves.
Thankfully, there was a river nearby, meaning that I got lucky and had fish to eat. With a couple of berries and two fish, I got full very swiftly. After doing the same routine, I went into the cave. Before sleep, I once again surveyed the inner part to make sure that there was nothing other than me in it.
Bad news, the next morning, I felt slightly sick and had a low fever. the days of non-stop rush had finally taken a toll on my body. Not just that, but the previous illness had also faired up. If I continued to use my magic, I would really pass out. Just like that, the difficulty of the quest took another twist.
After one night of sleep, a plan began to form in my head, and I set off to the Bighorn Mountain. Although there was no serious danger, my speed still fell due to my illness and injuries. Nevertheless, as I walked along the river, the food source was endless and I did not have to waste any effort to hunt the already dwindling animals.
I did encounter some monsters, but they were no match for my spear-like sharp stick and my knowledge of CQC. However, once they realised that I'm a hard prey, they quickly scattered, causing me to acquire only two cores of the River Foxes, as I called them. Their fur had the colour of the river, and they could switch between travelling in the river and land effortlessly, making their escape impossible to obstruct.
The journey towards the foot of the Bighorn Mountain took about 4 days. It had been a week since I had left the city, halfway towards the end. Also, it had begun to rain. Although it had not developed into a flood, it had caused my fever to worsen and slowed down my speed even more. In the end, I spent a whole day treating my injuries and resting in a cave without doing anything, just to prepare for the climbing of the mountain.
Along the way, I had crafted myself a simple walking cane, as my injured leg should not be bearing all of my weight all the time. If anything, I feared that I would not be able to run when I must.
The next day was to scout the surrounding area and prepare food and fruits, as well as making some vine ropes and the like. I found a gigantic tree that had leaves and flowers bigger than my entire body, so I used my spear to cut it and made a natural umbrella. The pinkish petal looked too eye-catching so the green leaf became my first choice.
Climbing the deserted mountain was easy, as most of the predators and monsters did not like any steep mountain. The Bighorn Mountain, just like its name, had a shape resembling an enormous horn, had an extremely steep slope, without any easy way to walk up. Thankfully, I used my vine ropes to help to balance myself and slowly climb the mountain.
The first night on the mountain was horrible. There was no cave or any big crack to comfortably sleep in. In the end, I used my vine ropes to hang myself with the portable bed and sleep high, barely surviving the cold wind, and hundreds of meters above the ground. When a strange vulture-like giant bird attacked, I slipped and fell out of my bed, dropping out from the crack. My hand grabbed onto one of the spiky rock, holding on with all my might.
Even though the pain was unbearable and the rock had pierced into my skin, I refused to let go and used another hand to grab the bird's beak and pulled it closer. As my anger intensified, I looked into the panic eyes of that bird and sunk my teeth onto its eyelids, determined to blind the thing that almost killed me.
The blood tasted sweet and metallic. If not for its horribly nasty smell, I would have thought I ate a pack of sweet candies. The bird flinched in pain, causing my hand that grabbed onto its beak to slip. After regaining its freedom, the bird snapped onto my other hand and bit onto it. Its corpse-eating teeth sunk on my wound, reopening it. The numbing sensation caused my injured hand to loosen, and I began to fall.
Just like that, the bird lost its eye. It cried out loud before flying away. If not for my safety vines net, I would have already been on my way to visit my parents. The next hour was spending on vomiting the blood, the remainder of its eye and climbing up. I couldn't risk sleeping in the same spot, as I didn't know whether that bird would return with its group or not.
It was my carelessness that almost cost me my life. I thought that, because of the heavy rain, no birds would be out in the open. However, this mountain was not normal, so common senses might not apply.
The climbing took me an additional 2 days. The rain had finally stopped, and my fever had stabilized. It had gotten worse, but not to the point I couldn't walk, so I just continued on. The reopening wounds on my hand were a problem tho. My fighting ability dropped drastically, making me reconsidered my plan. If I delayed any further, the wounds, soaked in water, would surely rot.
So, with everything considered, I went to place all the meat and corpses I had gathered before planting the cores of the river foxes I acquired. By pulling some tricks, I managed to lure the two outermost Kukuu Birds out of its nest. And by throwing the last core of river fox into the group of Kukuu Birds, disguised it as an egg, the Birds began to circle it and cried out in various noises.
As the rest of the birds got distracted, I threw my spared sharpened stick, stabbing into one of the baby bird, and with my vine rope attached to it, I manipulated the remain of the bird to another nest. The high-pitch cried of the babies got overwhelmed by the cries of those big birds, making it inaudible. After repeating my cruel method for a few times, the two birds came back, and hell broke lost.
As one of their babies disappeared, the birds went into a frenzy, and after finding the corpse in one of the other bird's nest, they began fighting, not knowing that one of the egg had disappeared among the chaos. As for that stick, I had buried it in fear of the birds finding the blood scent and my scent.
On the way back, the strange vulture-like birds attacked again. This time, however, I was prepared. As a result, although their claws left me 3 terrifying scars on my back, that meat I got to eat three birds. They tasted like rotten corpses, only their eyes were sweet. I'm getting afraid of myself enjoying the adrenaline when faced with a certain near-death situation... Even the previous blood that caused me to vomit did not seem so bad now... The worst moment was when the birds almost successfully stole my egg. That bird got my spear stuck in it and curved open a big hole, spilling out blood onto me. I almost could not stop myself from licking them on my lips.
The downwards journey took about 3 days. My condition had somewhat improved, or was it just my pain tolerance and mind just getting used to it?
Back to the Ravine, the river looked too tempting to take a bath, however, before I could get close to it, I noticed that a group of fish was twisting in the river before stopped in their track, flowing up and remained still. The burnt meat smell filled the air, causing my mouth to turn watery. Thankfully, I had a few dried corpse-eating bird meat in my vine backpack, and with just one bite, I lost all my appetite.
Looking at myself, the bloody, dirty, wound-filled appearance must have scared away all the ordinary wildlife. Even the smell was somewhat unbearable. However, staring back at the death of the fish, I decided to not risk and walk along the river instead, not taking a bath.
As expected, the river foxes were still there, and their number had increased, too. Sighing, I placed my egg down before wielding my spear, walking towards them with my dead-like eyes staring at them without blinking. Strangely, they howled softly before slowly retreated back into the river. Unfortunately, once they touched the water, their body contorted and fell motionlessly, dying by an unknown cause.
Desperate, the river foxes decided to make a suicide move and fought me. Whenever they jumped towards me, I would stab my spear forwards, passing through their mouth and piercing into their brain. They died instantly. However, once one died, another took their position and rushed forwards...
Tens against one. It took a whole hour and a half before I could finish the last of them. I broke my spear and had to kill the last 3 of them with my stone dagger. The wounded hand felt numb all over, and my entire body felt sore, turning pale as if I was dying. Despite the exhaustion, I picked up my egg and slowly strolled towards the safe point I discovered. It took another hour before I barely maintained my consciousness.
Hastily covered up the entrance, I fell into the slumber. In the dream, it was like I was someone else, I watched as my body, foreign to myself, moved and interacted with strangers I knew nothing about, but somehow felt a similar sensation. The language was nothing like I knew. It was even more complicated and mystical than the demon language.
My hand looked exceptionally pale, and on them were countless accessories, glittering in the golden light of beauty and wealth. I could feel the air of elegance in the atmosphere, as if I was in an imperial castle, exclusive for the royalty and the great existences. Before I woke up, the last vision was when I was about to stand up, waiting for the main attraction of the event to arrive.
The dream was strange, but I felt refreshed when I woke up, so I put it back and started heading back again. Exiting the Ravine, I encountered nothing except some ordinary wildlife. They got scared by my appearance and caused me no trouble, even the goblins did not dare to mess with me and backed out from my path.
However, just when I came out of the northern forest and walked onto the street, I heard a few laughter echoed around me, coupled with a series of footsteps surrounding me, I knew that things were getting worse. This looked like one of the worst things to have happened to me.
Five cloaked figures circled around me, revealing nothing but a mocking sneer as they looked at my crappy appearance. However, their eyes were sharp and focused, unlike the previous three, which I assumed were just ordinary mooks.
"Solet' Luna... So it was true that you accepted the E rank mission. Your disappearance had caused us quite a problem... However, since you are here, then just die in the forest quietly, okay?" Once his sentence ended, the man disappeared abruptly before flashing in front of me, swinging his sword downwards at me. His speed was a lot faster than the previous swordman.
However, to me, who had enough of everything, he was too slow. At that moment, I decided to use my sorcery, and created a small ice dagger in my hand and stabbed towards the swordman. The precision and quickness of my sorcery surprised the swordsman, causing him to miss the block.
My dagger carved into his stomach. I watched his innard gushed out as my smile widened, revealing a joyful expression. It felt good to finally release the suppressed emotions once in a while.
The assassin snuck behind me and attempted to stab me, but I was prepared. As soon as he appeared behind me, the blood-soaked ground trembled as three icy spikes emerged from it, stabbing the man's legs. I turned my head and looked at him, before using my spear to take his life.
Unknowingly, my mastery over sorcery seemed to have increased again. However, the violent tendency also seemed to intensify...
Crouching behind the swordsman, I used him as a shield to block the arrows, saving me from three shots that finally did him in. My mind flared rapidly before I threw the man towards the archer and rolled to the side. A fireball engulfed the man and turned him into dust, leaving the archer and the mage stunned.
I threw my icy dagger at the mage, however, a strong shield came in my way and block it, causing it to shatter into countless shards, falling onto the ground and hurting the defender in the process.
Using my spear, I battled against this shield-wielder while dodging the arrows and the fireballs. The trio seemed so in sync that I almost had no room to breathe. Thankfully, I used the huge body of the shield-wielder as space to manoeuvre making it harder for the two other to help him.
Without any opening, I slowly retreated back before turning and running towards the forest. If I could enter the forest, then it was easy to lose them.
The trio also realised this, so they quickly rushed towards me. However, little did they know, they have fallen for my trap.
Turning back to witness the spectacle, I smiled wickedly and snapped my fingers, causing the ice shards on the ground to vibrate before exploding into a swamp of sharp ice needles. In an instant, the archer and the mage's body became like a sponge, full of holes for blood to leak out. They body limped, falling onto the ground lifelessly, struggling in pain before plunging into the darkness.
"Demon! You are a demon, an Ice Demon!"— The shield-wielder looked at me, his face paled. He screamed as if he had encountered a ghost and ran away. As he had disregarded everything, killing him was easy. Just one accurate throw of my spear pierced through his neck and dropped him down. The next half an hour was spent on trying to regulate my body, as using Mana caused the unknown illness to flare up.
I think the egg cracked a little bit, but it was okay. After looting everything, I was met with disappointment that nothing of value was found, only a couple G coins and some cheap potions. Oh, on the mage body, there was a card with Golden Rose on it. That would be interesting.
After bumping the corpses into the forest, I made my walk back to the city. It was hard trying to get past the guards, soaked in blood and dirt. However, in the end, I did it.
The entire journey took about 22 days. Previous injuries worsened. New injuries on the hands, the wrist, the back. A high fever. But, I survived, without anything, without anyone, I survived alone...
