Kayn spent the next month as he decided, which was assisting Elder Loren with healing patients every day. He even took over the clinic a couple days a week to give her some time off.
He even saw Kinzie during this time and she asked him where he had been. She was hoping to buy more lesser healing pills from him and also use him for her treatments since he charged less than Elder Loren.
Kayn just told her that he was busy working on spells, but didn't explain further. She accepted that explanation since the two weren't particularly close and mages that focused on research would often seclude themselves. However, Kayn noticed she would come more often and with more injuries than when she went on missions with him, so he did feel a bit bad.
When he asked how her missions were going, she explained that her party-mate said he was leaving for a while to go home and that she had started to do missions both solo and with a new group. She complained quite a bit because her new group wasn't as competent as her old team member named Shin. But she couldn't find him or even get a message to him, so she couldn't do anything about it.
Kayn had never really broached the subject of Shin with her before, but his curiosity got the better of him, so he continued the conversation by asking about him.
Kinzie told Kayn that Shin was kind of a cold person, but he was extremely efficient when it came to missions. While he was stronger than her, he didn't do everything and allowed for her to grow at times while also giving her tips and tricks to improve, not to mention keeping her safe if she made a mistake.
She missed being able to go on missions with him since she considered him a friend, plus she was just unhappy about her current situation. Not only was she scouting for her group, they weren't very organized or experienced in coordinating attacks, so she ended up doing most of the work.
Kayn could only tell her that he hoped this Shin would return soon.
…
After that month passed, Kayn once again appeared in the guild hall as Shin, but before he could even get fully through the door, he was almost knocked on the floor by Kinzie who punched him in the gut with a surprising amount of strength.
"Where did you disappear to for so long?!? I had to take missions with hoodlums just to make my weekly money needs!" Kinzie was outraged with Kayn because he was gone for so long. The "hoodlums" that Kinzie referred to were upset by her rude words, but they couldn't deny that they caused her some troubles.
"I was working on developing a few spells and techniques as well as visiting home. Easier to hole myself up in a room at home to concentrate on my work." Kayn just shrugged as he told more half-truths. "I'll make it up to you by completing a few missions with you so we can earn you some spare change, sound good?"
"Fine, let's go now then since I just picked up a mission for red-scale vipers."
…
Another few months passed with Kayn going back to his normal schedule of helping Kinzie with weekly missions and healing in the clinic for four or five days a week. The only change was that he added in time to train his new technique. He could tell that he was getting close to his breakthrough to the next stage.
Before he knew it, he had already turned 15. His core was growing at an astonishing rate. If he could break into the 3rd stage soon, he would be able to take on C-rank missions since he was confident in facing C-class beasts and monsters once his core evolved.
He was determined to take on a mission that would allow him to fight more humanoid or more intelligent monsters as his first C-rank mission.
…
Kayn ended up needing to rest for a week after he was able to breakthrough into the 3rd stage though. His body was changing and it wasn't exactly comfortable, enough for him to not feel confident about exploring or fighting.
During his week of rest, he had to adjust to his new strength and agility for daily life as well as practice holding back his newfound strength to appear like nothing had changed in front of Kinzie.
Upon examining his now stage 3 core, he also discovered that a new color had been added to the swirl of clouds, red. Kayn still didn't know what this all meant aside from possibly being related to his elements, so he just put it to the back of his mind.
Kayn arrived in the guild hall and went straight to the mission board. He was now self-assured that he could perform a C-rank mission in order to advance to a C-rank adventurer.
To become a C-rank, he was able to pick a C-rank mission to complete, which would classify as his rank-up mission since he and Kinzie had already performed plenty of D-rank missions as well as multiple E-rank missions.
Kayn found the perfect mission for himself on the board to perform solo and didn't hesitate to sign up for it.
The mission was for the adventurer, or adventurers, to locate a goblin nest near the edge of the forest that had been producing more goblins as of recently. The goblins were raiding the homes of farmers and ambushing travelers nearby.
Once the goblins were located, the instruction was to eliminate the threat if possible, or if there were too many, report back to the guild immediately so a party of sufficient strength could kill them.
'Goblins! This sounds like the perfect mission. I can test out my new abilities and wipe some scum out. Goblins here are just as bad as they were in the books I read back on Earth. I can't wait to get rid of some.' Kayn thought to himself.
As Kayn was walking out of the guild hall, he met the one person he didn't want to see today.
"Shin! Hey are you going out on another mission? I'm coming along!" Kinzie shouted with excitement as soon as she saw he was geared up to leave town for a few days.
"Absolutely not. Also, I will have none of your stubbornness this time, nor will I let you follow me. This mission is dangerous, and I won't put a friend into danger since I'm not confident about protecting you if something goes wrong. Not to mention I want to test my strength a bit as I've made progress recently." Kayn put his finger to her mouth so she wouldn't talk back to him.
He was shuddering at the thought of what could happen to her if they were surrounded and his only hope was to escape alone. He was confident he would be able to get away from goblins under almost any circumstance, but he wouldn't leave Kinzie's life to chance before he could test the goblins' strength versus his own.
They were a semi-intelligent species, but while they could work as a group and communicate through their expressions and noises, that was about it. Their bloodthirst, hunger, and lust are what drove them forward.
They were even able to evolve and if a nest was led by a hobgoblin or worse, a hobgoblin shaman, then the group would be more organized and thus much more deadly.
Kinzie could hear the seriousness in his voice, so she gave in without too much trouble to Kayn's surprise.
However, even though Kinzie had told Kayn she wouldn't follow him out of town, he still made sure to stick by the village for the rest of the day to make sure that she indeed didn't try and follow him.
…
Before Kayn started his travel officially, he decided it was a good time to check through his equipment and make sure everything was good to go before he went too far.
[Iron Sheep Long Sleeve Shirt (Uncommon): Made from the wool of an Iron Sheep. Protects the wearer from slash type attacks under D-class Strength.]
[Iron Sheep Pants (Uncommon): Made from the wool of an Iron Sheep. Protects the wearer from slash type attacks under D-class Strength.]
[Iron Sheep Hooded Tunic (Uncommon): Made from the wool of an Iron Sheep. Protects the wearer from slash type attacks under D-class Strength.]
[Sharp Short Sword (Uncommon): Short sword made of regular steel, but enchanted to increase the sharpness of the blade. Must be maintained to retain the sharpness.]
[Misdirect Mask (Uncommon): A mask that provides no protection from attacks, but can distract others from the user when not in direct conversation or interaction with the wearer.]
Unfortunately using analyze on the ring he received from his mom just came back as [Ring], meaning that his Analyze skill wasn't a high enough rank to see the details yet.
…
Kayn followed the forest boundary eastward. The last known sighting was about a week of travel away by horse. Kayn was running, but with his current body he was faster than a typical horse, he was a half-dragon after all.
He wasn't sure where to start looking for the goblins, so once he reached the area of the last sighting he began to weave in and out of the forest searching for any signs of the little green monsters.
It took Kayn another week just to find a slight trace, and the trace made him unhappy. He ended up coming across a couple of dead horses as well as the bodies of a few demon race individuals.
What really bothered Kayn was the fact that he only found male bodies. He knew that goblins would always lust after any women they found, but he found it hard to believe that they could capture them all without killing at least one of them.
'Does this mean that they even bring back the dead bodies of females? They wouldn't provide any benefit since they can't reproduce, and it's horrifying to think they would just be using the dead bodies for that.'
However, there was also another use that Kayn didn't think of until he actually saw it later on.
After Kayn cleaned up the scene of the ambush, and took any valuable items since they no longer had an owner, he began a thorough search of the nearby woods. He kept himself in the trees as best as he could by jumping between larger branches as it would be best to not alert the goblins of his presence.
Eventually, Kayn found himself near an opening on the side of a cliff. Sitting outside of the hole were three of the nastiest looking creatures Kayn had ever seen.
The goblins were disgusting. They had bumps all over their bodies, their faces were gnarly, and the tallest of the three was only 1m (3'3") at most. They wore either no clothing or had tatters of cloth on their bodies and carried either a crude mace made from a log, sword, or knife by their side, which were clearly looted goods.
Kayn unsheathed both of his short swords and held the left in a normal grip while the right was reverse gripped.
He used the shadows to restrain the movement of the three goblins then jumped to land right in the middle of them before spinning on his feet, becoming a whirlwind of blades. Adding wind spells to his blades he became a small extremely sharp tornado that cut all three goblins that were in a circle into several pieces.
Kayn decided to do a dissection of the three goblins to understand their anatomy better before heading into their nest. It was only then that Kayn noticed what the goblins were actually chewing on. Each goblin had a part of a humanoid limb, one was even a full forearm and hand aside from the parts that were already chewed.
Kayn could only assume that the "food" was the victims of the ambush he found. Kayn was sicked by the thought. Though he could eat a person's core in a worst-case scenario, he would never even think of eating any other part. Thinking of eating a core at this point was even enough to make him feel like vomiting.
The situation seemed to be more of a crisis than he originally thought as there could be some survivors inside. In the end he decided to dissect the goblins after he dealt with the nest and rescued any survivors.
By the time Kayn had found the cave, the sun was already going down. However, for Kayn the darkness only seemed to sharpen his senses and even made him feel like he could blend in to the darkest areas more easily.
'It's time to get rid these nest of abominations.'