Dungeon Item Shop: Volume 2: The original litRPG, item-shop light-novel! (Dungeon Item Shop - The original item-Shop litRPG!), page 54
She doesn’t think that she’s ever had to sit still for this long and honestly, it’s getting to her a little. Her fingers are constantly tapping against her legs, which are constantly bobbing up and down on her twitching feet. The fairies meanwhile, fly around in a group and murder their way through the forest.
Fresh doesn’t like this at all. She’s fine with snakes and big spiders, especially since they were getting real experience points from them. But she cries when they bring in an owl which they had scorched with a fireball. Jubilee had classified this as a ‘boss-fight’ and sleepily approved of the carnage.
"Can we eat it?" asks Tarja.
"You can," replies Jubilee, before returning to their nap. "Just cook it first."
"It already is!"
Jubilee gives them a listless thumbs-up and goes back to napping without another word. Fresh, meanwhile, hides her face in the back of Basil’s robe and mourns the loss of Mr. Owl. "Bakaaaaaw~"
"It’s an owl," corrects Basil. "It goes ‘who~" says the priestess, lifting a finger.
"Whooooo~" howls Fresh, clenching the fabric of her robe tighter.
An hour after that, they pass a tavern at the side of the road. But they have no reason or desire to stop. It seems pretty busy and there are a lot of carts and various anqas parked outside. Fresh lowers her head, hiding behind Shamrock, so that the birds don’t see her and chase after them.
Then, not long after that, the rain starts.
It’s only a little at first, but all of the fairies retreat back inside of their houses. Fresh does a head-count, checking that everyone is there. They are. After an hour, it grows more intense. "Basil? Are we okay?" asks Fresh, looking at their anqa, Thyme. It ruffles its feathers, shaking its body out.
Basil nods. "They don’t like rain," she explains. "But they secrete oil over their feathers. It makes the water run off." Fresh nods, understanding. "As long as the storm doesn’t get worse, we should be good to go," says the priestess, turning back and smiling. Fresh feels relieved.
The storm gets worse. Fresh is no longer relieved.
They’re too far away from the tavern to turn back now. Basil has taken the cart off to the side of the road and they find themselves nested in a grove, next to a rocky outcrop that shields them from the howling wind, which had threatened to overturn the cart.
"Stay inside everyone," guides Fresh, shushing the last fairy into their house. She’s thankful that they had paid a little more for the waterproof tarp to cover the cart, otherwise they’d all be drenched right now. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t getting cold. With the strong wind and the pouring rain comes a strong drop in temperature and, even in her ‘mountain robe’, Fresh notices the chill. She has sat herself in the middle of the cart and dug out her blue-blanket and did her best to wrap it around everyone at once. Basil cooperated, sitting down in the space between the benches with her. Jubilee did not, so she had to break their personal boundaries again and essentially kidnap them. Shamrock was impossible to cover and he also declined needing to be.
"That’s what I said!" barks Jubilee, trying to get out of the arm that is wrapped tightly around them. Fresh holds them against her body with her left hand. Her right hand is wrapped around Basil, who doesn’t fight and all of them are now beneath the blanket. It’s very warm.
"It’s different," says Fresh.
Jubilee sighs. "How is it different, goo-brain?"
"You’re like a fairy, Ju~ bi~ lee~" she says in a sing-song tone.
They glare at her. "You have three seconds to take that back, before I get violent."
Fresh blinks. "But Jubileeee~" she protests. "You’re small, so you lose body-heat faster. That’s what Basil said!" Basil quickly looks away as Jubilee’s icy glare turns to her.
The fairies have simply retreated into their houses, closing the doors and windows and gathering together in the ‘fluff rooms’ that Fresh had made inside of them. She’s very satisfied with herself now, for having gone out of her way to insulate the magical-floating-fairy-houses. "I wish we had a fairy-house too," sighs Fresh, grabbing Jubilee and pulling them tightly back against herself, before they can get away in their latest attempt. "Just bigger, like… us-sized, you know?"
"You mean… a house?" asks Jubilee, apparently stopping their fight now. "We had two of those already."
Fresh thinks for a second. In a sense, Jubilee has a point there. But those houses were neither classifiable as ‘floating’ or as ‘fairy’ish’. ‘Magical’ as a description is still plausible though, in some senses. "What kind of house do you guys wanna get when we get there?" she asks, staring out the back of the cart at Shamrock, who sits outside in the rain together with the anqa. He didn’t want it to be alone.
"We could have got a fucking palace in the east if we just sold the house," says Jubilee.
"I don’t want a palace, I want a house," argues Fresh. "How am I supposed to find you guys in a palace?"
"Exactly."
"Is land cheaper there?" asks Basil.
"Well yeah," says Jubilee. They shrug and Fresh can feel their shoulders rubbing against herself. "The mountain being, you know, a mountain, space was at a premium. It’s expensive."
"And the desert?" asks Fresh.
"It’s a desert. Don’t know what to tell you. Land is cheaper," replies Jubilee.
"There’s the ocean there, right?" asks Fresh, her eyes shining hopefully at this prospect.
Jubilee nods. "Yeah, but that land is expensive again."
Fresh sighs. "I want a house by the ocean! We could go swimming and we could fish and we could sit in the sun together and we could make sandcastles and -" this list extends on for a while, ending only after she gets to the topic of crabs. But, both of her friends, having seen this blatant attack coming minutes ago, begin pinching her first, until she surrenders.
They stay there the rest of the day.
Chapter 204: Make a right
The next morning is surprisingly mild-weathered in comparison with the quickly passed storm of the previous night. Fresh is deeply relieved that those unfortunately-timed, heavy clouds left just as quickly as they had come. Now, the cart is rolling again along the wet road, water and a bit of mud splashing around as they ride over the mixture of dirt, gravel and cobble-work. The sun shines into the cart very brightly from above, its heart-lightening rays breaking in through the sparse clouds and reflecting off of the puddles of water down beneath them. The air is damp. But thanks to the autumn-chill, mixed in with the bright sun, it is oddly comfortable. Especially compared to the sweltering summer heat that they had marched through the forest in, on their way towards the west back then.
Fresh sighs, leaning back, oddly nostalgic about that memory. Even if it was only a few months old. Life is moving very fast these days.
Then again, it has been doing so since she arrived here in this world. Half of a year, give or take, has come to pass and she feels like more has happened in it, to and for her, than in all of the years of her old life combined. Though, looking back on that oddly foggy memory, she doesn’t really remember how many years those were, at the time of her ‘passing’. It’s all vague.
The fairies are flying around after the cart again. Thankfully, they aren’t on a murder spree today and seem to be content with leaving the creatures of the forest alone for now. Though Basil does have to scold some of them, after they agitate the anqa by buzzing around its head, wanting to look at it from close-up. Tarja, being the leader, is busy today and so the others, uncoordinated, simply live the day.
"You need to pinch the edges," explains Jubilee, grabbing the piece of fabric by the ends. "Otherwise your seam is going to sit wrong and it’ll look lumpy."
Tarja nods, copying what she sees with the fabric in her hands. It’s the same cut as the material Jubilee is using, but just tiny. Jubilee is showing the classless fairy how to tailor and so the two of them are making something super simple to start with. A thin shawl, to help keep the desert sun and sands away from one’s face. Fresh thinks this is adorable, in fact, she thinks this is doubly-adorable, because Jubilee didn’t even need to be asked by herself or by Tarja to do so. They had simply waved the fairy out of the air and told her that they were going to practice tailoring now.
Shamrock meanwhile instructs Pentti, the mannerless fire-fairy on how to skin and prepare the body of a monster. Though, he’s demonstrating this with the body of the snake from the other day. Fresh does her best not to look. It’s gross. But the fairy, as well as some of the other more adventurously-trimmed ones, watch in deep fascination. Some of them don’t want to be crafters, having been inspired by the story of Veli to become adventurers themselves.
She wishes that they had just asked Veli to come with them from the start, or that he had waited a few hours at least, before running off. But she also blames herself for that. Fresh wonders where he is and hopes that he’s okay. None of the fairies seemed to hold a grudge about his leaving because of them, likely because all of them are leaving because of them as well.
Even Basil has a couple of fairies sitting on her lap, who she explains herbalism to while they ride along, pointing out various plants and trees on the way as they ride past.
Fresh sighs, nobody wants to learn anything from her. Feeling a bit dejected, she leans her head back and closes her eyes, falling into a nap.
A while later, she is jostled awake by a hand, reaching back to her shoulder. "Guys," is all that Basil says.
A series of excited and awed ‘wow’s and ‘ooh’s escape the many fairies. Fresh opens her eyes slowly, yawning and stretching her arms and legs out. Her feet press against Jubilee as she stretches.
"Everyone stay in the cart," instructs Jubilee.
"What’s that?!" asks Tarja. Fresh blinks, rubbing her eyes and turning her head to look forward, past Basil at the oddly green cloud in the distance. She blinks. Green? Fresh leans over, putting her head next to the priestess as she stares at the thing coming up in the distance, its massive, spireing body breaking the horizon.
A tree. A giant tree, as big as the mountain that they had left, if not even bigger, rises up like a leviathan from the depths and scrapes up into the sky. Its many boughed branches bend out in all directions and are covered in a swarm of green leaves.
"That’s the central city," explains Jubilee. "They don’t like strangers," they add on.
"Can we go there?" asks Tarja.
"Only if you want to die," warns Jubilee. "They don’t know yet that you guys can leave the mountain and when they find out, there’s going to be trouble."
"Huh? Don’t they like fairies?" asks Pentti.
"Something like that," explains Jubilee. "None of us are welcome there. We’re going around it," the say, looking at Basil. "And fast." Basil nods, whipping the reins once. The anqa picks up its pace. "Keep going straight, there’s going to be a bend around to the right in a few minutes."
"Got it," says Basil.
"Jubilee!" exclaims Fresh. "There’s a giant tree!" she says, pointing at the thing.
"Sure is," replies Jubilee. "There’s a dungeon in the roots of it, but that’s none of our business."
"Is it a good dungeon?" asks Fresh.
"It’s the best dungeon," says Jubilee, pushing her feet away with their legs. "But it’s for nobles only."
"That’s so unfair!" exclaims Fresh. "If the dungeons have always been here, then why do they get to keep that one for themselves?"
"Because, dumb-ass, they built a wall around it and peed on it. That makes it theirs."
"Eww, did they really?" asks Fresh, shaking out her hands. Jubilee rolls their eyes.
"It’s just an expression, goo-brain. Might makes right. They say it’s their dungeon and they’ll kill you if you have a problem with it," explains Jubilee. "Way I see it, that means they have a point. That’s how ownership works."
"But who made them the owner? It’s part of the world!" argues Fresh, crossing her arms.
"Take it up with them," shrugs Jubilee. "But you won’t like the results of that conversation."
"Don’t they like you guys either?" asks Tarja.
"They don’t like anyone, period," says Jubilee. Fresh stares out ahead of the cart, sparing a glance at Basil’s tense form as they ride on ahead. The road ahead of them diverges into three paths. One goes left around the city, one goes straight towards it and one goes right around it. Basil tugs on the reins and the cart turns to the right, branching down the road as they make a bend towards the south.
"Wait." Fresh blinks. "Are they going to get mad that the fairies can leave the mountain?" she asks, leaning in to whisper into Jubilee’s ear.
"Remember what we talked about in the basement?" asks Jubilee. "Yes."
"Oh no…" Fresh leans back, not having thought about this possibility at all when she had made the rings. She just wanted to do something nice.
"Okay, so. You take the corners, like this -" starts Jubilee, returning to their lesson like nothing had ever happened. Perhaps to ease the clearly fearful minds of the fairies. Basil and Shamrock both do the same. Fresh, meanwhile, sits there and contemplates the consequences of what she has done.
Chapter 205: Just a moment
A heavy wind pushes through the open cart, the breeze following the flow of the open road as it surges along the way, like water through a channeling basin. Fresh feels her hair blowing to the side, as the calming breeze moves over her face, heading down the road that they themselves had come along. Not sure what it is that she is looking at, she turns her face to look in that direction.
Now that the storm has passed, the weather has turned deeply mild and comfortable. The sun is out, but hiding lazily behind the many thick, autumn clouds which dampen its shine. A warm wind heats the world instead, drying out the many damp crevices and holes in the dirt, as it passes over them.
"Hey," says Jubilee, getting her attention. Fresh blinks, looking back towards her friend who is sitting there with crossed arms, looking out in the other direction, past Basil, towards the road still ahead of them. She tilts her head, waiting for them to say something now that they have her attention.
"What’s up, Jubilee?" she asks.
Jubilee shifts in their seat, fidgeting in a manner that Fresh finds unusual for them. "Sorry that I made you kill that goblin," they say. "That was fucked."
Fresh tilts her head. "Goblin?" she asks, thinking back, lowering her gaze. She remembers now. During one of their initial outings in the northern dungeon together, back when the two of them had just first met, Jubilee had made her kill a tortured and mutilated goblin with her own two hands. She still remembers how badly she had cried then and how scared she was of the cruel and horrible Jubilee in that moment. It was really bad. "Oh," she replies, rubbing her arm.
In truth, since then, she has killed a lot of goblins. She has killed mush-mushes, kobolds, monsters of all breeds and pedigrees and if the rumors were true, apparently even a real person. Though, that last one wasn’t on purpose. Does that make her feel better? No. Not about that. But many of those things had died far worse deaths than that first goblin.
If anything, the thing that scares her the most these days isn’t the fact that she had driven a piece of jagged glass into the creature’s heart several times, in order to silence its wretched screams, it’s the fact that her cherished friend could have done something so horrible to a living creature, even if it was a monster.
She knows that Jubilee has a past and perhaps maybe even more issues than she herself has. Having been a product of this horrible world, Jubilee became the only person that they could have ever become, given the circumstances of their environment and prior life. They, like so many other people here, had a heavy soul simply because there was nothing else that it could have ever become in the path that they had been given.
Would she let that excuse work for herself? No. She’s willing to accept that her circumstances and choices are purely results of her own personal decisions. But for her friends, Fresh is willing to look the other way and to accept that their environment made them what they are, for better or for worse. Isn’t that what the magistrate had told her to do, as the leader of their group?
"It’s okay, Jubilee," says Fresh, holding her arms out in a beckoning gesture. "I understand why you did it," she consoles.
"No," replies Jubilee, seeing that she wants to hug.
Fresh narrows her eyes, waving her fingers inwardly. "I’ll forgive you, but only if you give me a hug."
"Pass."
"Jubileee~!" complains Fresh. "We’re trying to have a moment!"
"Moment’s over. I’m taking a nap," replies Jubilee, kicking their feet up and leaning back, their arms folded over their chest.
"What’s a goblin?" asks Tarja.
"It’s a little monster," explains Fresh. "They’re like kobolds," she says. "But less fluffy."
"Oooh," exclaims Tarja, flying over to Basil to sit on top of her hat and pester her for a while. Though, Basil seems very calm and at peace with the swarm of fairies that spends a lot of time flying around her or sitting on her wide-brimmed hat. She seems to have adopted a sort of maternal role in the eyes of the fairies.
Fresh is, of course, a little bit jealous. She wishes the fairies would swarm around her and pester her with questions and attention. She sighs. Oh well, at least she has Jubilee, Basil and Shamrock. That’s pretty good too.
Deciding that she wants to pay attention to her friends as well, she moves Jubilee’s legs back down from the box and sits down in the freed up space, down on the ground between the benches, resting her head on Jubilee’s lap. Stretching out her leg she touches Shamrock with it and lifts her arm up, stretching it out to touch Basil.
"You’re doing the touching thing again," says Jubilee, annoyed.
"I’m just trying to spend time with you guys," she says.
Jubilee sighs. "We’re literally stuck in a cart together, like we have been for days now. Is that not enough for you?"
"No," says Fresh, closing her eyes and deciding that she’s going to sit like that for a while.
