​

I held up my white-gloved hand. In later days to come, as much as these distinctive white gloves were horrible for stealth, they were useful for all sorts of subtle nonverbal communication.

"Hold up. We're surrounded."

My minimap showed hostile red dots converging and then separating to circle around us. These Lone-horned Wolves operated as a pack, and were somehow smart enough to perform basic ambush tactics. Wolf packs would try to stay hidden until they could charge out in one terrifying ma.s.s to chase and tear down prey animals much bigger than they were.

"Two over there over there to the left, two to the right, and another two circling behind us."

The girls nodded at each other and flipped around to stand back to back. I drew my sword and held it like a spear. "They're charging!" I reported.

Out from the undergrowth, several wolves with a dark gray coat and black horn sprouting from their foreheads charged out. The horns were not long enough for stabbing, not like a unicorn, a length about as long as their muzzle. Their eyes glowed an eerie red.

One immediately lunged towards Elze. She met its charge with a yell of her own and punched it right in the nose. The monster wolf could only let out a pained whimper before it crashed a fair distance away, its skull completely caved in.

"Amazing!"

But sensing my distraction from watching Elze fight, one of wolves in front me took the opportunity to charge. /"Player!"/ Monika screamed.

I turned back just in time to see it was just a few body-lengths and a second or two away. A red targeting circle appeared over one of its eyes, and a red arrow pointing left. A white-numbered timer on a red filled red circle appeared next to target on the wolf's face.

/"[Amplify: Nerve Impulse] [Application: Quick Time]"/

I stabbed straight out and the blade slid straight into its right eye. With the added force of its own charge the steel point penetrated through the soft bone behind the eyeball and straight into its brain. My straight arm and shoulder recoiled from the transferred force, and I stepped aside its lunge but not before twisting my wrist a bit to slurry its brains a little more.

It crashed to the ground, not quite dead yet.

Two more charged towards me from the side.

"Come forth, Fire! Blast of Red Stone, [Ignis Fire]!" Linze shouted.

One of the two wolves was struck by a pillar of flame. The other simply nimbly leapt around its fallen comrade and lunged with bared teeth at Linze.

I moved ahead and with my hold now around the middle of the hilt, chopped at its neck with the cutting curve of the sword.

/"[Amplify: Nerve Impulse] [Amplify: Muscle Power] [Application: Quick Time]"/

With surprising ease the Lone-horned Wolf's head just flew right off its body, decapitated in one stroke. Swiftly I whirled around, because that was three down and there was another wolf that I'd turned my back on.

I turned just in time to see Elze counter a leaping wolf with a roundhouse kick to the stomach, pulping its internal organs, shattering its ribs, and sending it flying to crash against a tree.

"Throw it!" Monika urged. She traced the projected flight path of using the sword like a javelin. I threw my expensive new long sword away and lodged it into the neck of the other wolf that lunged at Elze's back.

Then final wolf was then burnt to a crisp by Linze.

And then we were done.

/"No targets in range,"/ Monika stated. /"Mission complete."/

I let out the breath I was holding. That was… that was…

Amazing. Heart pounding. Hunting was nothing like it.

It was pure kill or be killed. It was terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. I slowly walked over to the monster wolf with my sword still stuck in its throat. With my back still turned to the girls, I took it out and flicked the blood away. I was thankful for the stiffness of my white gloves, it hid the s.h.i.+vering in my cold weak grip.

/"Are you okay?"/ Monika asked. Even though her virtual persona could not partic.i.p.ate in combat, she looked slightly disheveled. Stacking so many [Amplifications] so quickly seemed to have strained her.

"Maybe we need to buy a bigger Null magic stone for you."

/"Stop recklessly spending things, seriously! You're being too reckless about everything… it really worries me. We're still trying to find our new normal, there's no need to rush. Are you really sure you're okay?"/

I exhaled roughly. "I'm fine. We're all fine."

The sound of Elze clanging her gauntlets together drew my attention. I turned around and she beamed at me. "Looks like we're done here. The request was to defeat five wolves, but we bagged one extra."

"Is… is that fine?" I asked. "If monster wolves really are such a pest, won't people still be in danger?"

"No, they usually attack as a whole pack. If we leave these here to rot, the smell will drive others of their kind away for a while."

"So we just need to take the horn. Does it break off?" I looked at my blade. It would be a shame to chip it so early. Though thinking about it, Elze would probably be strong enough to just snap the horns right off the skulls.

Linze raised her wand. "Come forth, Water! Become a clear blade, [Aqua Cutter!]"

What looked like a s.h.i.+mmering blade of ice arced towards a Lone-horned Wolf and cleanly sliced its horn away.

I pointed. "Okay. That. That was cool. You really must teach me that, Teacher Silhoueska."

She scratched at cheek embarra.s.sedly. "Eheheh… being called Teacher Silhoueksa is still a bit…"

Elze began to tear off the other horns. "Let's get this done, and get back to town. Hopefully we can get back before it gets too dark."

"If we set out in the morning we would have missed lunch," I had to say. I looked up at the sky. "Days are still twelve hours, it took us three hours to get here, so probably around… six o'clock?"

"Hmf. Sundown." Elze crossed her arms and stared at me. "The things you somehow know and the things you don't know... I guess after dinner we're going to have That Talk."

There were few shared events as good as combat as a trust-building exercise. The air between us had cleared again.

-x-​

Fortunately on our way back to town, we encountered a carriage going the same way. When we showed the horns of the Lone-horned Wolves, the owner happily allowed us to hitch a ride. He even thanked us for taking a monster subjugation quest.

I leaned back and closed my eyes to take a little nap. Adventurers were completely necessary to this world, huh?

A world… that still needed heroes.

-x-

-x-​

We arrived with still some daylight to burn, so we first reported completion of our quest to the Guild. I ended up keeping one horn as a commemorative piece and in order to do more science to it.

After presenting proof of our subjugation to the Guild receptionist, she asked for our Guild Cards. When we handed them over, she pressed something that looked like a stamp over each of them. A magical circle briefly appeared on the cards before fading away.

"Each stamp differs based on the difficulty of the quest you completed," we were told. "As you acc.u.mulate stamps, eventually your rank will increase and the color of the card will change."

"Does it just record the amount of magic power? If you could remove magic content as well, wouldn't this mean you can encode information into the card? Why couldn't we just use these cards – or a separate kind of card, as a reusable and verifiable instrument of bank credit?" I couldn't help but to gasp out.

"It would not be reusable. Removing one enchantment would break all the enchantments," was the reply. "That's why letters of credit come in scrolls."

"Huh. Fair enough."

The receptionist handed our reward of eighteen copper coins. Split three ways, now we had three days of food and accommodation.

Was this lifestyle really sustainable?

As I mused this out loud, Monika replied /"Probably? I mean, think of Texas and its feral hog problem. They have guns and traps and night vision, but still the wild pigs breed like crazy and must be culled yearly so that they don't damage the ecosystem. They're not even good eating, since they're full of parasites.

/And in this fantasy world, there's multiple monster species that can be a problem."/

We were walking back to the inn by then. "So you sound like you're really comfortable with handling lots of money, huh?" Elze noticed.

"There's a saying that goes 'to make money you need money', but the fastest way to make money is simply not to spend any," I replied. "With some exceptions. Dying generally is not conducive to making more money. Clothes are thought to be a frivolous expense, but feeling good about yourself and influencing how others see you will help in being treated as an equal."

"I understand that perfectly."

"So… so we're not going to celebrate?" Linze asked. "I mean, I am also fine with saving money and all. I wasn't hoping for anything. It would be really good right now just to have a hot bath and rest."

Elze nudged me with her elbow. All three of us were again walking side by side. "Well, Playah?"

"Well we could still have the truth of cake! We just don't eat it at the café and be charged for drinks, and use up more of Micah's tea instead."

"Wooow, you're really abusing how much goodwill we have from paying up front in gold, aren't you? Your willingness to take a mile when given an inch impresses me a little bit."

-

-​

The cake was nice. The tea, well, at least we had a big pot of it and could always return for free refills since Micah was also relaxing after her workday.

We were the only ones left in the dining room. A little later Micah said she would prepare our meals. We spent our after-adventure revelry in harmless chitchat, feeling comfortable and refreshed after taking a quick bath.

I learned more about Elze and Linze's unlicensed adventuring days, from when they were helping out on their uncle's farm. They were hunting taking odd jobs and hunting monsters since they were eleven, which would be fourteen in Earth years. They were currently thirteen, which would make them 17 in Earth years.

/"They're dangerous. They're very dangerous girls,"/ Monika whispered to my ears.

Well sure they were. Strong, independent and driven, whatever they put their mind to they should go far. It was just a pity their society had a hard ceiling for advancement due to n.o.ble privilege, though I think maybe adventurers as a social cla.s.s could sidestep that.

They were orphaned at a very young age, and decided to set out so that they wouldn't be such a burden on their relatives any more, and as adventurers they could help send money home. They didn't elaborate on the circ.u.mstances of their parents, but seemed to be over it.

In return I spoke of my own childhood. I was actually born wealthy, and my mother… well, I didn't elaborate either on why my mother abruptly left my life and my father remarried his secretary. And then he too… went away. To jail.

For the longest time I was blind, consumed and spoiled and looking only for my own convenience. And then I literally became blind, but in doing so learned how to live by myself and for myself. A person needed a value more than just their face or their name, but here – in these hands – is all they should ever need to live.

Because of my quickly deteriorating eyesight, it took me quite a while to realize that the reason people hated me was because I seemed arrogant and aloof and couldn't be bothered to remember their names. The problem was actually that I couldn't even recognize their faces at a distance.

Linze asked about the magic tools in my homeland, and I talked about credit cards as I mentioned back at the Guild. They carried a sequence of numbers, and to read that number you needed another tool that first required you input a four-digit number code that matched another the secret number placed in the card. You only had three tries before it would lock out and make the card unusable.

"That sound like a waste," she replied.

"Which is why I was so impressed by the Guild's anti-forgery magic."

We talked about many other things, like how Refleese Imperium was a coastal nation with many hills and mountains. There country opened out into flatlands closer towards Belfast, but Belfast was actually still mostly forests. We talked about our preference for pets. I liked cats, but also dogs, and there were few sights as heartwarming as cats and dogs getting along. Cats were usually so annoying to dogs, who tend to have some sort of indulgent patience to them. The girls had a goat. It was a one-horned goat though, and it could climb trees.

It was a nice, companionable little chat.

But the first floor of the Silver Moon Inn was still too public for the discussion we really needed to make.

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