The Misadventures of Kayla Foster

Chapter 4

  The next day after a very nice breakfast of bacon and an omelet loaded with meat and cheese, Kayla hurried to the guild hall. She was excited to try her hand at a hunting quest. When she got to the guild hall, she was shocked to see a line formed outside the building and when she got in the building, she was taken aback by the amount of people that were everywhere. When she finally got to the Etta's desk, she asked her what all the hubbub was about.

  "Good morning, Kayla. Yesterday many adventurers retuned for their monthly evaluation. You see on the first of every month you must come to the SAO guild hall and show your progress to the case manager that you are assigned to. The case manager will then evaluate your finished quests and the progress you have made. He will be checking for the amount of time taken to complete the quests, how satisfied the quest giver is with you, and if you are keeping up with the legal part of questing. If everything is in order and you are rewarded a good grade you will receive a bonus according to your work efforts. At the end of the year, we evaluate your total scores for all the months and if satisfactory, you will receive an end of the year bonus."

  "That's a good incentive to do your best on your quests. Will I need to see my case manager?"

  "Not this time sense you just started but next month you will need to see them."

  Kayla said a quick goodbye as the line was already quite long behind her. She made her way to the quest boards and for a few minutes she looked at the different quests available. She decided on four quests this time. Each of them was F – rank but two of them pad more than the one silver minimum. She was glad that nobody else had taken them.

  'If all goes well, I'll be able to make 7 silver this time around.' Kayla quickly put the quest forms in the logbook and left the guild hall. Before leaving the town, she took a chance to check her maps. Two of the quests were hunting quests, she planned on doing them first, so she examined her maps to see where the hunting grounds for the animals were.

  The first hunting quest offered 3 silver as a reward for hunting down 6 hairy rabbits. The rabbits were said to be very quick on their 6 legs so she would need to be very quiet and patient while hunting them. The second quest had a reward of 2 silver for hunting down 3 three mossy elk. The natural green color of their pelts made it very hard to spot them in the green of the forest.

  Thankfully both animals were very common, and Kayla was good with the bow. Kayla took out her bow and quiver and prepared for the trek to the first hunting grounds. As she was loading her quiver with arrows, she discovered that her quiver was like the adventurer's logbook in the fact that it held all her arrows at once and still could be put into her backpack. Kayla was satisfied with her discovery and, once ready, she started her walk to the first hunting grounds.

  Kayla, once making it to the mossy elk hunting grounds, quietly approached a heard of mossy elk. She notched an arrow and waited for a good shot. When the moment was right, she let loose an arrow and it struck home. The arrow pierced the eye of the elk going straight to the brain, killing it instantly. She preferred to hunt this way because she did not want the animal to suffer.

  After 2 more quick kills she collected the elk's bodies and stored them in her backpack. She was once again thankful for the embassy being so generous and giving her the backpack that was a space bag. She moved onto the next hunting ground that was only a 15-minute walk away.

  After getting there around 11 am, it took her six hours to kill six hairy rabbits. They were very fast and very sensitive to noises but in the end, Kayla was able to collect all the rabbits. She had to laugh at how silly the rabbits had looked running away with their six legs and buck teeth.

  With the task done she collected items for the other two quests and made her way back to Forest Haven. The trek back was uneventful. She was thankful that the immediate forest surrounding Forest Haven was quite safe. But she was aware the further you got from the town the more dangerous it became. 'I'm not heading deep into the forest any time soon, so I don't need to worry the dangerous animals that live here.' Kayla comforted herself with that thought as she walked into the gates of the bustling town.