Micky and crew were now going on one of the three midterm missions. The first was obviously a group exercise. They were to take an instructor out with their party and take down a specified dangerous monster. It was really a two cores one monster situation. By having the students run down certain monsters that they were well suited for they could be challenged and… well take out some dangerous monsters. After the general wipe of the [Antolion]s new monsters were appearing all the time in many different places. Many of them were unwanted, especially near an occupied settlement. So the guild was sending out the class on culling missions all at once.

There were many types of monsters that were just simply not allowed. Swarm types were regularly culled, though hard to truly cull, like goblins. Then there were poison types like spiders. High tier slimes were also a nuisance. Those that might damage the environment… or gods forbid, strengthen the environment to unreasonable levels. Extremely powerful [Treant]s have destroyed entire [City] states and kingdoms simply by existing and empowering the forests. And finally there were those with adverse and annoying effects. Technically this included poison, but that was simply so common it took up it’s own category. No, Micky was hunting a [Bog Cultist].

The bog cultist was a lesser evolution of the bog witch. This was a monster and not to be confused with either the [Bog Witch] class, or a witch that lives in a bog. The problem with a bog cultist, aside from becoming a witch, is that they cause random curses with their claws. These are weak, but all curses are hard to remove. This is the reason why Micky’s team is the one to clear out the bog cultist. However, it was better then dealing with an antire enclave of spiders. Oddly it was not Micky or Prin that was the most bothered by spiders, and Mayline could care less. No, it was Mags that hated spiders the most. Micky now knew how to keep her away from him. He just needed to find a spider monster bond. He wondered if he could find a cute arachne? Probably best not, they are known maneaters, in all ways.

So that is how Micky and crew found themselves fighting through a bog. Because where else would the Bog cultist be? Out raiding villages and cursing everybody. But hopefully Micky and crew could get to it before it ran out of goblins… Maybe they should slow down a bit?

Mayline was staring off at an odd direction looking at something, when her head snapped almost straight ahead. She pointed ahead and said “There is a cursed spirit that way. It’s probably the [Bog Cultist].” After she said that she quickly looked in three directions before turning back ahead.

Micky and co. followed her directions since Mags was getting antsy, too many spiders. And as it turned out she was right, nobody was surprised. What was surprising was that the cutlist looked like a beautiful if naked, woman. Prin toused a javaline at it. The bog cultist dodged to the side, well not all of her. Actually, the skins split revealing a naked shrivaled man inside, guess it was a him? The skin itself screamed and the man charged alone.

Mags charged forward, the furry furie was the tank for the party. Mayline pulled out a bow, and started casting magic with it… then she launched arrows as well. Micky was slightly conflicted, but he still fired off an [Enrage] tying the monsters to the tank and began to curse the monsters right back, with [Curse Of Weakness].

Prin was hit with a claw as she went into melee, and screamed. “This shit hurts like hell, looks like it’s a weak weakening curse with a small DOT as well. It’s going to hurt like hell if you don’t keep clearing these.”

Micky obliged by clearing both the tank and the melee dps. This caused the screaming skin to change it’s attack to Micky however. The skin itself didn’t do much, but that was what would eventually turn into the witch. However, it did give Micky a headache and make it hard to focus.

Micky was able to clear most of the curse, but curses were notorious for a reason. Poison was physical, and could not be easily cleared by magic without special magic. Curses were weak, and relatively easy to clear, but they were long lasting, and had a tendency to leave a little bit of themselves behind if you weren’t careful, and Micky was not. Another big problem was that curses, if not cleared properly, could actually intensify and become something else entirely. Micky would have to take care of it better later but right now he was just focused on making sure that his tank and DPS maintained functionality.

After they go there grove on however, the cultist wasn’t anything to worry about. With the [Enrage] keeping it contained, the cultist stayed stuck to the tank. It also helped that the greater spirit was launching, go figure, cleansing nature mana at it. This was fairly effective, though a [Priest]’s holy magic would have been more effective. The fight ended with little fanfare from there, with not much to show for it, besides a slog back to town.

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Micky was going on his second midterm task, the solo mission. This was the mission that he was least looking forward to. Luckily, or should it be said mercifully, he was not stuck with some impossible ogre or something for his mission. Nope, it was to find a lost dog. Simple, easy, something that every adventurer had to do at one point in their lives? Except this was a type of spirit beast of a noble, that was lost in the woods. Oh, and he would likely have to fight midrank beasts while he was at it. All of this solo. There was not even an instructor with him. And while cheating was an option it depended on his own personal ability. The only real stipulation was that he could not partner with somebody actually in the class. It was basically a gimme for those fopish students stuck in the class.

Of course, Micky didn’t have such luck. Everybody he knew was either in the class, or no help. So he would have to depend on his [Bond]s for now, somewhat ironic the loner depending on [Bond]s.

Micky fought through the forest looking for the trail of this lost spirit animal. Mags was very helpful with finding it, on occasion. Even Squishy made herself useful with her mana sensitivity, searching out the surroundings. And Micky was a village kid, he knew how to spot a game trail, though he was no [hunter]. So he found the occasional paw print… of a beast with a paw that was bigger then his foot. This was not the small dog he was told it would be. But what could he expect from some nobles little spoiled brat? She probably didn’t even know how big ‘little doggies’ were supposed to be.

It was unfortunate that Micky also needed to backtrack several times to refind the trail. From what he could tell, he was losing ground on the animal. And this was with it taking a meandering circuitus route. He would have to search several hundred paces in circumference to find the trail sometimes. And this was with an animal that was probably taller then him at the shoulder. He didn’t actually know, because the little girl was not helpful with er description. Actually, if he didn’t know any better he would have figured that the parents did not even want the highly valuable and prized spirit animal back. They were letting and obviously spoiled little ‘princess’ do everything. Micky figured it was an easy out, to put all the blame on the ‘failure’ of an adventurer when the ‘precious’ pup wasn’t found.

Micky bent over to inspect another print. This time it did not seem like the animal had been running around chasing some butterfly or something. There was also blood, not much, but blood was still blood. Micky did not like the look of it. Maybe they were right to let the adventurer take the blame, though for the wrong reasons. The spirit animal should be able to take on anything that was in the area.

And that’s about when Squishy jumped up to attack the thing flying at Micky’s head. But the thing that did that smacked squishy into a pile of mush off to the side, slime goop going everywhere!