Chapter 17

"Bring me the bear cub without harming its mother."

Indrid looked at me as if I were crazy.

...Okay maybe I was crazy. After all, I just asked him to do something that would seem impossible for him to do.

"A-are you sure you want me to do it?"

"Hm, well, if you don't want to that's also fine."

Mentally, I quickly issue a quest to him using my privileges as someone with the [ NPC template ].

[ Bring back the bear cub ]

[ Type : Hidden ]

[ Difficulty : Hard ]

[ Contents : Val wants you to bring her the cub of the bear you ran into yesterday! ]

[ Clear conditions : Bring Val the bear cub without harming its mother within the time limit. ]

[ Rewards : favorability with Val, ??? ]

[ Failure : lessened favorability ]

[ Time limit : 2 days ]

[ Note : Val can assist you if you ask politely ]

[ Note 2 : Val will leave tomorrow night, be sure to give her the bear cub by then ]

That was probably what showed up in front of Indrid, as he quickly went into a daze.

I patiently waited for him to process the quest conditions, taking a sip of the water I was served.

Last night after going to my room, I directly fell asleep on the comfy bed.

Waking up the next day, I went down and ate the noodles I bought last night using the water heater from the inn.

As I was finishing my breakfast, a certain player came up to me and asked for the task.

I told him to capture the bear cub, although I wasn't sure he would be able to do it, I would have gone to go get the cub either way.

When I was flying over the forest, I had caught a glimpse of the cub, even though I didn't feel its presence at all.

And when I released my status as a primordial, the bear cub looked as though unaffected.

"O-okay! I'll do it!"

Indrid nodded, standing up, he bowed his head slightly and bid me goodbye.

"Hm. Good luck."

After that episode, I faced my breakfast, which I had just finished a few minutes before.

Disposing of the cup in a large trashcan in the corner of the floor, I left the inn and the village altogether.

Though it would be nice to stroll the village, there was a sense of urgency nagging at me.

Entering the forest and trodding deeper to the inner areas, I send out a pulse of mana, as a mental map of the area is projected into my mind.

Instantly, I find the source of my worries.

They were creatures that were a mixture of wolves, bears, lizards, and some birds.

All of whom varied in size and had different mutations. The one in the center, the largest creature was a bear.

It was probably the size of an average one-story building, and probably twice as big as the bear that I saw yesterday.

'Demons'

Demons were invaders from another world that was on the verge of dying.

They were all black in color and had red eyes, there were two types of demons.

Intelligent demons and feral demon beasts.

The first category was the intelligent demons, who had intelligence that varied from a child to the most ancient dragons.

Feral demon beasts were either wild or listened to an intelligent demon, they have almost no rationality and attack on sight.

It was easy to distinguish one from the other as most feral demons usually worked separately unless commanded by an intelligent demon.

The group I saw was likely to be commanded by the large bear in the center.

I myself never really participated in the game in my past life, only ever doing things through the system. And if I did enter, it was to relax my mind a bit.

So I was bound to either under or overestimate the demons' strength. Especially with their numbers that nearly amounted to the '50s.

Releasing the transformation magic, I quickly bring myself up into the air and disperse the clothes of mana into the air.

Currently, I was still the size of a medium-sized dog, my growth, which had exploded during my first days here had slowed considerably.

Wind resistance was negligible when I was flying, which was probably due to my innate racial talent [ Flight ].

[ Flight ]

[ Description : An innate skill of the ??? species. The winds will make way to the king of the sky and assist them in flight. Automatically activates when wings are in use. ]

As I reached the area I saw the demons were in, I flew closer to the forest canopy as there were also flying demons, and it would be bad if I were caught.

Moving my mana in my body and transformed into a familiar humanoid shape.

Long silver ears poked out the top of my head, and long black silver-tipped wings were spread open to slow my descent to the baren forest floor.

With a flick of my hand, clothes once more formed on my body, this time a simple white long-sleeved shirt with a thin turtleneck and flexible black sweats.

'Ah, I should have taken a weapon with me.'

No matter how strong I was, it was still inconvenient to fight barehanded as I might also injure myself when fighting close combat.

'...Why am I even restricting myself to close combat?'

This was VANHA. A fantasy VRMMORPG that has magic as its base and structure.

It was probably a subconscious limiter, set to things possible in my past life and not this new reality.

I'm not sure if it was due to my race, or my innate talent, but I found that I was pretty proficient in controlling mana, much more than when I was using my past life avatar.

Turning to the direction of the demons, a pair of red pupils glow in the shadow of the trees.

---

The demon looked at Val for a split second before its pupils dilated, lunging at her.

It was some sort of leopard, a slightly larger one than those on Earth.

Val shifted her feet and quickly got out of the way, the demon skidded on the hard earth below, before once more pouncing on Val from above.

The jaws of the demon were wide open, a low growl reverberated from its vocal cords.

Just before it could land on Val, however, a barrier of twisted space coated Val and the demon's paws were pushed back, some black ink splattering out onto the ground.

A yelp escaped the maws of the demon, as Val materialized a Qiang* in her right hand. It had a long black staff and a silver blade at the tip that reflected light with a cold sheen.

( *A Qiang is a Chinese spear )

The Qiang fit snugly in Val's hands, her stance lowered as her feet spread out slightly, her eyes contained an unrestrained coldness and utter disregard for life.

When the barrier was dispersed, the feral demon didn't straight up launch itself at Val, it circled her from a distance.

Slowly, the demon and Val were having a standoff, the atmosphere was tense and both were waiting for the other to expose an opening.

Air stilling, Val gripped the Qiang in her hands tightly, internally mobilizing her mana to reinforce her limbs for the upcoming clash.

After a while, the demon started to become restless and impatient.

Its tail swishing from side to side, lowering its stance and flexing its muscles in a pouncing posture.

'In the end, it's just a feral demon.'