As Dave woke up he saw the sun shining high in the sky.It was just at the break of dawn yesterday that he arrived here to this town.
Dave saw the sun and thought about his past few days. He looked back on the thieves who almost killed him.
He looked back on the long night he spent right after the destruction of his village. He remembered the destruction of his village most vividly.
He remembered what he felt when the dragon swooped down spewing fire on his home. He remembered it all.
He remembered the day and the night he spent while walking to this town by foot.
He remembered how he took a nap under the shade of a tree during that day.
All of this happened in the last three days.
He felt horrible and yet he was able to wake up and act normally as if it didn't happen.
He had thoughts such as: "Why is that" "How can I do this" and so on, however he already suspected that he knew the answer.
It was that liquid that giant Equi gave him. He didn't know what it can do, nor was it a gift or curse.
Magic is mysterious and for a while Dave knew a lot more than a typical villager. He was still just a Farmer from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.
The people of Massadra didn't have clocks like on earth, most people only used 5 time periods/phases to express time. The first would be dawn that would start once the sun would rise.
After the dawn came along it would be referred to as the morning, these two are both considered as the same phase. After the morning, noon follows.
Noon is a special phase as it's very easy to tell when it starts as noon starts exactly when the sun is at the peak of its height just before it starts going down again. After the short lived noon came around it would be the start of the next phase afternoon.
Once it started to get dark it would generally be considered evening.
Evenings would only end the moment the sun fell below the horizon.
Finally after the last 4 phases of the day would come the only phase that was separate. This final phase of time is none other than night.
Night is not considered part of the day unlike the dawn. Night is the longest phase of them all.
In Dave's case he headed to be there by noon. Since it was now morning Dave had nothing to do.
Eventually noon came by as the sun rose to the center of the sky. Dave was already inside the waiting room waiting to be called into the main office.
Tom came down the stairs and invited Dave to the office. There Dave was given a large amount of stacked papers.
Dave went through the procedure and read the agreement. The contract seemed quite fair and after double checking Dave signed the contract.
"Well Dave now your one of us"
After Tom said those words he started leaving the room. While leaving he said,
"Find Leanana you'll be working under her"
With this he finally left the room. Dave went back to the entrance where he found the old man as he asked.
"Do you know where I can find Leanana?"
The old man pointed to one of the neighboring rooms that was opposite to the waiting room. He knocked on the door.
"Enter"
After hearing the voice Dave entered the room. He saw a redheaded woman with a ponytail looking at him.
"You must be Dave. Tom has already told me that you may be arriving here today"
"Yes, I'm Dave. Are there any resources you need to gather?"
"We need a complete Skeleton of a Habruru Bouncer"
For those who don't know, Habruru Bouncers are small rodent-like monsters that eat bugs. They have two long legs that allow them to jump over 7 meters into the air.
While it may be an odd thing to request it didn't mean that Dave actually needed to slay a Habruru Bouncer. He simply needed to get his hands on one and bring it to the research center.
They didn't care how he did it however if he were to buy it he wouldn't get a refund for it so if he's paid for less than he spent to buy it he would lose money. However while Habruru Bouncers are commonly found near Copper Cantury they aren't easy to hunt at all.
They are very agile and are always quick to react. To make things worse they have sharp senses and can jump extremely high and extremely far.
These things combined with the small size of the monsters and their low population made any monster slayer or hunter rip their hair out in rage. To top it off these beings don't have any other major use as they tasted bad, weren't poisonous, had little meat, reproduced slowly and demanded a large amount of food made then completely useless no one would even try to domesticate them.
These reasons combined with their ugly appearance and the lack of demand in the market made it so that essentially no one sold their corpses.
In Fact no one would sell them alive either. That means that Dave would have to find a dead one or hunt one by himself.
However, to his surprise Leanana smiled at him. She then opened her mouth.
"Finding the skeletal remains of a Habruru Bouncer is not that hard. There's a type of fungus called Detriota that likes to sprout near the corpses of smaller creatures. In other words if you can learn to identify it and differentiate it with its similar looking relatives you could find a Habruru Bouncer."
She followed up her words with.
"The odds of finding a Habruru Bouncer underneath one isn't that low in fact"
After her words she showed Dave a bunch of extremely precise and accurate paintings of the fungus. She also explained the smell and texture of it. She also warned Dave of one of its relatives that must not be touched no matter what as it is highly poisonous, even getting too close could lead to death.