Shortly after the van started, the female Adventurer spoke, “Since we’re going to be spending the next week with each other, let’s introduce ourselves. I’ll start first. You can call me Trista. I’m a D-Rank Adventurer with a Wind Magic Affinity.”
“I’m David, 26 years old. I’m also a D-Rank Adventurer with a Fire Magic Affinity,” said one of the male Adventures.
“Name’s Jeff. 29 this year. I just recently got promoted to C-Rank. I have a Wood Magic Affinity.”
“You can call me Dean. I’m 24 years old. D-Rank and Fire Magic Affinity.”
The Adventurers turned to look at Leo after they finished their introductions, who was obviously the youngest one there.
“Leon. 18 years old. I became a D-Rank Adventurer yesterday,” he said in a calm voice, but his face didn’t seem very sociable at all.
After his previous experience with Adventurers, he’d subconsciously become untrusting towards them, not that he was sociable in the first place.
“18 years old? You’re very young. Are you still in school? What kind of magic can you use?” Trista asked him, seemingly intrigued by his presence.
“No, I am not in school. And I can use dark magic.”
“Dark magic?! That’s ridiculously rare!” The others appeared very surprised.
‘Should I not have told them about my Dark Magic Affinity?’ Leo asked Lilith through telepathy.
“I don’t think it would’ve mattered, unless you planned on keeping your magic a secret even out here, not to mention your disguise,” she said.
“It’s also good to stand out a little since you’ll be able to acquire more recognition this way.”
“That makes sense.”
“Wow, so you’re a full-time Adventurer at that young age? I admire you. I didn’t become an Adventurer until I was 20 years old.” Trista said.
“Anyways, why don’t we talk about our shift?” Jeff said a moment later.
And he continued, “Although we will all defend the cargo when we’re under attack, we should still have someone keeping an eye out so that we can be prepared before we have to fight. You see that slider on the ceiling over there? We’ll take turns watching our surroundings and alerting us of any potential danger.”
Dean stood up and opened the slider before popping half of his body outside the roof of the car and watching their surroundings.
“Since there are five of us here, we can each take four to five hour shifts. So who wants to go first?”
Leo suddenly raised his hand and said, “I will go first.”
“Sure thing.”
Once Dean climbed back down, Leo took his place and climbed up the staircase until he could stick his head outside the van.
‘Wow, this feels pretty good.’ He thought to himself as he used his mana to block the dust from getting into his face.
“Why do you seem so eager to work?” Lilith suddenly asked him.
He smiled and said, “Because I can practice my magic and do my quest like this.”
“What do you mean?” She asked with raised eyebrows.
“I am going to use Black Bullet and shoot any monster in sight. This will be great practice for my magic control.”
“Oh! You’re a genius, Leo!” Lilith said.
“Speaking of the devil, there’s one right there!”
Leo pointed at the monster that was about fifty meters away from their location.
After taking a moment to aim, he used Black Bullet, shooting it at the monster.
However, since this is the first time that he’s tried to hit something that far away, he missed his target.
As for the others, they didn’t even notice Leo using magic because of his silent casting. Otherwise, they would be telling him to not do something so reckless, as he was essentially attracting the monster’s attention by attacking them.
However, since Leo silently cast his magic spells and his Black Bullet traveled extremely quickly, nobody there noticed a thing, not that they were paying any attention to him in the first place.
After four hours of training and shooting over a hundred Black Bullets, Leo managed to kill around 30 monsters.
He looked at his quest progression.
[Quest: Use 100,000 mana]
[Progress: 1,513/100,000]
[Quest: Kill 100 monsters]
[Progress: 30/100]
‘Now that I think about it, the 100 mana being absorbed by Lilith every second doesn’t count as using mana… It would’ve been great if it did count, as I would be completing the quest without needing to do anything.’
“Hey, Leon, it’s already been four hours. Are you ready to come back down?” Jeff called out to him.
“Actually, I would like to stay up here a little long if you don’t mind.” He said.
“Of course not! You can stay up there for as long as you like since that is less work for us! When you’re done, you can just come down.”
“Thank you, Leon! You’re a hard worker! I like people like you!” Trista said to him.
Thus, Leo continued to practice his magic control by using the monsters they pass as shooting targets.
Although he would only hit about 30 percent of his targets during his first hour, he would quickly improve, hitting about 90 percent of his targets by the fifth hour. Eventually, he would be able to hit pretty much any monster with 100 percent accuracy as long as they were within 50 meters.
Leo practiced his magic for eight hours straight, increasing the Mastery Rank of his Black Bullet to ‘B’ during this time.
He wanted to keep training, but he was getting hungry, so he tagged out Dean, who replaced him.
Once he went back down to the van, he asked them, “Where is the food?”
“Oh, they’re in those boxes over there. Just pick whatever you want to eat.” Jeff pointed at the boxes near the corner of the van.
Leo went to the boxes and looked inside.
‘MRE… I heard they’re mostly for soldiers in the military. I wonder how they taste…’
After picking out an MRE with an appetizing name, he opened it and started looking at the ‘food’ with a puzzled face.
“Is this your first time eating an MRE?” David asked him.
“Yes…” He nodded.
“Seriously? What do you usually eat when you’re out on long missions?”
“Actually, this is my first long mission. I usually just hunt monsters around the city. However, I won’t be able to be promoted to C-Rank if I only do that, so I decided to do this transportation mission.” Leo explained.
“I see… But it’ll take you a lot more than just one transportation mission to meet the requirements for a C-Rank Adventurer, and I am speaking from experience. Since you’ve recently reached D-Rank, it’ll probably take you another half a year before you can try for C-Rank.” Jeff said.
“Half a year…” Leo mumbled in a dazed voice.
“Hey, let me help you out with the MRE. It can get a little confusing for beginners.” Trista said as she approached him.
“Thanks…”
A few minutes later, Leo started eating the food.
‘My god, this tastes horrible…’ He cried inwardly after taking his first bite, and he began wondering how he’ll survive the next week with this kind of food.
