"Huh?"
Why is the difficulty hard? I've had the same quest before but the difficulty was easy. Perhaps the system just wanted to give me a better reward...
If that's the case, then I'm not complaining, but somehow, I doubt that. This reward is really good though. one free skill that's already level 3! I just hope it's a decent skill and not something stupid like 'dancing' or something.
The penalty isn't too bad for a hard quest either. Im only level 2 so even if I fail, I'll only need a little bit of xp to get back to the same level.
I'm still confused why the difficulty is hard, but I decide to just forget about it for now and focus on finishing the quest. It's not like I can cancel it anyways.
I carry on traveling downstream, looking for a decent place to make a den. I end up travelling quite far downstream without finding a suitable place to make it, so I decide to search inside the forest instead. The river was far too open and my den would get found easily if I had made it there.
I keep a lookout for any monsters whilst i'm searching but even after a couple of hours I don't see any. I find it a little odd, but try to ignore it. If there's no monsters then it must be safe, right?
Yeah...I'm not buying it either. The last time is was like this was because that petrifying lizard had made the area it's home, so I'm starting to suspect there might be a strong monster around here as well.
I decide to go back to the river and travel upstream instead. I ignored my gut feeling last time and it nearly cost me my life, so I'm going to listen to it this time.
I make it back to the river without any issues and quest the time limit on my quest. I only have 6 hours left, which means I just wasted half my time doing nothing. I need to find a place soon because I still need to actually dig it yet!
I nearly make it back to the fallen tree when I finally find a couple of monsters. It's only another couple of river rats, but it makes men feel better knowing that they feel safe being here. I quickly kill them earning myself 60 xp and carry on travelling upstream.
I make it back to the fallen tree before stopping and checking how long I have left again. With only 5 hours left, I start to wonder if the system labeled this quest as hard, simply because there isn't any suitable places to make a den near by? If so, then I'm really going to struggle to complete this quest.
Wait a minute! Couldn't I just make my den here? I slept here earlier without any problems so it should be fine right? It is a bit open, but i'm sure that I could jus drag a bush to cover the hole and no one should be able to tell my dens even there!
I might as well give it a try.
I spend the next couple of hours digging out my den. It took me longer than expected because the earth was really soft, so I spent most of the time compressing the sides to make sure it didn't cave in on me. I only dug one room this time, I figured that if I want to make it bigger, I can always do it another time.
After finding a decent size bush, I drag it to my den to act as a door and crawl inside, waiting for the system notification to tell me that I had completed the quest.
Even after waiting 10 minutes, no notification came.
Why hasn't it counted as completed yet? I bring up the quest and check it again.
'Find a safe place and make a den.'
I re-read it several times before it suddenly hits me.
Could it be that this place isn't safe?
But I haven't seen any monsters around here other than the river rats and they're a bit further downstream.
Hmm...what if the quest wasn't set at hard because there wasn't any suitable places. What if it was set at hard because this whole area is deemed as unsafe? If that's the case then i'm screwed! I have just over 2 hours to finish the quest and that's not enough time to find a place and make a whole new den. But if this whole area is unsafe then I should really leave, but where should I go?
It's already dark outside and i've already been downstream. There's no way I'm traveling back in the direction of the giant spider, so the only direction left is upstream.
The question is should I go or should I stay here for the night and leave in the morning. Ive never traveled through the forest at night, so I don't know what type of monsters are about but at the same time. if the system is designating this area as un safe, then I don't really want to stay here either.
I suppose everything was alright last night when I stayed in the fallen tree so it can't be that unsafe can it? Plus there's no way to know if it's actually safe upstream either.
I decided I was just going to risk staying here tonight. At least I will be hidden, so even if there is a monster it shouldn't be able to find me. I had already accepted that fact that I was going to fail the quest so there wasn't any reason to risk traveling at night.
I laid down and tried to get some sleep. in the paranoid state I was in, I knew it was going to be a long night.
I woke up later that night to the sound of leaves rustling. Something was thinking the bush I had used to cover the hole of my den. I instinctively activated stealth without even realising it and held my breath.
I could hear a soft pad of multiply footsteps and the occasional snarl, from up above. I stared at the bush from inside my den, when it was suddenly ripped out of the hole and flung to the side.
Once it was gone, the next thing I saw was a pair of golden eyes, staring straight at me.