And off Phelia was again, as if her treasure chest outburst had never happened. Right back on her feet, with that little pitter-patter she made because her legs were too short. Otto followed beside her, chomping at the bit to get into another fight.

Mino and Amelia did their best to keep up.

Phelia, not ten minutes after nearly falling to her doom, was now embarking on a brand-new mission: Searching for the horrific monster they had all briefly glimpsed passing by.

A legendary beast, most likely. A being of massive size and thundering presence, one who even Amelia felt a little off-put by when it first rumbled through the area. And absolutely not something she was aiming to kill today. If she was alone, maybe she would hunt down this innocent mindless beast, if only for the massive mana it would provide as a reward. But with two of her closest friends as companions, she wanted nothing more than to keep them out of harm’s way.

It was unfortunate, then, that Phelia was actively throwing herself towards harm’s way.

Mino and Amelia rushed behind Phelia and tried to hail her down, tried to get her to stop and think about anything at all for a second.

“Phelia, Phelia, Phelia,” Mino began. “Can’t we talk—She’s not listening. She can’t hear me.” She turned to Amelia. “Can you... Do that teleport thing again or something? Stop her from chasing this monster?”

Amelia shook her head. “I’m out of energy. Took a lot out of me already. I need to save it up in case we really do find the legendary beast.”

“Well then, what about... Come on, surely...”

“Any other option I have involves my Combat Module. I don’t want to kill her.”

Mino, still running ahead, shrugged as if in resignation. Apparently, she had just come up with a brand-new plan, because her eyes locked into a sudden determination.

She reached behind to pick a water bottle attached to her bag, and hastily unscrewed its lid. Water poured out of it and then began to float alongside her in mid-air, forming into an orb big enough to create a quite big splash. Then she tossed the water bottle aside for Amelia to catch and began to work her magic.

“Phelia, get back over here!” she shouted as the sphere of water uncoiled into a long, thin strand, and then rushed into the kobold. It caught her by the ankle and yanked her back from where she stood.

The woman yelped as she flew helplessly through the air, dragged back by Mino’s water whip. She fluttered her wings, which did nothing, and then guided by Mino she landed right on her feet, facing the two women.

Otto kept running for another thirty seconds before he realized that everyone else had stopped and rejoined them.

Mino let the water whip dissipate and splash onto the ground, then put her hands on her hips. “Phelia Shak! You are going to stop being a fool right this instant and explain what the hell is going on.”

“...” The kobold was too dumbstruck to respond.

“You can’t go running off after a huge monster like you’re going to fight it!” Mino shouted. “We’re not equipped for that, not when we don’t even know what that thing is. We might have done well against melanoids, but those are mindless energy whatevers. Legendary beasts are legendary for a reason! You are NOT ready to fight one.”

“Mino...”

“What?”

“But... I am. I’m ready. I have to be.”

“Absolutely not.”

“If I’m not ready, then I’ll never be able to live, so what’s the point in not trying?”

“Wha?” Now Mino was the dumbstruck one.

“My quest. If I don’t finish, I’ll be stuck like this forever, just this wimpy wannabe adventurer who never got to prove herself or nothing.”

Amelia cut in. “Quest? Why do you keep saying that? Please.”

She blinked a few times. “You know, my quests? I’m a kobold.”

“...”

“You don’t know about my quests.”

“No.”

“Because there aren’t any kobolds in Sunwell,” she said to herself in the sudden realization of just how confusing she had been for so long. “It honestly just slipped my mind that anyone wouldn’t know, that... So elves don’t have quests, right? Like, magical ones?”

Mino shook her head.

“And golems... Uh, humans don’t either?”

“Not aware of any.”

“Gods, I’m so stupid!” Phelia shouted. “I made myself look like a fool.”

“Yeah,” Amelia agreed.

“I’m so sorry. Really. I bet I’m looking really stupid right about now, because you think I’m being an idiot and running around trying to get myself killed. Well... It’s just really important, like the main point of my entire life, you know? Kobolds all get magical quests when they come of age, and we can’t fully call ourselves adults until we finish them. It’s a thing for our whole race.”

“You’re... not an adult?” Mino continued to hold her hands on her hips, not relenting on her scolding posture just yet, but she clearly was starting to break away from her anger.

“I am, I am! I’m twenty-five, you know,” she insisted, Puffing up her cheeks in a decidedly childlike way. “In the normal society, I’m totally grown up. But as a kobold, I’m just a “Traveler.” That means if I go back home, I can’t hold any jobs or take any leadership positions, and I’ll never be able to use magic... Like the kind Mino used on me.” She giggled with a guilty look on her face. “I guess you almost never see kobolds in Fleettwixt, but almost every tribe in our whole race sends its children to scatter across the land when they turn twenty, so we can all complete our quests. We travel the world, learn a lot of new things, gain experience and meet different people, then we complete our magical quests.”

“And those quests?”

Phelia nodded. “Yeah, I guess I should explain them. All the kobold tribes who do quests have this big ceremony for a brood, exactly twenty years after our hatching. The tribe elders come out and perform big magic, and then they assign us three big quests to complete, wherever or whenever we want. Every tribe has one specific Tribal Quest that every person has to complete no matter when we come of age, handed down from the Gods a thousand years ago or something. Then each hatchling year gets its own Brood Quest that the elders hand out at the ceremony, so something we all need to do to help the tribe improve together. Then we each consult with an elder, who commune with the Gods and discover our Personal Quest, different for every person. It’s a secret we’re not allowed to tell anyone, or the magic might stop working, but it’s the most important one of them all. When we complete the quests, we get extra magical power, kind of unlocking the rest of us.”

She continued. “Most kobolds become Travelers and leave our homeland to explore the world and complete our quests. If we do, we aren’t allowed to come back until we complete all three, and that usually takes a few years. Since it’s the same time every year, at the beginning of summer, there’s a lot of cities that prepare for “kobold season” and have lots of services set up to help Travelers adjust to the outside world. And a lot of people who prey on innocent young adults... You know how it is.” She frowned at this, as if recalling a memory she clearly did not want to discuss. “The goal is to bring back as much experience to the tribe as possible, so we can improve ourselves without letting ourselves be conquered by our stronger neighbors.”

“Kobolds travel all around the world to help their people improve. I see,” Amelia said. “Myxos do the same thing. Bring back experiences for the rest of their people.”

“Yeah, but myxos are weird shapeshifter slime people. They all start as the same person, then they go off and do their own thing. They’re almost always loners, so it’s a whole different situation. Kobolds travel in big groups. A whole brood of Travelers will go to the same part of the world and work together to complete their quests.” She paused for a moment in the same realization that Amelia and Mino had—she was by herself, just like a myxo. “I’m... I didn’t really like my brood. You know? I grew up with the same five thousand jerks for twenty years, so why would I want to keep being around them instead of exploring the world for myself? That’s why I’m here in Fleettwixt. My brood went to, like, Calathan, I think it was called. Much warmer, way more monsters on land. I’m sure ninety-nine percent of them already went back to Yoro. Uh, that’s my home continent.”

“That’s a really lonely way to live,” Mino said, finally dropping the hands-on-hips look. Instead, she placed a hand on Phelia’s horns and rubbed them.

“Well, it’s fine because I have you guys at the hostel.”

“Well, we’ll always be here for you.”

They traded smiles. Quite cute ones.

“The hostel is the best because none of you are kobolds, so you don’t judge me just because I’ve been a Traveler for five years and I’ve only done one quest.”

“And that’s why you never told us? Because you didn’t want us to feel bad for you?”

“Well, no. I honestly just sort of forgot that people up in the Northern Reaches don’t know much about kobolds. Well, other continents still don’t know much, but they know all the stereotypes. We’re tiny weaklings with a penchant for getting ourselves killed and breaking cultural norms.” She wore a kind of smile that looked like a frown. “I’m kind of glad about that, too, but I guess I should have told you about my quests...”

“And you’ve done one, already?” Mino asked. “Well, that’s a start. I’m sure you’ll get the other two.”

“Yeah, my Brood Quest. It was ‘Discover a hidden treasure.’ That’s what the elders commanded, and that’s what we all did it. I was still with the rest of my brood when I completed it. I spent a bunch of time exploring that Calathan continent and searching for awesome treasure, but then it turned out that it was just a stupid metaphor. I unlocked the quest by finding an old human woman’s recipe for four-layer pie and telling the rest of my brood about it. Now it’s already a popular dish back home, I heard. All I got was some swirly magical beams around me, and then nothing changed. It sucks, because I wanted real treasure, not a metaphor!”

It made a lot of sense. Phelia had a knack for adventuring, for exploring the world and finding new places, so it was natural to be disappointed that her quest would not turn out to be as exciting as she wanted. Amelia suspected that these quests were intentionally extremely vague, though, in order to help young kobolds accomplish them more quickly and return to their tribes.

“Well, what’s your other two?” Mino asked.

“I’m from the Eastern Tribe on Yoro, so my Tribal Quest is one of the hardest in the whole world! It’s ‘Bring glory by slaying a mighty beast.’ Kinda clear on that one, right? And my Personal Quest is... a secret. But it’s really important.”

“So you’re chasing the giant looming monster for... this?”

“Yeah? Yeah, of course. I’ve gotta do it.”

“But won’t this Brood Quest be a big metaphorical thing too?” Mino looked entirely unconvinced that Phelia was less foolish than she appeared, even after all of her explaining.

“Uh, maybe? I was kind of hoping that treasure could count as a ‘mighty beast,’ but Amelia—” She looked at her with another guilty glance— “Amelia helped me without knowing because I didn’t tell her.”

Mino beamed in that motherly way. “Maybe there’s something else non-violent. Something where we can help you? You’ve got a family with us, and we’ll always help you out.”

But Phelia shook her head, tapped the oversized axe that rested on her back, gave a smile that would make a hardened assassin blush. “Don’t need it. My quest’s right here in front of me, and I know for absolute certain that this is it. This is my chance, and I’m going to succeed or die trying. I’m going to become an adventurer.”

And she meant it. Amelia looked at her and saw nothing but absolute honesty, true tenacity from someone who absolutely had no chance except to try her best. She did not say these things to hide some secret death wish, nor did she have foolhardy bravado. She was clearly outmatched, underprepared, and was far from thinking ahead, but it was not some hidden secret—she wore it plain there on her face. A novice with ambition beyond belief.

Mino saw it too. Her sternness had already melted away, and, likely without even noticing it, she let her supportive best friend side slide back in. The woman that everyone liked to be around because she trusted her companions with just about everything. “Fine, Phelia,” she said. “I get it. I completely do. I’ve got a pretty ridiculous life mission myself, you know, trying to revitalize our dying neighborhood, even when I know how hard it’s going to be.” Then, hands on hips again. “But we will NOT let you go get yourself killed over this. Phelia Shak, you are one of the most important people in our entire lives. I care deeply about you, and I know Amelia does too, even if she’s too broody and quiet to say it.”

Amelia folded her arms at this remark.

“We’re going to do this TOGETHER,” Mino said. “Whether you like it or not, you won’t be a hero alone. You’ll have us with you.”

Phelia, too, folded her arms. “Guess that settles it. No way I can hunt this thing by myself, anyway. I don’t even know how to track it!”

Amelia took one hand and pointed to the muddy ground beside the group.

A giant five-toed footprint that looked more like a human had tried to make snow angels with dirt. And then more footprints leading into a cramped tunnel to the side of the cavern.

“Oh.”

They set off together, with Amelia newly and non-consentingly enlisted into fighting a legendary beast she knew nothing about.

And, honestly, she was fine with that. Even if it turned out to be an innocent animal, she would do it for Phelia.

For quite a while, they followed the tracks, with no sign of the beast itself anywhere in sight. No creatures at all, really, unless one counted the ever-present Otto. Enough time passed that it grew uncertain whether or not the creature was even in Floor 3, or if it found some tunnel up or down that they would never discover. It retraced its steps enough times, by the footprints, that it was intentionally obscuring its path from would-be hunters. And none of the trio were skilled enough to confidently make it past that.

Fortunately...

They were not alone here in Floor 3.

For, following the same trail, stood a cloak-wearing, crossbow-wielding, pointy-eared felid with long whiskers and a wry smile. The hunter they had seen on Floor 1. Mino and Phelia both gasped quietly.

They tipped their hat. “Figured you ladies were after the same thing as me.”

Amelia took a step forward, subtly shifting into a protective stance in case their intentions towards Mino and Phelia were less than pure. “Lucky guess.”

The hunter looked down and stared at Otto in silence for a while. Without breaking eye contact with the olm, they said, “You’re a real interesting group. Mind if I join up?”

“And just who are you?” Mino asked.

“Name’s Mike. Monster hunter. And I want to kill that beast, just like you.”

---

WARNING: While we still have time, I have to inform you: I'm getting close to finalizing the rest of this story. We're less than halfway through the story now, but I'm going to outline the rest of the story soon, and after that point nothing is going to change. This is to say, SHIPPERS, if you have any particular love interest dreams with these characters kissing each other, let it be known ASAP, because you may do very well to influence the ending of this story.