One of Kyle’s chains whistled through the air as he brought it down on its target, a large spider-like monster. The things chitinous exoskeleton released a wet crunch as the powerful attack landed causing the creature to screech in pain which quickly became a dying gurgle as his spiked chain which was wreathed in crackling purple energy shot into its mouth and out the other side of its body.

Fi floated down from where she had been observing the fight as Kyle extricated his chains from the corpse of the monster that he had just killed and wrapped herself around his neck with a pleased look on her face as she looked around their immediate vicinity which was covered in the corpses that resembled that spider-like monster that Kyle had just killed.

“Well that went well,” Fi said cheerfully causing Kyle to snort irritably as he started to loot what he could from the badly damaged corpses. “Are you still annoyed by what happened earlier?”

“Aren’t you?” Kyle grumbled. “Have you ever heard of someone who became an Adventurer literally the previous day being forced to take on a Quest this important and dangerous?”

“Well no but then we’re not normal Adventurers, are we?”

“I suppose but I still can’t believe that we got roped into this,’ Kyle sighed as he thought back to what had happened that morning.

Kyle had woken up and made his way to the Adventurer’s Guild in the hopes of using the training area before anyone else got there since he had several Skills and spells that he wanted to get some practice in that he wasn’t ready for strangers to know about.

However, when he had walked in Caley had immediately accosted him with a worried look on her face and explained that an Emergency Quest had come up. Emergency Quests were Quests that required the immediate attention of the first available Adventurer who was above the rank that was normally required for Quests of a similar difficulty. There were several types of emergency Quests ranging from someone needing a specific ingredient to make something to cure a rare disease to rescuing someone from bandits or monsters which was much more common.

In fact, this Emergency Quest was one of these rescue missions. Sometime last night some wealthy merchant’s idiot son had been taken by a group of monsters. He had been travelling along the road next to a forest that was the location of one of the Quests that Caley had offered him yesterday since he had thought that it would be faster than travelling by the main road which would normally be true. Unfortunately for him he had ignored the warnings of the pair of Adventurers that he had hired as guards which had led to him and one of the guards being dragged away by monsters. The remaining guard had been found on the road in an extremely bad state and had told those who had found him what had happened leading to the Emergency Quest being made by the young man’s father who was understandably worried.

When the guard recovered enough to report on what he had seen he had told the Guild rep who had been waiting for him to be able to talk he had told the rep that both of his travelling companions had been dragged away by grotesque spider-like monsters. However according to what the Adventurer had described the spider monsters that had dragged the others away were almost as tall as the average man unlike the ones that Kyle had been fighting which barely came up to his waist and weren’t really that dangerous to him and Fi so he was starting to wonder whether the Adventurer had been mistaken about what he had seen.

Of course, considering what Kyle had been told about the state the Adventurer had been in when they had found him, he couldn’t blame the man for remembering things a bit differently from how they actually played out. Trauma could do that to a person. Besides, just because he hadn’t seen anything as horrifying as the things that the Adventurer had described that didn’t mean that they weren’t hiding somewhere nearby. In fact, he expected it since all three of the travellers had been over Level 5 and he couldn’t see the monsters that he had fought so far being powerful enough to defeat all of them without getting extremely lucky.

“Mostly I’m just surprised that they decided to send me in alone since whatever attacked the group was powerful enough to capture two of them and leave the third unable to fight,” Kyle sighed as he sat down and pulled out a waterskin that he took a quick drink from before offering it to Fi. “I mean I know that Caley assured us that she would be sending a suitable party of Adventurers to help us out as well it just seems a bit reckless.”

“Well there are a couple of reasons for this,” Fi pointed out. “If we are going to save the merchant then we need to move quickly and you are a higher rank than the two Adventurers that the merchant had hired,” Fi pointed out once she had taken a drink. “Even despite your lower Level. Speaking of which you Levelled Up during that fight.”

“Yeah I noticed,” Kyle nodded. This had been the second group of spider monsters that they had run into today and FI had told him that he had passed 65% of the way to Levelling Up after the last fight. “I suppose I should assign my Stat Points before we move on.”

“That would be a good idea,” Fi agreed as she brought up his Status Screen.

After considering their options they placed 3 points into Kyle’s Constitution since he didn’t get any Constitution from simply Levelling Up. The they decided to place two points each into Kyle’s Intelligence and Wisdom for the extra MP and regen. Once they were done with that, they examined Kyle’s Stat Screen one last time.

Statistics

Name: Kyle Fergusson

Race: Aethereal Human

Level: 6

Class: Chain Manipulator

HP: 202/202

HP regen: 3.2 p/s

MP: 205/205

MP regen: 11.5 p/s

SP: 189/179

SP regen: 9.5 p/s

Str: 16(8)

Dex: 28(10)

Agi: 35(12)

Con: 20(10)

End: 19(11)

Int: 18(12)

Wis: 19(11)

Will: 21(11)

Exp to next Level: 4%

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

“Right then, I guess it’s my turn,” Fi said as she brought up her own Stat Screen. “Right what should we do with my Unassigned Stat Points?”

“Well I’d still be more comfortable if you had some more HP,” Kyle said but you are quite hard to hit so…”

“Well why don’t I put one of my Stat Points into Constitution and the other into Wisdom?” Fi asked.

“Wait, don’t you get three points in Wisdom every time you Level Up?”

“Yes, but increasing it even further is still a good idea since magic is the only way that I can really help you in a fight at the moment,” Fi nodded.

“Well alright then,” Kyle agreed. “But we should look into non-magical Abilities for you as soon as possible as well just in case we run into something that magic can’t affect.”

Fi nodded at this as she assigned the Points to her Status. As a companion she was nowhere near as formidable in a fight as Kyle was. Even if she had her Battle Form Ability Kyle was much more powerful than she was but she was still quite pleased with her growth at the moment. After all she didn’t need to be able to keep up with him in close range combat, she just needed to be able to hap him out with magic. Kyle would do all of the heavy lifting as far as combat was concerned and Fi would do her best to make sure that nothing went wrong.

Statistics

Name: Fi Fergusson

Race: Quetzalcoatl (Divine Beast)

Level: 6

Companion Type: Support Caster

HP: 60/60

HP regen: 0.6 p/s

MP: 150/150

MP regen: 8.5 p/s

SP: 40/40

SP regen: 4 p/s

Str: 4

Dex: 5

Agi: 14

Con: 6

End: 4

Int: 16

Wis: 17

Will: 8

Exp to next Level: 4%

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

Now that they were done assigning Fi’s Stat Points they discussed what to do about the 3 Ability Points that she had right now.

“I think that I should save them up to buy my Battle Form Ability,” Fi said and Kyle nodded slowly in agreement. Fi’s Battle Form Ability cost 5 Points to unlock so she would be able to purchase it the next time that they Levelled Up.

“Alright but then you should unlock your Venom Ability,” Kyle told her. “That way you have an attack Ability that doesn’t use MP.”

Agreed,” Fi nodded. As the name suggested Unlocking her Venom Ability would allow her to produce a small amount of venom like the snake that she resembled and would unlock other Abilities such as Venom Spit or Venom Cloud that would give her a ranged and area attack respectively. She could even pick from several different types of venom when she unlocked the Ability and asked what Kyle thought the best choice for her would be.

“I think Psychotropic Venom would be the best choice,” Kyle said. “It should allow you to cause a lot more chaos if you use it on the right enemies.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Fi nodded. “Alright I think that we’re done here then.”

“Right,” Kyle nodded as he rose to his feet and was about to continue deeper into the forest when he heard the sound of someone screaming in a rather girlish manner back the way that they had come and immediately turned around and started running towards it with a loud curse.

“I’ll go on ahead and check things out,” Fi said as she shot ahead of him. “Hopefully it’s just the Adventurers who Caley sent to back us up but that doesn’t mean that we can afford to take that chance.”

Fi wasn’t too worried about going on ahead without Kyle. He could move almost as fast as she could and besides that anything that was close enough to be waiting to ambush them as they moved would have heard the scream as well.

A few minutes later Fi arrived at the site of their previous fight and found that her suspicions were indeed correct it had been a member of the group of Adventurers that were in front of her now that had been screaming. Fi sighed sadly as she realised that this meant that their backup probably wouldn’t be that useful. Not that she blamed the young woman who was currently cleaning spider guts off of herself for screaming but she had probably already attracted the attention of nearby monsters and hadn’t even fought any yet.

“Excuse me,” Fi said loudly causing all three of the Adventurers to draw their weapons as they turned towards the sound of her voice. It was all that she could do not to sigh again when she saw this. It was pretty obvious that this group of Adventurers was pretty green to the point that she was actually surprised and a little bit horrified that this was the group sent to provide backup for Kyle and Fi.

“Holy shit,” the only male Adventurer in the group said as he sheathed his sword which resembled a longer version of the curved blade that Ryan typically fought with. “You scared me.”

“Well I’m sorry about that,” Fi said calmly despite her rapidly increasing irritation. “But you need to keep quiet. These monsters are incredibly hard to spot unless you know what you’re doing, and you gave away your position with that scream a couple of minutes ago.”

The young woman who was attempting to clean the slimy spider guts out of her hair flushed in embarrassment at Fi’s words but nodded.

“Sorry about that Fi,” the final member of the group said awkwardly. The person in question was in fact Fervah, the same young woman who had watched Kyle while he made Inscriptions the other day. “Some spider guts fell on her head when she walked under that branch over there.”

“I understand that, but this is a dangerous place,” Fi sighed before turning around as she heard the sound of rapid footsteps as her partner approached.

“Is everything alright here?” Kyle asked as he came to a skidding halt next to his companion who landed on his neck like she usually did.

“Yeah we’re all okay,” Fervah nodded. “Sorry for making a fuss like that.”

“Well I guess its fine,” Kyle said giving his acquaintance a nod. “After all we met up earlier than we would’ve otherwise.

“That’s true,” Fi agreed making the other three Adventurers sigh in relief as they realised that Kyle and Fi weren’t really that angry. “Just be a bit more careful next time. Like I said this place is dangerous.”

“Sorry,” the unfortunate girl who still had spider guts in her hair muttered as Kyle and Fi approached.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Kyle chuckled awkwardly. “I’m sorry that we made such a mess. Alright I guess we should talk about how this is going to work. My name is Kyle can attack from range and up close as well as Enchantments that can boost my combat potential even further. My Class is mainly focussed on speed though so I’m a bit fragile.”

“And I’m Fi, Kyle’s companion. I’m a Support Caster,” Fi continued. “So, I can use all of Kyle’s magic as well as a couple of other spells that Kyle can’t use such as simple healing spells.”

“Alright,” the young man nodded. “Well I’m Laurence and I have a slightly rarer form of a Warrior-type Class known as a Samurai which focusses more on fast attacks and dodging. I can take a reasonable amount of damage but I’m not quite as hardy as a normal warrior would be.”

“Well Kyle, Fi and I have already met so they already know my name but I’m a Marksman,” Fervah chimed in. “So, I’m the ranged attacker of our party. I do have a couple of spells because I want to become a Ranger when I reach Level 20, but I only recently got Mana Manipulation, so I only have a couple of spells and my Stats are a bit one sided.

“And I’m Carly the healer,” the young woman who had evidently given up on cleaning the spider guts out of her hair said. “But unlike a lot of healers my healing spells are mostly healing over time because I use Water Magic instead of the more commonly chosen Light Magic. I do have some Crowd Control spells as well to make up for that though.”

Kyle nodded calmly as he realised why this party had been chosen. They might not be the most experienced, but they were quite well balanced for a three-person party and from what they had told him they should be able to keep up with his movement speed. The fact that he had already met Fervah was also an advantage. Especially when you considered his status as an Aethereal Human but Kyle would be sure to keep an eye on them in the first couple of fights to see if he could spot any problems.

“Good, so can you handle acting as the Tank, Laurence?” Kyle asked and the other young man nodded in agreement. “Good. I’ll focus on taking the monsters out but Fi and I will keep an eye on you in case you need a hand since we have a couple of defensive spells and control Skills.”

Laurence nodded once again in agreement. Caley had warned them that this was probably going to be what Kyle suggested and he didn’t see any reason to disagree with him. After all he usually functioned as their Party’s version of a Tank anyway and they had also been told that Kyle was a graduate of the Adventurer’s School so even though they had been working as Adventurers for a month already he was technically more experienced than they were.

He had doubted that Kyle would be as much stronger than they were as Caley had suggested but the scene of destruction that surrounded them right now combined with the fact that Kyle didn’t have so much as a scratch on him had him completely convinced that she was correct and from the looks on the faces of his fellow Party Members they agreed with his assessment.

“Good,” Kyle nodded. “Then we need to keep moving. We need to find the merchant and his guard as soon as possible. I just hope that we’re not already too late.”

The others nodded in agreement and followed Kyle and Fi deeper into the forest. Without even really noticing Kyle had essentially become the de facto leader of the group as they all followed his lead as he moved with a surety that made him seem like he had been an Adventurer for years.

A short while later he came to a sudden halt and the others followed suit. Looking around with a frown on his face he glanced at Fi who nodded in agreement. Turning to the others he crouched down, and they followed suit and gathered up around them.

“Fi spotted some more of the monsters that I fought earlier in the trees up ahead,” Kyle whispered to the others who frowned slightly but nodded in agreement. “It’s not a large group. There are only about six of them but according to Fi they are slightly larger than the ones I fought earlier so this is a good test of what we are capable of.”

“Anything we should know about these things?” Laurence asked curiously as he glanced up at the branches above their heads as he recalled that Kyle had mentioned that they were in the trees.

“Well as you might expect they are ambush predators so they’re not that great at actually fighting if you manage to avoid a surprise attack, but they are venomous,” Fi explained. “Some of them can even spit their venom so watch out for that. They can also make webbing so be wary that there may be another variant that can shoot that as well. We haven’t seen one that can do that so far, but similar creatures have been spotted in the past.”

The other members of their makeshift party nodded. Variant popped up relatively randomly so even if they hadn’t seen a particular type yet that didn’t mean that they weren’t around.

“They do have spiked forelegs though,” Kyle pointed out. “So, don’t just expect them to try and bite you if you engage them in melee combat. But other than that, Fi’s right. As far as monsters go these aren’t that strong but I’m fully expecting there to be much more powerful specimens further in. Right then, if you have any buffs or other Skills that you want to use now is the time to do it.”

Carly nodded and she cast a spell that would increase everyone’s HP regen but then her eyes widened in surprise as Kyle cast five spells one after the other. The first three spells were his Minor Frost, Vampiric and Soul Syphon Enchantments which he cast on his three chains, but the other two were his Minor Physical Defence and Lightning Enchantments which he cast on Laurence. It was pretty obvious to her that Kyle’s Mana Manipulation Skill was higher than her own and he also had a lot of spells that he could use. However, what was even more impressive to her was that he didn’t seem worried about using up so much of his Mana before the fight had even started which she knew was partially because of his nature as an Aethereal Human but even considering that he must have invested fairly heavily in his Intelligence which was unusual for someone who had a class that focussed more on physical combat like Kyle said his did.

Once they were all ready Kyle took point as Fi took to the air. Normally Laurence would be going first because he was the Tank but Fi could sneak up on the spider monsters and let Kyle know what they were doing telepathically which meant that he would be able to avoid the trap that they were about to spring.