35 Walking Trap (2/2)

The magical ingredients for this season only appear near large bodies of water, which meant the places I was going to search were gonna be Misty Lake, Genbu Ravine, and Giant Toad's Pond.

'Ho boy, I can tell some Youkai asshole would pick a fight with me on the way to the second place… Oh, there's one.'

I picked up a magical ingredient from the ground.

”This is a nice one.”

Aside from only appearing near a large body of water, the item in question is not a plant. It's actually a crystallized essence of winter. It's great isn't it? It's an actual item and not a plant. WOW.

... I turned into Owen Wilson for a second right there. Back on topic, as for how frequently these spawn, based on what I read, it's quite infrequent, and they can't spawn more since they naturally form a ways apart from each other. So I can't gather a ton of them in one big swoop, and can only do it effectively by gathering them daily.

I saw something flying up above the lake.

A blue thing and a white blue thing.

Cirno and… Letty?

[Lv.49 Winter's Embrace, Letty Whiterock]

'Okay, that's definitely Letty. Let's not pick a fight with her right now. I'm not sure if I could win against her while keeping my disguise since Pyrokinesis is harder to use in winter.'

I pretended not to see them and continued my gathering.

But of course, it was not gonna be that easy, would it?

”Hey, red lady over there! Wat'cha doing?!”

I turned toward the voice.

It was Cirno. She crossed her arms while looking smug.

Off to the side, I saw Letty waiting, leaning against a tree looking bored.

'Ugh, I knew I should've run away immediately when I sensed two signatures coming closer to me.' I thought.

”Ahaha, nothing really, I was just collecting this pretty stone.” I showed her the thing that was still inside my hand.

”Oh! Pretty Rock!” Her eyes started to glitter when she saw it, ”Gimme!” she stretched her arm to me.

”Here you go.” I put one on her hand.

”Yay!” and there she went.

'… That was easy.' I thought while watching her fly away.

I saw Letty coming closer.

”I'm surprised you gave it to her that easily, is it okay though?” I turned my head in her direction. ”After all, I saw you collecting those things all around the lake.” she gave me a curious expression.

She had lavender eyes and curly lavender hair. She wore a blue and white dress with a white apron at the front. At the top of her skirt, there was a golden lapel resembling the alchemical symbol for silver. She also wore a white cap and a nearly transparent cape.

And she was taller than me… God dammit.

”I think it was okay, I only gave her one stone and I think my master will understand when I explain what happened.” I explained with a small smile.

”Master?” she narrowed her eyes.

”Yeah, I'm contracted by a Human Magician, I'm free to cancel the contract if I don't like how he orders me. And here I am, collecting magical ingredients for him.” I waved my hand at her, hoping she understood that it implied a 'don't worry' gesture.

”Hmph, humans.” she scowled. ”All right, just be careful around them, okay?” she waved me goodbye before she started to float.

*ding*

[Achievement Alert]

[Reward: 20,000 AP & 20,000 IP]

[Impress Winter's Embrace]

”Yes, thank you for your concern.” I smiled and waved back as I watched her fly away.

I sighed.

'I think my reputation will plummet down even further in this 1 month of challenge.' I thought.

I looked at the rings on my fingers.

'Based on her reaction, these things actually work, I guess' I tilted my head.

[5/5 Interaction]

'And thank you for the interaction.' I thanked those two in my heart.

I started my walk to another gathering location.

-Late Afternoon, Youkai Mountain, Giant Toad Pond-​

[Lv.21 Medium Imp]

[Lv.20 Medium Imp]

[Lv.19 Medium Imp]

”Woman!! Woman!!”

”Kekekeke! Feast on her bones!”

”Eat her!! Eat her!!”

'… I have conflicted feelings between being grateful that they recognize me as a woman and being disgusted that they want to eat a woman.'

I was approached by these blue skinned imp-looking creatures while I was eating my cookies for lunch beside the frozen pond.

I gave them a bored stare.

*Crunch-crunch*

'On one hand, I want to smash them to pieces…'

*Crunch*

'But on the other hand, these cookies are just too delicious to stop.'

I swallowed.

'Decisions, decisions… Oh wait, I can just burn them. It's easy.'

As I started concentrating to burn them away, I heard a noise from the pond.

*CRACK*

Suddenly a large figure jumped out of the pond, breaking through the ice, straight at my location.

It landed with a heavy thud.

It was the giant toad.

”CROACK!”

It landed between me and the imps.

”””Hieeeeee!!”””

”BLEAACK!”

”Gyaaaa!”

”Run! Run!”

Since the toad blocked my vision, I could only hear the imps' cries of fear, and I was guessing the toad tried to eat them?

I heard the running footsteps getting farther and farther, I guess some of them survived the encounter?

The toad started to turn its huge body toward me.

I tensed and got ready to dodge if it wanted to attack me too.

I waited a few seconds but the attack never came.

I was curious why it didn't attack me so I finally looked into its eyes.

Its eyes showed intelligence, they showed wisdom, and it wanted something from me.

And then I realized what it wanted.

It wanted my gratitude.

I put away my lunch and put my hands together.

*Clap-clap*

I clapped twice and bowed my head.

”Thank you for your protection.”

”CROACK.”

*Splash*

I raised my head.

The giant frog was gone. Based on the splashing noise and the waves on the pond, it probably went back inside.

”… That was some experience.”

I remembered that there was a shrine for the pond.

I searched for it and offered some food to the shrine.

Just like last time, the food disappeared a few seconds later.

”Kero.”

And a frog appeared to follow me home.

”Sorry little guy, I will be flying to my next destination so you can't follow me around after this.” I didn't know if it understood me or not but I still apologized to the frog.

”…Kero.” it looked down.

'…Omg, this is the first time I heard a frog that could make a sound that sad.'

”G-good bye, little guy.” I held my tears as I flew away from there.

-Evening, Youkai Mountain, Genbu Ravine-​

”Uwaaah, the waterfall totally looks frozen solid.”

Since I knew that Genbu Ravine had a waterfall in it, I kinda guessed that with an aerial survey I could totally easily spot the location, which I did.

I landed near the frozen water.

I started looking around for any sign of danger or invisible Kappa. Not the twitch Kappa, but the Japanese myths Kappa.

'There's still no pipe along the waterfall rock wall, guess they will start installing it when HM (Hopeless Masquerade) begins.'

Kappa in the Gensokyo series are one of the technological genius species. If you ask me how genius they are, they are the ones that create the Nuclear Reactor inside the Old Hell in the future, and right now the other technology that they have already created is the Cloaking Device. And Genbu Ravine is supposed to be their home, that's why I was more cautious while I was here.

'Nothing could fool the system, so that means there's no Kappa in here, but I bet they have some kind of security camera somewhere hidden to observe me, which I don't really mind. Once they know what I'm searching for in here, they will probably gather it and try to sell it to me the next time I come.'

I concluded my thoughts and started gathering the items along the water.

After I gathered everything, I flew back to my house, ending my activities for today.

Reaction Theater:

-

(Reading I plan to wreck something with my fist)

ED: Musclewizard.jpg

(The part where I say don't let them touch my pepe or touch me in general)

ED: THAT'S LEWD!

(orz)

ED: You'll be fine so long as you don't do anything silly. Like get Akyuu to call you 'onee-sama'. Yep, definitely don't do that.

AN: No one mind controlled him, he just troll himself in reflex. I do it to myself if it happened to me too.

-

Author Note:

Heyo, Author here, I'm really sorry about the lateness of the chapter, I got sick a week ago, hence why you people get the chapter this week, and you people also have to wait for another week because I will be busy for a while in the next month, and it probably cause another week without update because of that, sorry.

About this chapter, this is the first day of the Challenge, I need to build the foundation first before I do anything crazy/interesting, which I already planned for the next few chapter, so if you feel disappointed with this chapter, sorry about that.

About voting a challenge, it was a bad idea, I'm not gonna do it the second time around. As for the left over challenge, don't worry, I'm gonna use it in the future challenge.