“What do you mean you can’t find them?”

“I mean what I said, ma’am. We can’t find Joseph or Khan anywhere. They’re just… gone. There was obviously some struggle in the forest, and there are significant amounts of blood, but there are no bodies”.

Guildmaster Reina sits back into her leather chair. She pinches the bridge of his nose, clearly distraught by the news. Those were two of her best men. Sure, Kralbed wasn’t known for its particularly skilled adventurers. It was a town for aspiring heroes to start their journeys, everyone knew that. But Khan and Joseph were different. They were supposed to be the rocks of this town in case anything went awry. Things did, and now they’re fucking dead.

“Geoffrey… how did this happen? What could have killed them? What was lurking in that damn forest that we lost OUR ONLY SEASONED ANCHORS?” Her red hair spills over her shoulders as she stands back up from the seat. Her calm demeanor is long gone, and she’s at shouting volume.

“YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THEY DIED TO ENTS? TO HARPIES? BOARS MAYBE?” She walks away from her desk and starts to pace the room.

“Why were they even there?”, she mumbles under her breath, clearly frustrated.

Geoffrey attempts to calm her down.

“Ma’am, I don’t know. I’m only telling you what the others have reported to me. It was obviously some high-level monster that made its way into the forest recently. The only thing that we’ve recovered that has given us any sort of lead are these strands of long black hair”. Geoffrey hands the guild master a transparent plastic bag.

“We recovered these at the part of the forest that was most terribly wrecked. It’s certainly not Khan’s. His hair wasn’t this straight. It might’ve been a witch, or perhaps a banshee. You heard those shrieks the same as I did”.

“Ugh”. The guild master throws the baggie onto her desk.

“Regardless of what it was, we can’t let it live. Contact the other nearby cities and alert their guilds. We have a strong monster in a place it shouldn’t be”.

Geoffrey nods and hurries out the door. He bumps into someone outside and immediately starts to apologize.

“Ah, sorry about that. Gotta go”, he says, and hurries off.

The man chortles at Geoffrey’s worrying nature and walks into the guild master’s room. He’s a relatively average-sized man at around 176 centimeters. His hair is moderately long and a natural black, but is dyed a light blonde at the tips. He has a normal-looking face with nothing special to note. She appears relieved to see him.

“Ah, Heart, you’re here. Just the man I wanted to see. Have a seat.”

She motions to… air. She had forgotten that she doesn’t keep seats in her headquarters. She likes to keep the assistants standing to maintain a sense of professionalism, so she never even bothered. She pauses.

“Or just stand. That’s fine, right?”

The man sighs, clearly used to her antics. He folds his arms and looks at the floor.

“Reina, you know I don’t mind either way. But I would really appreciate it if you stopped calling me Heart. It’s Haruto. Ha-ru-to. It’s not that hard.”

Haruto raises his head to look at the guild master.

Her face is red and her cheeks are puffed out, trying very hard to stifle her giggling. She fails and starts breaking out into uncontrollable laughter, tears already on the brink of leaving her eyes.

“Ha, ha, Haru-”, she doesn’t finish before she starts laughing again. After she finishes, she tries once more.

“Haruto… right. Not Heart. You’ll really have to excuse me, I’ve just never heard such a… unique name. I know you’re from a different planet or dimension or wherever those clown-ass sorcerers pulled you from, so you must have your reasons for having such a dogshit name”.

She didn’t even try to mask her opinion that time. Haruto is not amused.

“Why am I here, Reina? If it’s for you to make fun of my country’s names again, I’ll take my leave now.”

“No, no, don’t leave. This is actually important. Despite your stupid name, you’ve proved yourself a very capable adventurer. You were summoned here, what, two days ago? And you’re already way stronger than everyone else in this town combined. The trainers are pretty pissed”.

The strokes to Haruto’s ego were buttering him up. He let her continue.

“Go on, then. What’s the big deal?”

She explains everything that Geoffrey just reported to her.

“So basically, I want you to go kill that thing. Shouldn’t be a huge issue right? Can’t have all the guilds hunting for it except ours, that would be a disgrace to Joseph and Khan”, she nods her head up and down, like she had just said something admirable.

“But we don’t know where it is”.

This stumps both of them for a second. After a little bit, Reina begins to give voice to her thoughts.

“Well, it lived in a forest, right? So it probably just moved into another forest. That’s how it got to ours, so that’s probably where it escaped to. The closest one to here is the Laughing Forest near Ochseid. It’s to the north and only a short way up the mountains. I don’t expect you to know where that is, so here’s a map stating your current position and where Ochseid is”. She pulls a map from one of her desk drawers and begins to draw on it. She marks Kralbed and draws a dotted line all the way to Ochseid. It’s just a straight line upward.

“I recommend you grill the locals on how to go about entering the forest when you get there though, because it requires a bit of… preparation. You’ll figure it out, I’m sure”.

Haruto pockets the map.

“Thanks”.

“Oh no, I should be thanking you. That thing killed some really strong dudes, so I’m very glad that you have the guts to take this on for us. Helps out the guild’s standing. All you have to do is scout out the area until you see a monster with hair about this length”. She passes him the baggie and he recoils a bit.

“Then you kill it and come back. Kill as many monsters as you can while you’re at it, ok? You’ll be paid appropriately for your efforts. Off you go then! You have important places to be! Ciao!”

She scoots him out of the room and slams the door.

Haruto reluctantly places the baggie into the side pocket of his adventurer’s bag and starts on his trip to Ochseid. By foot.

“This is gonna take a while, huh?”

Figuring that it would take an ample amount of time anyway, Haruto decides on walking.