Chapter Three: Frog Hunting
"This is the quest that's currently in season." Darkness said as she pulled a bounty from the quest board.
"Hunt five giant frogs?" Ulysses asked as he took the paper from Darkness. "Why is this 'in season' as you say?"
"They're a nuisance right now, to put it simply." Darkness explained. "During this time of year, they tend to wander around human settlements, eating livestock and even the occasional farmer. It's a fairly easy quest with frequent need so many parties are taking it right now."
"Well… they are just giant frogs, so how hard can it be?" Ulysses shrugged.
Darkness stared at Ulysses, blankly, blinking only once.
"...What?" He asked.
"Those are…. Really big frogs…" Ulysses stared, wide eyed, at the two, mammoth-sized frogs inhabiting the open field directly in front of the trio.
Darkness began taking off her armor.
"Um… what are you doing?" Ulysses suddenly turned his attention to her.
"Hm? Oh. I'm…" Darkness paused, seeming to think up some sort of excuse. "Taking off my protection…"
"I can see that… why?"
"The frogs hate metal; If you're fully equipped then they won't bother you… U-um, I'm a Crusader… So… I couldn't protect you two if the frogs don't even bother with me." She reasoned.
"I… I sort of understand… but wouldn't it be better if you're protected?"
"I will offer my armor to Miss Aqua for the duration of this quest." Darkness nodded.
Aqua turned to face the two at the mention of her name.
"You're what? I mean, I'm glad that you can recognize the most important person in this party but… well… for someone as graceful and pretty as myself, this thing will only weigh me down." Aqua gave a conceded smile she talked. "Plus, I think this armor is too big for me to fit in."
"I understand, Miss Aqua." Darkness nodded once more and placed the armor on the ground.
"You're still not going to wear it?" Ulysses asked.
"As I said, I must be a distraction. It is my duty as a Crusader."
"Erm… as you say." Ulysses supposed.
"Alright, I'm prepared." Darkness readied her sword.
Ulysses sighed.
"We should try to get the frogs away from each other. Darkness, will you distract the one on the left? Aqua and I will take the right."
"Understood." Darkness took a second to stretch and then began jogging off.
Ulysses cracked his neck and regulated his breathing, he took two short breaths in through his nose and one long breath out of his mouth to help him focus on the Frog in front of them.
"Alright, Aqua, Let's go!" Ulysses grit his teeth and began sprinting towards the other Frog.
"Huh? W-wait for me!" Aqua said, running to catch up. It was pretty easy to see, however, that she'd never really run with a purpose before this moment.
In only a few seconds, Ulysses was in front of the Frog. The thing hopped towards and whipped its tongue at him which surprised Ulysses. Barely dodging out of the way, he went to slash the tongue but it was already pulled back.
"Geez, Uly… if you're gonna run off… at least wait for your most useful teammate first!" Aqua panted as she finally stopped to catch her breath.
"Most Useful!? When have you ever proven-" Ulysses jumped off to the side, dodging another tongue attack, and landing on his stomach. "-to be anything like that!?"
"Um… I'm a Goddess! Duh!" Aqua finally stood tall and smirked as she watched Ulysses battle the Frog. "Man, you really look like you're struggling, huh?"
Ulysses rolled onto his feet and backed up, out of its tongue range before turning back to respond.
"Then show me what a Goddess can do, why don't you!?" He called out.
"You want me to help, then?" Aqua crossed her arms.
"Yes! Yes, I want you to help!" Ulysses began dashing to the side of the Frog, opposite of Aqua.
"Very well, I'll help you!" She smirked. "But I have terms, y'know? I'll go over them later but, for now, I suppose I can prepare a spell that'll fix your mess."
"Ohoho!" Ulysses scoffed at her remark. "Fix my mess, shall you?"
Aqua began chanting the beginning of her spell when, with a sudden "Nom", she stopped talking.
"Aqua?" Ulysses asked as he side-stepped to get a better view of where she was.
"Aqua!" Ulysses' eyes widened as he noticed her leg sticking out of the Frog's mouth.
It didn't seem to move much while attempting to swallow her; It provided the perfect opportunity for Ulysses to slice open it's stomach with his saber causing the thing to spit Aqua out.
"AHH!" She cried as she fell to the ground.
Ulysses continued to slice the Frog up until he was sure it died.
"Ugh… Ugh… DYAHHH!" Aqua was sobbing on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest.
Sheathing his saber, Ulysses stepped over to the filthy and soaked Goddess. She was covered in whatever slimy goo the Frog's saliva was made of.
"Are you ok-"
"Th-thank… thank you…" Aqua sniffed between her sobs.
"I-it's no problem, really."
"N-no!" Aqua sniffed and stood up, staring at Ulysses with rage on her face and tears down her cheeks. "It is a problem! I. Am. A. Goddess!" Her hand clenched into a fist. "I will not stand idly by and let myself be humiliated by a Frog!"
"Should we… perhaps… return to clean ourselves before we continue?" Ulysses suggested.
"And retreat? Absolutely not!" She began wiping herself off.
Ulysses sighed.
"Whatever you say. We should probably…" He trailed off as he began looking around. ''Hey… where's Darkness?"
In immediate answer to his question, he saw the shoulders and head of that female knight protruding from the top of the other Frog.
Alarmed that he'd have to save yet another girl, Ulysses rushed to the scene.
In the exact same way he killed the last Frog, Ulysses quickly sliced the other one up.
Darkness was spat out of the Frog's mouth, she was curled up in a ball, grabbing her shoulders and shivering. Her face was beat red and she had an expression that was difficult to discern; Something between shock, pleasure or horror. Shock, Ulysses figured.
"It's dead now." He stated.
"Is… is that so?" Darkness looked up at Ulysses and got to her feet. "A shame… I really felt as though I could take more…"
Ulysses raised an eyebrow at her.
"Er, I mean, Take it on!" She gave a fierce look that betrayed her usual cool expression. "I could still fight it."
"I'm sorry to say but, from what I saw, you were most obviously on the losing side." Ulysses was about to sigh when his eye caught something odd… did she just… smile at that statement? No, maybe she's thinking of something else.
"Well, sitting here does nothing for it. Shall we look for more?" She asked.
"Er, what of the, um, slime covering your person?"
Darkness blushed at the question.
"It… it's not an issue." She shifted awkwardly. "Hurry! These frogs will not slay themselves."
"Right…" Ulysses shook his head and returned to Aqua who had just finished cleaning herself off. Surprisingly, there was no slime on her. "You clean quickly."
"Grr! I'd better! I'm gonna kill these stupid toads!" Aqua growled as she scanned the surrounding area before she spotted another Frog from not too far off; She was about to run at it when Ulysses grabbed her arm.
"Aqua, what exactly are you planning to do?"
"I have a special skill, one only a God can perform, where I can channel all of my righteous fury into a single punch… let me do it!" She screamed as she tried pulling herself from Ulysses' grip.
"Very well, just… don't die, please?"
Ulysses let go of her arm and she was sprinting the next second.
"Die, you good-for-nothing Frog!" She yelled out. "God Blow!"
Aqua used the momentum from her charge to land a punch into the Frog's stomach but it just seemed to wiggle and absorb the impact. Her fist sunk into its belly and she nervously raised her eyes to see the Frog's face.
"Looking closely, frogs are actually quite cute, right?" She let out an anxious chuckle.
Ulysses stood over the Frog's corpse once more while Aqua was still sobbing in the fetal position.
He let out a brief sigh before walking over to Aqua.
"Aqua, yo-" He was cut off when she suddenly jumped on him, still in a mode of semi-panic, hugging him at the waist. "Are you alright?" He finished.
Between her shivered cries, she just quickly shook her head; The slime from the last Frog made its way onto Ulysses' coat.
"We should return to town and rest for a minute." Ulysses pet the top of Aqua's head. "Does that sound good?"
She nodded in response, not looking up at him.
"I'd say that was quite a successful trip." Darkness reasoned as she returned to Ulysses and Aqua's table at the Tavern. "After deducting the travel and recovery fee, selling each Frog earned us about 15,000 Eris."
Normally, a number that big would excite Ulysses but he'd since learned that the prices in this world were inflated compared to his last.
"Alright, so that's 5,000 each after splitting it three ways?" Ulysses asked.
Aqua took a bite of the fried Frog meat that was set out on the table.
"Hm? Oh, no. I'll only need 3,000 Eris." Darkness reasoned. "Assuming you'll take me along on another quest."
Ulysses mulled it over for a moment. She hadn't exactly done anything during the last outing, but Ulysses, also, didn't use hardly any strategy. Perhaps, if he utilized Darkness a bit better, her potential will begin to show.
"Very well, but let's finish this quest before speaking of another." Ulysses nodded.
"Whe shdill kneed ta phoind A pwac-"
"Aqua, please swallow your food." Ulysses interrupted.
She gulped and then continued.
"We still need to find a place to stay tonight! You won't make a goddess sleep in the stables, now would you?" She asked.
"I will if it's cheap enough." Ulysses deadpanned. "How much is it to stay in the Tavern for a night?" He turned to Darkness.
"About 8,000 Eris a night." She shrugged.
"8,000? Goodness, why is everything so expensive?" Ulysses dropped his head into his palm. "The food alone was 1,000 Eris!"
"What are you complaining about?" Aqua asked as she took another bite. "Dese our shdanderd prishesh."
"It's…" Ulysses sighed. "Nevermind. How much does it cost to sleep in the stables?"
"Nothing. As long as the stall isn't being used." Darkness answered. "It's a good start for novice adventurers."
"Then we'll have to start with that, unfortunately." Ulysses stopped and turned to Aqua who was humming and smiling down at her card, swinging her legs back and forth under the table. "What are you… so happy about?"
She gulped then flashed a smile at Ulysses.
"I'm earning new skills, right now! We haven't really spent the starting skill points we got when we initially signed up!"
"Skill points?" Ulysses asked.
"You don't know about skill points?" Darkness interjected, to which Ulysses just shook his head. "You're quite the uninformed sort, eh? Skill points are something you earn when you choose a job and when you level up; it's used to learn skills. The more potential a person has, the more skill points they start out with. You can learn all sorts of skills by investing skill points in them."
"Right! Just like how I, in all of my divine magnificence, has already learned all the Arch-priest spells and even a few party tricks!" Aqua smiled as she bounced her head from left to right. "Ooh, Nature's Beauty?" she tapped her card with glee.
After Darkness explained, she showed Ulysses where to find said skills on his card. He noticed that his card's level had risen to 3 and he had roughly 5 skill points.
Under the 'learnable' column of the skills section, there were a number of basic skills available for the 'Fighter' job.
"This one looks decent. 'Sentinel' it's called." Ulysses said as he selected it.
"That's only worth 1 Skill point for you. You still have 4 more." Darkness pointed at the skill point cost of each skill.
"Ah, I see." Ulysses nodded as he selected three more skills.
'Power Attack', 'Weapon Finesse' and 'Two-Weapon Fighting' with the last one costing two skill points.
"Hopefully these will help me in the future." Ulysses sighed.
"They will!" Darkness exclaimed. "As a Crusader, all of my skills aid me in being more resilient to damage and… and drawing more attention to myself." She blushed. "So, the skills can really give you an edge…"
"I… see…" Ulysses raised an eyebrow at her before looking back at his card. "Wait, did you say you learned all of the Archpriest spells?" He asked Aqua.
Aqua looked up from her card, giving Ulysses a carefree smile before nodding and looking back down at it.
"When you first gain your job, the starting skill points you receive are dependent on your potential." Darkness assured Ulysses.
"So, Aqua has so much potential that she can afford all of the Arch-priest spells?" Ulysses asked.
"Well, I've never heard of someone with that much potential before!" Darkness chuckled. "Perhaps Miss Aqua is just exaggerating."
The two looked at Aqua, waiting for her to respond but she just seemed to ignore them, taking another bite of her food without breaking eye contact with her card.
"Hm… well, it is getting late. Perhaps Aqua and I should find our place to sleep." Ulysses turned back to Darkness.
"Perhaps." She nodded. "I will… see you tomorrow, then?"
"I look forward to it, Miss Darkness." Ulysses stood up and turned to Aqua. "Are you ready?"
"Hm? Oh… Ugh, fine." Aqua grabbed the bottle of Ale she ordered and quickly stuffed the rest of the food in her mouth. "Awwite, oi'm weddy." She stood to follow while still chewing.
"These conditions are…" Aqua sneered at the Stables. "Absolutely atrocious! You don't expect a goddess to sleep here, do you?"
"Miss Aqua, I'm an officer and a noble of the Austrian Empire and, yet, I've been forced to sleep in conditions I thought to be unsuitable." Ulysses let out a short, exasperated breath. "I'm sure you'll survive."
Aqua groaned at his casual remark.
They stepped inside an empty stall and began making their bedding from the hay.
After a few moments, Aqua let out a quick, frustrated grunt.
"What?" Ulysses lifted his head up to look at the ceiling, trying to find the strength to put up with this girl. "What are you so frustrated about?"
"I don't have sleepwear." Aqua pursed her lips.
"Then, let's finish this quest and buy some tomorrow." Ulysses took off his Coat and handed it to Aqua. "Use this as a blanket for now."
Aqua sneered at him but stopped when she realized that he, too, did not have anything to sleep with.
"What about you?" She asked.
"As I've said, I've slept in similar conditions before."
She hesitated before nodding and accepting the coat.
"Well…" She quickly went back to her haughty tone of voice. "Your sacrifice to the Goddess of Water has been noted. You may re-"
"SHUT UP, ALREADY!" A voice came from a nearby stall. "You two aren't the only people here!"
Aqua and Ulysses jumped at the sudden outburst.
"A-apologies, Sir!" Ulysses quickly responded. He turned to Aqua and lowered his voice. "We can talk in the morning."
Aqua nodded and quickly set up Ulysses' coat over the hay.
Ulysses laid down his own nest of hay before sighing to himself and sitting atop it.
What a day, he thought…
Author's Note:
To Gunboat Diplomat: Thanks! Comments like these are what drives me to keep going.