The eastern forest was about a two hour walk away from Reflet. I had hoped we might be able to hitch a ride on a carriage if we happened to pass any, but not a single one passed by. Exactly two hours later, we arrived at the forest.

We made our way into the dense woodland, being sure to take note of our surroundings. At first I was frightened by every little noise, from birds crying to small animals moving around amongst the trees. Gradually, though, I started to notice something.

Faintly, but surely... I could detect the presence of things around me. I could tell what or where something was, how it saw us... All manner of things like that. I wondered what it was... Some kind of sixth sense, maybe? It might’ve just been another one of those little gifts from God.

As I pondered the thought, I noticed something directing aggression toward us from just a bit ahead and to the left. I could feel the hostility clearly.

“Hold up. Something’s there.” The girls stopped in their tracks when I spoke up.

I continued to gaze toward that point as my party got into a battle formation. As if it was waiting for that one movement, a dark shadow came leaping out and attacked us.

“Hup!” I panicked and spun my body to evade, reassuring myself internally that it was fine after all.

I could predict its movements. It was roughly the size of a large dog, with gray fur and a single black horn on its head. However, the beast before me was far too ferocious to be a mere dog... So this is what a Lone-Horned Wolf looks like.

As I turned to face it, a second one jumped out from the other side and attacked Elze. She stood before the creature and swung her fist straight into the creature’s muzzle. Taking a smashing blow from her gauntlet-clad fist, the Lone-Horned Wolf was thrown to the ground with all the life knocked out of it. Killed in a single motion.

Thinking me distracted as I looked at Elze’s fight, the wolf in front of me bared its fangs and leaped to attack again. I remained calm, simply moving in time with the wolf’s attack, then drew the katana at my hip. My attack connected as our bodies passed one another. In that instant, the wolf’s head was torn from its body and sent flying through the air. The decapitated piece bounced to the ground like a basketball.

I felt some guilt and other unpleasant emotions at having killed an animal for the first time in my life, but another four wolves showed up before I had any time to let those emotions sink in. Two of them rushed toward my location.

“Come forth, Fire! Hail of Red Stones: [Ignis Fire]!”

By the time I even heard those words, one of the wolves charging at me suddenly burst into flames. It seemed like Linze had backed me up from behind with her magic. Crap! I missed my first chance to see magic in action! Dang it...

The other wolf charged at me, but I dodged once again and laid into it with my katana. It dropped to the ground and its body became still.

I turned to see one of the other wolves leaping at Elze, who countered with a roundhouse kick to its stomach and sent it flying. Nearby, the final remaining wolf was burned to a crisp. Man, I just missed another chance to see magic...

“Guess we’re done here. The request was to defeat five wolves, but we ended up taking out one extra, huh.” Elze reported in, clanging her gauntlets together.

We’d beaten six in total, with each of us having taken out two. For our first fight, that was pretty good. Though really, it was only my first fight.

So, as proof that we’d completed the quest, we had to take back the wolf horns with us. We cut off all six of their horns and placed them in our pouches. Our only remaining job was to deliver them to the guild to complete the mission.

As we left the forest, I physically felt my body grow less tense. It felt like something stifling had been lifted right out of the air. That was probably just another feeling I had to get used to.

Luckily this time we managed to catch a carriage on its way into town, so we got to hitch a ride.

We made it back to town in only a fraction of the time thanks to that. After arriving in town, we traveled by foot to the guild, where we reported in about completing the request to hunt five Lone-Horned Wolves. I ended up keeping the remaining horn in commemoration of the day’s events.

“Okay, all of the horns appear to be here. Now, please present your guild cards.” When we presented our cards to the receptionist, she pressed something like a stamp on each of them. As she did, a magical circle appeared briefly on the cards before fading out.

When I asked about it later, I found out that the stamp differed based on the difficulty of the request completed. The cards saved the information about what we had done, so as we accumulated stamps, eventually our rank would increase and the color of our card would change.

We were only at Black, the Beginner rank. Apparently, the ascending order was Black, Purple, Green, Blue, Red, Silver, and finally Gold.

“Here’s your reward of eighteen copper coins. Well then, the request has been fulfilled. Good work out there!” The receptionist handed us our reward, which we promptly split into six coins each. With that, we’d earned three days of food and accommodation. And it finally felt like I would be able to make it just fine in this new world.

“Hey, hey, wanna go grab a bite to eat to celebrate clearing our first quest?” Elze proposed that course of action as we left the guild.

It was a little early for dinner, but it occurred to me that we’d missed lunch, so I supposed that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Plus, I had a favor to ask, so it seemed like a good opportunity.

We decided to go to a little tea house in town. I ordered a hot sandwich and milk, Elze ordered what appeared to be a meat pie and orange juice, and Linze ordered a pancake and black tea. After our orders were brought out, I began to talk.

“Hey, can I ask you two for a favor?”

“A favor?” Elze replied.

“Yeah. Think you could teach me how to read and write? It’d really help me out. I’m already having trouble here and there, so I figure that the sooner I learn, the better.”

“Hmm... that’s a good point! If you can’t read quest information, then I guess...” Elze and Linze nodded in unison. It was at times like that where you could really tell they were twins.

“In that case, get Linze to teach you. She’s smart, so I’m sure she’ll be a good teacher.”

“Th-That’s not... I mean... If you’re okay with me...”

“Thanks a lot. You’d really be helping me out.”

Alright. So I’d be able to work toward my goal of being able to read and write. I just had to face my studies seriously. I was glad I’d found such a kind teacher. Speaking of which...

“Oh yeah, Linze. While we’re at it, do you think you could teach me some magic? I’d like to be able to cast spells and stuff as well.”

“Whaat?!” Darned twins were even speaking in unison... What? Was what I said really that weird?