An Easy Sidequest

Before Nona left her hometown, she and her family had estimated that it wouldn’t take her more than a week to reach Hairur’s Fence, the capital of the Central Continent where most of the humans lived.

Those calculations had been made after assuming that Nona would be travelling mostly by caravan. It was the cheapest means of transport and most of the cities offered that service, even the smallest ones.

Unfortunately, they had needed to change plans after reaching the bridge that separated the countryside from the main path leading to the capital, where they had the initial confrontation with the Order of the Pink Daisy.

When they reached the city where they were supposed to take the next caravan, they discovered that the rumors of a traveler defeating the Order had spread, and there were several guards in the city searching for her.

After evaluating their options, they decided that they would be continuing travelling on foot. After all, Nona was not just skilled in combat: she was also quite an expert at surviving in nature.

Modesty aside, she could do miracles with a couple of logs and a sleeping sack to create a not-just-functional-but-also-comfy camp, and the same happened with her cooking skills. She could cook almost any recipe just with a bit of water and her pot. Even Thorny was pretty impressed because, according to him, she was just ‘throwing ingredients in the pot without any sense’.

So, in summary, they had been doing pretty good travelling on their own. It was true that Nona didn’t go as unnoticed as Thorny would have liked - the imp always complained when she automatically greeted anyone they came across, even if it were pure courtesy - but she had been confident that they could reach Hairur’s Fence like that, or even her final destination.

“C-Can we have a little rest, please?”

She turned around, surprised. Adish had dropped on the ground and was reaching for his canteen.

“Again? But we already had a rest three hours ago.”

Adish finished drinking before glaring at her.

“Of course, because that five-minute pause was enough to remove all my tiredness.”

“Well, if that’s so, I don’t know why you would still be tired–” Thorny cleared his throat, causing Nona to blink. “...Oh. Were you being ironic again?”

Adish exhaled a resigned sigh while standing up. “Yes, I was being ironic.”

“I don’t mean it as a critique or anything, but you use irony too much.”

“I know. It’s my natural reaction when I’m not feeling well, but the point is,” Adish looked at Nona with suspicion, “is there a reason you need to rush to the Capital? Are you being chased or something?”

“And if we are, what’s the deal, huh?” Thorny crossed his arms and flew towards Adish, stopping so close to him that the mage ended up cross-eyed while looking at the imp. “A powerful mage like you shouldn’t have any problems dealing with whoever chases us, right?”

Adish gulped and took a couple of steps backward.

“Anyway, if you have urgent business there that you don’t want to talk about, that’s ok. I have them too. But at the very least,” Adish avoided the imp’s inquisitive glance to focus on Nona instead, “could you at least lower the pace and walk instead of being constantly running?”

“Running?” Nona frowned. “I’m not running. That’s just how I normally walk.”

Adish blinked, opened his mouth, but at the last second he seemed to change what he was going to say.

“OK, then could you walk like a person who does not have infinite stamina?” Adish raised his hand when Nona was about to speak. “And yes, I guess you do have stamina, it was just a way of speaking. So just go slower. Please. I beg you.”

Nona smiled and nodded with an apologetic smile. “Of course. But if you were struggling to keep the rhythm, you just had to say so.”

Adish chuckled softly while adjusting his glasses.

“That’s easier said than done.”

“What, your fragile ego couldn’t stand that a girl was faster than you?” Thorny mocked, causing Adish to show a horrified expression.

“Hey, don’t put words in my mouth. It has nothing to do with that, it’s just–” Adish paused and shook his head while resuming his walk. “Never mind. Let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

“Yep, because of you.”

For the first time on the trip, it was Nona’s turn to throw a reproaching look at Thorny. “That was not very nice.”

Thorny snorted. “I don’t trust that mage. He’s hiding something, I feel it.”

“Well, we are not being completely honest either, but that does not make us bad people.”

“HAH! Speak about yourself, goodie-to-shoes. I’m an imp, remember? I’m bad and evil.”

Nona looked at Thorny with patience. She was about to disagree when the path opened up, and they reached a wider area. The massive towers of Hairur’s Fence were already visible in the distance, but it would still take them a few days to arrive.

“Wait, is that a farm?”

Nora shaded her eyes with her hand to look towards the place Adish was pointing at, where little parcels of land spread down the hill.

“Yes, it is. The farmer is with the cows right now. And there are at least three horses in that barn.”

“Really? You can see all that?” Adish squinted his eyes even more. “I just see dots from here– hey, give my glasses back, imp!”

“Jeez, you are totally blind. You better wear them before throwing any spells. I don’t want to end with my ass burned.”

“Come on, let’s go there.”

“What? Why?” Adish made the most of Thorny’s confusion to recover his glasses, putting them on with a huff. “We have enough supplies for now, not to mention that other matter .”

Nona exhaled a patient sigh.

“Thorny, I know you want us to avoid people as much as possible for the time being.”

“Definitely you are being chased,” Adish said with resignation while Thorny facepalmed.

“But I promise I won’t get in trouble this time. I just want to talk to that farmer and see if we can rent some horses.”

“Horses? But I thought you were doing fine travelling on foot.”

“And I am. But Adish is not. So let’s go! It’s starting to get dark.”

Thorny huffed while Adish’s mouth opened in disbelief while Nona resumed her way down the hill, humming a song to herself.

A few minutes later they were about to reach the farm when Nona stopped.

“Thorny.”

“Mm? Oh, right.” The imp turned invisible, and a mere second later Adish exhaled a high-pitched-cry when his grimoire started to shake. “Hehehe, I’m going to have so much fun.”

“ You… ”

“Good afternoon!” Nona greeted with a loud, amicable tone. She waved her hands towards the farmer, a chubby man in his sixties that was filling the cows’ waterer. “We are going to Hairur’s Fence, and we would need at least a horse to get there. Would you be willing to rent one of those lovely animals to us?”

The farmer looked at Nona and Adish from head to toe before snorting.

“Well, it depends on the money you have. But I warn you, miss, those roads are dangerous these days. So it won’t be cheap.”

“I have 1750 coins right now.”

The farmer burst out laughing.

“Sorry, miss, definitely it’s not enough. And I hope you are aware that that sum of money won't cover a basic meal in the capital.”

“What?! Is the capital that expensive?”

“I’m afraid so, yep. Of course you can always trade. For example, I’ve heard that there are certain shops that sell spell rolls and other magic stuff that usually accept rare gems as payment.”

Nona gulped, feeling Thorny’s piercing glare through her skull. She was a bit glad that the imp was forced to conceal his presence. Although she was pretty sure he would scold her once again for her ‘excess of stupid generosity’.

“Alright, thank you very much anyway.”

She bowed her head a little and was about to leave when the farmer talked again.

“However, even if I don’t accept money, maybe we can make a deal. How skilled are you with that sword, young lady?”

* * *

“Well, this looks like an easy sidequest.” Thorny reappeared as they entered the wooded area that surrounded the farm. “Find the possible monsters that are hurting the animals and come back to the farm to report. Easy peasy for a brute like you.”

“Hey, I’m not a brute,” Nona protested as Thorny mockingly tapped the top of her head. “Maybe I’m stronger than expected at my age, but that’s all.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell that poor giant wolf that you humiliated–oh, this seems to be the place. It stinks of monster.” Thorny went a bit ahead and sneaked his head through the space between two trees. “Damn. The old man was right. I can see a cockatrice in the area.”

“I’ve never fought any of those before,” Nona commented, frowning when seeing Thorny so serious. “On a scale from 1 to 10, how dangerous would you say they are?”

“Eight. They can petrify.”

“Oh, it seems like you have remembered how to talk, four-glasses,” Thorny smiled mischievously. “And I would agree with that rating but we have a powerful mage with us, so for sure you’d know a couple of tricks to dispel the petrification, mm?”

“It won’t be necessary,” Nona said with confidence, unsheathing her sword. “There’s only one, and she is distracted. I will approach her and neutralize her before she can do anything.”

“Wait, you idiot, cockatrices are never alone!”

Nona had already revealed herself to the monster when hearing Thorny’s warning. And the moment she stepped into the area, another three cockatrices jumped on the fight, completely ruining her sneak attack.

She didn't like to curse, since her parents had been very careful to give their children a good education in which speaking properly was at the top of the list.

But if there was a moment to do so, clearly it was then, after the four monsters lunged against her.

“Poop!”

“Seriously, couldn’t you have a bit of brain besides that strength of yours?!” Thorny exclaimed while joining the fight. He started throwing fire balls non-stop to the beasts, allowing Nona some margin to counterattack.

“I’m sorry,” Nona apologized, managing to deliver consecutive final blows to two of the four beasts thanks to Thorny’s distraction. “Next time I promise I will wait before attacking.”

“Yeah yeah, I will believe it when I see it. And you, four-eyes! Are you going to do something besides guarding that bush?!”

Thorny’s comment caused the cockatrice to finally notice Adish, who hadn’t moved from his hiding spot.

As happened with the wolves, the monsters seemed to instantly realize that the mage was an easy prey, which caused them to rapidly lunge against him. Nona rapidly put herself between the cockatrices and the mage without even thinking, in order to start a sweep attack that threw the beasts flying again.

However, as she was conducting the attack, both cockatrices attacked her with their flesh to stone spell.

Since Nona was in the middle of the combo, she was unable to avoid the double spell. Normally, a petrification spell took a minute to make full effect. In this case, the fact that Nona was impacted with two caused her to feel a disagreeable feeling of cold and numbness spreading through her body at a vertiginous speed.

Nona was starting to feel difficulties breathing as her body stopped responding when, first, she heard Thorny shout a new insult towards her; and second, Adish shouted something in a language that Nona had never heard before, which caused that the feeling disappeared almost as fast as it had set it.

That allowed her to repeat the previous interrupted sweep attack that finally threw the remaining two cockatrices flying away. Nona was about to go towards the monsters to check that they were unconscious when she heard Thorny curse again.

“Uhm…ok, I think I know what our four-glasses friend was hiding.”

Nona turned around and looked at Adish.

And then she gasped in shock.