The Adventures of Rose Hood

The gods entered the guild and reluctantly joined as adventurers.

“Alright, normally based on power, you’d start as C, but for now, you are not allowed to use any powers. That includes regeneration. Each of you need to make it to A rank using pure skill, no magic.”

A lot of them were confused by the dwarf who was giving them orders.

“Who are you to command us?”

“I’m the guildmaster, lad. I don’t care if ye are a god or a child, if ya join my guild, ya follow my orders. Jalad agreed to train you, but you still need a marker of where ya are. In fact, each of you will have to party with other beginners.”

Nala smiled.

“I’m interested in this, frankly. It will be fun to increase my skill.”

The smithing god, Duhnheim glowered. Dwarves were usually entirely subservient to him, but this one was ordering him around with no fear.

“And if any of you have a problem with this configuration, take it up with Dallel.”

Duhnheim smiled, he must have realized that he could possibly gain the crown if he defeated Dallel.

“Alright, I have an issue with it.”

Dallel looked.

“Yes?”

“THIS!!!”

He tried to kick Dallel, but Dallel smashed him into the ground.

“So, any more complaints? We also made devices that will assure you don’t use magic.”

The gods obediently put on the bands, then everyone was grouped up.

As I knew how to speak as an adventurer, I took control. Kala focused on both the disguise and hiding the aura.

That turned out to be the correct decision as not only was I in one of the parties, but Amy was also in this party.

Celios and Ausar were also placed in the party.

“As the strongest, I’ll be the leader.”

Then Amy snickered.

“Strongest? Every time I’ve seen you fight, you were folded, and now you can’t even use magic to fight. Not to mention the strength limiter. At this point, I’m pretty sure we are about equal, because at least I can shoot a bow.”

Ausar blushed.

“Sh-shut up.”

Celios laughed.

“Anyways, we all know who each other are, but who are you?”

I curtsied.

“My name is Amanda; I am a minor merchant who wants to become an adventurer.”

“Hm. I had a friend named Amanda.”

“That’s cool, then we may become friends.”

“Maybe.”

After introducing ourselves, we ate a meal and headed out for our first quest.

_

“So, killing goblins is our first quest.”

“I can easily do it. Watch me.”

We watched Ausar confidently strut into the camp.

We watched him panickily run out of the camp screaming as a horde chased him.

I turned to the other two in my party.

“Think we get extra credit if we kill the whole tribe?”

“Probably.”

Amy shot and killed the leader. This made the goblins go wild.

“Uh oh.”

They charged us and Celios and I used our basic blade skills to fight the goblins.

“AUSAR, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER AND HELP!!!”

“Ah hah, you need me.”

He gave his ‘praise me’ pose and got stabbed in the gut by a goblin. Causing him to scream again.

I turned to Celios.

“Think we can trade him in?”

“I hope so.”

“Focus idiots!!!”

“YOU’RE ONE TO TALK!!!”

_

“Good job, you successfully killed the entire goblin tribe, moving beyond your mission in order to save a comrade.”

I smiled.

“Wonderful, quick question though.”

Dallel looked at me.

“What is it?”

“Can we have a different god? All Ausar was good for there was bait.”

“Hey!!!”

Celios and Amy nodded.

Dallel snickered.

“We need him with someone and each other group is full, so sorry but no.”

We sighed but conceded.

“There is a tournament coming up in a month, I want all of the parties to join to see not only who the best is, but also to check the gods’ progress.”

“Alright, so we have one month to whip him into shape.”

Dallel laughed again,

“I suppose you could see it like that, anyways, there’s another quest for you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an escort.”

We got up and headed to deal with the escort quest.

“I can’t believe I’m subjugated to this dismal work.”

“Then get your act together and rank up.”

“… For a merchant, you are quite bold.”

“Please, I never feared the gods, so having you in a weakened state scares me even less.”

Celios smiled.

“I like this one.”

Amy also smiled.

“You and me both.”

Ausar sighed.

“I hate the lot of you.”

_

We got through the escort quest with no issue and got promoted to G rank.

This gave us quests like hunting bigger beasts.

“A bear? Please I’ll just order it to die.”

“Can’t, your magic is restrained.”

Ausar grimaced.

“Hey, but worst comes to worst, we could use you as bait.”

“**** you.”

“How rude, I thought we were becoming friends.”

Ausar grimaced and we set out to hunt the bear.

Since I thought it was an awesome training method, I had one of the devices strapped to my upper thigh, where no one could see it. The only difference was that I could remove mine.

So, I was also limited to my skill. My swordsmanship alone would put me at C rank, but I needed to become an A rank.

“Alright, there it is.”

“Why are we sneaking? We can beat it.”

“Because I’d rather not have Ausar beaten up, so we are going to take it by surprise.”

Ausar took offence, but went along with the plan, so we managed to kill it before it noticed.

We submitted our third quest on the first day, making other groups realize that they needed to speed up.

“All right, I think we can take the rest of the day off.”

Ausar decided, but I had a better idea.

“Then let’s train with swords, being an archer or bait is fine, but if you can’t properly hold a sword, then you can’t win any fight that gets close.”

“I’m not bait!!!”

“Anyways, let’s go to the woods to do sword training.”

Amy and Celios agreed and dragged Ausar with them.

I gave them all practice swords and ran them through basic drills. I also worked with them, and saw that without draconic strength, they were a lot harder. I still managed to do them, then we ran a 10k run. After that we had a practice duel.

“All right, I am the best swordsmen here, so you all try to take me down.”

Celios tried to leap at me, but he forgot that he didn’t have as much strength as he used to, so he tripped. Ausar ran at me with so many openings that I could have beaten him with a twig, and Amy panicked and threw her blade which I easily deflected.

I sighed.

“We have a lot of work to do in one month.”

“I suppose.”

“Alright back up, 100 more reps slashing your blade.”

Everyone groaned, but they obediently picked up their blades.

“Let’s go. 1… 2… 3… 4…”