Bonus Short Stories
Short Story: The Rookie Adventurers and the Snow Mouse
“Hey guys, hang on a second. Snow’s picked up on something.” The young mage girl, Eon, had the mouse, Snow, riding on top of her head. It looked like Snow had pulled on her hair to signal danger ahead.
Knowing what that meant, we all went on our guard immediately. When Snow reacted like that, most of the time it meant there were wild beasts or monsters nearby.
It was common for monsters in dungeons or underground ruins to hide around corners in order to ambush adventurers. This was because, with their superior senses of smell and hearing, humans often made easy prey for them.
Still, seeing as how we hadn’t traveled very far underground yet, it was unlikely that there would be any monsters who could erase their presence completely.
“Lopp... you take the right side. I’ll handle the left.”
“Gotcha.”
Fran, our swordswoman, gave me these instructions in a small whisper so as not to alert anything that might be awaiting nearby. The road in front of us forked into two paths in a T shape. If there were any monsters nearby, they could’ve been waiting for us on either side.
Behind us, Klaus readied his bow and arrow with the sharp ‘fwee’ sound of the bowstring being drawn, so that he’d be ready to shoot at anything that might try to jump out at us.
Just like we’d thought, there was a Kobold waiting to ambush us around the corner. Before it could move to attack, I stabbed at it with my spear.
“Higyaaah?!”
While my spear managed to strike it in the shoulder, the creature grabbed hold of the hilt before it could pierce all the way through. This one wasn’t going down without a fight...
Or so I thought, until Klaus’s arrow came flying out of nowhere and struck the Kobold in the forehead. It collapsed lifelessly without any of the grandeur I’d been expecting.
Man, he just had to steal the spotlight when I was having fun, didn’t he?
“That was a close call. If Snow hadn’t warned us, who knows how that might have turned out.” Eon was just singing praises to the snow mouse sitting on her head, as usual. This particular snow mouse was actually the summoned familiar of our very own grand duke of Brunhild. Its intelligence was far above just any ordinary mouse, and sometimes it even felt like it could understand every word we were saying.
“Sure, we’ve been making a lot more progress than we used to lately, but we can’t keep relying on Snow to do all the hard work for us. Until we get strong enough to make it at least this far without Snow’s help, we’ll never be able to repay our debt to the grand duke.”
And in came Klaus, diligent as always. I did agree with what he was saying, though.
I had thought about trying to pay back His Majesty for saving us from having to become slaves... But I wasn’t about to get full of myself and think I could ever repay a lifelong debt like that. Still, I at least wanted to get as strong as I could so that I wouldn’t be left so helpless in any similar situations in the future.
“Snow? Where are you running off to?” Letting out only a couple of squeaks every now and then, Snow ran off as if telling us to follow. Seemed like Snow had found something.
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