Reaping What’s Cured

Morning hits a little harder than normal for Vic. Coming into the kitchen, he finally sits for breakfast, his mom waiting for him at the table, reading again. “Son, your friend slept outside in his tent. Did you two have a fight?”

“No, Momma. He’s got some kind of curse. Makes him sleep all Sunday.”

“Mmm hmm… Sure it’s not laziness?” she questions without even looking at her son.

“It’s not. The mask over his eyes? It don’t come off. At all. It forces him to have nightmares in general and sleep on Sundays.”

“Strange, guess he can’t cure it?” she asks before taking a sip of her coffee.

“Nope.” Vic eats at the pancakes. “I missed these. It felt like I was doing that gauntlet for a month.”

“Mind if I ask you something, son?”

Vic looks up at her. “You’ve never said that before.”

“I know, this is just hard to ask. I’m glad your brothers aren’t here.”

“Alright, Momma,” Vic wipes his mouth with the napkin. “Ask away.”

She puts down what she’s reading and turns to her son. “You really were going to help pay off the farm and just quit being a knight for me-for us. Weren’t you? I may have overheard what you were saying a little.”

“That was the plan, yeah.”

“I guess that changed.”

“It did. Hisoki kinda helped me realize that I don’t like things how they are. Working isn’t the issue for me, I enjoy working. Why do we have to suffer is what I wanna know. Day in and day out, bandits are holding up carriages and wagons. People are starving and unable to find jobs in the most wealthy and ‘blessed’ kingdom in the world. Doesn’t that rub you the wrong way?”

“Sweetheart… This is another reason why I tell you to focus on family. When you start looking at other things, you start seeing how bad things truly are.”

“I’m supposed to just live in ignorant bliss? Not try to better the things just a tiny bit beyond my arm’s reach? Or, you know… Maybe in the kingdom I live in. The people I sell food to, at least.”

“I guess that is too much to ask of you. You’re a grown man and you certainly know how to care for this farm. If you think you can make life better for others and make the farm better, then you do that. I can’t stop you as much as I could your sister.”

“Mom…”

“No, no. I’m serious. You do whatever you feel is right. I want you to work here with your hands, toil for the dream of family freedom. If you think there’s something better than that? Chase it.” She stands and walks over to her son with a tiny hobble, then holds his hand like a caring mom would. “I’d rather be a hypocrite to my own belief than hold you back any longer.”

“Mom…” Vic stands and hugs her. “I’ll change something for the better so everyone can benefit, I don’t care what it is.” He pulls back from the hug. “Gonna draw some water, maybe clean some things.”

“Alrighty, be careful.”

Vic has been drawing water and cleaning parts of the farm for a little while when another flash appears at the start of the homestead. Vic stands, wipes his hands off, and walks over, seeing a familiar person waving at him from afar. “Nozomi?” Vic mutters, meeting her halfway. “What are you doing here?”

She holds up two letters. “I brought documents for you and Hisoki. As well as Hisoki’s key for his new place, since you said you had a home.” She looks over his shoulder. “And a nice one at that!” she says while handing him his letter.

Vic opens and reads it. It’s a formal welcome to her team, with Nozomi’s seal on it. “How did you come all the way out here?”

“Knights are allowed teleportation stones to specific sections of Magen.” She pulls hers out of her bag. “You just happen to have the receiving stone installed just above your homestead on that post.”

“Huh… When did that get there?”

“Not sure, but it’s official. Which means…” Nozomi hands Vic another stone from her bag. “You get one too.”

“So, I don’t have to take the train?”

“Nope!”

“Strange question… Do debt collectors have access to those stones?”

“Uh, no? Why?”

“I think there’s a knight among the debt collectors using these stones. They come to our farm every week, but they’ve always appeared in a flash of light, so I just assumed they were using teleportation magic.”

“If they are using the stones for collections, that’s a misuse of them. Those stones are meant for the knights’ convenience, not a business. Oh! Good. Hisoki has set up his tent.” She walks over to it and stops herself. “Right, Sunday.” She pinches her brow. “Okay, well, I’m not going back until I hand him this stuff. Need any help here?”

“I was in the middle of cleaning when you showed up.”

“Oh! I like cleaning! I take care of our barracks.”

“You, the lead of a knight team, clean the barracks. You don’t get a lackey or something to do it?”

“I wish. We all have our part to play. I do the cleaning, cooking, and leading.” She sticks her hand out. “Alright, can I get a wash cloth?”

“Uh, wash cloth? I got a rag.” He hands her one. It’s ragged, damp, and torn.

“D-do you wash this after you clean with it?”

“I wring it out.” Vic says, picking up a shovel to clean the barn.

“I’ve got my work cut out for me…”

They spend hours washing and scrubbing, finding the bristle brushes more to Nozomi’s pace. She’s scraping years of grime from the floors in the home now. Vic’s mom doesn’t even say anything to her as she enters their home and begins cleaning. As soon as Nozomi begins running out of water, there’s a loud thud from outside. “Shit!” Vic yells. Nozomi rushes out to see him on his back, the thud being the shovel he knocked over, hitting the bucket. He’s fallen back in front of the water pump for the stream.

“What’s wrong?”

“The damn spout! Something is coming out of it and bit the hell out of me!” Vic points out the wooden spout of the pump. Nozomi walks over and sees a yellow gelatinous substance coming from the spout in one massive piece. It plops out onto the ground, and eyes open, looking directly at Nozomi.

“Oh shit. Vic, it’s a slime. It’s huge, too.”

“I see that! They don’t come to my farm. Ever. How do we kill it?”

“Magic. We don’t have properly blessed weapons to kill this.” She reaches in her bag.

“Then I’m useless.”

“Hang on, not completely.” She pulls out a wand, tapping his weapon on his hip. “There. You’ve got two minutes. Anything you release from that weapon is now functionally magic.”

“That’ll do just fine.” Vic pulls out his peacemaker and fires twice. The slime shivers as the projectiles penetrate it. Then it explodes and covers Nozomi and Vic in the remnants. “What the-?” Vic lets out a yell as he’s shocked several times from the substance.

“That slime was elec-” She’s suddenly shocked too, being covered by more of the stuff than Vic was. Once the pain finally ends, that much energy has burned away the remnants left on them. “T-that… Was awful.”

“Shit…” Vic has to sit a moment.

“Why the hell would an electric slime travel through a water pump?” Nozomi pants, holding her knees.

“I think I know now.” Vic points to more slimes coming from the water. Red, blue, more yellow, green. They begin eating the crops, dissolving them. “Shit!” Vic shoots to stop the red one, causing it to explode and set the dirt on fire.

“This is really bad!” Nozomi says, pulling out a bottle of something from her bag, throwing it at the fire. The bottle breaks and instantly extinguishes the fire way faster than water. “We are not equipped for this.” She decides to pull out her knife and tap the wand she used before against it. “Two minutes…” She rushes the slimes, slicing the fire ones and dropping a potion in the same moment to contain the explosion and stop the flame. She runs into one of the green slimes that are seeping from the ground now, since so many are congregating on the farm, and the acid burns her leg. She takes a small tumble. “Gah!” She grabs her leg where it’s exposed.

“She can’t kill these things and prevent them from hurting the farm.” Vic mutters. “I need to-” He stands up and starts reloading his weapon when something tugs on his pant leg. He looks down, thinking it’s a slime, but it’s a kobold! Hisoki’s kobold!

“Excuse me, Sir Vic.” He’s wearing a helmet that barely fits and holding a huge mace with runes around it. “It is quite loud out here and you appear to be having trouble. Would you like me to assist you?”

“Yes, can you kill these things without hurting the crops?”

“Of course. No damage will come to your crops or myself.” The kobold walks over to a mass of the slimes, and with both hands he takes the mace and bats five of them far away. So far, in fact, that they disappear past the treeline without breaking a single slime. The slimes focus their uncoordinated efforts on getting the crops, but the kobold bats them away like a very annoying fly, then makes his way over to Nozomi and hands her a potion. “Master gives me one in case of an emergency.”

She takes the potion and drinks it while he keeps the slimes at bay. “You’re way stronger than before.”

“Thanks to the belt Master gave me.” He tugs at the belt barely hanging onto his tiny hip. “This weapon feels more like a small branch.”

“Think you can help me kill the blue ones? Your mace seems to be immune to the acid of the green ones and the electricity of the yellow.”

“As you wish, Miss Nozomi. I appreciate your company.” He scoots a blue slime toward her with the mace, and she stabs it, causing it to pop but nothing else. He sends the last of the yellow ones flying. However, eventually, a multitude of the green slimes combine into an ooze, and the ooze is nearly as big as the barn itself. It even starts moving toward it.

“What the hell is it doing?” Vic catches up to the kobold and Nozomi. “It’s going to eat the damn animals, how do we even stop it?”

The kobold sets down the mace and fixes his helmet. “I believe stopping this is impossible.”

“You’re kidding, right? Go hit it!” Nozomi says.

“That would be futile, the belt makes me strong but not that strong.”

“Forget this.” Vic shoots four times into the massive green ooze. Nothing. “What?!”

“As I said, futile.” The kobold says and walks back to the tent.

“Where are you going? Get back here you little-” Vic yells, but Nozomi stops him.

“Let him go. We have bigger things to worry about.”

“What’s the plan?” Vic asks her, trying to keep a level head.

“Keep this thing from touching the barn.”

They proceed to try everything, from hitting it with water from buckets to make it slow down, to burning it with one of Nozomi’s wands. Nothing is working. The only saving grace is that this thing is slow. Very slow. Vic’s dogs have been barking at it for hours as it moves closer to the barn. “We can’t keep doing this… It’s getting too close.” Nozomi admits.

“You’re telling me.” Vic laments, panting from trying to shovel dirt against it. When his pant leg is tugged, he sees the kobold again.

“I have returned,” he says.

“Yeah, a little late, don’t ya think?”

“Master said he’ll be with you momentarily. He also told me you should be roughly ten meters or more away from the ooze.”

“What the hell are you talking about? It’s not even-” Vic starts, but Nozomi cuts him off.

“It is midnight, Vic.”

“Oh good. Well, don’t let me keep the clown. By all means, take as much time as he needs! It’s not like my barn is about to melt!”

A sleepy, groggy, and annoyed Hisoki comes walking in his pajamas and robe, sliding one glove on with his teeth and holding a cup of coffee in his other hand. “Where is it… I just had a twenty-four-hour nap and I’m exhausted…” he says while wiping his eye through his mask as best he can, trying to look around. “Oh, I see.” He hands Nozomi his coffee. He walks over to the ooze and places his gloved hand just inches from it. “Kipaon.” Ice rips through the slime and encases the entire thing, freezing it inside and out as a giant ice statue. “There.” He walks back over to Nozomi and takes back his coffee. Both Nozomi and Vic just look at him.

“T-that’s it?” Vic asks. “You just froze it! It’s still just sitting there!”

“Not really your best work, Hisoki…” Nozomi puts away her knife.

Hisoki points to the still frozen ooze. “Hit it.”

“What? Why?”

“Just hit it,” Hisoki says, sounding a tad annoyed.

Vic shrugs, walks up to it, takes out his knife, and hits the mass of ice with the bottom of the handle. Cracks form, spreading fast, and then it poofs into snow. “Holy-! Could’ve used the warning!”

“Oh well… You got it.” Hisoki turns around to go back to his tent when Nozomi stops him by standing in front of him.

“Hey! Nice to see you too. Here, I brought you this.” Nozomi hands him an envelope and a teleportation stone.

Hisoki pockets the items and covers his face. “I’m sorry, Nozomi… I’m highly cranky, and I haven’t eaten in a while.”

“That would be my fault,” Vic says, raising his hand a little. “I sorta kept him from eating his first day here. I thought you were pissed at me.”

“I would’ve been more cheerful if I’d just had a meal.”

“No banana in the morning?” Nozomi asks without hesitation.

“Didn’t have time. Had him make my coffee while I got my robe and boots on, then I came right out here.”

Nozomi takes his shoulder. “Then how about this. I’ll make you something to eat. We’ll talk, relax, maybe you can squeeze in more sleep. Not that you haven’t slept enough! I’m just saying you could use it on a full stomach.”

“I guess…” Hisoki walks back with her to the tent, and the kobold follows, dragging his mace.

Vic, looking a little guilty, goes into his house. After some time, the kobold is washing potatoes while Nozomi chops them and Hisoki is curled up on his couch, boots off, nodding off a little. Vic steps into the tent and sets down four steaks wrapped in dark brown kraft paper and tied to keep them sealed. “Figured I’d pitch in. Say my own sorry to Nodding Nancy over there.”

“Huh?” Hisoki shakes awake.

“I said I brought steak.” He then turns his attention to Nozomi and the grill she’s putting wood into. “I’ll cook the steaks if you do the potatoes and whatever else.”

“Got any beef broth?” Nozomi asks him.

“Oh yeah, Momma keeps that stuff in the basement jarred up nice and cold.”

They keep making food while Hisoki just listens. He just smiles seeing his two friends making his tent the most lively it’s ever been.

They are all three eating together, with the kobold eating in his room, talking about how strange the first challenge was. Hisoki is staying on the couch while Nozomi sits on the opposite end. Vic is sitting in the chair, leaning forward to keep his plate on the table. “I wasn’t sure what to do,” Vic says, sawing off another bite of steak and pointing his knife at Hisoki. “Then this guy comes out of nowhere! He deals with that ice pillar like it was a bush fire.”

“I couldn’t see that! The Sight Spheres in the area were frozen and couldn’t monitor anyone.” Both Vic and Hisoki look at each other when she says that. “What happened next?”

“Well… Uh… After he destroyed the pillar using Sadi’s spell that he caught days before, the guy didn’t really feel like fighting anymore.” He stuffs the bite he cut off into his mouth so he doesn’t have to talk.

“Uh huh.” She forks at the potatoes on her plate. “You two have been trying to kill other challengers left and right when they approach you, and this guy had one of you on the back foot, and you didn’t kill him. Don’t take this personally, it’s just hard to believe. I don’t want to press the matter any further, and we’re having a good time. Just know I won’t say a thing.”

Hisoki looks at Vic, then back at her. “I turned him into gold.”

She pulls the potato chunk off her fork with her teeth and shoots him a shocked look. She takes a moment to gather her thoughts while she eats. “I’m not mad, but don’t do that again.”

“You’re not gonna ask how?” Hisoki pokes the remaining potatoes on his own plate, looking away from Nozomi.

“Nope. The less I know, the better. Vic? How did you get this meat so crispy and juicy?”

“Oh, uh… I made sure to get the heat really high and gave the meat the time it needed. I rubbed some butter on it toward the end and let it rest for about ten minutes before we could eat it. Which is why I smacked your kobold’s claws when he reached for his steak before it was ready.”

“He’s grabby. Surprised he hasn’t asked for your hat yet.” Hisoki sets his plate down, having eaten all of his food before anyone else.

“Get enough?” Nozomi asks.

“Oh yeah… And now I’m tired. Properly tired, to be exact. Oh, and Nozomi,” He hands her the key back from the envelope. “I won’t be needing that house. I think I’d like to live here near Vic.”

“A-are you sure?” she’s astonished. “I remember you mentioning you wanted a more permanent place to live.”

“I do. And, well, this tent has been my home for three years. I’m not ready to leave it yet. I thought I was, though!”

She takes the key. “You’re a knight now, Hisoki. Your choices are yours. I’ll hold onto this for you in case you change your mind. Oh! I have to ask, will you be accepting my request today?”

“Well… Is it a level three?”

Nozomi can’t contain herself herself from how excited she that Hisoki asked. “Actually, I’m risking a lot here. It’s level four.”

“Level four?” Vic says. “Is that even doable with our team?”

“Yes, it is. I had to work a bit to get that for my team. I promised one of the kings I’d find at least ten magic items in that cave. With you two on my team? Even if it’s temporary, Hisoki, we’ll succeed. I have something else to tell you.” She pulls out a book from her bag. “This is the rule book for knights. It’s gone by a few names: Knight’s Dictatum, Knight’s Order, and more. Either way, I was looking through it.” She opens it to a bookmarked page. “It turns out Luscious is lacking in his reading skills. You don’t have to finish seven level three missions, Hisoki. You just need to finish five. If you go above level three, the number reduces. After this level four mission, you just need two level three missions.”

“You’re kidding!” Hisoki sits up. “That’s all?”

“Well, it’s not going to be easy. I said we can do this mission. I didn’t say it would be like picking flowers.” Nozomi closes the book and puts it away.

“Well, how does the rest of your team feel about risking their life for someone they haven’t met yet?” Vic asks, finishing off his steak.

“Half of them… weren’t happy I contended so hard for such a difficult mission. The rest though are really itching for a challenge.”

“Can’t please everyone.” Vic says, standing as he sees the clock. “Welp, it’s two in the mornin’; time for bed.” He stretches, taking his, Nozomi’s, and even Hisoki’s plates into the kitchen. “You two enjoy yourselves. Clown? Get more sleep. Nozomi? I’ll see you in a few hours.” Vic leaves Hisoki’s tent.

“You’re not too upset I made a new friend, right, Nozomi?”

“Nope. He seems nice. I mean, he’s kind of stuck in his thinking, but he means well. He doesn’t like messing up, clearly.”

“I think it’s more than that. I don’t think Vic likes being put in a position with no way out. Guilt can feel like that.” Hisoki stares at his clock.

“Since he’s gone, I wanted to ask you something. How is your plan going?”

“It’s fifty-fifty. Either it works, or it doesn’t.”

“If it doesn’t?”

“I assume that’ll just be it for me.” Hisoki stands and heads to his bedroom for a second, leaving the door open so he can still hear Nozomi.

“You do know it’s crazy, right?”

“I know it seems like it, although-” Hisoki comes back with a very large scroll and rolls it out on the table. “-This scroll was nearly destroyed while I was getting it. It did confirm what your dad said. God Knights get their power from a dew that descends from above.” He points to a crude depiction of a man reaching for a golden dew drop. “Your dad was right, and your hypothesis was correct. There’s some criteria that makes someone a God Knight, something that causes the sky to give up this power.”

“I can’t believe it,” she says, looking over the scroll. “This is actually possible…”

“Nozomi, if everything goes as planned; I’m going to take this dew for myself.”