6 Dragon-chan’s first quest, and a deception

Dragon-chan's first quest, and a deception

As I was still new to the whole adventurer thing, I asked the receptionist a lot of questions about ranking up, how to take a request, and so on.

"So, I just take any request from those boards?" (Nene)

"Yes, but please don't take any that are too hard, I would hate - ah hell, it's you. There's no such request right now..." (Receptionist)

"Does that mean there're no requests for the subjugation of a Kraken or a Wyv-" (Nene)

"A group of four Wyverns appeared over Kamine Island, and so the guilds there are requesting help!" (Message runner)

"Well, there is one now, if there wasn't before. I'll take it" (Nene)

"Hold on just a moment, you can't be serious, you're just a little girl, are you even an adventurer, let alone one that could subjugate a Wyvern?" (Message runner)

"Yes, I am, and about the Wyvern bit, I think I can, based off of the fact that I've beaten an A rank and a B rank adventurer, as well as the fact that I learned to fight from a teacher who took out an Ancient Dragon when it went berserk, and I had gotten to the point where I beat him in two out of three fights before he died a bit over a month ago" (Nene)

"Oh? Who was this teacher of yours?" (Receptionist)

"Master Kokonoe. Now, we'll need to leave soon if we want to keep damage to a minimum" (Nene)

"Kokonoe!? Well, this'd be an interesting first quest for someone who seems to have the power of an A rank when she's not even 6 years old yet... I'll check with the guildmaster" (Receptionist)

Three minutes later, I had gotten the OK from the guildmaster, and so I took off running... at speeds that left everyone wondering if I'd teleported or something, until the noticed the wind left in my wake. I ran to the harbor, noticed the shapes of the Wyverns in the skies over the nearby island, and so I used ice magic to freeze a path as I used wind magic to propel myself even faster along the path I made. Halfway to Kamine Island, I made the ice form a ramp, and took to the skies, landing perfectly on the back of one of the Wyverns, where I proceeded to use magic to cut off the head of one of them, before I decided to just drown the other three with giant balls of water encasing their heads. The three of them landed and started bashing their heads against trees, boulders, and the ground to try to shake off the balls of water that were slowly forcing their way into the Wyvern's lungs.

Meanwhile, I was watching while slowly descending to the ground with wind magic. I landed before they had finished drowning, so I went to the spot the fourth one had its corpse and severed head land to put those into my Hoard (I had leveled up to level 12 after killing that Wyvern, so I could fit at least two into my Hoard) while I waited for the other three to die. I then wondered where the ones who were trying to kill it were, realized that wondering that is a flag, and... Sure enough, as they were thrashing about, a group of fourteen people showed up, and were about to attack the Wyverns. I drew their attention towards me when I asked them to not do so, as I wanted to preserve the materials as much as possible, so they instantly told me to run. Did they not hear me when I said that I had already made sure the Wyverns were going to die? Does that not imply that I am not in need of protection?

"Listen, I wish to kill them without devaluing the materials, and they are already dying due to me filling their lungs with water. Your attacking them is not needed to kill them, and it would be reducing the money I get from the request... isn't that something that is illegal in the guild, like stealing kills?" (Nene)

"Who the hell are you to decide when something is or isn't needed? All I see a little brat who thinks she has it under control, but doesn't know how dangerous a Wyvern can be" (Adventurer A)

"Who am I to decide? How about the one that killed a Wyvern already, who has beaten A rank's [Fist of Fury] Logan and B rank's [Impartial Flame] Douglas at their own specialties, and who has studied under Master Kokonoe? Did you not notice one of the Wyverns getting decapitated mid air?" (Nene)

"Bullshit. I have trouble believing any of that. Where's your proof that you killed that one? Where's the proof that you beat those two? I haven't heard about them losing to a brat. Where's the proof you studied under Kokonoe? Huh? Didn't think so. OK, let's go! Kill these Wyverns while they're in that strange mating dance!" (Adventurer B)

I pulled out the Wyvern's corpse, told them they shouldn't get any closer to the other Wyverns, and then said that he wouldn't have heard about something that happened just an hour ago on a different island. They looked at the corpse, looked at me, but still kept drawing closer to they thrashing three Wyverns.

"Don't say I didn't warn you..." (Nene)

"Warn us? What about? You gonna attack us?" (Adventurer B)

"No, I'm going to make a wall. I recommend you not touch the wall once it appears, it'll be there for the ten minutes or so it will take the Wyverns to finish drowning" (Nene)

"Huh? What kind of wall?" (Adventurer A)

"{Curst Wall of Gehenna's Flames}!" (Nene)

"EVERYONE, GET BACK FROM THOSE FLAMES NOW!!! DON'T LET THEM TOUCH YOU!!!" (Mage A)

"What? Why? They don't look like they are that hot, we can just use water magic to put them out, they aren't a problem!" (Adventurer A)

"I wouldn't try it... It's a waste of time and mana, as these flames are from the spell {Curst Flames of Gehenna}, a combination of the S ranked fire magic {All-Consuming Flames} and the S ranked darkness magic {Curse of Eternal Agony}... It will still burn underwater, melt through any earth you try to trap it with, get stronger from any wind, make ice magic explode, and will burn other flames, even the so-called 'impervious' {Hellfire Mantle}... It's a spell I know of only three others who have ever been able to use in all of history" (Nene)

"Well, they still aren't that hot, they can just be guarded against by {Flamebreaker} or some such spell long enough for us to get through" (Adventurer A)

"Yes, the heat can be blocked by that kind of spell, but... that's only one half of the spell. Did you not notice when I said they were a combination of fire magic and the S rank darkness magic {Curse of Eternal Agony}? You'll get cursed, and feel like you are in the lowest levels of hell, with your flesh melting, your bones liquefying, and your blood vaporizing... forever, or until high leveled purification magic is cast on you... Like, REALLY high leveled... A ranked {Perfect Purify} only has a 5% chance to dispel the curse. S ranked {Divine Purification} is the only one with a chance of more than that, at 20%... Well, there are some magics that are a combination of a few elements with a higher rate of success, but... Whatever... Do you still wish to try?" (Nene)

"Nope. I'm good" (Adventurer C)

"Same here" (Mage B)

"Ah. I see that one of the Wyverns has died... well, it stopped showing up on my detection magic, which means it died or moved out of range instantly... and as the range is big enough to cover the whole island, I think it died... and there goes another... OK people, the wall is going to move, take a lot of distance from it!" (Nene)

I used magic to shift the wall of flames to where it only surrounded the last living Wyvern, and put the other two pristine corpses into my Hoard (I had leveled up to level 19 after those two died, so I had WAY more than enough room)

After a few more minutes, the last Wyvern died, and I stored its corpse too, headed back to the adventurer's guild in the capital city of Kamine Island with the other adventurers, and reported the subjugation as mine and mine alone... none of the others contested that, not when I just had to glance at them to shut them up when they started talking about how they had supposedly weakened them... and I showed the guild the three perfectly pristine corpses and the one that was perfect save for having the head cut off as proof that they didn't inflict any wounds on them with swords, spears, arrows, or any magic save for maybe drowning them, but as there were plenty of witnesses to a shape flying from the water onto the back of one of them, immediately followed by one having its head cut off and the other three having water envelop their heads as the shape descended in a way that could only be done through magic, my story was quite credible, and so, three hours after registering, I had been bumped up to B rank... the youngest to ever reach C rank by three years, and I was less than a third of the age of the youngest solo B rank in history. If we go by time spent as an adventurer, my three hours is 1000 times better than the best solo adventurer in history, and about 25000 times better than the average for a solo adventurer. This in and of itself is enough to gain headlines from all over the empire, but combined with the fact that nobody can figure out where I live, what background my family is from, how I have so much mana at that age, or how I mastered S rank magic of at least two elements and the way to combine them at such a young age, I was having to listen to my parents telling me about my own exploits at dinner...

If you think that {Curst Flames of Gehenna}'s curse is hell, you haven't had to sit through a seven course meal while listening to your parents debating marrying you to your not yet born brother so as to breed your power and talent into their bloodline without them knowing that they are talking about you...

About a month after I became an adventurer, I was called to the guildmaster's office, where I was handed a letter that I had been forced into helping my parents write, telling me that I was offered a huge salary to teach myself magic... Confused yet? Yeah, I turned it down, saying that I did not feel like I could provide the princess any benefit as a teacher that someone like the imperial court magician couldn't provide. I did write down a list of ways to speed the process up that "worked for me" that I had no way of knowing if they would work for much of anyone else... or if they even had an effect on me. Basically, it was a made-up list of things that I did while I was learning magic... Mostly simple stuff, such as reading advanced books on magic to get an idea for what it could do before my idea of magic's potential uses and mechanisms got set in stone, practicing meditation without sleep for a week at a time without interruption to do more than eat while still half in the meditative state and to use the bathroom. The former was to give myself access to those books... The latter was just because it seemed like a very mage-like thing to do, and if I was left alone save for food getting set outside my bedroom door, I could more easily sneak out for a day or three to take a longer request, such as an escort request. Sure enough, my list was taken to heart by my new magic teacher, and so I gained a new schedule, where on a three week rotation, I alternated spending a day reading the most advanced books on magic my family had and a day in practical lessons with my teacher for two weeks, then one week meditating. As I was following that advice, I felt no reason to keep my growth at a snail's pace and started showing off fast growth after a few weeks of that, quickly getting to be able to use B and then even A ranked magic.