As soon as I logged in, Faye put me to work.
"MOVE MOVE MOVE! THIS IS TIMED SO THE MORE YOU DILLY DALLY, THE LESS XP YOU GET!" Faye blew into a whistle she had.
After being offered to do the rerun with Aegis, Faye put me through the wringer by making me do fast-paced quests. Most of the quest in the forest of beginnings are oddjobs and Faye wanted me to do all of them twice over.
"Gah!" Trying to rush past the crowd to deliver a package, I ended up tripping and falling.
"OH BOY EVERYONE! IT LOOKS LIKE OUR HERO HAS BLOODFALLEN AND HE CAN'T GET UP! TAKE A MINUTE TO ENJOY THE IDIOT EATING DIRT-"
"SCREW THIS!" as I rose, I threw the box to the ground and split it in two with my axe.
Text appeared in my vision that said "QUEST FAILED: PACKAGE DESTROYED." After the text appeared, I darted my head throughout the crowd to see if anyone was laughing. Anyone that made eye contact with me instantly went back to what they were doing. I don't even get it! How does someone like Faye go from "loving mother" to "drill sergeant" in one night?!
"Now I'm super confused. I thought that you liked having people yell at you..."
"WHEN!? WHEN HAVE I EVER INDICATED THAT?!"
"B-but don't you like high-stakes scenarios? I thought you would find it fun if I did this."
"This isn't high-stakes. We're running around delivering packages. This is just annoying." I walked over to a bench and Faye followed.
"I'm sorry. It's just that getting a quest like the one in the upper reach is really hard. Level 1 to 5 quests are pretty much like this with a small handful of quests that asks us to kill specific low-level monsters. The only thing that I can think of that you might like are the special quests, by those are rare-"
"How rare?!" I got in Faye's face and she floated a bit backwards to maintain her space.
"They only get put up once per day at random..."
That's good enough. There's no way in hell I'm gonna be the kingdom's delivery boy for an entire week. I've decided. I'm gonna get a special quest! Not just any, one that's a higher level than I am so I can reap tons of XP!
"I already know what you're thinking, I just want to know how you're going to go about it." Faye sighed in defeat.
"Hmph! Follow me!" I let out a triumphant scoff as I led the way to the guild hall.
Faye and I walked back into the guild hall and as I entered, I asked her when new quests get put up. Apparently, all quests appear on the quest board in a ray of light via a spell casted in the king's offices. They can appear at different times and usually have three important details to look for: reward, XP amount, and recommended level. So with the knowledge that a special quest pops up once I day and it could pop up at any time, what I have to do is simple...
I walked in front of the quest board, sat crossed legged and stared at it.
"I knew you were going to do this. You're really just going to sit here and wait for it to pop up?" Faye questioned my method.
"Yup."
"So from this point forward, you're going to wait an entire 24 hours?"
"Yes."
"Are you at least going to go to bed? Heroes end up dying if they don't get the proper sleep."
"Dying?"
"Yeah! They get a sense of hunger even though they eat a ton and end up collapsing and dying."
She must be referring to when players go days without logging off and die of starvation or dehydration. I won't have to worry about that. I went an entire week without eating or drinking anything once. I'll be fine right here! For an entire twenty four hours! LET'S DO THIS!
As I sat there I completely went into concentration mode. I couldn't let a single thing distract me because if something did, someone would be able to take the special quest from me. Several events happened around the guild hall including fights, parties, and even a wedding. Who the hell would have a wedding in a death game? In any case, I didn't bat an eye to a single thing.
Some of the staff have begun calling me "boogeyman of the guild hall" and would even pat my head for good luck as a joke. I was giving the British royal guard a run for their money.
That's when it happened. At the dead of night when most of the lights for the guild hall was off, I saw a flash of red light appear on the quest board. This has got to be it! The special quest! It's mine!
As the flyer materialized onto the quest board, I reached out for it with superhuman reflexes and grabbed it. But instead of the rough, paper-like feeling of a flyer, I felt the smoothness of a lady's hand. I jolted back out of shock and the poor lady completely fell backwards onto the floor.
"Oh I'm so sorry about that! He can be a real nutcase sometimes-"
"Give me the special quest. I've been waiting all day for it." I skipped the pleasantries as I turned on the lights.
As the lights turned on, a dark-skinned girl with dark purple short hair sat on the floor with the special quest flyer. She wore white robes with purple accents. I knew it. She was waiting for it just like me. I can't let her confirm the quest with the front desk. If she does, I'll have to wait another twenty four hours. I'll intimidate her as much as possible.
As I gave her a death glare, I noticed that tears began to well up in her eyes as she said "o-ok..."
She handed me the paper and I immediately felt like the worst human being on the world. I could feel Faye's death glare to the side of me. You don't have to look at me! I know how messed up this looks! I just thought that she was going to come at me aggressively so I just prepared for that!
I sighed and asked the girl as I helped her up "what's your name and class?"
"Violet. I'm a priestess."
There's a lot of priests in this game. It's probably the easiest to pick up if I had to guess.
I could still feel Faye breathing down my neck. I get it! I know what I have to do...
"Listen, Violet. I feel kind of bad that I just bullied you into giving me the special quest so I guess you can tag along for it if you-" Faye hit me in the head before I could finish. It didn't hurt, but it kind of annoyed me.
"What he MEANT to say was that he's sorry and would love to have a healer in his party to back him up during this quest. The more the merrier, after all!" Faye corrected my apology.
"S-sure thing!"
I sent her an invite to my unit and when she accepted, we both decided to look at what the special quest entailed.
[Help find the whereabouts of Elizabeth Gornwell and bring her back to the Gornwell Estate]
[Reward: 150 Gold]
[Recommended Level: 10]
[XP amount: 4,000]
"Oh boy this is going to be fun! You'll see, Matthew! You'll love questing by the end of this!"
I couldn't help but roll my eyes. But now that I think about it, this is a lot of XP! I can level up almost twice over with this. It's almost too good to be true, but whatever. Finding some girl couldn't be that hard, right?
Once we confirmed that we were taking the quest, we began by asking the receptionist who contracted it. Apparently it was Elizabeth Gornwell's father, Max Gornwell.
As we left the guild hall, Violet asked "So what's our first step?"
"Huuuuh? OUR first step?! Who said you could come along?" I tilted my head to the side to display my confusion.
"Y-you did a minute ago...but if you don't remember, that's okay I guess-" Violet put her head down.
"I'm just messing with you! I'll tell you where we're going."
I couldn't help it. She's just so easy to mess with. I'll try to hold back because Faye's death glares are the one thing that bothers me about her. If looks could kill, she'd be the strongest being on Faramos.
"The first step would be to see the person that contracted this quest. We're going to go see Max Gornwell and ask him every detail we can about Elizabeth.