“So wait, is that your reason in the end?”

“Yep, he’s a little smartass that's what he is. Ah but it’s ok for you guys, he only acts like that with people he’s close to, like his family members. He should be quite respectable towards strangers.”

“I see…”

Although I don’t have much confidence in this request now, perhaps I was right thinking that this ‘kid’ would be a pain to deal with.

“Anyways it is getting late, shall we prepare dinner? And afterwards will you youngins be staying the night?”

“Ah I think so, but it’s ok, we have camping supplies so we will sort ourselves out, perhaps tomorro-”

“Oh oh! What’s for dinner!”

Oi you glutton, let me finish talking first.

“Hohoho, fish stew and grilled fish of course with these freshly caught Flubber Trout.”

As the weird fish from before was presented, the appearence is quite off putting. It is a round looking fish in an ellipse shape, similar to a football, with the fins at the elongated ends and a big flat face across the middle.

Only Milia and I seem to be slightly off put by the fish’s appearance while Daami still seems enthusiastic about dinner…

“I know how you might feel but they are quite delicious, and there is an abundance of them, perhaps too many.”

“Ah yes, we are actually here on a quest to hunt those, there was reports of overpopulation of those fish and they could damage the ecosystem of the lake if left for too long.”

“Hoho I see, then tomorrow I shall help you as thanks for accepting my request, of course I will give you a justified reward once you complete the request on my behalf as well.”

And with that we chatted simply and ate dinner at Eminos’ cabin before setting up camp for the night.

~*~

“Ohhh! I caught a big one! Look Aras!”

“That’s not even a fish!”

For some reason Daami has caught a Webbed-Salamander, a lizard like creature with webbed feet reaching up to 2m in length, their teeth are jagged and can easily rip apart their prey.

And now this idiot somehow has caught it with a fishing hook, watching it splash around violently with an angry glare on its face.

“Hohoho it has gotten much livelier compared to the previous few days I have being fishing.”

Ah-ahh o-old man, the salamander is biting you head you know!

The salamander somehow broke free from Daami’s line and instead of attacking Daami, it turned towards the nearby Eminos and took a bite at his head.

“Eminos!”

“Hohoho, it’s ok, nothing but an itch.”

The salamander seems to be even angrier now, can it understand our words?

“Should we fire magic at it? What do we do Aras?”

Milia seems to be getting very worried at this point however,

“No no young lady, it is fine, I’ll just release it back into the lake. Hmph!”

With a loud impact, Eminos punched the salamander in the head and it instantly let loose of its jaws before getting thrown into the middle of the lake.

Now the salamander is floating upside down on the surface…

This old man is tough.

“I think you killed it Eminos?”

“Poor thing.”

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“No no it’s just sleeping, no worries.”

“Yea... I don’t think they sleep upside down!”

With slight sympathetic glances at the upside down salamander that’s on it’s way to neverland, we continue to reel in Flubber Trouts.

Since Eminos told us about his fishing interests last night over dinner, I helped him with my otherworld knowledge by designing a simple fishing reel. A circular wood cylinder carved smoothly in a ‘V’ shape down the centre of the round side, the piece is put against the fishing pole Eminos often used with added function to allow it to spin by attaching a small knob on one of the circular sides. After fishing line is added to the wood cylinder called a reel, a fishing pole mimicking otherworldly fishing technology is created.

Eminos thought it was brilliant, his original goal at this stage of his life was to simply travel the world to different location and fish. That was his favourite hobby.

So today with the newly designed fishing pole also known as a rod, Eminos can be spotted gleefully fished while humming a tune along with us.

After lunch it seemed Daami started to get bored of fishing as she went and ran around in the forest area doing who knows what.

Milia ended up taking a break as well and started reading the earlier chapters of the new Wind Magic Manual that Eminos had given to us.

Meanwhile all this is happening, as usual I ended up still trying to complete our original objective, the activities received from the Adventurer’s Association.

“As usual only I’m ended up with doing most of the work.”

I complained while relaxing in the afternoon breeze.

~*~

That night we had completed the quota of catching over 50 Flubber Trouts with their tail taken as proof, the tail is believed to be used in medicine after it is dried and grinded down.

During our dinner for the final night together, we continued with simple discussions.

“Thank you again for hosting us during our Activity Request from the Adventurer’s Association Eminos, as well as giving us the Magic Manual for Wind Magic.”

“Hohoho, don’t worry about it, it almost feels like my great grandkids coming to visit me, I also am very satisfied with your ingenious design of the fishing pole, you know you could make a good sum of money if you sold that in the cities.”

“Perhaps in the future, right now I’m stuck with these two on an adventure.”

“Hohoho, sounds like fun, but before you leave tomorrow I have more things to give you.”

Yeah I think it’s less fun and more work for me though.

I thought as Eminos went and fetched three envelopes.

Right now we are just drinking tea while continuing with a chat.

“These are envelopes with different intended recipients, first this one labeled with ‘M’ is given to Marcos, it’s just a simple family letter to tell him to make contact with his parents. Of course I will trouble you to persuade or remind him if he chooses not to or simply forgets. The second one marked with ‘A.M’ is intended for the Academy of Manifiesta, I knew one of the professors at the Academy a while back, he is of Beastmankind race, perhaps his even made his way to be head of a department now. He was a young man back in the day. If you find the man named Bickus at the Academy, hand him his letter, he will help you out during your stay and maybe as well as if you and your friends want to enroll in the Academy. Unfortunately I cannot help you with the other magic institute, Naturia Institute of Magic, my connections on this continent is unfortunately limited so let’s hope Macos is there at the Academy of Manifiesta first. Finally this last letter labeled with ‘A.A’. Give this letter to the Adventurer’s Association's Head Manager of the Vekrox branch, this person is actually a good friend of mine, we often go fishing together. Take this to him and he should help you out in various cases, of course the help is limited, don’t expect preferential treatment now young man, everyone must learn to work hard understood?”

“Yes of course.”

And maybe you should take down that note Daami,

“Did you hear that Daami? Everyone must work hard.”

“No problems here, I am one of the hardest working members of our team.”

“That’s obviously a lie! You went off to play in the forest just yesterday afternoon!”

“That’s… well everyone has roles they are good and those they are not, don’t worry about it hehe, here Eminos let me take these envelopes from you, I’ll hold onto them.”

“Oh no you don’t.”

“Hey! First you complain about me not doing anything and now you’re trying to take my job! Not fair!”

“I only want to hold onto them because I know you would lose them!”

“Would not!”

“Would so!”

And the back and forth continued for a while with Daami and I in a tug of war over the envelopes entrusted to us by Eminos.

If a stranger saw us they would depict this scene as something that would occur only in children’s playgrounds where kids are fighting over a toy truck or something in the sand pits.

“Hohoho, they sure do get along, are they always like this Milia?”

“Um even with the short time I have joined them, I believe that is the case.”

“Hohoh, is that so, but I think we should stop them before this gets out of hand and the envelopes rip along with their contents.”

“Yes that would be a good idea.”

And so our tussle was stopped by Eminos and the envelopes are given to Milia instead so neither of us were given the task.