Chapter 29: A Day in the Wilderness
After spending half an hour in the Wilderness, Leo achieved his third monster kill, but since he did not use magic and only used his sword, it did not count towards his quest progression.
“Miss Camille, can I use magic to kill the next few monsters? I want to experience what it feels like to fight monsters using magic.” Leo decided to ask her.
Miss Camille pondered for a moment before nodding her head, “Okay, but only a few. We’re training your swordsmanship right now, after all. If you want to use nothing but magic to fight monsters, you can do so in the future.”
“I understand. Thank you!”
When they encountered the next monster, Leo proceeded to aim his finger at the monster running at them.
Once he had a good aim, Leo released Black Bullet, shooting it straight into the monster’s head that went on to pierce the rest of its body before exiting from its rear.
The monster collapsed on the floor, becoming nothing but a corpse.
“What the heck? That was super easy!” Leo exclaimed after killing the monster in a single hit.
Compared to fighting monsters with his sword, it was basically effortless and without any risks! It was like taking candy from a baby!
Now that Leo had a taste of what it was like to fight using magic, he did not want to use the sword anymore! After all, it was much safer and more efficient to use magic than the sword!
“No wonder why people think magic is superior.” Leo mumbled to himself.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself just because you killed a single F-Rank monster with your magic. You won’t have such an easy time if you were fighting a monster with a similar level.” Miss Camille said to him.
And she continued, “Your magic power is around the upper end of E-Rank, so it’s only obvious that you were able to kill an F-Rank monster with a single hit. Furthermore, this monster is known for having weak defenses.”
Even though Miss Camille downplayed Leo’s achievements, not everyone can do what Leo just did. In fact, even talented magicians would have trouble taking down an F-Rank monster with Tier 1 magic spells, much less with a single hit.
However, Miss Camille didn’t want Leo to become too arrogant, so she downplayed his achievements, keeping him humble for now.
With that being said, Leo still felt incredibly excited and happy about the results.
About half an hour later, Leo killed two more monsters using magic, completing his quest.
<You have completed a Quest>
[+2,000 Magic Experience, +10 Magic Points]
<You have received new Quests from the Magic System>
[Quest: Kill Monsters]
[Description: Kill 10 monsters using magic]
[Time Limit: 30 days]
[Reward: 3,000 Magic Experience, 15 Magic Points]
[Quest: Kill Monsters]
[Description: Kill 10 monsters without using magic]
[Time Limit: 30 days]
[Reward: 3,400 Magic Experience, 17 Magic Points]
‘Oh? There are quests that aren’t related to magic? Interesting…’ Leo thought to himself after seeing the new quest that required him to kill monsters without using magic.
‘And it even has a better reward than if I were to kill monsters using magic… I guess I didn’t waste my time learning swordsmanship after all.’ Leo laughed inwardly.
After killing two more monsters with magic, Leo returned to using the sword.
“Miss Camille, I have killed around 10 monsters now, and they were all basically the same type of monster. Are there any other F-Rank monsters around here? I think fighting a different variety of monsters will be a good experience.” He said.
“These Sharp Tooth Wolves are the most common around our city. If you want to fight other monsters, you’ll have to get lucky or wander further out in the Wilderness. Since this is your first day fighting monsters, let’s just focus on getting you more comfortable with monsters.”
“Furthermore, starting now, you are restricted from attacking the monster until three minutes has passed. However you can block its attacks. It won’t be fun if you kill them before they can even do anything to you.”
“F-Fun? Is this supposed to be fun?” Leo asked in a dumbfounded voice.
“It’s definitely entertaining for me.” Miss Camille said.
“How evil…” Leo sighed.
During his next encounter with a Sharp Tooth Wolf, Leo purposefully allowed the monster to attack him without retaliating.
‘Even though it’s easy to dodge its attacks, I cannot help but feel nervous being around it. I thought I was getting used to them, but it appears that I am still fearful of these monsters subconsciously.’ Leo quickly realized the true intention of Miss Camille’s restriction for him.
Indeed, Miss Camille wanted to get rid of Leo’s subconscious fear towards monsters by forcing him to face them without being able to do anything to them.
However, since Leo was only an ordinary human until very recently, it will take some time and serious effort to change his nature.
Sometime later—
<You have completed a Quest>
[+3,400 Magic Experience, +17 Magic Points]
“How do you feel?” Miss Camille asked him.
“Tired.” Leo answered as he sat on the dry ground.
“You have killed 17 monsters so far. Not bad for your first time.”
Miss Camille downplayed Leo’s achievements once again. Most normal F-Rank Adventurers would struggle to kill more than two monsters on their first day, yet Leo was already approaching 20 kills.
“We’ll stop here for today. Since it’s the weekend tomorrow, we’ll stay in a nearby hotel to make traveling more convenient.” Miss Camille said to him as they made their way back to the city.
“Okay.” Leo had no complaints.
After returning to the city walls, Miss Camille parked her vehicle right outside the gates and said to the guards, “We’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
“No problem.” The guards said nothing about her actions even though it wasn’t allowed.
Sometime later, Miss Camille brought Leo to a hotel that was only a block away from the gates and rented two rooms for the weekend.
“I’ll meet you outside at nine tomorrow. They serve breakfast in the hotel at six.” Miss Camille entered her room after telling him these details.
Leo also entered his room that was next to hers right after.
After taking a long hot shower, Leo laid on the bed and thought to himself, ‘Oh, right. Lilith doesn’t know that I won’t be back for the weekends. Whatever. She’ll survive without me for two days.’
He opened the Magic Shop shortly after and proceeded to purchase Increase Magic Power.
<Confirm purchase ‘Increase Magic Power’ for 5 MP>
“Confirm.”
Ding!
<You have purchased ‘Increase Magic Power’ from the Magic Shop>
<You Magic Power has increased>
“…”
“That’s it?” Leo raised his eyebrows.
He was a little disappointed when the system didn’t tell him how much his magic power had increased.
“Guess I’ll have to find out tomorrow.” He sighed.
[Magic Points: 31]
“I could increase my Wind Affinity with 20 MP, but it’s not a priority. I’ll just save my MP for the ‘Increase Mana Capacity’.”
Sometime later, like a child with new toys, Leo retrieved all of the mana cores he’d collected today and placed them all on the bed.
“I made almost 10,000 dollars in a single day. If I was still in my old world, I would be freaking rich!”
Once he was tired enough to sleep, Leo went to bed with the mana cores still lying around on the bed, treating them as though they were some kind of lucky charm.
The following morning, Leo woke up and counted the mana cores before placing them inside his Spatial Ring.
After breakfast, he took some time to relax before meeting Miss Camille outside the hotel.
Upon returning to the Wilderness, Miss Camille said to him, “We’ll continue what we were doing yesterday.”
“Okay.”
Two hours and 7 kills later, Leo asked, “I’m a little tired. Can I use my magic for now?”
Seeing Miss Camille nod her head, Leo immediately started looking for the next monster with excitement.
Of course, Miss Camille would still locate the monster before he can even see them.
“Oh? That’s a new type of monster.” Leo was pleasantly surprised to finally see a monster that wasn’t a Sharp Tooth Wolf.
This monster had two thick legs, a round body covered in feathers, and a long neck, just like an ostrich.
However, this ostrich-like monster had feathers made out of steel, and even its skin looked metallic.
“What the heck is that? A steel ostrich?” Leo asked as they watched it from afar.
“That’s a Steel Feather Long Leg. It’s actually an E-Rank monster.”
“A what?” Leo was so distracted by its hilarious name that he missed the E-Rank part.
“In order to penetrate its feathers and the iron body underneath, you’ll need at least 2,000 magic power. You won’t be able to damage it at your current level even if you overcharged your Black Bullet,” she continued.
“We won’t know until we try.” Leo said with a smile on his face.
“Fine. Go ahead and try. However, if you cannot kill it in one hit, you will have to survive five minutes against it without me as punishment.”
“Does that mean I will get a reward if I can kill it with one hit?” Leo looked at her with anticipating eyes.
“I’ll think about it afterward,” she said after a moment of silence.
“Good enough for me.” Leo nodded.
He proceeded to aim at the unaware Steel Feather Long Leg and prepared to use Black Bullet.
After overcharging it for a couple of seconds, Leo released the magic spell.
Whoosh!
The Black Bullet flew at the Steel Feather Long Leg with incredible speed, and before it could even realize that it was being attacked, the Black Bullet reached its body.
Its steel-like feathers that could fend off even multiple attacks from a Sharp Tooth Wolf was destroyed almost instantly when the Black Bullet struck.
Right after destroying its steel feathers, the Black Bullet proceeded to strike its sturdy body without slowing down, penetrating it with almost no resistance whatsoever.
However, the Steel Feather Long Leg did not immediately die even though it had a hole in its body.
It turned to look at Leo with a terrified look for a second before turning around and running away in the opposite direction, its blood pouring out of the hole in its body as it ran.
“Does that count as my win? I couldn’t kill it immediately, but it will definitely die of blood loss in sooner or later, right?” Leo spoke in a calm voice as he turned to look at Miss Camille, who had a look of disbelief on her face at this moment.
“…”
“Miss Camille?” He called for her when she didn’t respond.