We ended up being registered as a rank D party since Yuki was just a mentor, not an active member, and every one of us was a rank D adventurer, as all new adventurers were. This meant that we only had access to rank D quests for now. In order to raise in rank, we needed to complete quests. All quests had a point value assigned to them, once you completed the quest you received the points for it. Alternatively, you could bring in corpses of slain monsters what would net you some additional points or money. Once you gathered enough points your rank went up.
The quests I was after were luckily accessible even at this rank. I was after wilderness area exploration quests. Wilderness areas were areas filled with monsters, they had to be explored and mapped so that the guild knows what monsters can appear there, what herbs and minerals can be gathered there and most importantly if there are any monster tears there.
Monster tear was basically a floating obsidian stone that was able to create monsters out of thin air. Once you came close to it, it started creating monsters in several waves and once you completed all the waves it spawned a chest with treasure.
In game it was very popular event, many players liked to grind them for additional loot and experience, but now that this is the real world for me, I understand how scary it is. A piece of floating stone hidden in wilderness that can spawn tens of monsters from nowhere is a scary thought. Guild wanted to have all the tears mapped and documented so that nobody runs into one by accident.
Wilderness area exploration quests were available to any and all adventuring groups but for the rank D groups they required so called chaperon, higher ranking adventurer to look over and ensure the group's safety. This was no issue when we had Yuki with us. All what we had to do was chose one of the unexplored sectors of the wilderness, and guild will provide us with a recording device that once started does the mapping for us, it records everything guild wants to know about the sector. It even shows you parts of the sector that you have to visit in order to complete quest or navigates you towards the sector you are meant to be exploring. Once you explored your sector you can go ahead and return the device with the recording and receive your points and money for job well done.
These quests were not very popular since by itself they provided a lot of points needed to advance the ranks but very little pay. You only got significant pay when you ran across the tear, what was really dangerous, killed a lot of monsters, once again very dangerous hunting monsters in unknown location where you are not sure what you are going to be facing, or when you came across some hidden location with chest, this one was not dangerous but extremely rare.
So, people actually preferred doing other quests or even just hunting in known parts of the wilderness. They received less points needed to advance like this, but were able to feed their families and didn't have to face the huge risks. The only people that normally took on these quests were adventurers that had plenty of money and were interested in raising in rank quickly. But there was not a lot of those.
But for me, these were perfect, since I primarily wanted just combat experience and had much bigger use for rank up points then money. I had more than enough money already. Also, I knew the area from game and there are plenty of rewards to be had even without guild rewards.
I already let Yuki know beforehand that I would like to be the one picking the quest and she was fine with it. I went directly to the quest board with wilderness exploration quests, that was just a huge map and pressed my adventurer's ID against the sector I was interested in. This registered me for the quest and one of the guild workers came in soon with the recording device in hand. Once we had our recording device, we left the guild and headed straight towards the wilderness area using rented horses. Reaching the border of the wilderness area took us little more than an hour.
The area was a thick forest filled with monsters. The sector I picked out was not accessible from the outside of the forest so I activated the recording device and let it guide us across the known parts of the wilderness towards the sector I chose.
We had to progress carefully since there was plenty of monsters even here in the known parts of the area. I decided to be a group's front line, Rina and Elizabeth walking behind me as the damage dealers and Yuki at the back making sure that we survive but not interfering outside of that.
I walked forward my sword in one hand and recording device showing me the way in the other. It took us just a few minutes to run into first group of monsters. It was small pack of mutated wolves. Mutated wolves were originally just normal wolves that absorbed too much mana and their bodies mutated. They had green shining eyes, were about twice as big as normal wolves and they could use skill called thrashing claw. It was attack skill utilizing their claws with potential to deal a lot of damage. There was four mutated wolves growling in front of us, preparing to attack us.
Before they could attack, I quickly activated all three of my skills and charged directly at them, trying my best to get all of them into my aura of balance. Seeing me charge forward they charged into me, most likely thinking that I am going to be easy prey. But not even a second later my aura hit them and they became much slower than before. The moment I noticed this I signaled to the Rina and Elizabeth that they can go ahead and attack.
Elizabeth stood at the border of my aura and started chanting a spell while Rina merged into shadows and started jumping from shadow to shadow closing the distance quickly.
I readied myself to receive the slowed wolves. First one to attack just lunged himself towards me with his claws outstretched forward. I ducked under the lunge and stabbed the wolf from bellow, cutting his entire belly open due to his movement. The wolf fell down to the ground already dead.
This seemed to discourage the other wolves a little and before they could attack me, Rina jumped from the shadow of one of them and plunged both of her blades into his neck, killing him instantly. Right next second two pale blue spears whistled in the air piercing another wolf and pinning him to the nearby tree.
Last remaining wolf seeing this, lost its courage and was about run. I quickly charged him and before he could escape, I managed to cut his neck, letting him bleed out, down on the ground.
As we packed the bodies of wolves into our inventories Yuki spoke.
"Good job everyone, it was fast and clean."
"All thanks to Vic's aura!" Spoke Rina. "That thing is insane, I understand why I could not train standing inside of it! The difference it makes is unbelievable!"
Yuki smiled. "You felt it? Good, that's very good sign that you can tell right away how much the aura does for you!"
Elizabeth was just silently standing looking at me with a weird look that I could not identify while the two talked. I expected her to start speaking with me, but she just silently watched me. I decided to 'not notice' and once all the wolves were safely stored in our inventories we continued towards the unexplored area.
As we went, we encountered several more groups of wolves that were easily taken care of in a similar fashion as the first group. My aura slowing and weakening them down served us very well as we did that.
It took us several hours to reach the unexplored sector we were meant to explore. I was doing my best not to show my eagerness to go there. I picked this area especially because it held something I really wanted, plus there was a little something Elizabeth could use.
At the border of the area, we found several more wolves, but they were in slightly bigger packs than before. Before they were in packs of three to four, the packs in here had five to six wolves. As we continued deeper into the sector we ran across the new enemy. This time it was giant mutated frog.
These frogs were as tall as me, white in color and extremely aggressive. Despite that, I could barely contain my excitement seeing them since the place I was looking for here in this sector was a small pond guarded by these giant frogs.