Mission Complete

[You have killed a beast, Sleeper.]

Alex just couldn't help getting excited when he saw the notification.

You can only be sure that your enemy is dead when the Primordial Expanse itself confirms it for you!

'I did it! Haha, I actually killed a beast a whole minor level above me!'

Alex examined his surroundings with glee, the only notable thing in the area being the body of the Sleeper with its head nearly smashed in below him.

He took a deep breath and looked all around him.

He never would have imagined that he would one day be able to breathe in such fresh and enjoyable air.

And now not only did he get to enjoy such a privilege, but he had managed to achieve an accomplishment not many awakened could claim to do.

It took Alex a while to recover his drained energy, but eventually he managed to calm his rampaging excitement. 

While he was recovering, he managed to pick up the body of the Sleeper and slung it over his shoulder.

However he noticed a sizable problem when he was just halfway to the gate of the city.

His whole chest area hurt like hell.

Every breath Alex took felt like he was getting stabbed by a thousand needles.

There was nothing he could do about it though.

He was still a few miles out from the entrance of the city, and he couldn't leave the body of the Sleeper here.

If he did leave it behind it would have long been scavenged by a nearby beast by the time he came back to look for it.

Then his mission would all be for naught.

So, all Alex could do was clench his teeth and walk through the pain towards the city entrance.

***

A few hours later, Alex finally arrived in front of the city gates.

What would have originally taken him 15 minutes to travel, took him over three hours to cover.

Due to the constant pain in his chest, Alex had to walk slower than normal and take regular rest stops to catch his bearings before he carried on again.

This process repeated until he reached the queue in front of the gates, where he spent a further 30 minutes waiting before it was his turn to go in.

The guard saw Alex approach, and raised an eyebrow when he saw the beast body slung over his shoulder.

Blood was flowing from his chest and covering various parts of his body.

'Looks like this kid put up quite a good fight.'

"Name and identification."

Alex simply gave the man his name and showed him his adventurer licence and the guard let him pass. Adventurers didn't need to pay the fee to enter the city.

There was no misunderstanding or judging looks from the guards this time and the whole process went much smoother than Alex had expected.

"You should get your wounds checked at the hospital after you hand in your quest, kid."

Suddenly, the voice of the guard came from behind Alex right as he walked past.

Clearly he noticed Alex was a newbie and offered a simple piece of advice.

Alex thanked the man then made his way over to the adventurer association.

***

"I've completed my mission."

Alex spoke to the receptionist in the mission hall and pointed to the body of the Sleeper on his shoulder.

The receptionist didn't even react to the body, things like this were too frequently seen in the mission hall. She did take a few glances at Alex's roughed up body and injuries though.

None of this was any of her business though.

She glanced at Alex's mission for a few moments and stamped some documents.

"Your request for completion has been logged, please head over to the beast examination hall."

'Tsk, more convoluted procedures. Just give me my reward already dammit!'

Alex only voiced his displeasure at having to wait longer in his mind.

He had already experienced how long drawn the processes were at the adventurer association when he obtained his licence.

Alex opened the door to the beast examination hall, bringing genuine surprise out of him for the first time in a while since he had entered the Primordial Expanse.

Inside the hall there were hundreds of tables laid out in rows, each with someone wearing a butcher uniform dissecting the corpse of a beast.

'There are hundreds of beast corpses in this one hall alone…'

To say Alex was shocked would be an understatement.

It had taken him nearly three weeks of painstaking investigation before he was even able to catch sight of an F+ rank beast.

Yet right in front of him there were hundreds of such beasts, even some E rank beast corpses were dotted around.

"What are you standing there looking all culture shocked for? Come, there's nothing more exciting than examining the inner workings of beasts!"

Alex was brought out of his shock by a youthful voice coming from his side.

A young man stood there, his eyes practically shining at the sight of the Sleeper on Alex's shoulder.

"I'm here to complete my mission." Alex said.

"I know! Now follow me so I can confirm this is the beast."

Alex followed the enthusiastic young man over to one of the unoccupied tables and just threw the corpse on top.

"You can examine it all you like, I'm confident this is the right beast."

To the side, Alex just stood looking through some information booklets the adventurer association provided.

As it turned out, the beast examination hall also acted as the treatment centre where beasts would be dissected, butchered and processed.

'No wonder there were so many people butchering beasts!'

Alex wanted to just let the young man do his thing with the beast, after all he couldn't care what the adventurer association did with it after he received his reward for completion.

However it didn't even take a minute before the young man furrowed his brows.

"There seems to be something wrong with your mission…"

"Your mission is to kill an F rank beast, yet this is an F+ rank beast?"