A Chance Meeting

Hey, Shun here!

There are moments when you'll end up meeting your friends or acquaintances at the most bizarre places. Like what a certain nursery rhyme says, "It's a small world after all~!".

It would be much appreciated if they could just meet me at a more normal place though.

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(Shun's POV)

During the latter half of our day, we went around 'helping' out other people who needed our assistance. It was a little tiring to do and also expensive, since we're basically wasting money, so to compensate with our loss, we started to exchange the consumables we are giving the players with something that they have.

It could be a stone, a rare item, or anything else, we'll take it. Because of this method, we managed to complete four sets of a recipe book which came in six different parts.

The contents of this book is really amazing, as there are recipes in it that could give buffs to the players who eat it. It's sort of like my [Boost Marbles] but it lasts a little longer. The only drawback is that you need to have the prerequisite level of [Cooking] Sense in order to make use of these recipes.

We also got loads of stones, tree branches, crow feathers, and many more so we definitely hit the jackpot when we implemented this rule. The items we got are more than enough to cover the cost of the raw materials we used in making the [Potions] and [Boost Marbles] that we distributed.

I don't know which one started it but we also ended up feeding a bunch of young animals all throughout the night. Some of them already lost their masters from that incident that night so they ended up following us because of the food we're providing them.

The number of young animals that followed us is really staggering. There's more than enough for everyone to have one young animal each. Pochi, Rikka, Tama, Fenny, Tsuka, and Rokuko doesn't seem to be interested in taking in another one though.

Speaking of young animals, Kaede-san is hitting it off quite well with the azure colored snake. It doesn't seem to be warming up to me no matter what I did so I decided that it would be in my best interest to see if Kaede-san could somehow make it mellow down.

To my surprise, she did so. In fact, I think she managed to successfully make it like her a lot. I mean, it has been showing interest towards Kaede-san so I think this was fine.

As for the young animal that Satania-san decided to take in. Well, it's still fast asleep. It's currently sleeping soundly on top of Satania-san's lap.

"That was quite the adventure that we had yesterday! It was definitely fun!" Miu commented while sloppily leaning back on the wooden chair that Lyly built from the materials that they got from their own expedition.

"Tama, helped lots of people~?"

"Tsuka, too~!"

"Fenny… too…"

"Pochi helped a lot of other people too nanodesu! It was very very fun nodesu! Let's do that again today nodesu!"

It looks like the kids liked the feeling of helping others. I mean, the only objective in this event is to survive so I don't think we'd lose out if we go and have some more fun.

We could go around helping other players and young animals while simultaneously filling up the blank spots on our map. This checks out the boxes of what everyone wanted to do.

Those who wanted to battle could battle the mobs and unique monsters we'll encounter, while those who just likes to relax and craft things could come with us to repair equipments or just stay here in our base to have some peace and relaxation. There's many options we could go for, really.

As an aside, I managed to get two more young beasts as my familiar, one being a red panda and the other being a regular looking panda. Since the red panda seems to like acting tough, I called it Panchamp while I named the other one who likes to laze around Panchan.

The little white snake doesn't seem to like them at first but it seems like they managed to work things out overnight so I'm not complaining.

"So, you guys basically robbed an entire camp of players blind while simultaneously promoting our Guild's products, am I right so far?" Magi-san said, trying to reiterate what she understood from the stories we told her, Cloude, and Lyly so far.

"Robbed people blind nodesu? But they could see properly nodesuyo?"

"What's rooob~?"

"Master, what rob?"

"Rob is a random omnipotent being Tama, Tsuka." After replying to Tama and Tsuka's question, I shot Magi-san a glare, basically telling her to watch her words.

"That was basically a relief operation, Magi-san. Those players willingly gave us some of their items and they received consumables and a delicious meal. It's a win-win situation."

"S-Sure, sure. Anyway, what's with this whole battalion of young animals? Could I take one in?"

"You could take one you know? There's so many of them, anyway." It wasn't me who replied to Magi-san but Satania-san who's still busy tending to the young beast.

"I didn't want to take one in since I already have Taffy here. Right Taffy?"

"Scree~!"

This time, it was Kaede-san who spoke. It looks like she named the azure snake Taffy.

That's a simple name. Well, not like I could say anything as I myself named my white little snake Sara, the shorter version for her real name Sarasvati. I wanted to name her after Benzaiten, the White Snake Goddess but she doesn't like the name so I stuck with Sarasvati or Saraswati, the name of a Goddess from another religion that's often associated with Benzaiten.

"Why don't we all take a break and talk about something more, you know, relaxing? Everyone is in a high tension you know?" Kaede-san added.

"Hmm… Certainly. Well, if you all don't mind, I'll take this cat for myself."

"I'll take this orangey red chick! Hello how are you little chick?"

Cloude took a black cat with white colored paws while Lyly took a chick that's reddish-orange in color. That aside, the incident yesterday called [Fire Outbreak] by the people from the forums treated the entire event as a joke.

A lot of people are clowning on the victims on the forums. Man, there sure are a lot of trolls out there.

We continued to talk about the fun things that we did during our separate journeys, with me talking about the weapons that we got from the chest. While we, the older ones, would talk about the things we find curious during our travels from time to time, it was mainly the kids who shared their experience a lot.

It's amazing how these kids could tell an entire story based on what they experienced during the span of just an entire day. Since it was fun listening to them exaggerate some things, we all mostly stayed silent as we listened to their narration.

Maybe because the girls were too loud, the young beast that Satania-san was tending to showed signs of waking up. The young black fox that has been sleeping up until now is now wide awake.

Probably because of the major difference in environment where it fainted and our base camp, or maybe because it fears the unknown, the young fox began trembling as it became increasingly wary of its surroundings as it woke up.

Although its feet is still kinda wobbly, it desperately tried to stand up. With its legs still trembling, it raised its bushy tail and tried to look as big as possible in an attempt to intimidate us.

No matter how you look at it right now, its current appearance of acting tough can only be seen as a mere bluff.

"Woah, that child is awake now, huh? Hey, Satania-san. I think its level of wariness is at MAX." Miu said.

"Yeah, this little foxy is toootally wary of us isn't it?" Hino-san added.

Then, surprisingly, we witnessed Satania-san do something that's totally out of character to her usual demeanor.

"I know, Myu. That's why we all should stay quiet so as to not agitate it more than what it's feeling already." This is totally beyond what I expected her to do once the young black fox wakes up. Well, I guess it's a given that we'd be surprised since we only ever saw her do her usual antics everyday.

"There there. Don't you remember me? I'm the one who picked you up you know?" Once Satania-san started caressing the young black fox, it started to visibly calm down as its tension dissipated.

Kaede-san's comment just about sums up what we all thought at that very moment.

"Wow, you're so good at handling young animals Satania-san."

"Oh, that? Mama and Papa has always bought me a pet to take care of since I was young. Maybe that's why I'm so awesome in doing it? I have a majestic dragon at home named Alexander and he's been under my care for years now! So? So? Aren't I totally amazing? A-hahahaha!" Yep, that's the Satania-san we know alright. Looks like what we saw earlier was really Satania-san and not some kind of body double.

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A few days have already past since the event started and we've done mostly anything we could to enjoy our time in here. We went to the lake once again to take a dip just the other day.

Well, it was mostly the girls who took a dip while us guys was resting on a makeshift cottage that Lyly made for us. That was a fun day.

Cloude offered the girls to wear the swimsuits that he, and I quote, painstakingly made, but the girls obviously refused due to how revealing it is. In the end, they all wore the Beginner's Clothing while taking a bath.

Today, since we are mostly done exploring the southern area and the eastern are, I decided to check out the northern are this time. I am accompanied by Miu, Tsuka, Fenny, Rokuko, and Magi-san this time.

Everything was going swimmingly, we managed to gather a bunch of ores, stones, and gems. Just when we were about to change locations, I received an in-game message coming from Satania-san and Kaede-san who were left at our base camp to look after the young animals who are left there, as well as to look after the camp itself.

✽✽[Inbox]✽✽

RedArchDemon: Shun, help…(Unread)

Maple: [Admin] Shun-san, please help us!(Unread)

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What the heck happened?

"Guys, we need to hurry back. Satania-san and Kaede-san are in trouble."

"Eh? What is it all of a sudden, Shun-kun?"

"Kaede and Satania needs help? We got to hurry then, Shun!"

While Magi-san is confused and Rokuko is basically about to take off, I heard a familiar voice from a distance.

"Um, Shun-chan, it looks like you made lots of friends while Onee-chan is away. That's good."

"Is that your younger brother, Sei? Ain't he quite the looker?"

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※~To be continued~※

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Author's Remarks:

※ That ends this chapter! Phew, barely able to finish it before my shift at the gasoline station. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter my dudes. There's a whole lot of things we skipped but we could just make a side story about those happenings later down the line. I'm not really in too much of a hurry but it would be good if we could end this event at chapter 149 or 150 which is my target.