With Reddy now gone, Starter dropped himself on the ground, making a mess with the grass near him, blocking his palms on his face, then he groaned loudly. Releasing his own face, Starter relaxed both of his arms near him.

Chuckling, he continued staring at the long and thin clouds, while being covered in the cold-ish breeze from under the bent trees, with thoughts flying here and there. An idea came to him, with an imaginary lightbulb glowing over his head, making him jump his back up.

“What if I became a villain, but with good intentions… no, wait, I’m talking crazy, that doesn’t even make sense”

Upsetly, Starter dropped himself back on the ground, creating a mess in the grass, again.

Continuing to stare into the sky, another thought was being created inside his mind

Narrowing his eyes, Starter changed his eyesight in different positions, which was a thing of his, when thinking intensely about something.

“There should be enough heroes, right? Then why not become a respected villain, that would seem a good objective for now”

He turned himself in the grass, going left and right in a hurried motion, while taking out groaning noises, having his arms grabbing his own head, not being able to decide. 

“If Reddy hears what I’m talking about, he will put Garry to throw me into the sky… and…HIIIIIH!”

At the end of the sentence, Starter took out a high pitched noise, somewhere between a scream and a grunt. His mind came back with flashback’s, when he was about to be made into a flat pancake, one with the ground. 

With his back woken up, the boy comforted his forearms on his knees, while changing his sight towards the left, where an alley that was going straight down was, far as an ocean. Massive mountains covered in snow in their peaks, birds tall as elephants, floating casually towards the ends of summertime, finding warmer places for the new generations. Rivers floating down from the mountains, as well as creating ponds and lakes, down, between the small parts of a forest.

Suddenly, the stare inside the beauty of nature was suddenly stopped by a pink letter, casually falling down from the sky, straight towards the edge of the green plain’s cliff, a few meters from where Starter was sitting from.

Starter quickly jumped from his relaxed position, and hurried himself in a jog, towards the end of the cliff, not being sure if he would succeed in catching the letter or not. But why, why did he even bother to catch it? The letter was falling faster than he expected, but he was faster, even if he had to throw himself on his belly, with half of his body off-cliff, holding his body, only with the use of his legs, stuck in the ground, covered in grass fibers.

“Hahah, that was a close one”
Chuckled Starter, dragging himself up, forgetting the fact that he almost sacrificed himself for a letter that he didn’t know was important or not.

Opening the letter, he only found a small piece of rough, coffee-colored note, with printed, black and italic font letters on it.

“ "What a stick? Wait, what?”

Underneath the quote, there was another sentence "Accept item - five coins. Yes/No”

This offer was something tempting for Starter, because he didn’t know if the next Quest would be to fight something or someone evil, so he really had no choice here. Starter had to take it.

Another question came up

“Do I get coins? Where?”

Asked Starter, checking his clothing to search for a pocket, but finding a straw pouch that let out clinging sounds of one metal hitting each other.

“Ohooo, this stuff is heavy!”

Exclaimed Starter, happily balancing the weight of the pouch, up and down in his palm, hearing loud and multiple clinging sounds.

He took the metal pen from inside the wooden cover of the notebook, and circled the letter “Yes”. After circling it, all the letters faded, and other words appeared, with the same font and same sized letters.

“Seal letter”
Cited Starter.

He did as he was instructed, and the letter flew back into the sky, with the speed of a rocket, flying itself back.

Forwarding his look back from the sky, a thick wooden stick, with a handle for the use of two hands or just one, was laying on the ground, next to him.

 Keeping a stuck look on the item, Starter picked it up, and it was way heavier than he thought. While he was analyzing the item with a nod of agreement, like he would know that it was made by a good craftsman, the notebook was making the same sound as before.

“Oh, new Quest!”

Happily exclaimed Starter, excitedly reaching for the notebook. Opening it, the item automatically switched its pages, with the same quick motion as before. 

"Eliminate the evil tree roots from the Long Time Forest"

"I think the long time forest was the one that I woke up in, more or less”

He shifted his eyes, from his notebook, all the way to the far and dense forest in which he collected the plants in.

Picking up his new item, Starter went on his way towards the new Quest, but not before the same pale-blue light spawned on the ground again, leading him the entire way there.

A few minute walk has resulted in three different personality tree trunks, moving left and right in a small movement. All of them had eyes and mouths carved inside their bark. The left one was smiling, the one from the middle was crying, and the one from the right had a neutral look on his face, like he found peace inside him. Starter wondered if that was supposed to mean something, but gave up halfway, he was too excited and couldn’t think straight.

Starting from the first one, all the way to the third one, each had thin roots growing from inside them, moving like dancing snakes in a stage of action of around two or three meters.

Starter grabbed the stick with both of his hands and jumped right in to strike them down with a single blow… or that’s what he thought. After jumping right in, he reached the first one, landing a blow on it, but getting pierced by the roots instead, in various places

“Wha— aaah!”

Exclaimed Starter, startled, jumping back, from the zone of action of the tree trunks.

Checking himself at a hurried pace, tapping all over his body, he couldn’t feel anything. Indeed he was hit, but why didn’t he feel anything besides the moment when he was attacked.

Starter didn’t realize it, but on his right palm, on top of each finger, there was a small red heart, which presented his vitality points. Each heart meant twenty vitality points. Right now, he was down to eighty-eight.

“You, lefty, you will be the first one out”
Pointed out Starter with his weapon-stick, giving out a light chuckle, then jumping back in.

This time he just grunted when the roots impaled his body, but he kept going, with a cocky smile

“This doesn’t even hurt THAT BAD!”

With an up-swing of his stick, Starter destroyed the entire tree trunk with one blow, creating a massive dent right on top of it, then backing up really quick, so that the other roots wouldn’t catch him.

Multiple roots hit him this time all over his body. This time he remained with fifty-seven vitality points.

Starter’s tactic was an easy to use one. He thought that by only jumping in, like a wild animal, the time to react to the monsters wouldn’t be that fast, and he would just leave faster than he arrived.

...

Something that he lied to himself about, was the idea of him thinking that he was smart.

He did the same move with the second one, taking out with a single blow too. The first two tree trunks transformed into gray colored tree trunks, with many wood pieces missing, and the top of their wooden body, stomped in.

“That’s what I’m talking about, hahaAA!”

Exclaimed Starter out loud, preparing to do the last and same move, but he was stopped when the third tree trunk, the always angry one, fuzed with the other two, combining themselves with green vines, becoming one big tree trunk, with multiple moving roots emerging from the ground, targeting Starter’s movements.

“Oh nah, I think that is the boss around here”

Root Boss, Progression two, damage 04/attack, speed 4/sec.

“If I already have this notebook, then there should be a place where I can see how much my health is at the edge. I have to find it as soon as possible, but until then, I may have to find a way to not let these roots that are following me, strangle my entire body until total elimination.

Monologues Starter, checking the things around him, inside the forest, while dodging the speed of the vines following him from every corner, extending themselves in an infinite.

“I GOT IT!”

Joyfully exclaimed Starter, before hitting his head into a tree, not caring a single bit, because he found a good solution to the problem.

“AAAARGHAAA!”
Groaned the Root Boss, with a deep and airless voice, yelling out a groan of pain, it looks like, or more like a pain of agony. 

Starter quickly grabbed two round stones from the ground and slammed one into the other multiple times, trying to take out a spark, to turn this whole situation in his favor.

In a blink of an eye, a vine grabbed his left leg, dragging him back, tightening the force inside the grab with every moment being.

Desperately, Starter kept slamming the rocks one on to the other, eventually finding a spark that was loud enough to burn the vine.

The vine turned left and right, then got dragged back, creating a chain reaction of dried vines burning, getting all the way to its host, the Root Boss.

“Now”

He smiled, knowing that it was time for his newly named ability, “Strike”

His body was filled with dried leaves, small and broken twigs, mud, covering most of his face and clothes, but he did not care at all, his wish for now was to take the hits like a man and win this Quest for himself and for his future non-material rewards.

He ran as fast as the wind, fast as a rocket, balancing the stick in his left hand, then, he stomped the ground with his right hand, moments before arriving at the Root Boss. Mid-air, he grabbed the stick with both of his hands which were extended towards the ground.

That right there, the moment in the air, a forced smile was seen on his face, covering the physical damage that he is feeling, even though he has no injuries at all. The flames from the burning trees and vines were covering the background in a combination of the colors hard orange and yellow, in a portrait of mayhem. 

Opening his mouth out wide, Starter exclaimed from the bottom of his heart

“STRIIIIIIIIIKE!”

“AAARGHAAA!”
Groaned the Root Boss, sending his last vines, even the burning ones, all the way to Starter, but luckily, Starter was way quicker than the forest monster was, and saved himself from a permanent elimination, because he had only three percent vitality left.

The elimination of the Root Boss has extinguished all the flames from around the forest, the trees, ground, grass, and the vines too, covering the destruction with short fibers of grass and different colored flowers.

Starter dropped himself down, ragingly breathing. It was a tough fight for him, but he deserved the reward, a new Progression. Too tired to check his notebook for now, he looked at both of his palms, seeing only redness from the current struggles. The redness from inside his palms was burning, itching and hurting, all at the same time. One more thing that Starter noticed was the amount of small and dark hearts from on top of its fingertips.

There were four and a half black hearts, and only a half heart, colored in red.

This thing put Starter on his thoughts.

“If there are five hearts, and four and a half are black, and normally, a heart is red, then… it means that I would have a hundred vitality, and a half of a heart would mean…TEN VITALITY LEFT?!”

He exhaled nervously and dropped his back on the ground, realizing what a gamble he took without knowing.

Surrounded in an renewed part of the forest, Starter looked at the middle of his palms, having a feeling of freedom, and yet, forced to complete the next Quests that are coming, not knowing if he has to go with a locked in mindset or with an “I have to do this” mindset.

“Be an ill-famed villain, or the most respected hero from every country… a tough question for such an early time, isn’t it?”