Walking alone on the shores of Lake Titan, Leon cast his mind back to the events at the guildhall. No other group had accepted him, even those claiming to be open for anyone had turned him away once he showed up.

  Sneering, he plucked another mushroom from the ground and inspected it. A small cluster of purple dots under the hood made him throw it away. Another dud.

  He was yet again relegated to an ignominious herb gathering mission. Luckily, this one was at least also a bronze-tier exclusive because of some sort of ranked monsters in the area where the mushrooms commonly grew. In truth, he did not mind the missions as much as he might have thought he would a month prior. The solitude and serenity of nature gave him a relaxing environment to think in.

  Gazing across the large Lake Titan, he let out a breath. It was clear something would need to be done about his reputation problem; otherwise, he would need to become powerful enough to take on missions all on his own. While it was an attractive idea, the truth was that solo-adventurers either made less coin or died prematurely, and after his own run in with death, he was none too keen to experience it again. He would need to figure out what the rumors surrounding him were about first, and then go about disproving them.

  As he pondered how he was going to achieve that, he heard a loud sniffing sound from the underbrush near him. It was louder than a wolf, which was all the information he needed to drop his gathering basket and pull out his greatsword.

  The action saved his life as he parried the claw from the direwolf that had burst from the foliage. He backed away from the creature, leaving his back to the lakeshore as two more direwolves stalked out of the forest and surrounded him. The beasts all looked healthy and vicious; they were likely the hunting party for their pack.

  Leon thanked the heavens for the encounter; three bronze-tier monsters was just the distraction he needed. Their pelts would also go a long way to helping with his coin issues.

  They stood in a standstill as the direwolves evaluated him, and he tried to formulate a strategy against them. They were a proper bronze-tier monster. As strong as Leon might be, it would still be difficult to take on three at once with no support.

  A story he had overheard at the Guild nagged at his mind. Shortly after his own disastrous run-in with goblins, there had been a story circulating around some other unranked who had managed to take down nearly twenty of them. Unsurprisingly, it had been coordinated by Syra and Rayne. It was not as if it had been an impressive feat; with four other teammates he could have easily done so himself without the need for underhanded tactics.

  Still, as the direwolves closed in around him, he had to admit that he was at a slight disadvantage. Their speed posed the greatest challenge, and he needed some way to even that out.

  Slowly, and with only a little reluctance, he backed into the lake until the water reached midway up his thighs. The direwolves were large, but they were still shorter than him, the water would hamper their movement more so than his own. They waded into the water after him, still keeping him at the center of their small half-circle as they did. The water completely submerged their legs; a few more inches and they’d be forced to swim. Even with the disadvantage, they would be faster than him, but it would be enough to give him good odds.

  Waddling as fast as he could towards the right most direwolf, he was for once grateful that he had no teammates to see him looking so foolish. The other two wolves tried to chase him as he moved, but the water kept the furthest from effectively catching up. He would have his one-on-two for a few seconds as the third approached.

  When he came close enough, the direwolf he was approaching pounced at him, jaws open to tear into his neck. With one hand, he brought his sword behind him and stabbed into the ground as a brace, his other arm was brought forward to catch the beast's mouth. Its teeth bit into his steel armguard, some finding a purchase where there was no steel, and breaking through the leather and chainmail into his arm. He screamed in pain as the full weight of the direwolf descended onto his arm, but his sword kept him from tumbling over. He shook the beast clamped onto his arm, and positioned his feet for better purchase.

  The second direwolf lunged at him just as he found his stance. Letting go of his sword, he grabbed the monster clamped onto his arm, throwing it into the second one still mid-air. The beast yelped as it smashed into its comrade, and the duo crashed into the water. They scrambled to find proper purchase as Leon pulled his greatsword out of the ground, and brought it down in a large overhead stab upon their bodies.

  The first was pierced clean through the heart while the second became trapped under its friend. The greatsword impaling it into the ground, it would drown soon enough. Two down, one to go.

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  Abandoning his sword once again, Leon turned as the third direwolf lunged at him. He managed to bring his good arm up to punch it in the face at the apex of its jump. Its claws scratched against his breastplate with a terrible shrieking sound as it fell back into the water. Taking the opportunity, he jumped onto its back and clamped both hands on its head, drowning it as it thrashed about beneath him. As the minutes rolled by, the thrashing eventually died down until the direwolf was limp beneath him.

  He straggled off it, one hand on the scruff of its neck to drag it out of the water and onto the shore. Returning to the lake, he brought the other two and his sword back to shore with him, all while being painfully conscious of his bloody arm.

  Had his sword slipped, they would have dragged him down into the water and piled on while he was knocked over. Had his chestplate been made of worse material, the claws would have opened his stomach instead of leaving a nasty gash against the steel. As it was, he had won though. The two punctures in his arm notwithstanding, it had been a clean victory.

  Examining the bodies, he gripped his forearm in pain. Two direwolves with deep stab wounds and one in good condition. The pelts would likely sell for six to eight silver altogether. A smile slowly grew on his face despite the bloody arm. Bringing the first body over to a large stone he could sit on, he began the arduous task of skinning the beast.

  Firstly, though, he considered how best to stabilise his arm. After his fateful encounter with the goblins, he had taken to always having a health potion on hand, a cheap one maybe, but useful all the same. His arm would be fine with less drastic measures, however, and it was not as if he was willing to waste the few silver that the potion had cost him. He looked around a bit before finding an herb he recognized from his studying. Crushing it up, he wet a cloth and applied the herb to his arm as best he could. It did not stop the pain, but it did stymie the bleeding, and hopefully would work to prevent an infection.

  Only after his wound seemed to stop bleeding did he get to work skinning the direwolves. The fact that his sword was a terrible tool for skinning them did not diminish his mood one bit. He would have the coin to buy a hunting knife for next time after all.

  It took him a few hours to skin the three wolves, even with the sloppy job he was sure he performed the pelts were in decent enough shape. It then took him a few more hours to finish collecting the herbs he needed before he could head back to Torid. The sun had begun to set by the time he left the lakeshore for the journey home, but he still felt content. He had made double the coin he had expected, and even fought some bronze-tier monsters.

  It had been a good day.

  ~

  Despite the late hour, he decided to return to the guildhall rather than wait for tomorrow; the direwolf pelts were heavy, and bloody, and he doubted his neighbors would appreciate the mess. As he was making his way through the hall, he heard someone suddenly shout out.

  “Would ya look at that, the noble knight found some direwolves!”

  Turning to see the speaker, Leon noticed that almost everyone else in the hall had seemed to have turned to look at himself. It was the man with the direwolf quest from earlier in the day who had shouted, and was now approaching Leon with what must have been his three teammates.

  “So we turned you down, and you decided to follow us and steal our kills, huh?” The man shoved a finger against Leon’s chestplate. “So pissed we didn’t hire you, you decided to screw us out of our reward!”

  Some of the other adventurers around the guild jeered in support of the man’s outlandish claims.

  Leon blinked back his confusion. “I did not follow you. I was attacked while doing my own mission.”

  His explanation seemed to fail at calming the man, who simply rolled his eyes. “Right. You just so ‘happen’ to be doing some mission in the same area we were hunting. Titan’s eastern shore, wasn’t it?”

  The man had brought his face directly into Leon’s own, and caused him to step back. Someone called him a thief as he did so.

  “I have the mission right here if you want to see it. I had no idea where you were hunting.” Fishing out his mission report as he spoke, he handed it to the man.

  He took a look at it before loudly scoffing. “So you found yourself an alibi. If anything, this just proves you were there to steal some of our loot,” the man spat out as the other adventurers in the hall cheered their agreement.

  Leon looked around in barely concealed rage as the entire building seemed to turn against him. “I wasn’t there for your damn mission! I didn’t even know where that was! I have to take these stupid herb gathering ones because no one else will let me join onto their missions!”

  Turning, he marched towards the onlooking clerks, something wet hitting the back of his head as he did so.

  “Little wonder no one wants a damn snake.”

  Leon turned back to the man and his friends, fully intent on beating them within an inch of their miserable lives. It was only the scratching of chairs and other adventurers standing which stopped him. The white hot rage he felt within his chest died and was replaced with shock. Did they really see him so poorly?

  Forcing himself to shake his head, he walked to the clerk to collect his mission reward and the coin for the direwolf pelts. She was quiet as she handed him his coin—the entire Guild was quiet. It was not until he was outside did he hear them return to their usual noise.

  Perhaps it would be best to spend the next few days training.