We've made it to the first fork in the road. It splits two ways and both eventually lead to Shienta. From asking about the route previously, I knew that both were fairly safe. The road to the left does go through a forest. Which has some tougher enemies, like skeletons and a shadows.

The path to the left also has a village in the middle of the forest. We could stock up and rest. The path to the right curves around the forest. We might still get attacked by skeletons and shadows but the chances are lower.

We unanimously vote to go through the forest. I'm the only real hindrance to the party at the moment. Even so I can still provide some backup. It isn't long into our journey through the forest that we get attacked by a skeleton and a shadow. Skeletons are exactly as they sound. These are lower level ones so they don't have any armor or weapons. Lance's weapon isn't very effective against them, so it takes more than one hit to kill them.

As for the shadows, they're extremely weak mimics that copy peoples shadows. Extremely weak enemies but if they touch you, they can inflict the status panic. Which might make you more susceptible to other status effects as well as a slight decrease to your resistances to magic. Scout isn't a very good offensive class but even low level I feel I'm slightly faster at spotting enemies then Lance and Kattie.

I start calling them out when I see them so we could start preparing for the fight before we're noticed. The wolf I tamed died along the way fighting a few skeletons. One of them got a critical and he died in one attack... I feel it was my fault for not being stronger. I've only just started getting close to him but... I was still sad to see it die. He would've gotten stronger, at least strong enough from me having higher beast tamer skills to survive... I need to get stronger so this doesn't happen again... We're halfway to the village when we see something ahead. I alert the other two and we move forward to get a closer look.

A merchant is being ambushed by 8 skeletons. A man with a full set of heavy armor is leaning against the cart the merchant has. For some reason the skeletons are armed with swords, shields and helmets. Which shouldn't be possible in this forest. We rush in to help. I already infused both mine and Lances weapon. I told Kattie to heal the guard as soon as she was in range.

We rush forward and get sneak attacks in on the skeletons. Thankfully I had cast haste on Lance before the fight. So he got there first and took most of the threat of the other few skeletons close to the ones we attacked. Lance was now strong enough to kill the skeletons in one hit but these ones were stronger so neither died. He did manage to break off the arm of his and I slashed at the feet of my hobbling it with opportune strike.

We found the weakness to the skeletons was their joints. My job was normally crippling them when I could. Kattie managed to get in ranged to heal the guard. The face I could see under his helmet had a scowl on it when she did. I wonder why? He stood up and managed to bludgeon the closest skeleton to him. It was attacking the horse pulling the cart.

Before the skeletons we surprised attacked, we managed to crush both of them. Lance killing his and I targeted both of my skeletons arm joints leaving it as just a body. 5 skeletons left. Kattie used magic she hasn't needed to use so far in the journey, weaken undead. A bright light flew out of her staff. Some of the skeletons started to shake a little. The effects weren't clear until Lance attacked another skeleton spearing clean through it.

I ran towards the cart and cast infuse magic fireball onto the guards mace. He looked confused at first, then understood. His attacks were already powerful enough to kill the skeletons. I just wanted to leech experience from him.

A few more minutes and the fight drew to a close. We did pretty well for being such a new group. The merchant thanked us kindly and the guard bowed his head. We stripped the skeletons of all their equipment. Totaling 4 swords, 6 shields and 9 helmets. The guard managed to kill 3 before we showed up but 1 got a lucky critical on him or he might have been able to beat them just by himself.

I asked why so many skeletons were attacking and the merchant responded.

“A new lich moved into the forest and has been spawning more of these skeletons. I tried to leave before the forest was filled but it looks like I'm too late.”

We escorted the merchant back to the village he came from. During the fight, I level up once. I started to get a little happy until I heard Lance say.

“Alright! 2 levels from that fight!”

I became dishearten again by how slowly I was leveling up. Being level 2 “Master of Learning” probably wasn't any better than level 1…

Once entering the village we all split up. I had all the equipment we looted minus a helmet Lance took for himself. I was planning on selling everything. As I was approaching the blacksmith to sell the swords, shields and helmets. I noticed a crowd forming in the center of the town. I quickly sold the gear for roughly 5 percent more then I would've gotten if I wasn't a merchant. I started making my way towards the crowd.

I could have possibly gotten around 5 percent more than I did. I would've had to haggle the price up with merchant and that would've taken time, so I just went with the slightly lower amount. He gave me 1 silver and 20 copper coins. I bought a pair of heavy boots for Lance around 60 copper.

I managed to find Kattie near the very back of the crowd. I asked her what was going on.

“They're forming a raid to take down the lich.”

It seems obvious after I asked.

I handed her the 60 copper coins left from the equipment. I didn't take any money that time for myself. I'm already happy with just getting levels. I'm sure Lance will be fine with not getting any money since I am giving him a pair of boots he can use. On the far side of the crowd, standing on a makeshift podium was the leader of the raid. He was speaking to the whole crowd asking for more people to join. It sounds like they really needed a white mage. Before I could get out a rebuttal that Kattie was a white mage, the guard we saved spoke up.

“This women right here is a white mage.” He pointed at Kattie.

I already planned on joining them but it seems we may have been forced into it anyways. The raiding party ended up being 10 people. The 3 from our group, the guard, the leader and 3 of his members and 2 villager kids. The leaders name was Karn and the guards name was Olaf. Olaf looked dumb... He had a dumb looking face that peaked through his mask. Karn had a very serious face in contrast to Olaf's... I couldn't see either of their hair as they were wearing helmets. They're the only ones I bothered to remember. The other members were kind of bland background characters.

Preparations needed to be made so we decided to wait until early morning tomorrow to head there. If we attacked the lich at night he'd have the advantage. I casually asked what everyone's classes and jobs were. It didn't seem like any of them had ones I didn't until we got to the end. One of the villagers who's name I didn't learn earlier said their class was summoner.

“Oh I've never seen a summoner's familiar before can you possibly summon a few so I can see them?”

I asked in an inquisitive way and she showed me and a notification popped up one I've seen many times now. For that I'll remember her name… Leaf.

Class learned Summoner

With how tall she is I had mistaken her for a boy until she had spoken. She wasn't very pretty, I wouldn't call her ugly either though... Her hair definitely makes her stand out. A very light green color, possibly the inspiration of her name. Besides that she is fairly forgettable. I guess her heirloom robes make her stick out as well. Sort of showing people that she is at least 10. So she is at least 3 years older than me.

It has been awhile since I've gotten a class. I was extremely happy and the passive skill for summoner is very strong. Reducing the cost of mana consumed by magic spells. Once we leave the village, I'll summon a few familiars to protect us. While we waited until tomorrow I could finally enchant my gear. With the new skill mana reduction so I could enchant slightly stronger enchants onto them.

It still takes an hour to regenerate my mana fully. Since we're going into a fight against a raid boss level enemy. It would be best to do it now instead of holding off. I enchanted all of our chest pieces with a mana control to 100 percent of my mana to warding magic shield that increases physical defense. The armor felt slightly heavier after doing that. Before I went to sleep, I also enchanted the new boots Lance got with the strongest haste magic I could.