It was finally Sunday. Glorious, glorious Sunday. The day he could go work, put his skills to action, and get paid. There was major emphasis on the "getting paid" part, of course.
The last few days were like blurs to Link. Sad, pitiful, uneventful blurs. Sure, he'd talk with his "roommates" (it was a joke among the homeless people to refer to each other as roommates) and, occasionally, and he'd chat with Mila whenever he saw her, but it was not enough to pull him out of his starvation-induced stupor. What he needed was food. And today was the day he could get what he needed.
The sun was pretty high in the sky, but the heat of the day had yet to arrive. After being on this new island for five days now, Link realized how unbearably hot Windfall was. The overall temperature was similar to his home island, but this island lacked the cool sea breeze that the Outset Island received. Therefore, the temperature was much less bearable.
Link entered the potion shop and was greeted with the sour smell of a potion brewing. Doc noticed him amidst the smoke and called out to him. Link had no idea how the man could even recognize him; the smoke was so musty, all he himself could see in the smoke was the faint shadow of the man. "Oh, it's you. I was doubting you'd show up."
"Of course I'd show up. I really need this job, sir."
"Excellent. Your timing is impeccable; I was just packing up to head out myself. Do you still have that wooden sword I gave you?"
"Yes."
"Great! Yes! Wonderful! You are a very cooperative lad, aren't you? Let me just put some things together and then we'll head out!" Doc's figure faded to a silhouette then disappeared altogether in the smoke. Link heard a few crashes and clatters from the back of the room before Doc re-emerged, carrying a small and brown leather bag across his shoulder. "Let's go!" he said excitably as he started to push Link to the door.
He led Link to a small, shoddy rowboat docked underneath the cliff of the island. Link was surely confused. "We're taking this… thing over the ocean?" he questioned.
"I've taken this thing many times and it has never failed me."
Link wanted to have faith in that statement, but he didn't. After his brush with death for trying to cross the ocean in a small boat, he felt squeamish about trying it again. Still, he had to do what he had to do, so he mustered up his courage and got into the boat.
Doc began to paddle away, and he pointed to a small island nearby. "That's our destination. You don't have to worry. We aren't going far." Link felt better, and secretly wished Doc would have mentioned that to him before they left.
After a few minutes of somewhat-awkward silence, Doc spoke up. "So, uh, Link, is it? I just realized that we hardly know each other. So how about we play a little game? Every week when we come up here, we'll each ask each other one question about the other person."
"That sounds... interesting," Link offered. He didn't really like games, but he wasn't about to tell Doc that.
"Okay. I'll go first. Where are you from?"
"The Outset Island."
Doc frowned. "Never heard of it."
"How come you haven't heard of it?"
"I have my degree in Chemistry, not geography! I only know the northern region of Hyrule, where I was born and raised. Anything else is just water to me."
"Well, it's in the south, for starters. And as for my question... well-"
"You already asked your question. 'How come you haven't heard of it?' You asked me that and I answered. So that was your question."
"That's not fair!" exclaimed Link. This was exactly why he hated games.
Doc laughed. "Come on now, it's all in good fun." He laughed again and cleared his throat. "I like to have a little fun before things get serious. And sadly, things are about to get serious. Did I mention to you that we will be harvesting Chu chus, which can be deadly?"
"You said they are only deadly if they attack you in large groups."
"Yes, well, they will be attacking us in large groups. We're going straight to the main breeding ground of the Chu chus, Paw print Isle."
Link fought the urge to jump overboard. "What! You could have mentioned that before I agreed to this!"
Doc sighed. "Please, there is no need to worry. Chu chus a very slow and predictable, which makes them easy to defeat. I've been coming here once a week for the past ten years and I've never sustained any serious injuries."
"That makes me feel a lot better," said Link with well-covered sarcasm.
The Doctor was blind to it. "Great, because we'll be there in about five minutes." Great, indeed, thought Link. "There is no turning back now."
The island was nothing like Link expected. He pictured a small island drenched with foliage and crawling with wildlife. He expected to hear the cries and howls of creatures emulating from the island's core. Instead, he got a grassy field with two lone trees, a few flowers, and a concrete dome with glass windows right in the middle of it all.
"This is a breeding ground?" asked Link. "I don't see any, uh, breeding."
"No. It's underground. We have to go into the research lab I built to access it."
"You mean that dome?"
"Yes." Doc led Link to the entrance. "We have to crawl in. Long ago, I closed off this breeding ground so that the Chu population would decrease. It did, but only by a little. The chus that were not trapped here found new breeding grounds. But the number I did trap kept on reproducing, so there are many, many chus here." He beamed as if this was a major, world-changing accomplishment. "Oh, and be careful when you crawl in. Sometimes there'll be a chu or two trying to escape."
Link crawled into the lab, expecting to find another smoky potion-brewing joint. Instead, the place was completely empty except for a hole in the ground. When Doc crawled in, he laughed upon looking at Link's bewildered face. "I see you are confused. Don't worry; you'll get used to this soon." He walked up and stood on the edge of the hole. "Get your sword ready. These guys love to ambush people." Doc pulled his own blade out; it was a wooden sword with metal reinforcements on the edges. "Chu chus are very easy to defeat. One clean horizontal strike is the easiest way to kill them, in my opinion. When you kill a Chu, its body will disintegrate into the ground save for one piece. This one piece is called 'chu jelly', and it is the vital ingredient in my potions. I need you to pick this up and put it into this bag."
Doc took the brown bag off of his shoulder, took out two smaller purple bags from it, and threw it against the wall of the 'lab'. He handed his employee one of the smaller bags. "Put the jelly in here." Link nodded and slung the bag across his back.
Doc jumped into the hole. "Follow me," he called from underground, his voice louder than normal due to the reverberating echo. Link ignored the fast pace of his heartbeat and jumped into the hole after Doc.
His eyes had not adjusted to the underground setting, so he could not see anything, but he felt as if something was guiding him downwards as he free fell into the underground world. His falling – and landing, for that matter – was more graceful than he foresaw. When his feet touched the ground, he noticed the room got a bit brighter. He glanced around and that candles had been placed along the edges of the room. He figured Doc must have placed them there. His only question was as to how they remained lit.
Doc whistled and motioned for Link to follow, so he did. "This breeding ground is a series of tunnels and clearings. The central clearing is the largest one, so most of the chus are there. I want you to stay there and eliminate the chus in that region. I will kill the ones in the smaller clearings and in the tunnels. There are two types of chus here, but for your sake I will not explain the differences in detail. All you need to know is that one type is red and the other is green. The green ones are a little harder to kill, but you should be able to handle them." Doc patted Link on the shoulder firmly. "Okay, take this tunnel straight; do not make any turns. It will lead you to the clearing. Good luck." Doc walked ahead and turned into one of the side tunnels.
Now alone, Link held his sword with a death grip and made his way through the main tunnel. He didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary, but he had a feeling like something was watching him.
He made it to the clearing, which was lit brightly with many candles. There was tall grass everywhere and a few trees growing despite the lack of natural sunlight. Link wanted to relax because there were no chus in sight, but the feeling – that sick, sick feeling like there was something watching him – was increasing. He took a brave step forward.
The grass a few feet away from him began to rustle. Link held his sword in front of him and locked his eyes on the grass. He heard a high pitched murmur just as a red, rubbery creature sprung from the grass. It had bright, yellow eyes with purple irises that stared at Link cross-eyed. The creature swayed its blubbery body from side to side as it crawled towards Link.
Link thought the Chu was about as intimidating as a blade of grass. The hideous creature looked like a bright-eyed, neon squid forced to wear a dumb, cross-eyes expression that screamed "I have no brain" while it humorously crawled on land like a baby learning to walk. Link couldn't imagine something this stupid looking hurting anyone. He ran towards the mini-monster and swung his sword in a smooth manner. The creature split into two and fell to the ground. When it hit the earth floor, its flesh began to bubble and let off a black smoke. Link wrinkled nose at the nasty chemical-like smell the creature was releasing. The bubbling increased as the smoke faded, and the red creature began to melt into the earth. All that was left as a sweet-smelling red blob; Link assumed this was the jelly and scooped it up and placed it into his bag. Mission accomplished, he thought.
As he placed the grimy substance into his bag, Link felt a dull stinging pain on his foot. He whipped his head around and almost screamed in terror when he saw a green blob staring up at him with its goofy cross-eyed face, and the bottom of its body attached to his foot. He quickly took his sword and rammed it into the body of the Chu. He let out a small cry as the edge of his wooden sword rubbed against his leg and cut him slightly, as if it were punishment for his thoughtless, impulsive action. He pried the creature off of him and watched it disintegrate into the dirt. This time he was more alert and was able to defeat the other two green chus that tried to sneak up on him.
The boy quickly realized that the green chus had the gift of stealth, something the red chus did not have; the green chus loved to sneak up on enemies while the red ones attacked up-front. After Link killed quite a few of the chus, the room grew quiet. The feeling of being watched was beginning to fade away, so Link began to pick up the jelly droppings he had neglected.
That was his mistake. As he lifted the last jelly drop into his bag, the vision in his right eye turned red. His eye shut automatically as he felt the dull stinging pain of his blood being sucked once again. He then felt the same pain on his leg that he had cut. With a cry he tore the red creature off of his face (which hurt greatly) and smashed that Chu into the green one on his leg. He then stabbed both of them with his sword, impaling them into the blade. He had no time to remove them as a third, fourth, and fifth chu decided to all attack in that moment. With a few timely footsteps, Link easily defeated the chus and was left with a Chu shish-kebab instead of a sword. He threw his weapon on the ground and watched at the bodies smoked and dissolved into the earth, leaving the jelly on his sword. In one smooth move Link lifted his arm and scraped all of the jelly into his bag.
He suffered no more mass ambushes after that one. The occasional Chu would approach and try to attack him, but it would never succeed. Link remained in the clearing, cutting down each chu that attacked, until Doc came to fetch him.
"Ready to go?" Doc asked, his own bag bursting to capacity with the jelly.
"I haven't killed them all yet," Link answered.
"If you kill them all, they won't reproduce. I need the population to regenerate so that I will have more jelly. So, how many did you kill?"
"Probably around twenty."
"Excellent. They'll be replenished by next week. You should see how fast these creatures reproduce; it's scary."
"I don't plan on staying and watching."
"Neither do I. Let's go."
Link followed Doc to the exit. He noticed, curiously, that a beam of light was shining from the hole. When he stepped into it, the same force that gently brought him down, carried him up. Link sighed a sweet breath of relief when his feet touched the sweet earthen floor of the "laboratory". He and Doc placed their jelly-filled bags within the larger bag and stepped into the boat, ready to return home.
"So, how was it? I can tell some of them got you. You have red blotches on your face and leg. A chu expert such as myself can tell those splotches are the mark of chu tentacles."
"It was alright. The ones that got me didn't have me for long. If they sucked my blood, they were only able to get a small taste."
Doc smiled. "That's the spirit! You did very well for your first time. Of course, the way Zunari talked about you, I shouldn't have expected anything less."
This was news to Link. "What.. he talked about me? What did he say?"
"He told me he has taken on many students in his lifetime, and none of them caught on as quickly as you. He said you were a natural, like you were fated to learn swordsmanship or something."
Link scratched at his head. He sure didn't feel like a "natural". He still felt awkward and clumsy wielding his sword, especially against the Chu chus. "If he says so," he responded meekly.
"You should have more faith in yourself," said Doc while he rowed the small boat. Suddenly, Link felt a cold sensation on his left foot and realized the boat was taking in water. They were sinking. Link was about to go into a full-fledged panic when Doc grabbed his shoulder. "Don't worry, this has happened before. We'll make it back. I always do." Link ignored him and tried to scoop the water out of the boat frantically. One near-death boating accident was enough for one week, much less a lifetime. He didn't need another. "Kid, that won't help. The pressure we exert on the boat is still the same, so water will keep coming in to try and to neutralize the changes made in the boat's buoyancy by the hole."
Link stopped. "What was that?"
"Oh, sorry. I really need to stop my science babble. Anyway, Link, why don't you take a nap; or, make yourself useful and help me paddle."
"With what?" Link asked, looking around for an oar or paddle or something.
"Take a nap then," Doc commanded, slightly annoyed with the circumstances.
The pair arrived back at Windfall minutes later. As it turned out, Link's worrying was unneeded because the boat was barely quarter of the way full with water. Doc handed Link some tools and instructed him to patch up the hole. Link didn't want to do it, but Doc promised to throw in an extra twenty rupees to his pay. That was offer he couldn't refuse.
Now, if only he knew how to patch a hole. Lucky for him, the hole was about the size of Outset Island sand crab (which was a very, very small crab), so it could be fixed easily. Link pulled a scrap of wood out from the tool skit and, using two nails, hammered it on the inside of the boat. He nailed another piece on the outside of the hole using two more nails. It was an awfully shabby job, with the two pieces of wood not matching the color of the boat, but it got the job done. He packed up the tools and returned to the potion lab.
All of the day's turmoil faded into nothingness once those two rupees – those glorious orange and red rupees – were placed into his needy hands. He was now one hundred and twenty rupees richer. He stuffed the money into his wallet and began to mentally divide the money on his way "home".
He decided to use the red rupee for food and the orange one for repairs. He had no idea how he was going to make that work, because he could barely make thirty rupees for food work for five days. How was he going to use twenty rupees over a span of seven days?
"Woah, someone had a busy day," said a haughty voice behind him. By now he could tell that that voice belonged to Mila. "You look like you're deep in thought. What's up?"
"You're not working?"
"My shift just ended." Link raised an eyebrow skeptically. "What? I'm telling the truth." Link nodded. "Anyway, what happened to you? You have reddish-purple dots all over your face."
"I got a job, and it is not the most pleasant one. But it pays nicely."
"Okay, so I don't have to expect to see you passed out on the streets at night again?"
"No, but you might find me passed out of blood loss, or from drowning." Mila looked genuinely concerned. Link chuckled a bit. "Kidding."
"What exactly is this new job of yours?"
"I kill monsters to give to Doctor Bandam for his potions."
Mila nodded approvingly. "Sounds awesome. Don't die, okay?"
Link laughed. "Sure thing."
For good measure, he took out his notebook and wrote that on his to-do list.
