Chapter 6:

A Tiny Fish with an Unwanted Quest

The training on the robots was not a huge jump from the targets. You didn't miss anything. And I definitely didn't miss 90% of my shots. Nope.

I fired off Tiny Tim's charge shot one more time and watched as it sailed over toward my target, took a downward slant, and nailed the robot in the foot. It promptly fell forward onto the ground and exploded.

"Yes!!" I exclaimed. "Did you see that?"

"You bet I did, you got him right in the ankle! That will totally take out a normal User."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Heeey, that sounds like sarcasm AND negativity, mister."

He held his hands up. "I'm sorry! Just... we have a long ass road ahead of us."

I sighed. He wasn't kidding. That had been my best shot on a moving target and, negative or not, he was right. That wouldn't have done jack shit in a real combat scenario. A User would have tripped, at best, and been back up to gun me down.

"Well, let's start raising some stats! How come I haven't gained anything doing all this?"

"Training grounds offer no stat or experience gains."

"What?? That's bullshit! If you are doing a sport, most of your time is in preparing and practicing—in training."

Stephen shrugged. "Just a weird thing in the wonderful dude-bro world of Gunplay. They want all gains to be from real combat. Not all Combat Styles are like that, most do operate in the traditional way you described. But, unfortunately, to make any progress we are going to actually have to get into firefights. Or..."

"Or?" I asked.

"We could do some quests. It wouldn't give us the crazy amount of experience that combat with other Users does, but it could get us started."

"So it would be us against NPCs basically, right?"

"Yeah. I mean we could still run into other Users depending on what the quest is but, for the most part, yeah, we would be fighting NPCs. Monsters. Robots. Squishy soldiers. You've really never taken a combat Quest before?"

I shook my head. "I mean, I know the concept, but from old video games. I've just never had a reason to do something like this. I wouldn't want to do it on my own and, well..."

"You were always on your own. I get you." He patted me on the back. "Now you're not. So let's get to questing!"

His eyes unfocused as he jumped into finding us a quest so he missed my big smile. I was going on a quest—with a real actual friend! I couldn't believe how insanely different my life had become in less than 24 hours.

"So, what do you want to fight?" Stephen asked.

"Um. Well, something a little tougher than training robots. But not by much?"

He laughed. "That really narrows it down. How about this?"

Words appeared in front of me:

[ Totally Robotic!

Robot Monkeys have gone haywire—take them out! ]

"Robot... monkeys? That sounds small, fast, and hard to hit."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Hm, I guess there's only one thing we are suited to kill, then..."

Another quest came up:

[ The Rise of the Squish

A group of slimes are trying to gather together and become a King Slime—stop them before it's too late! ]

"Slimes." I sighed. "I guess that is all I can handle."

"Everyone starts somewhere. This one sound good?"

"I guess..."

"Let's crush these slimes and then take on the monkeys! We got this." He bent down and whispered, "You're being a little negative, you know."

I smacked him and he laughed like a maniac and I had no choice but to join in. He accepted the quest and we were teleported. I was expecting to find the slimes in a big open field like they usually were in every JRPG known to man but, to my surprise, we were taken to a much more slimy location.

"A swamp? This actually feels like a place slimes would live in." I said, honestly impressed.

"The Interverse is pretty good about turning tropes on their head. You know, sometimes. It's still slimes."

"Yeah, still slimes. But, okay, where do we find them?"

"Track the quest in the menu."

Sure enough, I found the option and clicked it and, there we go, I was in business, on the minimap in the top right there was now a location marked on it. As well as a handy line in my vision showing me the exact way to go and the miles remaining until we got there. This mission was four miles away.

"Thank god we aren't on Earth," I said. "Even just one mile was quite a trek on foot."

"Yeah, I've read that. Definitely one of the many advantages to the Interverse."

We both set off in a run. In the Interverse four miles was nothing. The speed of traversal was a lot closer to an open world video game than in the real world. It would have taken a normal human quite a while to run that far, and most probably couldn't even keep up the run the whole way. Stephen and I made the trek in about five minutes and didn't even break a sweat.

The worst part was the environment. The swamp threatened to suck us in at every turn and weird bubbling boils popped as we made our way through, putting out the most awful smell. Like a clogged toilet overflowing with gunk.

There was a big tree near us and Stephen motioned to me to follow. We could both rest our backs on the massive trunk and were completely covered from view.

"You see them?" He asked, peeking around the left side of the tree.

I poked my head out of the right side and, sure enough, a pack of slimes were gathering, just like the quest said.

I took out Wordy. I didn't think Tiny Tim could reach them from this far. Stephen took out his own weapon which I had never even bothered to ask what he carried. Damn, bad friend. I made a note to ask him in detail later, but I could tell that it was a sniper rifle of some kind.

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"Okay, once we've fired we will hopefully take out a couple of them and then the others are going to come for us. Even if these are weak slimes they can break apart and overwhelm in sheer numbers. Not to mention form together and make a King Slime, then we are in a lot of trouble."

"So we just gotta kill them fast. I got it." I made sure my weapon was locked and loaded.

"Alright, so, countdown of five, and on go we, well, go."

"Sounds good."

"Five."

My heart was beating in my chest. I didn’t know why this was so scary.

"Four."

I'd taken on early game slime-killing quests in so many old JRPGs. This was no big deal.

"Three."

But this was as close to "real life" as it got. Video games were easy. There was a Stat for playing them but most single-player games had accessibility options to where you didn't even need to be good at video games to beat them.

"Two."

This, however, put basically all my real Stats to the test and if I couldn't beat this quest, how the hell did I have any hope at all of even winning the first round of the tournament?

"One."

I quieted my thoughts and put my eye to the scope, ignoring all the information except for the guideline showing me my best chance of hitting a slime. My finger moved to the trigger, readying for–

"HEY THERE!!"

My arm jolted back in fright and, unfortunately, so did my finger. Wordy went off, sending three bullets sailing harmlessly over the heads of the slimes.

Stephen had somehow kept his cool and stopped from firing prematurely. He put his back to the tree and we both wheeled around to look for what the hell had spoken.

At eye level there was nothing. But a little hand grabbed my leg and tugged. Barely making it out of the muck was... a talking fillet of salmon?

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, maybe a tad too harsh but the thing had really majorly messed things up for us.

"Why, I'm Sam N. Fillet!" The creature did a little fist pump motion and leaped out of the grime a bit, twirling in a circle. "Will you help me, pretty please?"

I bent over to examine him further. It really was a cooked salmon fillet, but with little drawn-on-looking eyes and limbs.

"Uh, Darcy, now is not really the time to be talking to a piece of meat." Stephen glanced around the tree and fired off his first shot, taking out one slime in a critical hit.

"Yeah, I know but, where the fuck did it come from? Why are you in this swamp?"

"I seem to have gotten a little lost! That's what I'm asking. Could you please get me home safely, Miss?"

As soon as he asked the question something popped up in my vision:

[ A Special Request!

A Long Fillet From Home

Escort Sam N. Fillet back to his home. Wherever that is. ]

[ Accept Quest? ]

I cleared it immediately.

"Look, you... little guy. We will help you. But we gotta take care of this first."

I looked around the tree, the slimes were grouping together and coming toward us. They were rolling and hopping faster than I'd ever seen a slime move in JRPGs. I switched to Tiny Tim, charged up, and fired a shot into the middle of them. I exploded two but a third only took some chip damage and, to my horror, split in half.

"No!" Stephen exclaimed. "If you don't get them in one hit, they multiply. Be careful."

"That looked like a pretty good shot to me," Sam said, leaning around the tree by my ankle.

"Look, uh, Sam. You need to run away. This is dangerous for you."

"Less talking, more shooting!" Stephen said as he fired off another perfect shot. "Just ignore the meat man."

"Meatman? That is very insensitive, Unkind Sir." Sam glared at Stephen and shook his head in disappointment.

"Stephen, I think you said something foodist. It's okay little guy, he didn't mean it. We are just in the middle of something. So please, get out of here."

Sam shook his head, or, well, it was kind of the entire fillet body that moved. "I'm not afraid of some silly slimes! I can help you guys. And then will you help me?"

Yet again, once he voiced the question the request popped up again.

Stephen took a shot that badly missed the mark and his target split into three.

"Fuck! Make it stop talking, that damn Quest pop-up made me miss the shot."

"Is he always this angry?" Sam asked.

I peeked around the tree. The slimes were a LOT closer now. Uncomfortably so. And we'd barely made any progress with lowering their numbers. I sent out another charged shot, this time aiming for two near the side of the crowd. The blast landed in between them and fully vaporized them both.

"Stephen, I think we are going to need to run soon."

He fell back behind the tree and we were shoulder to shoulder again.

"Yeah, definitely. Shit, if that annoying NPC hadn't shown up we would have been done by now."

"I'm not annoying!" Sam kicked Stephen in the shin, which didn't appear to do any damage at all. "I'll show you, Unkind Sir!"

And before we could do anything, the lunatic ran around me to the other side of the tree.

"Wait!" I reached for him but he hopped around my head, continuing on.

"Chaaaaarge!" He exclaimed, heading straight for the oncoming slime onslaught.

"Okay, great, while he distracts them let's fall back and then take off the rest of them while he gets eaten," Stephen said.

"Stephen! Fuck no, we gotta save him!"

I followed after Sam, charging up more shots and firing as I ran. I heard Stephen swear under his breath as he gave chase after me.

"Wait! Darcy, take this!"

I looked back in time to see Stephen throw a gun at me. Somehow my clumsy ass caught it, but at the last second, it dipped into the muck a tad before I got a firm grip on it.

A shotgun. Not really my style but, if we had to get in close then it was way better than slow charged shots.

I took aim at the nearest slime and fired. It exploded, right before it rolled over Sam.

"Hey! That was my kill!" He screeched, which kind of threw me off a bit. What the hell was up with this weird little dude? But if he died I would never find out.

Stephen fired his own shotgun, taking out another one that had come from Sam's left.

"Stop stealing my kills!" He screamed at the sky.

"Darcy, restrain the lunatic fish man before he gets himself killed!" Stephen shouted as he fired once more and started to reload.

"Aww, you do care about him!"

He gave me a look like if I didn't get Sam out of there he was going to turn his shotgun on him. Message received. Stephen was way too serious in a life or loss scenario.

I fired off two more rounds, taking out just as many slimes. Then I bent down and scooped up Sam before he could charge off again.

"No! Put me down! I want my kill!"

He flailed and fought me at every turn but he was so weak that I barely felt it and had no trouble tucking him under my arm and continuing to fire as I lugged him away back toward the tree.

Stephen backed up with me at a slower pace, firing like a mad man, taking out four slimes per load. He was a machine. The slimes numbers had been greatly diminished, leaving only about a dozen left.

I made it the rest of the way to the tree and switched to my rifle. It was a little awkward taking aim and firing with Sam in the crook of my arm but I managed. Every time I fired my arm tensed and I could feel myself squeezing the poor little guy. But he didn't seem concerned about that, he was still screaming bloody murder about getting a kill.

We kept up the onslaught and before long there were just two slimes left.

"You take one and I take the other?" I asked with a grin.

Stephen smiled back. We took aim and fired, popping our slimes in unison.

"NO!!" Sam yelled.

I sat him down against the tree and held him still. "Hey, it's over now. Sorry for stealing your kills. But those things were dangerous."

He crossed his arm and sat down in the muck, pouting. "I wanted to help."

Stephen joined us behind the tree, stowing his shotgun in his inventory. "Maybe next time, bud. We will take your quest now."

He seemed to be back to his normal friendly self. But Sam was having non of it.

"I don't think I want your help, Unkind Sir." Sam glared up at Stephen.

"Okay, then you and me will go on a duo mission!" I held my hand out to him.

Sam stared at my palm, considering. "I don't know. You stole my kills, too..."

"I won’t do it again, promise." I held my hand to my heart.

"You're gonna ditch me for a Fillet?" Stephen laughed.

"He needs help! And you were uncharacteristically mean to him. You're a way different person in combat."

"Yeah, I know, sorry about that... I just get so focused. And, I mean, it worked didn't it?"

"I guess so. But maybe you should apologize to Sam and then he will let us both help him."

"I don't want his help." Sam said, still pouting. He got up though, and started to walk away. "I'll find nicer non kill stealing friends to help me."

"Wait, Sam!" I tried to grab his shoulder but he dodged out of the way and took off back around the tree.

"Don't sweat it. The quest probably wasn't worth it anyway with how weak he was."

I rounded on Stephen and stuck my finger in his face. "What is with you, man? Why are you being such an asshole to him?"

"I'm not–it's just..."

"What?? I think you owe ME an explanation and him an apology, definitely."

"I just have... a thing."

"A thing?"

"Yeah, a problem. That I can't help."

"So you're foodist toward meat people after all, huh?"

"No. Well, not all meat..."

I let out an exasperated sigh. "What then? You're foodist to SOME meat men??"

"I'm not foodist! I'm..." he mumbled something.

"What?" He mumbled something again. "Dude, what the hell are you saying?"

"I'M ALLERGIC!"

"You're... allergic?"

"Yes. To salmon."

I stared at him. "You're allergic... to salmon."

"Yes..." He avoided looking at me directly.

I covered my face with my hand, holding back from bursting out laughing.

"It's not funny!" He threw his hands up into the air. "See, this is why I wasn't going to tell you."

"Then you shouldn't have been foodist toward Sam."

"I'M NOT FUCKING–"

"Miss!! Unkind Sir!! I have made a grave error!!" Sam yelled from a ways off, cutting our absurd argument short.

We both poked our heads around the tree.

"Oh my god," we both said together.

The once empty swamp yet again was teeming with slimes—twice or more of their original amount.