Chapter 39: Expression
[Edited By Arthur300000 and ArchmageNaoki]
While we were waiting for our guide to return I took out the box of rice balls that grandma prepared for me. The preserving function of my storage device kept it warm, the food still looking delectable.
I pick one and take a bite, and as expected it tasted wonderful, the flavor bringing a smile to my face. I've recently realized that my expression seems to be hardwired to my emotions. Either it is happy or sad, it's displayed plainly on my face. I tried to practice controlling it in front of a mirror but no matter what I do, I couldn't. Let's never play poker if I don’t have any countermeasure, I promised myself.
Each rice ball also has different fillings. The first one is fish eggs, and the second one is some kind of meat, the third one is a pickled vegetable, and so on. All of them are delicious. Maybe it's because of the well-seasoned rice and the high-quality seaweed and sesame. My grandma is really good at cooking.
"Laurell, you won't grow properly if you are too picky." A daddy elf and a trap elf sitting at the same table were also eating their boxed launch. Laurell seems to have an issue with the bell pepper.
"You know when I have nothing to eat, even spoiled food tastes good." I showed off by eating a big piece of bell pepper in my box and lectured the worth of good food to Laurell. The memory of an incident in my past life is still fresh in my mind. One time I almost died, but luckily the landlord found me on the toilet. Who would have thought that not paying the rent for a few months would save my life.
"See, even Kuro have no problem eating bell pepper." Uncle Zeno somehow twisted my words while both of them look at me with eyes of pity.
"Yes, dad." Laurell meekly chews the piece of bell pepper that his dad fed him. His face crumbles instantly, but he doesn't give up. Finally, he swallowed. Even though I didn't do anything, I felt a small sense of achievement. To cover up my facial expression, I ate another mouthful of my last rice ball. Hmm, it's fatty tuna.
"Sorry for the wait, sir and ... ma'am." Our guide just came up from the soil. And what's with the pause? Wait, doesn't this situation mean walking with this trap will make me more masculine? Hmm, If I wear manly clothes I might pull it off in making people believe that I'm a man. However, when my sight drifted down to the two massive soft mounds on my chest, I gave up the idea.
"It seems the situation is worse than we thought." Our guide began to explain the situation. "The monsters in the area have become more aggressive than expected, and we've also received news of missing adventurers. From now on the hunting grounds are off limit to Adventurers below rank A. After the area transformation is completed we will reevaluate the area difficulty again. Do you want to see any of the other attractions we have?" Mr. Gnome suggested an alternative.
"Uhm, how long will the transformation take?" I asked.
"We don't know ma'am. It could range from a week to a couple of years." So that means, in my short visit, I can't come back to hunt here anymore. Well, it doesn't matter much. Our storage device was already packed full with tons of monster meat. Mine alone has 58 cubic meters of it. To avoid making a scene, we agreed to divide the spoils only when we got home.
I looked at the map again for somewhere interesting to go. There's a dryad village, leprechaun stash, clover field, and a wishing well nearby. Maybe I should throw some coins into the wishing well and wish for a million more. The dryad village also interests me because, you know, reasons.
"If I may suggest, at this time of the year the clover field produce more four-leaf clovers than usual." The gnome interjected. Isn't four leaf clovers bringing luck just superstition? However, Laurel's eyes started sparkling at the mention of clover. He seems to really want to go there.
"I want a four leaf clover..." He said in a low voice. He might understand that in the morning, we were just followed him around and then felt guilt at being too troubling... Please don't use those puppy eyes on me, I am a cat person.
"Hah, alright." I gave in. Well, the hunting ground is already closed, and there's still 4 more hours until dad gets back. There's also no phone or internet signal here so no harm in spoiling this brat. Uncle Zeno even thanked me for it.
"Yay!" After I replied Laurell started dancing around. He looks even cuter than before with the skirt I gave him. Seeing that, I congratulated myself in my mind. However, after walking only about a hundred meters into the tree-dense wood, he tripped over a tree root and fell, exposing everything under his skirt in the process.
"Oh, my~" I heard pixies flying nearby giggling and gossiping. For his own good, I took out pure white panties from my hair clip. When Laurell noticed what I was holding after he got up. He looked scared and shook his head.
"Well, Laurell, be a gentleman and wear the panties." I told him.
.
.
.
After half an hour of navigating through dense and foggy woodlands, I lost my sense of direction. Though with the gnome we arrived at the clearing. There were clovers everywhere. There are some white and pink flowers here and there, but the majority of it is filled with club-shaped brilliant green leafs. Even the base of the lichen-encrusted tree beside me is full of them. I noticed that the population of male fairies around here is more than usual. They are only half the size of Mr. Gnome and wore a thick greenish cloth. They seem to be gardeners because they were either walking or flying around and tending the plants. Some were shooing bugs away from the field while some watered the plants. Every now and then a small rainbow appeared on the shower of the water from the faeries mini watering can.
"Daddy let’s go find a lucky leaf together!" Laurell started pulling his dad to the field and began the hunt for a mutated clover. I just walked around and looked here and there for it. With my enhanced sight, I could search faster than them. Even though it's superstitious nonsense, it's still fun to look for something rare, and in a short amount of time, I found one. Albeit one leaf look a bit smaller than the others, it still counts as four leaves, right? As I touch its stem, I notice a water droplet on it that made me remember a tidbit of information from the internet.
"Won't there be a problem watering the plant in the middle of the day? You know, the droplet on the leaf may form a tiny lens and cause the sunlight to burn it." I asked the gnome, but a faerie flying nearby heard me.
"Don't look down on the vitality of these clovers miss." A faerie yelled in reply.
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"There you have it, ma'am." Mr. Gnome nodded in agreement. I think it's another fantasy thing.
Not even ten minutes later I spotted another one. I looked at Laurell and saw he was still looking for one, so I decided to give him some push.
"Laurell, I think there's a four leaf clover over there." I pointed him to a clover patch. The four leaf one stays within a group of three leaf clovers, making it hard to spot.
Laurell ran to where I pointed, though he took forever looking for it. After a while, he found the four leaf clover. I congratulated him, but he gave it to me.
"Huh? Don't you want it?" I asked confused.
"It's yours, you're the one who found it." he replied. With a red face, he resumed his search. Ugh, how pure hearted can he be?
While the father and son couple continued their futile attempt to search for one, I already found four more. I tried to pick it up and give it to them, but they just said I should keep it.
"It's useless if you don't find it yourself. " Uncle Zeno said. I wonder who set this kind of bothersome rule. Since it seems there was nothing I can do for them I lied down on a fluffy looking clover patch and rolled around instead. Huh? I'm not trying to observe my handiwork or anything.
There weren't many people here like in the unicorn glades, so this place is perfect for an afternoon nap. The air is warm and cozy, the breeze sweet and soothing. The sound of birds chirping and the rustling noises of other lucky charm hunters were like a lullaby. As my consciousness began to drift, I heard a newcomer making a ruckus. What a rude bunch of people.
"Yosh! I'm gonna get it first!" A group of teenagers hurrying into the field yelled loudly. From the sound of it, they consisted of four males and two females. I open one of my eyes and peek. Their weapons look clean, maybe they came from the hunting ground after finding it was closed.
"Oh, dear guests please don't trample the clover patch too hard." A timid looking gnome asked them. However, they just ignored the guide and continued making a ruckus. A pair of boys even had a wrestling match on the clover field! Damn it, now I can't relax anymore, one of them might get accidently thrown at me. I hope somebody would kick them out of the field. Even I have four lucky leaves in my storage device, why do I still have to meet with such troublesome people?
"Come on man, don't be so stingy. Look at that girl over there, she's rolling on the patch!"A shrewd-looking woman in their group mentioned me, and that timid guide seems to be lost on how to reply. However, my guide said "It's ok, ma'am. I will handle this." Interested, I watched to see how the scene would unfold.
"Dear sirs and ma'ams, the lady over there may look carefree, but in reality she is careful." The gnome pointed at me, being called a lady made me feel strange, though. Is it because he keeps calling me ma'am that I don't feel as funny when I'm called lady?
"You can look at where she is lying, none of the plants are damaged. However, just a few steps and you've uprooted several clovers." Looking at where I was lying, I could see none of them were damaged. I wasn't really careful or anything, though, I think it might because of my sneak perks.
"Are you calling us fat?" Another girl in their party who looks a bit plump crossed her eyes and stomped on the ground.
"I do not mean that ma'am, but I will ask for your cooperation to keep the clover field in its pristine condition." My guide bows to them while faeries around the field nodded in approval.
"Annoying! You charge us for the entrance fee, won't let us hunt monsters, and now this!?" A white-haired delinquent guy kicked up a fistful of dirt and sent a lot of little plants flying with it. Some of the dirt sprayed in my direction, but I rolled away in time. Uncle Zeno and Laurell who were obsessed with finding four leaf clovers also appear to have noticed the commotion and stood up.
"STOP! Sir! If you continue doing this, I will have to ask you to leave." My guide began to raise his voice.
"Come and make us leave then!" A red hair guy took out his weapon, everyone else in their group doing the same.
"Need a hand?" I appeared behind my guide.
"That would be-" Before the gnome could even finish his sentence the white haired man had already swung his saber at his head. His swing is slow and too obvious. Everyone in my Expert Close combat class is faster and sharper than him. With relative ease, I grab his blade and yank it out of his hand. It was like the tablecloth trick, if you pull the blade fast enough, it will come out of the owner's hand.
Seeing that, everyone in their group stops in their tracks. However, the plump girl already let loose a bullet from her gun, only to be stopped with my improved ward spell. When I was working on the Skyrim ward spells, I realized that they are fundamentally the same as the interference fields in close combat devices here. Knowing that all I had to do is copy and paste some portion of the interference field spell and rearrange here and there. Although I can't make it a dome-shaped interference field, I still got a high-intensity interference field in the same shape as Skyrim's ward spell. Also, the space sense feature of the I-field is still too advanced for me, so I can't duplicate its effect.
"Well, it really works." I felt some of the incoming bullet's energy was absorbed into me. With my new improvements, the power of all of Skyrim's ward spells was merged into one. Because I used the interference field spell as the base, it makes no sense to split ward spells into different levels. Right now it only consumes a tiny amount of my Magicka, and I can sustain the spell for a whole day without any problems.
It also has a couple advantages over this world's interference field. Firstly, it can absorb incoming spell's energy. Secondly, the spell is still simple, and I can cast it without the help of a magic device which works really well if I got caught unprepared. However, there is also some trade off, to preserve the simplicity of the spell and absorption property, its shape is still the same shield like shape as in Skyrim and must be attached to my hand. I also have to discard physical protection property of Skyrim's ward because it's incompatible with interference field's portion.
"Stop them, girls!" While everyone was just staring at me in disbelief, a group of pixies in uniforms rushed in and fired multicolored spells at the troublemakers. Their bodies turned stiff, and they fell down.
"Sorry for the trouble Miss, we will take them away immediately." The uniformed pixies saluted me while the others magically tied up the troublemakers with golden ropes.
"Oh, no problem. Thank you for your hard work." I replied as I watched as the golden rope sprouts some small legs and started scurrying away.
After the pixies had flown away, I noticed that I was still holding the blade by its tip. No one seems to care about it, so I store it inside my storage device. Freebies get! It appears to be high quality, though. Those kids must be some millionaire's spoiled children.
*Sigh* "Thanks for your help ma'am. I thought I was a goner right there." Mr. Gnome had recovered from the shock and thanked me.
"Big sis Kuro is cool!" I heard Laurell say to his dad, but I feign ignorance by turning away from them. I would lose my cool if I let them see my smile.
"It's nothing." I replied. At that moment I heard the footsteps of two people running in my direction. Did those troublemakers somehow escape from their bindings and come for revenge? I prepared for combat, but my worry was for naught. It's my dad and brother.
"Are you alright Kuro?" My Dad looked worried. He turns my body left and right to check my condition. I told him I was fine, but he doesn't believe me.
"Wait up sir~" A short gnome was following them. Well, short even for Gnome standards. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was a fairy.
"See? I told you she was alright." My brother smirked at me. He said it nonchalantly. However, I saw a glimpse of worriedness in his eyes when he was running. Is he a Tsundere?
"We heard on the radio that the area was under transformation and a lot of people went missing so I came here as fast as I could. Luckily you were not in the hunting ground at that time huh?" My dad explained.
"Actually we were there when it happened. It was because of Kuro we got out alive." My dad went stiff at what Uncle Zeno told him. Isn't he overreacting?
"Uhm, but we noticed that something was wrong early, so we got out of there in time." I tried to lighten up the mood and skipped some minor details like about running for our lives.
".... *sigh* Alright, let's not make everyone at home worry. Let's go back." It took half a minute for my dad to recover. I think he has too much stress from his work.
Laurell couldn't find any four-leaf clovers, so he had a dejected look. However, he seems to understand that it's better not to let anyone at home worry, so he quietly follows everyone back. Seeing that, I had scooped up a few four leaf clovers plants I spotted earlier from the ground. I planned to grow them somewhere near the house. Today, I felt like I got a little siste- I mean brother to take care of.