Elli’s perspective

I slowly awake to light shining in through the windows. My little sister Mari slept with me last night. I really did worry her yesterday. I look outside of my window, and it seems that the sun is decently high in the sky, it’s a little later than I’d like to have awoken, but it seems I’m still quite tired out from yesterday.

I quickly get dressed for the day and leave my room. I should check on mom’s condition before I head to the guild. I walk into my mother’s room; she’s lying on the bed looking out the window. She’s a beautiful elf woman with light green hair. Unfortunately, she is unable to leave her bed due to her sickness. The sickness that affects her is a somewhat uncommon sickness that only elves are able to get. Frequently it is called the “elven curse.” Curing, it is simple enough provided that you have the money to do so. Unfortunately, our family doesn’t. If it isn’t cured, it will slowly drain her mana faster and faster until eventually she’ll fall into a coma and die. Just thinking about that gives me the chills.

“Oh, Elli, I missed you yesterday. How are you?”

“Good morning, mom, I’m okay.”

“How’s your adventuring going?”

“I made it to silver rank yesterday, though I don’t feel like I really deserve it.”

“Oh, well, if you don’t feel like you deserve it, all you have to do is put in the effort and prove to yourself that you do deserve it!”

“I’ll do my best. I’m planning to get you your medicine by the end of the week.”

“Oh my, isn’t that impossible, darling?”

“I thought so too, but someone proved to me that it could be done.”

“You must’ve met someone amazing.”

“Yeah, I think I did.”

“Elli, why don’t you just give up on saving me. I know you don’t want to be tied down here, that you want to travel the world and go on real adventures.”

“And just let you die?!”

“I’m sure Mr. Oratio could take care of Mari for a while.”

“That’s too cruel! You can’t just decide that you’re going to die.”

“It’s inevitable honey, I don’t have long left.”

“One week, stay alive for one week. I’ll get your medicine, I swear.”

“Oh my! So stern, have you grown a little?”

Perhaps I have from yesterday. I’m going to do it. Not only am I going to save you, but I’m going to become an adventurer you can be proud of. So that you can say, that’s my daughter, the dragon rank adventurer. Just you wait and see!

I leave my mom’s bedroom. I then go to the kitchen and pack a bag with everything I need for the day. I’m going to go ahead and take care of a lot of quests. When Kazuki finally is back in action, he won’t have any work left for him. I’ll show him how dependable I am! As I work away at making some field rations for the day, Mari sneaks up behind me.

“Oneechan, are you going adventuring again today?”

“Yeah, it’s going to be a long day.”

“Please be careful today.”

“I will be”

I decide to make Mari some breakfast while I’m here as a thank you for her always worrying about me. Mari has a lot on her plate, with mom being sick and me working to support our little family. Our father died a long time ago, he was an adventurer, but he was killed by some bandits one day. I thought that was going to be me yesterday, but Kazuki saved me. I feel a little guilty. I’m sure being an adventurer doesn’t make Mari feel very relaxed.

After finishing my preparations, I leave home and head to the guild. I need to look to see what the best quests are in the silver ranks. I still need to finish the quests we took yesterday, but now that I’m technically silver ranked, I can take quests that pay more. Counting everything currently, I have 68 Silver.

I take a look at the quest board, and as expected, even with a silver rank taking these quests will still result in it taking a lot of time to gather three gold. Perhaps I should try what Kazuki suggested previously and aim for a rank up. I’d need around 500 prestige or so to do it. However, looking at the high prestige quests, I decided against trying that since they’d be far too dangerous for my solo. I end up picking a few silver rank herbs gathering quests and some higher paying subjugation quests in the same area.

As I walk out of the guild, I hear some adventurers snickering at me and talking behind my back. To some extent, it no longer bothers me when they do. As long as they aren’t in my face about it, they can talk all they want.

I decide to finish up yesterday’s quests first since I’d lose prestige if I forget them. However, fighting a lesser dire wolf is not something I’d want to do without Kazuki. Since the church is on the way, I might as well check on Kazuki. I arrive at the tall white church, and a different nun comes to the door. Before she can even start passing rude glances at me, I quickly state why I’m here.

“Hi, I’m here to check on an adventurer named Kazuki. I’m his party member.”

“Of course, you must be the half-elf that paid his fees. You are the talk of the church. Unfortunately, you can’t see him right now, as we are preparing for the ritual. Using [High Heal] is not the simplest endeavor, and the timing of it needs to be right after the injury. Even after it is cast, he won’t instantly be healed. It will take a few days before he wakes up. Come back here later tonight. You’ll be able to take him home with you then.”

“Thank you very much for this.”

I bow deeply to the nurse, but she smiles and waves it off. I leave the church and continue my journey, heading out of the northern gate then traveling to the west of the town. It’s a quiet forest that isn’t too dense. However, it is an excellent place to find herbs and is also the home of many giant rats.

Once I find the rats, actually killing them shouldn’t be too bad, a little gruesome but otherwise simple. As I walk, I also manage to find a lot of herbs that the quest requires. Finally, after a while, I come to a clearing, and my heart stops. In the center is exactly what I was hoping to avoid, a lesser dire wolf.

The wolf has very dark fur and distinct red eyes. Its size is much larger than a regular wolf, and it seems to have a much sharper shape. It certainly is threatening. If this wolf attacked me directly, I could die quickly.

It hasn’t noticed me yet, and I may be able to run if I try. However, before I could bring myself to run, I get the feeling inside that this is the chance to prove myself as a silver rank adventurer. If I can bring this wolf down, then it’ll prove that I’m an adventurer, just like mother said. I slowly lower to the ground and begin carving a summoning circle into the ground. This one is much weaker than the flare wolf I used before. My life would be over if I ran out of mana alone.

After I complete the summoning circle, a blue cat jumps out of it. The blue cat is called a wave cat, and it possesses some weak water magic. At my level, most of my summons can only function as a distraction. Still, nevertheless, that can be useful, as proven during the last fight. It seems that the wolf hasn’t noticed me yet.

I crouch down and ready my knife. I then nod at the cat, implying that it should begin fighting. The wave cat circles around then quickly run out into the clearing. The dire wolf immediately attacks it. While the wolf is busy trying to kill the cat, I dart into the clearing. Jumping onto the wolf’s back, as I do, I grip into in with my knife. The inertia from the running start causes the wolf to fall over, leaving us both lying on the ground.

The wolf is frantically shaking around trying to hit me, but there isn’t much that it can do with the knife currently stabbing into it. My small wave cat recklessly claws at the wolf, trying to hurt it, but it’s honestly not doing anything to it. I try to stab the knife deeper into the wolf, but eventually, it manages to get free. Even lesser dire wolves are threatening monsters.

The dire wolf twists around a bit but eventually charges at me, going in for a bite. I hold up my arm that isn’t holding my knife. I’m quickly knocked to the ground. The wolf is biting into my arm, and it hurts a lot. The feeling of hot blood drips onto my face. The pain I feel in my arm is immense. I can’t hesitate over this, though, I think, as stab my knife into the wolf’s eye socket. I don’t make it all the way in on my first try, so I twist the knife applying as much force as possible. Eventually, the knife reaches through the wolf’s eye socket and into its brain. The wolf seizes a few times, but eventually, its body goes limp. Leaving only its last impressive bite on my arm still locked in place.

I take several deep breaths but eventually manage to pull the wolf’s jaw open, allowing me to remove my arm. There’s a lot of blood, and the spot where the wolf bit looks nasty, but I quickly do my best to patch up the wound with the bandages I had packed in my backpack.

If it wasn’t for Kazuki’s inspiration, I wouldn’t have been able to win this fight. I would have probably died. Before now, I always chose fights that I could easily win, never truly challenging anything. I feared getting hurt, and it slowed my progress considerably. After Kazuki recklessly attacked the bandits putting himself in that state, how could I consider something like this terrifying? I can’t put this life that he saved to shame, can I?

I do my best to butcher the wolf taking evidence of the kill with me in my backpack. I take this moment to eat some of the food I packed and regain some of my energy. Usually, I would complete a quest and then head home, but instead, I continue my hunt.

After a few hours, I successfully killed the three giant rats that the other quest required. After completing all of the quests, Kazuki decided for us I head back to the city to complete the quests.

I’m quite happy with myself. Maybe I actually do deserve to be a silver rank! I smile to myself while walking back. I’m sure Kazuki will be so proud of me hearing what I accomplished! Gosh, when did I become so obsessed with him!? Bad Elli!

Upon entering the guild, my smile turns into a frown. There are three adventurers who always give me trouble hanging around the bar. They are silver ranks that started adventuring at the same time that I did. They’ve always made fun of me because I’ve never taken any impressive quests and am a half-elf.

“If it isn’t Elli! Back from another herb gathering quest. Hah, are you ever going to do something adventurer like?”

“Haha, don’t be mean to Elli. She occasionally hunts slimes.”

“Yeah, because she would never be able to do something as gruesome as fight a monster with blood. She wouldn’t want to get dirty out there! Hahaha!”

“She really isn’t meant to be an adventurer.”

“Hey, Elli, why don’t you show us your haul for the day. Here I’ll even give you this silver coin. Show us your pathetic skills.”

Usually, I’d just take their bullshit, grin and bear it. I don’t think I can go back to that anymore, though. I think I’ll play along this time, though; it’ll be fun. I take off my backpack, my backpack, and open it up. I pull out the bloody head of the lesser dire wolf and toss it on the table.

“Here you go!”

The adventurers look shocked by the wolf skull. They were not expecting this at all. To throw salt in the wound, I throw three giant rat tails onto the table. Their shocked expression turns to anger.

“I bet you just got this from some adventurer, taking pity on you.”

“Yeah, no way Elli could do something like this. Not in a million years.”

“This is clearly fraud. Maybe we should report this to the guild master.”

“Report what to me?”

Standing behind them is the Orichalcum rank adventurer, who is also the guild master, Tark. His hulking stature is clearly intimidating, but he’s a kind person. Nevertheless, the adventurers are taken aback by his presence.

“T-this adventurer here has been a copper rank for months, and she has never done anything like hunting monsters. All she’s ever done is gathering quests and hunting slimes. It’s impossible for her to have killed a lesser dire wolf all on her own!”

The guild master looks at me up and down and then lets out an exasperated sigh. He smiles and speaks to me in a kind tone of voice.

“Sorry, these guys are bothering you, Elli; I hope you can forgive them. I heard you were here, so I came to give you this personally.”

The guild master tosses over two sets of Silver dog tags engraved with her and Kazuki’s name, the proof of being a silver rank adventurer. The three troublesome adventurers’ faces turn blank. They’re blown away by the situation. They couldn’t even fathom the thought that Elli became a silver rank adventurer so quickly. I respond happily to Tark’s gesture.

“Thank you Tark, it means a lot for the guild master to give this to me personally. And sure, I can forgive them this time, they’re a bit annoying, but they’re harmless.”

Tark nods and then turns his gaze at the troublesome trio. He takes a deep breath and then lays on his lecture hard.

“Alright, I’ll make them never bother you again. Listen up, you three bozos, I’m only going to tell you once. Yesterday, Elli and her partner happened to complete a mithril ranked quest. You’d be wise not to get on her or her partner’s bad side, or perhaps you would rather try fighting me?”

The troublesome trio slowly nods their head before focusing entirely on their meal, efficiently exiting the conversation. I wave goodbye to Tark as I take the proof of quest completion to the receptionist, who confirms that I completed the quests. Apparently, since we were registered as an official party Kazuki and I received prestige for completing the quest. In total, I made 2 Silver from the three quests that I completed.

I leave the guild again and spend the rest of the day completing some of the easier silver ranked quests that I took. It took quite a while since I had to explore a new area that I haven’t been in before, but I manage to complete three more quests. The quests earned me 13 more silver; however, these quests actually earned less prestige than the three copper quests. The wolf’s bite still hurts, but aside from that, I manage to get through the day with only a couple scratches. By the time I finish everything, the sun is close to setting.

As the sun sits level with the horizon, I finally reach the church and get to see Kazuki, his wounds all look to be healed on the outside. However, I’m told that he’s still healing on the inside. He really did get hit pretty hard by that fight. The church lends me a wheelchair to push him home with. As I push Kazuki down the streets, I feel a sense of peace.

Finally, I get into the house, and Mari curiously questions me about the strange man I brought home.

“Who is this, Oneechan?”

“This is my friend Kazuki. He’ll be staying here until he feels better. Will you be nice to him, Mari?”

“So, this is your friend. Any friend of Oneechan is a friend of mine!”

“Be sure to take good care of him during the day. He’s very important to me.”

I put Kazuki in my bed and sleep with Mari in her room.