25 - Fried Chicken

I was staring at Toast.

Except it wasn't Toast. The pixels had cleared away to reveal something that looked like a pomeranian if you squinted.

It was pomeranian shaped, with the same black fur and white stocky legs, but it retained its three eyes and oversized bat ears. It was...kind of cute? In a scary way.

Realization set in quickly that this grand beast wasn't a Boss or God-tier monster, but a Moroza. Maja remained in stunned silence before uttering that no one had ever seen such a thing before. 

We spent some time deliberating, and agreed it wouldn't be the smart thing to bring it with us, and even lesser of a smart thing to argue with Toast about it, so we started walking while bribing Toast with the promise of good food in the nearest village. Unfortunately the Moroza pom followed us no matter what we tried. I left 'goblin' meat, and it gobbled it up and followed us. Tamon used his 'Afterimage' skill, and tried to lead it away with a copy of himself. Maja was becoming uncharacteristically attached to it, claiming its ears were adorable. Maybe because they look like hers? 

We tried all sorts of things, and eventually gave up as we reached a village. I waited on the outskirts with Toast as the Moroza refused to leave his side, and Tamon and Maja went in to ask for information on the Demon Lord, a castle, any nefarious goings-on really.

I sat for a while and played with Toast, trying to wrap my head around the Moroza's behaviour. It was still clumsily trying to copy Toast, but if I tried to pet it it would nibble at my fingers. It wasn't painful at all, just light nips. 

Maja and Tamon returned after some time with an awkward tension. I asked them what had happened in the village, and they muttered some inaudible replies.

"Huh?"

"....South."

"What's South?"

"The Demon Lord's castle..."

They'd learned that while some people claim demons are in the north, the reality was that the northern villages had spread that rumour themselves decades ago to keep travelers away and retain precious resources during a time of famine. They did their best to change perception of the north as now tourism would really boost their economies, but rumours persisted and they rarely saw any new faces. They even begged Maja and Tamon to stay a while for discounted rates at their inn, and offered them food and wine for cheap. Coincidentally another adventurer had stopped in at the same time on his way back to Great City Linna, and said all the villages to the north were like this, and he'd spent his life savings just trying to escape them and get home. Who could pass up such great deals?

We all shared a sense of embarrassment that we'd come all this way just to turn back, but if we left with haste we'd make it back to the shop in time for dinner, and could try our luck heading south tomorrow. So we did just that, accompanied by Toast's new 'frend'.

~~~~~~~~~~

"NO. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO LEAVE FOR A LONG TIME!"

We stood outside the shop, trying to enter, but Kana pressed herself against the door, shrieking. We tried to explain our circumstances, but clearly she hadn't had enough time to come to terms with her confession from this morning, and she certainly wasn't expecting to see me back so soon.

I was desperate to talk to her about it, but Maja insisted Tamon and I go to our rooms and leave her be.

As we went around the side of the shop, I saw Maja out of the corner of my eye get yanked inside and heard Kana wailing. 

In my room, Toast played with the Moroza, wrestling and showing off his various dolls Kana had made for him. The Moroza seemed confused or uninterested in anything but food or Toast himself. Feeding them was a nightmare because despite this thing being 'frend', Toast never has and never will share his food, and the Moroza hurled itself at anything it thought was food the second it appeared. After that epic battle of wills, they curled up together as though nothing had happened, and snored peacefully.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning came, and I went to knock on Kana's door, hoping to talk before we left again. I heard a squeak from inside.

"Kana? Are you awake?"

"Y-yes!"

"Would you like to have tea with me before we go?"

"O-Oh that's okay! I'm not thirsty! I'll see you when you get back!"

I took that as my sign to leave things be for now, and headed downstairs. I thought I heard her door open, but when I looked back it was closed. I was disappointed but it sparked a motivation in me to defeat the demon lord quickly so I could come back and see her soon.

We headed out once again, this time southward towards the Silta bridge that crossed a wide river and led to a wasteland called Eramaa. A wasteland seems very suitable for demons to be in.

It took almost a full week for us to make it to the bridge, and the monsters were clearly getting tougher the farther we progressed. By the time we crossed into Eramaa we were finding ourselves in battles with level 40 beasts, and I was finally getting a taste of my dreamed RPG life.

A common monster we were running into since crossing the bridge were Rasu, large crows with, you guessed it, horns and extra wings. At least they felt more sinister and demon-like. 

Boost Jump was coming in clutch with the Rasu as they would fly and hover above the ground while shooting barbs and wait for their timing to swoop and strike. The monsters in this world operated on a predictable and formulaic attack pattern, you just had to observe them briefly to figure it out, in most cases. The Rasu were no different and would pattern themselves by shooting barbs from above, waiting 5 seconds, dive bombing with their beaks, and returning to the skies. Rinse, repeat. It was strange to me that such high level monsters were so simple-minded. Bird brain?

Toast was working perfectly in tandem with Tamon; timing his jumps for the barbs, letting Tamon strike while they were close to the ground, and defeating the Rasu with a final jump and bite while they were in the air. At some point I think Toast got tired of jumping and fighting because he switched to Acid Shot when he saw them, and the battles were a lot less fun like that. 

You would think the Moroza pom would be copying Toast and helping us out in the encounters, but for the most part he stuck close to Maja when Toast wasn't available. She had started comforting it like a scared child, so it would always run to her the second Toast reacted to a wild monster.

We took a short break to have Maja heal Toast and Tamon and replenish Toast's MP, but didn't have long to rest as a harsh wind picked up and viciously whipped rocks and sand around us.

I opened my eyes long enough to see a giant Rasu descending on us, its vast wings blocking out the sun. It landed and the wind abruptly stopped, and we could take in its strange form.

From the skies it looked to be a normal Rasu, just three times the size, but on the ground facing us was a creature that was more like a Rasu had sprouted human arms and legs. And put on a belt and loincloth. How polite and proper.

Then it spoke.

"Children of Man, you should turn back to your homes, and leave this place."

Tamon yelped and cowered, pointing out this was clearly a demon. Toast growled and lowered his body, ready to pounce at my command.

"We need to see your Lord! The Goddess Alku has demanded we defeat the Demon Lord!"

It sighed.

"This again? Those two really need to get together and talk things out, I swear."

We were in stunned silence. The demon had completely relaxed and despite his bird features, we could see he was very much exasperated at whatever situation was taking place here.

"Can you explain to us what's going on?"

"Oh no, absolutely not. Last time I stuck my beak into this I didn't hear the end of it for weeks. I was almost fried and eaten, just for trying to help! You guys can go on ahead and deal with that mess on your own."

"Oh. Uh. Okay, well, can you at least tell us who you are?"

"ME? Huh. No one has ever asked before. I'm uh... Varis, I guess. I'm one of the 4 Demon 'Warmasters', but none of us like that title since the last lord retired. I'm a duke!"

He proudly pointed his thumb at himself.

"Duke Varis?"

"Yep, I asked if I could be a duke, and Loppu said she didn't care what we called ourselves as long as we did our 40 hours."

Shift workers?!

"Loppu?"

"Ah nuts, she hates it when I call her that. Don't tell her I said it to you. Anyways that's enough gut spilling from me. I'm out of here. Good luck."

Before we could say or ask anything else he took off back into the sky, and flew until he was a small dot on the horizon. Toast and the Moroza pom cocked their heads.

~Bad guy?~

"I'm...not sure buddy."

Tamon was mildly inconsolable having met a demon for the first time, even though it did literally nothing to harm us and was kind of a chill dude, but we had to press on to the next town before our supplies ran out. I shoved Toast into his arms as our resident 'cure all bad feelings' charm, and he rallied enough for us to continue our journey.

Our next stop was the town of Kauppala!