“Well, this is exciting,” said Siegfried.
“I’m grateful that you’re coming with me, but are you sure it isn’t too much trouble? We won’t be getting any item drops or anything,” I replied.
“I don’t mind. I’m just interested in seeing the yokai.”
I had gone to see Alyssa to sell her some assorted information, getting a spectacular “WAAAH!” out of her. It was a satisfying interaction.
But things hadn’t ended there. I also bought some information, on Alyssa’s recommendation. And that information pertained to yokai—information about their whereabouts and how to interact with them successfully, if you can believe it.
Once I had this information, naturally I wanted to go seek a yokai out. And Siegfried decided to come along with me too. I wanted more fighting power, and Siegfried was curious about the yokai; our interests had aligned perfectly. Siegfried also wanted to try out the new weapon he’d just obtained.
Incidentally, the information we’d sold had been worth quite the hefty sum. It was a bit more than Alyssa could pay us right away, so she’d begged us if she could compensate us partially with items instead. There were several pieces of equipment that Siegfried wanted, so he was happy to oblige. Kokuten and Murakage were also fine with that—and so was I. A top clan like the Quick-Eared Cats had a substantial catalogue of items with plenty of interesting curios to offer.
Among the pieces of information that we had been sold, the one that had been worth the most was that pertaining to the Foam Emblem. I was surprised to find out that the Quick-Eared Cats had already learned that emblems could be used for evolution, just like how Siegfried had used one to evolve Silver.
According to Alyssa, a Foam Emblem could be used to evolve a Muddy Frog into a Chemical Frog. Foam and frogs... I wondered if that meant that the emblem had to be compatible with the monster in some way. There might also be some connection with the monsters that inhabited the area the emblem was obtained.
The “juicy info” that Alyssa had first reached out to me about had been regarding this information about evolving those monsters with the Foam Emblem. The reason she’d given such an intense reaction to the information Siegfried sold her regarding his using the Galloping Emblem to evolve his horse had been because she’d been trying to sell me that very same information.
It wasn’t the exact same information, but the essential part was the ability to evolve monsters with emblems. Knowing that the Foam Emblem could be used to evolve a Muddy Frog was certainly very useful information as well, but since I already knew that emblems could be used for evolution, that had definitely weakened the impact of her announcement.
Plus, that Chemical Frog’s appearance was a bit, well... I would have liked it if it looked like a cute tree frog, but instead it looked like a realistic toad. And it was huge, about the size of a dog. True to its name, it had a psychedelic coloring; its base color was green and it had blue and yellow marbling on top. Just looking at it made my eyes water. And the hues made the warts covering its body look really gross.
Alyssa showed me a video of the toad producing foam from its entire body, but even that just kind of creeped me out. I couldn’t see myself ever being brave enough to walk around with a toad like that. Maybe if it didn’t have those warts...
Following that conversation, I bought information about monsters and materials found in various areas, which was what led me to buying information about the yokai.
I hadn’t discovered a new yokai for a while, but a player had apparently encountered one in Zone Ten. The one who had investigated and consolidated all the information on it had been none other than Hamakaze. As an Onmyoji, she was the true yokai expert.
“The place was near Blue City, right?”
“Yeah. It shouldn’t be more than an hour away from there.”
Our destination was a river not far from Blue City. The Great Rainforest located to the south of Blue City was an area where, as its name might suggest, it rained for half the day. That rainfall produced countless streams which fed into the rivers, large and small, that ran freely through the tropical biome.
The annoying part was that depending on how much rain fell, the rivers could change size, or even dry up completely. Because of that, the map of the area would change every few days. Areas that had once been traversable would be submerged, the rivers would dry up and different monsters would spawn, causing a lot of headache for the players exploring the rainforest. Not only that, but the rain obscured visibility, so out of all four cardinal directional areas outside of Blue City, it was the one I hated the most.
However, this rainforest still had a few fixed rivers that never changed. People called it a small mercy on the devs’ part, but the truth of the matter was that in order to make sure events would trigger, they couldn’t make the rainforest change too drastically.
Our goal was reaching one of those unchanging rivers. To be more precise, we were headed to its headwaters.
“It’s a good thing it’s only drizzling today.”
“It should stop soon,” Siegfried said nonchalantly.
“Huh?” I said in surprise. How’d he know that?
“There’s a weather forecaster in Blue City.”
“Th-There is?” I stammered.
This fantasy game really had everything.
“Neigh neigh!”
“Aye-aye!”
“Chirp chirp!”
“Fau, Rick. Don’t bother Carro while they’re running.”
The tiny pair, Fau and Rick, were sitting on top of Carro’s head and playing with the pony’s ears. The ears’ flicking must have attracted their interest.
“Tra-la?”
“Kee-hee!”
“Hey, not you guys too! You can touch them later! But for now, stop!”
Before we’d set out, I had returned to my farm and assembled a party that I figured would be good for traveling. Our party was composed of Carro, who was a fast runner; Fau, Eine, and Lilith, who could fly; and Rick, who could travel by riding on me. I wasn’t sure who to pick for the final slot, but I’d eventually settled on Olea.
They were the lightest, so I figured they could ride on Carro behind me. That would slow Carro down a bit, and Olea wouldn’t be able to fight from back there, but it was still possible to travel that way.
The only problem was that Olea kept wobbling from the vibrations that came with riding a horse. The fact that they didn’t possess the Riding skill meant those vibrations weren’t reduced at all.
“T-T-T-Trii.”
“You okay, Olea? Should we take a break?”
“T-T-Triii!”
They were acting tough, but were they really okay? They were shaking like crazy.
Siegfried must have felt sorry seeing Olea in that state. At some point, he suggested that Olea ride on Silver instead. I felt a little bad, but Silver was undeniably larger and stronger than Carro. I decided to gratefully accept Siegfried’s kindness for now.
“How’s that, Olea?”
“Triii-triii!”
It worked like a charm. Since Silver was so big and more powerful than Carro, he had no problem carrying two riders at once. Olea looked happy to be riding in front of Siegfried.
Once Olea had switched horses, I felt like Carro was now matching Silver’s speed. The two horses started running side by side at a faster pace, the sound of their hooves loud against the forest floor. Several times, we passed by players who turned around to look at us. Well, I couldn’t blame them. I was sure a large and small horse running together looked like quite the odd couple.