Chapter 43: Side Quests

Balevar Kingdom, Merryhall Town

Merryhall town is a typical RPG-friendly small town. Even though it’s called a town, only a few dozen people actually live there, and nothing much ever happens. Which is probably why the townspeople keep talking about the same three topics over and over again. If you stand still long enough, you can almost see the dialogue options reload above their heads.

Just outside town stretches a beautiful meadow, the mandatory fantasy variety. Naturally, there is tall grass. Naturally, there is wind. And naturally, the wind performs its contractual obligation of blowing dramatically through the grass until it encounters a graceful young maiden who must then gaze thoughtfully into the horizon and adjust her hair with elegant restraint.

“ACHOOO! FUUCK!”

This particular maiden, unfortunately, is Ivy.

The wind does not caress her hair. It weaponizes it. Strands repeatedly slap her across the face, blind her at critical moments, and spear directly into her nostrils with surgical precision.

“ACHOOO! ... Why this fucking wind just won't stop blowing! ACHOO!”

She continues sneezing, swearing, and aggressively scanning the meadow for herbs.

---

Merryhall Street

On the main street, a snotty kid stands beneath a tree.

“Mister, are you sure that you’re an elf? In the storybook, elves are good at climbing trees.” The kid said.

“Well, those are the hillbilly elves, kid! The one who likes to marry their cousin.” Kovalski said.

Dangling in a deeply regrettable position high above, Kovalski stretches for a stranded kitten perched exactly one finger-length beyond reasonable reach.

“But I… am... a city elf… who live in a condo… and climbing social trees… GOTCHA!”

He finally snatches the kitten.

Crack.

The supporting branch snaps cleanly.

“FUCK! AGAIN!?”

THUD.

Kovalski crashes into the bush below with a professional level of impact. Scraped. Bruised.

The kitten, meanwhile, remains perfectly intact and immediately sprints toward its owner, clearly having learned nothing.

“Awww, kitty! You’re safe! Thank you so much, Mr. Elf! Here’s your reward!” said the kid, handing over his allowance.

“Ugh… yeah-yeah, just try not to lose it again tomorrow.”

He dusts himself off and walks away

Not far ahead, another kid stands crying at full volume.

“WAAAAAHHH WAAAAHHH”

“Sigh… Ok, now what are you missing, kid? A cat? A dog? A Balloon?”

“Sniff… sniff… My home is gone…”

“Sigh…”

---

Merryhall Blacksmith

CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK

Inside a sturdy stone house exhaling smoke from its chimney, a serious dwarf hammers a red-hot slab of iron with disciplined brutality. Each strike sends sparks bursting outward, bright and deliberate.

“Every metal has a soul... you need to listen carefully to what their wishes are.”

“I understand, master…” Irving replied from the shadowed corner where he sits very still.

“And in every strike, a blacksmith has to convey their feeling too.”

“I understand, master…”

With controlled precision, the dwarf clamps the glowing iron and plunges it into water. Steam erupts in a dramatic hiss, filling the room like a ritual conclusion.

“Only when a blacksmith and the metals are able to communicate, can the best weapon be born out of the smithy.”

He lifts the finished blade and inspects it. It looks exactly like a blade should look. Long. Sharp. Correctly oriented.

“I understand, master…”

The dwarf turns slowly.

“If you understand that… THEN WHY THE FUCK DO YOU KEEP MESSING UP YOUR WORK!?”

He gestures violently toward the floor, where dozens of failed blades lie scattered—bent wrong, curved sideways.

Irving steps out of the shadow to collect the failures. Bruises mark his face, visible evidence of immersive education.

“I’m sorry, master…”

“NOW GO FUCKING MELT IT ALL, AND DO IT AGAIN! IF I CATCH YOU TAKING A BREAK, I'LL SMACK YOUR NOSE AGAIN!” the dwarf roars.

“Yes, master…”

---

Merryhall Tavern

Meanwhile, inside a peaceful-looking tavern in town—

“KYAAAAA, HONEY, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!?”

A woman screams as her husband collapses onto the floor, foam gathering at his mouth.

“W-what happened?” the tavern owner asks, rushing over to help.

“I-I don’t know!? We were just eating our food… and he was really enjoying it… But suddenly his voice became weird… I-It's like several different persons talking at the same time, speaking strange language… and after that he dropped like this.”

On the floor, the man shakes violently, muttering Latin words between spasms.

“SOMEBODY CALL A HEALER!!” the tavern owner screams.

In the kitchen, behind the chaos, Bella quietly removes her apron.

“KYAAAA! HONEY, WHY ARE YOU LEVITATING!?”

The woman’s scream rises again as Bella slips out through the back door without looking back.

---

A Farm Outside Of Merryhall

Later that night, at a farm on the outskirts of Merryhall, a barn stands beside a small rented shed. The rent is cheap. The shed explains why.

Ivy walks up to it and pushes aside the cloth used as a door.

“I’m home.”

She steps inside, looking tired.

“Welcome home,” Bella and Kovalski reply in unison.

Inside, Bella sits at stacked crates serving as a table. Kovalski lies on a hay bed. Irving sits silently in the corner.

“You’re home early, Bella,” Ivy says.

“Yeah… got a customer who got possessed after eating my salad.” Bella sighs.

“You use demonic ingredients?” Ivy asks.

“It tasted good when I tried a spoon, but I guess it works differently when someone finishes a bowl,” Bella explains.

Ivy removes her things and drops them to the floor before sitting across from Bella.

“Can you get me some drink, please? I’m famished.” She leans forward and sighs.

“Sure.”

Bella takes an empty mug and pushes it into a hole in the wall beside her. She places it against a board and reaches upward, feeling around above the mug.

“…….Ah, found it.”

MOOOOOOO.

Bella grabs a teat from the cow next door and starts milking, filling the mug.

“Make sure this time it’s Betsy, not Anthony,” Ivy says.

Bella pulls the full mug back through the wall and hands it to her.

“Thanks,” Ivy says, drinking. “Achooo! …uugh.”

“Did you do the herbs quest in the opening grass again?” Bella asks, handing her a handkerchief.

“Snooort… Yeah… The wind there hates me.”

Ivy pulls out her pouch and empties today’s herb quest earnings onto the table. The new coins join the small pile of silver and copper the others have already contributed. The combined total looks united, but not impressive.

“So how much more money do we need for travel?” Kovalski asks from the bed. His feet soak inside a bucket of water, swollen after circling the town twelve times today.

“Sigh… a lot,” Ivy replies after a quick count of their funds. “You need to go help around more for rewards, Kovalski.”

“Ugh, I just can’t stand it anymore with those critters.” Kovalski covers his face dramatically.

“The cats?” Ivy asks.

“No, the children. Don’t they even realize if their pet keeps running away every day, that means it doesn’t love them?” Kovalski complains.

“Tch, well, you don’t have the right to complain. If it's not because of you keeping asking for separate rooms in the inn, we would still have some funds left,” Bella says.

“Well, excuse me, at least I’m not the one who makes our food bills explode,” Kovalski shoots back.

Whenever they travel, Kovalski insists on having his own room every time they stay at an inn, for reasons he refuses to label but everyone understands. Meanwhile, Bella simply like a black hole. Every tavern visit becomes a measurable financial event.

“Enough, fighting is not going to get us out of this situation,” Ivy says, trying to hold the table together both literally and socially.

“Said the cause of this all,” Bella and Kovalski reply in perfect unison.

Ivy and Captain Irving, for their part, have a habit of buying useless trinkets and questionable “investment pieces” they are convinced will sell well in Murica. Items no one here wants, and likely no one there asked for.

They were this carefree with money because they assumed questing would always be easy profit, just like it was in Ravendawn. Complete task. Collect reward. Repeat.

What they failed to calculate is something every RPG quietly enforces: the farther you are from the final boss territory—which is Murica—the lower the quest difficulty becomes. And the lower the quest difficulty, the lower the reward.

And now, they are financially stranded in what is clearly a beginner town.

“Sigh… Come on, we already passed this… You just need to be like the captain, just focus on working to make enough money for our travel funds. Right, Captain?” Ivy says.

There is no reply.

The captain sits in the corner, deeply focused.

“Uhh… captain? What are you doing with the C-4?” Ivy asks.

“Fufufu, furnace explosions are common, right? As long as I make it not too big, no one can tell if it's not an accident, fufufufu,” Irving whispers to himself, molding a C-4 compound with intense concentration and crazed eyes.

“Sigh… We really need to get out of this town,” Ivy mutters.