17 Ch 16 – ALPHA!?

Inside a large farm full of random foliage and random vegetables, there stood both Aki and Shiro in a standstill against a large boar with red enraged eyes.

"Tsk, it's an alpha" I muttered under my breath as we were both covered in scratches while I looked towards the larger than normal Wild Boar looking at us with enraged eyes.

"You okay?" asked Shiro from the side whose hands were trembling while holding the sword.

"Yeah, let me heal you for a bit," I said as my hands glowed and pointed it towards him, I can't afford to heal myself because I will use too much energy and can't use my skills in the process to help Shiro take down the boar.

"Prepare yourself, I could take a bite to the arm right now and heal it back later, use that to shoot a light bomb inside its body," I said towards Shiro with steeled eyes, making him know that he needs to follow my plan without fail as it might cost me my life.

"You sure?" asked Shiro while the Boar prepared to go into a sprint towards us.

"Yes, now go!" I shouted while rushing towards Boar without a second thought and prepared to let the beast bite me so that its mouth would have a gap that my hand produced when stuck between it as my body is E rank already, so it could probably endure the bite for a while.

"SQUEAL!" shouted the Wild Boar and went to charge towards me with each of its steps shaking the ground from its sheer weight but I didn't care and stuck my arms inside its open mouth and grabbed its tongue to make it not instantly bite me and get additional time for Shiro.

*CHOMP!*

"Kah!" I shouted at the sudden shock but it was bearable and just tussled with its tongue, trying to gather enough time for Shiro's Light Bomb as I saw his worried look behind me but I reassured him with my smile.

"I'M READY!" shouted Shiro as I instantly let go of the tongue and shot a light arrow so that its mouth would open and drop down to the ground.

"HA!" shouted Shiro who rushed towards the open mouth of the alpha Wild Boar and shot the dangerous ball of light inside its stomach and visibly saw its stomach bulging along with a flash of white light blinding my eyes and felt Shiro plopping down on top of my body.

I quickly rubbed my eyes in difficulty to see if the boar was defeated and breathed a sigh of relief when I smelled the delicious scent of burnt meat along with the dead body of the Alpha Wild Boar lying beside us.

"Phew!" I said while Shiro got off me and sat down on the ground with a victorious smile.

"Good job," I said with a smile while we recuperated for a few minutes so I could gather enough energy to heal our wounds.

"Was it fun?" I asked Shiro was sitting on a rock beside me.

"Mmm! It was so exhilarating!" said Shiro with shining eyes.

"Well, who would have thought the first monster you will have to fight was an Alpha Wild Boar, look at your status and see if you can rank up your stats, it should have given you a decent amount of exp or life essence to use" I said as the more appropriate term for exp was life essence and according to the lore of the game, the system is a medium where we as players, could take away the life essence of defeated beast, including the undead.

"I could raise one stat," said Shiro.

"You should raise Body, you don't need that much energy for now because of how efficient a Mythical Class Gift is, and with your class, it's more effective that way," I said as I already have enough energy to heal my wounds even though it has only been a few minutes, and as the wounds on my body healed, I stood up and went towards the Wild Boar and started to take out the tusk of varying sizes from its skull.

"What are you doing?" asked Shiro who went towards me with difficulty.

"Gonna make some bone knives, and you could use this as a club if I just add a handle," I said while pointing at the large tusk that is larger than my arm and wider in diameter.

"Aww, I wanted to be a swordsman," said Shiro who picked up the large tusk from the ground and started swinging it around.

"Here, I'll show you how it can be cool, gather your light at the edge of the point of impact and hit it on something," I said towards Shiro who nodded and went towards a nearby boulder and gathered his light at one point and compress it to a good degree.

"Hit it and then direct the light forward, look at the cool effect it would make," I said towards Shiro who did as I said and as the tusk hit the boulder, he made the light go into a spreading motion outwards away from him that produced a cool attack that could affect many enemies, and it uses less focus because he just needs to gather it at the club and use it as a tool to help the explosion of light go into a certain direction.

"WOAH!" shouted Shiro as he watched the boulder being filled with cracks while his eyes shined in awe.

"I'll use a club!" shouted Shiro.

"Hehe, you could use that technique with anything, even your hand, I'll teach you more stuff later," I said while I healed him from a distance with Shiro walking towards me with a smile and handed over the tusk back to me.

"So how do we finish the quest?" asked Shiro who looked at the dead Wild Boar beside us.

"Wait a minute," I said towards Shiro and started to run away towards the Town just near the farm and found the NPC who made the quest looking around in worry.

"Hey, we finished the quest," I said towards the NPC, I knew I could increase the reward up to 25 silver because it was an alpha but I don't really care about money right now and would want to keep a happy relationship with any NPC I meet, who knows, they might be important later down the line as the story progress.

"R- really?" asked the man in shock.

"Yeah, well you take care of the boar, it's too heavy for us to carry, and can you please sign this quest notice please," I said towards the man as we did the usual stuff on completing the quest and finally got the reward, I could have sold the boar if it was in a better condition but with its charred meat and torn skin, it won't be worth anything in the near future, at least I got some materials to make some weapons with later.

I then rushed back towards Shiro while carrying a basket of vegetables with me and munching on some apples along the way.

"Want some?" I asked while pointing at some apples in the basket, even though it wasn't a vegetable, it's very much appreciated.

"Sure," said Shiro who took some apples and munched into it, surprised at how juicy and tasty it was.

"Uwah!" shouted Shiro who hurriedly ate the apple with shining eyes.

"Gulp, it's so good! Can I have more!" shouted Shiro as I nodded and gave him more apples.

"Come on, we still need to return the quest notice to the Adventurer's Guild and perhaps we can even rank you up to E already so we can go into more profitable quests," I said towards Shiro as we went towards the city while munching on some food along the way, and as we walked towards the city with bloodstained clothes and ragged suits, we smiled in joy at how fun this game was.

"So, when do we go to other places?" asked Shiro while we were walking.

"Once we get to D-rank and get a mount," I said towards Shiro.

"How do we even get mounts anyway? Aren't they expensive?" asked Shiro.

"Don't worry, I have my ways" I said towards Shiro as he nodded and continued munching on some apples.

"Do you think we should get new armor? There should be some that are relatively cheap if we look around" said Shiro who looked at his leather armor.

"Don't worry about it, we still have usable clothes, besides, we only have about more than a gold on our hands, and it's better if we buy you a steel armor later, it would last us longer that way" I said towards Shiro while pointing at my bloodstained priest robe.

"If you say so," said Shiro as we entered the city and walked towards the Adventurer's Guild, did the stuff like confirming our quest completion and stuff.

"Oh yeah, the Wild Boar was actually an alpha, here's the tusk it has, pretty large right?" I said towards the receptionist while taking out the tusk and was surprised at how I mentioned it so casually.

"You guys took it down?" asked the receptionist while she inspected the tusk and yep, it came from an Alpha.

"Yep, so could Shiro rank up to E right now?" I asked the lady.

"Of course, can you give me your badge and card?" asked the lady towards Shiro who gave it to her, and after a while, she came back with a copper bade and a modified Adventurer's Card that shows an E instead of an F.

"Here you go," said the lady as Shiro took the card with shining eyes.

"Look! I'm E-rank now!" said Shiro who put on his badge.

"Mmm, well goodbye now!" I said towards the lady as we headed out and prepared for breakfast in the real world.

"Bye-bye!" said Shiro towards the lady as she chuckled while we walked out of the adventurer's guild and log off the game and greeted Ai along the way and got off our IVR pod.

"Did you have fun?" I asked Shiro who got out of his room and took me into a tight hug.

"Mmm! It was so fun" said Shiro as I chuckled and patted his head.

"Well let's go now, it's time for breakfast," I said towards Shiro who nodded and followed me downstairs towards the dining room and was greeted with a table full of food along with my father and mother already sitting down preparing to eat.

"Goodmorning!" I said towards them as I and Shiro took our seats, preparing to eat the delicious food that mama made for us.

AN: This is 1803 words, by the way, you're welcome.

The Sword of Damocles hangs above each and everyone one of you with its ever present threat of despair, so send me some power stones with your power of friendship and save the thousands perhaps even millions to come who will read this masterpiece immortalized in the tunnels of time.

(March 17, 2022 – 113th day of writing)