“Humm?”
“Oh, an undine? Is she your tamed monster?” the zebra-man asked.
“Ah yeah, sorry. Looks like she’s curious about your fishing rod. Reflet! You can’t just go up to people and touch their things!”
“Hum...”
Before I could stop her, Reflet had rushed over to the man with clear interest in the fishing rod he was carrying, reaching out her hand for it as she did.
“Oh, that’s all right. It’s nothing grand, just something I made myself. Here, have a look.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Humm.”
Reflet and I bowed our heads to the man. We were lucky this guy was so easygoing. Some NPCs got a little peeved when players were rude to them. This zebra-man was one of the nice ones though. He actually handed Reflet his fishing rod himself.
“Humm.”
“Honk.”
“Oh, has the handle caught your eye? That part gave me a lot of trouble to make.”
“Hum!”
“That’s right. You just hold it in your palm like that and reel in the line nice and easy.”
“Honk?”
“Nope, it’s not made of wood.”
“Humm!”
“Honk honk!”
At some point, Perca had also joined their group, and the man began some sort of fishing rod lecture. Hobby enthusiasts knew how to speak each other’s language.
There was nothing original about the zebra-man’s fishing rod. It was completely ordinary, without any clever mechanisms or interesting design, the sort of fishing rod anyone would imagine if you asked them to think of a fishing rod. But maybe it was sophisticated in a way that I didn’t understand.
I had the Fishing skill, so I wasn’t exactly uninterested in knowing more, but since Akari was with us too, I didn’t want to waste much time talking to this guy.
“We’d like to hear more, sir, but we’ve really got to go,” I told the group.
“Humm.”
“Honk honk...”
“Are you folks going to the pond?” the zebra-man asked. “If so, we’re headed in the same direction. Let’s walk and talk. Oh, and drop the ‘sir,’ if you don’t mind. Being called that makes my skin crawl, ha ha ha.”
Now that he said it, it seemed obvious that the zebra-man was on his way to the pond too. He was carrying a fishing rod, after all. As we walked to the pond, we were able to ask him about a few things.
“So you used to be able to purchase materials to make fishing rods here in the village?”
“That’s right. I used the silk from stalactite spiders that show up deeper in the cave.”
“Deeper in the cave... Do you mean past that giant lion?”
“Yeah, we’re not too sure what to do about that beast.”
The zebra-man—Pollick, his name was—explained that right before the arrival of the players, the three-headed lion had taken up residence in that room and blocked access to the rest of the cave. Unable to get past the lion, the villagers were no longer able to obtain various types of materials that had been accessible to them in the past.
“Also, we’ve been having trouble with our food situation now that we can’t trade with the other side of the cave.”
“Pollick!” Akari exclaimed excitedly. “Are you saying there are people living on the other end of the cave?”
Pollick nodded. “You bet, there’s a big town over there.”
Based on how easily he gave that information up, I guess it wasn’t a big secret or anything. And that pretty much confirmed that the lion was the boss to unlock Zone Eleven. Man, this was a lot of responsibility for someone like me. But I already said I’d join the fight, so I just had to do what I could.
“Do you happen to know if that lion has any weaknesses?” I asked.
“We’ve tried a few things here and there to get through, but nothing worked.”
The villagers had tried various methods to get past the boss, like using a decoy to lure the lion away and setting up traps. But according to Pollick, they’d had no success.
There was no way for NPCs to pass through the boss room in the first place. From their perspective, the boss had used its power to produce a barrier that kept them from being able to leave the room.
I wondered how the villagers survived that encounter, but apparently they had an item that allowed them to escape even from a raid boss. Though according to Pollick, the item was too valuable to give to travelers. It must have been some item exclusive to NPCs for story purposes.
“The only thing we managed to figure out is that we can’t get through unless that monster is defeated, and it likes fish more than meat,” Pollick summed up. The lion had been more interested in their traps when they were baited with fish.
“Hum-humm!”
“Honk hooonk!”
“Ack, hey! Stop pulling me!” I cried out.
Pollick laughed. “Ha ha ha. Looks like they’re tired of our yapping.”
My monsters had either gotten bored of listening to us talk through this complicated ordeal, or they were just excited at the sight of the pond. Reflet and Perca started running towards it, pulling me with them by my arms.
Come on, guys! If Pollick wasn’t such a nice person, this sort of behavior would’ve made him angry!
“Hum-hum!”
“Hooonk!”
“Huh? Wait, are you guys not gonna stop?”
Did their overexcitement make them lose control of their brakes? Reflet and Perca were still dragging me with them as they jumped right into the pond!
“Wait, I really don’t wanna jump into that murky water!”
“Hum-hummm!”
“Honk honk hooonk!”
I splashed around uselessly in the pond. The water was so cloudy that I couldn’t see a single thing! Wh-Which way is up?
I realized that I was panicking a little. Drowning wasn’t painful in this game, and it wasn’t as though my HP would deplete all at once while I struggled. Plus, thanks to my Swimming skill, my regular clothes didn’t weigh me down, so as long as I calmed myself, I should be able to save myself pretty quickly.
I felt I needed to explain myself. Imagine suddenly being dumped into a body of murky water that completely obscured your vision. Who wouldn’t get flustered, and even panicked, in a situation like that?
But after a few seconds underwater, I realized that I wasn’t drowning. In addition to having the Swimming skill, I was also wearing my Air Necklace. Since I was going to be around water, I had equipped it beforehand just in case.
Name: Air Necklace
Rarity: 3 / Quality: 9 ★ / Durability: 200
Effect: Defense +4, grants breathing bonus.
Weight: 1
It would actually be difficult for me to drown with this on. Reflet and Perca must have known that their little prank wouldn’t have put me in any real danger.