Herb Gathering Quest #4
Herb Gathering Quest #4
Clop, clop, clop.
The finned horse slowly approached the party and me.
Ethan, the most seasoned adventurer among us, stared hard at the horse and then spoke up.
"That monster is a Kelpie."
"A kel-what?"
"A Kelpie. It's a type of water-horse that lives on the shores of lakes. It has gills that let it breathe underwater, so it's a monster. I thought it was odd that there were horseshoe prints all around the lake. Looks like this fellow has made his home right here in Lake Mersil."
The monster called a Kelpie left a trail of damp with every hoof-fall on the ground.
The earth where the Kelpie's hooves touched grew wet, as if a rain had just passed.
The hoofprints we'd seen earlier in the day must have been its tracks.
"Why did it show itself in front of us?"
Ethan stroked his chin before answering my question.
"It seems the beast is angry that we've made off with its food. We came and plucked every last one of its favorite treats in the area, so of course it'd be pissed off."
"Treats?"
"I mean the Moonlight Herb you've got stuffed in that sack."
Ethan pointed a finger at the burlap sack slung over Rebecca's shoulder. Caught under our sudden stares, Rebecca's face went blank with confusion.
"You mean the herbs? This weird-looking horse eats these?"
"That's right. There were Kelpies living around my hometown village, so I know a thing or two about what they eat. Their absolute favorite prey is Moonlight Herb that's bloomed in the wild. I've seen them go charging in for the attack the instant any other creature tries to pick some."
"Th-then what do we do?! Are you telling me this wild horse wants to attack us?!"
"That's the most likely scenario. Can't you just feel it, looking into the Kelpie's eyes? The feeling that we're completely fucked."
"Eep!"
Rebecca went pale as a ghost, petrified by fear.
Fortunately, Ethan seemed to have come up with an idea. He raised a palm, gesturing for us to stay calm.
"But there's a way we can get out of this without a fight. I'll open a peaceful negotiation with the Kelpie."
"Negotiate?! What kind of negotiation are you going to have with a savage monster?!"
"Not every monster is incapable of communication. Some of the higher-intelligence monsters can understand human speech, and bargaining works on them in some cases. The Kelpie is exactly that kind of creature. I don't mean to brag, but back in my home village of Black Valley, I, Ethan, was known by a certain nickname—."
Ethan cleared his throat and then spoke up.
"Ethan the Monster Behavior Specialist—."
I grimaced at that ridiculous nickname.
A Monster Behavior Specialist? What, was he trying to be the otherworldly version of Kang Hyung-wook or something?
He might've thought he sounded cool, but to everyone listening, he just sounded like a dumbass.
But Ethan paid absolutely no mind to Rebecca's reaction or mine.
He seemed to actually be proud of that nickname.
"I'll just be taking a little bit of the Moonlight Herb."
"Uh, huh? Alright."
Ethan pulled a fistful of Moonlight Herb from the burlap sack.
And then, without a moment's hesitation, he walked right up to the Kelpie and said:
"Halt."
Fwoosh—.
The Kelpie let out a whinny that sounded almost like an answer.
"I understand your feelings, Kelpie. You're angry because we came and plucked every last Moonlight Herb on your lake shore. But we only took this quest because we were tasked by the Adventurer's Guild. We had no idea you'd set up a territory in this lake. I swear that we never plucked the Moonlight Herb with any malice—."
Fwoosh—?
"Let's make a trade. We'll share a portion of the Moonlight Herb we picked with you. In exchange, do not attack us. Just quietly take the Moonlight Herb and go back to the depths of the lake you call home."
Ethan carefully held out the Moonlight Herb toward the Kelpie.
The Kelpie, which had been staring down at the short-statured Ethan for a long moment, now extended its muzzle and began chewing the Moonlight Herb with a greedy hunger.
Rebecca and I could only stare in pure shock as we watched the scene unfold.
"Wh-what the! A monster really can understand human speech?! So the wild horse actually accepted the negotiation?!"
"I-I wonder? Even among monsters, each one has a different personality. There might be a monster somewhere on the continent that understands human speech and acts docile. But I'd heard the odds of that were insanely low."
Did that mean Ethan really was the otherworld's Kang Hyung-wook?
A genius halfling tamer who communed with monsters instead of dogs?
"That's exactly what an insanely low-probability event looks like. He really deserves to be called a Monster Behavior Specialist."
"Good god..."
While Rebecca and I were chattering, the Kelpie finished its meal.
Having chewed up and swallowed the fistful of Moonlight Herb, the Kelpie let out a deep *braaaap*—and then turned its back.
When the Kelpie turned around, Ethan looked towards Rebecca and me and shrugged his shoulders.
"You see? Everything's been resolved peacefully. Charging in and insisting on fighting monsters is the course taken only by rookie adventurers..."
It was while Ethan was rambling on, looking a little worked up.
At that instant, I sensed something deeply ominous. I quickly yelled out toward Ethan.
"E-Ethan! Get down!"
"Hm? What do you mean? Why do I have to get d—"
WHAM—!!
In that instant, Ethan's body was launched straight up into the air.
The Kelpie, which had had its back turned, had just delivered a two-legged back-kick at full power. Ethan had taken the full brunt.
Ethan's body sailed through the air in a neat parabola and then slammed into the ground.
"Ethan! Are you okay?!"
"Khack...! You ill-mannered son-of-a-horse little shit...!"
He could still talk, so it meant he wasn't dead yet.
But the impact of that full-on back-kick left Ethan unable to move a single inch from where he lay.
A single party member had been taken out in the blink of an eye.
Monster Behavior Specialist—cut!
Rebecca and I locked eyes, cold sweat running down our faces.
"We're fucked."
"Shit! Luke, what do we do now?! The Monster Behavior Specialist is down!"
"It's coming! Draw your sword!"
That settled it.
The Kelpie hadn't been meekly listening to Ethan's negotiation. It had just been putting on an act of cooperation to take out one of its enemies from the get-go.
Like the highly intelligent monster it was, it had lulled us into a false sense of security.
If I'd known this would happen, we would've just attacked from the start.
Fwoosh—!
The Kelpie broke into a run, letting out a violent whinny.
Its target wasn't me—it was Rebecca, who was carrying the burlap sack.
Its eyes were practically popping out of its skull as it locked onto Rebecca, as if the beast couldn't think of anything else but stealing the Moonlight Herb back.
"Fuuuuuck—!!"
An ear-splitting, high-pitched fuck echoed across the plains.
Rebecca ran around dodging the Kelpie, a fuck-laced scream on her lips.
She was too terrified to even swing the sword she'd drawn and was just fleeing.
Honestly, having a wild horse over two meters tall chasing you—anyone would be scared out of their mind.
"Help me, Luke!!"
"Stay calm!"
"Calm, my ass!! I'm gonna get eaten if this keeps up!!"
I raised my crossbow and fired off bolts like a madman.
But the moment I saw the bolts couldn't penetrate the Kelpie's hide, I couldn't help but sigh.
The piercing power of my crossbow was, at best, only enough to punch through small woodland vermin.
It was plenty good enough to pierce the skin of a goblin, but dealing any real damage to a powerful monster above a certain level was a tall order.
"R-Rebecca! Are you okay?!"
"Do I look okay to you?!"
At least it was a relief that Rebecca was holding on quite well.
Maybe her reflexes were just that good—she was tumbling all over the place, dodging every attack the Kelpie threw at her.
Of course, she probably felt like she was dying as she rolled and bounced around.
"Just hold on a little longer! I have a secret weapon!"
Rebecca shot me a quick hand signal, letting me know she'd heard me.
Of course, my so-called secret weapon was the Magic Missile I'd been working so hard to learn.
I'd basically treated it as a non-technique up until now since my accuracy was pitiful.
'A hit from this is the only thing that'll do damage to a Kelpie.'
That mana sphere had shattered a stone floor earlier.
If it could just land, it would definitely deal a blow the Kelpie couldn't shrug off.
I took a deep breath and formed the hand seals to summon the sphere.
Once I finished the complex series of hand seals, a pure white sphere popped into existence above my palm.
I stared at the sphere with a grin of pure glee.
"You're dead now, you horse bastard."
Rebecca and the Kelpie were locked in a tumbling struggle nearby.
Letting out a fierce yell, I launched the mana sphere.
"Dodge the spell!! Get in the corner!!"
"Huh? Th-that thing's magic?!"
Rebecca did a startled back handspring, surprise written all over her face.
The mana sphere tore through the air and, in the very next split second, let out a thunderous crash.
BOOM—!
Had a miracle happened?
Could the spell I'd never once managed to hit in practice land a direct hit on its first try in live combat?
But the moment I saw what the mana sphere had actually struck, I muttered to myself with an awkward, sheepish look.
"Ah... shit, that missed."
My hopes had been betrayed.
The Magic Missile I'd fired so boldly had missed the Kelpie by a mile.
By the looks of it, the impact point was a good three meters to the right. It had been doomed to miss from the start.
Ahem. God, so fucking embarrassing.
Still, no reason to despair over just one miss, right?
"Magic Missile."
I steadied my heart and formed the hand seals again.
After that, a whole barrage of mana spheres flew across the empty air, but not a single one of them hit the target—to the point where I could've cried.
The look on the Kelpie's face as it stood still and stared my way was getting to me.
"Don't look at me like that, you horse fuck."
Fwoosh—.
It had the expression of somebody thinking, *You're so goddamn pathetic.*
How the hell could some horse-bastard make a human-like face like that?
"That's supposed to be magic, right?! So why can't you land a single hit?!"
Rebecca's frantic question stabbed me with self-loathing, and my head drooped in shame.
This was exactly like a poking Lee Sin in League of Legends, boldly throwing his Q out into the empty air.
Are you watching, CloudTemplar?
Here in the otherworld, I'm carrying on your will.
Reincarnated into this other world, I had become the Poking Mage.
"Oh, for real!!"
Rebecca boiled over in frustration as she went back to tumbling and dodging the Kelpie.
She was still clutching the burlap sack tightly in her hands; apparently, she had absolutely zero intention of ever letting the Kelpie get its hooves on it.
I could feel the sheer tenacity radiating off her; she was absolutely dead set on completing this quest.
"Luke! Don't just stand there, do something!"
"I'm all out of tricks! Look, I'm just a Bronze Tier adventurer, alright?! Please don't put too much expectation on a Bronze!"
"Then just shoot that magic you showed me earlier again!"
Under Rebecca's relentless insistence, I had no choice but to form the hand seals.
Even as my fingers moved busily, I didn't hold any particular expectation.
My confidence had taken such a massive nosedive that I felt I couldn't possibly land a single Magic Missile.
"Firing!"
The shining sphere launched from my palm.
This one was also a little off-angle, and I was just letting out a deep sigh—when, all of a sudden, Rebecca sprang forward.
I saw Rebecca move, and my heart nearly burst in shock.
It was because the direction Rebecca had moved intersected directly with the trajectory of my Magic Missile.
Which meant she could very well get hit by the thing.
"What are you doing?! Are you insane?!"
"I'm not insane!"
Rebecca tossed the sack behind her and then seized the hilt of her sword with both hands.
Her gaze was locked right onto the mana sphere that was hurtling toward her at high speed.
Fwoosh—!
The Kelpie charged, making a dash for the burlap sack that had fallen to the ground.
Right at that very instant, Rebecca swung her sword and smacked the mana sphere away.
She struck it like a bat, using the broad flat of her thick curved blade.
CLANG—! With a clear, ringing metal sound, the mana sphere bounced off in a completely different direction—straight toward the Kelpie's long, stretched-out forehead.
"It hit!"