To Helva Forest

Health potions, spare dagger, tent in case I need to camp outside and a map. I guess that's it. Now then, I should go dress up. My mother gave me a light blue cloak before I went into this town. It's your run of the mill summoner attire and I have a dagger on my waist inside my cloak. I was confused when she gave me one that's clearly too big for me. I asked her why but she told me to just use it once I became an adventurer and it'll fit.

I tried it on and I'm surprised it really did fit. I guess this is what they meant by "Mother knows best".

Now then, let's head towards the Helva forest.

*****

As I was approaching the gate, a certain knight guard greeted me.

"Oh, Good morning, Greo! How rare of you to go out of the town. Did you finally register as an adventurer?"

"Good morning, Glen. Actually, yes. I did it yesterday. I also took a quest. I'm about to head there now." 

This is Glen. He's a knight guard of Luminus Town, this town. You might be wondering what's the difference of a knight guard to a regular guard. Let me tell you.

Knight guards are actually an evolved class of Fighter that mostly uses sword and magic. As the Fighter keeps infusing magic into their sword, their class will then evolve into another class called Magic Warrior. Their symbol is based on their dominant magic. A Fire Magic Warrior has a flame and sword as a symbol. An Earth Magic Warrior has a mountain and sword symbol. A Water Magic Warrior has a droplet and sword symbol. A Wind Magic Warrior has a tornado and sword symbol. Glen is an Earth Magic Warrior. Of course, it would be impossible for a magic warrior to use the other elements other than the basic four.

"Oh! Finally, huh. Well, good luck out there. Make sure you finish your quest before the deadline."

"Yeah. I'll see you later."

After passing through the gate, I walked at the right side of the road. Carriages also pass through the gate so if you don't want to get ran over, better walk at the side. That's common sense. Glen told me that.

Walking alone on a sunny day feels great. I wonder if it would've been better if I'm alongside my party…

This is getting depressing. Let's just not think of it for now and focus on the quest. I've been walking for a while so I should be near Helva forest now. 

"Oh? There it is." 

I better eat lunch first after securing a spot at the forest since I didn't eat any breakfast.

After checking the vicinity of the spot I chose, I laid a blanket and took out some food. It's just a simple sandwich I bought earlier though.

While I was eating my sandwich, I heard several running footsteps coming towards my direction. By the sound of it, there are four people. It doesn't sound like they're being chased by a wild beast anymore so I guess there's no need to for me to pack up.

Let's just continue eating.

"Hah… Hah… Hah… Ahhh that was dangerous." He said as he sat down his back facing me, still panting.

"This is why I told not to poke the hive!"

Oh, that girl sounds so angry.

"Ahaha… Well, we are fine now so let him off now, Talia."

Hm? That girl with a fluffy hair. That's Gloria, isn't it? How did I know? She's the daughter of the owner of the store where I bought my sandwich at. I always buy sandwich on their store whenever I'm done training and she's there tending their store from time to time.

But really… This Talia and this ragged guy kept on arguing in front of me. Do they not notice me?

Oh, right.

I removed most of my concealment magic and skills.

There we go.

"Wha-?"

"!"

 "What is it, Gloria? Jean?"

Oh, is the other guy a Mage too? Jean? I feel like I already saw him before.

"I-I'm sorry, Greo. We didn't notice you were here. This particular place feels safe so we ran towards here." Gloria apologized, bowing her head. The other three followed suit.

What good kids. "It's fine. More importantly, were you getting chased?"

"Yeah. This idiotic Crafter poked a bee hive he saw, without knowing it was a hive of Poison Bees." The one who answered my question was Talia.

"You don't get it, Talia. There are Gold Bees on this forest and inside their hives are the sparkling honey. Do you even know how much that honey sells for!?"

Sparkling honey is used on some dishes. It doesn't taste any different than a regular honey but, it tenderizes the meat after one minute of being marinated so restaurants that has an overflowing customers would want to get their hands on this honey. Not only that, it's also used for medium mana recovery potions.

"Like hell I care. We aren't here to get honey! Look at your card."

"Please forgive them for being noisy, Sir Greo." This time, it was Jean that apologized to me.

"You know me?"

"Yes. I am Glen's, the west gate's knight guard, son."

"Ah! You're that little child who always hide behind a tree. I remember seeing you when your father trained me on his house before. Well, sit down for now. The three of you too."

I chatted with four of them for a while and told them to rest for now before continuing their quest.

I see. He's Glen's son huh. Like I said before, I trained for twenty years. As a human, twenty years is a pretty long time for someone to train. When I was eighteen Glen trained me with the goal of increasing my stamina in his mind, it ended when I turned twenty-two. Glen isn't the only one who trained me though. There were four people who trained me, including Glen.

After talking with them, they went on to continue their quest. I also tucked away the blanket to my backpack and started doing my quest.

If I remember correctly, Greenlight flowers grow beside a fallen tree, and has two to four leaves. This forest is dense so I guess there are a lot of fallen trees here.

Yes. Like that one. Hmm, this one only has two leaves. I need eight more.

Oh right, I should take the flower too. They said it's used to make high grade potions. This might sell a lot.

Now then, unto the next one. Let's try going towards the east side of this forest.

It's a good thing that Helva forest is relatively safe, there aren't any monsters but only animals and wild beasts.

Right. The reason why Summoner and Beast Tamer are considered "useless" is because of the virus called "Terrestrialization Virus" that appeared five hundred years ago. This virus affected monsters without intelligence and transformed them into far stronger version of themselves. For example; before, a normal slime has an average level of five, has a low defense and vitality, you can easily kill them by piercing their core, and most importantly, they do not use magic. A level one adventurer would have no problem dealing with it. However, when the monsters got exposed to the said virus, their form changed drastically, they grew three times of their original size, turning most of their parts into color purple and grew a pair of antennae. Along with the change on their appearance, their power increased exponentially. At least ten times of their original power. Now, the slimes that appears are level fifty, their body are sturdier, and their core is doubled and protected with some sort of barrier that neither normal physical nor magical attack works anymore. Any tier four piercing skills or spells would work against them. For slimes anyway. And for this infected slime… You would need at least three normal level ten adventurers.

So you see, in the off chance that a Summoner summoned an infected monster, it's over for the Summoner and anyone on his surroundings. It's not like there haven't been any successful summons up until now, there have been daredevils who took the risk and succeeded. Although, even with those daredevils, the success rate for a safe summon is less than ten percent.

How about the Beast Tamer? Why not just tame a beast on the forests like this one? Yes, they could do that. Although, there's one problem. Beast Tamer would need a special core from an infected dragon. Totally impossible. In the first place, most dragons have high intelligence. Even if you find an infected dragon, it would be hard to obtain its core due to the fact that it's too powerful. If it was that impossible, how did we know this? We have the goddess water's orb to thank for that. Upon the first appearance of the class, the orb "spoke" for the first time. It stated that a Beast Tamer is a powerful class that could tame different kind of beasts and other beings, even the Serpents, Demonic Beasts, and Dragons. Everyone cheered when they heard this but, it soon turned into a disappointment when they heard that, for this power to activate, they would need a core from an infected dragon. The very first Beast Tamer who succeeded on taming a familiar is a person from the party called "Descendant of the Seven Heroes". Just like their name, they are the descendant of the seven heroes that defeated the tyrannical demon king seven hundred years ago. After his defeat, the demons, demi-humans, and humans lived together peacefully, even my fourth mother is an elf while my actual mother is a human.

Why the virus exists and the relevance of the heroes' descendants to this, I'll save it for some other time since I already found all the leaves I need. I got four flowers in total. Two Greenlight flowers that has two leaves and two Greenlight flowers that has three leaves.

I found them too fast, it's still noon. I was ready to camp tonight too. Anyway, I'll go back in town for now and turn in the completion of my quest. The reward should be enough for the skip-rank test fee. 

As I was walking beside the densely packed area of tall trees, I heard a faint singing voice. It's a beautiful voice. I followed the voice until I reached the middle of the densely packed area of trees.

I hid behind one of the trees and there, I spotted a girl in white dress. Her silver hair reflecting the light of the sun, and her beautiful figure that sat on top of a boulder along with her soothing and calming voice that puts me at ease, captivated me. It's as if I'm listening to a Goddess singing.

I continued listening to her until she finished her song. It was a heart-warming song that contains the story of an elf girl who waited for the return of her loved one. She kept waiting and waiting even after hundreds of years until she passed away. After she passed away, they both met in the afterlife. The God in-charge of the souls decided that they would be reincarnated in a peaceful era where they'll happily live together.

After she finished singing, she looked directly in my direction and our eyes met. She smiled and said, "You finally arrived. I've been waiting."

Confused by what she meant, I asked, "What do you mean?"

She was surprised at first but smiled afterwards, "No, it's nothing. By the way, can you help me get out of this forest?"

Is she lost?

"Sure but, where are you headed to?"

"Honestly, I don't know any place near this forest. It would help if you can get me to the nearest town."

"Eh? Did you run away from your home?"

"Yeah, something like that."

Hmm, I can't just ask her why. I guess I'll just take her to Luminus for now.