Chapter Nine: Doggy Adventure

After meeting up with Don's friends and Joining the party, we made our way into the village looking for quests, as Don would call it. But I had no idea that the word quest would entail running errands and doing a few chores for some of the villagers.

Turns out these guys are really good kids, they go around helping out people with a few errands and chores. And it turns out they're well-known as well.

We just returned from helping out a local farmer in his field. It was just as vast and consumed a lot of manpower. Which meant I also got to see magic in action

As always it was thrilling. Watching spells bloom made me feel all fuzzy inside. But alas, I'm not allowed to do magic for now.

I've sworn not to use magic till I'm of suitable age.

On our way, we came across a little girl much younger than us. She had short hair and her eyes were red from crying. She looked exhausted and held tightly a ragdoll against her chest

She sniffled and wailed.

Upon seeing the poor girl, Don and the others quickly rushed towards her, baring concerned looks. They gathered around her and began to console the wailing girl.

From the looks of it, I quickly judged they were familiar with the little girl. I slowly walked behind and followed while observing the situation.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Don asked the wailing girl. "Is it Rob again?"

"N-no, it's not…" the little girl lets out a sniffle before replying.

"Then what is it?" Trise asks the little girl wiping her tears.

"I-it's Muffin! He's gone~" the little girl said while letting out a big wail.

"Muffin? Who, or what is that...?"

The girl continued to wail deeply before I could get my question answered. She rubbed her already swollen eyes and cried.

"Shh, shh, shh. It's okay.... don't cry..." As I watched Don's attempt at calming the girl, I suppressed the urge to burst into laughter. A snicker, however, broke from my lips and all six of them including the little girl looked my way.

Leon looked exasperated and Trise growled. I instinctively averted their gazes awkwardly.

They got the girl to calm down and asked her what happened.

The aforementioned Muffin was her dog. And the said dog had gone missing since yesterday. According to the girl, this wouldn't be the first time her dog has gone out on its own.

But in contrast to this case, he would normally have returned that same day before dinner. But a full day passed and the pet dog had yet to return and the little girl was upset at that.

"Ho, that's it?" The first to boldly speak up with vigor was Don. He said,

"That's no reason to worry. But if you insist, we'll find your dog and bring him back. Leave it to us." Don assured the little girl and took on the job of searching for the missing dog. Objection came from none of the others but all gave reassuring firm nods of approval behind him.

"R-really?" The girl scratched her eyes once again and sniffled. Her face began to lighten up just a little hearing this.

"Yeah, we'll find your dog in no time at all," Kyle added.

I looked around and observed the faces of the party. They all wore innocent smiles and nodded with no care of the world.

Sigh...

I guess we're going dog hunting now.

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It didn't take long before we started.

We went around the village, searching for muffin the lost dog. We asked around for any last sightings of the dog.

Fortunately, Don and the others were quite familiar with the dog's appearance, so they could easily describe it to the villagers and identify it when found.

The good news is, we managed to confirm a few sightings of Muffin from the villagers. The bad news is, they were all from yesterday and are no longer in any of those places.

Judging from what I've heard from the little girl and the villagers, the dog is quite the adventurous one.

Nevertheless, we made our way to the spots Muffin was sighted in search of any clue, but found nothing.

We were however able to confirm Muffin was in some of those locations.

He didn't forget to leave us a clue, though smelly.

But aside from finding poo, we have absolutely no clues or hints on his whereabouts. We searched the entire village but found nothing.

"We've been searching and searching, but have found no clues. How are we even sure Muffin is still within the village?" Kyle said flatly.

"Stop whining, Kyle. And keep searching." Trise quickly rebukes with a growl.

Though, there might be meaning in Kyle's whining. Muffin really might no longer still be in the village, there is that possibility as well.

Wait, didn't we confirm a sighing of muffins along the walls of the village from one of the villagers?

"No, Kyle might be right." Leon said, "Muffin might no longer be In the village, so how about we go check the walls? We might find something there." Leon voices out exactly what I was thinking.

"Okay then, let's check it out." With that, we make our way to the village's wall.

We got to the wall separating most of the forest from the village. It was a tall wall made of stones and mud for reinforcement. It was tall but not huge, just tall enough, I guess.

We scaled the edges of the wall, possibly looking for paw prints.

"Hm? Sniff-sniff." A skin-crawling odor whiffed past my nose, nearly making me double over. The others also noticed the odor and the first one to speak was Trise.

"Jeez! What is that smell?!"

"Hey, guys. Come check this out!" Leon who was a little away from the group called out to us and we immediately made our way to him.

"You found something? What is it?"

Don let out a gasp at the sight.

"wh-what is that? Wait, is that poo?" Kyle added with an arm hanging over his nose.

"You called us...to check out dog crap? How relevant, Leon. How relevant." Kyle rolled his eye and said.

"Of course not, If only you would take a better look, you'll see what I mean." Leon quickly bites back and gestures toward the turd lying around the ground.

I leaned in closer and observed the brownish shapeless warped... something. And then I realized.

Oh! I see what Leon means. So that's why he called us here?

The shape of the poo was on the odd side, and the color says it has been here for a while. If you tilt your head a little to the side, the poo looked like a flamingo standing on one leg, tilt your head to the other side, and it looks like a hopping rabbit.

It would have been cool, if only it wasn't dog crap.

"Come on, Kyle. Don't you get it? If you tilt your head a little to the side, it looks like some bird. And when you tilt your head to the other side, it looks like a rabbit!" Don spoke up first smacking Kyle in the back of his head.

"That's obviously why he called us here. But Leon, I don't mean to pry, but don't you think having an interest in oddly shaped poo is a bit weird?" He added.

"That's not it, you idiot!" Leon snapped, "Take a really good look at this, what_ do_ you_ notice?"

"Oh! Now I see it. You're right. It does look like a bird and a rabbit?" Kyle finally noticed and said.

"No, that still isn't it!" Leon snapped again, "Fine! I get the poo has a peculiar shape, but look, tracks are leading out of it!"

"Hm?" Listening to his words, we all leaned in closer, just enough that we could still manage to bear the stench.

Leon was right. Tracks were leading from the oddly shaped poo. They were tracks of dog paw prints. A sigh of comfort left my lips.

Good thing it wasn't the odd shape poo. That was disturbing.

"Leon is right! Dog prints are leading from the poo!" kyle said. "Oh! Yeah, that's true. But still, so?"

"Yeah, so?"

Damn! These guys are idiots.

Leon let out a long groan and said, "So if we follow these prints to where they lead, we find Muffin or get an idea of his whereabouts." Leon explains to the blockheads.

"Oh! Right, that's true!" Kyle said.

"As expected of Leon. Don, Kyle. You two could learn a few from Leon." Trise said.

"S-shut-up!"x2 both Don and Kyle rebuked.

As the kids bickered, I caught a glance of Lia looking my way. She quickly averts my eyes and looks away.

...

We followed the paw tracks to where they ked but were however cut off by the wall. Underneath a certain area, there was dug-up dirt.

I guess the dog did leave the village.

"Okay! Let's get over to the other side and save Muffin!" Don declares.

Ah! It's amazing how he decided that Muffin's in deep shit already.

"Even if you say that, how do we get to the other side?" Kyle voices out what we were all probably thinking.

"Couldn't we just boost each other over the wall?" the most obvious suggestion slipped right out of my mouth and the gazes of the five all fell on me again.

It was however different this time around.

It all said, 'oh right',

"Hmph-hmph-hmph. As expected of Reo. What a brilliant idea! you know, Trise. You could learn a thing or two from Reo." Don said mockingly with an equal sneer before getting a chokehold from Trise.

His complexion visibly turned a pale blue as the oxygen found it hard to circulate.

It took a while, but we talked Trise out of releasing Don and after receiving him from the brink of oxygen deprivation, we got ourselves over the wall. And into the forest