After parting with Lazuli, Akira and the horse-girl continued drifting down the river for a while, remaining awkwardly silent the whole way. Until they washed ashore, onto a sandy bank on the edge of a peaceful forest. However, before they could proceed, they were still left with just one problem…
"How do we make the damn bubble go away?" Akira demanded. "That goody-two-shoes Lazuli never said—"
POP! The bubble was instantly gone.
"Huh." Akira shrugged. "I guess it just goes away when you want it to." How convenient.
The hat-girl nodded, giving a limp "mmm" under her breath in response.
"You're not much of a talker, are you?" Akira said.
She appeared too shy to even look directly into his eyes, keeping them constantly lowered.
Her silky black hair was styled like an old-fashioned princess, reaching halfway down her back with long square bangs covering her forehead in the front.
The more Akira watched her...the more he thought she was actually kind of cute.
But more importantly, he felt he could trust her:
"Hey...I'm really thankful for when you stood up for me, back there," he said while walking across the shore, making it onto the dirt and grass further inland. "You might've saved my skin." He didn't bother waiting on a reply before plopping down on his back, laying in the soft soil with an exhausted sigh of relief. "It'll be dark, soon. So we had better build a camp."
He watched the hat-girl walk past him, and sit down with her back against a tree where she then curled up, tucking her pale white face against her raised knees. As if to hide herself.
Akira frowned. 'I guess I'll leave her a little while,' he figured. 'It's been a stressful first day.'
Without delay, he then set about on a forage through the forest, all the while constantly keeping track of the sun as it was gradually dipping behind faraway mountains.
Akira was by no means an experienced outdoorsman. He knew to look out for dry wood and bark, as well as fallen pine needles to use for tinder. He had once attended a workshop for wilderness survival, mostly aimed at perhaps overly cautious high-ranking business professionals such as himself. Just in case they survived a plane crash, or their yacht sank, and they were forced to rough it for a while in a remote location.
By nightfall, he had a campfire lit. But the hat-girl still hadn't moved so much as an inch from where he'd first seen her.
"Tch…" Akira scoffed with contempt. "Snap out of it, already! You can't be dead weight forever."
The girl glanced up, the flickering light of the campfire reflected on her shaken expression.
"Yeah, I'm talking to you!" Akira said, as he was crouched, poking around the most recent batch of pine needles he'd tossed into the fire to keep it going. "Are you just going to keep sitting there, sulking, and expect me to carry you through everything?"
"I'm sorry!" she made a startled noise, like a tiny rabbit's squeak, and hid her face again.
Akira frowned, and simply stared at her in silence for a bit. On some level he felt sorry for her, game or no game, after everything they'd just been through. But that didn't mean he was going to be her babysitter forever.
After a few moments of silence save for the crackling fire, Akira sighed.
Though begrudgingly, for now...he would try to play nice:
"So…what animal are you supposed to be?"
She ever-so-slightly raised her head, to peek at him. "Huh?"
"Everyone I've met so far was a kemonomimi. But you're just wearing that funny hat."
"It's not a hat," she said with a shy smile as she took it off, laying it in her lap. The top was smooth, shining and concaved inward like a basin, with a vibrant green design like a shell. "See"—she rapped its edge with her knuckle, producing a distinct hollow knocking sound—"it's actually really hard. I had it when I first entered the game."
"So you're actually a turtle! Ooo." (That's new, and unexpected!)
"My name, by the way...is Kiko."
"I'm Akira. A squirrel." He flapped his tail, laughing. "I'm a CEO in real life, but now I'm just cute."
She giggled. "You really are cute."
"So what about you? What are you in real life?"
"Huh?" Her eyelids fluttered slightly, showing her innocent black eyes. .Her voice was always hushed, slightly raspy and punctuated by long...drawn-out pauses. As if every word she uttered was...reluctant. "I'm only…a university student," she said, twirling a lock of her dark hair around her slim finger. "Third year."
Hearing this, Akira's face brightened. "Oh? What's your major?" (Please say Accounting!)
She beamed, half-covering her mouth with her hand. "Marine...biology."
"Oh." Akira needed a moment to bottle his dismay. "You mean like studying dolphins and stuff?"
"Hmm...no. My research is mostly revolved around freshwater habitats," she said and blushed and smiled slightly, gazing up unfocusedly as one does when recalling a distant, warm memory. "It's funny that my character is based on a turtle. Turtles...are so sweet, and smart." She lowered her face to look at Akira fully again, smiling brightly. "You know, they're a lot more intelligent than most people know! It helps them adapt to all sorts of situations." She giggled. "I was teaching one, I named Scrumpty, how to color with crayons!" She frowned. "Before the lockdown."
"Crayons?" Akira grunted. "That's cool, I guess." He couldn't even pretend to be interested.
"Just so you know…I don't fault you for what you did. Even if I had been the one you chose."
Akira cast her an inquisitive look.
"Umm...I mean...back then, when you let that girl be attacked."
"Oh," Akira sat up straight, now becoming fully attentive. If not also slightly concerned. "Really?"
"It was actually...really heroic. Even though not a lot of people would see it that way."
Akira chuckled. "I wouldn't go so far as to call it heroic. Most would even call what I did 'cowardly,' or 'cruel'." He frowned. "Unless I had sacrificed myself instead..."
"But then we might've lost you!" Kiko moaned. "Then we all would've been doomed."
"But you still would've had Lazuli! and she's the one with all the powers."
"That's true. Her powers are amazing." Kiko giggled. "Still...it was your plans that saved us."
"Perhaps..." Akira pretended to consider. Though, in actuality, he was only trying to appear humble.
"Like that genius plan involving Lazuli's bubble? We would've never survived that fall!"
"Even if we did, the rapids would've torn us to pieces."
"Mhm." Kiko nodded. "So I hope you don't mind me saying…but you're actually really incredible. And I'm really thankful that you rescued me." She started fiddling with her fingers, looking shyly away. "To be honest…I was sitting here all this time because I didn't want to bother you, or get in your way. Since I know I would probably only be a nuisance."
Akira was surprised. "Is that so?" All along he had thought that she was just being a baby. But in fact, she was actually more concerned with the wider picture!
"Umm…does that make you angry?" Her face was about to go into hiding again.
"No, not at all!" Akira said as he stood up quickly, taking a step toward her with a proud grin. "I'm actually really impressed!"
"Really?" Kiko had stars in her eyes. "No one's ever said that to me before!"
His expression hardened. "I am, but it still doesn't give you an excuse to sit there doing nothing." He looked around. "There must be something you can do…"
Just then Akira's stomach grumbled, making him embarrassed.
"Ah, I guess hunger exists in this world as well."
"Hmm…" Kiko scanned the surroundings, from the forest to the sandy shore, and the gently flowing river…tiny shadows of moving fish seen darting beneath the surface.
Looking back to Akira, she informed him that she would need to acquire three things:
"Something we could use as a fishing rod, a line, and some bait."
Akira was immediately ecstatic. "Smart thinking! There's got to be something we can catch in this river."
"I'll handle it," she said confidently. "You take the time to rest"—she smiled—"you've earned it."
~~~~~~~~
Party member has enlisted: Kiko Amagiri!
~~~~~~~~
"Are you sure? Even if you manage to make a pole, fishing is a lot harder than it looks."
Kiko didn't waste a second. She found a sturdy branch in the woods, and a dangling vine that would be strong enough to act as a line. For the bait, she turned over rocks to dig through the cool, loamy soil beneath them for worms.
In total, it only took her about five minutes.
"That was…fast," Akira said as crossed by him again, on the way to the river's edge.
She knelt in the wet sand and tied the vine around the tapered end of the stick, then secured one of the worms.
Fishing…was something Kiko had originally taken up during her studies as a major in marine biology, but had also quickly grown into a personal hobby. Outside of sometimes having to catch her own live research specimens as part of her coursework, during her free time she would frequently troll the waterways and beaches where she lived.
Standing knee-deep in the river, Kiko felt like she was home again.
Akira watched, in awe, as she stood there with perfect calm and poise, then threw out the line in a perfect arc. Continuing to stand completely still, like a statue…waiting…
…
Waiting…and waiting…and waiting…
Akira eventually fell asleep while watching her waiting, still, after nearly an hour had passed, for a first bite that wouldn't come.
And even when he awoke at dawn the next day, yawning and stretching, he looked—
And Kiko was STILL standing in the river—still waiting!
"I…don't understand," she uttered, as if sensing Akira's glaring gaze was on her. Sniffing, because she'd wanted so badly to impress him.
He stormed up to her. "Give me that"—snatching the makeshift fishing rod.
He then tried his own hand at the waiting game, for yet another entire half an hour, but still—
"This is bullshit!" he yelled. Still not so much as a single nibble!
Kiko had been on the shore, meanwhile, drawing circles in the sand with her finger. "If not even Akira-sama can catch anything," she said glumly, "something must be wrong."
Akira wouldn't say out loud, but he could instantly detect some foul "video game bullshit" at play. Like perhaps the act of fishing was tied to some mastery or skill that neither of them had acquired, thus preventing them from attaining even so much as a single bite on a perfectly decent lure.
In his mind, he could already hear Lazuli teasing him…
"Serves you right for not letting me give you a tutorial on skills, when I offered to!"
"A cocky brat CEO like you deserves to go without food! It's only karma."
Why did she decide to split off from him in the first place?!
Out of desperation to prove her worth to Akira, Kiko dove into the water and began frantically grasping her hands around trying to catch them, breathing normally through the water as if it was plain air. An exciting discovery that motivated her to try using her mouth—like a turtle—only to receive a mouthful of river bottom silt that forced her back to the surface in a coughing fit.
Akira's arms were crossed, frowning and glaring in dismay, when she resurfaced. "What are you even doing?"
…
Ultimately, it was determined that any attempts at fishing would be futile.
So the two decided to proceed through the forest...
"Hopefully we'll find a town, like that placed Lazuli mentioned," Akira said. "Or someone that knows what the Hell they're doing."
They had barely made any headway into the woods, however, when Akira's new hypersensitive ears detected that there were other presences skulking in the dense brush, alongside them, with doglike huffs and growls and racing paws; always managing to remain omnipresent yet just barely hidden out of view.
"What would you say are the chances of us being followed by a pack of friendly strays?" Akira said.
"I think they're wolves," Kiko fearfully replied: oblivious to his sarcasm.
Akira had a furious glare. "We're in a JRPG world—of course they're freaking wolves!"