Bonding Over A Quest Marathon

“Show me ya dedication. Complete nine more F rank jobs.” Sumire mimicked the guild master as she and Takao walked away from the guild hall.

“He wants us to prove that we’re serious about being adventurers.” Takao reminded her. “To be honest, we haven’t done much to earn the rank advancement. From his perspective, it probably looks like we only took the herb gathering job, so we could accidentally run into the spike boar. Which is true.”

Sumire looked like she had something to say, but only pouted instead. Takao laughed to himself, thinking that she looked cute.

“But I suppose it worked out. We get a special rank advancement test and the chance to go straight to C. It’s a good deal for us, and all we have to do is complete nine F rank jobs. Which we would’ve been doing anyway had the guild master not offered us this chance.” Takao reasoned.

“Alright, fine.” Sumire conceded. “What’s the first job?”

Takao held up the job flyer for her to see.

“You’re kidding.” Sumire asked disdainfully, but Takao only shook his head.

The next day, Takao led the way through the towns' sewer system, with Sumire following behind. It was a dark, cramped tunnel with murky water running through the center and a narrow walkway along the side. Sumire had cast spells on both of them to protect against the filth and disease, and which almost stopped the smell from reaching them. It was pitch black, but Sumire had given them both dark vision; they could see everything around them, which Takao wasn’t entirely happy about. They couldn’t use light since it would scare away their prey.

“I think I hate you.” Sumire said grumpily as they searched through the tunnels.

“It’s not that bad with your magic protection. Besides, if we want to show that we’re serious about being adventurers, we should do the jobs no one else wants. This will be easy with your lightning anyway. As soon as we find the elephant rohu, we’re done.” Takao explained.

“I think I hate you.” Sumire repeated.

As Takao was preparing a response, the water ahead of them splashed. He signaled to Sumire and she nodded. They crept forward, and the sewer opened up into a large chamber where multiple tunnels connected. The water stirred restlessly as something swam below the surface.

Takao readied his spear and nodded to Sumire. She held out her hand, and a flash of lightning momentarily lit up the tunnel as it arced into the water with a loud snap that echoed through the sewers. Takao waited at the ready, but nothing happened.

“Did you miss?” He whispered.

Sumire looked disgruntled, and fired another bolt into the water. Nothing happened.

“Maybe—” She started to whisper, but was cut off by a massive fish jumping out of the water. It was huge and bulbous, with a fatty trunk flopping and waving as it soared through the air. It splashed back down and made a beeline for a side tunnel.

“Don’t let it escape!” Takao yelled.

Sumire fired more lightning at the rohu, but it dashed abruptly to the side, heading for a different tunnel. Bolt after bolt of lightning hit the water, but the rohu continued to dash about wildly.

“Grr! That’s enough!” Sumire growled.

She crouched near the water, holding her hands just above the surface. The murky water hissed as purple lightning illuminated the large pool, electrifying it. The rohu leapt from the water again, soaring toward an exit tunnel, but this time Takao was ready. He threw his spear. It sailed through the air, trailing rope behind it, and impaled the round fish.

“Yes!” He shouted triumphantly.

The large rohu fell back down with a splash, sending a wave of sewage water washing over Takao and Sumire.

After turning the elephant rohu in at the guild and completing their job, Takao and Sumire took long showers, and decided to take the rest of the day off.

The next day, Sumire insisted on choosing the job, which turned out to be helping the north end farmers hunt some particularly troublesome hectarabbits. They located the burrow easily enough, but as they approached it, the ground collapsed, dropping them into the complex network of tunnels. The hectarabbits scattered in every direction, and they had to spend the rest of the day and into the night hunting them one by one.

Takao expected their next job to go more smoothly, since it was simply to remove a raccoon from an elderly woman's attic. However, it was complicated by the woman’s insistence that they catch the raccoon alive and release it outside the city, which they did, begrudgingly.

Next, they helped the south end farmers with a growing infestation of gibba, plant monsters that parasitically grow off of other plants and eventually become carnivorous.

After that, they completed two jobs at once by escorting two towns folk to More lake in the middle of Dusk forest, Turi, an old dwarf man and armor smith, and Furegaki, a blind human woman and potter. They were friends and apparently made the trip together often. They always hired adventurers for assistance and protection. Turi became enamored with Takao’s spear abilities and dragged him out onto the lake to spear fish together. Furegaki fell in love with Sumire’s magical inventory and loaded it with clay that she hand-picked from the lake's edge. After treating Takao and Sumire to a grilled fish dinner, the four returned to town. Both Turi and Furegaki gave Takao and Sumire high praise. The two also hinted they would request Takao and Sumire the next time they planned a trip to the lake.

On their way home after successfully completing their double escort job, Takao noticed Nanako walking the streets with her party, but strangely he didn’t have the usual urge to go up and talk to her. He thought maybe it was because he’d enjoyed himself so much on the last job, but he felt happy just being with Sumire at the moment.

Their seventh and eighth jobs, finding a lost lockhorn and gathering torpor herbs, went off without a hitch. Their ninth and final job before the guild master would let them take the advancement test came from an elf woman named Shida. She owned an inn called The Sleeping Gibba, and had an unusual job for them. She wanted them to capture a living gibba and bring it back to her. Apparently she wanted it as a sort of mascot for her inn since it was named after the monster. Takao thought this would be difficult at first, since they’d just recently exterminated all the gibba from the south end farms, but then Sumire surprised him.

“Is that all? I have one right here.” She said, pulling a gibba plant from her magical storage, already in a pot. She handed it to Shida, who looked both very surprised and happy, and completing their ninth job in record time.

“Why did you even have that?” Takao questioned after they’d left the inn.

“I thought it was cute. I was going to put it in our apartment.” She stated simply.

Takao hadn’t realized till Sumire said it, but he also felt like his apartment had become their apartment. It occurred to him how glad he was to have Sumire around.

“Thanks.” He said quietly, feeling suddenly grateful.

“Did you say something?” Sumire asked.

“Nothing! Tomorrow, we should go see the guild master and tell him that we completed all nine jobs.” He said, changing topics.

“Definitely! Whatever this advancement test is, we’re ready for it!”

He still hadn’t figured out how to do magic, but Takao couldn’t help but agree. As long as he had Sumire at his side, he felt ready for anything.

Sumire’s Exposé!
The sewers beneath Sukiya are as old as the town itself and were originally designed by the dragon god herself. They have been added to, broken, and repaired over the years, leading to a vast array of largely uncharted underground tunnels and chambers, some of which have become home to monsters.