“No, we haven’t seen Yusa,” said the Mardukryon masons, echoing the other NPCs I had interviewed.

I continued asking more questions, but after a few minutes, it became evident they were a dead end. I thanked them for their time, and they returned to their work. An eternal construction was what I called it because the structure they were building never appeared to progress, just like some government projects.

Drinking [Tart Dapple Juice] to increase my movement speed, I ran all over the village, looking for Yusa. I interviewed the NPCs I met along the way. Some of them were accommodating, especially those I had helped with quests. Others didn’t care and ignored me.

None gave any meaningful information.

I even approached three of Yusa’s suitors—if anyone would help search for her, it’d be them.

But it was a rare instance where I was wrong. They were suspicious of me, still thinking that I was a rival. After all, they had chased me around the village as part of Arakmad’s laundry quest. Unexpectedly… or expectedly… I didn’t get any help from those bastards.

“Should I ask other players?” I spotted a number of them congregating outside the auction house. Maybe the bidding for a valuable item had just ended.

Would they know about my current quest? Most likely not.

The people who might be of help were SpartanDonkey and Luds, the two people I was tired of talking to. I’d rather dance off a cliff than—Dance!

I galloped in the direction of the crimson goat’s hut while reviewing what I knew.

This all started when Yusa disappeared from their burrow house a few hours ago. She left behind a vague letter stating she ‘needed to mend things with Gibil.’

Yusa’s mother marched to Gibil’s place, assuming her daughter would meet with a Pathfinder she disliked. But he had no idea about Yusa’s whereabouts; she didn’t visit his house. In fact, she had avoided him after she rejected his love through the letters I had delivered.

Gibil and Yusa’s mother went to look for her but couldn’t find her in any of the places she frequented. They returned to Gibil’s house, hoping that Yusa had passed by there. But she didn’t. No one had seen her walk around the ‘Cliff Village.’ And that was where I saw them arguing.

I agreed with Yusa’s mother. Based on her letter, Yusa probably did plan to visit Gibil.

But she probably had things to do before that. Looking for a reconciliatory gift sounded like a good idea. I knew that Gibil liked people bringing him gifts when visiting.

And what gift did he like?

[Peely Fruit Wine].

Let’s see what the crimson goat knows.

“Peely, Peely, Peely,” I sang as I left the crimson goat’s small hut. I didn’t see Yusa there, but according to the goat, she did visit about an hour and a half ago. My first actual clue.

She wasn’t buying [Peely Fruit Wine] as I had guessed. Instead, she asked the crimson goat to teach her how to make it.

A personalized gift?

It was a well-thought idea, one fit for the romance books that my sister, Nelly, loved to collect. Gibil would undoubtedly cherish such a gift, especially because it’d take at least a year to make. A few more years of aging would help the wine taste better—that was what the goat told me.

At first, I thought that a year for a gift sounded too long.

Then I remembered that Mardukryons lived for a few hundred years. It wasn’t too long of a wait in that context. Nelly’s fiancé once gifted her a painting that took him a couple of months to draw; a year to make wine was probably as long as that from a Mardukryon’s perspective.

Since Yusa wanted to make [Peely Fruit Wine], she’d need fruits.

Next stop: the Merchants Lodge—the place where Peely fruit farmers sold their products wholesale.

I had passed by that place earlier, but none of them had seen Yusa today. My hunch was that she went to buy straight from the fruit farmers.

Nonetheless, I returned to the Merchants Lodge to ask for a list of their suppliers and where to find them. The merchants were happy to help because I had assisted them with various tasks. My earlier efforts were paying off.

“Withdrawing from the ‘favor bank’ isn’t usually this easy in the real world,” I mused, heading to the first fruit farmer on the list.

I felt like a detective as I tracked down people, investigating what they knew about the missing Yusa. If I were wearing a fedora and a heavy trench coat, adding a cigar, perhaps the NPCs would take me seriously. From their perspective, I was a kid asking about someone I wasn’t even related to.

Having learned my lesson from when I was arrested—I’m a changed man—I didn’t barge into any house this time around. And I also called the NPCs by their name only if they had introduced themselves to me.

“You’re out of luck, kid.” A Mardukryon NPC pointed at empty crates stacked up against the wall of his house. “I sold all of my produce a week ago. You’ll have to wait for the next round of harvest after the moon completes its journey across the night sky.”

“A moon—what do you mean? Like a month?”

“The fruits will be here when they’re here,” he grumpily replied, waving his hand to shoo me away.

“Thanks for the help, sir,” I sarcastically said. So far, except for the Dalkanus, the NPC AIs didn’t seem to recognize sarcasm.

As I went down the list, it became increasingly clear that this was another dead end.

“I’m sorry, youngling,” said the last farmer on the list. He leaned on the very long handle of his shovel. “I have only a few Peely plants, and none of their fruits are ripe for the picking. I’m afraid it’s the same situation with other farmers.”

We were in the middle of a small plantation. In the sea of snow, there was this fertile patch of brown soil. It was like a piece from a different jigsaw puzzle forced into a picture of a snowy landscape. Borple-sized golden ores were evenly spaced amongst the rows of plants, providing them with magical energy to grow in this otherwise unhospitable place.

“Don’t look glum, youngling,” the farmer said. “In the next harvest, I’ll be sure to save plenty of fruits for you and your friend… Yu-Yu—”

“Her name is Yusa.” He hadn’t seen her either.

The farmer nodded. “The two of you can eat your fill by then. You continue looking for her, and I’ll continue tilling the soil.”

I didn’t immediately leave the plantation. I walked between the rows of plants as I reexamined the clues to regain my bearing.

After every harvest, the fruits that weren’t consumed were preserved as jam or wine. As a villager, Yusa should know the farmers didn’t have any fresh fruits to sell. There was no point coming here. Was looking for the farmers a false lead all along?

Where should I go next?

One of the plants caught my eye.

“Is this a Rapdom?” I called out to the farmer.

The farmer stopped digging. “That’s right! You know your plants, youngling.”

“No, just this one,” I said.

Rapdom was a plant used to make healing salves. The first-ever quest Healer Gula gave me was to gather Rapdom stalks. I didn’t know that Mardukryons grew our own Rapdoms; these were larger than the ones tended by the Crobels.

Did Gula prefer the wild variety for potion-making, or was there no supply from the local vendors at that time? In any case, if Rapdoms grew in the Golden Forest, then Peely plants probably did too.

The farmer hesitantly agreed with my theory but didn’t know where to look. “You can try asking the Hunter-Warriors,” was his advice. “They know their way around the Golden Forest. They might have encountered a Peely plant during their Hunts.”

“This is it, right?” I pointed at something that looked like a tomato plant with bright orange flowers. Veins of gold threaded its green stems and branches, tingeing several of its leaves with a slight yellow glow.

“You do know your plants.”

“Only a guess. Its flowers have the same color as the Peely Fruit Wine.”

“The flowers are coming along nicely. Those bulbs you see sitting in the middle of the petals will become the fruit. If there are Peely plants in the wild, it’ll be dangerous to get to them. Better wait for my harvest.”

“If that’s not foreshadowing, then I’m a box.”

“If you’re in a rush, then the Hunter-Warriors is where I’d go if I were you.”

“No need,” I said, more to myself. “I think I have seen those flowers before…”

“Take care out there, youngling,” said a [Lvl 27 Mardukryon | Kurghal Village Guard] as I exited through the western gate of the village.

“I will,” I said. “Thanks for the concern, random guard with no name.”

I noticed that the villagers, including the guards, were nicer to me lately. When I first entered the village, most NPCs ignored me. But as I completed more and more quests, they began to notice and talk to me more. There was a noticeable change after I moved on from small quests to the more complicated tasks given by the Lodges.

And one of the Lodges I had helped was that of the Weavers. I had to fend off young Frost Macaques while apprentice Weavers gathered wildflowers to make dye for fabrics.

Despite having completed several quests, I distinctly remembered that one because it was the only protection quest I had done so far. And how I went about doing it was also funny. Rather than killing those annoying monkeys—they’d respawn and multiply if I did that—I drew them away from the Weavers with my Totems casting [Enraging Call].

Some of the flowers that the Weavers had collected looked like they came from the Peely plant. If I find the wild Peelies, I’d probably find Yusa. Or at least some clue as to where I should go next.

I had taken a few wrong turns today, perhaps too many that it chipped away at the greatness of Herald Stone. This was the time to make everything right. I’m going the right way… right?

“Hooves,” I whispered, scanning the snow in front of me. It hadn’t snowed, so the tracks weren’t covered. There was one set of hoofprints heading into the forest. “Well, well, well… seems like this is where Yusa went.”

I spotted a few shadows flitting through the trees from the corner of my eye. A bunch of [Lvl 11 Baby Frost Macaque] zipped across the branches. Their chattering was subtle while they observed me. Yusa might be in danger.

“Herald Stone, the Fruit Hero, is here!”