Girls and Puppies

We woke up late today, but it's nothing surprising, considering what happened yesterday night.

Actually I woke up last. I put on my usual clothes and went straight to the kitchen, led by the sweet scent of breakfast.

Maria, Rio and Lucy were already here. Lucy was sitting on the chair by the table, swinging her legs. Rio and Maria were cooking something. So that's where this delicious smell comes from. Well, there are not many other options tho…

Everything just feels so happy and peaceful. I love that. And the sleep was actually pretty good too. I never felt so rested right after waking up.

Five minutes later we were all eating pancakes.

"So… what do you think about going to the guild today?"

"Do you mean an adventure?"

Lucy asked me with shiny eyes.

"Yes, we're gonna choose ourselves a quest and then go on an adventure."

Rio cut in.

"Yaay."

There are four quests. It's not a jackpot but at least it's better than one.

One of them especially catched my attention. It says:

"Someone is robbing Blue Forest. Help is very much apreciated. Thief is hiding some where in the woods. If found, report to Lillyia. :)"

Handwriting looks a little chaotic and it has a few spelling mistakes, so it may as well be some kid's joke, but it's a lot better than another house cleaning quest.

As for the 'Blue Forest', I've read about it in a book from my mansion's library. It's one of the safest places in the area. There were no monsters or demons encountered for a very long time. Long ago it was a home to elves. Their magic caused some of the trees to cover with light blue coating. Most of the trees already dropped their blue coatings, but the name remained unchanged. Today, still a lot of elves live in the nearest to the forest areas, including the town we are in right now.

"I see you've been staring at this quest for a while, master."

Maria appeared behind my back.

I turned around.

"You startled me."

Suddenly Rio was standing behind me too.

"Don't tell me that scared you."

She said.

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

Exactly that!!! Lucy just came out of nowhere and frightened me even more.

"Eh… nothing."

"Let's go confirm that quest as ours."

Rio enthusiastically said and three of them went to the quest window.

I hope they at least wouldn't scare this girl from the window.

"Oh it's you."

Why do they keep scaring me!? And it's the very girl I was just thinking about.

"I'm sorry for the last time, I was quite drunk and… you know, people say a lot of things when they're drunk."

"It's okay. I'm not really mad or anything."

"That's great."

And she simply walked away.

"We've got the quest."

"Why do you keep coming from behind!?"

The Blue Forest isn't that far from the village so we decided to just walk here.

Girls were just being girls. Rio and Lucy were running around. Maria was a little calmer. They were collecting flowers and looking at the animals when we left the town.

For me, I started thinking about this quest a little. Who might this thief be? And what does he want to steal from the forest? Are there any leftovers of that elf civilization from ages ago?

With time there were only more questions. Are we capable of this quest? I still haven't really trained anything. I know nothing about what Maria, Rio or Lucy can do. But Lucy is still a kid. Was it a good idea to bring her here with us?

We arrived at the forest a moment later.

"What do we do now, master?"

Maria asked me.

Immediately when she asked me this, all of us heard rustling to our right.

"That may be the answer to your question."

I said, and all of us started staring into the bush, where the sound came from just now.

Then the girl, with pointed ears came out of it.

"Oh, are you adventurers?"

She asked and without giving us a chance to answer continued talking.

"I'm glad you came. I really can't find him anywhere. I searched nearly the whole forest."

"Wait, wait, wait. First of all, who are you?"

I interrupted her.

"Oh, sorry, I guess I haven't introduced myself properly. I'm Lillyia. It's nr, who left the message at the guild."

"Okay Lilly… Lia… Li…"

"You can call me Lia. Everyone calls me that."

That'll be a lot easier.

"Okay, Lia. I wanted to ask about that thief…"

"I think you should introduce yourself too, master."

Maria whispered in my ear.

I completely forgot. I've been thinking only about that thief.

"So Lia, I am Rick. This is Rio, next to her is Maria, and this is Lucy. They're my har… Wait, where is Lucy?"

Lucy… disappeared.

Soon we found footprints on the ground, leading deeper into the forest.

We followed them and yelled Lucy's name along the way. Well… we weren't actually yelling, because Lia warned us not to be too loud. From my point of view it's literally the smallest problem right now, but okay.

We got to a place where the path was being overgrown by grass. This was also the place where the footprints disappeared. Very shocking.

"Let's look around. But don't go too far, we are not splitting up, just searching the area."

I said.

Well… I said that, but it wasn't necessary, because I almost immediately found her.

"Oh, she is here."

Lucy was sitting on the ground, holding some forest fruits. Next to her there was a little bear. More like a teddy bear, especially because his fur looked a lot like a plush. Usually I would just call him teddy bear but I'm struggling to call it that because it's moving. Also he had some stains on his plush, probably from these fruits.

"It's him!"

Lia screamed from behind my back.

"This is the thief!"

The little bear hid behind Lucy's back.

But wait… What? This is the thief? What could he possibly be stealing? And isn't it living in this forest?

"What do you mean?"

Rio asked her.

Lia looked her straight in the eyes.

"It has been stealing fruits from the forest."

Wha…

"How is that a problem?"

I asked.

"It's a big problem! What will forest animals eat?"

"So you mean, that the forest animal was stealing forest fruits from forest animals?"

"Yes."

"What the… I mean, it's not like he took all the fruits from the entire forest right? Besides it's literally only animal we saw this all time, are there this many others, that there could be any possible lacking in them?"

"But he is not from the hood."

"What?"

"He is from another woods."

I thought she said something else.

"He asks if you're gonna chase him away from the forest."

Lucy looked at Lia.

"You… understand him?"

"Yes, but he doesn't talk too much."

Wow. This is… impressive. But how?

"Well… he can't stay here."

Lia continued the topic of the thief.

"But why…"

Then Lucy interrupted me.

"Can we take him with us?"

We talked about it a little.

"Okay, okay. We can take him. Since you understand him, he will be a fine addition to our group."

"Yaaay."

Rio looked at me.

"Wow. For once you didn't call us your harem. Haha."

"It would sound weird if I said that this bear will be a fine addition to my harem, wouldn't it?"

"Excuse me, did you say harem?"

Lia asked.

"Yes."

"We're not actually his ha…"

Rio tried to defend herself but it was too late.

"Really? I would love to join you. Are you like… looking for other women?"

I have literally nothing against it. The moment she jumped out of that bush I noticed the 'jump' of something else. I would love to have someone like that in my harem.

"Ekhem."

Rio coughed at me. She was smirking but looked kinda annoyed at the same time. Maybe it's because she is…

"EKHEM!"

"Sorry."

Back to the topic.

"But… Why do you want to join the harem? Do you… like… maybe… like me or something?"

"No."

Eh?

"I've always wanted to be a part of harem. It seems fun. It just happened to be you."

Rio bursted out laughing.

"I already like her."

She said.

"I didn't mean to offend you or anything. I mean, I couldn't possibly fall for someone after just seeing them right? You know…"

Rio slapped her back. Sadly not lower. Okay I need to stop this thoughts.

"Okay, okay. No need to explain yourself. We will be glad if you join us."

Rio decided.

"We still need a name for our little 'thief'."

"I already have a name for him."

Lucy said.

"What is it?"

She looked at him.

"Pin."

He looks like he likes this one.

Next chapter on Sunday (31.07)