5 Chapter 5 First Taste Of Magic!

After spending the day out in the field slaying a few dozen creatures, Toby said, "Maybe we should call it a day, if we kill too many creatures here the field is going to give birth to a big one." Toby glanced at the dead creatures as he said, "Plus… we should probably clean up the corpses, usually the butcher will take them, and then we can probably sell these to either a merchant, or a magical item shop, they'll probably be able to make a half decent magical item with all the shock rabbit horns you've gathered." Lily stared at all the dead creatures as she asked, "How are we gonna move all of them?" Toby immediately picked up one of the boars as he said, "We can carry them there." Lily seemed discouraged as she asked, "But then it would take forever." Toby smiled as he said, "It would, but until you can recruit someone to help you who knows spacial magic, you'll have to get used to doing it like this." As Toby stood there holding a boar as Thomas had the blue box appear in front of him again, but this time it read "Quest ending soon, slay one more baalloon or quest will be considered a failure." Thomas stared at the box for a moment and then as soon as it disappeared, Toby asked, "What are you staring at so intently over there?" Thomas flinched as he said, "One more?" Toby smiled as he said, "That's the spirit, though, you should seriously be careful, if one of those field bosses spawn we'll all be in serious trouble." As a baalloon floated past him, Thomas pointed at it and said, "That one?" Toby stared at it for a moment and then shrugged as he said, "Sure, since by my count you've only killed four of those and have yet to do what I originally asked of you." Almost immediately after getting Toby's okay, Thomas slashed through the baalloon causing the blue box to reappear but this time with a different text.

The text read, "Quest complete! Distributing rewards!" After a few seconds of what the creature assumed was some sort of loading process the box went yellow and the text now read "Strength plus one, optional objective also completed, distributing bonus reward!" After waiting another moment or two the text changed once again and now read "Based upon your efforts, the reward decided upon has been chosen!" After waiting a few moments a paper fell from the sky landing directly on his head. Thomas removed the paper and seen that the yellow box now read quest received from the hero complete, congratulations!" Thomas stared at it for a moment and then approached Toby with the paper and said, "Hero?" Toby flinched at the sound of this word and nervously asked, "W-what are you talking about?" Toby stared at the paper he was holding and almost immediately recognized it as he said, "Y-you… you also receive those?" Toby dropped the poison berry boar body he was carrying and took the paper for a moment and then excitedly said, "You see the boxes to!" Toby handed Thomas back the paper and said, "That's a skill page for a type of storage magic, it doesn't have a tier for its type of magic, the magic is completely based around your mana." Toby grabbed on to Thomas shoulder excitedly and said, "This type of magic is invaluable for an adventurer." Thomas stared at the page for a moment and then seen a blue box appear asking if he'd like to learn the ability, with two options saying accept and decline. Thomas glanced at Toby awaiting his instructions, but Toby just stood there and asked "Are you going to use it?" Thomas turned back to the box and just pressed one, but as he pressed the accept button the page burned up and although the flame touched his hand, there was no burn mark. As Toby and Thomas did and said all this, Lily was standing there watching. Lily pulled on Toby's arm as she asked, "Does this mean I don't have to carry any of the dead animals?"

Toby flinched as he said "Oh… I don't know, it depends on his mana, but real quick, please promise me you won't tell anyone about this." Lily thought for a moment then nodded as she said "Alright." Toby thanked her as he happily said, "Thanks a ton for agreeing not to tell anyone about me being a summoned hero." Lily seemed a lot more surprised as she excitedly said, "You are?" Toby paused for a moment and then sighed as he said, "She… she didn't know?" Toby pointed at Thomas as he said, "But… but he's also one… right?" Thomas stared at him blankly as he shrugged and said, "Not sure." Toby stared at him as he asked, "What do you mean not sure? Are you saying that this is the first time this has ever happened to you?" As Thomas nodded, Toby said, "That means… it's my fault my secret got exposed." Toby held on to Thomas as he said, "You can't tell anyone either, okay?" Thomas stared at him without saying anything and just nodded. As Toby held him there, a red box appeared with text that read "System power insufficient, system will now be shut down." Toby sighed as he said, "So it was just a coincidence, that you were able to use a super rare skill paper?" Lily stared at Thomas as she asked, "So he really does have storage magic?" Toby nodded as he said, "Most likely, unless it was a random paper that just happened to look like a skill paper and burnt up at just the right moment." Toby stared at him as he said, "We can just find out." Toby took Thomas's hand and placed it on the dead poison berry boar as he said, "The paper said that if you place your hand on the item you'd like to store and say storage, the item will be sent to your storage, give it a try." However, before Thomas could say the word storage, the poison berry boar had already vanished.

Toby seemed surprised as he said, "So the spell works, even if you're just thinking about it." Toby stared at him for a short while and then said, "You better not use this to steal." Lily stared at Toby as she said, "Don't worry! I'll make sure he doesn't!" Toby glanced around at the dead creatures as he said, "Still… getting something like that right off the bat… you must be really lucky." Toby glanced back at Thomas as he said, "Now go on and collect the rest of them." However, after Toby said this, the ground began to shake, and a large creature began to be pushed out of the ground near them. Toby seemed a bit afraid as he said, "This isn't good." Toby glanced at Lily who was fighting some baaloons as he said, "The field is reacting, we threw the ecosystem out of order, it's going to try to get rid of us before rebalancing it!" After a few moments, a giant pink baalloon stood up from the ground, but instead of a cheerful looking face, it had a menacing and angry look. Toby stared at it for a moment in shock and then in disappointment as he asked, "Is… is this really one of the creatures that can be summoned whenever the ecosystem is under attack?" Thomas stared at it for a moment and then glanced at Toby as he asked, "Attack?" Toby glanced at him for a moment and then sighed as he said, "Y-yeah." As Thomas ran in to attack it, Toby disappointingly said, "I could've sworn it was going to be a really dangerous monster… is this really what they were warning me about?" Just as Toby said this Thomas was picked up and lifted above the baalloon by its string causing him to drop his sword on top of the creature piercing it and popping it, however, instead of a simple pop the creature let out an explosive amount of air sending Thomas flying into the sky and destroying part of the ground nearly pushing Toby back and knocking Lily to the ground. After figuring out why it was so dangerous, Toby quickly looked around nervously as he asked, "Where's Thomas? Is he still alive?" As Lily stood up she seemed incredibly scared and began to glance around frantically, barely noticing her surroundings as she tried to catch a glimpse of either his orange tail or his purple jacket, but to her disbelief he was nowhere in sight.

After searching for a few seconds, Lily stared at Toby with tears in her eyes as she sadly asked, "Where is he?" After another few seconds of Toby trying to figure out what to say, they both the turned their attention to Thomas, who fell out of the sky and on top of one of the still living bush boars. Upon landing on the bush boar, its legs made a disturbing cracking sound and some blood came out from beneath it. As Thomas laid there in the poison berry boar's bush, Lily and Toby rushes over to him and immediately began to ask if he was alright. Thomas, however, sat there on top of the dead boar while being bombarded with questions that were being asked too quickly for him to react to, but after a few more questions he stood up and said the word fine to avoid any further questioning. Toby let out a sigh of relief as he said, "Oh, thank god… I could've sworn you died." As Toby said this, Lily glared at him with tears in her eyes and angrily shouted, "He almost died!" Toby flinched at this as he said, "Y-yes… and I know that's unacceptable… but-" but before he could finish talking Lily interrupted him once again shouting "What would I have told my dad if he died!" Toby continued to stare at her looking shocked for a moment and then took a deep breath before saying, "Look, I know this is kind of my fault… so to make up for any mistakes like this in the future I swear that I'll look into every type of monster before letting anyone else fight it." Lily continued to cry as she shouted, "But he could've died!" Just as Toby was trying to think of something else to say Thomas put his hand on top of her head without saying a word, as he did this she glanced up at him and continued to cry for a while longer, although it didn't stop the crying it did, however, seem to calm her.

After standing there for a bit, Lily finally wiped away her final tears that were shed and said, "I'm okay now." Lily glanced at Toby as she said, "Let's finish collecting the dead animals and then go home." Toby seemed rather discouraged as he said, "S-sure." Toby glanced at Thomas as he said, "Oh… by the way, those monsters count as bosses and usually have some sort of reward for beating them." Thomas stood there for a moment and then said, "Reward?" Toby nodded as he said, "I'm sure if you check the crater where the creature died, you'd be able to find the rewards." Thomas glanced towards the crater and then immediately walked over towards it and to his surprise there was a small metal bracelet laying in the center of the crater. Thomas stared at it for a moment and then picked it up without thinking too much and then saying "Reward?" As Toby was stacking up monster corpses, he glanced over and seen the bracelet he was holding and said, "It looks magical, try putting it on." Thomas continued to stare at it for a minute and then approached Lily while holding it and then held it out to her. Lily stared at it for a moment and then asked, "Is it for me?" Thomas handed it to her as he said, "Yours." Lily almost immediately put it on as she excitedly said, "I'll treasure this, so I'll always remember our first monster hunt!" Thomas stood there for a moment and then said, "First?" Lily nodded as she happily said, "Of course! It's super fun, and my father wouldn't let me explore before, but now that I have you he might be more lenient and actually let me explore some of the world."