Once outside the city walls, the dirt road stretched before them, cutting through grassnds and gently rolling hills.

  “Maybe I should buy a horse,” Ethan muttered as they walked.

  “Haha! Buy me one too while you’re at it!” Fiona ughed, fshing him a grin.

  “Are horses that expensive?” he asked.

  “Expensive and rare,” Cra replied. “You can’t just walk into a shop and buy one. There’s a waiting list a mile long.”

  “Really?” Ethan frowned. “Why?”

  “They’re in high demand,” Cra expined. “Military takes first pick. Merchant Guilds come next. Whatever’s left gets snapped up by nobles.”

  “So how does someone like us get a horse?”

  “Well,” Fiona said with mock grandeur, “you impress a noble. Do a perfect mission, save their life, win their favor. Then—maybe—you get one as a reward. In theory.”

  “In practice?” Ethan asked.

  “I’ve never seen it happen,” Cra said ftly.

  “I see…”

  Their conversation continued for a while as they followed the road northward, passing clusters of trees, tall grass, and the occasional wagon rolling the other direction. But the farther they got from the city, the more their voices tapered off.

  The road quieted. Wind brushed gently through the grass. Birds chirped distantly overhead.

  With the city behind them and the wild stretching ahead, all three naturally shifted into a more focused state—hands drifting closer to hilts, ears tuned to rustling sounds, eyes scanning the distance.

  As they neared the bridge, Cra suddenly raised a closed fist, signaling them to stop. Ethan and Fiona halted immediately, crouching low behind a cluster of bushes.

  “Hey, Fiona,” Cra whispered, eyes scanning the distance. “Check the time on that report.”

  “The time?” Fiona fished into her pouch and unfolded the mission brief. “Hmm… let’s see… Oh. Oh no. It’s from a week ago.”

  Cra’s expression darkened. “A week? What the hell? Why did it take that long for anyone to pick this up?”

  “What’s the problem?” Ethan asked, gncing between them.

  Cra pointed toward a tall tree off the roadside, her voice low and grim. “That’s the problem.”

  Ethan followed her gaze. Near the top, several of the branches had been broken and stripped, and in their pce stood a crude wooden ptform—occupied by a goblin archer keeping watch.

  “That’s… a goblin?” Ethan blinked. The creature looked nothing like the weaklings he’d seen in css. Its green, muscur frame was coiled and ready, like a predator. Compared to the scrawny specimen he'd fought before, this one looked like a battle-hardened soldier.

  “Yep!” Fiona muttered.

  "Is that a variant? Why is it so big?" Ethan asked concerned.

  "Nah. That's the normal size. It's the ones in the Academy that are weak and small!"

  “Luckily,” Cra added, “they’ve got garbage eyesight during the day. Otherwise, we’d be spotted already.”

  “So… what’s the pn now?”

  “I didn’t bring my bow,” Cra said with a scowl. “Ethan, think you can knock it out with a spell?”

  “I… I’ve never actually cast a spell that far before,” Ethan admitted. “But I can try.”

  “Can you see any other goblin?” Fiona asked, scanning the area.

  Cra shook her head. “Hard to tell. These cursed little shits love to hide.”

  “Cursed, huh…” Ethan’s fingers twitched as an idea sparked. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Eh? You can?” Cra asked, a bit confused, wondering what he would do.

  “Let me try something. I can’t guarantee it’ll work, though.” Ethan expined.

  “Go ahead,” Cra nodded.

  Ethan inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. Then he began to chant—verse after verse. One… two… three… four. The structure of the Dark Sonar spell came together like muscle memory, fueled by nightly practice since his st failure. Each line etched itself into the air in wisps of faint violet energy, yered with threads of miasma.

  Last verse.

  He raised his hand, dark energy swirling around it, and swept it outward. The runes lit with a dim glow, and a pulse of miasma burst from his palm, rolling outward like fog. It crawled through the terrain, seeping into cracks and drifting toward unseen pces—until it abruptly stopped, dissipating before reaching the goblins’ nest.

  “Tch… it didn’t reach far enough,” Ethan muttered, frustrated.

  “What was that?” Fiona whispered, gncing around. “I felt a chill just now.”

  Cra rubbed her arms. “Same. For a second, I thought the temperature dropped.”

  “One sec,” Ethan said, already adjusting the spell in his mind. “I think I can modify it. Just need to redirect the spread.”

  The original Dark Sonar spell had a standard radius—roughly a hundred meters in every direction. A uniform, circur pulse meant to detect Dark Runes within enclosed areas, like cssrooms or sealed chambers. But now, standing in the open with unknown threats lurking far ahead, Ethan realized that kind of even spread was inefficient. What he needed wasn’t coverage—it was range.

  His mind raced through solutions. What if I move the center of the sonar before it activates? That way, he could trigger it closer to the goblins. But he had no rune anchors to measure distance—so how would he know when to activate it? Maybe a timer? Or collision-based activation? Both were possible… but modifying the core structure of the spell's activation would take time and he couldn't make them wait all day.

  Then, a wild thought crossed his mind.

  If only I could just snipe them from here with a gun...

  A gun?

  His eyes lit up. That was it.

  What if the sonar didn’t need to pulse outward like a bomb—but instead fire forward, like a bullet from a barrel?

  He didn’t need to change the core effect or its activation. He just needed to reforge the direction—to shape the trigger like a focused bst. A directional “shot” of detection.

  Ethan’s breath caught as the idea crystalized. Narrow the scope. Concentrate the energy. Trade area for distance. It was a little risky, experimental, but if it worked, it could push the sonar far beyond its normal limits.

  He nodded to himself. “It’s worth a try.”

  Closing his eyes, he reconstructed the spell in his mind. Line by line, verse by verse, the structure of Dark Sonar unfolded like a yered diagram.

  The first three verses, the foundation, could stay untouched. But the fourth and fifth, which governed how the miasma dispersed, had to be rewritten entirely. Instead of radiating outward, he needed them to channel the flow forward in a tighter line, closer to a cone. Then, to prevent the energy from bleeding sideways or the spell changing direction, he needed to add a sixth and seventh verse—a pair of constraints to shape the spell’s effect into a focused cone, like the barrel of a shotgun.

  As the new structure locked into pce in his mind, Ethan’s fingers began to move.

  He scribed each rune in the air with increasing speed—sharp lines of violet-bck energy fring briefly before vanishing into the ether. Cra and Fiona watched, both silent as they tracked his motion. The runes formed with startling precision, then vanished… completely.

  No glow. No pulse. No chill.

  Nothing.

  No sign the spell had been cast at all.

  Fiona blinked. “Did it… fail?”

  But Ethan’s expression remained calm, his eyes scanning ahead—focused, listening.

  Something was happening.

  He could feel it.

  “Nope,” Ethan replied, eyes narrowing which could now see glowing groups of runes moving at distance. “We’ve got one on the ptform in the tree. Three goblins hiding in the tall grass north of the bridge. Four more under the bridge… judging by how they’re moving, they’re probably mating with something.”

  “…Gross,” Fiona muttered.

  “There are two more on our side,” Ethan added, pointing to a cluster of trees, “and something really small… there. Feels like a cursed item—pendant, statue, something like that. Could be bait or a trap.”

  “Wow,” Fiona blinked. “Okay, now I’m gd we brought you along.”

  “All right,” Cra said, eyes sharp. “So—how do we act?”

  “Ethan,” she turned to him, “any other spells you can use?”

  “Not much. I’ve practiced a few fireball variants, but I’ve never tested how far they can go or the damage they do.”

  “Good enough.” Cra nodded. “Here’s the pn: Fiona and I will charge ahead and flush them out. Your job is to deal with the archer. Get close if you need to, but stay behind us. Either knock it out or knock it off the tree. Just don’t get hit.”

  Ethan took a deep breath. “Got it.”

  "Remember! There are more than just that archer! Other's may shot you as well!"

  "Understood!"

  They crouched low, all three exchanging nods.

  Cra raised her fingers.Five.Four.Three.Two.One—

  Go.

  The trio burst into motion.

  Fiona and Cra surged forward, swords drawn, charging the goblins hiding closest to them. Ethan followed behind at a slower pace, his gaze scanning the area, alert for any incoming arrows.

  Dun! Dun!The twang of two bowstrings rang out.

  Two arrows sailed through the air—poorly aimed and far off the mark. Neither girl bothered to dodge; they kept running, fully aware the shots were wild.

  “Gwaaaaaa!”

  One goblin let out a shrill arm, but it was too te. It barely managed to draw breath before:

  Ssh! Pierce!Two bdes fshed, silencing the archers mid-reload.

  Goblins weren’t known for coordination. Their archery accuracy barely scraped fifty percent, and under the harsh sunlight of day—being nocturnal creatures—it dropped even lower. Their reload speed didn’t help either; each shot took seven to eight seconds. That left a rge enough window for trained fighters to rush in and dismantle them with ease.

  Still, they weren’t harmless. When they did nd a hit, their arrows could pierce flesh—and worse, sometimes they carried crude poisons that turned even a scratch into a death sentence.

  “Ignore the ones under the bridge! Focus on the tall grass!” Cra barked.

  “Got it!” Fiona called back with a fsh of steel.

  “Ethan!” Cra snapped over her shoulder. “You should be close enough now. Prep your spells!”

  “Yes, boss!” Ethan replied, a little too brightly.

  “Shut up!” Cra shot back, cheeks coloring despite herself.

  First verse. Second verse. Third verse. Activate!

  Low-grade spells might’ve been basic, but they were fast. In less than a second, Ethan conjured a fireball roughly the size of a soccer ball and hurled it at the goblin on the tree ptform.

  “Graaaa! Gruwgale!!!”

  The goblin shrieked in its rough, grating tongue and fired an arrow in a panic. It hit the fireball mid-flight, detonating it with a loud pop and fsh of fire.

  “Tch! One more!”

  Without missing a beat, Ethan began the incantation again.

  “Gruwgale Shunuth! Grooolll!!!”

  The goblin screamed something that might’ve been a curse—or a desperate prayer—before leaping off the ptform to avoid the second fireball.

  “Got it!” Cra shouted, already beneath it.

  She didn’t even slow down. With a powerful twist, she brought her bde up in a clean arc. The goblin barely had time to scream again before it was split in two mid-air, its body spraying gore.

  “Eek! Careful!” Fiona yelped, ducking to avoid the spsh zone.

  Cra was less lucky. She emerged on the other side soaked in green goblin blood and steam.

  Dun! Dun! Dun!

  Three more arrows zipped out from the tall grass.

  Ting! Shuu! Shuu!

  Fiona raised her buckler, deflecting one. The other two missed entirely.

  “Seems the Guild had bad intel,” Cra growled. “Six archers, not three.”

  “No compints from me!” Fiona shouted, grinning. “Let’s end this!”

  “Now! Finish them off!” Cra commanded.

  “Yes, boss!” Fiona echoed cheerfully.

  “Not you too!” Cra groaned, still running forward.

  Ssh! Cut! Pierce!

  With ruthless precision, they dismantled the remaining goblins. Bdes drove into necks, chests, and lungs. The goblins tried to block with their bows, but they might as well have been wielding twigs. Against mana-reinforced steel, they shattered instantly.

  “Six down. Four to go!”

  Just then, the remaining goblins crawled out from under the bridge, clearly startled and unprepared.

  Ethan spotted them before they saw him. Without hesitation, he fired another fireball.

  Boom!

  It struck the group from behind, knocking them off bance.

  “Well done!” Cra praised, already closing the distance before they could get up.

  Pierce! Ssh! Cut!

  Cra and Fiona fell on them like executioners. In moments, the final four y dead, their bodies twitching and lifeless.

  “Job done!”

  “Ethan! Look out!” Fiona shouted.

  “Eh—?”

  Ethan turned just in time to see a mace swinging for his head. He dove aside, barely avoiding the crushing blow.

  “Goblin rider!”

  “It’s riding a wolf?!”

  “Damn it! Ethan! Be careful!” Cra yelled, scrambling back up the slope of the riverbed with Fiona in tow.

  Ethan gnced toward the drop behind him. Should I jump?

  No—the rider would just follow and strike him from behind. I need to buy time.

  The goblin rider circled once, then charged again. The speed was terrifying—far faster than anything Ethan had faced before.

  Tch! He rolled to the side, evading again, but his legs were beginning to tremble with fatigue.

  Should I cast a spell? Can I even risk it? What if it doesn’t work?

  His thoughts spiraled, but he didn’t stop moving.

  Shush! Tin! Crack!

  The goblin swung again. Ethan blocked it with his sword—but the blow nearly knocked it from his hands. A deep crack split the bde near the hilt. One or two more hits, and it would snap.

  “Damn it… Take this!”

  With no better option, Ethan gambled.

  First, second, third verse—fireball!

  He cast at point-bnk range. The explosion bsted both him and the goblin rider off their feet.

  The wolf bolted. The goblin hit the ground hard, dazed and dismounted.

  Ethan didn’t waste the opportunity. He cast another fireball—this time directly on the fallen goblin.

  “Gwaaaaaaaaaa!!”

  The goblin screamed, filing and rolling in a panic as fmes consumed its body. Ethan, breathing heavily, dragged himself forward and brought his half-broken sword down on its neck.

  Crunch.

  The goblin’s screams finally fell silent, its charred body twitching once before going still.

  “Ethan! Are you okay!?”

  “Ethan!”

  Cra and Fiona sprinted onto the scene, their boots pounding against the ground, but they arrived just seconds too te.

  Ethan stood hunched over, breathing hard, sweat trickling down his face and blood—thankfully not his own—spttered across his sleeve. His cracked sword was still trembling in his grip.

  “I-I’m fine…” he managed between gasps, his chest rising and falling like a bellows. His knees felt like jelly.

  Cra looked him over quickly, sword still in hand but her eyes softening. “Well done,” she said, genuine pride in her voice. “You handled yourself.”

  Ethan gave a shaky nod.

  “Wh-what about the wolf?” he asked, gncing around, his senses still buzzing from adrenaline.

  Fiona scoffed and pointed with her thumb. “That thing bolted the second its green buddy hit the ground. Coward ran with its tail between its legs.”

  “I… I didn’t even notice…” Ethan muttered. He’d been so locked in on the goblin—the fire, the panic, the survival instinct—that the world beyond it had blurred into white noise.

  “Go ahead and rest,” Cra said, already turning back toward the battlefield. “We’ll handle the cleanup.”

  “Thanks…” Ethan whispered.

  He dropped to one knee with a quiet grunt, letting the sword fall from his hand as he steadied himself with the other. The cool breeze brushed against his face, and for the first time in what felt like hours, he let himself breathe.

  While he caught his breath, Cra and Fiona began harvesting ears and trophies from the goblin corpses. They found sheeps tied under the bridge, likely stolen from local farms. Remembering Ethan’s earlier words about the goblin's actions, they grimaced and killed the surviving animals to prevent new goblins spawning from them.

  As they scouted the area, Fiona found something hanging from the underside of the bridge.

  “Hey Cra! Look at this pendant.”

  “Well, a job well done. Shall we return?” Cra asked with a light smile.

  “Can we rest for like… fifteen minutes first?” Ethan begged.

  “Hahaha! No! We’ll walk slow, and you can rest on the move,” Fiona grinned.

  “Demon…” Ethan groaned, forcing himself to stand.

  “Hey, Ethan! Look what I found!” Fiona chirped, bounding over like a kid who’d discovered a treasure. She held up a slightly tarnished pendant—an oval-shaped charm hanging from a bck cord—and without hesitation, slipped it around her neck. She struck a pose, hand on her hip. “Does it look good on me?”

  Ethan looked up, still half-dead. “Oh, nice—wait.” His eyes widened as he stared at the charm. All the blood drained from his face. “Wait! That’s the thing I detected earlier! Take it off! I think it’s cursed!”

  “Wah!? Seriously?!” Fiona’s expression snapped from smug to panicked in an instant. She yanked at the pendant, tugged at the cord, spun in circles, and even tried to cw it off. “Damn! Damn! I can’t get it off! It’s stuck! What the heck is this?! Cra! Help me!!”

  Cra raised an eyebrow, arms crossed. “You put it on yourself,” she said ftly, her tone so dry it could parch a desert. “Now you deal with it.”

  “What?! That’s not how friendship works!” Fiona wailed, half-spinning to try and see the back of the csp. “I’m going to die with this thing on me!”

  “Talk to Professor Alric when we get back,” Cra said coolly, gncing ahead toward the distant city skyline as if it was just another Tuesday. “He’ll probably know what to do.”

  “ALRIC?!” Fiona screamed. “That crusty, grouchy, lecture-happy fossil!? He’s going to scold me to death! I’ll be the curse by the time he’s done with me! Ethan! Save me!”

  Ethan, already limping forward with all the energy of a soggy leaf, shook his head. “Sorry, Fiona. I don’t know how to remove curses. That’s your fate now. Accept it.”

  “Traitor!” Fiona yelled, still tugging uselessly at the pendant. “I’ll haunt you!”

  Cra chuckled, shaking her head. And with that, the trio began their slow but lively trek back to the city—

  —one exhausted,one cursed,and one highly amused.

  ...Well, maybe two cursed...

  Anyway.

  By the time they reached the Adventurer’s Guild, the sun was dipping low in the sky, casting golden streaks across the cobbled streets. The trio moved at a leisurely pace—Cra calm and steady, Fiona humming cheerfully despite the cursed pendant still clinging to her neck, and Ethan trailing behind like a half-dead ghost.

  As they stepped through the doors, the smell of ink, old parchment, sweat, and cheap ale hit them like a wall. The guildhall was quieter than it had been that morning—most adventurers were either out or already off-duty.

  Cra walked up to the front counter and handed over their stamped mission slip.

  “We’re here to report the completion of the goblin extermination mission near the northern bridge,” she said.

  The receptionist gave them a professional nod and reached for a form. “Report details?”

  Before anyone could answer, a familiar voice rang out from behind them.

  “Well, well! What do we have here?”

  Professor Rhea strode over in her athletic gear, a towel slung around her shoulders and her long, braided red hair damp with sweat. She looked like she’d just finished another round of training—or maybe ran back to the Academy and returned just to catch Ethan in the act.

  Her sharp gaze immediately nded on the boy.

  “Ethan? You’re with them?” Professor Rhea raised a perfectly sculpted brow as she eyed the two second-years standing beside him. “You went on a mission with uppercssmen?”

  Ethan scratched the back of his neck, suddenly very aware of the sweat pooling at the back of his colr. “Uh… yeah. I teamed up with Cra and Fiona. We worked together on the goblin extermination.”

  Rhea blinked slowly. Her expression shifted from mild curiosity to something far more familiar—stern, disapproving authority.

  Snatching the report slip from the counter, she scanned through it quickly. Her eyes narrowed. Then she turned back, arms crossing like an iron gate smming shut.

  “You what?” she snapped. “This is a two-star mission, Ethan! You’ve only just been given permission to do basic jobs! You’re not qualified to take on anything above a single star—even in a party!”

  “I—” Ethan started, but Rhea was already steamrolling over him.

  “No excuses. The only reason I let you do any missions was so you’d have something to report for css. Not so you could march off into danger like some reckless idiot!”

  Before Ethan could even lift a finger in defense, Fiona stepped up, one hand on her hip, the other hefting a bloodied sack with a cocky grin.

  “Hold on, Professor. Don’t be too hard on him. He actually did really well.”

  Cra gave a small, confident nod and opened the bag, revealing the grim proof of their success—eleven severed goblin ears.

  “He pulled his weight. Not only did he locate all the goblins using some sort of detection magic, he also took down a wolf rider by himself.”

  The receptionist’s quill paused mid-sentence. Several nearby adventurers turned to gnce their way.

  Rhea’s face bnked. “...A wolf rider?”

  “Yep,” Fiona said proudly, thumbing at Ethan. “And this guy torched it with a fireball. Nearly blew himself up too.”

  “I’m fine,” Ethan muttered, cheeks darkening.

  Cra crossed her arms. “He also found three goblins hiding in the tall grass, flushed out one stationed on a ptform in a tree, stunned four reinforcements mid-fight, and detected a cursed object under the bridge. And just so you know—the mission info was a week old. There were eleven goblins, not eight.”

  Rhea’s complexion paled.

  She looked from Cra to Fiona, then to Ethan, then to the bag of ears again.

  "...That wasn’t a two-star mission," she said slowly. "That was borderline three. If there’d been a single shaman—or worse, a hobgoblin—you might not have come back at all.”

  Ethan opened his mouth. “Wait—”

  “No.” Rhea’s voice cracked like a whip. “I gave you one chance. Because I thought you'd py it safe. Clearly, I was too generous, or too naive. If you want to risk your life, at least do it after you have the skill to survive!”

  She turned toward the receptionist, her voice sharp. “Effective immediately, revoke Ethan Cross’s mission access. No quests. Not even as a tagalong.”

  “What?!” Ethan protested. “That’s not fair—!”

  “Not a word, Ethan.” Her eyes glinted dangerously. “If you hadn’t been lucky—or had capable teammates—you’d be lying on a stretcher right now. Or worse.”

  Then she turned her wrath on Cra and Fiona.

  “And you two! What were you thinking bringing a first-year so far out of town!? First-years aren’t allowed more than one kilometer from the city walls!”

  Cra winced, face reddening. “W-we forgot…”

  “Sorry…” Fiona muttered, shifting awkwardly, her usual brightness dimmed.

  "Also, why are you taking quests directly from the Guild instead of going to the quest board in the Academy's gatehouse!? Have you forgotten these don't accumute credits!?"

  "But the pay is better-" Cra tried to answer but she was cut off by Rhea.

  "Shut up! You're in no position to worry about the payment! You're still students! Graduate first! Then you will have lot's of time to worry about the pay! I really ought to discipline both of you,” Rhea growled, gring. “But since no one was seriously hurt—this time—I’ll let it go. Just this once.”

  She stepped closer, expression fierce. “There will be no more exceptions. Understood?”

  “YES MA’AM!” the girls said in unison, snapping upright.

  Ethan clenched his fists, teeth gritted in frustration. Just like that—back to square one.

  The receptionist, having quietly resumed her work, handed Cra a small sack of coins.

  “220 silver coins total,” she said. “Divide it as you see fit.”

  Ethan accepted his share—70 silver coins—and stared at it in his palm. Not bad for a day’s work… but still, it felt more like a consotion prize than a reward.

  Fiona leaned over and gave him a light pat on the shoulder. “Hey, at least you got a new story to tell. That’s a win in my book.”

  Cra allowed herself a faint smile. “You’ll get another chance… eventually.”

  Ethan sighed. “Yeah… it was fun while it sted.”

  Rhea crossed her arms again, voice like a drill sergeant. “Back to the Academy. Double pace. And if I so much as hear your name near a quest board again before I say otherwise—”

  She leaned in.

  “—you’ll be running ps until you faint.”

  Ethan groaned. “...Demon…”