A New Star Chapter 54

Calling the boards that had the quest notices pinned to them a board or section was a bit of a misnomer, as the 'board' took up most of the west wall of the main hall, having hundreds of notes and notices posted across it. All were of a rough paper, made more for quick and temporary use, rather than as a document that would last. The attendants had books listing the quests behind the desk where it would be preserved and recorded on much better paper than what was on the boards. The paper on the boards was a yellowish-brown just by nature and rough like bark that had been slightly sanded; I wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't exactly that, taking two of the notices down and pushing the pins back in at the bottom of the board. I walked over to the counter and waited in line for one of the clerks to take the papers and note down the quest as taken, recording my information from my tag when I showed it. The worker seemed very surprised to see the I stamped in bold on the tag, but didn't ask any questions after registering the quests. 

Both of the quest were copper, which they had allowed without note, meaning Paul had talked to them all, and both quests were rather easy. One required the person accepting the quest to kill ten bear-type beasts of an equivalent rank and bring the hearts and cores to the guild, while the other quest wanted five hundred pounds of high quality, high-grade meat. Technically, the bear meat would count, even though bear meat was usually pretty bad, with an oily, rancid texture and taste that was hard to cook out of it. I suppose this world of powerful external magic and crafting skills might have ways around that, but most people wouldn't like bear meat as the completion for the quest. I didn’t need to be a perfectionist, however, and I was only interested in getting the quest done as soon as possible.  

Once they were confirmed, I immediately walked through The Dark to leave the city, moving at a rapid pace to an area that had been listed as having beasts in the appropriate grade range. My proficiency with The Dark allowed me to move through the strange second space far faster than if I were moving through regular space; it wasn't as good as teleporting, but it was a lot faster than me running, even with my high-tier body on top of my other powerful affinities. I was able to reach the area that supposedly had the bears in near-record time, but that hardly mattered when the beasts were not present. With a sigh, I settled in for the kind of drudgery that I was used to from a long, rough previous life, tracking the animals through scent, through markings left behind, and through mana signature. It took two hours to locate the first of them, but the beasts, while not social creatures by nature, stuck to the same general area. Finding the first of them was finding most of the group, and I didn't need the whole group, I needed ten.  

The bigger problem was carrying all the hide back, and I was a bit disappointed that I hadn't encountered any kind of special items that could store other items within them. I had heard rumors of affinities that could minimize the size of items or reduce their weight, but I had yet to encounter any such thing. In the end, I put the hearts, wrapped in rough cloth, in a pack I had brought along, and then carved out a huge amount of meat and wrapped it in a couple pieces of hide cut from two of the animals. I cut the hide of the other eight in as near to one piece as I could get it, doing a considerably good job, if I had to say, and left those hides in a hidden location that I could only get to through The Dark. I then headed back to the guild hall and turned in both the hearts and cores, as well as the meat, which went over without issue. Apparently, the magic of this world did extend to making bear meat at least palatable, if not downright enjoyable to consume, so there was no issue with using it to fulfill the second quest. I was credited with both quests, and accepted my reward of a couple silver coins before heading back out to get the other eight hides. 

The guild itself was my buyer for those, as they purchased all manner of materials at a fair price with few, or no, questions asked. Funnily enough, I got more for the hides than the two quests, even with one of those quests requiring the hearts and cores, both of which would have quite a lot of value considering they were from I-grade beasts. Sometimes, the requests just needed to be done, and guild members were willing to handle it to get the standing or merit they rewarded rather than the coin. For me, it was two out of five done for my copper tag, and I went back to the board to select another two, or possibly three, hopefully finishing everything today. It was still early afternoon and another three requests like the previous two shouldn't take me more than five or six hours. That was also considering that a lot of these request had a lot of travel time to and from objective. That, combined with having to find an objective based on imprecise directions or that objective itself being motile meant that the journey often took far longer than doing the deed itself.  

I scanned the board again, looking for copper request at I-rank, of which there were quite a few. Iron request seemed to involve very basic things like finding some herbs of an appropriate grade or acting as a porter for another team that was killing monsters. Copper requests involved more killing and hunting missions, and could also include requests for specific materials that might only be found in any decent amount within dungeons. Those request often recommended a group, but I didn't think I would struggle with anything that was still present around the capital. Beyond that, there wasn't really much, as anything more complex or difficult was reserved for silver or gold missions. I did see a copper request to help in instructing in a particular affinity, but I wanted to get these requests done today or tomorrow, not in two months, as the time posted for the request demanded. Selecting another kill mission, a mission for gathering cores of a certain attribute, and a dungeon request, I returned to the counter and registered my new quests. Normally, taking on any more than two request at a time wasn't something that would be allowed, but it seemed like Paul had told them to just go along with whatever I was doing as long as I stuck to copper missions or less.  

This was another case of me knocking out multiple birds with one stone, though I was going to have to travel around to get it all done still. I would get the dungeon request done and at the same time get most of the cores I needed, if luck was on my side, at least. After that, I would go out killing and hopefully be able to finish gathering the cores at the same time. My first stop was the dungeon, a specific one located a few mile east of the eastern edge of the capital. It didn't take me all that long to get there, and the place was easily recognizable as it had a guard post blocking off the entrance that all entrants were required to pass through. I was able to get in after showing both my tag and the dungeon request, but they did check my tag after I displayed it. I think they didn't trust somebody that looked about fourteen to be entering a dungeon by themselves. I wondered what they might say if they knew I was currently ten.  

Dungeons themselves were funny things, a trick of mana and space that made an entire labyrinth in a pocket dimension that could only be entered through a single doorway. The dungeons had a varying range of difficulties, with one dungeon usually covering about four ranks. One of the ways I could tell the capital area had been thoroughly pacified was learning that this dungeon was one of the three highest-rank dungeons in the area, and I-rank was its highest setting. One walked up to the entry to a dungeon, touched a symbol for the rank, and touched a symbol to represent the number of party members. That was all there was to it, and I touched the symbol for 'I' and for one before stepping inside. There was a moment of disorientation and weightlessness, like I had just been blown out an airlock with my suit only half on (wouldn't be the first time), and then I was standing in the middle of a forest. Considering the dungeon was located at the edge of a farmer's field in flat, treeless land, the rolling hills covered in tall pine and fir tress was a bit different.  

Dungeons varied in size and shape, and different runs could have different layouts, but they were generally internally consistent within themselves. This dungeon was always rolling hills of forest with spider and panther-type beasts lurking among the trees and valleys. The whole thing looked impressive, and for most people it would be, but the roughly fifty square miles the instance covered wasn't all that large. I was able to navigate the place easily and killed anything that I encountered that even looked like a threat, or really that moved when I got close. I figured that would be a pretty good way to go about it, and the request for the dungeon was for a common reward that dropped after the boss was defeated, a type of herb that relieved pain. I could do several things with the herb with my alchemy skills, but the request wasn't for a pain reliever, just the herb specifically. Fortunately, I needed beast cores with an earth affinity for my other quest and many of the beasts had some earth related magic. Cores wouldn't always be aspected to an affinity, but it happened enough that hunting for them wasn't particularly onerous. I just needed to do a lot of killing and, well, I was rather good at that.  

The boss of the dungeon was a weird spider that had sharp hooks on the ends of its legs and tried to grab and tear anything that got in its way. The thing was all that fast and was deathly afraid of fire, so my conquest of the beast was all but assured. After killing the boss, a small platform appeared with one or more items on it, in this case just one, but it was the herb I needed. The amount request wasn't all that great, so the small pile of the herb that I got as my reward would fulfill the quest requirements handily. I wrapped the herb bundle in some old leather I had, not the bear hide, and put in the pack I was carrying alongside the beast cores I had harvested earlier. Much of the rest of the beasts could be harvested and used, but I wasn't here to try to make a few silvers, I was on a mission. I left the dungeon through a doorway that appeared behind the reward platform, finding myself right back in the center of the guard post. I got a few strange looks, but I guessed that was because of my age and slipped out of the place before anybody could start asking some uncomfortable questions.  

Next, I needed to find the beasts I had to kill, which was easier said than done. I don't how others handled these kinds of requests, but years and years spent tracking down enemy combatants or wildlife when out on the campaign trail had left with more than a few tricks to find just what, or who, I was looking for. Thankfully, the beasts I was searching for weren't at all trying to hide, and I found the big, cow-like creatures after about an hour of hunting through the more wild sections around the capital. The things were only cow-like and not cows, as they had thicker legs, two pairs of horns, and heavy plates of armor over their backs and chests. I wasn't really familiar with the creatures, but they were my same rank and were not at all bright, making them easy prey. Punching through the armor would have been hard had I relied on a normal weapon, or had I been a lot weaker and relied on my body, but a spear crafted by a being that styled himself a god wasn't going to be stopped by a little natural armor plating. Gungnir punched right the cow-like beasts' chests, which greatly surprised them, if their slightly stupefied looks and unrequited lowing was any indication. 

Sadly, I was getting the runaround right now, as the cows didn't have the kinds of cores I needed, so I was back to hunting, trying to find something with the right affinity. It was tougher than it sounded, especially because the areas around the capital were rather well patrolled. What the guards didn't take care of, people like myself from the guild would, and finding loose beasts, especially in any kind of numbers, could be a tall order. Still, persistence was key, and I kept at it for another hour before I had my mark. A few muddy gnolls had built themselves a burrow in the deeper part of a cave by a small pond. I don't know if the area was owned by anybody, though likely it was part of some noble's grounds, but the good thing was permission wasn't needed to hunt beasts. If I were going after animals, like the deer that were sometimes around, that would be an entirely different matter, but hunting rights for beasts were basically if you could kill, do kill it.  

The gnolls were just the ticket, as some of them had earth affinity cores. There were already a few dozen of them when I cleared out the cave and I spent a few extra minutes making sure that there weren't any more around. Gnolls were very much like rats or similar creatures; they would hide anywhere they could and breed hand-over-fist until there were hundreds of them after just a couple months. They ate just about anything and had razor-sharp teeth and tough digestive tracts, making them a real menace that people would always kill whenever they found them. Other beasts might be left alone for various reasons, but things like gnolls were too much of a menace to let slide. I was pretty sure I had gotten every single one of them, which was damned bloody work, but I cleaned the area up and destroyed most of the corpses before heading back to the capital. It was starting to get late and the sun had set, but that wasn't at all a problem for me, as The Dark was always with me. Also, the light conditions of the surroundings didn't matter if I was moving through that other realm that The Dark gave me access to, so night or day was all the same to me.  

I turned in all three quests at the same time, which greatly surprised the worker, if their open mouth and wide eyes were any indication, but that wasn't really my problem. I then requested what I had worked the whole day for and had to wait around while somebody ran up to Paul's office. The man double-checked my requests, which I found mildly insulting, but then okayed my promotion to copper. He personally made my new tag, though I didn't really think it was necessary, and then told me to get lost, which was also mildly insulting. I had other things to do, though the first of those was to go sleep, and that's just what I did next.  

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