Discovery of a World Quest?

Immediately after the trio entered the elf apothecary's tree cottage, the player that had been stalking them since they entered the village made a call to someone via the game's messaging system.

[Unknown Player: What is it?]

"Boss. I found the girl you asked me about. She's currently in Thousand Wood Village like you predicted but we might have a problem," said the shady player in a single and quiet breath.

[Unknown Player: And what problem would that be?]

"She's currently teamed up with another elf girl that belongs to the village and a Lycan. I can't tell if they belong to a guild or not from where I am and I can't get any closer without alerting them to verify. How do you want me to proceed?" asked the shady player in a hushed tone.

The unknown player on the other side of the convo took a few moments before relaying his message.

[Unknown Player: Nothing changes. Kill her and take the blueprint away, even if you have to kill her back to level 1. As for her teammates, get rid of them.]

"Understood boss." The shady player ended his call with his boss before making a few more calls to another group of players. After he was done making his calls, the shady player went back to observing the house that the trio entered, completely unaware of the pair of menacing eyes staring at the back of his skull that suddenly disappeared.

**************

After entering the tree cottage, Kirou took a quick glance around the room. The decor was pretty similar to the village head in that it was decorated with well-maintained items with a sense of age emanating from them.

Just as Kirou was about to go forward to greet the elf apothecary, his eyes slightly narrowed and took on a menacing appearance before they returned to normal a split second later. This change might have escaped the notice of the two women behind him but the elder in front of him caught the slight change and gave Kirou a raised eyebrow in response.

"Is something the matter, young Lycan?" asked the elder elf with a smile that wasn't a smile on his face.

"My apologies, Elder. Just a few pests have made their presence known so I'll have to prepare to deal with them later," responded Kirou in a relaxed manner.

Hearing Kirou's response and seeing his expression, the elder elf shrugged his shoulders before addressing the trio together. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit today, young ones?"

Navi was the one who spoke up here, "Elder Apothecarist, we are here report the details of the quest you gave me a few hours ago."

The elder elf looked at Navi the dark elf with a raised eyebrow before speaking, "So you've already scouted the source of the strange mana fluctuations? Quickly, tell me the details."

Navi nodded and opened her mouth, "Ok elder, it went like this..."

**************

After recounting the entire series of events that took place in the <Riverbed Cove Dungeon>, the elder elf had a pensive look on his face. It seems that he wasn't expecting a story quite like this when he issued the quest and now the results have given him a lot to think about. The elder apothecary started to pace around the room in thought, all while the trio stood in the same place, waiting for the elder to settle down

The elder elf was like this for a few minutes before he turned back to face the trio before speaking, "You've done an excellent job and I would like to thank you on behalf of Thousand Wood Village for the work that you've done for us. I would like for you to take these items as thanks for the work you've done."

[System Message: You've completed the quest <The Elf Apothecary's Worry>]

[You have received the following: Advanced Plant Harvesting Kit Blueprint x1, MP Restoration Pills (Low) x15, random skill book (A), 3gold 50silver]

Following the distribution of the rewards to the trio, while Kirou and Reya were looking over the rewards for the quest, Navi was enveloped in a ring of light, signifying that she was now at level 20 with her exp bar now locked at 0%. To continue leveling up, she will now have to wait until the level cap is removed.

Following this, the elder apothecary continued to speak, "Now that we've covered the rewards for the previous quest, I would now like for you to deliver a message to the village head, Old Oak, informing him of what you just told me. Also, please hand this letter to him as well." As the elder apothecary spoke, he just finished writing a letter which he then handed over to Navi, the original quest owner for the previous quest.

[System Message: You've been given the quest <Mail Delivery>]

Quest: <Mail Delivery>

Rank: C

Level: 15+

Description: Deliver this message to the head of Thousand Wood Village, Old Oak and recount the story you told Elf Apothecary Redwood for the quest <The Elf Apothecary's Worry>.

Rewards: 5sp, 2 gold.

Seeing the system prompt appear before her eyes, Navi accepted the quest instantly. Since it was just a delivery quest, she had no problem handing it in before making her way back to SC Pier City, the only port city for the Southern Continent.

"When the village head sees my letter, he'll know what to do. Now then, run along, young ones. I'm sure you've got plenty of things to do now." As soon as the elder elf passed on the letter to Navi, his expression changed from gloomy and serious to calm and relaxed, making it seem that the previous conversation never happened.

Both Navi and Reya looked as if they wanted to say something but Kirou spoke up before they could, "Very well, elder. We'll be on our way." Following those words, Kirou cupped his hands and gave a slight bow towards the elf apothecary before turning around and walked out. The women hesitated for a bit before bidding the elder elf farewell as well before following Kirou out of the house.

As the trio left, they never noticed the gloomy shade that elf apothecary Redwood's eyes took on nor heard the words that escaped his lips. Again, at least the girls didn't.

"I hope we'll have a bit more time before those Sects from the Demon Continent make their move. We can't afford to have them moving so soon while the sects from the outer continents are still currently weakened from the last war." As Apothecary Redwood said this, his face was covered in a gloomy expression that no one would be able to see even if they walked in now.

***********

The trio was currently outside of the tree cottage a few meters away from the door when both Navi and Reya confronted Kirou on what just happened.

Navi was the one who spoke up first, "Why did you stop us from asking anything else and went along with his suggestion to leave earlier?"

"Yea. It looked like he wasn't telling us everything earlier. Why didn't you let us try a bit harder? Could it be that you noticed something?" asked Reya, following up on Navi's earlier question.

Kirou, for his part, was currently furrowing his brow in deep thought while doing his best to verify his findings, hoping that they are dead wrong. Being confronted with both women's questions, Kirou made a gesture for both to follow him while he led them away from the area. While they were leaving, Kirou made sure to silently create a clone that would be responsible for distracting the trio's stalker for a bit while they were having their discussion.

After they found a quiet area in the village, instead of explaining himself immediately, Kirou posed a question to both women, "Don't you two find it strange how Apothecary Redwood reacted after we told him about our ordeal within the dungeon?"

Reya was the one who spoke first, "Isn't that why we wanted to see if we could get that apothecary to give us some more information? I mean, just giving us a delivery quest after that quest seems weird, doesn't it?"

Kirou nodded, signifying that that was apart of it but then he shook his head. After deliberating on it for a bit, Kirou finally opened his mouth, "Reya, tell me, was it really a coincidence that you found the entrance to that hidden dungeon?"

Reya was struck silent for a moment before she spoke up again, "No, I didn't actually find the dungeon entrance by accident. Its coordinates were a quest reward I got for a quest I did recently."

Hearing her words made Kirou release a sigh before turning to Navi and asking, "And Navi, wasn't your quest a C-rank quest when you got it?" Navi didn't say a word but nodded to confirm Kirou's thoughts. Hearing Navi's response caused Kirou to release another breath, this time it was laced with a bit of frustration that both girls noticed.

Both women looked at Kirou in confusion when Kirou posed another question to them, "Assuming both of those actions were complete coincidences and it was a complete coincidence in itself that you two knew each other and managed to meet up just as we were about to run a random hidden dungeon, wasn't our dungeon run a bit weird? I mean, we ran into a boss that Navi, a level 19 player at the time, couldn't see any of its info besides its name and a stronger than normal level 20 boss, Mutated Murloc Warrior Jake that probably could have wrecked an entire squad of elite players at level 20 if they were careless, much less the three of us as a party."

Kirou's words got both women thinking as those points he just brought up sounded weird to them now that he brought it up. Before they could even think further on the topic, Kirou dropped another bombshell on the girls.

"That's not all either. I won't go into details on how I did it, nor will I entertain any questions on why, but I overhead Elder Redwood say a few words under his breath that we shouldn't have any knowledge on yet. Tell me, have you girls ever heard of 'Sects or 'Demon Continent'?"

Both women adopted a look of confusion. While Reya seemed hesitant, it was Navi who spoke up, "I have no idea what this 'Demon Continent' thing is about, but I do know about 'Sects'."

Kirou looked at her with a raised eyebrow while Reya released a sigh. Navi shrugged in response to Kirou's look and continued with her words, "It's not common knowledge to most players at the moment since they are either by themselves or in small groups like we are currently. For pro players and large guilds, however, joining or creating sects could be seen as their biggest goal in Immortal Era. To better explain what sects are, I should tell you about guilds as well."

Kirou looked towards Navi with interest while Reya released a sigh before sitting down on the floor and started concocting some pills. It was apparent that this was something she knew about already and knew it was something that could take some time.

"It goes like this," started Navi as she saw what Reya was doing, causing the edges of her lips to twitch. "Parties are basically groups of six players, teams are made up of six parties. Squads are made up of three teams while battalions are made up of three squads each. Each guild can house six battalions at the beginning and this can be upgraded for a max of eighteen when the guild gets to max level. As for Sects, this can be split into groups, based on the people involved and requires at least six guilds to start up."

Hearing Navi's words about the split in classification for sects caused Kirou to look towards her with even more interest. Just as she was about to speak, however, Reya was the one who spoke up, earning an annoying look from Navi who she returned a grin to.

"Sects can be split into the groups of Alliance or True Sects. An Alliance is basically a bunch of guilds from different fields coming together to work towards a common goal. If I had to give an example of this, you can look at the Combat Alliance which is basically the Sect where all the combat classes that we players use are apart of, like the Thieves Guild and Archers Guild. The Sect that comprises most, if not all of the lifestyle classes is called the Crafting Alliance. As for what True Sects are," started Reya, only to be interrupted by Navi who shoved a potion down her mouth.

"True Sects are basically guilds with many branches responsible for different areas under the main guild branch or the elite branch, as most like to call it. Let's take the guild I'm in as an example. The studio decided to create seven guilds so far. I'm a member of its alchemy branch while Ms. Elf over there is a member of its apothecary branch, by choice and not being ordered like me. Next, we have one for administration and core members, one for training elites, one for information gathering, one for material gathering, and finally one for blacksmithing. As of now, no plans have been made to expand but that might change in the future."

Now done with the explanation, both women now turned to Kirou who now released yet another breath. Seeing the look on both women's faces, Kirou decided to explain himself, "With your words, I now have confirmation that my idea might be correct. I'm sure you both have already looked over the world map for Immortal Era, right?" Both women nodded to his question. "Then I'm sure you've noticed that we have a total of 9 continents. Out of those 9 continents, we only have names for 8 of them, the outer 4 and the inner 4, leaving the middle continent a mystery. If my guess is correct, then the 'Demon Continent' that Apothecary Redwood spoke about must be this mysterious middle continent."

Hearing his words made both women look at him in shock. Following the shock, both women allowed all the information Kirou just brought up to flow through their minds, and a random thought formed within their minds. Both elf women looked at each other and realized they had the same thought. They then turned to face Kirou who had a gloomy expression on his face as he voiced their hidden thoughts.

"World Quest. This might just have been the start of a World Quest." The words played in the women's minds as Kirou said them out loud. While both women had excited expressions on their faces, Kirou was showing a gloomy expression that stated he wanted nothing to do with it.