I’d primarily been loafing around for the past three days, trying different ways to relax. The spa had been a nice change of pace for sure and the employees there did their best to make me comfortable, but at the end of the day, I was still an alien species they knew close to nothing about. Some of the other things I’d tried included organizing a big barbecue for us, which was pretty fun, all things considered, even if I could not taste any of the good food.

I truly thought that having no taste buds was a blessing since I was convinced that the monsters I kept shoveling into my gullet wholesale had to taste terrible. Still, I’d appreciate the ability to taste good food again. I remembered that I’d been able to taste that one drink Tim had made for me… somehow. Maybe I could recreate that effect with food eventually. I’d have to ask him.

Andrius and Orbos also got me hooked on a card game they played that was somewhat similar to poker. The cards were different, the rules too, but I got the hang of it rather quickly and now we spend a good chunk of the day playing at the living room table. They gingerly brought up the topic of going to the casino, but I declined, for now. I still wasn’t too sure about how I felt about this piece of my past casually being present here. Nimma regularly took me on walks to show me the city, even if most of it consisted of skyscrapers. There was still beauty to be found if you knew where to look.

Of my little retinue, the one I interacted the least with was Redax. The Asphon preferred to keep to himself and wasn’t a man of many words. The guy also had his stealth abilities up almost 24/7 and I sometimes didn’t even realize he was in the same room until he announced himself.

I’d also finally managed to broach the sensible subject of not being able to tell them apart. It had been embarrassing to finally admit to it after spending two whole days with them but they all just laughed and told me that every traveler was the same in that regard. Without losing a beat they not only started pointing out physical identifiers on their bodies but also taught me general things to look out for.

The two biggest differences between Asphons were their size and their spine/tail area. Surprisingly, the faceplate was the most uniform thing about their race and if I tried to apply my human identification senses to them I’d hopelessly get lost. When they said size, they didn’t simply mean that I should check how tall an Asphon was, but also how thick and long their arms and legs were. Every body part of an Asphon could vary wildly in size, which made it a prime identifier for them.

Then there was the spine. Most Asphons had some kind of bony protrusions going from their neck to the tip of their tail. These also came in many shapes and sizes and almost no two Asphons looked the same there, they were almost like fingerprints. Combined with having familiarized myself with their voices I had slowly become able to at least tell apart my new friends.

Aside from those main two things, there were also a lot of minor things to keep an eye out for. For example, their exoskeletons often had different “designs”. Those could be expressed in odd formations in their chest area, claws that looked more akin to gauntlets, or more rounded or sharp edges. The devil is in the details, as they say.

But still, after three days of sitting back and relaxing, I realized that I just couldn’t shake that itch. It was nice to sit back and do nothing for a while, but the urge to get into a fight was everpresent. I’d been aware of this for a long time now, but I really had become quite addicted to the rush of a battle. Nowadays my battles may end with a spell or two, taking a lot of the “fun” out of it, but I felt like I still needed to go out there and kill something. It felt weird to admit that I wanted to take another creature's life. After all, doing so was a big taboo in human society. Here, though? As a traveler? It was expected.

And rewarded.

“I want to do a quest,” I suddenly announced after losing my latest hand to Orbos, who raked in the snacks we used as chips.

“Sure, what kind of quest?” Andrius replied since Orbos was too busy stuffing his face now that he realized the chips weren’t needed anymore.

“I need to kill something…” I said, somehow overly conscious of how the two of them would react to my statement. “So preferably something where I need to go out of the city to hunt?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Andrius replied getting up from his chair and walking toward the stairs. He pulled out the notice board where they’d been organizing the quests that were suggested by the people of the city.

By now the entire city was aware that a traveler was residing in their town and most, if not all of them, wanted me to complete their quests. Every single Asphon in the city had the right to generate a quest, and as I’d been told multiple times now if I completed a quest, the quest giver would receive some kind of benefit as well. That being said, the reward for the quest was decided by the system. I’d told them early on to throw out any quests that didn’t give me at least one level, but the citizens still tried to get my help by offering extra rewards, such as copious amounts of money.

I might eventually do some of these quests, but for now, I wanted to focus on getting to level twenty and completing my bonus objectives.

The quest board they’d cobbled together was just a thick plate of wood completely plastered with sticky notes. One of the downsides of the quests was that I needed to accept the quest directly from the quest giver. Thus, when a citizen approached one of Nimma’s team, they took down the details of where to find them, the content of the quest, as well as the reward that was generated for it. I was told that every citizen was allowed to generate one quest, and lots of them did, even if they didn’t think that I would take the quest.

I’ve been told that there were rather quirky quests like “Come and do my laundry” or “Beat up my shop’s competitor”. I guess, in a sense, submitting a quest to me was akin to playing the lottery. Thousands of entries had been made, but if I stuck only to what I needed to do, only twenty individual-tier quests would get completed. The exception to the rule were, of course, the leaders of the various settlements.

I took one look at the overcrowded board and almost immediately gave up. “Can’t you pick something for me? You should have some idea which quests are decent, right?”

“Depends, how difficult do you want this quest to be?” Andrius asked, scanning over the board, while Orbos was still happily munching on his winnings.

“As difficult as possible?” I suggested, doubting that an individual-tier quest would present any kind of challenge to me. Maybe it was the hubris speaking, but I honestly believed that I was too strong for this layer at this point. “Are there any that give more than one level?”

“Rarely, and currently there are none,” Andrius replied while pulling a few notes from the board. “Here are three quests that would be considered decently difficult. They all boil down to go to place, kill monster. Some of them want the monster parts for crafting, while others want to get rid of an enemy that was too strong for the regular patrols. No matter, as long as you kill what they want you to, you’ll complete the quest.”

I looked at the three notes he placed before me. The first one called for the body of a fortress armadillo, the second wanted me to exterminate a pack of undolons, whatever those were, and the last one was a request to kill a stone elemental that was getting a bit out of hand because it started adding entire skyscrapers to its mass.

“What are undolons?” I asked, unsure which quest to pick.

“They’re these worm things that can swim through the ground. If you fail to notice them, they’ll pop out of the ground and bite your leg off before you know it. Worse still, they hunt in packs.”

“Sounds annoying, I think I’ll try and go for the fortress armadillo,” I decided and picked up the note. It was a quest from a blacksmith who wanted the armadillo’s armor to create shields. “Can one of you guide me to the quest giver?”

“Sure,” Andrius nodded. “You want any help fighting that thing?”

“No, thank you, I should be fine,” I decline the offer. “But if you know where I can find any of these armadillos, I’d love to get some guidance. Should save me some time.”

“Ah, then you should probably go with Redax,” Andrius turned toward the kitchen and called out. “Hey Redax, you wanna help Gary here with his first quest?”

“No problem,” the voice came from directly behind me and it took a good amount of self-control that I didn’t jump. How Redax kept evading my void feelers was beyond me, but the dude was practically invisible to me.

“Alright, we’ll stay here then, you guys have fun out there,” Andrius nudged Orbos's shoulder to get his attention and vaguely gestured toward the deck of playing cards.

Redax motioned for me to follow him, so I hopped off my chair and went after him, hearing Orbos wanting to put actual money on their next game as we left. He led me to the quest givers workshop and a short while and some translating on Redax's part later, I had accepted the quest, much to the Asphon's joy. Redax seemed to have some idea as to where we could find a fortress armadillo and we left the city in short order. The next hour was spent in silence as Redax looked for tracks of the monster we were hunting. I occasionally asked him what exactly he was doing in an attempt to absorb at least a bit of the knowledge he possessed, but apparently, a lot of his tracking relied on a set of skills I simply didn’t have.

Eventually, we happened on a rather large groove in the ground that Redax identified as fortress armadillo tracks. Apparently, they traveled around by rolling up into a ball, which left these indentations in the ground. The size of which gave me an inkling about just how big this thing was. Not that I was complaining about big opponents, though. Actually, that made it easier for me since it allowed me to cast giant spike. Of course, I could dispatch it with some of my more destructive void spells as well, but since the quest requested that I keep the monster as intact as possible, I decided to limit myself to poison spells in the upcoming fight. Giant spike would be fine as well, but I wanted to keep it as a last-ditch option.

Another twenty minutes later, we finally found our prey. Redax took a step back and gestured for me to do my thing. He already knew that I wanted to take it out myself and he wasn’t about to interfere against my wishes. I silently thanked him with a nod and got myself in position on a closeby roof overlooking the fortress armadillo that was munching on a monster it killed.

Fortress Armadillo (T7)

These giants are known for their incredible defense and surprising mobility. Once they roll themselves into a ball it becomes close to impossible to penetrate their outer shell. This, combined with the high speeds they can achieve while they attempt to roll over you makes it a hard opponent for anybody that isn’t sufficiently prepared when facing them.

The archive told me what I already suspected. It was currently eating which left it mostly unprotected. Still, the size of that thing was quite surprising. Its segmented, gray armor plates protected most of its body, with only a small, pointed face in the front, as well as a small tail sticking out at the back sticking out from the protective shell. Its stomach was not protected currently, which made it a perfect target for giant spike.

After analyzing both my opponent and my surroundings, I decided on a course of action. First, I cast two poison assassinations, both aimed at the tiny tail, which thankfully went unnoticed. My success in this hunt would rely on delivering a massive burst of damage before the armadillo could roll up. If I wanted to kill it, there were quite a few options that could dispatch it rather easily, but since I needed to keep as much of the armor plating intact as I could, my best bet would be to deliver massive damage to its stomach before it could even think of rolling up. To that end, I kept an eye out for any reaction to the poisoning it had received.

I was using tier nine poison against a tier seven monster, and not just the regular poison status, but the deadly poison status. There was no doubt in my mind that the damage was already accumulating rapidly, the question was at what point the armadillo would notice. I suspected the first course of action it would take would be to assume its defensive stance by rolling up, and the instant it would attempt to do so, would be the moment I would strike.

I had the matrix of a giant spike hovering above me, ready to be cast at a moment's notice. I was also prepared to cast a poison explosion in conjunction with it. It took about twenty seconds for a visible shudder to travel through the armadillo which was as good a sign as I could have hoped for. I cast the giant spike that emerged from the ground and slammed into the unprotected underside of the armadillo, shortly after followed by a sizable explosion that sent green poison flying everywhere.

The armadillo was lifted into the air by the combined force of the two spells, albeit not that high. I followed it up with two more giant spikes before the armadillo rolled up at a surprising speed. It was almost like the process was springloaded, the armor snapping in place with an audible crack that reminded me that I should probably seal off my ears.

I wasn’t sure how the armadillo navigated or even saw anything once it was rolled up like this, but it was turning around in place looking for whatever was assaulting it. A quick check revealed that the double-deadly poison debuff was still active. Not wanting to damage any of the precious natural armor, I decided to wait out the poison to see if there was any more input needed. Just to make sure, I cast a void cloak over myself, essentially making it impossible for the armadillo to find me.

I was just starting to worry that I might need to crack the shell after all when the kill notification finally came in. I sighed in relief, happy that I wouldn’t have to damage the merchandise after all. I approached the dead, still rolled up armadillo, and swiftly put it in my inventory. But, just as I was about to drop my void cloak I spotted Redax on a closeby roof, staring down at where the armadillo disappeared while scanning the area. It would seem that some revenge was in order.

Sneaking up on Redax was almost too easy in this state, and I was more than happy to notice the tiniest jump from the Asphon as I suddenly talked to him, appearing out of thin air behind him. “Mission complete, now I just need to drop off the cargo.”

“Let’s go back then,” Redax answered, already composed again. Although I could have sworn that I’d heard a sliver of annoyance in his voice.

The return trip was just as silent as the way here had been, but since we could beeline it for the town, we were back in fifteen minutes. I delivered the fortress armadillo to an overjoyed blacksmith that repeatedly told me how impressive it was that the armor hadn’t been damaged at all. He ended up paying me an extra thousand silver coins on top of the system reward which was a single level up.

All in all, I’d call this first quest a resounding success.