As the sun gradually rose upon the land below Mike and Rogen were at the border of the middle and outer area of the forest and just like before Mike was fighting against another pack of wolves albeit smaller than the day before. Rogen was taking care of another wolf variant called Fearless Wolf while Mike was dealing with the regular wolves like before. This time however Mike was getting beaten black and blue with the number of attacks from the wolves that were hitting him.
It was not that fun for him but when Rogen finished off the Fearless Wolf the others run away just like last time. Mike does not waste any time and starts getting his own wolf pile made for skinning so that he can get back to the inn and rest his battered body. With this pack, there had been 12 regular wolves not including the variant one that Rogen had to deal with. Mike was only able to kill 4 wolves this time while Rogen took down 2 so Mike needed to only kill three more wolves and be done with the quest in the guild.
Now Mike sat down and was starting to skin the wolves that he killed further increasing his skill and getting better with skinning in general. Once done Mike puts them in a sack that he bought at the market before coming here since he did not want a repeat of yesterday when he had to carry them by hand.
Mike finishes a few minutes after Rogen and after all that it is late afternoon when they head back to the city. They went through the same routine as the day before by going to the hunter's Guild to get the wolf pelts cleaned up by a professional, then turning them into Wendel so that the quest would be officially be updated. After all that Rogen was paid and left Mike to do other things since he was only going to work for a few days and needs to sell the variant wolf skins that he had gotten so that he could get more coin.
With all that done Mike returns back to the inn and knocks on Dike's door. After a few seconds of waiting Dike opens the door although he does look slightly irritated when he opens it.
"Um... hello Dike I am done with wolf hunting today so I thought I better take the little guy off your hands," Mike says
"Thank the gods that you are taking that devil away he has been crying and whining ever since you left I have been having a hard time meditating because of him," Dike says as he leaves the door open and goes further into his room
Dike then returns with the wolf pup in his hands and the little guy was squirming around in Dike's grasp trying to break free. The weirder thing was that Mike saw that the little guy's mouth was moving back and forth as if he was trying to make noise but there was nothing but dead silence from him. Immediately thinking that something is wrong Mike snatches him from Mike's grasp and starts making sure that the little guy is okay.
Seeing Mike's concern for the pup Dike chimes in.
"I just cast a silencing spell on him so you don't need to worry about him he is relatively fine," Dike says hoping to massage Mike's fear while undoing the spell that he placed to help
However, that backfired and now Mike is considering if he should prevent Dike from keeping an eye on the pup in the future if possible. Still, Mike was getting this little guy cause he wanted to take him on his herb gather quest since it would do him so good if he went out in the wild and was able to smell things like other animals of his kind like to do. So after calming down the puppy Mike goes over to the washing area which was behind the inn and where travelers could wash their clothes or bodies of dirt and grime. The clothes washing area was essentially a pit in the ground packed with mud and clay to prevent water from escaping and splashing people. Once there Mike washes his sack, his shirt, and his wolf pup.
The little guy starts shivering from the cold and attempts to rid himself of the water by shaking it off like a regular dog but since the little guy was only born a few days ago he can't really succeed with that so Mike helps him out by getting a towel from the other washing area. Mike gives him a rub down until the little guy is no longer shivering anymore. With that done Mike waits for a bit and to kill the time waiting for his stuff to dry he plays with his puppy.
After waiting for an hour Mike's stuff is finally dry and he gets ready to head back to the forest. He carries his little wolf pup since the sack would be what he uses to move the herbs once in the city. His inventory could actually hold plants and other similar things like food since they were part of the acceptions to the system's storage function so that was a plus at least. Getting out of the city was easy since he has been leaving the city a few times already and flashing his adventurer card could get Mike into most cities quite easily since adventurers are one of the most common profession and it is a profession that helps the people so there is a majority of people having a good impression of them so if an adventurer were to show up at a farmers home then they would be treated with as much hospitality as a king would.
Mike re-entered the forest after a streak through the open fields and after a bit of walking got in. Once there he asked Abbey to give him a rundown of what exactly he was looking for and any other relevant information that he would need. Abbey told Mike that the herb he was looking for was a herb commonly found on the outer edges of the forest so Mike was relatively safe since the beasts and monsters got stronger the farther one went inside the forest and they stayed in their respective zones for some reason. Still, at least Mike would not have to worry about anything except for suicidal killer bunnies which apparently a thing.
Mike started looking for these Fallow herbs in the outer rim of the forest. Since he had to rely on Abbey and the system to find them he took sometime before they were found and in his grasp. These herbs looked like nothing special at first glance since they looked like regular leaves on the ground but the only distinguishing feature was the slightly red veins on the leaf that was only visible if you looked hard enough. Mike gathered them and put them into his inventory for safekeeping and to prevent rot or damage just in case. Once Mike found about six of these herbs the system sent him a prompt.
'Ding'
Host has learned the skill [Basic Herb Gathering] and [Basic Herb Identification]
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[Basic Herb Gathering] - Passive
Increases the user's herb gather speed and effectiveness of uprooting herbs
+2 herb gathering
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[Basic Herb Identification] - Passive
Increases the identification, classification, and uses of herbs found by the user
Gained access to herb system
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"Herb system? What is that?" Mike asks
"The herb system is like when you are fighting something you can see the stats of the said thing and can read about them with the herb system it is different in that all you need to do it see, touch, or smell the herb to identify it and its uses to a limited degree depending on which method you are using" Abbey reports
Hearing this Mike takes out one of the Fallow herbs from his inventory and sure enough when he is touching he gets a screen display of the stats of the herb.
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Fallow Herb
Description: A leaf looking herb with red veins almost indistinguishable from regular leaves unless looked at closely
Uses: Unkown
Freshness level: Slightly decayed
...
"How come the uses are not stated?" Mike asks Abbey
"Oh you need to find that out on your own in fact everything involving herbs you will have to learn about yourself whether through testing or books," Abbey says
"Well then I guess I should check the freshness level of the other herbs I have," Mike says as he looks at each of the leaf's from his inventory space and looks at them
Eventually, Mike has to throw them all away since they were not fresh and were either decaying or completely dead. So Mike starts from scratch as he scrounges the forest looking for the Fallow herbs that are not decaying and were worth gathering since he wanted to get the best herbs possible so that he can build up a sort of reputation to have reliable and fresh goods from his quests. Soon enough Mike is lucky enough to find a small bush of them so Mike starts picking them and sending them into his inventory until he has picked the bush clean of the larger leaves.
With that out of the way, Mike walks back to the city while feeding the wolf pup along the way since he was begging for some food. Mike was able to complete this quest today with just one trip even though he stayed out late once again it was worth it since he was now officially going to complete his first quest even though it was not that hard it still felt good to do this as he did it all by himself. Still, he was not done until he turned in everything to Wendel and the quest was seen as complete by the system and the book.
Once in the city he does just that and is now in front of Wendel's house on the porch in front of his door knocking. Wendel's dad opens up the door once again and Mike is let into the living room just like before when he first came here with Dike. Seeing that Wendel was not yet there Mike takes the sack on his back off and puts it on the table in the center of the room. Before Mike came into the city he placed the herbs inside the sack so that it would seem normal that Mike had put the herbs he gathered into the sack.
Mike sits on the couch and a few seconds later Wendel appears and takes a look at the contents in the sack.
"Nice job kid these herbs are remarkably fresh so the people who requested them will be very satisfied," Wendel says while taking out the reward from the quest
The reward for this quest was only a few silver coins since this was only a herb gathering quest it did not pay much but Mike was still happy since he also got a prompt from the system saying that Mike completed the quest.
...
Quest [Herb Gathering] has been completed
Host has been rewarded with 40 exp to use as they please
...
With this Mike now had a good amount of exp stored up from the number of wolves he has killed through the past few days and now this quest he would be able to level up a few times but right now was not the best time to do so. After getting that all situated and Wendel taking the herbs out of the bag and putting them into his familiar that turned into a bag before leading Mike to the door to leave. With that done Mike returns back to the inn since it was about 5 at night and the sun was just beginning to set.
***Rooftops of the city***
The three figures were above the streets and looking down at the people below but there was one figure that they were actually looking at from the crowd. It was Mike as he was walking towards the inn and weaving in through the masses of people going about their business.
"When do we strike?" The dagger-wielding one asks
"Tonight" Was the only answer that is said before they all literally merge with the shadows and are no longer seen on the rooftops
***Mike***
Mike was now back in the inn and going through the regular night routine of ordering dinner for himself and the wolf pup. Before climbing up the stairs and entering his room to sleep and rest his tired beaten body unaware of what was in the room with him.