Restarting From Genesis

The bear ripped through the trees just behind Merlin, causing splinters to fly out everywhere. Merlin rolled out of the way as the bear's claw came crashing down, leaving a deep imprint of its paw in the soft forest soil. Merlin dashed back into the trees, but this time began trying to hide his presence.

The bear seemed to be less accurate the more he hid his presence. The bear ripped through more trees, sending hundreds of leaves and splinters into the air. Merlin decided that he'd rather not lead the bear back to town and risk everyone's lives, so he started running towards the yew trees instead.

The bear almost caught him several times, but fortunately it wasn't as accurate as it once was. With Merlin weaving through the trees, the bear could only seem to guess the rough area where he was.

'This bear's awareness stat is way too high.' Merlin thought to himself, dodging another palm strike. 

Eventually he made it back to the yew trees, making sure not to trip over the groove in the soil that was left there moments ago.

As Merlin ran into the opening and started making his way over to the yew trees, he noticed that the bear seemed reluctant to approach any further.

'So it is weary of this area.' Merlin thought to himself. 'Good to know.'

Merlin ran to the other side of the clearing, and he noticed the bear start running around the area towards him.

Merlin pretended to run further into the forest before activating sneak and running back around towards the yew trees.

「Skill ⟪Sneak⟫ Activated, stealth increased by 30% for 30 seconds.」

Merlin was trying his hardest at that point to hide his presence and it seemed to be working, as the bear seemed to run right past him in the direction he pretended to run.

Once he felt safe, while still trying to reel in as much of his presence as possible, Merlin dashed towards the exit of the forest.

There didn't seem to be any further complications as Merlin escaped the treeline and made his way towards the gate.

Greeting the guards, who seemed a little disturbed by Merlin's lack of presence. Merlin finally calmed himself, allowing his guard to drop somewhat and his presence to return, which seemed to put the guards at ease.

He quickly made his way towards the guild building, walking inside he saw the same ranger sitting at the desk not doing much else. It seemed his main role at the moment was to tell people unaffiliated with the rangers guild to leave, unless they wanted to join.

Merlin made his way over to the medicine room as usual, where he saw Tuli resting her head on the desk. She wasn't asleep, but she seemed tired enough to fall asleep at any moment.

"You should go lay in bed if you're feeling tired." Merlin said as he approached. "Sleeping like that is going to ruin your posture."

"I'm just waiting for this last potion to brew." Tuli said in between yawns. "Then I've got some management duties to deal with, and I still haven't..."

"And you'd be much better doing all of that when you've actually slept." Merlin interrupted her. He felt a little hypocritical as he was about to give her more work to do before leaving.

He reached into his inventory and pulled out his leather gloves, putting them on before pulling out three hundred grams of yew berries and a kilogram of yew needles. He placed them down on the desk and as he did so, he received a couple notifications.

「You have completed the quest, "Taking stock III.", rewards have been delivered.」

「Congratulations, you are now level 6.」

'I missed being able to level up this fast.' Merlin thought, staring at the level up notification. 'Although I should start levelling up my souls too.'

Tuli got up from her chair and grabbed her own pairs of gloves, allowing her to safely touch the plants and store them away in their own jars.

"Thank you Merlin." Tuli said with a sleepy tone. "I think we're stocked up for the foreseeable future now."

"You're welcome. I'm glad to help." Merlin said, throwing his own gloves into his inventory.

Merlin remembered that he still had something to do at the thieves guild, it had been a little more than a week at this point so his request must have been completed by now.

"Hey Tuli, I'm going to be heading over to Macedonia for a little while." Merlin explained, "The guild master wanted to chat, but she's been missing every time I come around, so if she asks where I am, there you are."

"Alright, I'll pass the message along, and we hope to see you again soon." Tuli said with a smile before going back to her potion that had started bubbling.

"Take care." Merlin waved as he left the room, and then the building.

As he left the rangers guild building, he noticed that it was starting to become night time once more, so he wanted to see the ruins once more, and hopefully find that elusive old man again.

As Merlin walked quite a distance away, he noticed that a few villagers in the area were getting rowdy. He turned around to see a group start forming, so he went to see what was going on, but before he could get close he saw it was just Callisto making her way back home.

Although even from a distance he could tell that she was hurt, mostly due to the fact she was slightly limping, and that she was covered in scratches.

'She must have tried soloing something nasty.' Merlin thought to himself. 'I hope she isn't being reckless because her expedition parties keep getting hurt.'

It was the unfortunate fate of a leader who cared too much about the individuals under their command. Merlin could tell that Callisto, even though her attitude could be quite abrasive at times, was quite a softhearted individual.

She clearly cared for everyone in the rangers guild, but was cold to outsiders, especially nobles, which was something Merlin could respect.

Merlin didn't bother going back and talking to her, he figured that he would just do it later if it ever came up again, it wasn't like he needed to explain himself anyway.

Merlin made his way over to the ruins, particularly the stone door frame, and when the moon seemed to finally be rising, he noticed that the words weren't lighting up anymore.

"Is it because I got the quest, or does it only light up on a full moon?" Merlin racked his brain thinking of all the possibilities that would cause this change, but he could only confidently think of these two. "I guess the only way to figure out which one it is, would be to wait for another full moon."

"Oh well." He muttered before turning and making his way down to the road.

Merlin began his journey to Macedonia, he made sure to summon his ball of light before stepping out onto the dark road.

On his long trip, he was tempted once more by the several owls he heard chirping in the night.

"I could just replace my fighter soul." He muttered to himself. "But that is four strength and a good ability I'd be passing them both up for night vision and perception bonuses."

He was lost in thought as he continued walking, thinking that perhaps it'd be best if he merged a few souls together to save space.

"Thief and fighter makes a bandit soul, right?" he mumbled to himself. "I doubt either of these souls would be compatible with the rose wight. But an owl soul might work with a thief."

He eventually put off the idea, mostly due to him not wanting to hunt down hundreds of owls right now, but also because he didn't feel like changing any of his souls out, or adding another soul slot which would reduce his level and make further level ups difficult.

Eventually he made it back to Macedonia, and without wasting any more time he quickly made his way through the city towards the slums.

Fortunately it seemed that the guards that were patrolling the area seemed to have let up, so Merlin made his way towards the filthy tavern, still making sure he wasn't followed.

He made his way down a dark alleyway and entered the old bar, where Fae was standing around pouring one of her security members a drink.

"Oh, hey Ghost, it's been a while." She said while placing the mug in front of the scary looking man. "If you disappeared for any longer we would have started thinking you died."

"Really? I thought the boss knew that travellers were essentially immortal." Merlin retorted. "Anyway, is he in the usual spot?"

"Yes." Fae responded, walking him down to the cellar like usual and letting him in.

Merlin quickly located the elf in his favourite spot, drinking the same liquor he usually drank.

"I worry for that man's liver." Merlin accidentally mumbled out loud.

"Yeah..." Fae responded in a sad tone that seemed extremely out of character for her, an emotion she hadn't yet shown.

Before Merlin could even think of pressing that issue further, Fae quickly vanished back up the stairs, resuming her post as a bartender.

'Wait, you can't just leave me with that.' Merlin thought to himself as he watched Fae disappear behind a door. 'I definitely felt a story coming...'

Merlin shook his head in disappointment, that was a question for another day.