21 – The Stay in Quakan – REINA (2)

Upon entering the lobby I saw some familiar faces, we hadn't interacted much with the adventurers, so we knew the name of one or another of those familiar faces.

The receptionist who usually assists us, a guy about our age called Nikolas, was busy. So we decided to wait for him.

"Ocien, Reina! You were unlucky today, it seems that people discovered how profitable the collection mission can be. We don't have any free ones anymore." – Nikolas said when he saw us.

I looked at Ocien questioningly as to what we would do now, we weren't really in need of money at the moment. The weekly mission had become more of an outing than anything else for us.

There was always the possibility of finding beasts, but in the area we frequented it was difficult to find stronger than unranked ones. We fought a few first circle beasts, but nothing beyond the 2nd Star.

Beasts are stronger than Warriors of the same star, but not enough to ignore warriors of higher stars.

"What mission do you have for two budding adventurers like us Nikolas?" – Ocien asked after thinking for almost a minute.

The missions were supposed to serve as training for us, but until now we were taking life one step at a time. Again I blamed myself for putting him in that position, I was the warrior who should have been on the front line, but I ended up settling for a life that was too ordinary.

Ordinary life wasn't exactly the problem, but I developed fear. A growing fear took hold of me since the escort and the mere notion of putting Ocien in danger for my sake if I didn't know how to act made me freeze.

"Let me see what I have here." – Nikolas replied thoughtfully.

He clearly already had a mission in mind, he was probably the one who handed out the collection missions to force us to do some specific mission.

Talking to other adventurers, the few times we did it, we discovered that there are what they call swamp missions. A mission difficult to complete due to some circumstance other than danger.

It could be the distance, the size of the item that needs to be found or the unfavorable terrain, some are literally in swamps.

"Here! The armorer needs Reptilian Condor Scales to make a batch of special arrows." – he said, pulling a paper from the middle of the pile.

A swamp mission…

Reptilian Condor is a bird that only has feathers on its wings while its body is covered in scales. They are resistant and can be sharpened to make arrowheads, what is difficult is to defeat one of them.

The resistance of the scales makes the Reptilian Condor have a defense of one star above his own. Which means that if we find one with 4 stars we won't even be able to hurt it.

Ocien looked at me asking for my opinion.

With our advantage over other adventurers, we could complete that quest without much difficulty.

But it was still a swamp mission.

"Okay, let's keep it." – I said, hitting the hammer.

Nikolas' eyes lit up at that moment.

"Okay then, the quality of the Condors needs to be at least 3 stars and the customer hired four bags of insulation." – he said with an apologetic smile.

Upon hearing that, both Ocien and I were frowning, that mission was the swamp of the swamp. Each of those condors would weigh at least fifty kilos and we needed to hunt four of them.

We didn't even bother to ask about payment, we knew it wouldn't be worth discussing, we had already accepted the mission and to give up on it would take us a month without being able to accept a new one.

With bags in hand we begin our walk towards the forest, Condors are usually found in the northern clearing, ten kilometers from the city.

"It won't be that difficult, I'll take them to the ground and you finish them." – commented Ocien, trying to be positive.

I nodded, not really knowing what to say.

The walk was long, we arrived at the clearing two hours later, our adventure was just beginning. We entered the forest again after the clearing and soon found the first one, it was small but it showed that we were on the right path.

We flanked him so that anyone who didn't scare me would attract attention because a herd would be a total disaster.

When we saw the first one of the right size, Ocean prepared a wind spell and knocked it from the tree straight to the ground. Ready, I drew my saber and quickly ran towards him with a cut on his neck.

The poor animal struggled briefly as the head and body separated, but soon the blood stopped flowing.

Ocien took the first bag and packed the condor, we needed to be quick as the blood would attract other beasts.

Our search didn't take long and we soon found the next one.

The same tactic was applied, the Reptilian Condor was on top of a tree and Ocien prepared wind magic. The beast went to the ground and I shot towards it with my saber, I moved my arm towards its neck and at that moment, however, we heard the noise we didn't want to hear.

At least four condors were close enough to hear their companion's cry of pain as he hit the ground.

I only had time to raise the saber before the impact happened. I was thrown a distance, only stopping after a dozen meters. My arm went numb and I felt my whole body shake.

The leader of the condors was at least a hundred kilos and he was the one who had crashed into me. A condor this size should be at least 5th Star.

Ocien took action towards the beasts, preparing spells, wielding his staff. Every time one tried to attack me it diverted its flight path, while the one on the ground was met by the Cold Iron tip of the staff.

The impact noise sent a chill down my spine.

Every blow he threw at the condors was like I was watching him fail. I coated my saber in Metallic Mana and fired at the closest one.

The cut was deep and empowering him, but there were still four others. Ocien had focused on training spells, so it was just brute strength to stop the condors from defeating him.

My Warrior Cultivation Technique had no combat abilities, until then it didn't seem like a big problem, but now it showed.

The fight became increasingly fierce.