A Reincarnated Demon’s Life of Wonder

"Stop! Halt! Freeze! ...SOMETHING!!" - Noire

"Get back here, you ****ing piece of flower petals!!" - Mira

Hmm, those two seem to have everything under control. The fairy/plant/dragonfly thingy is fleeing for its life, but this is the fifth one already. It's not an instant kill, but the girls have perfected the method. One of them distracts while the other kills this flying treasure chest of medical materials

"This is... poisonous. Medicine. Poison. Poison. Medicine. Poison..." - Revi

"Should we not try to pick something that is not a mushroom?" - Iron

As for the harvesting part, the Tir na Nog-duo seems to have things under control. And I'm forced to agree with Iron. Even if we're trying to earn some extra pocket money outside of the two quests we were given, we'll be destroying the market price for mushrooms if we bring along that much.

"..." - Lily

Yet the girl who stormed into the forest on her own is sitting slumped over, not knowing what she should do after pulling the wrong mushroom three times in a row. Despite having grown up in a Dungeon where bomb-like fruits grew, I'm still having trouble grasping how there exist mushrooms that act like a jack-in-the-box armed with a punching glove. One that has a nasty right straight.

"What's the problem?" I asked the downfallen chimera girl. Since I agreed to take her along, I'm going to make sure she gets the most out of this adventure.

"...This isn't what I imagined." - Lily

"Meaning?" - Garami

"Adventurers were supposed to do cool and heroic stuff. Defeating dragons, rescuing princesses, solving ancient mysteries..." - Lily

"Hmm, I doubt there are enough princesses or mysteries out in the world to satisfy every adventurer out there." - Garami

The dragons are NG for different reasons, but explaining that will be a long story that I'm not interested in telling.

"But looking for such experiences could be one adventure on its own. Besides, you think you could go toe-to-toe with a bona fide dragon? Let me tell you, even subspecies of those guys are a nightmare." - Garami

"-!? Boss lady, did you fight a dragon before?!" - Lily

"Ehm, sort of?" I replied, thinking back to the various undead dragons of Tir na Nog, a certain Fire Dragon that we crushed in a competition between Dungeons, and the soulless husk of a certain overgrown snake-turned-dragon from before I met Mira & co. "But if you want further proof, just look at Revi. She belongs to the dragon genus, believe it or not."

"With all due respect, boss lady, I cannot believe it." - Lily

Fair enough. The "dragon" in question is currently busy sorting out loads of psycho-looking mushrooms in all of the rainbow's seven colors while using her overgrown dragon doll as a cushion. Isn't she afraid it will become dirty?

"Then how about a demonstration. Hey, Mira! Let Revi take care of the next prey!" - Garami

I shouted to the girls to take a break. Quite fitting, seeing as they've already taken down the fifth dragonfly now. What timing.

Overhearing me, Revi dropped the mushrooms in her hand and picked up her dragon doll as she moved towards me. I simply pointed behind my back, to the curiosity of Lily, who was sitting beside me. Not that I have the time for some fancy explanations here.

Grabbing the Growth Chimera, I threw us off the giant tree root that we had been sitting on all this time, only to see the make-shift bench get blasted into tiny splinters as a massive beast came rushing through.

The beast is a giant boar-like fairy. The species' name is "Trwyth-Sith", a relative of more common fae like the "Cait-Sith" or "Cu-Sith", though this one is a D-rank beast of a fairy creature. To prove my point, Lily paled at the sight of the giant boar, bigger than a truck and with tusks rivaling torpedoes in size.

Revi didn't falter, despite the beast's massive size. She simply aimed the dragon doll towards the boar and chanted a spell under her breath. This resulted in a change to the dragon doll. One of its front limbs stretched out towards the giant boar, gigantified, and swiped at the dumbfounded beast with its now-massive claws, wrapped in a black aura.

The doll's claw slash did massive damage to the boar's HP. It must have been a spell from her Dragon Shaman class, using the doll as a catalyst to reproduce the powers of real-life dragons. Death Dragons, in this case, if that sick aura is any proof. The boar did survive the attack, but not for long. Revi had the dragon doll shoot a black breath attack, then followed up with a tail slap from a gigantified tail that had black magic spikes on for extra measure. Overkill much?

Or maybe not. The boar's still kicking. Kicking the earth as it charged up for a ramming attack. Revi cast yet another spell, causing the dragon doll's wings to grow before flying into the air, allowing both the doll and the witch to escape without a scratch. The boar did knock a huge chunk of bark off the giant tree it collided with, but that raw power didn't have a chance to be fully utilized as Revi ordered her doll with yet another spell to release a final dragon breath of death towards the giant boar.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

RIP, poor boar. You should have known better than to try to sneak into my detection range. The dragon witch is looking pretty proud of her work. Magician-types are damn powerful when they have MP, and this incident proved it to a fault. However...

"Nope, we can't use this," said Mira after inspecting the carcass. "The Death attribute blasts have caused the meat and fur to rot. Nobody's going to buy this."

With great firepower comes a great lack of control. This holds for both attack spells in general and the more offensive attributes, such as Fire or Death. Doubly so if we're talking about both at the same time. Most of the boar looks more like a giant pile of zombie flesh, despite only a minute having passed since its HP reached 0. The news also caused Revi's prideful look to freeze in place as cold sweat started to form on her forehead.

"We can still take the tusks, right?" I asked in an attempt to throw a lifeline to the little witch. Seeing Mira's "okay" sign caused some color to return to her face and a breath of relief to escape her lips.

After confirming the ego of our walking arsenal of dragonic magic and death had recovered, I turned back towards Lily and said, "See? I told you so." Unfortunately, I didn't get any answers. Having witnessed the real (pseudo) powers of a dragon for the first time in her life had caused Lily's brain to short-circuit, it seems. How to snap her into action again...

"Princess, shouldn't we start looking for the items for our fetch quests soon?" - Mira

"Hmm? Oh, right. Those," I said as I remembered the stuff we were supposed to be on the lookout for instead of all this pocket change we've been gathering after entering the Haunt. "Bloom, what are we looking for again?"

"Ehem, for Mr. Matamo's request, we need to find 'Fairy Heart Roses', at least 10 flower petals' worth of them, 3 pieces of 'Everfoam Wood', medium-sized or more, 88 liters of Nucklav Water, and 100 units of 'Changeling Rainbows'. Mr. Jumbo requests 70 or more units of 'Boogeybomb Peppers', but he will pay us extra if we bring more than the agreed number." - Bloom

"Fairy forest or not, that is one heck of a shopping list." - Noire

"Listen to the pompous angel lady, she knows what she's talking about~. Still, what is all that stuff? I've never heard about any of that before in my life." - Mira

"Me neither, hence why I asked Bloom to look them up while we were busy earning some extra cash's worth of game." - Garami

"Ahaaaa..." replied the three. Lily's still not back to Earth, er, Terra Sol just yet.

"And where's the nearest best harvest spot? Or, does anyone wanna shut off for today and take a snooze break? It's getting pretty late." - Garami

"No worries there, Master. According to the map we obtained from the Union, there is a rest area near the location that has a high percentage of finding Everfoam Wood. The map even says there is an extremely low monster-level bar in said area." - Bloom

"Low enough to train a complete newbie?" I asked while continuing to try to shake said "newbie" awake.

"Most likely. The field's comments are filled with good reviews from parties and Guilds who traveled there to train their newer members." - Bloom

"Sounds good to me. Let's go for some night hunting!" - Mira

"So much for my beauty sleep. Iron, do us a favor and make sure that brat does not die on our watch." - Noire

"Affirmative." - Iron

"*Nod, nod*." - Revi

"That's a plan. But be on the lookout for anything weird." - Garami

"Well, duh~. I can't remember the last time something didn't go all wacko while we were adventuring." - Mira

"Should we bet?" - Revi

"On if things are going to go wrong or not, or whatever craziness is going to happen?" - Noire

"Take a guess." - Revi

"Yeah, no thank you. We will jinx ourselves if we start doing guesses." - Noire

"Seriously, please don't do that. This Haunt is filled with special areas that have mutated according to various types of aether." - Bloom

"As in?" - Iron

"Well, the Haunt was first created when large amounts of Wood and Neon aethers collided and merged, then small amounts of Ink, Gunpowder, and Bubble-type aethers were introduced to the Haunt's ecosystem, resulting in small areas where those attributes are more prominent." - Bloom

"Like the place where we can find Everfoam Wood?" - Mira

"Exactly! That area has a high amount of Bubble attribute aether." - Bloom

"Sheesh. Any other weirdo places we need to be aware of?" - Garami

"Ehm, the Boogeybomb Peppers can be found anywhere in the Underwoods with a decent amount of Gunpowder aether, while the Fairy Heart Roses can be found anywhere, but they are a rare breed to begin with, so we can only keep our eyes open at all times. As for the Nucklav Water, there is a special semi-hidden pond that should have enough of the liquid for our quest." - Bloom

"Semi-hidden?" - Garami

"It means it is sort of hidden, but the adventurers have already mapped a perfect route to it, so the secrecy is broken even if the pond is not in the open." - Bloom

"What about that rainbow-changeling-whatever stuff?" - Mira

"That...will become obvious when we find it." - Bloom

"What is that supposed to mean?" - Noire

"Trust me. You will understand when we find it. For now, my suggestion is that we focus on the other materials first." - Bloom

I can't say I like not having everything spelled out for me, but Bloom's right. We got a lot of stuff to harvest, and chasing two rabbits at the same time will just lead to a party wipe. That's the third rule written in the Adventurers' Union's rulebook. No, seriously, it's written there. The author had a bad encounter with a Vorpal Bunny once, or so they say.

For now, let's get some foamy wood, then some zzzs. We're going to be busy bees these next few days.

---

Meanwhile, at the entrance to the semi-hidden "Nucklavee Pond":

"R-ruuuun!!"

Three adventurer parties fled out from the cave opening that was supposed to lead to the pond of inky waters that were usually inhabited by a group of unusually friendly Nucklavee faes. Today, however, the brave gatherers were not given any peaceful greetings.

"Why is that beast residing in the pond?!" asked one of the party leaders to his comrades in arms. The three parties had pooled their resources to obtain as much Nucklav Water as possible after the Union had promised a reward so great for the Water that the trio of parties could party for the rest of their lives had they managed to score the liquid jackpot.

"I've got no clue. Nothing like that's ever appeared in the Underwoods ever bef-OOPH?!"

"M-MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN!"

Leader #2 couldn't finish his sentence before being given a harmful "present" by the pond's new lord. Needless to say, this is a completely unexpected occurrence for the Underwoods. One of many that have gathered in these fantastic woods over the past few days. And who knows what else has managed to make this underground world their new home?