Unsurprisingly even Jameson seemed to be struggling a bit under the onslaught of the two powerful Terror Birds despite Yarrol’s best efforts to keep him alive. So, when I slammed into one of the Terror Birds with the full force of my Lunge Skill the look of gratitude that crossed his face was noticeable despite the fact that he had been dealing with the vicious assault of the two monsters without complaint so far.

“Thanks Zeke!” He shouted as he activated another one of his Taunt Skills to make sure that the Terror Bird that I had just attacked wouldn’t tun its attention towards me.

“No problem,” I shouted back as I continued to attack the Terror Bird. “You focus on defence. The rest of us will focus on dealing damage.”

Jameson nodded in agreement as he blocked another attack from the other Terror Bird with his shield before deflecting another attack with the blade of his axe. Fern, Kelly, Katy and Tylie also joined the fight attacking the same Terror Bird that I was with a combination of blue bolts of energy, arrows, daggers and chakrams. Our individual attacks only did a little damage to the Terror Bird due to the difference in Levels, but even that little bit helped.

While we were attacking the Terror Bird Evie also helped us out with her own ranged attacks in between healing Warren and a couple of minutes later our Tank also joined the fight in his usual bombastic fashion charging headlong into one of the monstrous birds and knocking it to the ground. Jameson was still the main target of the Terror Birds but the combination of the stunning effect of Warren’s Shield Bash combined with the occasional Barrier from me allowed Yarrol and Evie to slowly restore his health over the next few minutes of the fight.

This allowed Jameson to get the occasional counterattack in instead of just staying on the defensive and not long after this we finally managed to kill one of the Adolescent Terror Birds. However, this caused the remaining Terror Bird to fly into a rage as a red aura surrounded its body making the three guards who were with us curse loudly.

“Get back everyone!” Tylie shouted. “When a monster enters this state, Taunts don’t work on it and it just attacks everything in range!”

Eyes wide we all started to retreat out of melee range, but this didn’t stop the Terror Bird setting its sights on Fern who screamed in pain as it lashed out at her with its razor-sharp talons. Cursing again Jameson activated a Skill that allowed him to quickly intercept the Terror Bird’s follow up attack with his shield.

“Get her out of here!” He shouted at Warren who had rushed over to help our fallen party member up as he shoved the enraged monster back with his shield before slamming his axe into its shoulder. Warren nodded as he quickly picked Fern up and started running in the direction of the others as Kelly quickly created a wall of earth behind them in case the Terror Bird decided to follow them.

Now that the Terror Bird had gone berserk its Stats had increased by a considerable amount allowing it to push even the massive Jameson around with ease. However, it also seemed to be taking a bit more damage from attacks even Katy’s normal arrows penetrated its thick hide with more ease to say nothing of our more powerful attacks.

Still the power boost that the monster had was no joke and its tendency to just randomly change targets could’ve easily caused us to lose a party member if it wasn’t for Jameson’s stunning attacks, my Barrier Skill and Kelly’s ability to throw up a wall of earth to block its sudden charges. Even so we couldn’t block all of its attacks and I learned first-hand just how sharp its claws were when it managed to break through both my Barrier Skill and my hastily activated Ward with ease.

I screamed in pain as its claws ripped into my arm. This attack also knocked me onto my back allowing the Terror Bird to latch its beak around my already injured left arm. I screamed in pain again as it slowly bit down harder. I could see it watching me with its big beady eye as it started to do something that caused the serrated edges of its beak to start sawing at my arm. To my horror I realised that I knew the look that it had in its eye all too well; this thing was enjoying torturing me.

With a snarl I started punching it in the side of the head while the others tried to draw its attention by attacking it, but the Terror Bird didn’t seem to be interested in letting go of my arm. Gritting my teeth, I jammed my finger into the eye that was mocking my pain and cast my Lightning Stream spell. It was all that I could do not to pull my fingers out of the now smoking hole where the Terror Bird’s eye had been but the numbers representing Experience and Soul Points still hadn’t appeared which meant that the Terror Bird was somehow still alive. Luckily my own spell didn’t seem to be able to affect me because if this was the real world then I would be getting electrocuted right now.

A few seconds later the Terror Bird’s twitching corpse collapsed on top of me as the numbers that I had been waiting for appeared above its smoking head.

“Okay, can you get this thing off of me now?” I asked Warren who had rushed over when he saw me go down as the weight of the monster sent another wave of pain up my left arm. I was getting really tired of getting pinned under monsters like this.

“Well then stop getting into situations where you end up underneath dead monsters,” Warren chuckled as he and Jameson started to pull the monster off of me.

“I would if you did your job,” I shot back which only made my friend laugh even louder as the Terror Bird’s body finally slid off of me.

“Fair enough,” Warren snorted as he helped me to my feet.

“Are you alright?” Evie asked as she ran up to us and turned pale when she saw the mess that my left arm had become. By now the HP bar at the top left corner of by vision was starting to blink rapidly as it continued to slowly drop. The bright red teardrop shape next to it told me that this was because of a bleeding effect from my injury. I shook my head; this simulated blood loss was pretty realistic. It should’ve been obvious to me that I had a bleeding effect on me, but things were already starting to get fuzzy.

Thankfully Evie started to heal me which prevented my HP from dropping even further but the bleeding effect was still causing my HP to drop so eventually Yarrol grudgingly cast a spell on me that removed the debuff. In the end Jameson had been forced to order him to heal me instead of him because Yarrol had been ignoring me despite the fact that Jameson was no longer in any danger of dying now that all of the enemies were dead.

As soon as he cleared my status effect Yarrol turned away with a sneer and started looting the bodies of the Terror Birds that we had killed. The others glared at him, but it was clear that he had no desire to do anything more to heal the rest of us now that the three guards were back at full HP. Jameson glared at him for a few moments before shaking his head with a loud sigh.

“Are you alright Zeke?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied. “You can loot the bodies.”

“Okay,” he nodded and ordered everyone other than Evie who was still healing me to help Yarrol loot the corpses and destroy the eggs that hadn’t already been destroyed in the fight. Sadly, it was about now that the potion that we had all taken to block our sense of smell stopped working. It turned out that even fresh Terror Bird eggs smelled worse than rotten chicken eggs so not only did we have to deal with the stench of the piles that the Terror Birds had left behind but the smell of the broken eggs as well and soon we were surrounded by a pungent cloud that clung to our clothes even after we left the area.

“If their eggs smell so bad why is their meat edible?” Evie asked in between gagging on the smell.

“Who knows?” Tylie coughed. “Does it really matter? Let’s just get out of here so that we can clean up.”

“Agreed,” Jameson nodded. “Now that we’ve taken care of a decent number of the older Terror Birds and the mating pair, we can get other outsiders to mop up the rest. There’s a river over this way that we can get the worst of the muck off, follow me.”

We all nodded and started following Jameson as he started to head out. None of us had checked our Status or Soul Links sheets to see whether we had Levelled Up and at the moment getting rid of the smell was more important to us anyway. Unfortunately, it was that very smell that attracted more Terror Birds who obviously recognised the smell of their own broken eggs and were very angry to see us instead of freshly hatched chicks that had somehow managed to escape the field where their parents were.

Naturally this meant that they attacked us in their rage which did absolutely nothing to improve our collective mood. In the end we had to kill another 7 Terror Birds before we even made it to the river and then the guys had to fight off another 3 while the girls quickly cleaned themselves up. Luckily, we weren’t attacked again after that though or things might’ve become a little bit interesting even with Tylie there.

“That is so much better,” Warren groaned once had had re-equipped his clothes which automatically dried itself as they disappeared from his hand and reappeared on his body. “I’m so glad that we didn’t have to wait for everyone’s clothes to dry.”

While the guards weren’t able to equip their own equipment like we were it turned out that Yarrol could also use a couple of weak fire spells and was able to dry their clothes pretty quickly after they had cleaned them. The rest of us had been surprised by this revelation but apparently Yarrol had literally only bought the Soul Core that morning which was why he hadn’t used any of the spells yet. It did make a certain amount of sense though; he had been brought along to keep us all healed. If only he had actually done that without being specifically ordered to by Jameson.

Still it did mean that we were able to head back into town instead of waiting around for our clothes to dry which could’ve taken hours. We were all pretty exhausted by this point, so we actually made a point to avoid more fighting on the way back.

“Well that was definitely an experience,” Warren sighed when the gates of the town were in sight. “I honestly wasn’t expecting the monsters to be quite as nasty as those Terror Birds were.”

“Yeah, but I knew that you two could handle it,” I replied with a nod. “And things worked out really well.”

“Indeed,” Jameson agreed having obviously heard us talking. “You all did very well. We would’ve had to ask other outsiders to help us if Zeke hadn’t told us about you and I just don’t think that things would’ve worked out quite as well.”

“Thank you, Jameson,” Kelly said to the massive man. “I know that bringing us along was a risk because of our Levels.”

“Well like I’ve been saying, I trust Zeke’s judgement,” Jameson replied with a shrug. “And even if you hadn’t been as good as he claimed you were all we would’ve had to do was go back and find some other outsiders who were willing to help out.”

“Or we could’ve gotten other guards to help us out,” Yarrol interrupted. “You know since we know that we can trust them.”

“I’ve told you before Yarrol; we couldn’t have taken any other guards with us because they were all needed in town,” Jameson snapped at the smaller man. “It was difficult enough convincing the captain to let me take you and Tylie along with us.”

“The only reason we couldn’t spare the guards to take care of something as simple as a flock of Terror Birds was because of outsiders in the first place,” Yarrol replied much more loudly now that we were in earshot of the town. It was pretty obvious that he was looking for support from the guards at the gate and to be perfectly honest with you I was actually expecting him to find some. But then I realised that the people guarding the gate today were the same guards that had saved me on my first day in the game and they were all watching him with irritated looks on their faces.

“Damn it Yarrol,” one of them said as we got even closer. “You really don’t get it do you?”

“What do you mean?” Yarrol asked deflating slightly as he saw that he wasn’t going to get the support that he had wanted.

“The kid over there went hunting Terror Chicks on his first day here,” the guard replied gesturing at me. “While he was still Level 1. And that’s nothing compared to the other stuff that he ended up doing over the next couple of days. There’s a reason that he’s trusted to do things like this.”

“Yes, I am well aware that Harmon favours him,” Yarrol sniffed. “But I don’t see what that has to do with giving him this level of responsibility.”

“Do you even know what he actually did to earn that level of trust?” Tylie asked acerbically. “Because let me tell you something; he did more in a single day than you did in most of the time that you have been a guard if not all of it.”

“That’s right,” Jameson nodded. “I’m sure we’ve already told you that and every other guard would tell you the same story.”

“Well even if one outsider isn’t as bad as the others that doesn’t mean that his friends couldn’t be as bad as some of their kind,” Yarrol whined.

“Seriously dude you need to stop,” Warren interrupted before anyone else could respond to the annoying man. “We’ve been putting up with this since we met you. You don’t know anything about us other than what you have seen us do today. So maybe you should show at least a modicum of respect.”

“Whatever,” Yarrol snapped as he walked away leaving us all staring after him.

“Seriously how stubborn is that prick?” Katy asked. “I swear we’ve had the same or at least a similar conversation several times today.”

“That’s because we have,” Kelly replied as she rolled her eyes.

“Like I’ve said; I’ll make sure he’s disciplined for his rudeness,” Jameson sighed apologetically. “Now if you’ll follow me back to the barracks, we’ll sort out your rewards.”

We all agreed and headed off in the direction of the barracks after saying goodbye to the other guards who all apologised for Yarrol’s actions. It was pretty clear that he wasn’t exactly the most popular person around which made it even more of a mystery why Jameson had brought him along in the first place.

“Say Zeke?” Warren asked me as we walked down the street towards the barracks.

“Yeah?”

“The barracks is where you did your extra training right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“How strong is the guy whose training you?”

“Harmon?” I asked thoughtfully. “I’m not sure exactly how strong he is because of how Skills and Stats work in this world, but I can tell you he’s an excellent fighter.”

“Hmm, if you’re saying that it must be true,” my friend mused with an excited glint in his eye. I sighed tiredly at this; Warren was somewhat of a battle maniac and chances were that he was going to challenge Harmon when they met. I suppose Harmon might indulge him with a sparring match if I asked though.

“Tell you what,” I told him “I’ll ask Harmon if he would be willing to have a sparring match with you if you promise to be polite.”

“Really?” Warren asked excitedly as Kelly sighed. “That would be great!”

Soon we found ourselves in front of the old man himself and like I promised Warren I asked whether Harmon would be willing to have a sparring match with him.

“Not right now,” Harmon replied. “But maybe in a couple of days. I’m quite busy right now I’m afraid.”

“Okay that sounds good,” Warren agreed. “I’ll hold you to that old man!”

The eyes of everyone present all widened at this rather rude response from my friend but Harmon just started laughing which made the captain’s face turn pale like it had when Harmon had talked about training on the first day that I had met him.

“Well then shall we get your rewards for the Quest sorted out?” Harmon asked once he had finished laughing.

“Yes, that would be great,” I replied before Warren could put his foot in his mouth again.

“Alright then, Jameson how many Terror Birds did you end up killing in the end?”

In the end it turned out that we had earned almost 12 gold from all of the Terror Birds that we had killed. Harmon had even given us a gold coin each for the mating pair which surprised me since Jameson had actually done most of the work. None of us were going to look a gift horse in the mouth however and we accepted the reward without complaint.

I suspected that the experience that we received from the Quest had been more than enough to bring everyone except Warren and Kelly up to Level 5 which meant that not only would we have to sort out our Soul Cores we would have to figure out what crafting Skills we were all going to get.

…Come to think of it I still had to work something out.

“Hey Harmon?” I asked. “You have to be trained to learn how to use your Crafting Skills right?”

“That’s right,” Harmon nodded.

“Can you tell me who can train me in Core Crafting and Focus Creation?”

“Well you’ve already met the best trainer in town when it comes to Core Crafting,” Harmon replied.

“Wait, do you mean Kerr?” I asked quickly.

“Indeed,” Harmon nodded.

“Ah crap I guess that I’ll have to complete that Quest that he gave me first,” I groaned as I realised that the irritable old man wasn’t going to be happy to see me at all until, I had completed his task. “Alright and what about the Focus Creation Trainer?”

“Hand me your map, I’ll just mark all of the best trainers in town on it,” Harmon replied. “It’ll save you coming back and asking later. Especially since most of them sell equipment and other things that you’ll probably want.”

“Ah, yeah that makes sense,” I admitted sheepishly as I handed over my map which had appeared in my hands with a flash of light. “I’ll add the markers to your maps later guys.”

“Well then,” Harmon said once he had handed my map back to me. “Now that that’s done, I have some other news for you. Do you remember the other outsiders who attacked you?”

“Yes.”

“Well another two groups of outsiders have come forward and told us that they had been attacked by that group themselves,” Harmon told me. “Don’t worry we made sure that they were telling the truth. However, this means that we owe you another reward. I was thinking another silver each and 3 Soul Points for your Ranger Core.”

“Um, wow,” I replied in a surprised tone. While I had thought that there was a possibility that we would get a reward from capturing the idiot player killers I definitely hadn’t been expecting to get Soul Points for my Ranger quite as easily as this.

“I take it that you weren’t expecting me to hand out those Soul Points as easily as this?” Harmon chuckled as he saw the consternation on my face. “Well there’s no need for increasing your rank as a Ranger to be more difficult than necessary. You already need a lot of Soul Points to reach the next one after all.”

“Okay, yeah that makes sense I guess,” I agreed. “Does it make me any more likely to become a fully fledge Ranger though?”

“It does,” Harmon nodded. “We will still want you to perform more tasks for us, but every little bit helps.”

“Okay sure do you have anything else for me right now?” I asked as Harmon handed over the silvers that we had earned for taking out the player killers.

“No, I actually don’t,” Harmon replied. “But I believe that actually already have more than enough of you own things to take care of right now, don’t you?”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “Well then shall we head out?”

“Yeah,” Kelly agreed. “I want to do some shopping.”

My friends all nodded in agreement, so we bid Harmon and the others good luck and headed off into the streets of Ponson.