Noah

Faust stood at the north gate of the city, thinking back on what had happened in the guild after Mary had picked a quest for him.

"What's that look for?!" She glared at him. "Do you think you could take on any harder quests right now? You're basically a walking meal to any of the actual monsters! Served warm! Just don't go any further than the very outskirts of the forest, and you should be fine." She paused for a few moments before speaking again like she had just remembered something.

"Oh, before I forget, new Adventurers get one weapon free of charge."

Faust's eyes lit up.

"No, not any weapon, you idiot. One of the beginner weapons. They're all roughly the same in terms of quality, so pick whichever one suits you best."

She pointed at a wall behind her where a bunch of weapons lay in a rack. Only one word could describe the weapons that lay there. Shoddy. They all looked like they had seen better days. Faust walked up to the weapon rack and looked at it carefully. Despite being quite shoddy, there were weapons of all different types. Heavy weapons, like maces and hammers. Long weapons, like spears and polearms. Short weapons, like daggers. Faust glanced at all of them before his eyes came to a stop on a short saber. Faust had always had a fascination with sabers. They were different from swords. A regular sword has a sharp point and a two-sided blade, while a saber has one sharp edge and one blunt edge. Due to this design, the saber has much more offensive power than the sword, which Faust found incredibly appealing.

Faust reached out and grabbed the saber, weighing it in his grip. It had no hand-guard, so he had to be careful. Suddenly, he thought of something.

"Examine."

[Examine skill activated. Target is an object. The object is currently ownerless. Would you like to take ownership of the object?]

Faust looked back at Mary, asking if it was okay. She replied in the affirmative. Faust clicked 'Yes'.

[Ownership acquired. 'Blunted Short Saber' now belongs to player 'Faust'. Displaying information.

Name: Blunted Short Saber

Rating: Common

Requirements: None

Durability: 12 / 20

Attack: 13 ~ 17

Description: A used saber, left rusting without care. Its edge isn't very sharp, so use with caution.

[No further information is available.]

'Not bad by any means, but not exactly great either. At least I don't have to use my fists.' Faust thought to himself. Once he acquired ownership of the saber, Mary handed him a scabbard that hung off his back. The saber fit into it easily.

"Now that you have your weapon, go ahead and accept the quest." Faust reached down to the window and accepted the quest posting. Right after he did that, a notification popped up in his vision.

['Adventurer's Bracelet' is currently trying to give you a quest!]

Quest details: Escort NPC 'Noah' along the outskirts of the forest outside Varadale.

Quest clear condition: Protect him from harm until he has collected 3 yellow grasshoppers.

Quest failure: 3 yellow grasshoppers not collected or Death of NPC 'Noah'.

Quest reward: 50XP, 2 Bronze Coins

[Do you accept?]

'Yellow grasshoppers? Is it some sort of subspecies? Or maybe even magical?'

Faust clicked accept and let Mary know.

"Alright, I'll organise it so you can meet with Noah at the north gate. Head over there now, it shouldn't take too long." Mary looked at him as she spoke. "Oh, and be careful. Don't go too close to the forest. There shouldn't be any magical beasts there, but the town is pretty lax with clearing the regular beasts."

Faust finally broke out of his recollection. He was meant to be looking out for this NPC, which he assumed would be a kid.

'I can't believe my first quest is a goddamn escort mission. Did I do something to offend you, game designers?!'

Faust would habitually use the 'Examine' skill as he waited. While it normally didn't show anything unexpected, there was a moment where he used it on one of the NPC's walking by and all he got were a bunch of question marks. That wasn't the most surprising part. That NPC turned to look at him, like they knew they had been the target of a skill. Fortunately, he only glanced at Faust before continuing on their way. This did, however, teach him a lesson not to use his skills haphazardly.

Finally, Faust used his examine skill on a child loitering near the gate.

[Examine skill activated. Target: NPC]

Name: Noah Venta

Level: 0 (Unawakened)

HP: 20

Strength: 2 / Agility: 3 / Constitution: 2 / Intelligence: 4 / Faith: 5 / Luck: 0

[No further information is available.]

'Finally found you.'

Faust sighed with relief and headed over to the child. Inwardly, he was glad his first mission was to escort a kid instead of an adult. He had always been better at dealing with children than adults.

The boy wasn't looking at him so Faust tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"H-Huh?! Who is it?!" Noah stumbled backwards as he spoke.

"Woah, it's just me. I'm the one who accepted your quest. My name is Faust."

"R-right. The lady at the guild told me someone called Faust accepted it. She told me to come wait by the north gate and that you would find me. I wasn't sure about everything since my parents put it up for me."

"That's alright. Is it okay if I call you Noah?" Faust spoke with a smile to the young boy. He nodded in response.

"Noah, is everything okay? You seem a bit nervous."

"I'm sorry, it's just, this is my first time going out of the city without my parents. They said the guild's members were trustworthy but I still can't help it. I just need to collect some grasshoppers for my class project."

Faust knew this already, but made a bit of a show to try and calm the boy down.

"It'll be alright, I'm a really strong adventurer you see."

The boy's eyes lit up. "Really? Are you really?"

"Yep, I'm super strong! I'll make sure to protect you." Faust smiled as he spoke.

"Thank you!" The boy bowed his head after he spoke.

"Shall we get going then? It's a little bit of a walk to the edge of the forest, but you should have no problems finding some of the yellow grasshoppers there."

"Yeah, let's go!" Noah took the lead after speaking, walking forward in a confident manner.

'He only looks around 10 years old, but his parents are fine with him leaving the city with a complete stranger? Do they have that much trust in the guild, or is that just how the world works here?'

Faust and Noah walked together along the path leading out of the gate and towards the forest for about a quarter of an hour. Finally they reached the edges of the forest. It was huge. There was only 1 path leading into the forest, but it seemed to stretch on endlessly to the sides. Mary had told him they would be able to find the 'yellow grasshoppers' on the perimeter of the forest, so he and Noah walked together. Noah seemed full of energy as he upturned every rock and checked around every log. Finally, after almost half an hour of looking, Noah yelled out while he was looking behind an almost rotting log.

"Mr Faust! I found one! Come see!" Faust was currently looking at the forest, but he could barely see through the thick gathering of trees. Hearing Noah, he turned away and looked down. What entered his eyes was the same kind of grasshopper he was used to seeing on Earth, the only difference being it had a bright yellow head and antennae while the rest of its body was the usual brown. It was unusual, but it didn't exactly spark a sense of wonder like he was hoping. Noah put the grasshopper into a small box he was carrying. Thankfully it had a few air holes.

'Finally found one, this took way longer than I thought it would. Hopefully there are a few more around here we can catch and head back.'

"Let's look around and see if we can find any more of them while we're here, alright Noah?"

"Yeah! They usually show up in groups so there should be a few more here!"

Noah and Faust spent a few minutes overturning some rocks and pushing aside some plants. Upon reaching the base of a tree, Faust spied another grasshopper.

"Over here, Noah! I found one!" He called out.

Hearing him, Noah ran over. There was a grasshopper standing against the trunk of a tree with a bright yellow head.

"Yes! We got another one Mr Faust!" The boy's face lit up in a smile as he reached out to put it into the same box as the other one.

'Hang on.' Thought Faust, 'The grasshopper is up against the trunk of a tree? A tree? Not a log? Oh f-'

Faust's thoughts stopped right there when he heard a low growl. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Something was looking directly at him.