The Missing Inheritance

Three days have passed since then, approximately around six hours in the real world have passed since I first entered. Am I addicted? Of course not. I'm simply making use of every bit of time I have before I go broke, and it helps as well that I don't feel hunger in real life. However, I do need to get back to eat or my body will collapse.

These past three days I have been collecting commissions left and right, finishing it and earning EXP on the way. Commissions that require me to guard a store house, to get herbs out in the woods, and another wolf hunt. I got around to level five, and have around five hundred gold on my pocket right now, turns out other quests weren't as profitable as last time. Some even just give out an item, like potions for the herbs. Which I admit has turned out to be rather useful when hunting, however it is definitely much easier to let them come instead of me going after them.

Speaking of which, it is the dead of the night outside the town. Quiet, and you can barely hear the uproar from the taverns inside the town. Taking a walk outside, I find myself back to the fields where the livestock are.

While I may have accepted no quest, I am kind of worried that there might be wolves again. This could be a hotspot where they would all gather.

"Back with another commission again, Sir?", a familiar voice rings to my ear. I turn to my side to see Rinne, the farmhand. She's walking to the side of the road with a basket on her arms.

"Nah, just worried there might be wolves again. What about you? You're out quite late.", I slowed down my pace and matched it with her. She beams, walking cheerfully on the side.

"There hasn't been anything peculiar lately. However, I did forget to get dinner and I had to go to a tavern to buy ingredients.", she shows the basket filled with meat, vegetables and bread. "These are rather quite pricier than to my liking, unfortunately..." Rinne adds.

"Would you like to come join me for dinner? Or have you eaten just now?"

Seeing nothing bad about free dinner, I accepted her request and we walked back to her home.

"Is there someone else living with you recently?" I asked Rinne.

"Oh, uh, no there isn't anyone right now.", she answered meekly but I can sense she is wondering why I asked that. From the distance and with elevation from the ground, I see with my eyes a figure. It is rather dark, and mixes well with the surroundings but I can vaguely tell something is moving just outside her home.

Hurriedly, I rushed to Rinne's home and equipped myself. However as I arrived I found no one, yet the door is rather moving loosely with the chilly breeze. I opened the door silently, and turned my head to my side immediately as I enter, anticipating an attack, however there was none. I scanned the area, but found no intruder.

It can't be just my imagination. The door is surely opened and closed in a hurry.

Then I heard a rustle from outside, hurriedly I turned to the door and left. There it is, out on the field where I last fought the wolves. I see a goblin carrying a sack, running away. Sparing no time, I chased the goblin and managed to get a hold of its neck, pinning it to the ground before bashing it with my shield. Sadly, I wasn't able to simply finish it off with just that and I had to use my axe.

Vanishing and leaving loot, I found myself another goblin ear, and the stolen item. I took hold of the sack and walked back to Rinne, whom I found to be waiting outside.

"I got this back.", I told her before handing her the sack. I hear the clanging of coins inside while I was carrying it so I suspect it is gold coins.

"Um, is this all? Did you find anything else?", she asks while clutching the sack to her chest. Her face wringing with worry.

"I'm sorry. I only found one goblin running off...what else were missing?", I put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, she looks up teary eyed in response.

"M-my box...it's where I keep what my mother left to me.", she wipes off her tears, but to no avail it continues to flow for her. "I can't lose it."

~~

Quest: Missing Inheritance

Retrieve Rinne, the farmhand's strongbox from its thieves.

Reward: None

~~

A quest appears, and this time it didn't say that it was commissioned.

"I'll get it back for you, let me chase the thieves. Report this to the Adventurer's Guild and get more help." I answered and she nodded back.

"They shouldn't have been able to open it, I still have the key.", she says before taking out the key from her pocket. "I'll wait for you here..."

Running back to where I caught the goblin, I am faced with the darkness inside the opening of the woods.

If one goblin is heading here, then I'm sure this must be the route to their place.

I thought to myself. Making the decision to head inside, I now have to rely only on my eyesight as the woods simply only let glimpses of moonlight inside. First, I was stumbling from the branches, hitting the tree trunks as I go side to side with it, but I managed to continue moving forward.

Surely the thief must've gotten really far by now. I got to expect fighting with a whole tribe of goblins, dead at night even.

A moment later, my eyes adapted to the dark and even though there is not much improvement, I can now at least see if there would be a tree in front of me or not clearly. I continued chasing, and according to the map as well, I am also making no deviations from my route.

The breeze starts to pick up and I feel it much chillier than earlier, the deeper I get into the woods the thicker the trees get, yet the run doesn't seem to be endless. From this darkness, light is obviously much more noticeable. Especially the distinct orangish tinge of light from a fire.

There it is, I see a campfire. I make a halt, and slowly creep in closer. I see that the camp is rather hidden well with a makeshift wooden barricade, covered with leaves and branches. It is actually quite well made for camouflage, if not for the fire just lighting up in this darkness. Sneaking a peak beside the tree, I find four goblins awake but that is simply at the edge of their camp. The camp is much larger than I thought possible for goblins, and I even see a few daggerfang wolves lounging around as well. Four goblins aside, I do think there are much more inside.

Can I handle this? I already went up by four levels from before and I surely can get one in one hit with my axe.

Mustering my resolve, I held tight to my axe and went inside the camp. My large figure compared to them must have been rather easy to notice for them, but before one could shout out, I swung my axe and struck down one. One goblin tried to lunge at me, however I was able to easily catch it with my shield and bounce it away. Investing some of my stat points to strength paid off for my damage and I definitely am strong enough to withstand a heavy force.

There are a total of five main stats for this world; strength, constitution, affinity, resistance and speed. Strength is a straight up physical enhancement, making me stronger to be able to deal out an attack with more power, and carry heavy weight, this includes attacks taken by my shield. Simply put, if I have low enough strength then my guard is easily broken. Constitution is generally how much health and stamina I have, this includes poison damage as well according to the description but I never dared to try it. Affinity, while new to me, is what replaced Intelligence from most RPG games, it's what makes magic attacks stronger. Resistance is defence against such attacks. And lastly, speed is usually just how fast someone could move unhindered.

There is another thing about substats as well, however...

"Khk—!" the goblin that I threw earlier ran away.

It's hard to chase through these line of trees but I kept going, but I'm just not that good around this place compared to their size. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by goblins. Eight goblins in front of me, now raring to go and rush onto me with attacks, armed with a club and spear.

There is only one way to get myself into an advantageous situation. Holding my shield tight, I readied myself and lifted my guard. With all my strength, I dashed through the horde of goblins as we collide head on.

One thud I feel the impact from hitting its head, and the second came, then the third. The more distance I covered, the heavier it felt for me to take a step but I kept myself going. I see a goblin climbing up from my shield, must've used his fellows as stepping stones to get up. I knew this was as far as I could go and using my remaining force from the dash I pushed all those I've caught and that threw them a few distance away from the others.

 Taking this opportunity, I hack away with my axe, swinging my arm continuously till there's no more goblins in front of me. Before chasing those pushed back, still staggered and picking them off one by one.

"W-woah—!!", before I could realize it a wolf has already gotten their fangs on me, biting my feet.

Oh crap, I forgot there are also wolves here.

Taking out the wolf with one slash, another came rushing at me but I fortunately was able to catch it with my fist, knocking it out. These wolves only have one attack so far, and they are easy to deal with. As soon as they jumped in to me, I know what direction they'll get me so I am easily able to push it off with my shield. Simply put, it was no trouble at all.

"There goes my leather boots...", these may be tough leather, but it's really no match against fangs like dagger. It protected me from grazes but from bites, it just pierced through.

~~

Due to consecutive bashing of your shield to your enemies, [Shield Bash] skill is unlocked. [Shield Bash] staggers enemies hit by the skill.

In addition: your proficiency with the axe unlocked the skill [Cleave] which adds additional damage when performed.

~~

The system notified me so, before disappearing again as soon as I confirmed it. And here I thought there aren't any skills here, but I can see how unlocking skills have conditions on them.

More importantly, I scan the camp, looking for potential enemies but the forest is quiet. I check out the stashes the goblins have, which are really just scattered everywhere.

What does her box even look like?

What I see here ranges from food, dirty and broken weapons, a bunch of sticks and bones. Checking on the deeper edge, I found something more valuable. Not exactly chests but I found iron chunks. Where did they get this?

No gems in sight, sadly, those are pricey. However after rummaging a bit through their camp I finally found a small box, it's quite intricately detailed with carvings and it's even polished. This must be what she is looking for.

Taking the box and putting it into my inventory, the quest updated itself asking me to deliver the box to Rinne. Thankfully I am on the right direction, that also means I can also just count on the system to just tell me if I got the right item or not in the future of lost item quests. Those are quite troublesome to deal with honestly.

Before I head out of the camp, I see a notification pop out in my vision. The message simply stated that my body needs to eat. There isn't much time for me inside here either.

Taking back the route I've taken, which is just a slight turn before going for a straight walk to outside. Even the map confirms it so. The night is still dark, not much time has passed, and I'm sure Rinne is waiting.

"Oh...what are you doing here?" speak of the devil, I found a familiar girl roaming around the woods with a lantern in hand. I can see from her eyes that she's being really vigilant, or just plainly scared of the surroundings.

"Sir Karl! I'm glad I found you...you weren't back for a good while so I was worried. And I thought it was rather selfish of me to leave it all to you. After all, it is my property...", she answered back, her eyes light up from seeing me.

"Don't worry, it's all done now. I got your box back, this is it right?", I held out the box in front of her and she took it gently from my hands and secured by clenching it to her chest. "Yes, thank you so much. I hope that you're not harmed?"

"It's not much trouble really, the goblins were easy to deal with.", I replied back and smiled in response. "That's good to know, I already prepared our meal so let's head home?"

And with that, the Missing Inheritance Quest is now complete. However, now that I have enough time to think about it. Didn't the Adventurer's Guild made a scout request for this area? I thought three days would be enough for them to clear out a camp, but I guess these kind of things take longer...or was I just lucky?

The two of us sit by each other on the table, we have our meals which is a cream soup with meat and vegetables, bread to accompany with it as well. It was rather tasty and filling, and I feel like the last fight from earlier were from a long time ago. It's a weird feeling.

"Thank you for getting it back...it's actually the last thing I have left to remember my mother with.", she clings to her necklace which has the key tied along.

"I told you it's no trouble.", I replied back. She places the box down to the table and opened it with the key, revealing a scroll all bundled up and secured with a metallic bind with a gem engraved on it. And a necklace with a large gemstone on it, though it does seem weirdly attached.

"She was a loving mother, she always made sure I am warm with her hugs even if it did felt too much at that time.", she takes out the scroll, revealing a note, wait, a poem? A ballad? "She always sang this for me, a lullaby to make me sleep. But now that I think about it, it's not exactly a story for sleeping. She has a really sweet voice..." she giggles at the realization.

"And this necklace is a gift from her. She called this an amethyst...I really like it.", she held the gemstone on the necklace and admired the shine.

"Have you shown this to anyone else? I believe some would be curious if they saw a beautiful container like this." I asked Rinne, and she shrugs her head.

"I wouldn't dare show it off to others. Only to you, since I believe you deserve at least to know what you've saved for me.", she replied back.

"Thank you, I'm glad I took off to get it back."

After that, she invited me to stay until it gets brighter outside. However, since I was about to log out anyway. I opted to stay outside and get out there so that next time I log in, I would immediately be at the town. Plus I do think there would be trouble involved if I suddenly appeared inside her home.

I took off, and it's as if light has surrounded my vision once again, blinding me till I recover and see the monitor right in front of me. Opening the hatch, I exit out of the device, feeling rather famished.

"I'm doing my best out here, don't worry. I'll get by.", I muttered to myself, before taking out food for myself.