Chapter 29 – Questity Quests

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After looking for Lyra, who we found sleeping under the table of a tavern, getting scolded by Lord Granger, though not too much as our antics served to liven the mood of the town-folks after the battle of the day before, and saying goodbye to the four elven girls, I and Holiés departed towards East. We arrived at the village that had requested help for the hill viper extermination as the sun was setting. After meeting the village chief and getting the details of the quest, he offered us to sleep in his house and we gladly accepted. The morning after we left the village just after dawn and started looking for the viper through the grassy hills of the area. It was almost noon when we finally found the two-meter wide fresh trail of the viper and started following it, Holiés hunting abilities came into play at that moment as I was about to go in the wrong direction before he made me notice the way grass was bent.

After almost an hour of walking since we first spotted the trail we saw what almost looked like a trunk coming out from a group of trees on top of a hill, if it wasn't that said trunk was green as the grass around us, shined under the rays of the sun and moved slightly every now and then.

We stopped there to prepare and I asked Holiés, “how good is your aim?”

“I can hit a coin eighty meters away in the right conditions, with the right bow,” he answered as he checked the condition of the quiver strapped at his side. Said quiver only held six arrows ready to be rapidly drawn while the others were on a closed one tightened to his back. He had told me as we walked that if he ended up with only three arrows in his fast quiver he'd normally consider the hunt a failure so the back-up quiver was more a precaution than a necessity.

“So you should be able to hit a fast moving pomegranate from fifty, right?” I said, making my heavy orichalcum armor appear on me.

“Yes, I should be able to hit its eyes.”

I took the five meters long pike and the longsword out of my storage and said, “It's good to see you catch up immediately.”

“How many weapons do you even have with you?”

“Enough,” I said as I laced the longsword to my side, “let's go.”

We walked to the opposite side of the group of tree from where what we assumed to be the tail was. When the monstrous, green, triangular head of the sleeping viper came into view I told Holiés to stop there and be ready to take aim.

I then used body-strengthening magic on all my body and started running towards the head of the sleeping viper as fast as I could, seconds before hitting it I poured mana in the mithril tip of the pike and aimed between its closed eyes. The miracle didn't happen though and, just a moment before I could stab it in its brain it opened its eyes and raised its head, hissing. I still managed to stab it on its neck just behind its head and penetrate it all the way to the other side. I let go of the pike that, having already penetrated in the thick flesh of the beast on both sides and still having a lot of momentum, flew against a tree trunk on the other side as I kicked the ground to come to a halt.

I jumped to the side before coming to a complete stop as the viper let itself fall were I was just a moment before. I put my left arm in my storage and took the heater shield out of my storage while drawing the longsword, at the same time an arrow edged itself on the left eye of the viper.

The monster hissed in pain and coiled back five meters, ready to charge at Holiés. Seeing that, shield in front of me, I put myself between the two and took the full charge of the viper. Maybe because I had leveled up, maybe because this time I was prepared, maybe because it was a nose against my shield that was firmly planted in the ground and not a tusk to my torso, I was able to completely stop its charge instead of being flung away as with the viltusk. I immediately used the opportunity to stab at its face, between the nose and the wounded eye with my longsword. I wasn't able to go deep though as I had to draw the sword back before it moved away and I ended up losing another weapon mid-combat.

The viper raised its head again, probably trying to fall on me again and again an arrow hit its eye, this time the right one, robbing it of its view completely.

Understanding that it was now at a complete disadvantage the monstrous forty meters long viper coiled back completely and assumed a defensive pose and started moving its head side to side, trying to hear our movements.

Instead of charging at it I stayed where I was, catching my breath as I used Ice magic to cool its body. Soon it stopped moving its head, which fell on its coiled up body, making the huge snake look like a perfect imitation of the poop depicted in a certain anime with a robot girl protagonist, only green instead of pink.

Seeing that the monster was now immobile I started walking toward it, I sheathed the sword, put the shield back inside the storage and took the pike back from the tree it was embedded in. I arrived right in front of the monster and it still didn't move.

I leaned back to charge my strike and heard Holiés shout, “Fortuna, wait” a moment too late as, while my arm was still behind me, the viper shot forward and opened its jaw to bite at me. The teeth of the weakened viper didn't even manage to make a dent in my orichalcum armor though and I was now in the perfect position to strike at its brain from the soft spot that was its mouth.

I stabbed through its palate with my pike but, as the mithril tip penetrated the soft flesh of the monster, it sprayed a poisonous mist at me, in a last effort at survival. I drew my pike back and stabbed at it again and again and again, between the coughing the poisonous mist caused.

I fell on the ground in front of the now dead snake and I heard Holiés shout from afar, “Fortuna! Are you alright?”

“Fuck no, I'm not alright, I feel like ants are eating at my brain and stomach,” I said and started to use healing magic to cleanse me of the poison and heal back the bit of damage it caused.

“I'll take it as a yes.”

Around a minute later the poisonous mist had faded and Holiés walked up to me and removed my helmet, just in time for me to puke on his shoes.

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“Jeez, thanks, I really needed some vomit on my feet today.”

“Fuck you.”

“It's good to see you're lively and well.”

“How is this even near being well?!”

“Considering that mist was probably enough to kill the population of an entire village and you're still alive after taking most of it right on your face, I'd say you're in top condition.”

“My poison resistance is level five, if I still ended up dying I'd sue whoever made this skill system.”

“I don't know why but it isn't hard to picture you suing the gods,.” he said, laughing.

I laughed along with him and, when we stopped he asked me, “so, can you get up?”

“Give me a few minutes.”

He nodded and crouched next to me before moving me a bit away from the vomit. Once I was about a meter away from it he lifted my head and set next to it, then let me rest my head on his out-stretched legs.

He took an handkerchief from a pocket and started cleaning my mouth while stroking my hair with the other hand.

“Thank you,” I said once he finished.

He smiled and said, “you're welcome.”

“It sure is peaceful here once there aren't any giant monsters around.”

“What to have a viper meat pick-nick?”

“No thanks.”

We stayed like that for a few minutes, enjoying the peace of the hills, then I said, “did you have fun at the brothel?”

He stopped caressing my hair and said, “you sure know how to ruin a moment, don't you?”

“Yeah, yeah, so?”

“Yeah, they were pretty good, they even gave me a discount.”

I hit his side lightly with my elbow and said, “a real lady killer, are you?”

“What about you then, did you have fun with those elves?”

“More than any rumor could make you think of.”

“That's a lot of fun.”

I laughed a bit and said, “yeah, it sure is.”

“So... is your lover also a woman?”

“...yes.”

“Well, I can't say I blame you, I like women too after all,” he said, half-laughing.

I laughed a bit again before saying, “it's not that I like women more than men in general, it's just that I'm not ready for another man yet and I met quite a bit of sexy women.”

“What happened to the last one?”

“He was stabbed by his son in law, threw down some stairs and ran over by the carriage his daughter was on.”

He froze and, visibly sad, said, “I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry, it happened quite some time ago. It's just... he was one of the best men that ever lived.”

“Maybe not the best father.”

“And I'm seriously going to kill you if you ever try to badmouth him again,” I said, dead serious.

“..sorry.”

“Let's talk about something else.”

“How about how we're going to miss the village festival?”

“Do you really care about it?”

“No, but I thought you would have.”

“Why?”

“There is a lot of food and the girls of the village dance in front of everyone wearing only a skirt and some laces around their chests on the second night.”

“Let's go!” I said, suddenly sitting up, which made me puke again.

Once I finished saying bye to my breakfast Holiés forced me down on his legs and said, “you try not to die on me now, we'll think about the festival later,” before cleaning my mouth again.

“Good suggestion.”

After some more waiting, cleansing and healing I was able to move around again pretty well and, after eating the dried sausages and bread we took with us, we started skinning and dismounting the thing. We only took the skin, monster core, fangs and poison glands, leaving most of the monstrous snake behind, before picking up my pike and walking back to the village.

We arrived at the village when it was already early evening as skinning such a large monster took us a few hours. It was too late to depart to the village that requested help with the goblin den so we decided to spend another night there, which wasn't too bad considering the village held a small party to celebrate with us the death of the monster.

The next morning we departed again just after dawn to get to the other village early. We arrived just after noon. We immediately looked for the village chief to make him explain us the last details about the goblin den. We soon found him and he told us that said then was a hole the goblin excavated in a small hill a bit over a walking hour from the village.

We ate lunch at the village and went to the den right afterwards. Along the way Holiés finally managed to release a bit of mana, enough to use simple magic tools but certainly not enough to be called mana manipulation, or use the elven yew bow for that matter.

We arrived at the den in schedule. The hole in the hill was surrounded by a dozen goblins and a two hobgoblins, all of which but two were behind a roughly made wooden fence.

I equipped myself with my armor, took my halberd out of the storage and charged in. The two goblins outside quickly spotted me but were sniped down by Holiés before they could even make a move. I passed through the opening in the fence and threw two ice spears at two incoming goblins while cutting completely in half the one that was right next to me.

I saw Holiés snipe three other goblins in rapid succession as the two hobgoblins ran towards me along with the remaining five goblins. I killed two of the goblins with two ice spears before they could even reach me and charged at one of the two hobgoblins who, though he tried to parry my halberd with his wooden club, only saw my halberd cut through said club like butter before it did the same with its head.

At that point the remaining hobgoblin and goblins tried to run towards the den but I blocked their way with an earth wall and charged at the hobgoblins back, severing his chest from the rest of his body as Holiés sniped one of the goblins. I turned around and cut cleanly through the neck of one of the two remaining goblins as a rock pike impaled the other.

I ran to the opening of the hole they had made in the hill and sealed it with a thick earth wall I then hardened as much as I could, knowing the ability to dig of the little green pests, leaving through said wall only a small hole from which I started inserting “fire gas” with air magic.

When the concentration of methane inside the den seemed satisfactory I ignited the whole thing on fire and sealed the small hole.

Holiés reached me just as I had finished making my goblin cooker M3000RC and, seeing me in front of the new wall of compressed dirt asked, “now?”

“Now we wait,” I said and went to sit on a tree stump that was in the middle of the fenced camp.

After roughly ten minutes had passed I made the wall crumble and the view of dozens of charred goblins and hobgoblins trying to reach the wall and dig through it welcomed us. I flooded the hole with water that soon evaporated because of the intense heat still present in the wall and floor of the den. I made the vapor go away with air magic and walked in.

As we went deeper inside Holiés said, “this is brutally effective.”

“We came to kill them, better do it fast than risk an injury ourselves.”

“Fair enough.”

We soon reached the final room of the den and, as I entered, I saw what seemed like an oversized goblin crawl towards me half-dead.

“Are hobgoblins supposed to be over two meters tall?” I asked Holiés.

“Obviously not, what are you even-” his sentence was cut the moment he reached the entrance of the room, “holy shit that's a general!”

“Is it bad?”

“Really bad.”

I walked up to said general that couldn't even muster the strength to raise his arms completely and cut through his neck cleanly before saying, “good thing he's dead then.”

“Yeah...” he said with an absent-minded look in his eyes.

“Ehy, stop daydreaming and start collecting the cores,” I said as I took a simple knife out of my storage.

It took almost an hour to collect all the cores from the goblins in the den and, once we had finished we hurried back to the village.

“Are you pissed off or something?” Holiés asked me as we were walking back.

“No, why?”

“Oh, you know, maybe the fact that you just literally burnt alive around two hundred goblins without batting an eye.”

“I wanted to do it quickly.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? Shouldn't we hurry to that festival of yours?”

Holiés stopped in his tracks and I turned around to look at his serious expression as he said, “Fortuna, I don't know how to tell you this but... today is the second and last day of the festival.”