I woke up the next day, and decided the first thing to do was take care of my body in real, so I logged off, got some food and drink, and hopped back in game before too much time had passed. When I got back in however, I wasn’t sure what to do now. I’d done enough two star quests that I could start working on the three star monsters, but I was enjoying the leisurely hunting at the two star level. I also wanted a few more levels before I headed off to hunt something harder, and if the red moki was any hint of what was to come, I would need them.

Deciding to hunt first, think later, I headed out off to my hunting spot to make myself some money. The hunting was reasonably relaxing, the only thing giving me any trouble was when I was practicing with my spear on the moglins, and that was by choice rather than necessity. While I was waiting for more mobs to come to me, I was looking through my book on monster harvesting, and found that it had a section for each monster on what was edible, and how it tasted.

Supposedly, moglin meat is very delicious, but they were a bit too humanoid for me to be ok with eating them, so I gave it a pass. Moki meat on the other hand, I was completely willing to try, so I set myself up a small campfire, and chopped up the next moki I found, going back to my campfire to grill it up. It wasn’t bad, but it was a lot stringier than I expected, making it not to my taste, though I’m sure some people would enjoy the texture.

At the end of the day, I’d gotten myself around nine gold, and headed into the adventurers guild to see about upgrading myself to the next rank. The test this time started the same way the last one had, my examiner once again being Oskar.

“Ok, so show me your spells again, I know you’re already capable of passing this portion, but rules do have to be followed” Oskar said, gesturing towards a target.

I acquiesced, and threw my spells at the target, Oskar letting out a small grunt of surprise when he noticed my upgraded frostbite spell.

“Not bad, you still need practice though. With enough you can cut your casting time in half or so.”

I thanked him, and then we went on to the combat portion of the test, Oskar again grabbing two practice spears out of the box and coating them in the red powder. This time however, when I went in for a stab on his neck, he knocked it away, but rather than just sitting there like last time, he stabbed out in a well practiced motion.

Luckily, he obviously wasn’t going close to his full speed, and I had plenty of time to step to the side while retracting my spear from where it had been knocked to. Thanking my lucky stars I hadn’t overextended with my stab, I started circling around him, trying to look for any sort of opening.

He just kept the same stance however, keeping himself facing me while I tried to figure out what to do. After a bit, I gave up on looking for an opening and just stabbed out lightly, trying to provoke a response and see if I could get anywhere from there

He just batted it to the side with a quick motion of his spear, and sent his spear towards my head again in that relatively slow motion. A quick step to the left, and I was out of the direction he stabbed at, and I started my own stab while he was extended. My stab was interrupted however, by his spear coming from the right and impacting on my neck. I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to it.

I cursed, not even a minute in and I’d already messed up. Stepping back, he gestured for me to continue, and so I did so, this time making to pay closer attention to where his spear was. Stabbing in again in a very light motion, he batted it and stabbed out again in the exact same motion as last time. Retracting my spear while he was doing so, I stabbed out again, this time ducking the swing that came towards my face.

He got a grin on his face as he stepped back out of my range, and then started out as the attacker. He’d stab out, I’d have to sidestep or dodge. I tried a few time to bat his spear out of the way like he had mine, but his two hands on the spear outclassed my one hand in leverage, and I wasn’t going to practice two handed fighting with my spear when I needed my spare hand free to cast my spells.

I cursed, wishing I had some sort of non-lethal spell I could throw at him while I was fighting, and wondered if I could maybe get something annoying but not harmful from the mages college. Dismissing the random thought from my head, I continued our duel, and as it went he slowly started speeding up, and after a bit I could barely keep dodging his stabs.

Not long after, it got to the point where the only way I was avoiding his stabs or swipes of his spear was through sheer luck at guessing what was going to happen. It was at this point that oskar signalled for us to stop, and we both stood up straight, me breathing heavily, and noticing my stamina bar was practically empty, while Oskar didn’t seem to have even broken a sweat.

Sighing at how low I was in the totem pole here, I nearly missed Oskar telling me that I had passed the examination for becoming a three star adventurer, and he warned me that starting from four stars, the monsters start to get exponentially harder to fight, seven star monsters including dragons, behemoths, and king class mobs of certain species.

Wondering if king class was like the boss mobs I had been fighting I asked him. “There’s this red moki that’s been going around who has been completely devastating parties nearby, would that be a king class mob? Or is that something different?”

“Most probably. King class mobs are just variations on the standard monsters, and usually larger, faster, or much smarter than normal monsters of their type. Most of them have a retinue of smaller monsters around them, but the ones who don’t are usually much stronger.”

“Well this one traveled alone, and it was one-shotting players without any problems. It didn’t seem to take much damage from them either.”

“We’ll probably put out a three star request for it then, we can’t have it discouraging our new adventurers.”

“I’ll have to take part in it then, from the backline though, I have no intentions of getting in melee range of that thing. Where would I find other three star mobs though? Would I have to go further from the city than the moglins and moki?”

He laughed. “You’re not going to find any three star mobs or above out here, aside from your occasional king class like that moki. You’ll have to head further into the frontier, where the monster attacks are actually happening. We just have to deal with the occasional small mobs which spawn, the true gates to the next dimension are further to the east.”

“Oh, ok then, I guess I’ll probably be leaving pretty soon then. Where should I be going to if I’m looking at three star mobs?”

“Just head down the road and take the first right, there’ll be a big sign, you want to head to Kurheim. They’re not too close to the frontier, but they’re close enough to get some three and four star mobs around.”

I thanked him, then headed out, I was probably going to participate in that hunt for the red moki, then I was going to head out of town. Since I had decided on leaving, I headed over to the general store and bought that ward net I had been looking at the other day, along with a very simple tent.

Having finished my shopping, and grabbing something that vaguely resembled a spring roll to eat, I headed back to the barracks to attempt my meditation for the night. I soon arrived, and started, feeling the mana flow through the channels, the lightning like sensation slowly moving from my legs to my arms to my heart, then down back to the pit of my stomach where it originated. This continued for a while, and my consciousness slowly started to fade out, leaving only the sensation of the mana.

I woke up in the morning, excited, and with another point of wisdom under my belt. For some reason, the meditation at night seemed to gain me wisdom a lot faster than the normal meditation I would do, though I wasn’t sure why.

I then went to the adventurers guild to check and found out the red moki hunting quest was indeed up, so I messaged loss to see if he was interested in trying it out along with a couple of other parties.

Hey loss, the guild has an official three star quest up for hunting the red moki. You interested in grouping up with a couple of others and trying it out?

Well considering we wiped to the thing yesterday, I’d be damn interested in trying to get some revenge on that thing.

Sounds good, get over to the guild, we can try and find a couple of other parties and then go searching for it.

It didn’t take too long until Loss arrived, bringing in tow the rest of the group. Everyone kitted out in new gear. Aylea had new robes, and a staff that was clearly better than the one she’d had before, and Light was wearing the same getup, but with white robes instead of red. Dark had a steel sword instead of the bronze he had used before, and had a proper steel buckler instead of his wooden one. He was also wearing the same warg skin armor that I was, probably so he could move around faster than with metal armor. Loss had a shiny steel battleaxe along with a steel kite shield and a bronze chestplate, greaves, and bracers. Finally, Mars had upgraded to a giant steel monstrosity of a sword from her bronze one. I sighed, she had to be putting most of her points into strength just to be able to use that thing, though I’m sure she probably trained up her strength and endurance very quickly just using it.

After we’d all said our greetings, we ended up asking one of the receptionists about teaming up with some other groups for the quest, and she said we could post a request on the board for other parties to join us, and so we did so before sitting down to wait.

While we waited, we chatted about our experiences so far, and I mentioned how easy moki hunting was for me.

“Wait, so you mean to say that all we have to do is just kit them? Those things are freaking strong as hell, we’ve been having so much trouble with them when we could just run a bit and have Aylea chuck fireballs at it?”

I shrugged, I had thought that it was a pretty simple idea, but then again, I was hunting on my own, I could run off and do my own thing while in a party you usually try to stick together.

“Well sorry to belatedly inform you I suppose. Anyway, Aylea, you learn any new spells?” I asked, wanting to know how my fellow mage was faring.

“I have and area one where it creates a large pillar of flames where it impacts now, and another that creates a big wall of flames to block off a direction. Aside from that I’ve been sticking with my fireball, I got it to fireball plus the other day so it’s been doing more than enough damage for me”

I mused for a moment, I had been using my ice spear, but I should probably start spamming it now to get it to ice spear+. Judging by how much my frostbite had improved I could definitely look forwards to the increase in damage on it.

It wasn’t long until we had another two groups together to go hunting with, one group of three with two warriors and an archer, and the other had two warriors and two mages. Along with our group, we probably had enough firepower to finish off the red moki, or so I hoped.

The hunt started with the thirteen of us meandering around by the road, occasionally running into large groups of moglins and moki. It really surprised me how many more of them would attack when we were in a group, but by the time the mobs had gotten to us, the numbers had already gotten largely cut down by the mages and the archer, leaving the rest as easy pickings for the melee fighters.

We slowly searched, and after an hour or two, we finally spotted a spot of red in the distance. Before heading off to hunt it, we mentioned the speed and strength of the red moki to the other two groups, a couple of them looking nervous, but the others getting determined looks on their faces. This was going to be a legitimate boss fight, and every gamer is excited for a challenging boss fight.

We slowly approached, the six melee fighters in front, with the mages towards the back, and Light in the middle, ready to heal anyone who took damage and survived. I patted my potion belt, I wasn’t sure how long the fight was going to be, but I would definitely need the four mana potions I had, though I wasn’t sure the health potions or stamina potions would help much if it managed to get into melee range of me.

When we’d gotten closer, the red moki noticed us, and I warned everyone to brace themselves, as I’d seen what it would do to anyone who wasn’t prepared to handle the impact of the relatively large beast. It was slightly larger than the average moki, around five feet tall instead of the four I was used to, and it charged us faster than any of us could likely run.

The mages, me included, and the lone archer started raining all the spells and arrows we could at it. I started with an ice shatter, remembering how it had tripped up the moki the other day, but it simply kept coming, breaking off the spikes as it went rather than having them stay stuck in its legs. The spells seemed to do little more than annoy it, and it completely ignored the wall of fire Aylea put in front of it, so she quickly switched back to fireballs, likely because it had been upgraded.

While I was throwing my spells, I noticed that none of the mages here were using the guide from the grimoires, though they seemed to be a bit slower than me at casting their spells, likely having not practiced them enough in the training grounds.

It wasn’t long until it impacted two of the shield bearers, Loss and one of the people from the other groups, and they were pushed back, but held firm against it as the rest of the melee fighters closed in and started hacking away at it.

MArs was the only one who seemed to be doing significant damage to the thing, the ridiculous size of her sword seeming to come in handy for chopping something that nothing else seemed to go more than an inch into. Loss and the nameless shield bearer held for a bit, but I soon noticed that it had started tensing up.

“Watch out!” I shouted, but it was too late of a warning as it jumped, landing on Aylea. I was close by however, and stabbed in as hard as I could towards one of its eyes. It flinched back, and I stepped in, determined to at least try and protect my group. It then turned its attention to me, swiping out with its claws, and I barely escaped, only getting a shallow cut on my chest. I cursed. My armor was brand new and now it was already cut through like a piece of paper.

The Moki soon turned its attention to one of the other mages, who had continued to zap it with lightning bolts, and I started preparing a frostbit spell as I wasn’t able to get close enough to go for its eyes again. The moki, was too fast though, and practically beheaded him, my spear only able to stab into its leg in an attempt to distract it. I quickly release the frostbite I had been preparing, and downed one of my mana potions, sad that I hadn’t been able to get off my frostbite before it had reached the mage.

The frostbite did little to slow it down, cracking almost immediately from the sheer force the red moki moved with, but the warriors managed to get there in time and started hammering away at it again, giving us enough space to back off. The moki, enraged by the warriors again, pulled up onto two legs, something I hadn’t seen it do before, stomping down on Dark and one of the warriors whose name I hadn’t learned. It then raked down, leaving a long cut along each of them, but they still seemed to be alive, Light running in to try and heal them in time. It was too late though, as the moki pressed down, crushing both of them beneath its feet.

It then reared back again, but this time not to stomp, but in pain, as Mars’ sword impacted onto its neck with a solid sounding noise. Mars was pulled up along with it though, as it had gone too deep, but quickly let go of her sword, barely dodging the front feet of it as it slammed back down, and rolling to the side to dodge the swipe of its claws that followed after.

A solid stream of blood was now pouring out from around the sword, and I continued to throw ice spears, downing a mana potion when I ran out of mana again. The moki, seemingly enraged now, seemed to grow stronger from the pain, the swipes of its claws sending a warrior or two flying with every hit. When it had knocked most of them away, it turned its attention Loss, the only one remaining, and actually got one of its clawed paws over his shield, pulling down and making pulling Loss along with it. A quick bite on him, and he was now down as well. We were now down to four warriors, but Mars was without her sword, and they were only now getting back up, so it turned its attention to the archer this time, charging at him.

The archer back up as fast as he could while releasing arrows, but was soon reached, and his feeble attempt to block with his bow was only met with it getting sliced in two along with him. My continued attempts to hurt it with ice spikes were only annoying it, until a lucky shot managed to hit Mars’ sword, still stuck in its neck, knocking it loose and releasing a lot more blood than had been coming out previously.

I pumped my fist, we now likely had it on a timer. Mars quickly ran over to grab her sword as it charged at me, and I prepared to jump to the side. It soon reached me, and I jumped, rolling as far as I could go, the moki still charging at the empty space where I used to be. I turned and quickly drew up and released another ice spike, hitting it in the mostly unwounded side of its neck.

It turned back to me though, and went to swipe. I jumped back and stabbed out at its face as I did so, luckily catching it in the eye, and watched as it howled in rage, blinded on one side. I circled to the blinded side, hoping that it would let me avoid getting hit back, but it turned quickly slashing out at me. I jumped back, but not fast enough, as it cut through what had to be half my arm. I gasped in pain, I wasn’t going to be casting any spell patterns for a while.

It’s focus on me was distracted by the warriors reaching it again, and I quickly ran over to light, who healed me up with two spell patterns. By the time I got back to the fight however, another warrior had died.

His death wasn’t in vain however, as one more large swing from Mars impacted in the same spot the previous large cut had been made, and it took another two steps, groaned, and collapsed.

We all stood around for a while, then we started cheering. Around half of us had died, but we had done it. I quickly went up, and harvested the two claws that would serve as proof of killing it. We then headed off to the guild, and turned it in, and we were given a gold each. It may not have been much for the trouble it was, but a gold for one monster was still good money. The golds for the members who had died were given to the remaining people of the party, and we all sat together and chatted.

While chatting, after complaining about how my brand new armor was shredded, I learned that if I died, my armor and weapons would be good as new when I respawned, so I figured it would be better to just wait until I died rather than buying a new set. It probably wouldn’t be too long.

We then all decided that we were exhausted, both mentally and physically, so we all headed off, we were going to get an early rest today.