I wish…
Matilda might have gotten a [Level Up] and one might expect that to restore all health and mana, but her leg wound was still bleeding through my sorry-ass excuse of a bandage.
Kae Woo stepped meaningfully forward and clasped his green fingered hands behind him. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in getting up every time we do.”
“Thanks… that was really helpful.”
“I slept and—"
“Yeah not helping!” I shouted cutting his philosophical dribble off.
“Matilda? Matilda? The fights over, please wake up.”
“…”
A few slaps to the face also had no effect.
“Okay… what about this?” I said pinching her beautifully supple cheek.
You have lost 5 disposition with Matilda - Trainee Macer
What the hell?! She’s not even awake, how does that work!
She was looking even paler.
If an NPC expires… will they too explode into pixels? Shit, better do something, right?
“The church…”
“Whatever!” I lurched up. “Someone help me out here!”
“Brutus is the strongest in the lands!” Brutus roared but otherwise enacted the role of unproductive fart really well.
“Urgh, fine! I’ll do it myself!”
Awkwardly, I hoisted Matilda onto my back.
Damn, she heavier than I thought! Or I’m just weaker than I thought. I had the speed boosts from the boots but that didn’t seem to affect my strength at all.
The temple was just down the street, in the market square, barely a stone throw away…
Uhmm, ahhh, this… is okay, right?
Matilda’s equipment rubbed against my back. My cheeks were as hot as a fry pan. If any real people saw that, I’m pretty sure I’d die of embarrassment. My hit points sporadically dropped every hundred metres or so but I just gritted through the pain, wasn’t any worse than what I experienced in the tomb.
“Thank you for all your hard work, as a [Helper of Light] you can access some of our services,” the priest said with his fingers clasped together, and some menus appeared.
Cure Ailments
Blood loss, severe
5,000a
Unconscious
1,000a
5,000 smackaroos?! Goddamn!
I looked down at her paling body.
She’s just an NPC, right? I thought, nevertheless I rushed to press the hovering button fearful it would suddenly disappear.
The priest raised his hands to his fake god. “O Lord of Holy Light, bring the faithless under your mighty wing, bestow them with your gentle heart and bless them with your healing touch.”
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A warm green glow washed over Matilda’s leg, making it impossible to know if there was any ever blood there to begin with.
“HELLO?!” I shouted, there was no answer and then felt immediately sheepish, but if anyone cared they were doing a bloody good job hiding it.
… I was toes deep now, might as well go full tilt, and selected the other option.
“O Lord of Holy Light, bring the faithless under your mighty wing, bestow them with your gentle heart and bless them with your healing touch.”
Matilda slowly blinked her eyes open.
“So… how do you feel?”
"A mercenary's job is to..." Matilda began, her voice crisp and clear, "… keep themselves ready for instant deployment and quick response when needed. That means training at all times, even during downtime. It also means knowing your equipment inside out." She paused dramatically. "And it means being prepared for anything!"
“Umm, yeah, thanks for that…”
I bet brick walls had better conversations… but the tension in my heart eased and the stress in my shoulders laxed.
Kae Woo walked over and stood next to Matilda, he had definitely scored a couple hits against the fish before they both suffocated to death, but he didn’t level up suggesting that [Adventurer]s take longer to level up then other class tiers.
“Well, ahh, thanks everyone, before we consider resuming, there’s something I need to do.”
“Here, might this be your lure?”
The Fishermen’s Friend snatched it right out of my fingers and examined it, his eyes went wide, “Boy, you have done it! This is indeed my lucky lure. Here take this as my thanks.”
You have been rewarded with [Fishing Skill crystal].
You have been rewarded with [Mage Fish Lure].
You have been rewarded with [Fishing Boots].
Did you just give me back the lure Matilda and I almost died to get for you???
The fishing skill crystal hovered in his outstretched hand.
So, this is a skill crystal? It’s just like the one…
A headache came over me and my eyes started to water but I rubbed it away, “Thanks.” I grabbed the crystal and it disappeared.
Would you like to learn the skill ‘Fishing’?
No, not right now… My heart felt like it was collapsing in on itself.
“Hmm? You’re still here?”
Oh crap, I’ve started him on another script.
“Well boy, if you’re up for it, I could use your help,” his face was stern like.
“Ahh yeah, sure, how can I help?”
“I need 10,000 Queen Celes Whiting, for the upcoming royal festival. Do you think you can help me out?” he looked right at me, all puppy-dog like.
You have been offered the quest ‘The Queen’s Fish’.
[Accept / Reject]
What the hell?! What crazy idiot thought that fishing for 10,000 fish would be fun? Well, that’s getting rejected.
“Err, no thanks.”
“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me,” he said as he attached a new lure to his line, then recast it on to the ground below.
There was still hundreds of beached fish, maybe even thousands… It was a little crazy, but if I wanted to join the [Adventure’s Guild], and thus gain access to their merchants, I would need to slay some slimes… but to do that I would need to level these mercenaries up a bit… but what if I slip and fall and the fish bite me instead of Matilda, it’ll be me bleeding out, or worse, maybe the fish will get lucky and latch onto one of the NPC’s necks, I don’t think bandages will be able to save them then…
The NPCs were all looking at me, like they could peer into my mind and were reading my every thought.
Faark you too brain.
“There’s got to be a better way to do this? The NPCs don’t have their usual coding and are bumping into each other and the only commands they respond to are stay and follow… how am I supposed to make this work…”
The NPCs watched me pace back and forth until they all just suddenly shifted. Kae Woo into his cross-legged sitting pose, Kris and Sai started sparing, Torovir pulled out a book, Brutus was doing some squats, and Matilda cycled between staggering and dozing.
What happened before…? The mercenaries didn’t engage until a certain distance was reached…
“I wonder if I can stagger their positions?”
“Okay, you wait here Kae Woo.”
The green-frog samurai looked over at me with his three-fingered hands clasped behind his back.
“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”
What does that even mean?!
Back up the street from the pier every 100 metres, were the other mercenaries, with Matilda basically in the market square.
Nah, it’s all good… this is going to work…
Alright… NPC stagger attack plan. In theory if I set up this 800-metre relay just right and stay calm and just lightly jog when I pull the fish, then the NPCs won’t be tripping over themselves when fighting and I won’t lose any hit points from this sucker, I thought looking at my chest.
The fish flopped on the beach where the ocean once kissed. This time around it was important to only hit one fish… but they were so close together that using a rock came with a high chance of ricocheting into another fish or two.
“Okay… here goes nothing…”
The rock in my hand was cricket ball sized, the theory being that the bigger it was the less likely it would bounce off.
I lined up the closest fish, cocked my arm and threw with a prayer.
The rock went wide and thwacked into… a not so small school of fish. Shit.
No-no… could still be okay…
The rock hit the first fish, and again that small black blur flashed by, then the rock bounce into another fish, and another, and another, even one more…
Oh—hell no!
Five fish flopped after me.
Okay, keep your cool… no need to sprint like an idiot… slow and steady… they’re not that fast anyways... deep breaths…
I bolted to the first mercenary.
Kae Woo was standing idly by 50-metres away, he didn’t move a beat.
Yes! I knew that would happen. So? As long as a Mercenary is not within a certain distance then they won’t automatically attack. Hah!
The fish continued to flop after me, just barely keeping up to my leisurely jog. At thirty metres Kae Woo quit his meditative pose, drew his weapon and charged.
In seconds Kae Woo was tacked on to the tail end of my fish train. He brought down his katana in an overhead arching strike and the blade bounce off like a rubber toy.
Holy-faecal-splatter… I haven’t jogged like this… well… since before…
We ran in circles until eventually Kae Woo scored a critical and my train was suddenly a fish less.
The twins were next in line and if I wanted to survive this then they really needed to take one each… The twins caught up to the tail end fish quickly, and lunged simultaneously striking the fish with their daggers and scored double *ching*s right off the bat… shit again…
That left me with three, sure I had three more Mercenaries lined up, but I didn’t think Matilda could survive on her own…
Brutus was next and before long he was fighting off against one, and Torovir also grabbed his with a swing of his staff.
I looked back, all NPCs were still engaged with their respective fish… The slow jog to Matilda quickened my breathing, I wouldn’t be able to hold on much more, I knew my hit points would help me out if needed, but I needed what was left of that in case of an emergency…
I had no choice… When I was within range, Matilda perked up and ran for the last fish.
She flung her mace downwards, sideways, upwards and across again.
An impending doom loomed over me just before I felt the all too familiar congenital vice squeeze my chest and bring me to the ground, everything started to blur, until my hit points plummeted and I could see again, see the fish flopping towards me that is, like an elephant playing whack a mole with its foot.
The hit points may have relieved the chest pain, but I was still gassed, and when I tried to stand my vision went dark again, so me and standing were going to take a short break from each other, and my date with fish lips was moving up the calendar.
The scaled armoured piscine lunged at me with its ridiculously sharp teeth bared.
I raised my arms as a shield and winced.