The next day it was 'the day', to be exactly the day I decided to go to the woods.
But first! Since the only fighting skills I had right now are dagger based I decided to go buy some daggers.
I purchased a very decent pair in the same store from yesterday, and I made sure it had an high mana storage in case I needed to use mana absorber.
You see if more mana is absorbed than the daggers can take on they explode and that's not a good thing.
Regrettable I didn't have enough money to buy one from dragon bone but since the monsters in the woods are low level I don't think I need that.
The ones I have now are just normal daggers with some kind of feathers in them, probably from a low level bird beast
I also bought a bag to easy take my book with me because it seemed like that was the only book I couldn't store in library.
It was actually a little handbag big enough to put the book in, and contrary to what I feared it was easy to find since most mages sometimes took a book with them in case they needed a difficult spell in battle.
When I arrived at the gate a gatekeeper asked me if I had a team but when I said no he just shook his head while letting me through.
When I arrived at the forest I saw some adventurers and because I at least needed some people who can help me I walked towards them.
I asked the guy who looked like the leader, a big man with white hair, if I could join.
He answered: "Of course, you see Gideon, the little boy with the green hair over there? It is also his first time, we are not planning to take on some difficult beasts. But we need some information. I see you use daggers, an assassin huh? Perfect. What is your name?"
After I answered him he called: "Gideon, can you come here?!"
The boy called Gideon walked calmly to us.
The big man said: "Gideon, this is Shisho, I want you to show him around. He is going to assist you two today. Shisho, I'm Thibeau and I'm the leader here, Gideon will lead you through." And he walked away.
Gideon said: "Come with me, I will show you who you need to know. You already know Thibeau, he is the leader.
We put our armor and weapons in that carriage over there, but you seem to have everything already.
You see that woman over there, with the squirrel tail? Her name is Dolores, but we call her Dee. She is a mage but once she accidently conjured herself a tail. Since she only uses heal magic. If she isn't herself around herself you can refer to her as Demi, but she isn't a really demi-human of course and she hate it when you call her like that. She is Thibeau's wife so if be careful, you don't want to see both of them angry at you.
That girl with the armor is called Susan she is fairly new here. She is our shielder and will assist us today. She can't really do much damage because she chose to be in shielder class but she is still an indispensable piece. Our previous shielder stopped, he made enough money to buy an inn somewhere in the city to live with his wife and children. Susan isn't as good as he was but she can defend us against most attacks.
The group people over there will not come with us but are going a little further in the wood, as long as they don't go too far they can easily take on the beasts without healer or shielder.
Thibeau will come with us to give us feedback and Dee will also come with us in case we get hurt.
You are an assassin I see so you will probably sneak up behind the beasts while Susan and I will attack them from the front. I am an attack mage, so I will attack while Susan is defending me and you sneak behind them, are you okay with that?"
"Yes, it is well for me.", Said Susan, who had just arrived.
Then she asked me: "who are you actually?"
After Gideon gave the introduction (with saying I was an assassin for some reason, the people in this world are too quick to draw conclusions) Susan asked me why I had a book with me.
But before I could answer Thibeau and Dee called us, it was time to go to the forest.
Gideon prepared for battle: he put on a light chestplate and a coat and took his wand out the carriage.
It was a beautiful wand: the wand itself was made from wood and looked like it just grow from the ground, 3 branches braided in 1 wand and on top of it a multicolored gem, but the colors changed the whole time.
"Beautiful isn't it?" asked Thibeau "It is said only the strongest mages can summon such a gem."
I asked him what he was talking about.
"I guess you don't know huh? Mages don't just buy their gems, they summon it. If someone chose to be a mage they study for at least 2 years and after that they do a ceremony to summon whatever they need to easy cast spells. After another year study they let you summon your familiar. Gideon isn't that far right now but when the new school year starts I send him study even more."
Susan took her shield and we left for the wood.
When we walked in the wood Thibeau explained: "In the wood most beasts make a camp where they gather their treasures, and they guard them of course. In this wood it is forbidden to loot them when there are more than 50 low level monsters, but yesterday I found a place with 30 goblins and I think it is perfect to do your first mission."
We arrived at the place and Thibeau told us how we best attacked: in the exact same way Gideon told me before.
We first separated 5 goblins from the rest of the group. I killed 2 with my basic dagger use and Gideon killed the other 3 with fireball.
After that we got noticed by the big group and used our tactic: Susan defended Gideon and meanwhile killed some goblins with shield, Gideon used spells (mainly little fireballs) to kill as much goblins as he could and I used my sneaky methods to kill goblins who tried to run back to their cave. Thibeau looked at us while from under a tree and Dee was sleeping next to him.
After we were done we returned to the tree Tibeau and Dee under the tree.
Thibeau told us what our points for improvement where: "Gideon you should try some area spells, when you snipe every single monster you will eventually run out of mana.
Susan did well, but be more careful, a goblin almost attacked Gideon with a bat and those can easy knock you out even at lower levels.
Shisho, I don't know where you trained but you missed half of your attacks, you better use some skills when you fight next time and you must be a bit faster, if you attack high or even medium level monsters you probably can't even get near them. But I must say, you did your job really well: not a single one of them could run back to the cave."
Gideon asked: "Why is it a problem if one of them ran back to the cave?"
"Because in the cave there are Leader monsters sometimes, monsters that are stronger for some reason. When a goblin runs back he most times warns the Leader and that could be problematic in the higher level nests." answered Thibeau.
"If you apart from dealing with this huge crowd also must try to kill a dragon or something I'm sure people will die, unless you are in one of the strongest party's in the country. And even if you are will be very dangerous."
After a good rest we entered the cave for the Leader and the loot he hopefully had with him.
It was actually pretty sad, this nest was a new one so the leader still was a normal goblin who tried to fire some spell to us, something normal goblins where not capable of, but then fell unconscious because he ran out of mana before he even got the chance to actually fire the spell.
The loot was just the food they collected that day: a kilo of berries and two dead rabbits.
Not really what you call a good hunt. But we could still make money if we just sell the goblin parts.
When I say 'we' I mean 'they' could still make money because I don't get anything because I was not in their original group, and I was okay with that: I just came to train after all and the palace provides me with food.
I decided to just go back to the palace and read some books from the royal library about monsters and magic.