Reborn as a Reluctant Demon Lord

Chapter 9 - Quest Accepted

Now some of you may be thinking, "You are just now getting the ants figured out? After 7 chapters worth of tutorial?" And the problem is that before I came to the new world, I wasn't much of a fighter or a tactician.

The only thing I had ever taken a swing at were those punching bags at the arcade that rate your hit (which I never got a high score on).

And for tactics, the closest I got to that was playing chess or strategy games. And I was only decent at those. In chess, I was good enough to stomp the average person who didn't play chess, but also bad enough that pretty much anyone who had an actual ELO rating would stomp me. The same was true with strategy games. I was better than average, but that still left me a far, far, ways away from the foresight, planning, and skill level that people at the top of the ratings would show.

So yes, it did take dozens of deaths before I finally figured things out. But I did it! Go me!

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Jake was having a fairly lazy morning. The village wasn't entirely sure what to do with the adventurers, aside from Garrett who seemed to have been claimed by the [Lumberjacks], so Jake was content to just walk around for a bit.

Not to say that there wasn't a bit of excitement that morning. Jake had woken up early to a notification that Titus had left the party. A hastily called team meeting determined there wasn't really much to do about that. It didn't affect that much since Titus was barely in the party according to the system anyway, but the primary concern was what to do if he ended up spawning in another village. The solution they came up with was to send a [Messenger] to the capital with the message that basically boiled down to, "Lost [Half-Demon]. If found, return to Faroff." They would have sent it with the [Message] spell, but it turns out that only bigger towns and cities tended to have someone capable of casting that.

Just for kicks, Jake decided to check up on everyone. We have.. Garrett off in the forest. Lindsey and Sam over in one of the houses. Andrew and Tim in another. Where is Emilia at?... Also off in the forest? Huh. I wonder if the [Hunters] actually managed to talk her into going out with them.

Then Jake noticed Garrett's HP drop just the slightest margin. He laughed it off. Be careful how you swing that axe you big lug. Then it dropped again. Jake's smile vanished. A third drop and Jake was already sprinting towards the forest and calling out the alarm. "Party! To the forest! To Garrett! He's in trouble!"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jake took a second to marvel at his new body. I feel like I am almost as fast as a professional sprinter. And I don't get tired until my stamina starts running low. These new bodies are insane.

System: Zone entered, Faroff Forest. Faction - Neutral

Jake kept running down the road and noticed one of the villagers was running back towards the village. The villager called out, "Help! Monsters! They have the [Lumberjacks] pinned down! The big guy was trying to stop them, but- "

Jake was surprised by a notification.

System: Quest offered. "Save the Faroff lumberjacks!"

Quest details - The lumbering party from Faroff is under attack from monsters! Defeat all attacking monsters and save the lumberjacks!

Reward: None

Decline/Failure: None

Jake didn't even slow down. He shouted as he ran past. "On it! Go back to the village and warn them! Make sure the rest of my party is coming!"

System: Quest Accepted

At the bottom of his screen, he now saw the text. "Kill Monsters: 4/25." Doing good work, Garrett, but you won't last at this rate. Garrett had lost almost half his HP. If only I knew exactly where the monsters were at! He tried to focus on Garrett's location, but it was a bit vague at this distance and also hard to focus on when sprinting. Com'on! Work with me stupid game!