“Find someone? Who?”
Kiro immediately perked up.
“Oh! I know! You mean we go find that blue four-armed weirdo and get the Spirit Calling Bell and the dog squad?”
The more she talked, the more excited she became, already planning everything out by herself.
“Then we go to Stormhill Shack, find the Red Riding Hood girl, talk to her a few times, and get her jellyfish too! Then we’ll have two summons!”
Listening to all the bizarre nicknames she gave those game elements, Loran felt his temple throb again.
“What are those names...”
He complained weakly, then shook his head.
“And you’re thinking too simply.”
“How is that simple?”
Kiro immediately argued back, unconvinced.
“With the dog squad tearing at him and the jellyfish poisoning him, while we throw magic and incantations from the back, isn’t that a classic strategy? That’s how everyone does it in the game.”
“That’s the game.”
Loran looked at her with pity, as if looking at an idiot.
“With that Margit we just saw, do you really think your ‘dog squad’ and ‘jellyfish’ can beat him?”
“...Then what do you suggest?”
Kiro pouted, unhappy again.
“This doesn’t work, that doesn’t work. Don’t tell me we’re really going to take a detour. I don’t want to be a coward.”
“We’re going to find Patches,” Loran said.
“Patches?”
Kiro froze for a moment.
The name felt a little familiar, but she could not remember exactly who it was.
She frowned, searching hard through her limited memory storage.
Then, as if struck by lightning, the name of a key item surfaced in her mind.
“Oh! Oh! I remember now! There’s an item called Margit’s Shackle, right? The bald guy sells it! The thing that can pin the Omen to the ground and stop him from moving?”
Loran glanced sideways at her, his tone carrying a little surprise.
“So you don’t have the memory of a goldfish after all.”
If this had been before, Kiro would definitely have exploded on the spot.
But after everything they had been through, her threshold seemed to have risen.
[Affection: -99]
[Status: Sudden Realization / Excited / Used to Being Mocked]
The affection number above her head did not move at all.
She simply clapped her hands excitedly.
“Right, right! That’s the one! With that thing, we can lock him down, can’t we? Then you hold him in place, and I burn him with Frenzied Flame! Perfect!”
She had already begun imagining the scene of victory.
“In theory, yes.”
Loran poured cold water on her.
“But don’t forget. The Margit here and the Margit in the game are not the same thing. Whether the shackle works, and how long it can hold him if it does, are still unknown. We can only treat it as a trump card, not the key to victory.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You talk too much.”
Kiro waved impatiently.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go find him already! That bald guy is at... Murkwater Cave, right?”
As she spoke, she was already impatiently running toward the river north of Limgrave.
Deep inside Murkwater Cave, the damp air was mixed with the fishy smell of moss and a faint trace of blood.
Kiro kicked open the old wooden chest.
Click.
The lid popped open.
Inside were only some ragged clothes.
Silence.
The expected scene of someone jumping down from the top of the cave, shouting “Thief!” and launching a surprise attack did not happen.
The entire cave was so quiet that only the sound of distant dripping water could be heard.
Loran’s gaze did not remain on the empty chest.
Instead, he slowly raised his head and looked toward the platform at the top of the cave, hidden in shadow.
There, a shiny bald head was carefully poking halfway out.
Two small eyes darted around, first looking at Loran, then at the silver-haired girl beside him.
The gaze was full of cautious calculation.
In Loran’s vision, the information of the bald head’s owner clearly appeared.
[Name: Patches]
[Identity: Bandit / Merchant]
[Affection: -10]
[Status: Assessing Risk / Hesitating / Giving Up on Ambush]
The negative-ten affection proved that he had indeed been thinking of something shady.
But the status “Giving Up on Ambush” showed that his survival rule based on risk assessment was currently taking effect.
Two against one.
The odds were not good.
If he kicked an iron plate, not only would he fail to rob them, he might even lose everything he had.
After weighing the situation, Patches decisively shrank his head back.
“Hey! Baldy up there!”
Kiro had clearly noticed him too.
She put one hand on her hip, pointed at the platform with the other, and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“I saw you! Stop hiding! If you’re a man, get down here!”
That bald head slowly poked out again.
This time, aside from caution, there was also a hint of embarrassment from having been exposed.
“Who are you calling bald, you rude little girl?”
Patches’ voice came from above.
“I was just passing by! Right, passing by! I saw something happening here, so I came to take a look, that’s all!”
“Passing by? Do you think I’m stupid?”
Kiro sneered.
“You sneaky little rat! Were you planning to ambush us while we opened the chest? Let me tell you, not happening! Today, you either get down here and fight me for three hundred rounds, or you crawl out of here and never let me see that shady face of yours again!”
Her challenge came out in one merciless string.
Loran originally thought this would anger Patches and cause his affection to drop even further.
However, the panel above Patches’ head changed in a way he had not expected at all.
[Affection: -10 → +5]
[Status: Assessing Risk / Exposed / Slightly Impressed]
Impressed?
Loran frowned.
He tried to understand Patches’ thought process.
For an opportunist like Patches, who made a living through trickery, swindling, and ambushes, what he was best at was bullying the weak and fearing the strong.
He would kick an unarmed, innocent believer off a cliff without hesitation, but when facing a true strong opponent, or a lunatic like Kiro who looked difficult to deal with at first glance, his first reaction was not anger, but assessing the other party’s value.
Kiro’s arrogant, overbearing, unreasonable attitude might seem to Patches like a signal of “one of his own.”
Someone like him, who did not follow conventional morality and believed only in the law of the jungle.
“Ahem...”
Patches coughed dryly twice, trying to salvage a little dignity.
“Little girl, no need to make it sound so nasty. We’re all just trying to get by in the Lands Between. Why must we fight and kill?”
As he spoke, he slowly climbed down from the platform, still holding a greatshield and a spear.
He looked ready to fight at any moment, but extremely unwilling to do so.
“I, Patches, have always valued peace.”
He walked up to the two of them and puffed out his not particularly sturdy chest.
“But since you’ve put it that way, if I don’t show some response, it’ll look like I’m afraid of you.”
“Come on!”
Kiro’s face was filled with battle-hungry excitement, and the light of Frenzied Flame incantations began to shine in her eyes.
“Stop talking! Let me see what a sneaky rat like you is really made of!”
“Wait, wait, wait!”
Patches hurriedly waved his hands.
The expression on his face instantly changed from forcing himself to act tough into an ingratiating smile.
“Great heroine, let’s talk this out, let’s talk this out! I can tell from one look that you possess an extraordinary bearing and are no ordinary person. What I admire most, Patches, is a hero like you! As the saying goes, you don’t become friends until you fight, right?”
[Affection: +5 → +15]
[Status: Backing Down / Trying to Get Friendly / Looking for Business]
He changed faces faster than flipping a page.
Loran stood off to the side, amazed.