7 A Sudden Quest

Having finished most of her business, leaving only a source of stable income left on the to-do list, Astur begins to make her way back to the forest, following the river, as the sun begins to set.

"Although I still need to think of an easy way to make money that doesn't require much effort, I was still able to learn a few things. One of the things I was able to confirm today is that almost all of my Divine Authorities are sealed up. Not too big a deal since they had some pretty negative effects on the people around me and I never really got around to learning how to properly control them. Never had to bother dealing with it since I never went out, but if I know how gramps thinks, then he probably intends for me to learn how to control them gradually. As for how, I don't know nor do I don't care enough to find out."

"But the bigger problem is my financial situation. What's the best and easiest way for me to make money? Maybe I can sell the stuff I make through alchemy… but I really don't want to go to the town unless I have too. What to do… maybe I'll come up with an idea while high on shrooms."

Walking through the forest, the ears atop Astur's head twitch as the scent of blood fills the air with a faint black smoke rising nearby and the sounds of combat can be heard.

"Not entirely unusual to smell blood in the forest, but the other signs all point towards it being people fighting, not monsters. I hope they aren't near my house," Astur mutters, being more concerned about the condition of her home than whoever's fighting.

But against her hopes, as Astur's house comes into view, there are three people just outside the barrier. Going by appearance, there are two adults, one male and another female, cornering a young woman against the barrier of Astur's house. The two adults are wearing matching black uniforms and a mask that covers most of their face, leaving only eyes visible.

The woman they have cornered appears to be around somewhere around 16 or 17. She has matching bright red hair and eyes and slightly long pointed ears with elongated canines. Her skin is as pale as skin could possibly be, so much so that she could be mistaken for an albino. While most of her clothes have been torn to shreds from the combat, one can easily see that they weren't anything special, having been made from somewhat cheap fabrics. What remains of the one-piece dress is torn up all the way to the waist while her dark coat has but cut diagonally, giving it an odd slanted shape.

But Astur pays no mind to the events happening in front of her house.

"Pardon me, but would you wastes of space kindly take your fight somewhere else, please," Astur says, walking right past the three people fighting, slipping into the barrier around her house.

"..."

Baffled, the three of them stop fighting for a moment until the young woman breaks the silence, yelling, "please help me, I'll do anything, just help me!"

Snapping back to their senses, the man yells, "I don't know who you are, beast woman, but if you know what's good for you, mind your own business and we won't question yours."

"Hey, I thought no one lived here or could pass the barrier," the man's companion says.

"Forget about it, we have more important things to do."

'Hmm, what should I do…'

[Ding]

[Quest: The Fleeing Vampire (Rank D) ]

[Description]: A young Vampire is being chased by a pair of unknown figures. You can answer her plea and save her, or leave her be and pretend nothing happened.

[Rewards]: +1,500 EXP, +1,000 Intimacy Points with Elizabeth Tepes, Elizabeth Tepes Summon Card

[Warning]: Depending on how the situation is handled there may be consequences.

[Failure Penalty]: Injury or potential death

'Welp, guess that means I'm doing something now. I'm pretty curious as to what a Summon Card is and I won't turn down the EXP. First is to check out the situation in depth.'

Looking on with the Scholars Eye of Insight, Astur finds that this quest might be easier than she thought, that is, if she ignores the resource consumption. Inspecting their status, she can see that Elizabeth is quite literally on her last legs, with around 2% of her HP remaining. As for her assailants, while better off than Elizabeth, they're still considerably injured, with each of them having around 20% of their health left. Elizabeth is level 8 while the other two are level 10, showing that she put up quite the fight for being outnumbered and two levels down.

"Don't worry, I completely understand my place here," Astur says.

Elizabeth's expression drops as she hears my words as a dark smirk creeps onto the faces of the two assailants, but they remain vigilant of Astur, watching for any suspicious movements, being sure not to fully trust her. Just as they predicted, with the setting sun as her cover, Astur throws out a handful of Big Blast Balls towards the duo as she rushes forward and grabs hold of Elizabeth, pulling her through the barrier.

Within a second after the Big Blast Balls make contact, they explode, dealing a total of 1,050 damage to both of them. Since they had been wary of Asturs presence from the beginning, they weren't caught off guard for a critical strike, but with their previous injuries, they were in no position to take on the force of seven Big Blast Balls.

Not everyone is like Astur with absurd defensive stats, most people at level 10 with just 20% of their health wouldn't be able to bear the force of two Big Blast Balls, but Astur, not knowing any better, chose to throw out seven of them. Having gone completely overboard, Astur instantly kills the two mysterious assailants.

[Ding]

[Quest: The Fleeing Vampire (Rank D) - Complete]

[Rewards]: +1,500 EXP, +1,000 Intimacy Points with Elizabeth Tepes, 1 Random Elizabeth Tepes Summon Card

[Due to neither opponents escaping there are no immediate consequences.]

'Not bad, together with the quest reward, I got a total of 2,000 EXP,' Astur thought as she then turned her attention to the Vampire.

"So how are you faring?"

With her life no longer in any danger, Elizabeth collapses on to her knees as the adrenaline keeping her up begins to dissipate. Astur gives her a moment to collect herself before Elizabeth picks herself up and brushes the dirt off her torn dress as she bows.

"Miss, Thank you so much for saving me. If not for you those hunters would have surely killed me. I can't even think of how to repay you."

"You've already promised me a reward, have you not? You said you do anything if I'd help you," Astur says, reminding her of her previous words, "or was that a lie?"

"Uh, well maybe not anything, but I... swear I'll... repay... this debt," Elizabeth says as she falls to the ground, no longer having the strength or energy to remain conscious, with all of the adrenaline keeping her up now gone.

"The girl pushed herself to her absolute limits just to survive. Can't say I completely understand the feeling, but I suppose I can grant another reward besides saving her and let her rest there for now. But before that..."

Astur walks over towards the dead bodies of the two who had attacked Elizabeth as two spectres bore out from the bodies, the souls of the two assailants.

"Time to eat," Astur says, grabbing hold of both souls with each hand.

Exerting her strength on them, the two souls are compressed into small hand-sized spheres, which Astur promptly swallows.

'Delicious. I've seen Gramps eat souls before and have long wondered what they taste like since he always had a delighted expression when eating them. But since I was Human before I never really had the chance, but now that I'm an Infinity Wolf, I can freely enjoy eating souls. And I can fully agree with Gramps' view on them, they taste like fatty tuna, absolute perfection.'

Finally turning her attention to sleeping beauty, Astur walks over to Elizabeth and picks her up, noting that she is much lighter than she thought as her initial idea was just to drag her by the feet. Bringing Elizabeth into the house, Astur lays her on a sofa and brings out a blanket to cover her.

Taking a seat in a reclining chair next to the sofa where Elizabeth is sleeping, Astur looks over her other reward from the quest, Elizabeth Tepes Summon Card.

'So it's not a tangible object but a special menu on the System. Let's see, a Summon Card is a special item usable from the System. They are consumables with a varying number of uses depending on the card, granting temporary use of a Talent or Skill named on the card. And the one I got is called, Elizabeth Tepes - Piercing Crimson Eyes, and it has four uses. Its effect isn't too bad either, when making eye contact, if the target's Mind stat is greater than mine by 100 then deal 10+Mind. If the target has within 100 of my Mind stat then deal 25+Mind and have a 30% chance to stun the target for 1.5 seconds. And if I have more than 100 Mind over the target, then I deal 75+Mind and have a 100% chance to stun for 2.5 seconds.'

It doesn't take Astur long to see how useful this is for her, considering her high Mind stat. In a tough situation, she can use this to buy a moment for her to throw a Blast Ball or even run away. Although in her head Astur doesn't believe she'll need it much, she still thinks the extra security would be nice to have.

"*Sigh* what a day, I had to leave the house and I ended up killing a couple of people. Although this isn't my first time killing someone, I'd rather avoid it whenever I can. The cleanup afterwards is always such a pain in the ass, hmm, I think I'll get Elizabeth to deal with the dead bodies once she wakes up, yeah, that sounds good."