Ch 19: I Used to Be an Adventurer Like You
"Well... I'll give you a point on the coolness scale for taking down a giant bear with nothing more than a megaphone and your bare fists. Of course, I'll have to deduct two points for all the terrified shrieking you did while fighting it."
Uzume just groaned at Sync's comment and pun as she continued to stagger down the forest path the group was traveling on.
For lack of a better description, the CPU looked exactly like what one would expect from someone who had just been mauled by a very large bear. Surprisingly, her clothes were still mostly intact though there were numerous scratches, tears, bite-marks, and various other tooth-and-claw related injuries covering the rest of her. None of them were too serious but combined with her disheveled hair, she currently looked like some sort of rugged mountain barbarian. The fact that she was wearing the gigantic pelt of her former opponent like a makeshift cloak only served to reinforce that image.
"You two could've helped out instead of just watching you know," Uzume grumbled.
"You had it under control," Big Nep said, a cheerful smile on her face. "Besides, didn't you say you've always wanted to try wrestling a bear one-on-one before?"
Uzume just gave another disgruntled groan to this as she adjusted her bear-skin cloak.
The group walked on in silence for a while before Big Nep suddenly gave a cry of surprise.
"Ah! I forgot to pack extra pudding for this adventure!"
Uzume simply sweat-dropped at the false alarm while Sync gave a laugh.
"We can always just use our Synchronized Formation Skill, Ms. Neptune," Sync reminded. "Although, I can't guarantee it'll work with the amount of shares I currently have."
Big Nep shook her head to this. "Don't strain yourself. You're still recovering, remember? Plus, I have a few cups of emergency pudding that I can use to survive for the time being."
"Synchronized Formation Skill?" Uzume asked, a confused expression on her face. "What's that all about?"
"Oh, that's right," Big Nep said, snapping her fingers as if just remembering something. "We forgot to tell you about what happened with the fan riot while you were gone."
The next several minutes went by as Big Nep summarized the major events that took place in Lastation with Sync correcting her whenever she began to over-exaggerate some of the parts.
"...and then my teddy bear heroically sacrificed himself to restore peace and order to the war-torn wasteland that Lastation had become."
"I used my Philosopher's Stone to fix up all the collateral damage and passed out from the strain," Sync translated before finishing off the retelling himself. "Apparently, sis carried me back home after that. I was out for nearly two days before I was well enough to call up Ms. Neptune and follow after you to take part in your epic dragon-slaying quest. And now, here we are."
It probably said a lot about just how much weirdness Uzume had been exposed to during her lifetime as she did not look the slightest bit surprised or confused by everything she had just heard. Instead, she simply took in all of this with a nod of understanding.
"Sounds like I missed one heck of a party," she said with a wide grin. "But man, that Synchronization ability of yours sounds pretty neat. Say, you think you can try using it with me right now?"
Sync gave a teasing smile at that. "Sorry but it only works with cool people. And you're currently only at a six point eight on the coolness scale after that bear fight."
"What?! Oh, come on! I'm definitely just as cool as Big Nepsy and the twins!" Uzume practically whined.
Sync and Big Nep shared a laugh at her reaction before they both comforted the crestfallen CPU with a pat on the back.
"I'm just messing with you," Sync said. "The real reason I can't Synchronize with you is because we need at least a Lily Rank of five for it to work. Plus, I don't think I can even use that ability in this dimension anyways. This place is rather far away from the Hyperdimension and I'm only getting enough shares to use my basic abilities like my spatial powers."
"So you too huh?" Uzume mumbled, remembering her inability to transform in this world.
After taking a moment to fully recover from not being called cool, the red-haired CPU asked the question that had been bugging her for a while.
"By the way, Big Nepsy. How did you manage to follow me here? I mean, even I don't know where we are right now since I kinda just flew through a random portal and ended up here."
"Oh, that's simple!" Big Nep answered. "You have the same energy signature as the old console you used to be trapped in so I just had Crostie bring up our old search settings for it and used that to find you!"
'Stop making me sound like some kind of crappy GPS!' Croire complained, completely forgetting about her own declaration of ignoring them. 'I'm an all-knowing tome that deserves to be treated with proper respect!'
Big Nep just laughed at this much to her captive's irritation. Before Croire could go on an expletive-filled rant though, the village the group had been traveling towards finally came into view.
"About time!" Uzume said, immediately perking up at the sight of their goal. "Now we can finally get this quest started for real!"
Without wasting a second, the CPU eagerly ran ahead while her two followers leisurely trailed behind her.
"Man, talk about old-fashioned," Uzume commented as she entered the village proper. Even compared to her own era, the place looked positively medieval with its wooden buildings, outdoor blacksmith workshop, a lumber mill powered by a water wheel, and various farm animals running about in the open. While she had been too busy worrying for her life in the last village to really take note of it, she now had the chance to fully take in and admire the picturesque rural setting that this dimension had to offer.
"Uzume! Don't go too far ahead!" Big Nep called out as she and Sync neared the village entrance.
"Don't worry Big Nepsy! I won't-"
Not looking where she was going, Uzume accidentally ended up kicking one of the chickens that had strayed onto the main road.
'Bah-kawww!'
The loud squawk was all the warning the CPU had before the chicken... exploded. With a force comparable to a particularly irate Bomb-Omb detonating itself, the massive fiery blast immediately sent Uzume sailing straight into the sky like a rocket.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
After nearly a full minute of air time, the poor CPU finally ended up landing face-first into a bush right next to her gaping teammates.
"Did that... chicken just explode?" Big Nep eventually asked, turning to glance at the large patch of scorched earth that the poultry had left behind in the village center.
"Um... yeah," Sync confirmed, looking just as weirded out by this as his mentor. "I'm pretty sure it just did."
Turning back to Uzume, they found that only her legs were currently visible as the rest of her remained unmoving inside the bush. Deciding to help out their unofficial party leader before trying to make sense of the situation, Big Nep and Sync each grabbed onto one of her still-smoking appendages before yanking her out of the foliage.
"Buh... Wha... What in the world... was that?" Uzume asked in a daze, her share energy apparently having protected her from the worst of the blast.
'You just ran into one of the reasons why I hate this stupid ass place,' Croire said irritably. 'If it isn't the exploding chickens that kill you, it's the blood-thirsty psychotic villagers who try to murder you afterwards for 'harming' one of their precious farm animals.'
"Wait. What do you mean blood-thirsty psychotic villagers?" Sync asked.
His question was soon answered when a massive crowd of people suddenly gathered together near the scorched remains of where the chicken had been and glared daggers at them.
"Hey! That was a valuable animal!" one of the generic villagers shouted.
"The penalty for chicken murder is death!" the town blacksmith - who happened to be a look-alike of Tamsoft - yelled, pulling out a gigantic warhammer as the crowd around her pulled out their own various weapons as well.
"Blood for the Chicken Gods!" a clone of Arfoire shouted, brandishing a large eggplant with bloodlust gleaming in her eyes.
Uzume and her group slowly started backing away as the massive mob began to approach them.
"So... any ideas on what we should do?" Sync asked nervously.
Uzume gave a loud gulp as even the village dog joined in on the mad crowd with a flaming torch in its mouth.
"Run," she eventually managed to squeak out.
Big Nep gave a quick nod. "Yeah. Running sounds like a good plan."
With that, the brave heroes turned tail and fled for the hills as the murderous villagers stormed after them.
"I think... we lost them..." Uzume panted out, still looking around fearfully as if expecting to see one of the villagers pop out of the ground or something.
Sync just gave a tired groan as he lay sprawled out on the ground.
"In hindsight... I really should have... just teleported us away."
Big Nep managed to let out a weak laugh in between gasping for air. "Heh... heh... those villagers... would have... gotten you... before you could have... prepared your jump."
The three of them turned silent after that as they all tried to recover their breath. As for Croire, she seemed to have gone back to ignoring the group. Not that anyone was really complaining about that.
After a few minutes, Uzume spoke up again as she straightened out her thick cloak.
"Man, I feel kinda sorry for those bandits outside. If they hadn't distracted those crazy chicken cultists, we never would've been able to slip into this weird cave area."
Sync gave a shrug as he picked himself up. "Eh, they're bandits. They're kinda there to serve as combat fodder anyways." He paused to properly take in the intricate stone cavern they were resting in. "And I think this is actually some sort of ancient tomb. I doubt those bandits made these stone sculptures and carvings and I can sense a bunch of booby traps and coffins lying around further inside."
"Ooh! I've always wanted to explore a real-life tomb!" Big Nep said enthusiastically. She pulled out her pistol as she struck a pose. "Just call me Lara Nep, Tomb Raider!"
Sync gave a laugh to this while Uzume just looked down the path leading further into the darkness with a worried look.
"We... probably don't need to go any further in," she said, trying to hide her rather obvious fear. "Syncsy can just warp us out of here now that we lost those villagers."
Sync gave a knowing grin at this. "What's the matter Uzume? Don't tell me you're scared of the dark."
The red-haired CPU let out a scoff as she tried to maintain her tough image. "Wh... What are you talking about? I've lived in a post-apocalyptic world with barely any lighting for most of my life! Of course I'm not scared of the dark!"
"Alright then," Sync said, smile still on his face. "Since you're fine with it, we'll explore this place a bit more. Who knows, maybe we'll even find some rare treasure in here that'll help us on our quest."
"Yeah! This is going to be fun!" Big Nep said, choosing to lead the way with her pistol in hand.
Still looking rather scared but not wanting to admit it, Uzume reluctantly followed along as Sync walked up next to her with an amused look.
"By the way, I'm taking off a point on your coolness scale every time you let out a terrified scream in here."
Uzume managed to let out a scoff to this. "Pffft. Like I'd ever do something that uncool."
"AAAAAAAHH! GIANT SPIDERS!"
"YAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! ZOMBIES!"
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! ZOMBIES RIDING GIANT SPIDERS!"
"AAAAAAAAHHHH-!"
"Uzume, relax. That's just you're shadow."
"Oh... er... sorry about that Big Nepsy. I just thought-"
"By the way, there's a giant zombie spider right behind you."
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"You know, all things considered, I think that went better than expected," Sync said, deactivating his Share Blade as the zombie spider finally went down.
Uzume's only response to this was to crumple onto the ground in a nervous wreck.
"Don't worry. I got her," Big Nep said, putting away her pistol and rushing forward to offer her friend some anti-anxiety medicine.
Sync stifled a laugh as he walked over to inspect the treasure chest that the zombie spider had been guarding.
"Ugh... Did we at least find something to make this trip worth it?" Uzume asked, her medication kicking in almost instantly.
Sync gave a shrug as he began pulling out the chest's contents. "Hmm... well, there's an enchanted iron helmet that'll let us carry more things, a handful of gold coins that I'm guessing is the currency in this world, three lockpicks, a dozen rusty arrows, a random slice of cheese, and a wooden spoon." Finding nothing else inside, he lifted up the spoon and began to scrutinize it more closely to see if there was anything special about it.
In the meantime, Uzume walked forward and picked up the twin-horned iron helmet. After looking it over and finding the inside to be surprisingly clean, she put on the armor piece and looked over at Big Nep with an expectant smile.
"So? How do I look?" she asked. "Do I look more like an awesome legendary warrior?"
"You look like a viking," Big Nep said, not fully managing to hold in her laughter. Noticing her friend's embarrassed reaction, she quickly corrected herself with a wide grin. "Aw don't be like that. Vikings are really cool. I bet even Sync will admit that you look really awesome right now."
"Eh, I'll add a zero point two to your score to even things out to a solid two," he said, chuckling to himself when Uzume wilted at the mention of her current standing.
Apparently finding nothing noteworthy about the spoon, Sync began stuffing the rest of the items into his inventory (including the cheese) before standing up and dusting off his hands.
"Well, I think it's about time I warped us out of here. I can sense the tomb going further in but Uzume's probably going to have another nervous breakdown at the rate we're going."
The CPU immediately tried to deny this. "H... Hey! That's not-"
"Of course, if you really want, we could continue exploring this entire place," Sync added, a mischievous smile forming on his face.
"Er... no thanks." Uzume quickly backtracked. "I think I've had enough tomb raiding for the day."
"Are you sure?" Sync pressed, his smile widening. "We won't be able to see the giant rats I'm sensing down there then."
Uzume gave a high-pitched scream to this as she reverted to her Orange Heart personality. "Kyaaaaaa! Get Uzume out of this dark and creepy place!"
Letting out a laugh at his successful teasing, Sync focused his energy before finally teleporting his equally amused mentor and shivering team leader out of the tomb.
Unbeknownst to them, another figure walked into the room soon after they had disappeared.
"Huh. Another dead enemy," the newcomer said, her face hidden in the shadows though her voice sounded extremely familiar. After kicking the unmoving zombie spider to make sure it really was dead (or as dead as a zombie could be), she gave a shrug. "Well, guess it doesn't matter. Just means this quest is that much easier for me."
With that, the unknown adventurer continued onward.
"Yay! I missed you Mr. Sun! Uzume promises to never leave you ever again!"
"Um... Is she going to be like that for a while?" Sync asked, watching their party leader happily frolicking about in the wide-open field while basking in the warm sunlight.
"Give her a few minutes," Big Nep answered. Saying that, she quietly pulled out her phone and snapped a few pictures of the rather hilarious image of Uzume in a viking helmet and bear-skin cloak prancing about in the fields like an overly happy puppy.
True to Big Nep's words, Uzume went back to her usual tomboy attitude a few moments later as she walked back to her teammates with a thoroughly embarrassed look.
"Let's... not talk about that," she muttered, her face almost as red as her hair.
Sync and Big Nep decided to show a rare bout of mercy to their leader as they complied with her wishes. Even so, they could not hold back from snickering a bit which caused the poor CPU to bury her face in her hands in shame.
"Well, now that we're out of that tomb, what should we do?" Sync eventually asked, stifling the last of his laughter.
Big Nep gave a final giggle of her own before answering. "We still need info on where our dragon is so we should probably look for another village to ask around in."
This finally snapped Uzume out of her embarrassment as she lowered her hands and gave a frightened shiver. "Please no," she said, not even bothering to hide her fear this time. "I don't want to deal with any more exploding chickens or crazy villagers."
"Don't worry!" Big Nep assured. "Sync and I will make sure to keep an eye out for any stray chickens that try to cross the road this time. That way, you won't accidentally run into one and blow up!"
Uzume did not seem entirely convinced by this as she tried to raise an objection. Before she could do so, however, her stomach let out a growl so fierce that both Big Nep and Sync looked at her bear-skin cloak to see if it had somehow come back to life.
"Eh heh heh... why don't we grab some grub first?" the CPU said sheepishly. "I haven't eaten since getting here and I'm famished."
Big Nep seemed prepared for this as she quickly looked through her inventory to see what food items she had.
"Oops," she said after a moment, her expression quickly matching her friend's embarrassed look. "Looks like I forgot to restock on food supplies after my last camping trip. The only thing I have is three cups of instant curry noodles."
Sync dug through his inventory as well before pulling out the cheese he had recently obtained with a shrug. "Well-aged tomb cheese anyone?"
Uzume loudly expressed her disappointment at her given options.
"Gah! I can't survive off of instant noodles and cheese!" she yelled. "I need something more filling, like meat! Lots and lots of meat!"
As she said that, a large deer casually strolled by in front of them. Almost immediately, Uzume's expression turned predatory as she began to salivate.
"Mmm... deer steak..."
The deer quite obviously sensed the danger it was in as it quickly turned tail and ran.
"Wait! Come back!" Uzume yelled, chasing after her prey with a hungry gleam in her eyes. "I just want to eat you!"
As Uzume and the deer disappeared over a nearby hill, Big Nep gave a loud sigh.
"When will she learn that bad things happen to her whenever she runs ahead by herself like that?" she lamented.
Sync answered with an amused grin. "You have to admit it's a lot of fun to watch though. As for the current situation, I'm going to bet she'll come running back in a few minutes while being chased by a giant wolf."
Not to anyone's surprise, a familiar terrified yell was heard moments later. As the duo watched, Uzume came running back into view with a large saber-tooth tiger hot behind her heels.
"Eh, close enough," Sync said with a shrug. "Still, I'm kinda surprised Uzume's so scared of a single tiger like that. It's barely the size of the bear she fought and-."
He paused as he realized that something was rather off about the picture. Rather than chasing after Uzume like he originally thought, the saber-tooth tiger seemed to be simply running for its life in the same direction that Uzume was.
"What in the-?"
"RUUUUUUN!" Uzume shouted, interrupting Sync's question as she neared her party members. "DEMON RABBIT!"
Right on cue, a small fluffy brown rabbit crested over the hill and came into view.
"Awww," Big Nep cooed. "What a cute little bu-"
"I WILL FEAST ON YOUR HEART!"
Both of Uzume's followers felt their jaws drop open in surprise as the rabbit shouted this out in a deep demonic voice. Before they could react any further, the demon rabbit jumped nearly a hundred meters through the air before landing directly on top of the fleeing tiger. As Big Nep and Sync watched in horror, the rabbit somehow managed to bring down the much larger animal with its pounce before it began to make good on its threat by devouring its unfortunate prey.
"RUUUUUUUUUN!" Uzume repeated, not bothering to slow down in the least as she ran past her teammates.
Big Nep and Sync continued to stay frozen in shock for a moment as they witnessed the slaughter happening in front of them. That all changed though when the blood-covered rabbit perked up and glared directly at them.
"I SMELL WEAKNESS! ARE YOU PREPARED FOR YOUR DEATH?!"
That was all the prompting the two needed before they followed Uzume's lead and ran for their lives.
"Demon rabbits, spider-riding zombies, exploding chickens, flying trains... I think I'm starting to see why Croire hates this place so much."
The tome-fairy gave a scoff at Sync's words. 'Please. You haven't even seen anything yet. Try being stuck in this place for an entire year like I was then we'll talk.'
Uzume let out something that sounded a lot like a whimper as she looked towards Big Nep.
"Can we just go home already?" she asked, a hint of pleading in her voice. "We can just tell everyone that we killed the dragon and get out of this crazy place."
To her dismay, Big Nep simply laughed at the suggestion as she continued to set up a tent under the large rocky alcove that the group had stopped in after losing the demon rabbit. Considering the dimensional traveler's lifestyle and hobby, it came as no surprise that Big Nep carried around her camping kit wherever she went.
"Where's your sense of adventure, Uzume?" she asked, putting the finishing touches on the tent while Sync set up the portable stove and camping lanterns in the meantime.
"It got blown up by that exploding chicken," the CPU responded in a mumble.
Big Nep and Sync both managed to hear this as they let out a laugh at the comment. Seeing how lighthearted and cheerful her companions were, Uzume could not help but feel her spirits rise a bit as well.
"Here," Sync said a moment later, handing Uzume a large metal pot. "You can go get some water for the noodles while we finish setting up here. I can sense a small stream past the hills to our right where you can fill it up."
"Can't you just teleport the water here?" Uzume asked as she took the utensil. "And also, why are we setting up camp so early? The sun's only setting right now."
Sync answered with a smile. "I think it's better for you to have something to do other than sitting around and moping like Nepgear all day. As for your other question, well, do you really want to wander around this place when night falls?"
Uzume gave a shudder at the thought of whatever strange horrors would appear in the dark before quickly setting off to complete her task.
After a bit of a trek, the CPU found the stream that Sync had mentioned as she quickly scanned the area for any potential dangers. After spotting nothing more than a dozen oddly-shaped rocks in the vicinity, she let out a sigh of relief as she neared the water.
"Whew. Looks like I'm finally able to catch a break from-"
"Pardon me dear lady. But I am afraid this is private property."
As Uzume gave a cry of shock at the unexpected voice, the rocks around her suddenly seemed to come to life. As she watched with wide eyes, the 'rocks' raised themselves out of the surrounding mud and revealed themselves to actually be a bunch of large, gray-colored crabs that were, for some odd reason, all wearing top hats and monocles.
"Wha... What are you?" Uzume eventually managed to ask when the posh-looking crabs did not immediately attack her.
"Ah, let me first offer my sincerest apologies for frightening you," the largest crab of the bunch answered, his voice sounding very reminiscent of Umio's gentlemanly manner of speech. "As for who and what we are, we are but simple mudcrabs who own this humble stream and its surrounding estate."
There were many ways that Uzume could have chosen to respond to this but she opted to go for the simplest of the bunch: giving a completely weirded out nod.
"Oookay... well, it was nice meeting you all but I think I'm just gonna take some water and be on my way now."
"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that," the mudcrab said, its tone taking on a bit of an edge. "You see, you are currently trespassing within our territory and we must kindly ask that you leave at once."
"C'mon, it's only a bit of water," Uzume shrugged off as she took another step forward.
The moment she did so, she felt a sharp nip at her heels.
"Ow!" Uzume shouted, looking down finding that the lead mudcrab had just clipped her with its large pincer. "What was that for?!"
"You have chosen to disregard my warning and thus must pay the price!" the mudcrab leader declared, holding up its pincers menacingly as the rest of its brethren did the same. "Now prepare yourself, foul water brigand! Have at thee!"
"Wow! Where did you get all these crab legs from Uzume?"
The CPU managed to give her friend a smile despite looking like she had just been put through a large paper shredder.
"I won 'em in a duel," she said enigmatically, placing the pot filled with giant crab legs and pincers on the stove.
"Looks like you forgot to bring any water to boil them in though," Sync casually noted, looking completely unsurprised by any of this. (As it was, he had actually been tracking Uzume with his powers the whole time to make sure she was safe and ended up sensing everything that had happened down at the stream.)
Uzume gave a loud groan as she facepalmed at her oversight.
"I knew I forgot something! Ugh, just give me a few minutes. I'll go get the water."
"Heh, it's fine," Sync waved off. "I'll get it instead seeing as how you managed to supply us with our dinner."
With that said, he concentrated for a bit before teleporting over a large sphere of water which he rather clumsily dumped into the pot.
"Sorry!" he quickly apologized as the excess water splashed onto everyone's feet. "I'm still a bit shaky when it comes to teleporting non-solid objects."
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it!" Big Nep said, swiftly entering her encouraging mentor mode. "Practice makes perfect after all!"
Sync gave her a grateful smile before organizing all of the crab legs and pincers so that they were all fully inside the cooking pot and submerged in the water.
"Man, I wish I had the power to control space as well," Uzume said longingly, watching Sync telekinetically turn on both the magic-powered portable stove and the camping lights around them at the same time. "It's such a rad ability to have."
Big Nep gave a chuckle to this as she pulled out her travel case of spices and began adding the proper amount of seasoning into the soon-to-be broth.
"I really don't think you should try to give yourself that ability by daydreaming about it," she warned. "Knowing your luck so far, you'd probably end up being able to only teleport a bunch of those demon rabbits to your side."
Uzume, who had been half-way into the process of entering her daydream mode, quickly unclasped her hands as she gave a fearful shudder.
"Good point. The last thing I want is to end up becoming rabbit food."
The three shared a nervous laugh at this before quickly glancing around to make sure there were no killer bunnies in their vicinity.
Finding themselves to be in the clear, the group finally relaxed as they fell into a comfortable silence while sitting around the cooking pot. As they waited for their meal to finish cooking, the last rays of the sun disappeared from the sky as night fully fell across the foreign land.
"Whoa," Uzume suddenly said after a moment. "Yo guys, check out the sky."
Big Nep and Sync followed their leader's gaze upwards and found their mouths opening in amazement.
High above them, a vast and beautiful aurora shone through the sky as its multi-colored ribbons of light highlighted the vast sea of sparkling stars in the background. A pair of large red moons added to all of this as they gave off an ephemeral glow that served to enhance the already gorgeous backdrop. To top it all off, the tall snow-capped mountains in the distance framed the heavenly lights to provide a view that could only be described as breathtaking.
"It's beautiful," Big Nep eventually said, having never seen such a sight even in all her travels.
Sync gave a nod as his eyes remained fixed on the magnificent view. "Almost makes everything we went through today worth it."
After taking in the sight for a little while longer, Uzume gave a content sigh.
"Man, I almost forgot how great it is to camp out in the open and go star-gazing like this." After a brief pause, she continued on in a cheerful tone. "You know, we should really do something like this again in the future. Er, I mean the camping and star-gazing bit, not the horrible going-on-a-killer-quest part."
Big Nep gave a laugh as she looked down to glance at Sync. "Another camping trip sounds fun. Maybe next time we can even invite Vert to come with us."
For some odd reason, Sync's peaceful smile fell away at the mention of his sister as he seemed to shift about uneasily. Before Big Nep could figure out if she was merely seeing things or not, Sync had his smile back on as he gave an amused laugh.
"I'm pretty sure there's a higher chance of you and mini-Nep swearing off pudding forever than getting sis to voluntarily leave her MMO behind in favor of going camping."
Big Nep let out a small chuckle to this as she decided to overlook the strange reaction she thought she had seen from him earlier.
"Oh, come on. I'm sure we can get her to come with us if we bribe her with enough food. Didn't you say she's secretly a big glutton?"
"Speaking of food, I think the crabs are ready," Uzume interrupted, grabbing the individual bowls that Big Nep had laid out beforehand with great gusto. "Dibs on the biggest pincer and legs!"
Laughing at Uzume's behavior, Big Nep and Sync ended their conversation as they went over to serve up their dinner. As it turned out, the older Neptune was a much better cook than her younger counterpart - who could barely manage to cook herself a riceball on the best of days - as the improvised crab soup turned out to be simple yet positively delicious.
With good food and good company, the three travelers soon felt all of their stress and pains from the day fade away. As the night rolled on, the group happily passed their time sharing jokes and silly stories with each other as the bright sounds of their laughter echoed out into the starlit sky.
A bit of a ways off, the mysterious adventurer from before was making her way down the main road when she heard the laughter coming from the trio of camping travelers in the far distance.
"Heh. Sounds like they're having a lot of fun," she said to herself, a wistful smile visible underneath the hooded cloak she had apparently picked up from the tomb and now wore. While she was tempted to go over and join the travelers in their merrymaking, she decided that her current quest was too important for her to simply stop to make some new friends.
"Maybe next time," she sighed, turning back to the road in front of her. She had barely gone more than a few steps, however, when she suddenly found her path blocked by a small fluffy rabbit.
"ANOTHER WHO SEEKS DEATH! FALL BEFORE-!"
The demonic bunny did not get a chance to finish as the adventurer simply walked up and punted it into the horizon where it disappeared with a pitiful twinkle.
Without even a break in her stride, the adventurer began humming a rather familiar theme song as she casually continued down the road that seemed to go forever on.