Subjugation

After we registered the tasks, we headed towards the west forest.

It took about an hour to get to the specific location. Silver barbed wolves are located deep within the forest, so by the time we arrived, we could barely see the sky except through the little spaces that the leaves created.

We waited for the wolves to make their appearance. The lady told us that silver barbed wolves are attracted to shiny objects, which is kind of weird if you ask me.

We waved our weapons in the sunlight, light reflecting off of our blades. A few minutes passed and not a single wolf has appeared.

"What's taking so long? Luna, are you sure we are in the right part of the forest?"

"Yes, of course. You can ask Kage."

"She's right, you know."

I sighed. I'd try sensing my surroundings for any energy signals, and the only thing I could sense was some birds and little critters.

Maybe I should have done one of those delivery jobs, they do pay well. 2 silver just to deliver a letter and 4 silver to just deliver a package. Well, I didn't really care about how much the reward was, I just didn't like doing boring stuff.

'Master, there are creatures watching you.'

Ichigo's voice spoke in my mind.

Hmm? Are they the wolves?

'Yes.'

I turned around and as Ichigo said, there were five white wolves emerging out of the bushes, growling at us. Luna and Kage readied their weapons. I snapped my fingers and decided to bring Ichigo out. On his waist, he had his replica of Koshiro and unsheathed it.

"You know summoning magic?"

Kage asked me. That's right, he hasn't seen me summon spectrals yet. Well, now he knows.

"Yeah, but let's focus on these wolves."

The first one came lunging at Kage. I looked over at him and he suddenly faded into black smoke. Then he appeared behind the wolf and then it exploded into a million pieces. Red liquid and red mist splattered everyone, I kind of feel bad. But hey, at least the tail didn't explode along with it. The tail was barbed and silver, guess that's why they are called silver barbed wolves.

The second went after Luna while the third and fourth went after Ichigo. The last one obviously went for me.

I used [Distortion] and in a flash, it exploded, guts and body parts falling everywhere.

"Whoa..."

Ding!

[Wind Magic level up! (Lv5)]

Who knew distortion was this powerful. And it looks like the only "Wind Magic" that I've been using is distortion. Maybe I should stop relying on distortion for a while since it's too powerful. I looked over at Ichigo and he created a distorted dome that spread 2-meters around him. As he sheathed the Koshiro, he vanished, and it was as if he suddenly cracked the surrounding space. Then he reappeared, slowly sheathing his blade, and the wolves had just vanished. Not a single trace of them left, except for their tails.

Impressive. Ichigo just made my opinion on how powerful distortion is even more correct.

I said in my thoughts and Ichigo bowed to me. Then he turned into purple mist and returned to my hand. Luna had finished with the wolf she was occupied with.

And we completed our first task.

Hmm, now usually, whenever I encounter some monsters, I always get a quest from the system. Did the bears and the wolves not count? Suspicious...

Well, not like I care anyway as I didn't level up one bit from these wolves. Well... I did only take out one... or three if I count Ichigo. Whatever.

After I absorbed the souls of the wolves, which were blue, and picked up the barbed tails, we returned to the guild.

[Souls (45/66)]

Along the way, I teased Luna because she had a bit of blood on her hair. Hehe, her reaction was hilarious.

***

When we returned, we gave the lady the 5 tails from the wolves and the task. She was surprised at how fast we had handled that.

"Wow, to think you guys completed your first quest so fast."

"Hmm? Do people not complete their quest this fast?"

"Well, not most. Sometimes they take about a day to finish one. Sometimes they fail. And Silver barbed wolves are fast, one cut from those tails and you'll be bleeding for days."

Fast? They didn't show any signs of this "Fast". They were slow as hell. Kage was much faster, Ichigo was much faster, Luna was much faster, heck, even I was much faster.

"Well, you may go to the registration desk to redeem your reward."

We handed our cards to the receptionist, and she stamped out cards with a red stamp that had the guild's crest on it. A few seconds later, after she had stamped them, the stamps slowly faded away.

The receptionist explained that through these stamps; it allows us to rank up to the next level. The stamps used seems to be different according to the difficulty and the rank of the quest. Our task was counted as a "hard" quest and she said if we did two more hard quests, we could rank up.

If only there were any hard quests left. It seems that we took the last one. The only thing left was... deliveries. And those were easy quests. Lucy and Kage decided to do some of them cause we need to save up money. So they left.

While inspecting the board for any promising quests, there was someone yelling their heads off on the other side.

"You useless drunken elf! How many quests have you failed?!"

"Ehh?! It's not my fault, they are just too hard."

"Hard?! How does one fail an easy task?!"

"Whatever old man!"

I turned around, and it was an old man scolding an elf. The old man looked like he was a noble since he was wearing rich clothes. He had a breath-taking beard. It went down to chest level. He had grey hair, he also had an eyepatch that hid his left eye, and pretty tall. He also gave out an intimidating aura... best not to mess with him.

The elf was getting drunk on booze and boy, did she reek of alcohol. She had blonde hair(Like most elves do), green eyes, and was pretty short, like a loli. She had a longbow with a prominent design. Standing behind her was another elf similar to her, except she was taller and had an appealing body. Unlike the other elf, she was wielding a large staff. They were both wearing matching green tunics.

The old man turned towards the taller and more mature-looking elf.

"Please get your sister in check. If she fails one more task, I will have to kick her out of the guild."

"U-understood."

"Thank you."

Then the old man walked towards the lady at the front desk, and the lady greeted him.

"Welcome back, master."

So he's the guild master, huh? Fitting.

The man nodded. Then he asked.

"So Martha, have there been any new members while I was gone?"

"Yes, three of them."

"Where are they?"

"Two of them had gone to do a quest a moment ago, one of them is over there."

She pointed at me. When the old man turned his attention towards me, I immediately looked away.

But a second later, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"What would your name be?"

He said in a deep voice. I slowly turned around and gave him a smile.

"Noctem, sir."

"Noctem... what?"

"Well... just Noctem."

"Alright... Noctem... do you want to rank up?"

"Hmm?"

To Rank C? Well, I did see a lot better quests than the D-rank ones.

"Yeah."

"Well then, I have a job for you."

Then he pointed at the two elf sisters.

"I want you to go on a quest with them. And make sure they complete it."

"That's it?"

"Yeah, and you'll become C-rank as soon as you know it."

"Alright..."

I followed the guild master to the elves. Then he introduced me.

"This here is Noctem. Noctem, these two are Eve Casstalia and Aurora Casstalia."

"So the shorty is Eve, and the more mature-looking one is Aurora. Got it."

"I'm not short! I'm just..."

"Tiny?"

"Shut up, you're tiny!"

She downed the bottle of booze and ordered for another one.

"Sister, I think that's enough."

"Awww~, but I want more!"

"Enough! You are going on a quest with Noctem, and you better not fail."

"Meh!"

"Sister, you're being rude."

"Just get me some more booze."

The guild master facepalmed. He looked at me and gave me a task.

"Here, go to the north forest. You'll be hunting some Bronze Tusk Boars."

He handed me the task. The task requires us to bring back 4 sets of tusk from the boars. Bronze Tusk Boars, Silver Barbed Wolves, what's next... Golden Saber-toothed Tigers? Hmm... I actually want to see that.

"Now, see you later, I have some business to take care off."

And so, I went out to the north forest with the two elf sisters.

<>

A few minutes later...

"Tell me, Martha, where did you find that boy?"

"Mr. Noctem?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he just came in the guild with two of his friends. Is there something about him that caught your eye?"

The man touched his eyepatch. He hesitated. Then looked at Martha.

"I won't risk it. Maybe Anastasia can, she'll look into him for me. Now... I'm worried if he's able to keep up with them."

"He will with Aurora, her delicate demeanor brings the best out of her. Well, except that she's really shy, but everything will go alright with her. As for Eve... I don't think so."

"You are damn right."