-Coral Forest, ???-
'Uhhh... Why are there so many people in here? Dad told me that no one comes, but every 10 minutes I see someone passong by. Uuuuu- I don't like it here. It's the same as before. It's full of weird people.' A mysterious creature thought to itself while it was hiding. The creature itself could be seen as an unsuspecting rock that is covered in barnacles and moss.
'Where are you dad? Please, just get me out of here. I don't want to be found out. Heck, even that cool guy from before. I would prefer if he found me instead of anyone else. Man, I envy that baby leviathan being out on the open like no one cares about her, but for me, whenever I pull my head out, I'm met with super greedy gazes. But still, someone please help me.' The creature monologued to itself.
...
-Coral Forest, Near the East outskirts of Crystalia City-
Right now, the duo were swimming down the stone path for some time and they did see that this road was quite busy. The first thing that was pretty out of place for this area, was the significant increase of the adventures in the area. He was suprised to find adventures at ten minute intervals. At some point, curiosity caught the better of him and decided to ask the first passerby about the reason of this area being full of people.
Thankfully, a party of three was coming on Soren's direction. They were a party of two males and a female. One of the males had red hair, brown eyes and a reddish tail, while the other male had blue hair, brown eyes and a red tail that had a deeper color that the other male's tail. The female herself had long blond hair, red eyes and a golden tail.
Their equipment was pretty standart, the man with the red hair had heavy metalic armor, a big shield on his back and a claymore, the man with the blue hair had light leather armor and a gray bow on his back and the female was wearing a green robe with a wooden staff that had a green jewel embed on its top.
"Hello, may I ask you something?" Soren asked while drawing their attention.
"Huh? What is it kid?" The man with the red hair asked.
"Do you know the reason the forest is so packed today? I swear that I see adventurers every 10 minutes now." Soren asked seriously.
"Haven't you heard the news?" The man with the blue hair asked.
"News?" Soren wondered what kind of news they were, considering the fact that this forest was packed.
"Yeah, there was a sighting of the infamous jackpot crab and now everyone is after it, including us." Then the man pointed his thumb at himself and his party.
"By jackpot crab, you mean?" Soren had a inkling but he still decided to ask anyways.
"The 150 gold coin quest. The one that requires to find a special crab. Thank god for that young adventurer that found the damned shellfish, otherwise who knew when it would appear again." The man answered back while having a voice of relief.
'150 gold coin quest? Could it be that the said crab was actually the one for that quest? Uhhh... What a way to make things harfer for me.' Soren thought to himself while rubbing his head from his current headache. He couldn't believe the fact that he made things harder for himself, just by reporting a rare crab. He wondered if the world had it out for him now, since completing his quest now would be much more difficult thatn before.
"Thank you for the information. I wish you good luck for finding the jackpot crab." Soren said before he started swimming away with Lavenza.
"I wish you the best of luck as well kid. Take care." The man with the red hair waved his hand while he said that.
"So, what did you think of the kid Lily?" The man with red hair said after Soren had left their field of vision.
"Hmmm... The kid lacks a lot experience but I can see power sleeping dormant inside him." The woman named Lily said.
"No, not that. I meant, his character." The man with the red hair said.
"He has a pretty carefree personality, but he seems to know when he needs to be serious. Aside from that, he seemed a bit cautious of others, which is natural when you deal with strangers, but it felt like it was on a higher level. Like he was trying to keep as much distance as possible." Lily explained.
"Uhhh... The short version please." The man with the blue hair said with a hint of confusion on his face."
"Carefree, but a bit too cautious at times. Is this explaination better Paul?" Lily said sarcastically.
"Better." The man with the blue hair named Paul said.
"So what do you plan to do, Gore?" Lily asked.
The man with the red hair named Gore thought for a bit before he said:
"For now let's focus on our search. The kid won't be a problem anyways, since I barely felt any power inside him and that little snake of his had even less than him. Of course, if they want trouble, I'll gladly teach them a lesson." At that point, Gore then cracked his wristknuckles.
While the three were having a conversation, Soren and Lavenza were swimming away from them and straight into the forest. That conversation made Soren feel pretty annoyed.
"Reny~?" Lavenza asked with a worried expression.
"It's nothing. For now let's focus on our hunt. Although it will definitely be harder now finding lone wolves. If things look pretty grim, we may have to find a pack and pray that it isn't big. At least that way, we can complete the quest without a hitch." Soren explained to Lavenza while having an apologetic expression.
"Kyuu~." Lavenza now was happy.
After that quick conversation, the duo continued swimming towards the forest's depths. Considering the fact that the coral forest was full of adventurers, Soren had doubts if he would be able to even find a single wolf, even if it was separated from it's pack, but that didn't make him dejected, instead it made him determined to put as much effort as possible to find the wolves.
Time passed and the duo were still looking for wolves, but to no avail. Nothing could be found and there wasn't much light left. Soren thought for a bit to return back to the city for the night, but decided to camp outside. He needed all the time he could get, to be spent on the hunt now, since he had no reason to go rush back to the city and the situation right bow required every inch of his efforts.
After a little while, the amount of light was as low as it would get, but for Soren it was as if it was a full moon. He had light thanks to the crystals on the ceiling, but it wasn't like the day time when there was an abundant amount of light. Also, the amount of adventurers had decreased significantly, thanks to the fact that now it was daytime on the surface and there wasn't any moonlight, so either they would leave or camp out.
"Well, at least there aren't as many adventurers now as there were before, but now we may be running into risk of more powerful enemies during this time. Do you want to set up camp or continue hunting for sone more time?" Soren said seriously. He felt that the night will be dangerous and he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to continue or not.
"Kyuu~! Kyuu~!" Lavenza seemed eager.
"You want to continue searching for them?" Soren asked with a hint of suprise on his fave.
"Kyuu~." Lavenza nodded.
"Well, I guess we can use this opportunity to hunt them. Maybe we can even find a pack that is asleep now. Hopefully." Soren said a bit nervously. He had second thoughts before about hunting with a low amount of low, but after Lavenza's responses, he felt that she was right. This might be his only opportunity to finish this quest without running into many problems.
After swimming for around twenty minutes, the duo found a lone wolf swimmjng through the area, but this wolf felt like it was more feral compared to the other wolves that they had fought.
"Good news is that we found one. Bad news is that this doesn't seem like the normal wolves we fought. Do these things even fall asleep?" Soren said to Lavenza.
"Kyuu~." Lavenza shook her head dejectedly.
"Anyways, we have found our target now Lavenza. Do you what this means?" Soren asked with a hint of excitement on his face.
"Kyuu~?" Lavenza looked a bit confused but also eager.
"It means that tonight, we are going a night hunt until the light comes back. And until then, we won't be resting for long periods of time." Soren answered happily.
"Kyuu~!" Lavenza was excited.
"Now then. Let the night hunt... Begin!" At that moment, Soren striked a slightly embarassing pose and felt slightly embarassed.