"Well then, I have a task—or a quest, as you all like to call it—for you," the priest said.
"Wait! Why am I getting this quest again?" Himanshu interrupted the man.
The priest could see confusion in his eyes, but he didn't quite understand the reason for it. "Because you are the first Hero who entered the church and met me," the priest stated simply, putting his eyes back on the notebook. "Ah! Found it."
He began reading it aloud from his notebook as if he was a guy who didn't rehearse his speech before attempting to give a presentation in the class. "Please travel as a bodyguard of one of the Teaching Caravans to the nearby city of Rolnups," he said. "As you may know, disciples who have not yet become full-fledged members of the Church can be posted at any of the Empires's churches, which is why we do our best to provide them with the experience they require while they are pupils. A few pupils from Rolnups will be visiting Helbens. As we are currently understaffed, please understand our predicament and provide help. The location can be viewed here. Please reach Rolnups' Church within 3 days of time."
A red mark appeared on Himu's map, it said 'Church of Rolnups'.
"Forced Quest Received."
[ Quest Details: Caravan of the Church ⅓ (Forced)
Difficulty: A
Reach the Church of Rolnups within 3 days.
Keep the pupils of the Church safe from bandits, beasts, monsters, and other such threats while on their way to the town of Helbens.
Rewards: +1 Church Affiliation, +100 Coirs
Time limit: 8 days
Quest Accepted. ]
"Eh?! Forced Quest?" Himu was in so much shock that he mouthed what he was thinking at the moment. The rewards were, well, miserable for such a long journey.
"Ah, also, if you get a quest from the Church you'll have to complete it. Failing or abandoning it would put you in a bad position with the Church and in turn, the Empire," Verkal said as he waved him goodbye and left through one of the doors within the church walls.
'So much for exploring, I guess I'll just level up till both Swara and Gagan comes back online and tell them about this, but why hasn't anyone come to a building this big despite it being the second day?' Himanshu thought.
It was quite a logical question to think of when given these clues, Himanshu kept his mind busy with possibilities as he made his way through the uncharted region outside the northern gate.
Merchuts Grasslands had grass that could be eaten by giraffes–if they existed in this worls–without having to lower their necks.
It was obviously much, much taller than Himu, maybe being big enough to hide a dragon and him being a mage wouldn't really help here, the close combat class was a great advantage in this region. There was only a path cleared up that had less grass around it, but staying there would mean finding fewer monsters to kill and he was here for EXP points.
He could see a few branches and leaves of trees when he was at the entrance. Though, now that he was somewhere amongst the huge grass stalks, it looked like there were only dark green blades as far as he could see, which wasn't really much.
Suddenly, he heard a howl and a hiss nearby; too close to each other.
Judging from what it sounded like, either there was a Chimera with a wolf head and a snake tail or two animals fighting.
Well, either way, he had to fight something, so he made his way towards the sounds and he had barely taken 10 steps when a dog suddenly appeared in front of him out of nowhere.
But… the dog's back was towards him?
It had a yellow-brown colour and ears like a bat. It saw a werewolf cub from the corner of his vision and growled. If he couldn't have that piece of meat, he would eat this one. He growled again and looked in his eyes.
Himu understood that he was in danger. He had only Reflecting Ray and Elemental Explosion, which luckily Swara didn't forget to give him after her lecture.
The dog was a Level 6 and had an HP bar of 400 points, but currently, its HP was at 250 points, oh! 245, it has the Poisoned debuff.
A hiss sounded in the background, Himu would have thought that it was an anaconda, but the snake wasn't that big. It was just 10 meters long.
It was also dripping a green liquid, as one can expect it was its venom. It was a Level 7 creature and had a total HP of 450 points, but almost half of it was empty. It stood at 250 HP itself.
This means that the dog had a slight advantage against its opponent and it could have possibly won if not for Himu's entry.
But this had let them call a temporary truce, as it was widely known throughout the animal kingdom that eating human flesh could cure one of all of their hunger.
So of course, no matter how mad their hunger might have made them, the smell of the raw meat coming from the human made them salivate and a human coming roaming their terrain meant that he must be strong.
So they instantly put their guard up. The human looked like one of those that could attack from a distance like their elders, which also meant that, unlike those wise ones, this one was physically weak.
Hence, the Blink Dog instantly closed the distance, literally. He appeared right behind Himu, who was taken by surprise and turned all over to look around himself.
The canine's canines pierced Himu's left arm, the arm that he was holding his staff.
His assassin reflexes kicked in as he instantly dropped the staff, only to catch it with his right hand and shoot an Elemental Explosion at point-blank range.
He only knew that the range in which he could use the spell was 10 meters, but had no idea how to change its element as per his will.
Hence, a multi-colored ball of pure mana was shot at the poor dog.
It was a ball of mana, meaning that it did not have the willpower of any element, therefore dealing the least damage the spell could deal.
The headshot was a critical hit and so a [-350 HP] in red appeared and the dog was dead before it could blink.
Due to the proximity, Himu also took a damage of [-70 HP] and was sent flying a distance of more than 20 meters.
The snake wanted to eat the dead dog, but only a portion of its body remained because most of its front half had been blown into pieces and he also knew that then he would have to eat it now, uncaring if the human would come back or not because the little bits were already starting to turn into dust, so she hurriedly gobbled up the body, which restored her a part of her health.
It now had a health of 270 Health Points and was going to regenerate 10 HP per 10 seconds for the next minute.
It slowly slithered towards where it had seen Himu fall, making sure that it was fast enough that Himu couldn't escape but also slow enough that it would fully digest its appetizer before moving on to the main meal.
Himu was in a bit of a daze because of the explosion, the sound was still ringing in his ears, yet he only felt like someone had scratched all of his back at the same moment and lightly pricked his face with a needle.
By the time he stood up again, the snake was in his sight, it had somehow managed to increase its HP to 310 which increased to 320 right in front of his eyes.
Himu had questions about what was happening, but he knew that the snake wasn't going to be a good teacher.
So he cast the second spell that he had, Reflecting Ray.
A white light shone out of his staff and the snake, or rather, the Acythobra was almost temporarily blinded.
Still, it managed to react just in time for its head to avoid the magic. Unfortunately for her, she had other body parts than the head.
The ray touched her body at an angle that it got reflected back to the snake, dealing damage to the same creature twice.
Two red [-100 HP] appeared, so the attack wasn't a critical hit.
Still, it had taken much more than half of its current HP, which Himu was happy with, now he just had to worry about its remaining 130 HP with no spells for the next 9 minutes.
The Acythobra was a close-range fighter and even after seeing the fate of the dog, she knew that such a powerful spell couldn't be cast more than once a day.
So she decided to take her chances and slithered through the grass. Luckily, it had a greenish-brown colour, so Himu could see her coming, the only problem was that he wasn't faster, so he had no choice but to fight.
He ran towards the snake at his body's top speed, which was a snail compared to the Usain Bolt of a snake.
He had wanted to do the moves he could do with a stick, but unfortunately, his hands weren't even fast enough to spin the staff, so he sent it into the inventory.
It lunged at him, but Himu had already calculated that, and even if his body wasn't fast enough, his mind was.
His hands were already on his chest and he summoned the staff back at the last moment, giving her mouth a woody taste.
Its fangs had gotten stuck in the staff. She tried her best but her body just wouldn't move. She could do nothing but watch as Himu punched and kicked her again and again until she died.
Himu got only 14 Coirs when the body of the snake dissipated, nothing else, not even enough EXP to level up.
He went into the area where he could remember killing the Blink Dog, but he found nothing after half an hour of intense search.
And surprisingly, his staff had broken, or that's what it felt like when he received the message from the system that the staff was no longer usable.
He made his way back to the town, with no spells nor weapons, it was too dangerous to be out here.
Yet, he kept feeling that this wasn't just a game world, more like someone had taken a real world, but added some elements so that it looked like a fake one.
*****
Author's Note: Welcome Back everybody.