Ero-Game: Power and Sword

I got up early and got ready for a hike up the forest.
With all the racket I was making, Otto and Sterling got up. “You guys can go back to sleep,” I said.
But Sterling got off the bed and asked, “What do you need help with?”
“Ah, well, if you can separate the scrolls based on the magic types, that’d be nice. But I don’t know if you can tell them apart.” I said since it looked like he would help me regardless of what I said.
“No, I can’t.” He said, annoyed. “You should teach me.”
“Ah.”
“I chose magician, by the way. Not that you seem to care.” He said.
“Oh. Sorry?” I shrugged. I knew he’d leveled up, but I forgot to ask what he picked.
“I’ll go make you some coffee.” He said and left the room.
“Oh, that’ll be great,” I said as he left the room.
“Where are you going?” Otto asked as he got off the bed.
I separated the scrolls and put them in my backpack. I also hid some scrolls on my body. I was dressed in cargo pants today since I’ll be hiking in the woods. I put some of my potions and other stuff in the backpack too. The fairies are a strange and random race… They’ll trade anything for something. I know the king likes sweets but other than  that… If I knew what they wanted, I could’ve prepared better, but I don’t. No one ever does. Sometimes they ask for this, sometimes they ask for that. It’s the same with the fairy king, but sweets are a good way to make a good first impression. I put the preservation box full of sweets in the backpack. “I’m going hiking,” I said.
“Oh, should we go together?” Otto asked.
“No, this is work,” I said.
“Work? What kind of work?” He asked.
“Work,” I said as I stuffed more things in my backpack.
Sterling returned with the coffee. “With two sugars, the way you like it.”
“I like it with honey,” I said.
“I know, but they didn’t have honey.” He said.
“We’re at a farm, and they don’t have honey?” I said. He shrugged and handed me the coffee. “Thanks.” I took a sip, but it was too hot. I blew on it and tried again. Still too hot. I activated [energy manipulation, cold] and used enough mana to make my coffee hot-but-not-too-hot. With my current amount of mana, this was all [cold] was good for. I can’t  complain; it was useful while brewing potions and stuff. I need to increase my mana, but that’s for another day. I drank my coffee. It’s just what I needed to kick start the day.
“You’re not taking the space expansion bag?” Sterling asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “There’s food and money in there if you guys need it. Have Garth manage it.” I already packed up everything I’d need for the hike. I packed some gold and platinum in my backpack too, but fairies usually aren’t interested in money.
“Why can’t we manage it?” Otto asked.
“Okay, Sterling can manage it,” I said.
“Why can’t I manage it?” He asked.
“Because I didn’t say you could,” I smirked.
“What’ll you do if I spent it while you’re gone?” He asked.
“Don’t be a brat,” I said.
He realized he was acting silly and stopped talking.
“I don’t think we’ll need the food. I think Mrs. Horvat will cook for us.” Sterling said.
“Horvat? Is that her name? I thought it was Hatwart. It’s a good thing I didn’t say it.” I said.
“Hm. Yeah.” Sterling said. “And I don’t think we’ll need money either since you already paid.”
“I’m not going to carry the whole thing with me.” The space expansion bag had all kinds of things. Tanks of water, food, jugs of chemicals, boxes of ingredients, my daily clothes, etc. Even with the weight reduction magic cast on it, it was still heavier than the backpack.  That’s why I almost always have Garth or Nikola carry it. I can just barely manage to lift it; there’s no way I can go hiking with it. That’s why I want a pocket dimension of my own, but that’s something for another day. Of course, I could also remove all the items in the space  expansion bag and put only the backpack in it, then it’d be really light. But to take everything out, then put everything back in, in probably two days, when we need to go to Delaron is just a hassle. I’d much rather carry the backpack. “No, I already packed my bag.”
“I’ll go see if I can make you some breakfast,” Otto said.
“Wait, I’ll help out too.” Sterling followed behind him.

When I was done packing everything up, I strapped on my backpack and stepped out of the room. I went to the kitchen where the boys were. They’d managed to make me some toasted bread with jam.
I said, “Don’t make a mess.” Since they were making themselves home in the kitchen.
“We won’t,” Sterling said.
I ate the bread, kissed them both goodbye, and got on my way.

They waved me off.

***

“Where do you think she’s going?” Otto asked Sterling.
Sterling shrugged. “Up the mountain.”
“I know that. What’s up there?”
Sterling shrugged again and turned to walk in the house when Otto slapped his ass. “Hey.” Otto groped him and kissed him. Sterling leaned closer to him.
“Want to go take a shower? We didn’t take one yesterday.” Otto said.
“Yeah, sure. Ah, but where’s the shower?” Sterling asked.
“I think they said it was in the back…”
“Did Sherrie take a shower?” Sterling asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Hm.”

***

I had just entered the forest, and I was already sweating buckets. I activated one of the scrolls: [dry clean body]. “That feels better.” I looked over my documents - a map to be specific - I had drawn years ago and moved forward.

An hour later, I felt lost. There are landmarks hidden in the woods. An unobservant observer might miss it. But I am not an unobservant traveler… There should be one landmark… right, around here. “What’s going on? It should be around here. And I should’ve already run into  this. Huh?” There should’ve been a rock with a small wing shape carved into it. “Aaaah.” I put down the backpack and took out some energy potions. I drank a quarter of it. “This is going to be a long day,” I said to myself when I spotted a squirrel looking at me while nibbling on  its nut.
“Oh, I could try that out.” I thought out loud. “Let’s see…” I activated [translator] and shouted, “Hey, squirrel.” It dropped its nut and stared at me with its mouth wide open. “Did you hear me? Is this  thing working? Testing! Testing!”
“Yo- You. You. You can speak squirrel!?” It was shocked.
“Oh, good, it’s working. Ah, yeah, kind of,” I said.
“Oooooh.” Then it smiled brightly and started laughing. “So, there’s a smart human after all. Yes, yes, yes… Too many of them are stupid and can’t understand a word you tell them, but I see. I see. I see.”
“Ah, yeah.” I scratched my head. I didn’t expect a reaction like that. “So, can you help me out?”
“Help? What do you need, human? Do you want to know which trees produce the best nuts? I’m afraid that kind of information isn’t free. No squirrel will give that to you for free.” She said, crossing her arm.
“No, I’m trying to find fairies.” There are multiple gates around the world that lead to the fairy world. And there’s one near here somewhere.
“Oh, the fairies. They’re an annoying bunch always telling you not to put nuts there or here or… ‘You can’t live there, that’s my tree.’” It did an insulting impression of a fairy. Then it sighed, “Such an annoying bunch.”
“Ah, okay. Can you tell me how to get to their city?” I asked. “There should be one near here, right?”
“Ah, yeah, there is, unfortunately.”
“That’s great!” I was glad it knew of the city. “Look, I have a map here. I was sure this boulder is somewhere here…” I looked around while pointing at my map. “But I don’t see it.” It jumped down from the tree  and on top of my head. “Oh.” It looked down at the map I was using.
It stroked its chin and studied my map intensely before saying, “I can’t make sense of your map. It’s stupid.”
I considered electrocuting this one and finding another squirrel as I folded up the map and put it back in my pocket. “Do you know how to get to fairy city or not?”
“Hm. Yeah. But…”
“But what?”
“What do I get in return?” She asked.
I took a deep breath. Why do I always run into these kinds of people? “What do you want?” I asked.
“Hm. You see, I’m glad I found a human that can talk. I tried talking to the old couple, and they seem nice and all. They even massaged me and rubbed my back… I really needed that back rub. I want another back rub. Life’s so stressful. But there’s that stupid dog.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I was getting annoyed.
“There’s a house over there.” She pointed in the direction of Haneul village. “Ah, you can’t see it here.” She jumped on the tree and started climbing up and said, “Come on, come up, I’ll show you.” And climbed even higher.
“Ah, that.” I sighed and put down my backpack. I wondered if I should use [telekinesis] on myself but decided against it.
“My grandmother can climb better than you.” She shouted down at me, who was struggling to pull herself up by a branch.
“Fuck.” I wanted to strangle this squirrel.
“My 2-week old nephew can climb better than you.” It was insulting me.

It took me a while, but I managed to climb a few branches up. I could see the village from up there. It looked beautiful with all the little  houses and farms. I saw a few people moving about, and they looked like ants.

The squirrel jumped on my shoulder. It pointed and said, “You see that house over there.”
“That one?” I tried to follow its tiny hand.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, what about it?” I asked.
“I used to store my nuts in their barn.”
“Okay.”
“Then they bought a new dog.”
“Okay.”
“It doesn’t let me go in the barn.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but it’s stupid. The old dog was way more chill.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to kill the dog.”
“Right… How about I just get you your nuts. We can move it somewhere else.”
“But there’s a lot stored in there. I can’t just move it. Where would I move it to?”
“Ah, that. Can’t you just find another hiding spot?” I said.
“There’s too many in there. I’ll have to find multiple spots if I want to hide them in the forest.” She shook her little squirrel head. “No, you gotta kill the dog.”
I sighed. “You see that house over there.” I pointed at Benard’s farm. “I’ll arrange it so you can keep it in their barn if you show me where  the fairy city is,” I said through my teeth. I wasn’t expecting it to be this difficult to find the path to the fairy city. I had a map and  everything. I was ready to smash this squirrel on the ground and give my map another chance. I was sure my map was correct. If it refused my proposal, I was ready to do it.
But it stroked its chin and said, “Okay. We’ll move it over there. Okay, that might work.”
“Good.” It had no clue how close it came to death. It was lucky. “Okay, now show me the path to the fairy world.”
“Why don’t we move my nuts first.” She said, and I grit my teeth. “If I show you, how will I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”
“How will I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain after I move the nuts?” I asked through my teeth. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“Hm. You have a point. Okay, I’ll show you the way, but you better keep your end of the bargain.”
“I will. I will.” I nodded my head pretty close to losing it.
“Okay.” It jumped off my shoulder and to the tree beside us and said, “Follow me.”
“Wait, let me climb down first,” I yelled at it.

***

I smiled as I followed the squirrel and looked over my map. I was right, my map was right, I had just missed a few landmarks, but for the most part, my map was right. I smiled as we traversed through the gate.
The fairy gate wasn’t actually a gate but a buffer zone between many worlds. One path leads to the fairy world, but at the same time, if you were to enter the path but veer off in another direction, you could end up in another dimension altogether. In the game, you couldn’t traverse these worlds as the system would show blaring pop-ups and make the whole world red till you got on the right path again. You could learn about these strange worlds by talking to some NPCs, but you could never go to them. The developers were constantly teasing us about an update that’d let us enjoy these worlds, but that update never came.
I looked over the map to ensure I wasn’t being led to one of these worlds by mistake. But the squirrel seemed to know its way, and we  seemed to be going in the right direction.

And slowly, I began to see signs of fairy architecture. Fairy architecture was hard to spot since it blended in so seamlessly with nature sometimes. But there were the doors in the middle of trees. The trees  also had all kinds of flowers growing along their trunks. Then there were the trees with valves sticking out… It’s a nice place to get free syrup. I should take some back for Benard and his family. They treated syrup like water here… Well, they treated water like water, but syrup took second place.
Then finally, we noticed the fairies moving about. Some flying, some walking, some old, some young… They noticed us as well. There were a lot of rubberneckers as we walked down the street. There were big fairies and small fairies. The size of fairies varied greatly. There were ones the size of your hands, and there were ones as big as humans. There are ones as big as giants too, though I didn’t spot any. They looked magical and beautiful all the same. They looked my way but turned their eyes away whenever we made eye contact. You wouldn’t really be able to tell that this is a city if you’re used to human cities, but I was in the middle of a fairy city.
“Here we are.” The squirrel said, jumping on my shoulder again. “Why are we here, anyway?”
“Well, I have a few things to do… I mean, maybe… Well, mainly, I’m here to meet the fairy king.” I said, trying to bounce different thoughts in my head.
“Oh, you can’t call him the king. He doesn’t like it if you call him the  king. You have to call him the prince.” The squirrel said.
“Oh, right… There was something like that.” Something about not wanting to marry the queen. I didn’t really care, it was the story within the game, but it had no real bearing on the player. The queen continued to protect him despite his refusal to marry him. She was a nice person, as far I could tell. With 2 000 000 points, he wasn’t someone who could  just walk around freely. She was being really nice by letting him walk  around at all. “Do you know where he is?” He should be in the garden if I’m remembering the game correctly. That’s where he liked to hang out. He liked flowers and enjoyed watching the garden fairies work.
“Eh, he’s around here somewhere. He’s probably in the city garden. He’s a  nice guy, unlike the other fairies. He’s friendly to everyone. He likes helping the garden fairies.” She said.
Helping is arguable, I thought. But at least it’s the same as in the game. I pulled out another map, a map of the fairy city. My memories were too vague to make any sense of it. It’s just been too long. “Why don’t you lead the way,” I told the squirrel.
“You want to see the fairy prince?” She asked.
“Yeah.”
“You want to go to the garden?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” It looked way too comfortable on my shoulder. With a sigh, it jumped off my shoulder and began leading the way again.