A Trip to the North

The day after the celebration in Aeternum, while Astur is lazing around her house, playing games on her phone while watching television. Although it was originally meant to provide some background noise, Astur instantly sits up in interest as a news report comes up.

"There have been reported sightings of the Warband, moving down into the territory of our Kingdom from the outlands of the Kalthros Empire. It is advised that all citizens living in the northern provinces be careful when going out. In other news today..."

As the news anchor changes topics Astur tunes them out and begins to search up the Warband on her phone and perhaps a bit unsurprisingly, she finds quite a bit of information on them. According to the first article she reads about them, the Warband is a group of Mystics that follow a man known as the Warden. Astur can tell there is quite a bit of bias against them as the article goes on to name them international terrorists and rebels. With a bit more digging, Astur finds a piece about them that isn't as biased, saying that the Warband consists of people who have fled the prosecution from Humans and Beastfolk.

Astur then begins to look into the Warden and finds out that he's apparently been around for several centuries, although people aren't sure if it's a different person taking up the mantle as the previous dies or if they're actually the same person. What surprises Astur the most is that there are several statements regarding the Warden from his enemies on the battlefield that has praised his combat prowess, some going as far to say that they wish they could have been allies, calling him the ideal warrior.

A few seconds after reading up on the Warden and his Warband, Astur notices a new System prompt, indicating a new quest.

[Quest: The Journey of 1,000 Years for Peace - 1 (Rank S)]

[Description]: Seek out the Warden and his Warband. Convince them to join you and serve the Holy Oulvgar State.

[Rewards]: +100,000 EXP, +10 Intimacy Points with Asterion, +10 Intimacy Points with Kretea, random Asterion Summon Card.

[Failure Penalty]: -20 Intimacy Points with Asterion and potential injury.

"Based on the rewards, I think I can assume that Asterion is the Warden's given name. And from the quest name, there is definitely a story to be told. But damn that EXP reward is massive. As expected from an S rank chain quest. As for accepting or rejecting this quest, only a moron would reject, I accept," Astur thinks causing the quest to be added to her list of active quests.

So far Astur has only triggered a very small handful of quests. This is mostly due to her own fault of not leaving her home. If she had made more of an effort to find and complete various quests, she most likely could have been several dozens of levels higher than what she is now.

As Astur is thinking about her new quest, she hears some knocking on her front door. After a bit of stumbling around through the various empty cans and bottles on the floor, Astur opens the door to see Blaze, Nero, and Woden.

Seeing that it's the players and that Blaze is streaming, Astur changes faces, putting her facade back up, "What can I do for you?"

"We want to look through your shop and buy a few things," Blaze says.

"Very well, come with me," Astur says, leading the three of them into her workshop while using her body to block the view of her living room. Sitting down on a stool in her workshop, Astur continues, "feel free to take a look," causing a System Window to pop up in front of the three players, listing the various things they can buy.

After a couple of minutes, Woden ends up buying a pair of gauntlets that have been enhanced through alchemy as well as some cloth armours that have been similarly enhanced, additionally, he also bought a couple of EXP potions.

Nero is in a similar position to Woden, where a large portion of Astur's items doesn't suit his needs, being a tank player. But different from Woden, due to his character's less exaggerated size, Nero can fit into most of the armour available to him. Like Woden, Nero only buys a couple of pieces of equipment as well as a couple of EXP Potions.

Nero and Woden only bought a small number of things due to not having much EXP to spare, with the Enhanced Basic EXP Potions being used to reduce the amount of EXP spent. But Blaze doesn't have this issue, having done various odd jobs for Astur these past few days in addition to the general quests she had been giving all the players. Although it was mostly Astur limit testing the quest function of the System, it still provided Blaze with significantly more EXP than her peers. But overall this difference evens out due to the high resource consumption of the Alchemist Class, requiring Blaze to spend large amounts of EXP not only to level up but to buy various items from Astur.

Blaze ends up buying several of Astur's explosives, such as the Big Blast Balls and Exploding Swords. She also buys a couple of the Healing Bats, one of the strange items Astur made, a wood bat that heals the people you hit it with. And like Woden and her brother Nero before her, she also bought some of the EXP Potions.

Just before the three players leave, Astur stops them, having come up with an idea, "You three have been some of the harder working people these past few days, I must commend you for your assistance, especially you Blaze, I knew you would make a good disciple. There's actually something I need to attend to and was looking for a few people to come along and assist me, would you three be interested?"

[Quest: A Trip to the North (Rank B)]

[Description]: The Forest Goddess, Astur, is making a trip to the Kingdom of Virpal's northern provinces in search of the Warband. She is in need of people to accompany her. Follow her and assist her when necessary.

[Rewards]: +10,500 EXP, +10 Intimacy Points with Astur Kojuuin. Random Astur Kojuuin Summon Card.

[Failure Penalty]: -20 Intimacy Points with Astur Kojuuin. (Applied upon quest rejection as well).

Astur raises her brow as she sees that the System added an additional reward of a Summon Card, but pays little attention to it since it doesn't really change much.

The three players, Blaze, Nero, and Woden are quick to accept the quest, prompting Astur to say, "Good, I expected as much. I need to speak with Liz for a moment then after that, we can head out."

Blaze mentions that she saw Elizabeth before coming to the island and leads the group to her. They soon find Elizabeth giving out various instructions to the Oulvgar as they design one of the new buildings in Aeternum.

As many of the Oulvgar notice Astur and quickly begin to speak various praises, Elizabeth walks over to Astur and says, "It's good to see you out and about for once."

"I thought I would take your advice and get some work done. So I need you to take care of things here for a few days, I need to go on a small trip up north," Astur says.

"Why? This isn't some excuse to go on a sightseeing trip, is it?" Elizabeth asks, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

"Damn, I should have thought of that earlier. But unfortunately no, it's not. The Warband has been reported to have been sighted entering the territory of the Kingdom from the border with the Kalthros Empire. I intend to go and recruit them."

"The Warden!? I wanna go!" Elizabeth shouts as her eyes light up like an excited child.

Shaking her head, Astur says, "No, I need you here. I need someone trustworthy and responsible to look over the forest in my absence. Don't worry, once I'm successful, you'll meet the Warden."

Elizabeth has a conflicted look on her face as she wants to meet the hero of the Demon races, but at the same time, she knows Astur has a point. If no one is left here to keep the Oulvgar in line, then who knows what this large group of super powered fanatic zealots would do. "*Sigh*, fine, but promise me that you'll introduce me to the Warden. He's a hero amongst us Demons after all."

"Sure thing," Astur says as she ruffles Elizabeth's hair, "then we'll be going now. Just make sure that the forest is in one piece when we get back."