"Would you stop laughing already, I'll tickle you, Cat Girl," I warned, as she continued giggling like crazy.

  It was the following night, we were at my apartment, and Persia had relentlessly pestered me until I gave in and admitted that I name my attacks. She then managed to get the names of each attack out of me. In hindsight, I probably should have just played dumb till she gave up and lost interest……

  "Oh my-! *gasp* I can't stop laughing……so *gasp* so when you fire off an attack……in your head you're yelling out 'Shocker Punch!' or 'Lightning Reign!' or-!?" She wheezed, holding onto her sides while she laughed, tears running down her face as she rolled around the bed.

  She's enjoying this WAY too much. I cut her off by pouncing onto her and tickling her all over, as she giggled and squealed, attempting to grab my hands but failing.

  "Can't say I didn't warn you," I remarked with a sigh.

  "A-alright, s-stop! I won't make fun of you anymore!" She begged, laughing uncontrollably as I mercilessly tickled her.

  I ceased my attack and lightly flicked the tip of her nose, as she caught her breath with a flushed look.

  "Jerk, you know I hate being tickled," She pouted, tapping her fist on my chest.

  "Yeah, well……I hate being laughed at," I replied with a smirk.

  "But……you can't blame me, this was really funny……hehe, you even extended the name of your, heh, 'Lightning Incineration Cannon!' with 'Hands-Free' for when you- ow!" She began to giggle again, before I zapped her nose with a faint spark, "Y-you……you used your lightning on me."

  "What, should have I tickled you again instead-?"

  "I……I can't believe you did that," She said in a soft voice, her eyes drooping.

  Wait, did I mess up?

  "H-hold on, I didn't mean to……," I began, before trailing off as she stifled a snort of laughter and unconvincingly trying to pass it off as a cough……I got back to tickling her after adding, "Hey……you little faker!"

  "I-I'm s-sorry, I couldn't *gasp* resist!" She wheezed with laughter as I tickled her sides with a frown.

  She then mustered the strength to lean up, cutting off my tickle assault with a kiss. No, I can't let myself be defeated so easily……!

  "I-if you r-really think that's going to work, th-then you've- mfph!" I began as I pulled away, before she pulled me back towards her and caressed my lips with hers, running her hands through my hair……

  eh, sometimes admitting defeat isn't the worst thing……

  A little over a week later, towards the end of April, on a Saturday, we were heading out on a Quest. There were a bunch of reasons as to why.

  First, Vi asked us if we could go on a Quest with her. I've mentioned before that Student Adventurers can only take on D and C-Ranked Quests, the only reason my Group D can take on upto A-Ranked Quests is because I finished as a semi-finalist during the Brawl of Glory last year. The rest of Group D or anyone else at the Academy could only go on Quests ranked above C if they were with me. Don't forget, of the four finalists and semi-finalists of last year's Brawl of Glory, I was the only one who was still at the Academy, the other three had all graduated already.

  Speaking of that tournament……this year's edition was only a week away. All the members of Group D minus Az had registered for it. Vi had as well, along with thirteen other third years. From the rest of the second years, Gela, Niski and Tuck, along with a handful of others, had also registered. That made twenty-five or so, and to fill out the required number of thirty-two, the instructors encouraged the first years to register as well.

  Last year, there had been so many students that many who would have liked to participate couldn't simply because there weren't enough slots. But this year, with the raised standards of the exams, the student body had been massively culled. But more on that later. Jesus, I got way off topic.

  Anyway, back to the reasons why we were taking a Quest.

  Number one, Vi wanted to go on an A or B-Ranked Quest to earn some money, so she asked us to tag along since she can't take one on unless I was a part of it.

  The second reason was to train for the Brawl of Glory.

  The third was because……I had been able to get permission to take Mika out with us, and I figured it'd be a valuable training experience. See, it's pretty common for Adventurers to take their apprentices out on Quests to train them or to give them some live experience, it's just that applying for the permission forms to do so is a major pain. Persia took care of that when I proved to be too lazy to bother, and since she went through the trouble, I couldn't exactly say no.

  And the final reason, though not as important, was to earn some money since I spent a bit too much recently……my birthday had been about a week and a half ago, and I ended up splurging a bit more than I would have liked.

  But, first things first……we need to find a good Quest.

  I was currently at the Guild with Group D, Vi and Mika, as we looked for a Quest worth taking on.

  "All these rewards are kinda paltry……guess the good Quests get snatched up early, huh?" Sighed Vi, as she scanned the flyers.

  "Just pick one already……I'm getting sick of that guy glaring at me," I remarked irritably, returning the glare to my glarer.

  It was the number one Adventurer, Neo Lapunder. I don't know what the Guild said or did to him, but just as Erhtaph said, he hadn't tried to attack me or anything since that day when I punched him. He gave me these annoying death glares whenever I ran into him though.

  "Hey, Miss Loubder……what about this one?" Suggested Mika, picking up a flyer that had fallen off the board.

  Vi took it from her and scanned the details, her eyes widening.

  "This is……perfect!" She exclaimed, showing us the flyer.

  "Let's see……oh, we found this Quest just in time. An A-Ranked Quest, we'll need to meet the client at the east gate in about an hour from now, we'll then need to escort the client to the spot that's shown on the sketch of the map of the forest area included in this flyer and then escort them back to the east gate……upon completion, it pays a fixed rate of……fifteen gold, woah," Said Key, raising an eyebrow as she got to the reward.

  "Huh, there aren't any other details……like what we're escorting them for. If it was to gather something, it'd be a lot easier to go gather it ourselves than to take the freaking client all the way there," I remarked, staring at the barely-detailed flyer.

  "Doesn't matter, it's still perfect! Hey, go get this approved, Kuro!" Urged Vi enthusiastically.

  "Huh, do it yourself, I'm not your- oh, right……I'm the only one eligible to get it approved," I sighed, taking it from her reluctantly.

  Once that was taken care of, we headed out towards the east gate, walking for a while instead of teleporting to kill some time.

  "Do we……have to walk?" Yawned Az lazily, rubbing his eyes.

  "It's better than standing around and waiting after arriving too early," I argued.

  Maybe we should have just relaxed for about forty-five minutes and then teleported……

  Vi had gotten new battle gear, though like us of Group D, she had opted for something similar to her previous outfit, just with better materials.

  She wore a medium-heavy leather armored white sleeveless top, black arm braces that covered her forearms and halfway up her biceps. She wore light-armored dark brown leather trousers and navy blue boots.

  Oh, and I also had to pick out armor for Mika before today……well, technically speaking, it was Persia, not me.

  Anyway, she had settled on black full-body tights under a medium-light leather armored light blue short-sleeved top with a purple swirly pattern, and matching knee-length light-armored leather shorts. She also wore dark purple fingerless gloves, and flexible dark purple open-toed tabi boots, similar to my black ones. She also had two daggers placed diagonally across each other on her lower back, with dark maroon handles.

  Anyway, we soon made it to the east gate, right on time. But the client was nowhere to be found. Guess he or she was running late……asshole.

  "Well……it looks like we'll have to stand around and wait despite walking to 'kill time', huh, Kuro?" Az muttered saltily.

  "Jeez, fine, I get it……no need to rub it in," I responded with a sigh, growing irritated as over half an hour passed by with no sign of the client, "Maybe this was a scam or something, let's go back."

  "Let's wait a bit more, dude……maybe there was some unforseen incident that's holding up the client, so-," Began Rai.

  "Nah, fuck this."

  "Hey!" Persia cut me off, covering Mika's ears.

  "What? It's not that big a deal……a little swearing never hurt anyone," I shrugged, as she sighed and gave me an exasperated look.

  "Yeah, I don't mind-," Agreed Mika.

  "That's not for you to decide, you're still too young!"

  "Oh, l-look……I think the client's here," Chimed in Vi, nodding towards an approaching carriage.

  "Alright, I'm going to give this client a piece of my mind-," I began, before Rai, Key and Vi all grabbed onto my arms and shoulders in alarm and pulled me back.

  "Hey, let it go, dude……just be civil!" Urged Rai, as they let me go after I grudgingly agreed.

  The carriage halted in front of us, and the driver tapped on the side of the carriage behind him.

  "Sir, the Adventurers who accepted your Quest are here."

  The door of the carriage opened, and out stepped……Luknoi Dassen. Aka Fuckboi.

  "Fuck."

  "This can't be real," Mumbled Az in disbelief.

  "Oh, no……," Groaned Key.

  "What in the fuck are you doing here!?" Growled Rai.

  Real civil. Not that I could blame him.

  "Well, what do we have here? This is an unpleasant coincidence," He sneered, giving us a condescending look.

  "……let's go find another Quest," I suggested.

  "Um……what's the problem?" Asked Vi in confusion.

  Persia and Mika also looked confused.

  "Hm, this could be quite interesting……you may abandon this Quest if you wish, but I shall invoke the penalty for doing so," Smirked Fuckboi leeringly.

  If Adventurers abandon a Quest without a valid reason after getting it approved, then the client can invoke a penalty, which can go upto double the Quest's reward depending on how unjustified the abandonment of the Quest was. And dropping a Quest just because you don't like the client would almost definitely justify the maximum penalty of double the reward, which in this case would be thirty gold coins……even if we split that between the six of us, it was a fairly hefty amount.

  I could afford it since I saved most of my earnings from Quests, but the idea of giving this asshole my money was kinda……infuriating.

  "Hey, who is this guy anyway?" Persia asked curiously.

  "Oh, right, you never met him unlike the rest of us……this is Key's ex-almost-fiance……Fuckboi."

  "Such provocations are beneath me. Now, then……we must be off, I would prefer to have this all wrapped up before too long. It is not ideal that my escort are mere Student Adventurers, however, I do not have time to waste. So……what shall it be?"

  Do we take this Quest, or do we abandon it?

  "Hey, sidebar, guys. Give us five minutes to discuss it over, Fuckboi."

  "You would make your client wait-?"

  "Hah, that's rich coming from you, after being over half an hour late, you piece of-!" Growled Rai, before I pulled him away as all of us went a few meters away, out of earshot, from the carriage.

  "Alright……what do we do?" I inquired, "Let's go with the majority opinion. I would rather abandon this Quest, but I do acknowledge that the penalty could be rather damaging, so I'd be willing to suck it up if the majority votes to go for it. But that said, I vote for abandonment."

  "I don't wanna deal with him again," Shuddered Az, voting for abandoning it.

  "Well, uh……I can see that you guys clearly have some bad blood with this client, but……I really wouldn't be able to afford to pay the penalty, the whole reason I'm taking this Quest is because I'm broke," Remarked Vi sheepishly, "So……I vote for not abandoning it."

  "I think I'm fine either way……so, since it looks like most of us are leaning towards abandoning it, I'll vote for not," Added Persia.

  "Oh, guess I'll do the same then," Mika chimed in, before adding a bit timidly, "Um, well……as long as my vote counts, that is."

  "Of course it does," I replied, patting her head.

  As everyone then turned their attention to Key and Rai, Persia quietly tugged on my sleeve and subtly gestured what she wanted without letting anyone notice, her face slightly red. I sighed before smiling slightly and patting her head too.

  "That's three against abandoning it and two for abandoning it……and it looks like both of you are planning on voting for the latter. Well, I guess I can't force you if you don't want to," Sighed Vi, looking a bit letdown and disappointed.

  Both Rai and Key looked a bit guilty, and looked at each other with conflicted expressions. This couldn't be easy.

  "O-oh, um, in that case……I-I'll vote against abandoning it. We did agree to help you with this, and it'd be wrong to go against that due to some petty personal issue," Key voted reluctantly.

  "Yeah……same here," Grumbled Rai hesitantly.

  "Heh, you're a bigger man than I am, Raccoon Tail," I grinned, slapping him on the back.

  "Whatever, man……"

  Woah, he was really deflated.

  Anyway, with the group having come to a decision……we headed out after I showed the guards the approval form for me to take my apprentice out with me, before beginning to escort our shitty client to the specified location.

  It's a good thing the reward for this Quest had a fixed rate, otherwise he might try to pay us as little as possible out of spite afterwards.

  We soon entered the forest, and handed the map to the driver to follow, while we all walked around the carriage. Fuckboi kept the carriage door open, making the occasional infuriating remark to try and provoke a reaction out of us.

  "Make sure to keep up your guard Mika, monsters could pop up at any given moment," I advised, as she nodded and stayed on alert.

  "How laughable……a mere Student Adventurer with an apprentice, you must think rather highly of yourself, you unfashionable."

  "Huh, you got a problem with my fashion sense, Fuckboi? You know, abandoning a Quest has a penalty, but failing one doesn't……it'd be pretty unfortunate if our client was to end up dead deep inside the forest."

  "H-hey, no threatening the client, you little idiot!" Snapped Vi, smacking the back of my head.

  "What could you possibly mean? I was simply talking, and I said it would be 'unfortunate' if that were to happen……totally not a threat."

  Before long, we ran into some monsters, a group of four Forest Imps and three Orcs.

  "N-now then……d-do your jobs a-and protect me!"

  "What's the matter, Fuckboi, you scared?" I taunted, before turning to Mika, "Alright, apprentice……let's see the results of your training, take out these monsters."

  "Uh, Kuro……you sure that's a good idea-?" Began Rai.

  "You got it, Sensei!" She replied confidently, sprinting forward.

  "Wow, she's pretty quick," Remarked Vi.

  "……she calls you Sensei?" Inquired Rai with a raised eyebrow.

  Mika shot towards one of the Forest Imps as she drew out her daggers, nimbly ducking under the swing of its claws and stepping forward, plunging the right dagger into its chest and twisting the blade, killing it.

  "Uncanny, she fights just like you, Kuro," Said Key, recognizing the technique.

  A Forest Imp sprang up to Mika's right, she calmly let go and dropped the dagger in her left hand, and right before it hit the ground, she kicked the back of the handle, sending the dagger flying across to her right, the blade piercing right between the monster's eyes before it could reach her. She swiftly pulled it back before the monster disappeared and then dashed towards the two remaining Imps.

  She shot between and past them with impressive agility, slashing the throat of the one of her left and stabbing the heart of the one on the right through the back, before they could even react. She had taken all four of the Forest Imps out in less than fifteen seconds. I can only imagine how quick and agile she'd be if she also turned out to be able to master Lightning Boost.

  Without missing a beat, she shot towards the three Orcs, as she used Stream to coat and extend her daggers with lightning.

  Orcs were strong, but with her agile and nimble movements, they were far to slow and clumsy to even lay a finger on her.

  She snuck past one of them and sprang onto its back, taking off its head with an effortless flick of her right wrist, slicing the dagger across its neck. She then sprang up into the air off of its body before it disappeared, and flung her left dagger at the second Orc while in mid-air, piercing through the top of its head. She landed on its shoulder, pulled out the blade after twisting it, and then sprung forward off of its shoulder towards the last remaining monster, slicing its head into four pieces with a diagonal slash from both directions as she swiftly shot past it.

  "Wh-what the-?" Fuckboi blurted out in shock.

  "Heh, that's my apprentice," I smirked, as everyone else besides Persia and Key looked surprised.

  Lately, Key had also been helping with her training, so she knew how strong Mika was. I was planning on asking Rai to help with teaching her Lightning Boost when she's ready for it, since he had mastered it the proper way, while I just sort of haphazardly abused the shit out of my Healing Factor while I was getting the hang of it. But that was still a fair ways off.

  "How'd I do, Bro?" She asked eagerly, as she rejoined us and put away her daggers.

  "You were awesome, kid! How does it feel, knowing that all that training is paying off?"

  "Mm……I don't know, sparring with you, Sis or Key is a lot harder than fighting these things were."

  Oh, right……just like she called me 'Bro', she called Persia 'Sis', after I told her that was the sister equivalent of 'Bro'.

  "You know, I was pretty surprised when I heard you took on an apprentice, Kuro……I didn't expect that you'd actually train her properly. She might already be stronger than some Academy students," Remarked Vi in surprise.

  "I know, right? And of course I'm training her properly, if I'm doing something I'm not going to half-ass it. Now, then……let's keep moving," I declared, before turning to our client, "Hey, Fuckboi……maybe you should close the carriage door and stay quiet……like I said, it would be rather unfortunate if."

  I smirked as he slammed the door shut before I could finish. Good, I doubt he'd be bothering us too much from here on out.

  Key let out a sigh of relief as she rubbed her temples. This must be especially unpleasant for her, it was probably reminding her of the whole issue with her parents. Rai had been in a bad mood this whole time, kicking at stones and branches as we walked.

  I really hope the rest of this Quest goes smoothly……

  About half an hour later, the next batch of monsters showed up, six Walking Trees. They were slow and heavy, but if you got within two meters of them, they each had three to five vines that were kinda pesky to deal with.

  "Let's each take one," I suggested, excluding Az because he was asleep atop the carriage.

  The others nodded and each shot towards one of them. The carriage door cracked open and Fuckboi peered out to watch.

  Rai shot forward using Lightning Boost, springing up onto the trees and swinging across the branches using his tail, before dropping down onto one of the Tree monsters and unfurling a vicious lightning-fueled slash.

  "Lightning Reaper!"

  His cry echoed through the forest as he vertically split the monster in half, the air violently sparking and crackling where the blade of scythe has sliced through, the monster disappearing into dust as he let out a sigh. Guess he had put all his built-up frustration into the swing of his scythe just then.

  Key stopped about five meters away from her target and unleashing a barrage of mid-range fiery slashes at it, taking out all her frustrations on it.

  "Burn and die, you piece of crap!"

  It wasn't hard to guess who she was picturing in place of the monster that had been slashed into multiple, burning chunks of ash, before disappearing into dust.

  Persia shot up using Propulsion while combining her hands to form a larger version of that Spiral Sphere attack, the rapidly rotating wind sphere, before angling herself down and pointed towards her target, blasting down and across towards it rapidly in a spiral and slamming the large wind sphere, about the size of a basketball, onto the face of the Walking Tree. It's entire top half was shredded into millions of tiny splinters, completely blown apart.

  Before she blasted herself back down, she twisted her feet across so that her body would spin in a spiral as she shot back down, further increasing the rotation of her wind sphere. Clever, but……she looked insanely dizzy right now, stumbling around clumsily before leaning against a tree and holding her head with a groan.

  Vi sprang forward in the blink of an eye towards her monster, slamming her left leg onto its mid-section, shattering and blowing it away in an instant, the impact sent out a shockwave, kicking up a dust cloud around her. Even with all my Karma, I couldn't even come close to matching her raw physical strength……my Vampire Mode was almost definitely stronger, but that was still saying a lot.

  Mika held her left dagger in her teeth as she nimbly sprinted towards her target, charging up a ball of lightning in her left hand.

  I had started training her Lightning Magic about three weeks ago, she definitely had the potential to surpass me when it came to how quickly she could charge up a blast, and her current maximum output was quite impressive too. She had also mastered Stream in just a handful of days.

  As she neared it, she swung her right arm up while swinging her head across to the left, cutting off two of the monster's incoming vines. She then fired the ball of lightning through the middle of it, it wasn't strong enough to completely drill through the monster, but it took out more than enough of it to kill it.

  Just one left now.

  As I dashed towards the remaining Walking Tree, I got a flash of brilliance in my head. Yes, that's the perfect line!

  I activated Soul-Eater Mode and extended my claws as long as I could, before using them to slice through and crush off a large chunk of the monster's torso, killing it.

  Now……!

  "These things are pretty weak, I guess you could say that their……bark is worse than their bite," I smirked triumphantly.

  Nailed it! A pun well executed.

  Rai let out a snort of laughter but no one else said anything, just staring at me with raised eyebrows.

  "Heh, get it? Because, you know……trees have barks, and."

  "Yeah, we got it, Kuro. Let's keep moving," Sighed Persia, the others agreeing.

  Tch, they'd have totally laughed if they were high right now……

  The next hour or so went by pretty uneventfully, as we began to near the point marked on the map.

  That's when I felt it, bloodlust all around us. Probably a group of bandits……about nine or ten, I'd say. The others hadn't noticed yet, and as I began to clear my throat to warn them……

  "Um, Bro," Mika interrupted my train of thought, tugging on my sleeve.

  "Yeah, what is it, Mika?" I asked, while keeping my senses trained on the circle of bloodlust that was slowly closing in on us.

  "I, uh……something feels wrong……I think someone's watching or following us, I don't really know how to explain it, but……," She replied, a concerned and confused look on her face.

  Wait, was she sensing their bloodlust? Interesting, but I'll need to hold that thought for now.

  I nodded to her in reply, before clearing my throat thrice, as they got within thirty meters of us. Instantly, the rest of Group D got on high alert, without showing it outwardly too much. Az woke and sat up on his perch at the top of the carriage.

  I nudged Persia, signaling her to ready her Wind Magic in case they used any gas. She nodded and began channeling her Mana into her hands, ready to fire at a moment's notice.

  I cleared my throat twice as they got within twenty meters……

  I slowly moved my left hand towards the handle of my dagger, while getting ready to fire lightning from my right hand.

  Just ten meters away now, I could hear the bushes rustling as I cleared my throat once……

  _____________________________________________

  Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism! Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.

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