Cherry & Lime

After breakfast, it was time for us to begin questing again. Each of us on our own could still go for a few weeks without working if we had to, as we had some spare money of our own. It was important for questers to set aside money for emergencies or for replacing equipment and supplies.

Jade, however, could probably not work for an entire year or two. She was also completely willing to share her money with the rest of us, but we didn’t want to do that.

Plus, she wanted to get back to working as well. The main difference in her life now was that she no longer had to save every copper she earned anymore. She could actually start living.

Other than doing things such as buying a dress, she was just so excited about doing any feminine activity she could, and it was super adorable.

Wearing pretty clothes, drinking something sweet, and even just openly expressing her emotions in ways that men were constantly pressured not to, she was just constantly radiating happiness.

It’s difficult for me to imagine what it was like for her, but at least I can kind of relate, due to having to hide my sexuality my whole life.

Strict and proper behaviors for men and women were drilled into my head as far back as I can remember, and that included how my relationships with others should be. I didn’t even have friends back then; only people I was required to be polite with. It was suffocating.

In a backward sort of way, I’m actually glad my parents tried to force that marriage onto me. If they hadn’t done that, I probably never would’ve left. The past few years have been absolutely incredible, and now I have real friends and even a girlfriend!

Though now that I think about it, just about anything would’ve pushed me over the edge at that point. I was going to get myself kicked out one way or another.

I pulled Jade into a hug, unable to resist the urge to do so.

She squeaked in surprise. “Wh-What’s this for?”

“Just because I wanted to,” I smiled.

———

Looking at the available quests, we saw that there were a few for the extermination of much smaller goblin dens than the last one we dealt with, but after what happened last time, we didn’t even consider those quests as options.

One constraint we had this time was that we had to pick from only the easier quests. The four of us get along great with each other, especially now, and we each know how the others fight, but Jade still has to get used to her new body. She has to figure out what her new limits are, and we have to figure out what this means for our fighting methods as a party.

The quest we ended up selecting was to hunt three iron charge boars. They can be fast, but they’re also quite predictable. Since we’ll be fighting them one at a time, this should be fairly easy. Their only abilities magic-wise are to enhance their muscles briefly, adding power and speed to their charges.

We set out into the forest and managed to track one down after a few hours. For this first one, Jade was going to test her archery on it. She already knew she could still use a bow, but when she was practicing earlier, that was only on stationary targets. She’d practiced firing while running around, but this time, she had to hit a moving target while also running around.

Mallok stepped forward and did his job of drawing its attention and ire with a good whack using the flat of his blade, then immediately backed off.

After a brief moment of shock, the boar gathered itself and charged Mallok. He sidestepped the beast with practiced ease, and Jade ran past from a good distance away, then killed it with a single well-shot arrow to the ear canal. While it was still tumbling from its momentum, she fired two more arrows, one into an eye socket and the other into the joint where its rear leg connected with its pelvis.

Her aim and ability are absurd as always. To think she reached that level of skill in only a couple decades.

“Impressive as always,” I complimented, side-hugging her as we examined her handiwork. “You sure got used to your new body quite fast, didn’t you?”

She leaned into my side hug and put her arm around my back. Can I just hug her forever? Even through armor, hugs are great. I do want to lose the armor, though. I think I understand why the others were always so much more eager than us to get back to wearing only clothes.

She shook her head. “I admit that my aim was good, but it took me a moment longer than normal to get it there. I have a logical understanding of how to effectively use my bow, but my muscle memory isn’t entirely adjusted yet.”

Sanor just shook his head. “Your standards for yourself are stupidly high.”

“I disagree. My skill level before this was better than I am now, and I know I can achieve it again with a bit of work.”

“Hmm,” Mallok said, crouching to look at the arrows. “I guess I haven’t really thought about these kinds of situations before, but why again did you miss some shots when we were in outside the goblin fortress gate? Or other situations we’ve been in?”

“Because they had their own bows pointed at me. Taking the time to properly line up a shot against an enemy that could kill me may very well result in it succeeding. This boar posed nowhere near the same threat. When it comes to killing targets that could can fire back at me, I have to find a balance between precision and risk.”

“You could’ve practiced more if you hadn’t killed it with your first arrow,” Sanor said.

“I’m not interested in torturing an animal. I don’t mind hunting, but prolonging something’s death doesn’t sit right with me, even if it's inconvenient for my practice.”

“Ah, didn’t consider that.”

“Well, you’re the one who does the least amount of killing out of all of us. Directly killing, anyway.”

“My stringed bludgeon,” he patted his lute, “causes more death than you and your silly pointed sticks.”

After storing the disassembled boar into a weightless space pack, we stopped with the banter and moved on to the next target. These packs are expensive, so they are rented out to questers, and are sometimes even provided by the clients themselves.

For the second boar, Jade attacked it with a slime pellet from mid-range. It squealed in rage and charged her, causing her to roll out of its way. It was much closer the second time it charged, forcing her to react quickly with another pellet, but they weren’t doing any damage.

On its third charge, she turned her arm into a tendril and grabbed onto it as it raced past, which resulted in both of them tumbling. Mallok then stepped in with one of his swords, ending the fight.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. I had no idea how the tendril thing would go. I guess when something has a lot of mass or speed, it’s not a good idea.” She paused. “Now that I think about it, when slimes grab onto something, it’s usually them that go flying toward their prey, rather than the other way around.” She turned to the orc, “Thanks, Mallok.”

He grunted affirmatively.

“So your slime abilities don’t have a lot of use in a fight, then?”

“Seems that way…” she said looking at the corpse. “Wait, Mallok stop for a second.”

The orc had barely begun disassembling it when she inspected a spot on its flank. After a few moments, she asked, “Do any of you have any recent cuts or anything on you?”

“I’ve got this scratch on my hand from a branch about an hour ago,” I said, holding it out for her to see.

She grabbed it and ran her finger across it, leaving an intentional trail of slime as she did so. We all watched in amazement as it healed over in an instant.

“Hells beyond,” Jade muttered. “I’m a walking greater restoration potion.”

That shocked all of us. I asked, “Are you sure? That does explain why you heal so quickly, but how did you come to that conclusion?”

“When I shot that second pellet at the boar, I didn’t have any time to think about it, I just did it. That changed the way I used the ability, and it resulted in a lot more power being put into it.

“This is where I hit the boar,” she said, pointing at an area of blood and slime residue. “I drew blood, but there’s no wound. It was healed, at the rate of a greater restoration potion. Which is what healed me during my transformation.”

“Incredible,” Mallok said. “And judging by that cut you just healed, you know how to secrete it?”

She nodded. “Kind of a gross word, but yeah. There’s a definite trick to slime abilities. It’s more of a ‘Feel, don’t think,’ kind of thing. I was also able to make a stronger tendril than I did when we were practicing.

“When I was figuring out how to do those things during practice, it was on a purely physical level, not enhanced by mana at all. I can actually use mana now, albeit in a limited fashion.”

“What about climbing on walls? Do you think you’re able to do that now?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “I can try. I’ll work on it while Mallok disassembles.”

I followed her as she walked over to a large tree with a lot of surface area to work with. She placed her hands on the trunk, higher than her head was, and pulled. She was awkward at first, but quickly figured out that using her forearms and shins to attach more of herself to the tree made it easier. It was similar to crawling, except on a vertical surface.

“So this means you don’t need anything to grip on?” I asked, amazed at the sight.

“Seems that way. But I won’t be able to just attach myself to something indefinitely, I have to constantly expend mana to do this. Not even actual slimes spend all their time on whatever surface they please.”

“So how quickly can you get down then?”

She looked at me from where she was attached to the tree several feet up. She stared for several seconds before abruptly saying, “Catch me.”

What!?

I was already close enough to catch her, but she still surprised me with that. I was only just barely able to react fast enough, and nearly fell over when she landed in my arms.

“That’s how quickly,” she said, laughing.

“You! Don’t do that!” I exclaimed.

“Oh? So you don’t want me in your arms? Because you haven’t set me down yet.”

I set her down. “How is it that you go from being flustered, to bold and confident and then back to flustered again?”

“I think it’s me just pushing through my inexperience before I can think about what I’m doing.”

“Sort of like your slime abilities?”

She rolled her eyes and sarcastically stated, “Sure. When a slime comes at you, it’s with romantic intent.”

“So are you going to come at me, then?”

“Do you want me to?”

“What if I come at you first?” I breathed, pinning her to the tree she just jumped down from, causing her to yelp in surprise.

Those adorable glowing cheeks are back.

After gathering herself, she stuttered, “W-Well, you came at me, but you haven’t done a-anything else yet…”

Should I kiss her now? In this forest right next to the others? The others…

I turned my head to see Sanor and Mallok both grinning at us. “Damn it!”

Sanor chuckled. “Why’d you stop? It’s just a kiss.” He then pulled Mallok in and kissed him passionately to prove his point.

Jade narrowed her eyes at them and said, “I have the sudden urge to just walk back to the city and leave you two to get the last boar yourselves.”

“Oh, I like that idea! People who are jerks get more work to do.”

“Oh, there’s an idea!” Sanor said excitedly. “You get to be alone with each other, and so do we!”

“Ugh, come on, Jade, let’s go. Leave dealing with the boars to these pigs.”

She giggled. “Okay. Since they want to play with the boars so badly, let’s leave them to it.”