My breathing was heavy and sweat clung to my skin. My heart pounded, my lungs screamed as exhaustion swept through every fiber and nerve of my body. Still, I forced my magic to unleash.
“Garuuuuu!” I zapped the charging kobold, and he fell to the ground electrified. I bent down to the ground.
Ah, I’m done!
At last, the final one was dead, and just in time, as my mana was about to run out. I’d become completely immobile If I used any more. I already felt maxed out psychologically. The feeling that I wanted to do nothing at all kept bludgeoning me at the side of my head.
“That should be all of them,” Dad said.
“Yep, that was the last one. He’s dead as a doorknob.”
Dad and Graste grumbled that there weren’t enough kobolds, but Rose, Marie, and I were at the limit.
“Is…is it over?” Marie gasped for air.
“Please…please let that have been the last one,” Rose said.
“Yeah, I think so,” I breathed.
The three of us had worked carefully together in the fight. My magic and their swords had functioned in consecutive inhales and exhales. It still had been only our second fight, and we didn’t have experience, instincts, or practiced techniques. Despite all that, we crushed it and wiped all the kobolds out. It seemed the settlement was free and clear of all monsters now.
“I can’t anymore,” Marie said. “So…so tired.”
“Me too. This is it for me,” I agreed.
“I can hardly lift my arms myself,” Rose added.
All three of us sat on the forest floor. Our training hadn’t prepared us to keep up with Dad and Graste, who weren’t even out of breath and ready for more bouts. Keeping up with them was going to be a quest in and of itself.
“At least we figured it out,” Marie said. “That we really can fight.”
“Definitely,” I said. “That made today well worth it.”
“But we aren’t strong enough, yet,” Rose said. “I’ve realized a fair number of my own weak points.”
She had a good point—practice and real battles were like night and day. We learned a lot from just two fights.
“Okay everyone, rest up. Graste and I will grab the ears and the loot.”
Dad and Graste went deeper into the settlement to retrieve the kobold’s stolen spoils. Kobolds crafted their own tools and weapons, but not as well as humans could. They often had valuable stolen goods or metals stashed away. Gathering loot was a fundamental final step in any monster hunt, so that’s what Dad and Graste went to scoop up.
The three of us didn’t even have enough energy to stand, so we rested. After a few minutes, my breathing eventually calmed down. I still felt heavy and sluggish, and I knew that I wouldn’t even be able to move tomorrow morning.
I lifted my head for no particular reason, and one of the fabric tents in the settlement caught my eye. I stood up and approached it cautiously.
“Shion, what are you doing?”
“I don’t know. But I think…there’s something there.” I didn’t have any basis for my claim other than I heard someone whisper for me to: come, come here.
I staggered over to and entered the tent. It was decorated with ornaments made of bone and wood to such a luxurious extent that I wondered if this hut belonged to a high-ranking kobold. Marie and Rose wandered in behind me. A glint of light caught my eye. I drifted toward it, as if guided there.
“Where are you going, Shion? Are you sure this is a good idea?” Rose asked.
“I-it’s dark and it could be dangerous! Don’t go!” Marie pleaded.
They sounded scared. I didn’t think there was a monster here, but it was dark. Was that the reason they were so frightened? I could imagine Marie fearing the dark, but it was out of character for Rose. Based on her reaction, she’d never make it through a horror flick.
We proceeded into the tent with them both clinging to my arms. I followed the glint of light and swallowed when I realized what it led to.
There was a small humanoid inside a bird cage. It had wings on its back, and its whole body glowed with light. It sat with its head sadly facing the ground.
It appeared to be female, although its eye and hair color were unlike any human girl I’d known. I remembered that I had seen something like this before, from far away.
It was a fairy! Had she been captured by the kobolds?
She noticed us and quivered with fear. As we approached closer to the cage, she shrank toward its back edge, as if trying to run away. At that moment, I realized that the light shining from her body didn’t illuminate the cage or any of the surrounding environment. It was still possible to see in the dim interior, but she wasn’t the lamp. Her light meant only one thing: this fairy had mana.
The glow surrounding her body was just like that of the goblins and kobolds from before. All monsters seemed to have it. I didn’t want to see what would happen if our mana touched hers. I couldn’t believe it, though. We’d found a real-life fairy!
“This is a fairy, I see,” Rose said. “What is it doing here?”
“A fairy? Is that different from a monster?” Marie asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve only heard that they are not well-understood.”
“It doesn’t look like a dangerous monster.”
We presumed it was weak, given how scared of us she seemed. She was also probably traumatized. She was in rough shape. There were no wounds, but her body was covered in dirt.
“What do we do?” I asked. “If there are fairy shops…I-I guess that means we could sell it.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Marie said.
“Me neither,” I said.
Rose and Marie agreed with me. My hesitance to sell the creature was partially because I was interested in fairies, but it also felt plain wrong, since it was a humanoid creature. There was something instinctual about it, but I just felt bad for the poor thing.
“Should we set it free?” I suggested.
“Yes, I think that’s a fine idea,” Rose said.
“Okay, sure,” Marie agreed.
We approached the cage. The fairy quaked with fear, and a faint light of mana began emitting from its mouth. What was happening? The mana released and faded away sporadically, and the glow quickly disappeared.
Feeling uncertain, I opened the cage. It was unlocked, and maybe kobolds lacked that sort of technology. If that was so, why couldn’t the fairy escape by itself? We retreated from the cage in an effort to give her some space.
The fairy looked in our direction. Her eyes swam back and forth between us. She leveled its gaze at me for a long moment, then tentatively stood up. She walked to the exit, paused briefly, then walked out. We all marveled as her wings fluttered and she shot into the air.
“Ooh, it really can fly.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“I’ve never seen a fairy so close.”
Countless grains of light fell to the ground as she ascended. It was an entrancing sight. I didn’t know if she was happy or what, but the fairy zipped over our heads and stayed there. Then she released more mana from her lips before flying away.
I hope you find your way home safely, I thought.
“I’m glad it wasn’t hurt,” Marie said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s so cool that we actually saw a fairy!” I started to wonder what exactly the creature was. Up until this point, I had been so busy with other parts of my magic research that these topics had never occurred to me. Monsters and fairies—I realized that I ought to learn more about them both.
Rose yelped. I swung around to see Rose clinging to my sister for support.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” She sighed. “I just slipped. I’m exhausted, to be honest.”
“I’m about to collapse myself,” Marie said. “My legs are wobbling.”
I was also completely beat. Despite all our training, we were still kids who had just fought our very first battles. Dad and Graste had seemed satisfied with all we accomplished. Surely, it was time to go home now.
Even thinking became painful. The three of us left the tent and found Dad and Graste loaded up with loot. Regrouped, we returned to Istria. At the guild, we submitted the quest completion report along with a heaping pile of kobold ears.
The quest results were as follows:
QUEST DETAILS: Kobold hunt
COMPLETION REQUIREMENTS: Five or more culls
COMPENSATION SCHEME: 4,000 lirum per five culls
TOTAL CULLS: 140
TOTAL COMPENSATION: 112,000 lirum
Now, we could go home.