Returning to the lodge, I saw Kenneth practicing his archery. Running while simultaneously shooting multiple arrows, hitting dead center in all of them. Impressed, I clapped my appreciation.

Kenneth turned quickly, an arrow to his bow, and shot. I just stood there, shocked that he would shoot me, but the arrow went right past my cheek, and over my shoulder. *snap* I turned my head to look at where the sound came from.

Ryuu had grabbed the speeding arrow, stopping it right before it plunged into his heart, then snapped it into two. Noticing my look, he smirked.

“What, where you scared? There is no way that this bow-for-brains could ever harm this king, much less his charge.”

Kenneth lowered his bow, and sniffed disappointedly, but immediately afterwards sported a beaming smile. “Ah, is it the hero apprentice, Jade.” He ignored Ryuu. “What brings you here?”

“Well, it’s been a week.” I replied simply.

Kenneth's smile froze, and his ears twitched a bit. He totally forgot, didn’t he? I observed.

“Right, that it has, that it has! Shall we check the records?” Yep. He forgot. I confirmed as a blue panel appeared in front of him. While observing him, it’s very easy to tell what he’s feeling by watching his ears.

While hero apprentices can be distinguished by their AIDS and clothing, both heroes and NPCs use the blue box system. Only, the NPCs believes that it was bestowed by the gods, instead of a computer system. Ah, but don’t tell that to the NPCs, or your reputation will suffer. I read that on the game forums.

When Kenneth saw the number that appeared in the box, although his face was still smiling that frozen smile, his ears stood up straight in shock. Yeah, that IS a lot of sap, isn’t it? I mused.

“Well? Speak up! We haven’t got all day, you know!” Ryuu smirked proudly. Hey, you didn’t even lift a single finger this whole time! I was the one who did all the work! What do you have to be proud of? I suppressed my growing desire to retort.

Kenneth slowly began to speak. “According to the records…you have gathered… four hundred and ninety-four buckets of clean sap, and two hundred sixty-eight buckets of bug-ridden sap: altogether, seven hundred and sixty-two buckets of sap…”

“And that means?” Ryuu pushed.

“Congratulations, you’ve gathered the largest amount of sap! You will receive 23 barrels of syrup, ten small kegs of glue, a sweets recipe, and a bonus prize. Usually the bonus prize is set, but as you are the first person to fully complete and turn in this mission, you may choose one out of three different prizes.”

I tilted my head in slight confusion. I was the first? Well, I could kind of understand that. Most players wanted to get to the capital as soon as possible. They probably ditched a boring job like this, since wanted to quickly level up. How unprofessional! It’s obvious that a boring job like this would have its own set of perks-like the rare sweets recipe.

As for the rewards…Okay, I had messed up on the math somewhere, so I didn’t actually get 110 barrels of syrup…but the extra prize did sound intriguing to me.

“What are the choices?” I asked.

Kenneth scratched his ear. “Well, about that.” Three chests popped up on the ground, one gold, one silver, and one of old, rusted bronze-with the hinges nearly rusted shut. “While you can choose, you won’t know what you’ve got until you’ve picked it-to ensure fairness.”

“Fairness, huh?” I muttered, looking at the boxes. It was obvious that the gold one was drawing my eye, as it seemed more important. But the appearance of these boxes reminded me of something very important. Shiny=brand new, but Beaten/Old=more valuable most of the time. Tempting though the gold one was, I just knew I had to open the rusted one instead.

Hoping this held true in the gaming world, I pointed at the beaten, rusted chest. The gold and silver chests subsequently disappeared in a flash. I opened the rusted chest, wincing as it’s hinges squealed in protest. Inside was a shimmering coat as thin as a cicada’s wing, with long coat tails. Oddly, enough, the coat tails had rings attached every six inches.

“You certainly chose the most interesting out of all of them.” Ryuu commented.

I looked at the coat using appraisal, and couldn’t help but agree.

Named Clothing:

Coat of Many Colors

Type:

Stealth Cloak

Charisma:

+20

Special Effect:

Able to change clothing appearance up to a total of 10 different outfits with no cool down time required.

????

????

Key Action to Initiate Special Effect:

Wink and snap your finger

Extra info:

Part of an outfit set. Collect more of the outfit to unlock more effects.

This was the first time I had encountered the question marks when it came to using Appraisal-sama. Even a level 6 Appraisal couldn’t unearth everything about this? Moreover, it was a part of an outfit set? Does that mean if I gathered more of the outfit set, that I’d be able to see what these question marks are hiding?

“Really? So you know what the other two were, then?” I asked, forgetting that I wasn’t talking to him.

He shrugged. “I don’t know why you’d be interested in such meaningless things. The silver chest holds a rare skill book for elven tree carpentry, while the golden chest holds a bow whose stats are barely even adequate for one of your level.”

“Hey! That Bow is a treasured heirloom weapon! There’s only one of its type in the whole world!” Kenneth retorted angrily. “Moreover, isn’t the contents of the extra prizes supposed to be a secret!?”

“Ara? Isn’t it fine? She’s already picked her prize anyways, so there’s no way she can return it. Also, why can’t I tell her? Such a thing, it’s written nowhere in the rules that I have to keep quiet about a prize once it has been set.” Ryuu pointed out.

“What! There’s no way that it isn’t!” Kenneth pulled up a blue box and began skimming through a long string of text in a different language. His ears drooped as he came to the end. “It’s-…there really…isn’t?” His face turned a bit pale as he stared at Ryuu with a glare of supreme loathing.

Ah, you want to know how I knew? It’s because I know the feeling well. Someone with such boundless narcissism is insufferable isn’t it? I nodded. Yes, I feel your pain, comrade Kenneth. But we cannot drop him into lava when there is no lava around, right?

---------------------------------

Ryuu stared at the two people in front of him. One, a glaring Bow-for brains of an elf. The other his troublesome little mistress, who was nodding her head at something she was imagining.

What is going on here? He wondered.

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