While walking through the forest with Kiko, Akira was fussing over his [Howling Vest].
The design of the armor is a fur halter top and skirt tied with leather cord and a fur shawl, annoying Akira with the fact his cleavage and thighs were still being exposed.
"I shouldn't be surprised! Armor for female characters in these games is always the work of a bunch of greasy, perverted virgins working on the art staff." He squinted his eyes giving a cheesy satisfied grin, showing his enlarged squirrel molars as they slightly down into his lower lip. "And God bless them for it."
Kiko didn't seem bothered. "Actually, I don't mind it so much. It feels really nice and breezy, and covers more than the rags we were wearing before."
"Easy for you to say," Akira huffed, "you're flat as a board!"
"Uwa?!" Kiko made a face like she was insecure, shrinking her stature and gnawing on her fingernail, but said nothing.
Soon after, the pair came upon a structure that appeared to be a roadside shrine. A white marble pedestal upon which there stood a statue of a young girl in a toga dress with spiraling dual pigtail braids, antennas and large butterfly-like wings, holding up honeycomb-tipped wand in one hand and a little baby piglet wrapped in a bundle in the other. Smiling aggressively at passersby, like she was waiting on them to turn their backs before she could do something cheeky. An arrangement of flowers and herbs, roots and sheaves of wheat and fish bones were set within a bowl placed at her feet, presented as offerings. Conversely, there were many signs of vandalism all over the statue: Knives sticking out of her, a red line of paint drawn straight across her neck. Graffiti littered the pedestal, reading such lovely things as: "whore" "brat" and "loli bitch," to name a few.
A figure in a straw hat, green toga and sandals was standing before the shrine, observing it with a mournful gaze. Based on his plain, rural attire and the handcart filled with hay in his possession, one could easily guess that he was a farmer.
"I see there's a split in public opinion," Akira said to the man jokingly.
The farmer lightly turned to them with a tiny snort through his snout and a solemn frown in his squinty eyes, peering out through wrinkly mounds of pink flesh. Exactly like a pig.
"It is a shrine to the Pure Mother Bee," the pig-man explained with budding enthusiasm. "In this region, she alone decides whether the crops will flourish and presides over holy unions between players. She is the goddess of the harvest, and family, and all life as we know it." He sighed, turning away suddenly, with a grim, defeated look. "Or, at least...that is what she was supposed to represent. According to the game's manual."
"The Pure Mother Bee..." Akira murmured, inspecting the statue again. "She looks pretty young, for a goddess," he said after contemplating it for a while, stroking his chin with a wry grin. "More like an annoying little sister!" (Albeit, little girl goddesses are becoming sort of a fad these days!)
He then told the pig-man that he and Kiko were heading for Acquama Town.
"That's a while away, friend," the pig-man replied. "You should stop at our village for the night."
Akira agreed. And so, he and Kiko followed the pig-man along from there, while they continued to hear out his screed about the village and the goddess:
"Closed Beta has just started, and already the Springtime Hare has turned her back on the village. The crops do not grow as they used to, with yields this low being barely enough for us to get by." He sighed. "Most of us are farmers, so we rely upon her blessings to produce a good yield. We have praised and honored her with countless gifts and offerings, but still she does not listen." He shook his head gravely. "It cannot go on like this."
Akira shrugged. "Maybe you're just not praying hard enough?" he said sarcastically.
Kiko, enraged by his thoughtlessness, thumped him on the shoulder. "Akira! That's not nice to joke about! The friendly pig-people are suffering."
"What? I'm just saying...maybe you shouldn't expect the Gods to solve all your problems."
The hog-man gave a low, dejected squeal. "You will understand, soon enough…."
Hogs' Landing was a picturesque farming village built along the riverbank, with decadent ancient Roman-style villas and sprawling fields of wheat and other crops. Many more of the pigfolk—known simply as 'pigfolk'—were seen tending the fields or bustling among the narrow walkways carved between slum neighborhoods of ramshackle wooden structures, pitched starkly against the imposing pearly white villa walls.
"I know income disparity when I see it," Akira commented, just as the three were passing by a pigman as he was peeing against the side of a building.
"All of the farmland is leased to us by a handful of wealthy Acquamenean families."
"Profiting off your hard sweat and toil: living in large mansions while you all are reduced to squalor."
The pig-farmer snorted. "We must make do with what we are given in life."
"Couldn't you become an adventurer? It's more dangerous, but surely you have other options."
The pig-man then stopped: so abruptly, that Akira and Kiko almost walked into him.
"I can't speak for all of my neighbors," he said, frowning, as he plopped down on top of the handcart. "However, I know that I was cursed to live in misery from the moment of character creation."
He drew the "S" [Status Menu] symbol in the air with his hoofed fingers, and showed it to Akira:
~~~~~~~~
Name: Herb Hogsden
Race: Pigfolk
Level: 8
EXP: 54/800
Class: Rusty Farmer ★★
Guilds: N/A
< Strength: 8 >
< Agility: 2 >
< Stamina: 15 >
< Willpower: 6 >
< Dexterity: 4 >
< Charisma: 2 >
< Luck: 2 >
~~~~~~~~
Skills:
Green Thumb
Passively increases the yield and quality of crops you grow using the [Agriculture] skill, increased based on your Level.
Stoutness
Passively increases your resistance to inhospitable weather, as well as [Hunger].
~~~~~~~~
Akira cringed at the abysmal stats and lackluster skills.
Still, feeling sorry for Herb, he tried to come up with something nice to say: "Well…that certainly is a lot of
"All the more for us to work harder in the fields all day." Herb clenched his jaw, huffing loudly through his snout. Proceeding to grumble through his teeth, "while the four-star Merchants are drinking wine and having party banquets every night, we farmers have to massage our aching sores and toss and turn all night in flea-covered mattresses."
"Merchants?" Akira blurted in surprise, remembering that he was also a Merchant as well.
"They're the ones who rent out the land and the villas, but don't even live in them," Herb spat. " Bunch of greedy"—he hesitated—"pigs."
Kiko glanced at Akira, sharing in his growing unease. "Akira..."
Nonetheless, Akira pressed, "how about…five-star Merchants? Are there any of those?"
"Five-star Merchants?!" Herb rose from the handcart suddenly, with an enraged glare. "Gods, the four-stars are bad enough! Those must be the devil incarnate!"
Akira and Kiko exchanged nervous glances, saying nothing.
After Herb calmed, he returned to the front of the handcart to resume their walk. Saying he was going to drop by the pub.
Why the pub? Akira thought, but decided not to question it…
If he'd learned anything from being in Herb's company thus far, it was how sorely this pig needed a drink!
Of course, the other farmer-pigs at the Burnt Bacon were in much the same state of jaded bitterness as he was: all there to hang their hats after a long day's work, silently burying their sorrows in the spirits until sundown. Really, the only semblance of excitement to be found was at the bar...where an angry mob was gathered around one of the patrons.
"What are they yelling about?" Kiko asked Herb, who had a pinched, scowling look on his face.
They angry mob of villagers were airing grievances about the village's recent troubles:
"We can't continue living by such small means!"
"I give offerings every day, and I pray and I pray, but still the crops are dying!"
"The Merchants are threatening to evict us if we go another week without paying our taxes!"
A creepy pig-person with glasses and slimy dark hair chimed in, "can I please have an autographed pair of one of your panties!" Earning him a foot planted squarely in his face!
Akira pushed through the crowd to see who was at the center of all this negativity and ire. Someone sitting on a stool, slouched over the bar, idly balancing an empty mug on the counter. The wide, pouting frown on their face showing how little they cared about anything that was unfolding around them: someone Akira could've never expected to see in such a dingy low-down establishment.
"It's…the Springtime Hare!" He exclaimed, rearing back with incredulity.
There was no doubting: she bore an EXACT likeness to the statue he'd encountered at the shrine. Albeit, under far less noble pretenses…
Her face was flushed red, lines of drool hanging out of her small pink lips. Her toga was slipping down her shoulder, past the slim forearm and almost to her elbow, baring her naked back as far as the smooth round shoulderblades. She burped out loud, making no effort to cover her mouth. "BArT-ender!" She moaned, with a drunkenly uneven light, childlike voice.
The pig-bartender was nonchalantly cleaning the inside of a mug with a rag. "I think you've had enough for the evening, Goddess."
"Nuh-uh!" She gave a giddy laugh, rocking back and forth on the barstool. "I'm a lightweight!"
The pig-bartender grumbled, "that you are, Goddess."
Kiko said aloud what both she and Akira were thinking: "is it...really her?"
Before suddenly, she projectile vomited all over the countertop, and they could watch as tiny flowers grew and withered out of the ensuing slick of green ooze—instantly satisfying their need for any proof.
Akira and Kiko faced Herb with incredulous glares, as he merely wagged his head in dismay.
Melissa Melissa, the loli goddess of agriculture and family in this game world…
Was a totally useless drunkard!