Chapter 10. The Great Cabbage Hunt.
Today YunYun and I left early in the morning and went straight to the guild to deliver the Giant Frogs we had killed the day before, we got quite the big amount of Eris for that haul and Luna was very impressed about the amount of frogs we killed.
After that I introduced YunYun to my Instant Dungeons, to my surprise however the Dungeons seemed to have changed somehow, more types of monsters began to spawn and the amount of exp points we got from them also increased.
I asked Astraea how this was possible and what happened, she told me that, since we got to this world she had been scanning it and getting information on every type of monster and dungeons in this world to help evolve the Instant Dungeons available to me.
This way I could have more ways to train and get stronger when I get back to my own original world, she also let me know that with me visiting new worlds she'll be able to further expand the Dungeons and even create new ones and more modes.
She immediately proved this by having created the mode, Instant Dungeon Survival Mode, where i would have to face wave after wave of monsters until i couldn't anymore, as more waves I cleared the more powerful the monsters would become, there would be no money or loot dropped but the amount of exp points I could gain would be drastically increased.
YunYun and I decided to give it a go this morning and needless to say that it was extremely hard was an understatement, luckily YunYun and I had already experienced something like this in the mine quest so we were prepared but by wave ten i had to summon my Pokemon to give us a hand.
Even when we reached wave 15 and I already had all my Pokemon except Mew and Lugia giving us a hand it became too hard for us to continue so after we cleared it we decided to quit.
After that we received a lot of experience points and I leveled up to level 90, this comes to show how powerful the monsters in Survival Mode are since I was able to level up five times with just sixteen waves, YunYun also leveled up and got a lot of skill points to use, she used them to learn new spells and raise her stats.
I also took advantage of the situation and grinded my healers skills and learned a bunch of new ones like Sharpness, Barrier, Recovery, Dispel, Ray, Heal and Pow Pow Hammer.
I made some great progress with my Healer skills and soon I will be finish with it, so i would have to pick a new Occupation so i was starting to think on which one to pick next, I haven't decided yet but it is important, maybe I'll pick the Mage class next, I do need do more magic spells in my arsenal.
It was already close to noon when we finished our training session so we decided to got to the public baths to clean up and then go to Wiz's shop to both visit and eat lunch with her.
When we arrive she welcomed us with a bright smile and a hug, which caught us by surprise for a second but we accept it nonetheless.
After that I cooked us some lunch and we ate together in peace, then we decided to stay and help Wiz with her shop for the rest of the day, I took everything that Megumin's father had sold to Wiz and sold it to my in game shop, of course I didn't get much but something was better than nothing, afterwards I gave all the money I got from those useless items to Wiz so it wasn't a complete loss on her part.
YunYun went outside and began to give out flyers that Wiz had made so more people would now know that she has more wares at better prices, of course I sent Gardevoir, Liligant and Frosslass to go with her and help her just in case she got too shy.
Meanwhile Wiz was busy setting up the new weapons and items I had given her in the now empty spaces where she used to keep Megumin's father junk items.
Little by little we started to have some customers come in and even sold some stuff which made Wiz very happy, I even helped her at the counter since I had worked as clerk once before.
But overall it was a very successful day for Wiz's shop, I was even planning on going into the Instant Dungeons at night just to get more stuff for her to sell, the Apple gels that are very common in the Undead Dungeon would sell very well in this town so I was planning on grinding a lot of them for Wiz.
Soon YunYun and my Pokemon returned, she seemed very happy and proud of herself while my Pokemon were smiling at her, my guess is that she had a very successful day too "hello girls, how did it go?".
YunYun smiled brightly at me "it was great! i didn't even run away once! and when I began to stuttered Frosslass would run and icy finger on my back so i could focus!".
I turned to look towards to Frosslass who was giggleling behind her sleeve like hand, I just chuckled at my mischievous Pokemon "that's great, did anyone get weirded out or scared of the Pokemon?".
I was worried about this since i don't think anyone native to this world would have seen a Pokémon so my concern was that they would mistake them as monsters and attack them.
Well I wasn't worried about my Pokemon getting hurt per say, they're powerful enough to kill almost anything in this world but that doesn't mean I want them to do so, YunYun smiled and patted Liligant on her head who seem to enjoy the attention "actually everyone seemed to think they were really cute and took the fliers from them with a smile on their faces, they were also very popular with the kids too!".
I smiled and nodded, I was glad that the Pokemon were easily accepted Wiz clapped and smiled "I think they're very cute too!".
She was already hugging Frosslass to her who looked very content in her arms, this didn't surprise me at all, as a Lich and a undead being I was pretty sure she would be very popular with Ghost Type Pokemon which Frosslass proved the moment I summoned her since she literally instantly floated into her arms, Wiz was surprised at first but then seem to take a liking to Frosslass too and hugged her tightly, i chuckled to Wiz and nodded "yeah my Pokemon are pretty awesome right?".
Both YunYun and Wiz nodded while my three Pokemon blushed, suddenly a siren began to loudly play and all three of us tensed right away, Luna's voice began to resound through out the entire town.
"Emergency quest! Emergency quest!".
*What in the world?... ah! isn't this the Cabbage episode? ugh... i really don't want to deal with that silliness and Darkness is going to be there too but this is a perfect opportunity to get some good exp points and money... as a matter of fact Wiz should come with us, that way she can get some much needed money for the shop.
"All Adventurers, please gather at the front gate at once!, i repeat: All Adventurers, please gather at the front gate at once!".
I grinned and turned towards YunYun who's eyes were already glowing in anticipation, I then turn towards Wiz "hey Wiz want to come with us? we will split the earnings evenly".
Wiz jumped in surprise "b-but what about my shop?".
"You can leave Gardevoir, Liligant and Frosslass in charge, I'm sure they can handle it".
The trio Pokemon nodded and smiled towards Wiz who still looked undecided but YunYun grabbed her sleeve and pulled it a bit to catch her attention "please come with us, I'm sure we will all have fun together".
I smiled at YunYun, this few days we spent together have been great for her, she's not as shy anymore and she's more prone to speak her mind now, I'm very proud of her.
Wiz stared into YunYun's glowing red eyes for a second but then smiled and nodded having made up her mind, YunYun brightly smiled and fist pumped!.
Both me and Wiz smiled at her in amusement, then I walked up to them "okay girls then grab on and I'll teleport us directly to the front gate".
Both girls nodded and grabbed one of my hands each which caught me by surprise a bit but I let it go for now, YunYun has been doing that a lot lately and Wiz was now starting to do so too, if this keeps going I'm going to have a talk with them soon and explain a lot to them.
But for now we hand a bunch of Cabbages to hunt and so I push that a side and teleport us to the front gate, hopefully we'll get there before any nonsense had started.
In a instant we appeared at the front gate causing a couple of fellow Adventurers jump in surprise but I instantly recognized what was going right now *and Darkness is getting off at getting hit by the cabbages and being watched by everyone sigh... watching this in the anime was weird as hell but watching live was even worse*.
Suddenly i got a quest notification.
[ New Quest received!.
The Great Cabbage Migration!.
Err... they're highly magical and sentient cabbages.. i got nothing else to say about that...
Anyways! the cabbages have begun their rebellious migration, kill and capture as many as you can for great rewards!.
Objective 1: Kill and capture as many cabbages as you can!.
Objective 2: Stop Megumin from using Explosion to prevent her from killing and blowing away too many of the cabbages.
Reward 1: Times two to all earned money!.
Reward 2: Mystic Pokemon Token!.]
*Welp looks like Megumin is not going to have a chance to show off today*.
I looked around and I see her standing there at the front looking all cool and all, she was also saying something dramatic but I ignore that and began to walk up to her with YunYun and Wiz following me close behind.
Megumin grinned and then began her ridiculous long chant and mana began to gather around her, as soon as i saw that I pointed a finger at her "Drain!".
My spell hit her and she immediately slumped and dropped to the ground, at my current level my Int stat was way higher than hers so her Mp was no match for my Drain spell.
I walk up to her and looked down at her and met her eyes, she was staring at me in disbelief "w-why?".
I just tilted my head and grinned at her "I rather you don't cause unnecessary destruction or hurt anyone just because you wanted to show off, now lay there and let us take care of this, we'll show you how is done".
After having said my piece I continued walking forward, Megumin turned her gaze towards YunYun who just sadly shook her head at her and then walked up to me with Wiz following us close behind.
I then used Psychic to pull back Darkness and the other two Adventurers that she was supposedly trying to protect and then threw them towards the rest of the Adventurers.
I saw Luna staring at us and I waved at her which she returned I then turned towards the flying cabbages, YunYun and Wiz walked up to my side and I turn my head towards them to give them a smile which they return with one of their own.
I could feel all the Adventurers gazes on me and the girls but I don't care about any of them at the moment, no right now I was going to show everyone the difference between myself and them.
So with a grin on my face I summon all my Pokemon so they could all have some fun too, well except Frosslass, Gardevoir and Liligant who were taking care of Wiz's shop right now.
All of my Pokemon appeared behind us in flashes of white light and roared ready for some fun, Luna and the Adventurers gaped in awe at the sight of such powerful and strange creature, they didn't know what they were but they knew they were very powerful, they could feel it in their bones, meanwhile Kazuma was cursing Rean and his luck about the fact he had such cool ability while he was stuck with Aqua.
I smiled at my Pokemon when I saw them ready for action "alright everyone! kill and capture as many cabbages as you can! let's see who gets the most!".
My Pokemon roared one more time and then launched themselves to the cabbages while YunYun, Wiz and I did the same, each and every one of my Pokemon had their own methods of defeating and capturing the cabbages and to be honest I was impressed by them, each one was using their especialties, for example Lugia and Pidgeot were using Gust to gather a bunch and then kill them while Delphox and Charizard were using Fire Spin to bunch up groups of them and then burn them or capture them, though I did have to recall Snorlax because he began to suck up the cabbages like a vacuum and eat them very fast.
It was a massacre of cabbages, that's how Luna who was watching all of this happened could describe, what she was witnessing at this moment.
The funny thing was that Rean and the strange creatures he summoned were still allowing other Adventurers to try and catch the cabbages, they even helped them too, she knew Rean was powerful but she had no idea just how strong he really was.
But now she knew how he was able to handle those quests he got, so she decided to speak with him later about what she and the guild had found out about those extra difficult quests, she was now sure he could handle almost anything, especially with YunYun's and his strange creatures's help.
It was already dusk by the time we finish with the cabbages, me, YunYun, Wiz and my Pokemon had a great haul and I even kept some of the cabbages to make meals out of some other time.
Lapras won our little competition by getting the most cabbages but we all agreed she cheated with her Psychic surf trick I taught her so she could be mobile while on land, she used it to wash, group up and captured the cabbages but when we complained about it all she did was give us a wink and a grin.
We also ended up earning a lot of money from the guild for all the cabbages we captured which we split amongs each other equally and to celebrate we decided to treat ourselves to a good cabbage dinner, the guild even let me have some of my Pokemon join us to eat we also quickly teleported back and closed Wiz's shop so Gardevoir, Liligant and Frosslass could join us.
The Adventurers accepted their presence quite easily and some were even having fun with them, the girls in the guild liked the cute ones like Mew who was having fun floating around and stealing food from everyone, the Adventurers didn't seem to mind her doing that and just laughed at her playful nature.
It was a great night, YunYun and Wiz had a lot of fun plus we were being praised by everyone in the guild for their abilities and skills, from the corner of my eyes i saw Aqua, Darkness, Megumin and Kazuma eating and having fun too.
They might be highly destructive idiots but at least they were still having fun, even though Megumin was sulking about being stopped from using her awesome Explosion spell but honestly she had it coming from being mean to YunYun yesterday plus I was able to copy Steal from Kazuma and that simple water making skill from Aqua which creates highly purified water.
Luna approached my table and stood besides me while she watched and smiled at YunYun and Wiz having fun with the Pokemon and the Adventurers "It's been a while since I've seen YunYun or Wiz have this much fun".
I smiled towards Luna "well they deserve it, they're good hard working girls, unfortunately because they're kind they get taken advantaged off but now that I'm here I'll make sure to protect them".
Luna turned to me and gave me smiled "you're a good person too Rean, don't think i didn't see you knock down cabbages and leave them on the ground so someone else could pick them up".
I huffed and scratched the back of my head "I was hoping no one would have noticed that...".
Luna giggled and then turned towards the Pokemon eating around "so these creatures are your secret weapon huh?, this is how you and YunYun could survive that mine quest and the fact that you're a very talented swordman besides being an Arch Priest must a have been very helpful, you're full of surprises Rean".
I nodded, since it was the truth, my Pokémon did helped us a lot during that quest "they're called Pokemon and as you can see they're very powerful and sentient beings, they're my friends and we have been together for a while now and I have always been a swordman, even before I even became an adventurer, I choose to become an Arch Priest because I needed more healing and support skills".
Luna nodded in understanding but then jumped when she felt Frosslass put her icy hand on the nape of her neck "kyaaa!".
Frosslass giggled and floated up to the ceiling when Luna turned around to yell at her for the scare, but seening that Frosslass got away she huffed and then turned to me only to pout when she noticed me laughing at her "sorry! Frosslass likes to make people jump, she's a mischievous little thing but she's just having fun".
Luna sighed but then smiled at me "fine, anyways can you and YunYun come in tomorrow? I have a couple of things to talk about with you".
I raised an eyebrow but nodded, Luna smiled and then left leaving me with my two friends and my Pokemon to enjoy the rest of the night.
That night after celebrating, YunYun and I walked Wiz's back to her shop, both girls were happily talking to each other while we walked, today they saw that they make a great team with the way they took down so many cabbages along with me and my Pokemon.
Once we arrived to Wiz's shop and we were about to say goodnight but YunYun surprise me when out of no where she decided to ask Wiz something very unexpected "Wiz! w-would you l-like to join our p-party! please!".
Wiz seemed completely flabbergasted and completely caught off guard by YunYun's sudden request, I knew that she still has the memory of her old adventurer party and what had happened to them so this must be a very difficult choice for her make.
Wiz looked down and stayed silent for a while, Rean and YunYun had become good friends to her and that fact that they have been coming over to her shop to help and spent time with her has made her very happy.
But she was afraid, afraid of failing her new friends like she failed her old party before but she didn't want to be alone anymore, Rean and YunYun were strong and reliable but she still had her doubts "but what about my shop? i can't just leave it...".
YunYun looked down, that was a good excuse but I knew for a fact that Wiz didn't want to be alone anymore so I gave her a way out "well, we can leave Gardevoir, Liligant and Frosslass to man the shop when we leave for quests plus me and YunYun can help you with the shop when there's no more good quest to take and this way we can help each other, you'll be able to get even more wares for your shop this way too".
YunYun brightly smiled while Wiz's stared at me for a second "but I'm a Lich... are you sure you want to go adventuring with me?".
YunYun nodded while I just grinned "well I'm a dragonoid and YunYun is from the Crimson Demon clan so we don't care that you're a Lich besides you've seen my Pokemon too and they all like you, so what do you say?".
Wiz looked down again but this time YunYun grabbed her hand which made her turn to look at her "please! let's become a party and have fun together".
Wiz stared at YunYun's bright red eyes, I decided to be bold and follow YunYun's example, I reached out and grabbed Wiz's other hand causing her to turn her head to look at me, I gave her smiled and nodded at her.
Wiz looked down at both of her hands being held by ours "you're so warm... okay I'll join your party".
YunYun loudly cheer causing Wiz to giggle and me to smile even wider "well then how about we go inside, there's a few things I have to tell you, is that alright?".
Wiz nodded to me and opened the door to her shop, she then let us inside, that night we spent it telling her about some of my abilities, more about my Pokemon, the system and Excalibur and before we went to sleep I added her to my party via the System, then I explained about the Mini Map and Telepathic Chat.
After that we went to sleep excited about what the next day would bring.
The next morning YunYun, Wiz and I went straight to Luna once we arrived at the guild, she wanted to speak with us so we wanted to hear what she wanted to tell us right away.
YunYun and Wiz told me that Luna is not one to just call someone out unless it was important so I was even more intrigued about what she could possibly want with us.
The moment we stepped into the guild we noticed Aqua complaining and shaking Luna by her shirt, all three of us frowned since we didn't like this girl manhandling our friend like that so I stepped forward and I could hear her complain about the fact she only caught lettuces instead of cabbages.
Luna was trying to speak but Aqua wouldn't let her so I took out my sheathed Tachi and bonked her in the head with it, she instantly let go of Luna to hold her now aching head and turned around to see who had hit her.
However it seems my eyes were glowing and took on their dragonic form in my annoyance, because she squeaked and jumped back in fright while YunYun and Wiz commented how cool my eyes looked like that, while I continue to stared at Aqua "please, do not manhandled Luna like that again, it wasn't her fault you can't recognize the difference between a lettuce and a cabbage".
My party nodded in agreement while Luna sighed in relieve about being freed from Aqua who was now tearing up, but I ignored her and turned to speak with Luna "morning Luna, I'm here like you asked me too".
Luna smiled at us and nodded, YunYun and Wiz waved at her which she happily returned and then she took us to her office to speak in private, leaving Darkness, Megumin and Kazuma to deal with the complaining Aqua.
After going in and taking a seat Luna stared at Wiz in confusion which I noticed so I began to tell her why she was with us in this meeting "YunYun asked Wiz to join our party yesterday and she said yes".
Luna raised an eyebrow and turned to look at YunYun who blushed "really? well! that's great YunYun, look at you, you've changed so much in these few days".
YunYun nodded "well it helps that I have friends now, being with Rean showed me how friends should act with each other and I was able to gain some confidence".
I smiled at YunYun, I'm both happy and proud at how much she has changed and by the look on Luna's face I could tell she felt the same way, Wiz smiled too happy that she was part of this.
Luna turned to me "thank you Rean, it's because of you that YunYun was finally able to begin to show how talented and bright she is".
I just shook my head is response to what she just said "i didn't do much, all of it was all her, she was the one to approach me in the first place though that first meeting was intense".
Luna giggled while YunYun pouted at me at the reminder of her scaring me half to death, Wiz laughed too having heard the story yesterday "anyways, what do you need Luna, I'm sure you didn't call me this morning just to catch up".
Luna nodded "yes, yesterday we got a report on the quests you have taken and found some very disturbing information, you see one of the Demonlord's generals known as Beldia has move somewhere close to Axel, this scared the weaker monsters in the area to run away but his presence brought about some changes that you had witness".
I frowned upon hearing this, if I remember correctly in a few days Megumin is going to start bombarding his castle making the Dhullahan come to Axel and try to deal with her, I turned my gaze to Wiz and I noticed her frowning too, I know that Beldia is the reason Wiz became a Lich so she must be feeling all kinds of emotions right now.
Luna continued on "with Beldia's presence so came high level monsters along with him, these monsters took advantage of the fact that we're a town of low level Adventurers and started to plot, the Black Goblin and the Alpha Wolf we're an example of this, if you hadn't dealt with those monsters who knows what they were planning to do, as you witnessed they were pretty smart and able to empower the monsters in the area and even worse, I had the mine searched like you suggested and we found a vein of Magisteel, this metal is both very powerful and expensive, it's usuallyused for high ranking armor and weapons and if you hadn't killed the Black Goblinand the rest of the monsters in there, the Demonlord's army would had have access to such precious resource".
Ah, so this is what Beldia's presence caused, in the anime it just showed Kazuma and Megumin blasting Beldia's castle for days but it never showed what other effects his presence had caused to the surrounding area, other than reducing the amount of quest available in the guild.
I stared at Luna for a second in silence before deciding to ask her a question that has been bugging me for a while "I see... if I hadn't taken those quests what would had happened?".
Luna frowned "well someone else would have taken them and probably died, then the guild would have sent someone to investigate, we would have eventually found out what was going but by then there would have been a lot of deaths before we could have even began to take care of the situation...".
Jeez that's dark, I wonder if this happened in the background in the show or if it's just this version of of this world.
Then Luna continued on "the Bandit quest was a unique case, we sent some people to investigate the campsite and we found evidence of a few corrupt noble families who were buying kidnapped girls as slaves, luckly this seem to be recent so the girls were found and sent home too, all the nobles involved were arrested and all of their money was taken and given to the girls and their families as reparations so the capital sent a extra monetary reward to you for your services".
I raised an eyebrow in surprise, I didn't think that Bandit quest was that big of a deal but then again, the in game rewards were pretty good, that should have been my first clue that these quests weren't normal to begin with, I have to pay more attention to this sort of thing from now on "thank you Luna and I'm glad that I was able to take care of those quests before anything bad could happen".
Luna nodded and handed me a big sack of money which was immediately added to my in game money, with that Cabbage quest and this extra reward I'm pretty much set for life, though I might splurge a bit on some more TMs for my Pokemon later.
Luna then spoke up once again "Rean usually I wouldn't ask this from any of the Adventurers of this guild but you're different, those quests and what you showed yesterday during the Cabbage quest showed me that I can trust you, in case Beldia shows up in Axel for some reason or he decides to do something, can I count on you to help us against him?".
I closed my eyes to think for a minute, *I'm level 92 right now thanks to those cabbages, Wiz is level 223 by my system's standards and she was never able to defeat Beldia but I'm different, I'm not human, I'm a Dragonoid and my stats are higher that Wiz's that means that my stats might be higher than Beldia's but I'm not one to risk it so I'm going to grind in the new survival mode with my Pokemon, Wiz and YunYun before Beldia gets here, i have a good amount of time, by then I want to have gone through my first evolution, i want to be a Heavenly Dragon so i can kill Beldia easily, not just for me but for Wiz too*.
I open my eyes and stared at Luna "you can count us, we won't be taking any quests for a while though, I'm planning to train and increase our power in preparation in case Beldia decides to show up here for some reason but if you need us you can find us in Wiz's shop in the evenings".
Luna smiled and nodded to me, soon after we left the guild and went back straight to Wiz's shop, Wiz was silent the whole way and I knew why, she was worried about us.
Once we were inside the shop Wiz closed it for the day and we headed upstairs to talk about Beldia, Wiz immediately began to speak "Rean, Beldia is a very dangerous being, he's a Dhullahan so he's an undead monster and he's an expert swordsman plus he has a lot of undead monsters under his leadership, are you sure you can take him on if he shows up?".
"I'm not sure yet but that's why we're going to train, I told you about my Instant Dungeons yesterday remember?".
Wiz nodded and I continue to tell her about my plans "that's what were going to be doing, grinding and getting stronger, something tells me Beldia will show up plus I decided to go through my evolution".
Both YunYun and Wiz looked confused but the i gave them a smile and began to explain "you guys know I'm a Dragonoid but what you don't know is that, once i reach a certain level I'll evolve into a Heavenly Dragon a true dragon with the strength to even challenge the gods".
The girls gaped at my declaration and I grinned in anticipation "and I'm going to reach that evolution in the next few days! how about it? do you guys want to get stronger with me?".
Wiz and YunYun turned to looked at each other for a second and then they smiled at each other at the same time, both then stood up and stared at me with determination burning brightly in their eyes causing me to get excited "let's do it! lets get stronger together!".
I grinned at both of my party members, after that I gave Wiz some money so she could close the shop so.e times while we grind and not take a hit on her finances, we also decided to go grinding for items and money once in a while in the regular Instant Dungeons and then grind for exp in Survival mode.
All three of us can't wait to grow strong enough to deal with Beldia or anyone who dares challenge us to a fight! and so the days began to go by while we trained and grinded non stop almost every day.
Meanwhile by Beldia's castle Megumin began to bombard the castle every morning with her Explosion spell, this will the catalyst that would pit one of the Demonlord's generals against a brand new Heavenly Dragon and lose quite easily.