39. I'm back

After bickering with each other for a few minutes, Erena, one of the guild employees, entered the room, and the duo immediately grew quiet.

With a warm smile on her face, Erena immediately apologized. "I'm sorry that it took me so long, but here is your guild membership card and emblem."

Nodding, Luz thanked before accepting the card that was made of bronze. To his surprise, nothing was written on it. 'This is just a shitty block of bronze… what the hell am I supposed to do with it? Sell it for scrap metal!?'

But before he could ask if he got the right thing, Erena immediately remarked, "This guild card is meant for magicians. Since I'm on good terms with Lewis, I thought of giving you a better quality guild card from the get-go."

Erena winked briefly at Lewis before resuming with her explanation. "It has a privacy feature built-in, and it will only recognize your mana signature, so please infuse the card with your mana."

"Ah, that makes sense," Luz commented, enlightened before following her words. Upon shooting mana through it, his private information immediately began to etch into the bronze card. Interestingly, when he stopped discharging his mana into the guild membership card, most of his personal information instantly vanished except his name and address.

On the other hand, the emblem was somewhat underwhelming compared to the guild membership card. It was the size of a coin, approximately the radius of your thumb. It simply depicted Luz's guild rank, F, and whenever he stroked it with his finger, the emblem slightly began to glow.

Seeing Luz satisfied with his two gifts, Erena commented with a warm smile, "I hope you two enjoyed my service, but unfortunally I gotta leave now since I have to resume my job."

After thanking and bidding farewell to Erena, the duo left the room before heading straight to the guild board.

Unfortunally for Luz, there weren't many F-Rank quests remaining. The reason for that was simple. F-Rank quests are generally hung out on the board daily in the morning. Since they are relatively easy, most of them are done before the evening.

「Hunt three boars till night, with the boars retaining as few injuries as possible. Reward: 100 bronze coins for each boar. Depending on the quality and size, the price may vary.」

「Pick a few Thymes. (low-grade magic herbs) Location: deep inside the forest. Rewards: one silver coin for each Thyme twig. One can even expect up to one gold coin per herb, depending on the quality.」

「Look up any clues regarding the abnormalities inside the forest. Reward: Depending on how valuable these clues are, the compensation can quickly become a few gold coins.」

Luz skimmed through the missions, but Lewis picked the herb gathering quests before Luz could even suggest one.

"Wait, Wait, Wait!!" Luz hastily commented in horror, grabbing the latter's arm. "I'm not gonna do some boring-ass farming. If I wanted to do that, I would have chosen it as a job. I wanted some action, brooo."

But the latter merely laughed. "Sweet. But you forget something. It's all about money, and this mission pays way more than the others."

After stating that, Lewis got closer to Luz's ear before whispering, "Bro. I know a good place where many kinds of herbs are located, so it will be easy money."

Luz's eyes instantly opened wide, but his opinion wasn't swayed that easy. "I still don't want to, bro."

Sighing, Lewis hesitantly reminded Luz of his original goal. "Remember, you gotta pay off your debts if you want to become free, so we need to do some better-paying quests."

The reminder seemed to have worked since Luz gave in without further resistance. The duo quickly paid the commission fee a few minutes later before leaving with their gear towards the forest.

Even though their quest was a simple herb gathering quest, they still carried their crossbows and another pair of equipment. After all, it is always better to be over-prepared than under-prepared for the horrors lurking in the woods.

With the sun shining over the horizon, the duo marched down a dirt road into the woods. Around the trail, however, were tall trees, and the deeper they went, the denser the trees became. As time passed, the sunlight that landed on the group of youths also diminished.

Although the duo could still see in the gloom, their sight was limited to approximately 100 Meters.

But that wasn't all. The calming chirping sound of insects slowly grew quiet. At the same time, loud animal howls and screams became more and more common, irritating the group.

Through chatting, the duo eased the ever-increasing tense atmosphere while carrying loaded crossbows since one should be ready for any danger.

Hours passed, and by now, their view got limited further. Unsure if they would finish the quest, Luz carefully asked, "So how are we supposed to find them in the dark!?"

Lewis closed his eyes before stating, "They glow slightly yellow in the dark, but that isn't all. Another tip that might help you find them is that fireflies surround them. Wherever they are, hoards of fireflies are with them.

"I see, I see," Luz whispered, but before he could ask another question, the growl of a wolf echoed loudly.

The duo immediately grew quiet, looking in all directions from where the growl came. It didn't take long for them to spot two giant glowing yellow glowing eyes glaring at the two.

Panicked by what he saw, Luz immediately aimed shakily with his crossbow at the creature hiding in the shadow of the woods. "What should we do," Luz hastily whispered as quietly as possible, asking for Lewis's plan while also thinking about his last resort plan.

The creature lurking in the shadow slowly moved towards them. At the same time, its growls grew louder as the silver-white wolf became visible under the shining moonlight.

Upon seeing how the wolf was at best half their height tall while standing, Lewis sighed, "Don't worry, bro," before the arrow on his loaded crossbow slowly began to glow light blue.

'What the hell is he doing,' shot through Luz's head as he began speculating if his partner was indeed loading up his arrow with mana or water.

Realizing, what the duo that was disturbing its territory were up to, the wolf immediately began to take action, howling loudly and alerting all of its companions who were in the surrounding.

"Fuck, it's alerting its companion," Lewis cursed before pressing the trigger. A blue arrow shot lightning-fast towards the howling wolf and penetrated its chest before Luz could even blink. But that wasn't all. The arrow tip exploded, and water was discharged so quickly that the wolf's internal organs got damaged.

Nevertheless, Lewis's shot was enough to interrupt the wolf's howls. However, by then, it was already too late, and the duo heard cries coming from the distance.

Gulping, Luz hastily asked, upon hearing howls in the distance, "Should we run as far as possible!?"

But the only answer he got was a loud chuckle from Lewis as the latter immediately reloaded his crossbow. "Bro, it's too late. Prepare yourself to fight a horde of wolves. We cannot outrun these creatures."

"Fuck," Luz began to curse while aiming toward a pair of yellow eyes in the darkness.

By now, the howls came from all directions and began to intimidate Luz as he scrambled up a last resort escape plan. 'If shit goes south, I will use the flight spell while grabbing onto Lewis's body.'

Seeing how scared Luz was, Lewis asked in amusement, "Wasn't that for what you were looking forward to?" before shooting at a pair of glowing eyes in the distance.

Author note: Sorry that I couldn't upload the past two days. I couldn't log in to Webnovel due to a bug and therefore had to enjoy a short break until now. To make up for that, I will upload two chapters today.

Nevertheless, I'm back, babe, and I've even got an idea regarding my first arc. Yeah, it's a bit embarrassing but let's see how it will develop.