Having escaped the scary shop lady, I was now on my way to the nearest river. However, my bag get distinctly heavier with my daily reward taking up any extra space I had.
“Hey, Blue,” I said as he settled on my shoulder, “what can I do with these slimes other than sell them?”
“Slimes have a lot of uses,” Blue said thoughtfully. “They’re used as ingredients in spells, or you can cook them!”
“Uh...I’ll pass on that one.”
“They’re also good for strengthening mana items.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but that’s useless since you don’t even have a real weapon!” Blue chortled.
“Well then I’ll have to find myself one,” I rolled my eyes.
“Or I could give you one.”
I whirled around at the unfamiliar voice to see a guy my age with red hair and a casual expression, leaning against a tree. I wondered how long he’d been there.
“How much?” I asked.
“Free for you,” he shrugged.
“...Why?”
“You’re clearly a new, and I like to help out newbies.” Judging by his armor and sheath, he was at least Level 10. I knew there were people who wanted to help lower levels so they could later recruit them to guilds, but I didn’t like the look in his eyes.
“Is that all?” I said carefully. “How...kind of you. But no thanks.”
“Seriously? You know that mana weapons cost way more than melee weapons, right? You won’t get a decent one for less than a thousand gold,” he said, raising his eyebrows in disbelief.
“I don’t want to owe anyone anything,” I said.
“It’s a gift.”
“Do you always give random strangers ‘gifts’?”
“Just the cute ones,” he winked.
Oookay, buddy.
“Well, I’ll be going now,” I said, continuing on my way without sparing another glance.
“This game isn’t that easy, you know,” he called. “You’re not gonna do any decent leveling without a good weapon.”
“I think I can manage,” I said, waving behind me.
***
It took about ten more minutes for me to reach the river. Beside it stood what looked to be a silver portal gate.
“We can mark this location on the map now that we’ve discovered it,” Blue said excitedly. “Once we find another portal gate, we can connect the two.”
“Why wasn’t there one in that town?” I asked.
“There is,” Blue huffed. “If you weren’t so anxious to get here, we would’ve found it.”
“What kind of town doesn’t have a portal gate in the middle?” I sighed.
“One that you have to explore more thoroughly!”
“Okay, okay, I messed up. Let’s drop the subject,” I said as i checked my map and saw that indeed, it had updated, with a small purple swirl on my location, indicating the portal gate beside me.
As convenient as portals were, I kind of liked walking from location to location. However, I couldn’t help but wonder how big this world really was.
“Emilia, look!” Blue cried, pointing towards the water. “It’s a Mustached Glitterfish!”
“A what?” I peered into the water and, sure enough, a 4-foot long fish that seemed to wear a mustache and sparkling scales leaped from the river, hung in mid-air for a few seconds, before dropping like a whale back into the water.
“Do I...fight it, or reel it in and cook it?”
Blue gave me a horrified look of disgust, but I didn’t know which option triggered it.
“You don’t eat Mustached Glitterfish!” Blue stick his tongue out. “Their scales are used for jewelry and mana items, and their mustaches can be used to make twine. It’s super strong!!”
“I see…”
“At your level, defeating just one will also yield 250 XP.”
“Seriously?! Why didn’t you say so?!”
As the Mustached Glitterfish lazily swam back and forth in the water, I attempted to utilize my only-known spell: Earth Wall. Even though it was clearly a defensive spell, if I timed it right, I would be able to bring up a wall beneath the fish and shoot it out of the water. The problem was, the casting time and the water itself slowed down the spell significantly, and the Mustached Glitterfish was able to dodge it easily. Well, I wasn’t sure if it was actually dodging or if it had no idea it was being attacked.
Feeling the urge to curse, I stopped myself and let out a deep breath. Okay Em, no need to act impulsively. Just watch the movements and time it right.
I eyes the fish, flowing back and forth through the clear water. As I began to notice it’s swimming patterns, I shouted, “Earth Wall!”
A wall began to erupt between the rocks in the river, right in front of the fish. Once it shot up, so did the fish, up and out of the water — for a few seconds. And then it fell back in.
I wanted to rip my hair out.
“Hey, you damaged it!” Blue said excitedly.
Sure enough, though the Mustached Glitterfish still swam rather leisurely, as if nothing had happened at all, a red health bar was now visible above its head with a fraction below: 95/100.
“Only 5 damage?!” I groaned. “I thought you said Earth is strong against Water types.”
“It is!” Blue said, appalled that I would ever think he would lie. “But you attacked it in the water, and it’s stronger in water! If it was on land, you could probably three-shot it, even though your only ability is super weak and lame.”
I wondered if all help fairies had such smart mouths or if Blue was just bugged.
I peered into the water, trying to figure out how to go about doing this. Because my Earth Wall skill was still a low level, my cool down for the spell was still five seconds long. I wouldn’t be able to re-cast it quick enough to guide the fish to land. A pointed weapon really would come in handy right about now…
I shook my head. “Guess there’s only one solution.”
With a splash, I entered the water. My feet quickly reached the ground, as the river only came up to my waist. Wiggling my fingers in the air, I looked around for the fish. Luckily, its swimming patterns were not disrupted by the foreign body in its domain.
“Gotcha, you little shit!”
Blue gasped but I couldn’t be happier. The fish struggled in my arms but I hoisted it onto dry land before climbing out of the river myself. By the time I’d steadied myself, the health bar had depleted to 90, ticking down every few seconds. If I waited about five minutes, I was sure it would die on its own, but I didn’t know if the XP would be attributed to me. So I put the little sucker out of its misery with a couple of bare-handed punches.
When the health bar hit zero, the fish froze for moment before fading away, leaving its mustache and a few scales that, from far away, one could mistake for diamonds.
“So…” I said, picking up the dropped items, “I have to carry around this mustache in my bag…?”
“You don’t have to,” Blue said. “But you shouldn’t waste the remains of a living creature! That is so ungrateful. That fish gave its life for your benefit—”
“Okay, okay,” I interrupted, tossing the mustache in my bag. “I’m grateful for its sacrifice.” Even though it was just a bunch of pixels.
Since I’d gotten a head start on my next level yesterday, I was able to hit Level 4 from just one Mustached Glitterfish. Just a few more and I’d be able to make it to Melanie’s level before she logged on. And then maybe twelve or thirteen more, I’d pass Lee’s.
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