First Mission

As a homebody, Pei Renli had never had anything to do with real adventuring. Besides, adventures on Earth were completely different from those here.

The former usually meant extreme sports, or shouldering a pack like a backpacker and setting out to explore secret realms unknown to anyone. But here...

Countless game scenarios flashed through Pei Renli's mind, and he felt a little excited.

On the day of departure, Pei Renli arrived at the school gates early, fully prepared. Once everyone had gathered, he tugged at his cloak.

"Pipi Shrimp, let's go!"

"What's a Pipi Shrimp?"

The one who asked was a pretty girl with two daggers strapped at her waist and a short bow in hand. Though she had wrapped herself up tightly and wore leather armor, her brown skin and S-curved figure were impossible to hide.

Judging by her appearance, she had neither horns nor any unusual height and looked no different from an ordinary human. The only distinctive feature was that her ears were slightly pointed.

Her name was Anna Strina, though everyone usually just called her Anna. She was a half-elf—a mixed-blood child of a human and an elf.

Since her grandmother was an elf, she only had one-quarter elven blood. Thus, her elven features were not especially obvious, but half-elves still inherited quite a few elven advantages.

For instance, resistance to certain specific spells; nimble, swift movements; and dim-light vision, which allowed them to see clearly even in faint lighting.

And, of course, beauty inherited from the elves.

"Pipi Shrimp...? I've never heard of that kind of shrimp. What does it look like?"

This time, the speaker was another handsome blond man, though he was a pure human rather than any unusual race.

Like the others, he wore leather armor, but he held a lute that looked somewhat like a pipa. His only weapon for self-defense was a shortsword at his waist, making him seem more like he was headed out for a picnic.

His name was Moen, and he was a bard.

This was a rather unusual kind of spellcaster. They did not rely on study to use magic, but on their ancestors...

Their bloodlines contained magical beings beyond mortal kind—fairies, dragons, angels, demons, and the like—which gave them spellcasting abilities from birth.

With training, they could cast spells through the medium of sound. Their spell selection was limited, but highly versatile.

"Don't sweat the details. Pei Renli said it, after all. Did you forget what he did at the start of term? Pipi Shrimp must be another one of his jokes."

"What do you mean, don't sweat it? It could be a fantastical aquatic creature that hardly anyone has ever seen. Wait, inspiration has struck!"

As he spoke, Moen pulled out a battered notebook and bent over it, scribbling furiously as he tried to record his inspiration.

Bards could fight, that was true, but they also sang for money in places like taverns during ordinary times. They were roughly like wild musicians.

Seeing this, the owner of the voice speaking to Moen helplessly turned back to glance at Pei Renli, as if saying, This is all your fault for running your mouth.

"Whatever Pipi Shrimp is, it definitely can't be as tasty as fish."

Her voice was extraordinarily sweet. If she put on a virtual avatar and became a virtual idol, she would probably be wildly popular.

She was indeed a girl, and a pretty one at that. But by Pei Renli's standards of beauty, she might have been a little difficult to accept.

She wore an iron breastplate over her upper body, carried a shield and a mace, and had large ginger-colored eyes and gray fur covering her from head to toe...

She was a tabaxi. She looked like a cat molded into human shape. Perhaps she was a great beauty by tabaxi standards, but humans probably could not accept that—at least, Pei Renli could not.

She called herself Litia. The reason she called it self-styled was that she had given herself the name Litia after arriving at the Adventurer School. Her real name was Snakevine Tree...

Tabaxi naming customs were peculiar. When a child was born, they performed a divination ritual to see what the child was fated to be connected with, then named them after that thing.

As a result, tabaxi true names were all strange—Half a Bottle of Wine, Burning Clouds, Crystal Slippers, Left-Hander, and so on.

"Alright, let's get moving. We need to get back before nightfall."

Urging everyone onward, Litia took the lead at the very front.

Pei Renli was not particularly close with these three, but they were classmates after all, so he knew them to some extent.

The ones he knew best were naturally the halfling Alton, whose seat was nearby; Gary, the tin can; and Koura, who went around prying into everyone else's business like a paparazzo.

The reason he had gone out with three people he was not especially familiar with was that groups were assigned by the school's teachers rather than freely formed by the students.

There were few lone wolves among adventurers. Most operated in teams, and a standard adventuring party was supposed to include the following four roles.

There needed to be a meat shield at the front, a nimble member responsible for scouting and filling gaps, someone in charge of healing and support, and a role for crowd control and damage output.

Of course, that was an idealized way to build a party. Suitable people could not always be found, so most of the time they merely tried their best to meet those requirements.

An ordinary adventuring party consisted of three to six people. Too few made it difficult to divide roles, while too many made the group highly conspicuous in the wilderness and invited unnecessary trouble.

Over the week since enrollment, the teachers had more or less observed what these students were good at and what abilities they possessed. That was why the teachers decided the party compositions.

Litia was the front-lining warrior, Anna was the ranger responsible for scouting and filling gaps, Moen was the bard in charge of support and healing, while Pei Renli, because he could use magic, handled crowd control and damage output.

Moreover, these teams were not fixed. Rather, they changed every time, cultivating the students' ability to coordinate with different teammates.

After the same week of observation, the teachers had also formed a rough estimate of everyone's strength. This assessment was an important reference for assigning both teams and commissions, so no one acted according to their usual social circles, and every team received different commissions.

The capable ones were naturally assigned difficult commissions. For example, Kamil, the conspicuous blond handsome man from the first day of school, had reportedly gone beneath the school.

Naspar's Adventurer School had originally been the front line against the Demon King. Nations had once sent people to use magic to excavate enormous warehouses and even research institutes beneath the school. Over time, the place below had become almost like a labyrinth. Then, because the Demon King vanished so suddenly, personnel were withdrawn just as abruptly. Combined with the fact that it had been excavated by multiple factions, there was not even a proper map.

From time to time, the school sent students down to explore. The evacuation had been too rushed, leaving behind many valuable items. If they found things such as research materials, the school could contact the original owners and collect a hefty finder's fee.

—Just look at how broke the school is.

As for Pei Renli and the others' commission, there would not be any danger. Leaving others aside, the teachers had all seen firsthand just how well Pei Renli could fight.

Their objective was simply to head upstream along the river, inspect the dam, then turn around and return. That was all.

They set out just as the sun rose, catching Naspar as it opened its gates for the morning, then plunged straight into the nearby Great Tree Sea.

Since it was close to the city, this area was actually very safe. Even wild animals were rarely seen, and townspeople sometimes came here to gather mushrooms or chop firewood. Though they were all fully armed, they might not even need their weapons at all.

Precisely because of that, no one felt much sense of danger. They kept a loose formation, chatting on and off as they walked.

As time passed, they went from the sun's first light to the blazing sun overhead. They had walked for more than four hours, yet still had not reached their destination.

It was not that they had gotten lost. With a compass in hand, they could not have gone the wrong way. The destination was simply that far away.

That had turned Pei Renli's initial enthusiasm into a growing sigh of, when was this ever going to end?

Still, the week of basic training had been useful. Perhaps it was because of something as unscientific as magic, but after walking all this way, Pei Renli did not feel particularly tired at all. At the very least, his basic stamina had improved by leaps and bounds compared with before.

When he opened the Demon King System now, he could see that the level beneath his name had gone from 5 to 10, exactly doubling.

Of course, by local standards, he was still weak as a chicken.

Apparently, the average adventurer was around level 20 to 25. Pei Renli's levels had risen quickly purely because his level had been so low; he suspected it would not be this fast in the future.

Speaking of levels, that was also what Pei Renli found strangest. This kind of evaluation system looked every bit like something from a video game. Yet it was not just the Demon King System that judged people this way—many places in this world used a level system as well. Who knew what had gone wrong?

With all sorts of random thoughts running through his mind, he casually picked up the waterskin hanging from his waist. But then everyone heard a rustling sound coming from the bushes not far ahead.

There had originally been a road through the Great Tree Sea, leading to the Demon King Castle in its deepest reaches. But after the Demon King vanished, the forest had swallowed up that road as well. They could be said to be making their way through dense woodland.

Too many things blocked their view, so even after hearing the noise, they could not tell what it was. Considering they were still within Naspar's territory, it was usually nothing more than a wild animal.

Everyone stopped where they were and raised their weapons. The next moment, they saw a short, filthy, dark-green humanoid creature poke its head out of the bushes.

"So it's just a goblin. You gave me a scare."

Litia, at the front, let out a breath of relief. Moen and Anna at her sides relaxed as well.

Goblins were among the weakest monsters. They could barely be considered intelligent creatures, but their intelligence was laughably terrible.

They generally raided farms around winter to obtain food to survive the harsh cold. Of course, even when food was plentiful, they did not mind attacking travelers who looked weak.

Because of that trait, children born in the countryside had all had experience picking up weapons alongside their parents to deal with goblins. No wonder no one took them too seriously.