Chapter Twelve #3
“You’re starting to break character.”
Rosie narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m a real person, not a game character. Now, get to it. My humble self needs the praise.”
I let out a fake sigh to act annoyed before saying, “Oh, Rosie, you are so humble. Truly the most humble girl I have ever met. Nobody else sees just how incredible you are, but I do, because I love you and can never take my eyes off of how amazing you are, for you are the cutest, strongest, most useful woodcutter ever whose kindness and strength are only matched by how humble you are.”
“Hmm… nine points! Very nice. Could be better, but almost perfect.”
Both Lupa and I had pretty unamused expressions while Rosie looked terribly smug. Even so, Lupa whispered something into my ear, and I nodded in response before standing up and walking over to Rosie.
“Here,” I said, placing my hand on top of Rosie’s head between her horns. “Does this get me the tenth point?”
“I—I’m not Lupa, you know,” Rosie whined. Her ears still flapped and her tail swished around, though. “Hehe… but that did earn you the tenth point.”
“Good. Now wipe that smugly superior look off your face before I tell Lupa to run wild and kill everything, making us both feel inferior.
“Give me five more minutes of feeling this way. I’ve earned it. After all, I chopped down alllll those trees without breaking a sweat!”
“Alright. Five more minutes of being smug.”
“Now tell me how cool and strong and cute I am. Oh, and,” Rosie looked at Lupa, “you need to praise me, too. Don’t think you get to stay out of my praise session just because you’re another girl.”
“Mm. Rosie is strong and cool and cute,” Lupa said.
“Ah… this is the best.”
Lupa came up to me, leaned up, and whispered something into my ear again. She whispered an incredible plan that I nodded in response to.
“I have no idea what I’d have done without you, Rosie,” I said, making sure to lower my voice a little as I leaned in closer to her. “How am I supposed to resist falling in love with someone as cool as you?”
Rosie started blushing. “He-hehe, well—”
Lupa’s turn. “Rosie is cool. Rosie is awesome. Rosie is super strong. Even stronger than me. I want to be more like you,” she whispered into Rosie’s ear.
“Thi—this is—”
My turn. I got closer to the ear opposite of Lupa and whispered, “Seeing you work so hard for us makes me want to reward you. I wonder what kind of reward I could give you? I’d do anything for you, Rosie.”
“W-w—wait! This—this is too much!”
Lupa’s turn. “I’ll tie Master up for you so you can do whatever you want to him.”
Rosie was officially pure red at that point and had to jump away to put distance between herself and us. “O-okay! I’m good! That’s enough—that’s enough being smug and needing praise now!”
Lupa and I looked at each other again and nodded.
We weren’t done yet.
Rosie still had about four more minutes of “praise” to get through.
In the end, me and Lupa were the ones feeling smugly proud as we stood there with our backs to Rosie, giving each other a fist bump.
All we did was whisper more compliments and suggestive things to Rosie, and that put her into a panting, sweating state on the ground with such shaky legs that she stopped being able to stand about two minutes in.
“We make a good team, Lupa,” I said.
“Mm,” Lupa replied.
As for Rosie, she finally managed to stand up again while saying, “I—I don’t know if I should be annoyed that you turned that against me… or thankful. A-anyways… we—we have all the wood now, so…”
“That’s right,” I said. “It’s time to kill more monsters. Then we can hit up the boss. You ready?”
“Going from… that, to killing monsters… you’re going to make my brain form weird connections.”
“I fail to see the problem with that.”
Lupa nodded. “Mm.”
“Lupa, if I pet your head and call you a good girl every time after you kill a monster, will that train you into being the ultimate dungeon grinding partner?”
“No woman could resist that.”
“In that case, I’ll have to train both of you like that.”
Rosie whined and huffed and said, “I’m not—!”
“Alright, I won’t do that for you.”
“H-hang on, wait… I didn’t tell you not to do it…”
“So cute.”
Lupa nodded. “Cute.”
Rosie started turning red again and stomped her foot against the ground. “Ah, geez! I’m going ahead! The tank is supposed to lead the way anyways!”
“Master.” Lupa looked up at me. “Teasing Rosie is fun.”
“Isn’t it?” I asked back.
“Mm. Let’s tease her together again sometime.”
“Definitely.”
And so, the dungeon grinding continued for another couple of hours. Rosie and I leveled up again, and Lupa got another three levels. That put me and Rosie at level eleven with Lupa at nine.
We also came across two treasure chests, but neither one had any good drops for us.
One chest had an uncommon bow while the other had an uncommon staff.
The potions and coins we got from each one were nice, but it was always a little disappointing to open a chest only to not get anything good out of it.
We did, however, get a rare drop from one of the Elder Hogs we killed. It was a tusk that could be crafted into necklace that boosted raw damage, so I figured we’d get that for Lupa once we were out of the dungeon.
But first came the boss.
The boss was all that was left, plus the sword for the quest was in its room, so it was time to go kill it.
After checking with the others to make sure they were ready, we stepped through the fog and entered the boss arena.
In the game, it was a cutscene. Here, it was the real deal. A goblin wearing a war mask made out of bone riding atop a hog came jumping over a fallen tree, a wooden shield in its left hand with a spiked club in its right hand.
[Nitchit, Hog Rider]
[Level 9 | Boss]
To think that this weak looking goblin was on the same level as Otto felt like an insult to him.
“It’s another goblin,” Lupa said, sounding a little disappointed.
“It’s a goblin riding an oversized pig,” I said, correcting her.
“Mm.”
Rosie then called out, “Over there!” And looking at where she pointed, I saw the sword for the quest.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s kill the boss and get back to the guild.”
Rosie looked at me and said, “No soloing it this time. I want to actually be helpful.”
I kind of wanted to see if Lupa could solo the boss, but—well, I knew she could, and I didn’t want to leave Rosie out, so we’d do it the proper way.
“Whenever you’re ready, Rosie,” I said.
Rosie nodded and charged into action.
The goblin boss’s hog crashed into the ground, tossing the goblin off in the process who let go of his hammer while falling.
That same hammer the boss tried attacking us with then flipped around in the air a couple of times before bonking himself in the back of his head, marking the end of the fight just like in the game.
I wondered if he always fell like that since it was a real world now.
[Dungeon Cleared]
Rosie looked down at her mace and asked, “Is… it really over already?”
“Yep,” I said, putting my sickle away.
“But… that was so easy.”
“Did you expect anything else after seeing how Lupa fought? And not only do we have Lupa who is crazy good, but you got a new weapon from Otto.”
“Are… most adventurers really happy fighting such easy monsters every day for a living? Don’t they get bored? Don’t they want to feel the excitement of going against harder and harder enemies?”
“There’s the adventurous spirit I love to see.” Though, I was perfectly happy to farm low-level dungeons without getting bored. I was probably going to farm all the low-level dungeons for every single drop sometime just for the sake of being a completionist.
“Goblins, easy,” Lupa said. “Never a challenge.”
Well, there certainly were some goblins who could get spicy with their threat level, but I wasn’t going to ruin the surprise for Lupa.
“Chopping those trees was more challenging than this boss,” Rosie said. “I’m… going to go grab the sword. You guys can loot the boss.”
Poor Rosie. She had to watch me solo a boss and then when she did get to fight another boss, it was a total pushover thanks to our gear, experience, and… well, Lupa. Lupa was the main contributing factor for why it was so much easier.
“Would you like the honor of robbing the boss’s bank?” I asked Lupa.
“Too weak,” Lupa said. “Not enough security. No guards.”
“I see you have high standards for bank robbing.”
“Mm.”
“You know, Lupa, one of the mid-game dungeons is actually an ancient vault full of traps and guards.”
Lupa’s tail began wagging. “When can we do it? Can we do it tomorrow? Or today?”
“We’ll need to be at least level seventy for it.”
And just like that, Lupa’s ears flattened against her head and her tail drooped down to almost between her legs. “Mm…”
“That was the most adorable, sad sounding ‘mm’ I’ve ever heard from you.”
“Master got my hopes up… then crushed them. Master is cruel.”
“Sorry, but at least now you get to look forward to it in the future.”
“Mm… I guess…”
Well, since neither of them wanted the honors of looting the boss, I went ahead and did it.
There were the usual potions and coins, but then…
“… seriously?” I asked.
Lupa and Rosie suddenly had a lot more life in them. They must have realized I wouldn’t have sounded so surprised if it wasn’t a big deal.
“Our first time killing the boss… and we got the legendary drop.”
“A legendary?!” Rosie asked. “What is it?! What is it?! Is it a cool weapon?! Or an awesome material to craft with?!”
Lupa then asked, “Is it a key to a vault? Is it a map to buried treasure?”
And I said, “It’s… it’s so beautiful,” before pulling it out and showing it to the girls, proudly holding it in both of my hands.
“…”
“…”
Rosie and Lupa went from excited to even more disappointed than before in an instant.
For what I held in my hands was…
//Nitchit, Hog Rider Plushie