Author’s corner: hello hello… I… Don’t know what to think anymore.

What with the lack of energy, you ask? Well… It happened. Yuu lost. It was a horrible loss from which she will never again recover. And before you guys riot out there, please calm down. This isn’t a story thingy nor will it affect the story anyhow. Also, it’s not a battle-related loss… nor love-related loss. She lost in innocence. It’s official, I met a girl who’s even more innocent that Yuu…. I thought it wasn’t possible, it would never happen. I made Yuu this way as a joke and parody to be honest, yet… SHE LOST! SHE SIMPLY CAN’T BEAT THIS GIRL! IT’S OFFICIAL! YUU IS NO LONGER THE MOST INNOCENT GIRL I CAN THINK OF! SHE LOST TO A REAL LIFE GIRL! AS IN FLESH AND BONES GIRL!

Today, nineteen of February of twenty sixteen, marks the day where Yuu, the kitsune, lost her crown of Purest girl to Huskie. It was a long and noble reign, but now, it is about time she passes on the crown to the true queen of innocence. (Disclaimer, the Author’s corner was written before the actual chapter)

ALSO, Congratulations TheMaskedTom for being the first to get the correct answer in the quiz! Take a cookie and be happy! (The correct answer was Paul Henry. Next quiz by the end of the chapter.)

Have a good read!

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“Basically, the spider was already angry when you started fighting it. Since you dealt so much damage to it and stopped it from getting its prey, it only started getting angrier and angrier. The explosion was the last drop and it went berserk after you.” Crys said, to which I nodded.

“I cookie.” Thinking about it, it’s not strange that it would flip out after what I did to it. Nodding while munching on the cookie. “Then, why the cookie did it suddenly change to the defensive back at the cookie’s end?”

“Cookie’s… Well, think about it like this. You snap out and start attacking the opponent.” She said in a serious tone to which I nodded. “You stop caring about your surroundings and all you can think about is killing the person before you. Your mind is a hazy fog of violence and blood and nothing else matters.” I kept nodding. Indeed, that’s kind of what it looked like when I was fighting the spider. Well, how it felt like the spider was acting, I mean. “Then, a really sharp pain snaps you out of your state.”

“In that case, would it be when teacher blocked its magma channel with the ice?” Lily asked with a pensive face, to which I nodded in agreement. That was when the spider seemed to snap out of her berserker state and seemed to wail in pain…

Cygnasdammit! Now I’m starting to feel guilty!

Shoving another Yuu-brand cooking into my mouth in a foul mood, I turned to Crys, seeing how she nodded with a proud look. Meanwhile I couldn’t help but notice how a certain sprite was eyeing the bag of cookies in my hand with curiosity. Pulling it away as it tried to look inside it, I glared at the small sprite in my shoulder for a moment, only to receive a ‘tek-tek’ in response and see it go back to eating its eighth piece of ore happily.

“Exactly.” The crystal elemental said. “With its thoughts recovered, it suddenly finds itself almost dead and fighting an opponent under unfavorable circumstances.” I think I see where she is going with this… “In simple words, it panicked. Snapping out of the berserker state, it fell immediately into a panicky state, making it change from offensive to defensive in an almost unnatural way.”

“That’s… A whole cookieing simpler than what I expected.” I said with a frown. “I expected that there would be a deeper reason behind its cookies, to be honest.” I said my honest opinion.

“Did it really get that angry, Shishou?” Yuu asked me while sitting besides me. I nodded before sighing.

“You see, it had these cookieing threads it could expel that would explode when ignite. It would even damage itself if it wasn’t careful.” I started explaining, but was stopped when I noticed that Hanbei was looking at me with dead-fish eyes. “What?”

“…I take it that you really liked the cookies?” Hanbei asked with a dry tone.

“OF COOKIE!” I said with a proud tone and making a guts pose. “Cookies are love, cookies are life! Besides, it’s the first time I ever ate home-baked cookies in my life!” I mean, I did eat store-bought cookies, but they aren’t something you can compare to the home-baked ones. It’s like comparing games to books, each have its own category. “And these are so damn tasty! Even better that they were cookied by Yuu!” Hmm… Maybe is shouldn’t have said that part out loud?

Oh well, damage’s done. Sitting down besides the tail-wagging Yuu, I proceeded to eat another cookie before continuing.

“Anyway, back then, the spider was so cookieing angry that it started wrapping the thread in its claws to explode them on me point blank.” I said while shivering slightly at the memory.

“Wait, but didn’t you just say that those things damaged the spider?” Hanbei asked as it clicked on her, to which I nodded.

“That’s why we said it went berserk.” Crys said in her teacher’s tone. “Beasts that go berserke start ignoring their own health and dealing all-or-nothing attacks with high frequency. If something, I’d say that it’s even more dangerous than simply casting the berserker curse on them.”

So, I basically made the spider go berserker and had to somehow deal with its hardest difficult, all because I was protecting a certain sprite mid-fight? Looking down at the sprite who was finally resting after finishing its own meal and feeling satisfied for once, I couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed.

But when it looked up to me with an apologetic look, I ended up forgiving it. I mean, from the little I’ve seen, the small guy isn’t exactly the most courageous one around, yet it clearly went on to stop the spider from laying its eggs.

Why it would do that is another story. Maybe it actually understood that the spider was scaring the miners away and tried to attack it in its own way? Maybe it simply didn’t like the spider’s face? Maybe its actually a little hoodlum? Maybe it was all part of its plans for world conquest?

I’d bet on the last one. Though if it wasn’t that one, I’d guess it was the miner one.

Leaving that aside, it did its best, so I can’t really blame it, right?

Despite the fact that I really wanted to take one of the spiders as a mount… Which would be totally awesome… And because of it doing too good of a job I missed the chance… Yeah… it’s totally not like I’m raging uncontrollably inside and really want to give it a good hit…

…

Yeah, let’s go back to carving. Throwing one more cookie in my mouth, I quickly went back to discounting my ever burning rage into stabbing and ripping the spider apart with my knife.

I’m a calm golem who have cookies. I’m not throwing a tantrum and totally am not trying to escape the situation.

“Shishou… Why are you throwing a tantrum?”

“I’m not cookieing a tantrum!” I said sullenly before turning back to the kitsune. “Why would I even be throwing a tantrum?”

“Hmm… You probably had a second intention when coming here, but for some reason you couldn’t do it and just noticed it now?” She said in a confused look while tilting her head cutely.

I simply stared at her not knowing how to react and noticed how the others were awaiting my answer. After a few seconds of me not doing anything they finally understood what had happened and stared in awe at Yuu.

Woman’s intuition is a lot scarier than what I originally thought. While thinking so and sighing, I nodded weakly and went back to skinning the spider, an awkward silence falling around the group as I grumbled in annoyance at being unable to even get angry with the one to blame.

The others probably noticed my mood turning to worse, because they quickly went on to speak amongst themselves, leaving me to my own grumbles, with only Lily following me as she came to watch as I did my work.

“S-So… Did anything happen in the city while we were working here?” Crys asked.

“Well, not much, really.” Hanbei replied in an indifferent tone. “I mean, they were still cleaning the streets when we left and Lord Wich was searching around for a few soldiers to come here, but I guess you already expected that.”

“Indeed.” Crys said with a sigh. “By any chance did you check for info on boat departures?”

“Oh, yes.” Yuu replied. “I inquired about it before coming here. It seems that the sea is still a bit strange, and most sailors sincerely do not have any idea of when they will be able to set sail.”

“Still? That’s troubling.” Crys said worriedly, to which I nodded discreetly.

“Ashley-san even caused a ruckus back then.” Yuu added with a wry tone.

I think I heard everyone chuckling at the scene, with only Ozzur left out.

“Is this Ashley person your traveling companion too?” He asked while I heard him pulling out his notebook as usual and start jotting things down.

“Well…” Hanbei replied with a wry tone.

“Fire-girl is Stone-misters rivul… Rival!” Rio said cheerfully. “They always look like they are having fun!”

I’m really starting to pity hot-head. Even in Rio’s mind she’s already a girl. While hearing another wave of chuckle from the people present. Hearing as the pencil scratched the surface of the paper, the question we had all been waiting for finally came.

“So, how exactly are the two of you rivals? Is this Ashley another crafter or…”

“I think I remember this story.” Lily said with a wry tone. “Teacher met Ashley some time ago and then decided to make him his rival.”

“So, Wargon arbitrarily… Wait, him?” The mummy sounded confused by those words. “Didn’t the wyvern call Ashley Fire-girl?”

“Things are a bit complex.” Lily replied. “Ashley is a pure fire elemental, and their maturing process is…”

“Aah. I see.” Ozzur interrupted her with an awkward voice. “I heard about the whole elemental maturity cycle. I can somewhat guess where this is going.” He sighed before noting down something else in his notebook. “Anyway, if I got it right, it seems that the only reason you call them Wargon’s rival is because Wargon decided that’s how it was going to be?”

“Pretty much.” Hanbei said with a shrug.

“…Is there anything that wargon ever did that wasn’t on impulse?” The reporter asked curious, and for a few seconds silence fell on the cave as everyone stopped to think.

Seconds went by, then tens of seconds, then half a minute then a whole minute. Finally I snapped.

“Crafting! For cookies-sake! I don’t go all impulsive when crafting!” I said angrily.

“But you decide what you craft on an impulse, so it doesn’t count.” Yami shot me down instantly. “…I should make sure to leave milady protected from you whenever you have your impulses.” She said coldly, to which I replied by simply going back to working. “…No reply?” She asked shocked.

I simply shrugged before going back to my slicing job. Feeling the disappointment coming from the girl, I smiled satisfied to myself as she clearly left out of the joke.

“So, even his equipment were made in an impulse?” Ozzur asked surprised. “What about quest rewards and drops?”

“I don’t think Gon even take quest rewards.” Hanbei said briefly.

“Well, there was that time, back when the cookie was still being baked, that I received a gauntlet as a reward.” I corrected her. “It was right after I left Yuu the first time.” I explained when I noticed her confused glare. “And there was the old man’s sword, from my first quest ever.”

“Old man… You mean Wallace?” Lily asked with a surprised tone, to which I nodded. “Then, could it be that it was…”

“Nah, it was just an old cookie of a sword.” I said while waving away. “Kind of rough and a bit worn out, but sturdy. Definitively wasn’t some kind of legendary sword or anything.”

“I see…” Lily said in a slightly disappointed tone.

“Who’s this Wallace you speak about?” Ozzur asked after a few seconds of silence. “I think I heard his name before but that was about it.”

“Really?” Lily asked surprised before turning to the others. Even I stopped to think for a moment. I mean, I do know that the old man was famous and such, but I don’t exactly heard much about what he did. “You really don’t know about Dragon General Wallace?”

“Besides that elf Loli-baba is super-effective against him?” Yami asked, leading to some seconds of awkward silence as Lily looked at her confused and Ozzur looked blankly.

“Do I wanna know?” The mummy asked.

“I’d bet a cookie you don’t want to.”

“Then I won’t.” Ozzur said with a shake of his head. “Anyway, go on. It’s never bad to hear a bit more of story from this world.” He said while pointing towards Lily, who nodded weakly before saying.

“You see, Dragon General Wallace is… As his name says, was one of the very few person in the world to ever inherit the Dragon General Class. It was said that having someone of the class alone was enough to turn the tide of a war.” Lily said with a respectful tone. “In fact, from what I’ve heard, back in his prime, he even managed to defeat a dragon one-on-one to prove himself worthy of the class.”

“Huh? Who defeated a dragon?” Rio asked confused. “That gray-haired human from the BIIIG mountain cave?”

“I think that’s him.” Hanbei said with a wry smile. “But… Remembering that scene I have a bit of trouble thinking of him as powerful.”

“I can attest to his strength.” I said while smiling wryly. “I had some bad cookies when I first met him. That, and a date with the wall. Though I did believe that I could fly thanks to him…”

“…You believed you could fly?” Yami asked me confused, and the others followed her. I sighed before shrugging.

“Well, I just had him fling me across the village while I sung ‘I believe I can fly’ at the tops of my lungs. Nothing Cookie-worthy.” I said with a shrug.

“…I didn’t hear about that one before…” I heard Hanbei say after a brief moment of silence.

“He flung you… Across the village?” Lily said shocked for a moment to which I nodded. “Why would he do that?”

“I asked him to do that.” I said with a shrug. “Seemed a good cookie at the time.”

“…Master, do you really need to add a cookie whenever you speak?” Crys asked me, to which I nodded.

“Of cookie I have! Cookies are lo…”

“Cookies are love, cookies are life. You made that joke already.” She said annoyed.

I sulked and went back to skinning, letting Lily continue her story.

“W-Well…” Lily cleared her throat before going on. “Besides all that, I heard that the dragon general was only matched by very few people when it came to strength, with only one living in Eldor, and all the other ones living in the other capitals.” She explained. “Being one of the only Insanian to reach a level higher than four hundred in his time.”

“F-Four hundred?” Ozzur asked in surprise, to which even I simply stared blankly for some time, trying to understand what the hell that number actually meant.

“Heeh. So he’s actually really strong, huh?”

Yeah, just leave it to the gaming-oblivious Yuu to break the ice... Aaaand never mind. Looks like she understands perfectly, but entered her martial-artist mode with that aggressive look and all.

Hearing a few ‘tek-teks’ as the pebble crawled its way behind me, even I couldn’t help but calm it down seeing how Yuu was emanating this really scary aura right now. Well, on the plus side she isn’t drunk, so I at least got that going for me.

Okay, martial-artist mode Yuu drunk. Now that’s scary.

“I’m not exactly sure about all his feats, but I do remember my mother telling me about how he had always been a defensive wall against the other capitals on the last days of war. Once he even stopped a whole army from Ezoria using only his one hundred men and a few villagers before the capital even received news of such army.” She said with an amazed expression. “It was also said that he managed to stop a rampaging Der’roz that somehow ended up in the shores of Eldor.”

“Der’roz?” Ozzur asked confused. “I don’t think I heard about that before.”

“Der’roz… That does sounds like a cookie I had before.” I said with a nod.

“Ahh!” A surprised shout came from someone we sincerely didn’t expect, before she flew and nestled herself around my shoulder scared. “Rio was a good dragon! I kept quiet all the time, so Stone mister won’t give Rio to big bad Doggie, right?” She asked me worried while looking around.

Confused by her reaction, I took her in my arms and started caressing her gently to calm her down before we all turned towards Lily, who had a mix of an apologetic and amused look.

“Well… From what I’ve heard, Der’roz are a rare beast that lives near Ezoria. It is said that they actually prey on dragons if they have the chance.”

“Prey on dragons…?” Hanbei asked a bit surprised before looking towards Rio.

“Well, I’m not sure about greater dragons like her. But I do know they prey on lesser, and even mid-ranked ones. Well, I also heard of dragons preying on Der’roz, so I can’t say for sure.”

“Mommy said… Mommy said that Bad armor Wolfies are really dangerous…” Rio said while peeking over. “They attack everything they see. And they are really, really though.”

“Wait, Rathian said that?” I asked surprised.

“R-Rathian?” Ozzur asked surprised.

“Yeah, her mother’s name.” I said.

“…Next you’ll tell me she…”

“Yes. Yes he did.” Crys said while covering her face with her palm. “He actually made the green scaled wyvern do backflips.”

“How did he…” Ozzur said in disbelief before suddenly blinking and turning towards Crys. “Wait a sec…”

“What’s the problem?” Lily asked confused. “I mean, it is strange that a wyvern would do that, but…” She looked at him with a doubtful expression, but she trailed off as she didn’t quite find the words.

The mummy heaved a long sigh before shaking his head.

“It’s something from… Well… Where we come from.” He explained a bit awkwardly before shaking his head. “Don’t mind it too much.” He sighed before noting down something on his notebooks. “Anyway, this is actually interesting news for me. Need to make sure to pass it on.”

I smiled awkwardly before nodding and looking towards Lily, making a motion for her to go on.

“Well… Most of what I remember right now were some really major military victories. He had grown to even be recognized by the government as a war hero.” Lily said before frowning. “Then, one day he simply disappeared. I remember some people saying that he went on a hunt for legends or something of the kind, and for a few years no one heard of him before.”

“So, he even received praises from the state, huh?” The mummy said interested while noting down her words. He suddenly stopped then turned to me, looking at me as if he was waiting for something.

“What?” I asked confused.

“I’m waiting for you to say something shocking like you always seems to do at times like these.” He stated bluntly.

“H-Hey… it’s not like I’m a cookie with only one flavor…”

“Master…” My words were stopped when a strangely scary Crys called to me in a low voice. “If you don’t stop with the whole cookie things…” She said threateningly.

“Y-Yes…?” I asked while taking a step back.

“I’m going to make a full egg course for you to eat in the next lunch...”

Pfft, does she really think she can threaten me with just that? Just because I don’t like eggs, she thinks she’ll manage to make me drop my delicious cookies pun? WHO DOES SHE THINK I AM? I AM WARGON! THE ONE WITH UNDOMITABLE WILL FOR JOKES! I SHALL NEVER, NEVER GIVE IN TO THREATS SUCH AS…

“With eggplant juice to go with it.”

“I’ll be a good boy and stop doing cookie puns.” I said happily. I mean, yeah, I was going a bit too far with the joke and all. It was even getting difficult to come up with new puns and such.

“Good master.”

“…Wargon greatest weakness are Eggs and Eggplants… Scoop scoop.”

“Hey! Don’t go spreading that around the world!” I shouted back. “And why didn’t you hit him this time?” I asked Lily confused, only to see as she also wrote something in a small notebook.

Waah… Staring at her, my gaze finally wandered towards Yuu, who was making a strangely intense expression, as if she was trying to memorize something.

“It was nice knowing you, Pervert.” I heard Yami while she put her hand on my shoulder. I turned to her and stared at her annoyed for a few seconds before finally sighing.

“You know, for a self proclaimed top-ranked maid you are sure doing a poor job at it.” I said in a blank expression, seeing as she blinked confused. “I mean, it should be almost lunch time by now yet here you are. What will you do if your master gets hungry?”

At my words, I noticed how Hanbei raised an eyebrow amused and Yami’s expression changed into one of pure shock and horror.

“I GOT SO ABSORBED INTO FOLLOWING MY ADORABLE MILADY AROUND THAT I FORGOT TO PREPARE HER FOOD!” She said in a hurry before bringing up the menu.

Not even a few seconds later she disappeared in a pillar of light, to which I finally nodded and smiled proudly to myself.

“You did that knowing well enough that we could buy lunch nearby, didn’t you?” Hanbei asked amused.

“Worth it.” I said with a smile.

“And she will probably add eggs to the dish as revenge.”

“Not worth it.” I said worried.

“Lunch time… Is it?” Ozzur said amused. “So you are a few hours ahead of me, then.” Ozzur said with a slight tone of surprise. I took a few seconds to understand what he meant, but finally nodded. With him being part of an American program about games, it would make sense for him to be American, and thus be a couple of hours behind me in the clock. “So, I take it you’ll be leaving soon?” He asked me, to which I stopped to think before nodding.

“Yeah. I’ll just finish the spider here and go have lunch. Would you mind escorting Lily and Rio back to the city then?”

“I can do that much.” He replied with a nod.

“So you are going back to your world, Teacher?” Lily asked curious.

“Yeah. I should be out for a couple of hours, and you probably want to have some rest by now, right?” I said with an awkward smile knowing well enough how long she had been following me. She smiled awkwardly before nodding. “Well, I still have to finish working on this spider anyway, so it’ll take a few more minutes.” I said while pulling back my sleeve and once again trying to go back to skinning the spider.

Lily nodded before leaning close to me peeking over to see how I would do the process.

Strangely enough, I could feel a not-so-comfy wave of cold air coming from behind me, but deciding that it was better not to worry about it, I simply went on to finish my job.

“…Is she always this scary?”

“You haven’t seen her drunk yet.”

I heard Hanbei and Ozzur commenting behind me while Crys giggled slightly.

Putting one more cookie in my mouth, I decided that it would be better for my nerves to focus on the job in front of me.

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Author’s Quiz: Well, Since I’m having fun with this one, let’s go for one more easy quiz before we start dropping a few more annoying ones.

Question: Back when Gon was still only starting his journey, he ended up taking a quest to hunt lynxes, and despite being underwhelming weak compared to the cats, he and his partner still managed to defeat them. What, exactly, were Gon, Yuu and the lynx’s level in the first hunt?

Bonus question for bonus cookies: What was Gon’s reason to reprimand Yuu in their first moments together?