Chapter 285: 286: Happy

“So,” says Fresh, talking to the milkshake-dark-elf. “How did you get here?” she asks, mixing today’s bottle. The man certainly seems to have developed an affinity for it.

The man shrugs. “Well, you know with the south being what it is,” he explains, shrugging. Fresh nods, understanding. “I decided that I had enough of the gloom. Some sunlight is what a lot of people need, you know?”

“Mm,” nods Fresh, handing him the bottle. “I think so too. Everyone is always so tense.”

“Those are just the times we live in,” he says, sighing. “I still remember the better days,” he says, staring at the bottle.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here now,” replies Fresh, waving goodbye to him as he turns to leave too. It really is lucky for them that a physical healer like this man was present here in this city. Someone who could do more than just heal lost health-points. Even more so is that he seems to have a relationship with the crusaders in some sense, she recalls the awkward human soldier who Basil had talked to, who had implied that the druid was his brother and that he was coming to them as a favor.

Sometimes, convenient people are really just always there at the right place and time, aren’t they?

There are a lot of different classes that can heal. In the north, it was mostly priests from the church, whereas in the west the role seemed to have been overtaken by more pragmatic things such as battle-alchemists. Here in the east, it just seems to be a big hodge-podge. Everyone from everywhere seems to collect here, in the harbor city.

It sounds odd, but sometimes she still thinks about that old daydream of hers of becoming a healer, someone who can really help people in their times of need. Sure, her initial motivations for that desire were purely selfish, as she had hoped that her doing so would bring people to like her and to enjoy her presence. But now, she finds that she just likes helping people.

Seeing someone walk around, protected from the raging sun with one of her umbrellas makes her happy. Seeing someone bite into one of her cookies, only for their eyes to light up, seeing some sweaty, exhausted person down a bottle of fizzy-tea and let out a subsequent sigh of relief so loud, that she can hear it all the way on the other side of the counter, these things make her happy. Maybe it’s a little like Shamrock’s attitude towards the world. She can’t do much, really. But she’s here now and the things she can do have tangible results, if only minor ones. But those results are enough to make someone’s day brighter and in turn make her happy and in the final, consequent turn, make the world only a tiny bit lighter, even if only for a moment.

Fresh smiles, placing her hands on her hips as she stares out of the window, out towards the water. Turning around, she looks at Jubilee.

“Hey, Jubilee?” says Fresh.

“Huh? What?” asks Jubilee, turning around with their head.

“I’m happy,” states Fresh, plain as day, nodding once as if to affirm that statement to her friend.

Jubilee stares at her and then lifts their arms, shrugging and shaking their head. “Okay? So? What am I supposed to do with this information?”

“Nothing,” says Fresh. “I just wanted you to know,” she explains, grabbing a bottle of coconut-water and looking back out towards the ocean, as she waits for the next customer to come.

Today seems to be slower, for whatever reason the universe might have conjured up, so she spends a great deal of it simply looking out of the window, staring at someone who she assumes is a brand new adventurer.

There’s a young man, hardly past being a boy, but clearly having entered into what this world considers adulthood. Without a party and with only the dinkiest of weapons, he seems to have found a quiet spot off to the right side of their house and is very intensely fighting the single crab there that keeps respawning, by himself. It seems odd, but somehow, seeing a brand new adventurer is oddly exciting for her.

“Hey!” she calls out of the window, waving him over.

“Stop pestering the world,” barks Jubilee from behind her. Fresh sticks out her tongue at them.

Looking somewhat worried, the newcomer makes his way over to the window, taking somewhat nervous steps, as if he were about to be yelled at.

“How’s it going?” asks Fresh.

He stares at her and tilts his head, rubbing the back of it. “Uh, fine. Thank you.” His gaze shifts around the sand. “Should I go somewhere else? Am I bothering you? Sorry,” he apologizes right away. “I’ll go somewhere else.”

“No, no!” says Fresh, stopping him. “You’re doing us a huge favor by keeping the crabs away,” she lies. In truth, the crabs don’t come into their house anymore. But he doesn’t know that. She’s just trying to be encouraging. She lifts a finger, pointing at his objectively terrible weapon. “You interested in a quest?”

“A quest?” he asks, staring at her somewhat perplexed. He’s obviously from an unaffluent origin. His street-clothes, covered in ripped fabric and tatters, are bound back closed with strips of fabric and shawls wrapped all around his legs and arms where the crabs have clearly gotten to him more than once.

“How many crabs have you got today?” she asks.

“Uh… eight, so far, miss,” says the stranger, awkwardly putting his knife away as he seems to suddenly realize that he was still holding it while talking to her.

She lifts a finger, pointing at his kitchen-knife. “I’ll make you a new weapon, if you kill sixteen more by this time tomorrow. Bring me their claws.”

He looks at her and then down at the rusty, crab-blood covered kitchen-knife that he’s been using. “I accept!” he says, straightening his posture right away, his eyes going wide.

Fresh nods. “Okay! Good luck!” she says, smiling and waving to him. He hurries back to his spot, just as the crab respawns, burrowing itself out of the sand.

“What was that?” asks Jubilee.

“It’s like you said, Jubilee,” says Fresh. “Back in the west. We’re shopkeepers, it’s normal for us to give quests to adventurers.”

Jubilee stares at her. “Sure, when we get something out of it,” they say. “You’re just giving merchandise away now again.”

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Fresh shakes her head, staring back out at the stranger who is giving his all now to fight the new crab. “No. I’m getting something out of it,” she says, watching as the adventurer seems to fight with a new vigor, and, despite the loose fabric covering the area below his nose, she is sure that she can see a hopeful smile in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

The day comes to an end, essentially like that. The boy or man or whatever stage of life he finds himself in managed to get up to twelve crabs today, before he packed up and decided to go home, his hands full of crab meat.

She figures that he’s clearly going to make it. So tonight, she decides to make a new weapon for him in advance, so that she can pay right away when he hands in the quest. Explaining as much to her friends, she weasels her way out of cooking dinner tonight. Though, in exchange for Shamrock covering her shift tonight, she has to do the next one of his. Fair is fair, after all.

Basil feels a little better today than last night. A full day of rest and real food really does do wonders, but she will clearly need a while longer until she is back in fighting shape. Staring out of the open door of her workshop, Fresh can’t help but hide a bright smile as she watches Jubilee run around Basil’s bed, fretting about every little thing.

She really does have great friends.

So. A dagger?

The man is clearly a lanky, agile type and he seems to be practiced in fighting with a knife. Though, that might just be because it’s the only weapon he has access to. Oh well. It’s a start. With this, he’ll be able to work his way up easier towards whatever goal he holds as desirable for himself.

“Just something simple,” she says, pulling a copper-bar and iron-bar towards herself. Deciding to play around a little, she combines the two bars into a single, conjoined ingot.

So far, so good. “Keep it simple,” she reminds herself, her brain already going to very extravagant places. He’s a beginner adventurer, so she doesn’t want to overload him with some mystical moon-powered weapon. She just wants to give him a stepping stone, some encouragement to foster his hard-work in the future, so that he might go on and make the world lighter in the places he himself goes.

“Oh…” says Fresh. It does elemental damage. Is this too much? Hmm. No. It’s fine. It’s not that much. Honestly, it could maybe be a little better. Maybe since the metal is so conductive, a better grip would help? Deciding that that makes sense, she takes a bit of the liquefied crystal-drakonium and paints it over the grip of the weapon.

There! That seems to have spruced up the elemental damage a tiny bit. Now it’s a great weapon for some beginner. She’ll skip the step of blessing it with moonwater, that would be too much.

Smiling to herself, she sets the dagger down, feeling excited about tomorrow and the new smiles and faces it will bring.

Well, not to the crabs.

But you can’t make everyone happy.

Razmatazz

=)

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