The trio of people chasing Drumstick slowed to a walk as they approached Terry. The lead was someone Terry would have pegged as middle-aged based on the gray streaking his hair, but he didn’t trust that assessment. People in cultivation and LitRPG stories always seemed to age slower or have ways of extending their lives. He also hadn’t dared ask anyone about it because he was certain that piece of information would be something everyone here already knew. Even the baronet and Heletina had looked too young to have a daughter in her late teens or early twenties. That made him deeply suspicious that the man was probably a lot older than he looked. He also had a very large, heavy sword strapped across his back.
The other two looked much younger and, based on the way they kept glancing at the older man, were probably his students or subordinates of some kind. There was a younger man with a very deep tan and a shaved head. He held a bow, but there was no arrow on the string. Terry frowned at that. Either the young man was waiting for orders or he had some kind of magical arrow technique. If it was the latter, that was something he needed to watch out for. Based on the fact that the only other weapon Terry could see was a small knife, he had to assume that the young man wasn’t big on melee fighting.
He turned his eyes to the last member of the little party. She resembled the young man enough that Terry was willing to bet they were siblings or maybe cousins. She had her dark cropped close but hadn’t shaved it. She held a spear and was comfortable with the weapon based on the casual way she was moving with it. She saw him looking at her and gave him a challenging look. Terry wasn’t sure what that was about, so he focused on the older man again. The man was looking at him the way Terry had been looking at them. It was only then that Terry realized he’d drawn some conclusions that he wholly lacked the expertise to draw. He supposed some of the information in the other-knowledge had seeped into his head.
The little party drew to a stop better than fifteen feet away. Not so far that the archer couldn’t do some damage, but far enough away that people using swords and spears would have a hard time fighting with each other. It wasn’t quite a gesture of goodwill, but Terry chose to see it as a gesture that they weren’t in a hurry to fight him. Given that he didn’t want to fight with them, that seemed like a good place to start what he hoped would be a short conversation that didn’t end in violence. Terry was a little amused at the uncertainty on the older man’s face. The guy kept moving his eyes from the swords on Terry’s hips up to the kitten on his shoulder. It seemed he was having trouble deciding what to make of that particular combination.
“I am Haresh, the adventurer,” said the older man.
“Terry,” replied Terry.
He pulled out his own Adventurer’s Guild badge and showed it to them. The young man and woman seemed to relax a bit at the sight, but the older one frowned.
“The beast is ours,” said Haresh.
“Dusk is harmless,” said Terry, reaching up to pet Dusk.
The kitten had been staring at the newcomers with curious little eyes when not shooting the cowering Drumstick nasty looks. As soon as he started petting Dusk, though, the kitten started purring and kneading his shoulder with tiny claws. The younger man gave the kitten a baffled look, but the young woman was staring at the kitten with an “I must pet the adorable creature” expression. Haresh blinked a few times before shaking his head.
“Not the cat,” said the Haresh in an annoyed voice as he pointed at Drumstick. “That beast.”
“Drumstick is harmless as well. I’m quite certain of it. Honestly, the kitten is probably more dangerous.”
“It’s a cockatrice. They’re dangerous killers,” said the young man.
“I’m sure most of them are. I’m just saying that this one isn’t. The first time I saw it, I threw a rock at it. It ran away.”
“That isn’t the—” started Haresh before he gave Terry a disbelieving look. “It ran after you threw a rock at it?”
Stolen story; please report.
“Oh yeah. I did throw it pretty hard. And don’t get me wrong. If you told me that it broke into a bakery and ate all of the bread, I’d believe you. It’s a shameless glutton, but I can’t see it ever hurting anyone. I mean, look at it,” said Terry as he turned to observe Drumstick.
The chicken-lizard was staring at Haresh and his helpers with mournful eyes and shuffled back anytime someone focused on it. Haresh didn’t look entirely convinced, but the young woman finally spoke up.
“It did run away as soon as it saw us,” she said.
“It didn’t even try to fight,” offered the young man.
“We can always find something else to hunt,” said the young woman in a cajoling voice. “You know, something that’s actually dangerous.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to be hunting people’s pets, Haresh,” said the young man.
Haresh looked from Drumstick to Terry. His eyes shifted from Terry to Dusk. Then, the man lifted a hand and started rubbing his eyes like he’d gotten an abrupt and painful headache. An incandescent ray of joy passed through Terry as he finally got to watch someone else suffer because of a trope. Haresh’s payday had just been trumped because of, well, Terry wasn’t sure which trope it was, but he’d have put money on it being related to Dusk. Too cute to kill, or something like that. Terry and Drumstick had simply gotten pulled into the sphere of that grace courtesy of the law of proximity. Apparently, the young pair knew their mentor well because the young man started slinging his bow across his back. The young woman made her spear simply vanish. Terry stared at her in dumbfounded shock. The scrutiny went on for long enough that it seemed to make her uncomfortable. Her cheeks flushed a little, and she sent another of those challenging looks his way.
“What?” she demanded. “Am I so beautiful you can’t look away?”
Terry snapped out of his trance. Is she that beautiful? He thought it over for a second. He hadn’t been paying that much attention. Terry still had no idea what kind of magic dominated this world, but it did have the side effect of boosting everyone’s attractiveness. This young woman was no exception to that. She had large, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and what looked like a perfectly symmetrical face.
“Well, yeah. You kind of are,” admitted Terry.
The young woman’s previous expression melted into one of confusion, embarrassment, and even some pleasure at the compliment. What might have been a flush of anger immediately turned into a blush that wasn’t helped by the young man or Haresh.
“Another suitor? Hopefully, this one won’t sing. Or write bad poetry comparing you to the moon.”
“Be quiet,” she snapped at the young man.
He shot her a grin that Terry had seen countless siblings give each other when they knew they had something aggravating to pull out at will. Haresh lifted his other hand and started rubbing at his face. It looked like he was hoping that if he rubbed his face hard enough, he’d wake up and discover that he was actually napping on a beach with a cold, fruity, alcoholic drink sitting next to him. When the man finally lowered his hands, the look of disappointment on his face all but confirmed Terry’s suspicions. The man turned to give the young woman a long-suffering look.
“You and your suitors will be the death of me.”
“He’s not a suitor!”
“I’m really not,” Terry offered. “I mean, sure, she’s beautiful, but I’m not looking for a wife.”
Haresh’s relief was a near-physical thing. The young man looked hugely disappointed, no doubt imagining all of the taunting he wouldn’t get to do now. The young woman’s expression was a bit more complicated, and Terry couldn’t sort it out. Instead, he focused on the thing he cared about.
“Where did the spear go?” he asked the young woman. “Do you have a bag of holding?”
He’d honestly thought that the things didn’t exist in this world. What with people transporting everything in carts and carrying packs. If he could get a bag of holding, though, that would make his life so much easier.
“Bag of holding?” asked the young woman.
Terry searched his mind for other names that they might use.
“Storage treasure? Storage ring? Spatial pocket?” tried Terry.
The young woman’s face lit up and she held up a hand. There was a ring on her index finger.
“Yes, I have a storage ring,” she said, eyeing him warily.
“Where did you get it?” he asked excitedly. “Do they sell them? Can I get one?”
She seemed a little startled by his flurry of questions but less concerned about his interest.
“They’re hard to come by. I don’t know of anyone who sells them. I got mine in an abandoned ruin.”
All of Terry’s hopes collapsed. He let his head drop back and he looked up into the sky.
“Of course, they’re hard to find. This world sucks so much,” he muttered before lifting his head to look at the trio again.
The young woman was staring at him intently. It took a second before he realized that she was staring at Dusk. Before he could say anything, words tumbled out of her mouth.
“Can I pet your cat?”
He sighed a little. Just because he wasn’t going to get a storage ring anytime soon, that wasn’t a good reason to deprive the kitten of some attention.
“Sure,” he said. “If Dusk will let you.”