After our meal, Maria and I set out for my first adventure. Outside of castle town was a pretty open field. The grass was very wild, and tall enough to go up to my waist. I had tried putting some of the grass in my Gauntlets, but got no reaction. I guess it's too similar to the leaf to count as a different weapon.
"This is the outskirts where the cardboard snakes are, right?"
"Yes that's right! I'm glad you were listening."
Maria clearly had a lot more energy after eating, which I'm glad for. We were about to fight monsters after all.

"How strong are the cardboard snakes?"

"Weak enough even a child could beat one"
Makes sense being a trash mob that gives no exp. It's better we just stay on track to killing a Rabbit. We trekked through the tall fields, which was more tedious than hard, and eventually arrived at a light forest, where surprisingly the grass was very short.

"Alright be careful, the rabbits climb up the trees and hide behind them."
I was pretty curious how she fought, as I didn't see any weapons on her, until she pulled out two yoyos?
"I am the source of this power. Reinforce my weapon and freeze my foes. Erste Ice Enchant."
A cool mist started to flow from her yoyos. I assumed they were freezing cold now, but she doesn't seem bothered by it.
"Hey speaking of teaching me the basics, do you think you can teach me magic?"
"Not at the moment, but it's pretty easy to learn. For simple spells like this, knowing the incantation and having an affinity is good enough. Serious learning is only required for Zweite level spells or higher."
"Zweite?"
"The second level of spells. After Erste."
I was about to make a sound indicating understanding, probably 'ah', but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a blur of white, and managed to raise my Gauntlets just in time to block a rabbit lunging at me. It had curled its body around my Gauntlet, and was currently chewing into it. Maria noticed and threw her yoyo at it, while I tried pushing my arm towards her yoyo. The yoyo managed to strike the rabbit, and some ice formed on its body.
"This is what I thought of after last time. I had a hard time hitting them due to their speed, so I should slow them down. I guess it's a good thing it tried doing to you what it did to me."
The rabbit had fallen to the ground, and it jumped onto the side of a tree. It was still in sight of us, and when it jumped up it was noticeably slower than when it lunged at me.
"Keep its attention," Maria tells me. I walked around the rabbit slowly, careful to make it not react, until we've surrounded it. She waited until the rabbit's focus was on me, before swinging her yoyo. It wrapped around the tree, hitting the rabbit in the face, causing more ice to form on it, then I dashed at it as it was falling to the ground. I managed to grab it before it could touch the ground and slammed it into the tree, before throwing it up towards Maria, who swung her yoyos up around her, and slammed them both down on the rabbit. Now the rabbit was frozen and weakened enough it couldn't move. I jumped at it and finished it off with a stomp. Blood erupted from its body.

+10 exp

"Plus ten? Last time I beat it I only got two exp."

Maria seemed to be confused about something, but I just couldn't take my focus off of the rabbit's corpse. The sight of all the blood around it made me feel sick and weak. It dawned on me I just did to another creature what was done to me.
"Hey!" Maria is now in front of me, blocking my gaze from seeing the rabbit. "Don't let it bother you. It was us or it, alright? You won't be able to make it as an adventurer if you're this sensitive to the sight of blood."

I gulped and tried to suppress the feelings of sickness, guilt, and weakness swirling through my mind. Taking my gaze off the corpse certainly is helping. "If you need, you can sit down by that tree. I need to butcher the corpse anyway."
"Alright. Thank you."
"No problem, and thank you for helping me kill it."

I sat down by a tree, and tried to do some deep breathing. After a little while she started some conversation.
"You fought really well there. What level are you?"
"Well I should be level one." I check my status

Ash Kane | LVL 2
ATK: 11 + 1
DEF: 14
MAG: 8
MDEF: 11 - 1
SPE: 12 + 1

Overall I got some reasonable stat increases.
"No way, you were level one?"
"What level are you?"
"Ah, there's a function in the party system, you can request to see someone's status. It'll let both people see each other's status. Are you alright with that?"
"Yep"
So we both took a look at each other's status.

Maria Alsely | LVL 4
ATK: 10
DEF: 8
MAG: 11
MDEF: 8
SPE: 12

"Your stats are really high for level two!" Maria exclaims. That did seem true. She was two levels above me and our stats were pretty close. If anything my stats were a bit higher. I recall Ben had said something about our legendary weapons making us stronger than we'd normally be. So this is about how strong a normal person in this world is?
"My higher stats are probably due to my gauntlets."

"Oh they have a stat boosting effect?"
"I guess you could say that. They're the legendary gauntlets."
"Wha-!" Maria's face distorts into complete shock. "So you're telling me the person I happened to bump into and am now on an adventure with is the Gauntlet Hero!? No way I don't believe you."
My stomach had settled enough for me to look at the rabbit corpse she was butchering. She had just taken some of the fur off it.

"Could I have some of that fur? I'll pay you two silver for it."
"Oh, uh sure. That's a pretty high price, but if you're willing.."
She gave me the fur, and I closed my hand to manifest the mini-buckler, and with the gem on it, absorbed the rabbit fur.

Rabbit Fur Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Forest speed+
Equip Bonus: +2 MDEF

I then changed my Gauntlets to the rabbit fur gauntlets.
Maria's face currently looks like her soul is leaving her body. I should probably stop here.
"So.. I think I'm feeling better now. Could you please walk me through butchering the rabbit?"
Maria manages to shake off her shock, and by going through what she knows, she returns to normal. As an additional plus, I learned more about butchering!

Throughout the rest of the day until it was about sunset, we kept adventuring through the forest. We killed several rabbits, and even came across a stronger creature, some kind of weird goat. It was like a goat from my world, but it could shoot its horns. Fortunately it couldn't regrow them, so if you just avoid the first two then the fight isn't very hard. By the end of it all, I'd risen to level 6, and Maria was level 7. From absorbing all the materials from the rabbit and goat, I did get two notable weapons.

Rabbit Foot Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Skill: Quick Rush
Equip Bonus: +5 SPE

Goat Horn Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Skill: Air Strike Bash
Equip Bonus: +4 ATK, +4 DEF

Quick Rush was a skill that allowed me to close the distance very quickly, and also empowered my first strike after using the skill. Air Strike Bash was basically a ranged punch. It wasn't like a rocket punch unfortunately. I hope I get a rocket punch skill at some point. After all that time I finally unlocked Plant Appraisal. I tried it on any plants I could find, and found the feature to be quite handy.
Weed: This plant serves no useful purpose
Nightshade: This berry is poisonous
Dandelion: This plant can be used to make coffee

Well its usefulness was limited, but at least it can tell me if a plant is harmful to me. At the moment though I think I'm better off unlocking the skills the Rabbit Foot and Goat Horn gauntlets gave me.

Once it was about sunset, Maria and I headed back to the city.
"Maybe the increased experience was caused by the monster's level going up?"
"That could be it…" That was the theory me and Maria had come up with for why she got so much more experience from the rabbits than the last time she fought one.

"But I'm amazed how much easier fights are with someone else helping! We beat so many monsters today!"

Both me and Maria are carrying the remaining fur and meat from the animals we killed that I didn't absorb.
"Yeah. I don't want to think about how hard it would be if I started on my own."

I really was glad to have walked into Maria. Well… that sounds strange to say, but I mean she taught me quite a bit, and even helped me get my level up. In terms of combat power, she's very flexible. Her output might be lower than mine, but she used quite a bit of different enchantments, matching the element and effects needed to what we were fighting. She even did a healing enchantment. I was pretty confused when she hit me with her yoyo and I felt better. She's certainly a valuable person to have.
"So now that we have some free time, how do I learn Erste level magic?"
"We have to visit a magic store first. They'll tell you your affinities, then you can directly learn incantations for those elements."

A cardboard snake emerged in the grass and… slithered? It was kind of more like crawling though. It crawled towards us, and we killed it with no problem.
+1 exp
"What?" And now we're back to Maria being confused.
"I killed one of these things yesterday and I got no exp. What's going on?"

With our theory of the increased exp being from the monsters being higher level crushed, we went back to town.

We sold and split the profits from all the animal parts, which meant we ended up taking home about 10 silver each. I just took enough of my share to replenish what I'd spent today, and gave the rest to Maria. She was very thankful. We decided to keep our party intact in case we wanted to adventure again the next day. A bit after we split up I realized both me and her forgot about the Armor and Magic stores.

"Hey man so this is where you've been!" While I was wandering around the city trying to decide where to go Ben ambushed me, coming up behind me and putting his arm around the back of my neck. I pushed him off me.

"And where were You all day?" I still haven't forgiven him for just leaving me and Katagi in the market when the king had told him to show us around.
"Well I was mostly keeping an eye on the sword hero, since he seemed to be taking this less in stride, but he was completely fine. He formed a nice relationship with the blacksmith. Turns out he's quite the nerd and I think those two are friends now. Where have you been? I haven't seen you around town at all."
"I ran into someone who was an adventurer, and we went out for the day. I've already gained a few levels and got some weapons that gave me skills."
"Impressive. You still look a bit mad at me, so let me ask you; Do you think me showing you around the city would have prepared you for being an adventurer as well as this did?"
He did have a point. Actually being on an adventure did help me get used to what the hero job may be demanding from me. It would have been bad if I had my first fight and got stunned from killing something, and didn't have anybody else with me to snap me out of it.
"You have a point, but showing me around would at least help me know where all the important shops are."
"Ha ha, true, true. How about I do that now?"
Ben showed me where the magic, armor, and medicine store were. I also bought a map of the world. It appeared Einsbrey was a large kingdom in the middle of the continent. The whole world was like one giant continent, surrounded by a bunch of small country sized islands. I couldn't read most of the names, in fact the only name I could read was Einsbrey via guessing. Ben read the rest of the map to me. Far to the west the edge of the continent was Heralds bay. North, East, South-east, and South-west were all small villages. Sort of like rest stops on your journey around the continent. The one to the south-east was fairly big though, and is a place where a lot of adventurers meet. The one to the north was apparently a criminal hotspot. Most of the continent is very uptight and lawful, but not there. If you want something super valuable, or illegal, the black market there is the place to go. The rest of the villages didn't seem too remarkable. The other countries were Nialosord, Mocoastre, Ciasy, Gauland, and Saintraxe. Ben had never been to any of them, or heard much about them, so I don't know much either. Anyway, I still had two places to visit.

"Alright Ash, just be back at the castle in about half an hour. I'll find Katagi and tell him the same thing."
"Alright, see you then."
Ben showed me where the magic and armor stores are, so I'm going to visit them.

"Ah hello dear." A kind sounding old woman spoke out to me when I entered the magic store. The store itself had a chic feel. It looked a little old and dusty, but considering the style of the store, that just came off as part of its charm. The store looked quite a bit like a library, but there were noticeably wands and staves on display too, as well as a crystal ball on her counter.
"Hello, I'm here for an affinity reading?"
"Of course, please touch the crystal ball on my desk."
I touch it, and afterwards I can vaguely see some movement in the ball. The old lady puts on some glasses and looks closely at it.
"Hmmm, it appears your affinities are for Wind and Support magic."
I don't know about wind, but support magic sounds pretty nice.
"Now don't you need spellbooks for those affinities you have?" Her tone shifts to something with a bit of an edge to it. I sense some intense pressuring incoming.
"You look like a strapping young adventurer, don't you want to learn magic past Erste? Not that these spellbooks won't help with that, they include incantations for Erste level spells as well-"
Her pressuring went on for quite a while, until I'd bought two spellbooks, one for both Wind and Support. I spent way too much time there, and money as well. I managed to talk her down a bit, but I only have 19 silver left over. Even if I went to the armor shop tomorrow I doubt I'd be able to afford anything. Anyway, I should go back to the castle to meet up with Ben. I've definitely spent longer out than he was expecting me to.