-=Still Ronnie POV=-

Walking around aimlessly and hoping to stumble onto a cave wasn’t working out for me, so instead I decided to just climb a tree and actually look for one..

‘Oh, there’s one.’

After which I proceeded leap from treetop to treetop, passing birds above and animals below, until I reached the cave.

‘This shouldn’t be, “too far away”, right?’

At the entrance of the cave I looked around for a moment, just to be on the safe side, before entering.

Now, the giant bats actually have a pretty kill count, specifically in new adventurers.

The thing is that, well, everyone knows how bats always hang upside down when they sleep during the day right? Well this specific species of bat actually doesn’t, they actually huddle up on the floor in the corners, also they actually take turns sleeping, and when whichever one of them is awake sees someone walking around and paying attention to only the ceiling they wake the others and they sneak up and attack whoever is intruding.

New people just take the quest because most bat type monsters are known to be beginner targets during the day.

But since I knew better…

‘Let’s see, a small rock… here we go.’

I gather a few small sharp rocks and delve deeper while paying attention to the corners, and when I see a group of them I pretend not to notice, and when they all start creeping up on me by crawling along the ground I turn around and punch right as they all leap at me, any giant bat that survive the first blow and try to escape by flying are soon shot down by having their wings pelted with holes from sharp rocks.

Some *thwack*s, *screech*es, *thud*s and *splat*s later I walk out of the cave with a giant bat’s wing tied around me like a carry bag with a bunch if giant bat claws.

*phew* ‘Wonder how it went for the warcats and weredogs? After I check up on them I’ll head back to master, I’ll do the delivery quests when we reach Uphalla and the gathering quests tomorrow on the way to Logholm.’

Having decided on a course of action I start jumping and leaping my way back to where I saw the traces of warcat on weredog battles.

‘Hup… Hup… Hup… Here we go.”

When I get back to where I was before I start following the splinters and fur rather than walk away from it.

As I follow the trails I end up having walk through a bunch of bushes, the more bushes I walk through the more furr and pieces of wood I see, there are even entire pieces of leather and wood armor which had been severed and fallen off of their bearers.

‘Is that… Oh, it is…’

A small distance later I come across a large amount both warcat and weredog corpses lying scattered in a meadow.

‘Well that makes things easier for me-’

*CLANG CLANG CLANG*

“ROARGH!”

“HSSS!”

‘... So much for that.’

Suddenly two monsters jumped out from the woodworks and back into the clearing, a white warcat with short fur which dual wielded daggers and wore light leather armor who had their daggers crossed and blocking a greatsword wielded by a brown pitbull-type weredog which wore light metal plating, but the rather than metal it was hand carved wood with deep gashes in it.

“GROAR!”

“HSS!”

*CLANG CLANG CLANG*

‘Huh, they’re actually pretty good at this. Are they coming this way? They are! I wonder…’

The warcat was slowly being pushed back by the weredog and forced to come closer and closer to where I was hiding.

As for how tall they were, they were just a head short of an average adult human.

*CLANG CLANG CLANG*

I waited quietly in a bush for the two of them to come close, as soon as they were right in front of the bush I was in I was going to pounce at them!

“Urr…”

“Grao?”

“Nyao?”

“Urr...rr...roOAHR!”

But then something else pounced at them before I could, leaving me to feel embarrassed for getting so into their fight that I wasn’t paying attention around me.

From the treetops a large green furred gorilla jumped down right into the middle of the one on one battle interrupting it.

“DON’T INTERRUPT!” x2

As both the warcat and the weredog scream together at the oversized green gorilla they release their blades from one another and both slash and stab at the gorilla.

“URA!”

“GYAH!” x2

And they were both blown back almost immediately.

The two humanoid monsters kept attacking the gorilla together, however they weren’t doing a whole lot of good against it until the gorilla started stomping on corpses of both the weredogs and warcats, only then did the two monsters start working together to try and take it down.

‘Guess that guy desecrating their tribe members was enough to make him their enemy number one.’

However even then though the battle became much closer and they started to wound the gorilla they were unable to land a killing blow on it.

As the fight dragged on the two monsters got better at working together and they started pulling off more and more daring tactics which required them to truly trust each other.

‘Maybe they actually knew each other from earlier? Maybe they already had feeling for each other as well but it was covered by tribal conflict? Well, this is all just speculation, I’ve no idea how it happened but despite having had a life and death battle with each other just a moment ago they now seem to really care about one another.’

The gorilla must have realized how the weredogs armor was better since it started to focus more on the warcat, and when it was finally about to hit the blow was blocked by the weredog who jumped in the way.

“GAH!”

“NO!”

“Urrrah!”

While the warcat was busy worrying about the weredog the gorilla hit her and send her flying a small distance before landing on the ground next to the weredog.

‘Well, so much for those two.’ I think while looking at the two fresh corpses who had been added to the pile.

I then proceeded to grab a sharp stick and unceremoniously ram it into the back of the gorillas neck, killing it within moments.

Even though I’d just eaten with the others before this I’d already worked up a bit of an appetite, so I started ripping pieces of meat off of the gorilla and grilling them over a simple fire.

‘While these things are cooking I should probably go finish the collection quests.’

I stick the meat pieces on some sharpened sticks and put them into the ground next to the fire before leaving into the forest once more.

* * * *

“Ho? This is a nice amount.” I say while looking down at a big red patch in the grass.

I’d already finished two of the gathering quests so right now I was on the last one, for this quest I needed these red clovers, or more specifically the tubers which grew underneath.

So basically potatoes but they grow from these red clovers.

‘Might as well get all of them, could be tasty to have a few extra to eat with the gorilla meat. Now that I think about it I don’t even know whether the gorilla is edible or not.’

I dig through the ground and gather all the red clover tubers inside my makeshift bag before getting back to the fire.

*munch munch*

“...”

Only to see that the two monsters who I presumed dead were sitting around the fire munching up the meat.

‘Well, at least now I don’t have to worry about it being poisonous anymore. I mean, there’s none of it left for me…’

As I was thinking about the missed possibility of delicious food my stomach decided to sing the song of its people and alerted the two monsters-

*hack hack*

The two monsters who then both proceeded to get food stuck in their throats and cause coughing fits for the two of them.

While they’re busy trying not to die I sit down at the fire and start cooking some of the makeshift potatoes, as soon as the two monsters calm down I hand them both a potato.

*munch munch* *gulp*

““Haa…”” Go both the weredog and the warcat.

“Hey, aren’t you two being a bit casual for just having cheated death?”

“”!””

“... Don’t tell me you forgot I was even here? Wait, did you actually? EVen though I gave you both the food you’ve been eating?” I fire a barrage of questions at the two of them, in response they both blush so hard that I can even see it through all their fur.

“We...We will not forget what you’ve done for us today!” Shouts the dog.

“We will grow stronger and come back one day to repay this favour! We owe you our lives!” Followed the cat.

They then both grabbed another potato before running off back into the forest.

“... Okay?”

““We forgot something!”” Shouted both of them as they bursted out of the bushes once more.

“...”

“What’s your name?” Asks the cat.

“Shouldn’t you say your own name before asking?”

“Grao.” Went the dog.

“Nyao.” Went the cat.

“... Okay. Well, I’m Ronnie, nice to meet you.” I say while reaching out my hand.

Nyao and Grao then proceeded to splendidly ignore my hand, grab another potato each and run back into the forest.

“...”

* * * *

“Where were you!?” Shouts master at me when I get back.

“Erm… around?”

“Ronnie.”

“... Yes?”

“What did I ask you to do before you left?”

“To not stray far…”

“And?”

“To not take too long…”

“And what did you do?”

“... I walked far away and took and hour to come back.”

Back at the black market I had actually received some acting lessons, but right now any guilt that showed on my face were my honest feeling.

“Hah… Well at least you seem to be repenting… Plush, how it going ?”

“I’m just about done here”

While master was scolding me Plush had been dismantling the giant green gorilla.

“Okay, that means we start walking again soon Ronnie. And this time with extra practice sessions sprinkled in more often as punishment.”

*gulp*

Despite knowing enough of the martial art that master taught me I had still to win a single spar, whenever I tried attacking she would counter with a throw, and whenever I tried throwing she would counter with a counter throw.

It was impossible to hit her.

And then, just like the last couple of days of our journey we spent the day alternating between walking, sparring and eating until we arrived at the gates of Uphalla.

After entering the city we all walked together to the adventurer's guild, master and Plush grabbed a sightseeing pamphlet and left to figure out what to do tonight while I handed in my quests with Lizz.

“Here, warcat tails, weredog tail, giant bat wings, red clovers tubers, minor healing herbs and wormrose stems.”

“... I have confirmed the materials and you have now completed the quests.”

“Thank you!”

We then left the guild.

“Hey Lizz.”

“Yeah?”

“Is there another… thing in this town?”

“Yeah.”

“So then after I’m done with these quests we’ll go-”

“Yeah..”

“And after that we can-”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet.”

I take out the delivery quest notes from my bat-bag and we go finish them, it doesn’t take all that long since I can just leap over most buildings.

Lizz was helping guide me so that I wouldn’t be seen by master and Plush, that way they wouldn’t see how fast I actually finished the quests and I could use them as an excuse for being late.

“Thank you lass, my back’s been killing me without my medicine.”

“Don’t worry about it old man, sign this please.”

“Yes of course.”

After I had finished the deliveries Lizz told Plush that we would be running later due to the delivery quests being harder than we’d expected.

Having finished the things I needed to do we veered off of the main road and into an alleyway, Lizz transformed again while I disguised myself with various scraps of fabric found here and there.

But only after Lizz used a quick cleaning spell on them of course.

After getting ready Lizz casts the black arrow compass thing spell and we started following it.

“Gehhe, what a pretty lady, you wouldn’t mind coming and having some fun with us would you…?”

Before we could arrive at where Lizz’s spell was pointing we were interrupted by a bunch of hoodlums who were trying their best to look menacing with their knives and their mohawk hairstyle.

“GAH-HACK!”

But we’ve already gotten used to fighting lowlifes back in Gavely so it took neither time nor effort to dispatch them before carrying on.

“Is this the place?” I ask when we enter a dead end.

In response she Lizz just hands me the magic crayon (we ended up compromising with what to call it) and backed off.

So then just like last time I held the magic crayon in my hand and punched the wall.

*SLAM*

“OW!”

However all that happened was a few small cracks in the wall and a bloody red mark.

“Does that answer whether it’s the right wall or not?”

“Fuck! No need to be such a cunt about it!”

“Probably wasn’t, oh well.”

I wrapped the bleeding paw in an extra layer of cloth while we walk before we come across another dead end, this time however Lizz starts drawing on it with the magic crayon rather than make me do something stupid.

“Now punch.”

“My hand hurts… Can I kick instead?”

“As long as you hold the magic crayon with whatever touched the wall.”

I wrap the another piece of cloth around my´ankle and put the crayon in one of the creases, and then I proceed to kick the wall the same way I kicked Burt and the gorilla.

*CRASH*

And just like that it shattered like a glass window.

“Let’s go.” Said Lizz before she walked into the previously non existent tunnel.