We made our way through the town and before long we had passed the town gates and were out into the fields that surrounded the place. Once we were outside Lillia stopped as if she had forgotten something.

“Ah Theo, there’s something we should do before we head to the training ground.” She told me.

“What is it?”

“We should form a party.”

“A party?”

“Yeah.” She looked a little meek as she replied. “It just means that while we’re out here we can both keep an eye on each other’s status and if we happen to get separated, we’ll be able to find each other using the map function.”

“Okay… What do I need to do?”

“Hold on one second.”

Lillia went quiet for a moment and a second later a message appeared in front of my eyes it read, Lilla wants to for a party with you, do you accept yes or no. I selected the yes option. There was a tada sound and another message popped up that read, Lillia and Theo party formed.

“All done, now we can head out a little more safely!” Lillia announced almost a little too excitedly.

I almost wondered if the find party member function could be abused, but I didn’t think that Lillia would be the type of girl to do something like that and everything that she had done so far was in order to help me, so I brushed off the thought.

After about thirty minutes worth of walking we reached the outskirts of the small forest that was used as a training ground. Before we headed in Lillia called me to a halt.

“From here on in, you can take the lead. I’ll be right behind you and I’ll back you up if you need it.” She told me.

“What do I do?”

“Just head inside. The monsters will be drawn to our presence. When they come out, you kill them.”

“How do I do that?” I wanted a little more explanation.

“Whack or stab the hell out of them with your sword. That usually does the trick.”

“Okay, got it.” Thinking that probably sounded easier than it was.

I drew my sword from its scabbard and slowly stepped into the forest. The atmosphere changed almost from the first step. It was creeping me out. Whether it was because there was something special about this place or just because it was dark compared to the fields, or just my anticipation of what might happen, I wasn’t sure. A little apprehensive about what was going to happen next, I slowly made way deeper into the forest, constantly on the lookout for any monsters that might approach.

I had been slowly walking through the forest for a few minutes with no sign of any monsters when what looked like a little white bunny hopped out from behind a tree a few meters in front of me.

“There you go Theo, kill it!” Lillia quietly told me from behind.

“Kill it? That’s just a little bunny!”

I looked at the cute little creature that was just sat there a few meters up ahead. It was quietly chewing on something and occasionally scratching it ears. I couldn’t kill that, could I. It just didn’t seem right, but Lillia had told me to do so and this was why we were here in the first place. I stepped forward trying to catch it unawares, when I stepped on a branch that cracked loudly. The creature was now aware of my presence.

What was at first glance just a cute little bunny now showed its true colours. It hungrily opened its mouth revealing row after row of razor sharp looking teeth. It let out a strange growl and ran in my direction. As it got close it jumped at me, not knowing what else to do I swung my blade. There was a thwack noise, followed by two thuds. I had cleanly cut the creature in half. There was a quiet ring in my ears, apparently signifying the points gained.

“Keep on the lookout, that call will have drawn more to us.” Lillia warned from behind me.

She was right because almost as soon she had warned me three more of the vicious little bunny things hopped out from behind nearby trees. This time there was no doubt these were monsters, each of them already baring their teeth at us. The first two came flying at me, but I was easily able to dispatch them with my sword and chunks of bunny started to litter the floor. The third let out the strange growl before attacking. I knew this was only going to bring down more of them on us. Then it attacked.

From then on it was wall to wall bunny monsters coming after us. They were easy enough to dispatch and I was able to kill them one after the other only taking on a small amount of damage. I don’t know how many I killed, it must have been in the region of fifty, but eventually they stopped coming. As the last bunny monster fell to my blade there was a tada noise and a message appeared before my eyes. It read; congratulations level two reached!

“Well done Theo!” Lillia congratulated me, apparently noticing the level up through our party function.

“Thanks!” They were only bunny monsters, but I still felt a sense of achievement.

“I think that’s enough for one day, it will start to get dark soon and we don’t want to pull another hoard of them down on us.”

We took a leisurely walk back into the town and to the adventurers’ guild. It was dinner time, so we took a table and waited to be served. Whilst we waited, I decided to look over my skill tree and see what I had gained from going up a level.

It looked as if most of the basic skills and attributes were increased a couple of points from the level up. I also gained ten points I could spend on my skills. My custom skills didn’t seem to have been upgraded, but it looked as if I could upgrade them both by only spending a single point on each. It seemed reasonable enough to me.

I upgraded ‘special heal’ and the accompanying message said ‘special heal’ upgraded range increased to three meters and mana cost reduce by two points per second. Handy I thought. Next, I upgraded ‘appraisal’ the message read ‘appraisal’ upgraded appraising difficulty level increased twenty percent. It wasn’t exactly obvious what that meant, I just hoped it didn’t mean I would now see people’s insides when I used it!

After the two skills were upgraded, I realised that I had a new skill available to buy for five points. It was called ‘disarm’ I knew I should probably add some points to my health or offensive abilities, but this did sound like it would come in handy. I added the skill, there was a tada noise and the message said ‘disarm’ added. After that I decided it was probably a good idea to talk it over with Lillia how I would spend the rest of my available points.

We sat chatting over some food and drink until it got to that point of the night when we would both say goodbye for the evening.

“Um Theo…” Lillia asked looking at me a little shyly.

“What is it?”

“I was thinking that perhaps tonight, maybe you could stay over at mine. That is if you want… I don’t want Altria coming and interrupting your sleep for half of the night again.” She asked, her innocent looking eyes always ever so inviting.

How could I say no to her, even if I had a feeling it wasn’t going to end up with me having anymore rest.

“S-sure if it will make you feel better.”

“It would… That girl doesn’t know when to give it a rest. I’m sure she’ll only come to bother you again tonight!”

I didn’t find Atria particularly bothersome, but I still agreed to go with Lillia. So, after settling our bill, we headed out into the town in the fresh night air.