“I know it’s a little abnormal for me to ask an outsider for help, but I don’t think this is something we can handle on our own.”

“What’s the problem?”

“We usually let our wolves hunt within the forest surrounding the village, recently many of the wolves had been coming back with wounds and looked as if they had gotten into a fight. Some of our soldiers investigated and figured out that a nearby area has been taken over by kobolds. We can’t afford to feed the wolves ourselves, so losing the hunting grounds has had a huge impact on the village. We would send our own soldiers out but that would leave the village defenseless.”

“I see… I will do what I can but I am only one man.”

“That’s all we need, as long as you thin them out then it will greatly relieve the burden.”

Sora left the barracks with a smile on his face, he was so tired of the tedious jobs and was ready to fight. The last two reputation grinds had left Sora feeling stale, so this was the perfect opportunity to get back into the flow of things. He left the village, not needing an NPC to guide him out since the wolves had also acted less aggressive thanks to his reputation. He would be able to pass by the wolves but still needed to be careful with how close he gets, or else it could make them aggressive again. From what he heard, the entire forest had kobolds that needed to be taken care of. On his way over he had noticed a few of them but ignored them since he didn’t have the reputation quest yet. He already had an area in mind to start grinding the kobolds.

Sora set off to a place North of the village, coming closer to the demon territory. An encampment had been set up that served as the base for the kobolds and the area around the encampment was filled with the nasty little creatures. He found his way to the area with ease and saw a group of around seven kobolds. Normally it would be a bit risky to try and fight a group that large but Sora was currently level 44 while the kobolds ranged from level 35 to level 40, giving him a major advantage over them.

Sora rushed into the group and used [Slash] which chunked away more than half of the enemies health and gave Sora a shield that would help mitigate the damage taken from the rest of the group. With his high defense and shield generation, he was able to clean up the group and only take a small amount of damage. The kobolds didn’t drop anything of worth, except for the occasional cotton cloth that Sora would pick up. The grinding began, leaving a path of dead kobolds in his wake. He didn’t get too far in before Nobunaga messaged him. Sora walked over to a secluded area away from the kobolds before messaging him back.

“We were able to secure the Frost Elemental boss but many other people saw it so I doubt we can keep hogging it.”

“That’s fine, it was bound to happen anyways. Get Athenes to learn the recipe, also let her know that the Azure Spirit Flower can be added into the recipe at the end to create a Beginner Mana Potion of Extended Spirit.”

“Alright, we have already secured a lot of those flowers, so we should be able to make quite a bit.”

“I’ll let the guild know to give any mana crystals they don’t want to you, have Athenes make some mana potions for the guild. I also suggest finding the ingredients for the Anti-Poison potion, we don’t need many for the guild so you can rake in a good profit if you start to sell them.”

“Is there anything else that needs to be done?”

Sora started to hesitate about something. He wanted Nobunaga to lead a team into the chasm to fight the bosses that would spawn there, he didn't care too much about the fire boss but the crystal was still a mystery. It shouldn’t be an Epic tier boss but it would probably still be pretty strong. This would be a good chance to test Nobunaga, while also honing some of the other guild members.

“Nobunaga, how confident are you in leading a party?”

“... I have a bit of confidence.”

“Then gather a party and head to the end of the chasm within Frost Peak Mountain, there should be a large cavern with crystals scattered around. A boss should spawn there, I don’t know anything about it other than it being a shadow type boss. It should spawn any day now, so have the guild members scout it out and report when the boss spawns.”

“I’ll let you know when we defeat it.”

Sora went back to grinding the kobolds, with anticipation at the news that Nobunaga brings him. The reputation grind would still take a few days so he mentally prepared himself for it.

…..

Nobunaga had gathered a party with some of the people he had personally picked out, including Athenes. The tank was a knight that goes by the name ‘Solid Brick’, which was a befitting name considering his defense stats that were second only to Sora’s. The two damage dealers were archers that go by ‘First Shot’ and ‘Second Shot’, the two had claimed to be friends that have been inseparable since they started gaming. They were both girls that seemed like they were raised within the military, even Solid Brick had a bit of a military personality. Nobunaga had made the group based off of that personality, leaving Athenes as the oddball out. The group started heading down into the chasm after they got a report from a fellow guild member saying that the crystal pieces were slowly moving towards the center. Luckily the movement was very subtle and the cavern didn’t have any corrupt creatures, meaning nobody would stay here to train.

After easily walking through the chasm, they met up with the scout that had reported the incident. The scout was freed of his duty and the group watched the crystals slowly slide towards the center. It didn’t take too long for the crystals to all meet at the center, reforming into a black crystal that had the shape of a demon.

Level 45 -Adum, The Jagged Shadow-

“Solid Brick, you will stay at the front and block any attacks that come your way, we don’t know the skills of the boss so be prepared for anything. First and Second Shot you stay on opposite sides of Athenes while she heals. I’ll take the side and call out any changes that need to be made in the strategy, do we understand?”

“Sir. Yes, sir!”

Nobunaga gave a nod of approval to the way he was able to run things, the team was quick to pick up the plan and didn’t have any complaints. Athenes was just here to have fun and felt a little out of place in the serious atmosphere. The team got into position and went towards the boss, with Solid Brick leading the charge. The boss let out a weird cackle as it ran straight towards the group, landing a hit on Solid Brick before anyone could get a hit in. He luckily had a shield so his defense was not easily broken through. Nobunaga stayed at the side of the boss, using [Slash] as it came off cooldown. He was in the same boat as Sora and wasn’t able to secure a better damage dealing skill. The two archers were constantly bombarding the boss in a perfect rhythm, when First Shot launches an arrow Second Shot will have already nocked his.

The boss fight was easy up until the boss fell down to 75% health. Afterwards, it let out the same creepy cackle it had before, splitting into five different shadowy figures that merged with the shadows of each party member. The members of the party started to slowly lose health afterward, each of them looking towards Nobunaga for guidance. The first thing he tried was attacking his own shadow, resulting in simply leaving a gash in the ground. Afterwards, he had to think for a while before walking up to Second Shot, using his shadow as a weapon against his party members shadow. A black smoke came from the ground and Second Shot stopped losing health. Nobunaga started to repeat the process with every other party member, starting with Athenes so she could focus on healing everyone. After every shadow had been attacked the boss once again formed into the demon.

“From now on each person is in charge of breaking the shadow of another person. Solid Brick and I will pair up, while First and Second Shot will be in charge of each other and Athenes.”

“Sir. Yes, sir!”

…..

This was the third day that Sora has been killing the kobolds, leaving him worn out and 2 levels higher. At first, he was excited to be able to break away from the tedious tasks like catching the pups, now he felt that killing these kobolds was even more annoying. He was nearly done and wanted nothing more than to see the reputation change from ‘Friend’ to ‘Ally’. Nobunaga messaged Sora, letting Sora take a short break as he talked to him.

“We have successfully killed the boss located within the chasm.”

“Let’s hear a report.”

“The enemy was a level 45 rare boss of the shadow element. The main mechanic is a little hard to explain but it is essentially using your shadow to attack the boss. The party was able to defeat it without any major problems occurring. There were no notable drops, only some level 45 equipment and gold coins.”

“Got it, was Athenes able to make any potions for the guild?”

“Yes, many members donated mana crystals, resulting in over a thousand mana potions. The ingredients for the anti-poison potions were a little scarce so only a little more than a hundred were made.”

“That should be plenty, for now, good work on the successful boss fight and give Athenes my thanks for making the potions. I plan on having you lead many more parties, so start thinking about who you would want to fight together with.”

Sora looked at his reputation after talking with Nobunaga. The current progress was at 99.97%, meaning he should be able to finish any minute now. He pulled himself towards a nearby kobold group and started killing once again. After another 5 minutes, he was finally done with his grind from ‘Friend’ to ‘Ally’. Sora wanted to cry, the fighting was bland, the loot was terrible, and even the chance of a kobold being enchanted was extremely low, resulting in a low yield of only a single Viscous Essence after three whole days.

Sore returned to the village and logged out before doing anything else, taking a decent lengthed break from the game. He grabbed a snack and looked around on the game forums for a while before finally going back to the game.

Sora headed towards the village barracks, being greeted by nearly every NPC he passed by. The reputation had made Sora a friend amongst all citizens of the ‘Wind Wolf Village’, some NPCs could even be found outside of the village and would still treat him as a friend. The barracks seemed a little more lively, with guards thanking Sora for his contributions and some even gave him a few pieces of copper as a gift.

Sora stepped into the office that the head guard was in, he still had a messy desk with papers scattered all over the place but he didn’t look as worried as he had been before. He signaled for Sora to have a seat in front of the desk.

“You have really saved the village a lot of trouble this time.”

“I was merely doing what a friend should do.”

“Hahaha, well said. We still want to properly thank you though, thanks to you we only have one more thing to worry about.”

“Oh? What is worrying you so much?”

“The kobolds within the forest were only pests, they do not scheme so it was manageable to deal with them. The only problem was that a group of bandits has been trying to steal our secret for quite some time now, it has gotten to the point where we need to keep as many guards here as we can to prevent a sudden raid. The fat man with the bald head that we have captive is part of the bandit group, he was found as he was rummaging through some of our documents from earlier generations.”

“How do you plan to stop them?”

“We wanted to launch a counterattack against their hideout but we are afraid to move too many of our troops and leaving the villagers defenseless. Our main target is the leader of the operation, as long as we kill him the bandits should scatter or at least put them in a bind and give us some breathing room.”

“Leave it to me, I should be able to find an opportunity to kill the leader. I could find a way to sneak in while they have their eyes on you.”

“... Are you sure about this? It could cost you your life you know.”

“Leave it to me.”