I'm getting tired of this cheap bed, if it wasn't a little better than sleeping on the damp forest floor, I would have gotten rid of it by now. I know they are trying to annoy the students by making them camp in bad conditions with cheap and shoddy equipment, but still they put a lot of effort in choosing these beds.
Even a cheap bed at an inn on my floor is much better than the bed I just used. Since no one has seen me wake me up all night or attack me and that means the trouble Officer Pine can cause us is not urgent, if he could have chased us or sent any trouble to us it would have already happened.
With one less thing to worry about and better focus on the test, the last two times we went on a trip only problems disproportionate to the difficulty of the missions happened.
I hope that the next mission we get will be smooth and not proof that this type of event is a tradition of our group. I hope it's not hard to get a nice, quiet mission to do.
I make my way to see what quests are available and to my surprise I don't see Gloria here. Did something happen to her?
But before I can fully analyze this very unlikely event, a bunny girl jumps in front of me excitedly.
"Hey, already looking for missions to do? Something good?"
"I just got here, but what are you doing here?"
"I don't have better walks to do, so I came here to see what you and Gloria are up to. Where is she?"
"No idea, I also found it weird that Gloria didn't show up here today I thought she would already be here studying the quests when I checked. Let's look at the quests, Gloria will show up shortly."
"OK."
With a very lively rabbit by my side, I started reading the missions from the boards. The number of them has decreased a lot, the boards are pretty empty now I thought the examiners were resetting the missions, but it looks like something has changed.
Basically, no more collection missions that are interesting, what's left is only left because nobody wants them. Nobody goes to mine out of the blue to pick up some flowers that aren't even worth a point, waste of time.
What's left are quests to kill magic beasts to get their stuff. The second form of these quests are some sort of challenge, and kill a rare or extremely strong type of magic beast and bring proof to the examiners. The second type of quest is worth a lot more time, maybe it's a good option for us, although our team is small, hunting a strong or complicated res level magic beast is something we can do.
The easy hunting missions have almost disappeared and what's left of the same level as the gathering ones, aren't worth much points and they're pretty isolated. I think the examiners are cutting back on the easy missions to force students to really take a risk during the missions and as we are nearing the end of the test, teams will either really take a risk or they won't have a chance to earn points anymore.
The one who set up this test is kind of a dick, he put in a point system but he doesn't have a scoreboard for the teams to see their score and now he's taking all the easy missions and leaving the hard ones for the teams that have the guts to risk your life and for those who don't have to give up this test at once.
"Aren't these paintings kind of weird, Ulric?"
"Yes, but this has a very clear purpose."
"Which?"
"Screw us, but they won't stop here. They will get worse."
"Like?"
"Like that over there."
I point to the black board covered with a white cloth that is coming in through the doorway at this exact moment, an examiner has planted it in front of the other boards and removed the white cloth. He gave us a smile that shows his happiness at our misfortune, he waved at both of us and I walked out of the tent.
"Shit."
"What's the matter, Alice?"
"I just read one of the quests, it is to track down and kill a group of cultists of an evil god that was seen in the western region of the kingdom."
Hey I looked at the blackboard that only has six missions and one is worse than the other and not one of them has a clear reward.
As Alice has already read the first mission, I went straight to the second, signing the leader and deputy leader of the purple snake's criminal group. This is a group that is famous for its ruthlessness and not its strength as they are a small group, but they are still not something that a team of students must face, in the purple serpents there should be three green core warriors leading the group. what is already a difficulty level that would basically kill all teams and the purple snakes is not a group of three, they should have a good amount of gray core mages and warriors.
Completing this mission should require a union between two strong teams, maybe even a third team to give more combat power to fight the criminals.
The third quest is to hunt a level three magic beast called little flaming dragon, i have no idea what kind of magic beast this is, but from the name it resembles dragon what a ridiculously strong type of magic beast this one should not be an easy hunt.
I wouldn't have complete confidence in killing one of these mainly because its fire shouldn't be anything normal, the fire of a dragon and a flame that can easily hurt level four beasts. Well, at least that's what the dragon books I've read say, but like many of them I wouldn't underestimate a dragon's fire or any element a dragon would have.
The fourth quest looks much simpler and normal, but I doubt this is a simple quest. I got the magic ore in the heart of the Curane mountain which is in the north of the country, this is a very empty area and the journey there is very long and time consuming.
Whoever takes this quest can't waste much time finding the magic ore because basically half the time they'll still have to spend traveling to the north and that's if they're lucky and don't encounter any setbacks during the trip.
I'm really curious to know what ore this is because it's so valuable, but no way I'm going to take this quest to find out the name of this ore. This mission is more a suicide than facing the little dragon, I'm absolutely sure if we go to this cave something bad will happen.
My reading took a while on the fifth mission, a lot of text, but not all of it is useful. It's another assassination mission, but instead of a group or pair of people it's a single target a necromancer who looks like he's just advanced into the green core.
He was considered a rising star among the new worshipers of the idiot gods, at first glance this quest seems to be easy, but I doubt it is. On the board are some reports about what this guy has done and not one of them is good.
This guy was born to be a necromancer, he doesn't use his mine army as a hammer to kill small villages and loot their cemeteries, he ambushes trading groups, adventurers and even infiltrates a border post and kills all the soldiers at the checkpoint. patrol without damaging him, that is control, patience and strategy.
This is a bad combination to have on a necromancer, and I understand why they put a bounty on his head and are encouraging our teams to hunt him down. If this guy is left alone, he could end up becoming a very important figure for his evil god and that will only mean more deaths for the 'innocents'.
The last mission is like the others only, but it has a much more intense danger feature than the others, but in a different way since the difficulty of killing their target can be considered the same, very difficult. The target is a military from one of the neighboring kingdoms, a leader of a squad of soldiers that must be hunted down and killed in enemy territory, I doubt anyone will take this mission, this mission is the hardest and most complicated to get to finish before the test finish.
The trip is long and it can get even longer if the target is no longer in the place he should be, killing him won't be easy since he must have about fifteen subordinates with gray core trained to fight as a team is to finish, I doubt it make it easy to kill a green core mage who is being protected by his subordinates.
Depending on what element this mage has this fight should become very difficult and as he is on the quest board where the other single target is a talented necromancer, he is not going to be a simple mage with a common element that would already be tricky to fight.
I have no idea if we should try to complete one of these missions, but apart from them the rest of the missions are complicated because not only are they difficult but there are no more missions next to each other.
The best chance to rank up would be to do one of these blackboard missions, but which one is the easiest for my team and we would have to team up with another team to do it.
"Let's go Alice, we have to gather and explain the contents of these ridiculously difficult quests to others."
"Are we going to try to make one of them?"
"I don't know they're hard and complicated, but this is our best chance to stand out in the ranks and it means Gloria and Hilda are going to want to try and make one of them."
"I think this is going to go to shit, wouldn't it be better to just try to complete two or three hunting missions before the test is over?"
"Maybe, but anyway we have to find the others."
Alice and I left the tent to find the rest of our team.