-=Plush POV=-

We get to the forest and just… start walking around.

“Shiona? Do you have any plan for finding these guys?”

“Kind of? I mean both slimes and lesser chimeras were found around water right? So we just need to find a lake and we’ll be mostly set. I… I just don’t know where to find one…”

“Have you tried just flying into the sky and looking around?”

She starts blushing and takes off into the air while grabbing me without saying anything, she then speeds up and we fly to a lake that she’d spotted.

“So… Where are the slimes?”

“Not here I guess?”

“I can see that, but why?”

“Really?” We look to the voice and see that Lizz had flown out of the book while we were talking. “Why would they even be here to begin with? Sure it’s a lake, but not every lake has slimes necessarily you know.”

We look at Lizz for a bit, slightly embarrassed before Shiona says:

“Wow, we must’ve messed up really badly for Lizz to sound like the smart one.”

“Fuck you.”

We take off again and start visiting more and more lakes until we get to a lake which was filled with floating trees and broken pieces of wood.

We descend to get a closer look, and when we do we’re flabbergasted by what we see just inside the forest.

“Is that… An orc?” Asks Shiona.

“Yup” Responds Lizz.

“And it’s fighting...”

“Lesser chimeras.”

Inside the forest yet still close to the lake we could see a large light brown creature swinging around a club at small brown creatures while some of them were clinging on to it while hitting it their legs, likely trying to poison the orc with the spurs Shiona had been warned about.

As we go closer to the skirmish we could see them all much better.

The orc looked like a striped boar walking on its hind legs, the legs that it walked on had normal pig feet while the ones functioning as arms had hands, the hands having three fingers and a thumb each. Its fur was a very light brown colour with darker brown stripes and it was tall enough for its head to reach the leaves of the nearby trees.

The chimeras walked on four legs, they were about as long as I was tall and as tall as I was wide, making them about the same size as me if I were laying down, their fur was much shinier and much, much darker than the orc’s, however that could likely be due to their fur being wet.

The chimeras all looked the same, they had large bird beaks which were almost as big as the rest of their heads, though admittedly that didn’t say much as their heads were fairly small compared to the rest of their body.

Their legs ended in feet which were both webbed and clawed, and their tails were as long as their head and beak combined, basically-

“Platypuses.” States Shiona in a matter of factly voice.

“Yup.” I respond.

“What?” Asks Lizz.

The small chimeras looked exactly like platypuses, they had the same beaks, body shape, feet and tails as the ones we’d seen back home.

The platypuses were with their back towards the lakes, most likely protecting their home from the giant orc.

On the other side of the orc there laid dead bodies of platypuses which had seemingly been killed by the orc.

“I know we’re supposed to… subjugate the… “Chimeras”, But I just feel like helping them instead…”

“Well if you want to we could do that.”

“We could? But what about the quest?”

“Well Cathy should’ve told you that you don’t actually need to complete all of them to become an adventurer right? Sure, it will take longer, but I’m fine with waiting if you are.”

“Alright! Let’s do it!” She says with a satisfied smile.

We land on the ground, the platypuses next to us realize that we’re here and turn towards us while they start backing themselves into a corner between us and the orc.

Shiona lightly lobs me into the air and sends me flying towards the orc with a gust of wind, sending me over the platypuses without harming them while also making the orc lose its balance and stagger slightly.

When I reach the orc I cover myself in an orange solidified shell, hitting the orc square in the face and knocking t over completely.

I could have just ended it right then and there but I didn’t want to create a blood fountain while it was somewhere Shiona could easily see it.

I’m now standing on the torso of the orc as it tries to get free from the solidified bindings I had created.

I cover its mouth using the bindings in order to avoid any splatter as I phase my hand into its torso and solidify the blood in its heart.

The orc quickly stops struggling and dies without any mess and I release the orange light.

Shiona flies up to me while holding the quest note in her talon and looking at it.

“Let’s see… It says the proof of subjugation is the snout… Do you think you could...?”

‘So much for the whole no mess thing.’

I use Hunting Claws and cut of the snout, causing blood starts spilling out.

We look back towards the pond where we see all the platypuses now looking at us, after a short while a larger one starts pushing itself through the others and towards us while carrying a small white object on its bill.

“...”

“I think it wants you to have that, maybe as thanks?”

Shiona carefully grabs the egg with both her wings awkwardly holds it, afraid that it’s going to break.

The large platypus then turns around, seemingly satisfied, and the others follow it back to their home.

“Err, Plush? Think you could put this in the book?”

Before I can answer a blue hand reaches out and grabs the egg.

“Thanks.”

“Err, no problem.”

“Well, are we done here then?” Asks Lizz impatiently.

“Just a moment.” I respond as I walk towards the platypus corpses which had been left behind and cut off their front right … foot? Paw? Whatever it was I took them from all the corpses, no point in wasting them right?

“Now we’re done here, just the slimes left.”

Since the pond in which the “lesser chimeras” lived in only had one inlet we followed that river upstream hoping to come across slimes.

“Look! They’re here!” Shiona thrust out her wing and pointed towards a bunch of green glob which were gathered on both sides of the lake, within the lake there was a single blue slime floating on the surface of the water.

“And that must be one of those elemental slimes! We’ll be able to get another wand at this rate!”

“Be careful, I don’t know about the blue one but the greens are filled with acid.”

“Alright, thanks” And with a juicy *crunch* sound she had eaten one of the copper tree’s fruits, this one was a mix of black and yellow in a tiger stripes pattern.

“I’ve not seen that fruit before, what’s it do?”

“I’m not sure, but since it’s yellow I’m guessing electricity.”

“Fair enough.”

She then swings her wings towards the blue slime and with a loud *swoosh* sound came a small bright yellow round ball of electricity which bounced on the water a few times, creating what looked like small ripples of electricity whenever it touched the water, before reaching the slime and with a *zap* half of the slime’s surface was scorched and charred black.

“That seems to have worked rather well.”

“Yup!” Gloated Shiona with a smug grin.

“But it doesn’t seem finished yet.”

“Hu-” *SPLASH*

While Shiona was to confused to react the slime had shed the charred surface and seemingly grown back what it lost by absorbing the water it was in, it had then splashed a large wave of water at Shiona, she was caught in the water as it carried her off away from the slime down the river and back to the platypuses’ home.

‘She said she didn’t want help, besides, she’s good at swimming, she won’t drown.’

“Mother fucker!”

We heard Shiona’s voice from downstream, looking that way we saw that she had gotten out of the river and was flying towards us.

“You shitty rubber ball!”

‘...’

‘... She’s normally a very level headed person but, what did she call it again? She’s very good at getting ‘salty’.’

Shiona was flying this way incredibly fast, releasing balls of electricity behind her with every flap of her wings.

“Rraaaahhhhh!!!!” She screamed/roared as she approached us and dived straight into the slime, creating a large sphere of yellow electricity around them when she did, sparks flying off of it and hitting any unlucky slimes who were too close to the river.

When the sparks disappear we see Shiona standing hunched over in the river, breathing heavily and covered in soot

She dives under the water surface and starts ruffling her feathers using her wings, causing the soot to fall off and get washed away in the river, she then stands back up and takes a deep breath.

“Haaaa… That felt good…” She said with a smile on her face-

“Shiona? What happened to your mask?”

“Ah.”

It looked like Shiona’s mask had fallen off, either when she was hit by the water or during the dive, letting me see what she looked like beneath.

I only caught a glimpse of her face before she frantically started looking for her mask in the river, and from what I could see it looked the same as back on earth, except her hair, which she had been keeping short back on earth, had been replaced by feathers which went along the back of her head, her chin and on the sides of her cheek, looking almost like someone was poking their head out of green cotton candy.

I get into the river and start helping her look for the mask.

“I think I found it, however...”

I was holding what looked like a large green feather, however the corners of it had been singed black, most likely due to the lightning.

“...” Shiona looked at the feather which she had been using as a mask until now, gave it to me and said:

“I don’t think it’s a very good idea to keep using this, think you could take care of it for now?”

“Sure.” This time I was at least able to answer on my own before the book put it in its inventory.

“Thanks. Now for the others!” She looks like she’s getting ready to fight only to see the slime cores laying around the riverbank with all the still living slimes already having scattered.

“Err…”

‘Sure.’

“Do you think we should keep going and try to get the rest of the foraging stuff or do you want to call it a day?”

“Haa… I was all prepared to get to fight the slimes and everything… Let’s keep going, maybe we can find some more while we’re at it.”

I take out one of the popsicles which we hadn’t eaten yet and give it to Shiona to cheer her up, we then resume walking along the river while talking about where we could find the mushrooms, herbs and oranges.

“We’ll we should be able to find the herbs next pond we get to, the mushrooms grow in caves, however the oranges I have no idea where to find.”

“We might need to ask someone for help and come back for those another day then.”

Shiona crouches down on the ground and takes out the quest notes from her bag, after looking through them she puts all but one back and starts comparing the one left to the plants on the ground.

“This is it, let’s see, five leaves per bunch and we needed three bunches…”

She starts plucking the leaves from the plant with her talons and puts them in her bag, in a different pocket from everything else.

“Now for a ca- oh.”

She had started to say we needed to find a cave only to get back up and see that there was a cave right in front of us.

“The last cave I went into was infested with goblins, I don’t know whether it’s the same with this one though.”

“I just need to be careful right?”

She walks into the dark cave and I follow.

´”Okay, I think I’ve decided on what I want the fire wand to be.”

“What?”

“A flashlight, I can hardly see a thing.”

“Well what about the water core you got then? Any plans?”

“Err… No.”

We keep walking further into the cave, Shiona wincing every so often from hitting her foot into a rock or stone on the floor.

Eventually was start seeing a gentle blue glow from further in, Shino takes out the quest note for the luminescent mushrooms and starts comparing them once we arrive.

“These are the ones, five caps it says…”

She then picks five of them up and puts them in yet another pocket of her bag.

“That thing has a lot of pockets.”

“Yeah, it’s very useful, Charlie picked a good bag.”

We then backtrack and exit the cave, Shiona flies into the sky to see which way is to the city and we then start walking.

The reason we’re walking rather than flying is so that we will be able to look for the oily oranges while on the move, however we make it out of the forest without encountering neither monster nor fruit and we start making our way to the adventurers’ guild as we feel like it’s fine not to do anything more for today.

When we get there Shiona starts talking to Cathy who is in one of the booths about the wands and hands in the quest materials, however Cathy doesn’t sound as surprised as when I handed my stuff in way back when despite Shiona having done five of them in a day whereas I only did three.

“Plush, Cathy says it might take a while to do the magic thing, we’ll be down when it’s done.” Says Shiona as they walk upstairs.

While they’re talking about that I start looking for some delivery quests, accept a bunch of them and hand them to Rico who took over after Cathy.

In the end I ended up taking various high ranking copper requests, turns out that the request ranking was judged based on how much you had to deliver, where it needed to go and when it needed to be there, however I was able to basically pass the first condition no matter what so I took three copper A ranking quests which needed me to deliver large heavy objects, I then put way more than three packages from the back and departed, each of the quests had a number of large cubic meter sized boxes.

I delivered four of them to a restaurant in the blue district, when they opened them to verify I saw that they were filled with fish and that the box itself had been enchanted with magic to keep the fish fresh and any smell from leaking out.

The next delivery was a single extra large crate which was marked with the word ‘fragile’, it was delivered to the same nobles in the red district which I had been to before.

Finally was another three boxes which seemed to have the same enchantments as the fish boxes, these ones were delivered to a shop in the brown district and when an old white haired man with a hunched back confirmed the contents they were filled with meat, fish as well as one filled with hay.

The shop which I had delivered them to had proven to be an animal or a pet shop where they sold domesticated animals and monsters, as well as a few books filled with basic information on monster biology.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“Yes?” Answers the old shopkeeper, seemingly wondering whether they’d forgotten something.

“I recently got an egg during one of my quests, I was wondering if I could get some help with what to do with it?”

“Sure, I can appraise it for you, if you can guess what it is before I tell you it’s free, if you get it wrong it’s fifty silver, if you get it wrong but close it can be anywhere in between depending on how close”

“Well it was given to my friend by a pla- err, lesser chimera when we saved them from an orc so I’m guessing lesser chimera.” I take the egg out of the pouch and hand it to him, he then walks to a desk while holding one of his arms behind him back and starts comparing it to pictures in a book, after a few seconds he gets back up and approaches me.

“That will be fifteen five silver.”

Feeling intrigued as to what I got wrong I hand him fifteen coins.

“You were almost right, it’s indeed a chimera however not a lesser one, this fella is a greater chimera, they’re sometimes born of strong lesser chimeras.”

“Okay, do you have any info I need to know?”

“Well this is a shop which specializes in that very thing, but it’s still a shop so you’ll need to pay, over there in that bookshelf we have books on some of the more common monsters, the one about lesser chimeras also cover greater ones, it’ll be one gold for it.”

I hand him a coin and he gives me a book, the books leathers is styled like a platypus beak on the front and like fur on the back, it’s the size of a pocket book, roughly a quarter of the book of knowledge on my back.

“We also sell special food and other necessities for monsters, though the chimeras are omnivorous so you don’t have to worry but if you ever get something else feel free to come by.” The man waves and puts his hands behind his back, he then turn around and walks to the boxes I had delivered.

I mark this place as well as the restaurant from earlier on the map which I still had and went back to the guild and handed in all the quest notes.

“Good work, here’s your pay.” Rico takes the notes and puts them in a box, he then hands me about twenty gold coins. “Also you can expect your delivery rank to have gone up to copper A rank by tomorrow. Your friend asked me to tell you that she had gone back to the inn while waiting for you.”

“Thanks, have a good evening.”

I leave the guild and walk towards the inn in the edge of the yellow district while wondering what Shiona decided to do with the water slime core.

I enter through the front door and realize how long it’s been since I took the roof path, when I get inside I see that there’s no one around and understand that it must be dinner time so I make my way to the dinner room.

“I’m back.”

“Welcome back.”

Doubting I’d be allowed to sit on my own I instead decide to immediately climb up on Shionas lap to save her the effort of lifting me with her wings, she nods approvingly and we start eating.

“Hann- err, Red?” Says Shiona.

“Yeah?” Answers Hannah.

“You’re an adventurer right?”

“Yup.”

“Do you know where we could find some, err, oily oranges?”

“Uhh… I think… I think they can be found near the base of the mountain and growing on tropical looking trees if I remember right, but I’m not sure…”

“Well that’s a lead at least, thanks.”

We then finish the rest of the meal in peace and head back to our respective rooms.

While walking up the stairs and through the corridors I asked Shiona how it went with the wands.

“Like I said before I ended up choosing to make a light with the fire core, however for the water core it wasn’t good enough quality, you know with the burn marks and everything, to do anything with it that I couldn’t just do with the belts blue fruit so Cathy told me I could sell it at Rupert’s shop, got thirty or so silver for it.”

“Alright, good night.”

“Night.”

And we start slowly being dragged down under by the pleasure of sleep.

“Ah! I just remembered!” Exclaims Shiona suddenly.

“Ha…?” I ‘answer’ while rubbing my eyes out of habit.

“All of your skills require you to practice them to get stronger right? Well can’t you just do that when you’re about to sleep then? That way it won’t matter if you exhaust yourself right?”

“... I’ll try it, but if I feel like I have a hangover tomorrow when I wake up I won’t do it again.”

“Fair enough.”

Seeing as both solidification, hunting claws and phasing all seem to be as strong as they can be I instead focus on practicing Risen Apparition by creating small illusions of miscellaneous objects, I could have tried to combine Risen Apparition with Solidification to practice Trickster’s Sleight, but with how quickly I fainted last time I tried that I instead focused only on the illusion part until I felt too tired to continue and fell asleep.