First Monster Fight...and a Few Other Things

Almost as soon as he was in what he thought was a defensive stance with his spear he literally made from the ground in front of him, Yuri witnessed the sight of a hole being punched through his hastily made stone wall by one of the rabbits, it had jumped and was spinning in a counterclockwise direction. Well, now Yuri had a clue why they were named as they were. The moment it made itself a hole, the rabbit was struck with a lightning bolt, while in flight, and dropped dead on the ground just 20 feet from the two. Yuri suddenly had an idea and crouched down and held his hand to the ground in concentration.

"What are you up to," inquired Thelsia.

"If we can turn the ground they're all at into a bowl-like depression in the ground then fill it with water," said Yuri, "we can drown them all and they will no longer be a potential threat. Plus their bodies will technically be undamaged."

"Which means more reward for us when we turn them in," said Thelsia with a manic grin, "you make the depression the depth and width you think it needs to be, I'll fill it with water on your signal."

Yuri made a quick hand motion in the direction of the monsters that looked like he was following the contours of a wide-brimmed deep bowl, after he was sure he had made the bowl n the ground he motioned to Thelsia who pointed her staff in the direction of the monsters and muttered a string of arcane words, which was promptly followed by a sound like something big splashing in a moderately sized pool. After waiting a moment, Yuri lowered the wall and was pleasantly surprised he had made the bowl in the ground a bit deeper than he intended. The bowl was filled with water and the bodes of the monsters were floating near the top.

"We should probably wait few more minutes to make sure they're fully drowned," said Yuri, "unless you want to fill the water with electricity and shock them all to ****, just to be sure, but that would probably leave visible damage on their bodies."

"We can wait," said Thelsia, "let's gather the clover then their bodies, and when we return I'll file a report on the incident."

The two of them turned their attention to the ring of clovers and started picking them, almost immediately Yuri started dropping the clover into his item box, it manifested as a twilight purple hole in the air that he could drop things into it or reach into it. Thelsia stared at it in disbelief, Yuri noticed and said, "It was one of the listed magic abilities I have when I went for my assessment."

"That's a pretty rare ability," said Thelsia, "at least for these parts, in this area only 5 or 6 other people have that ability, but I'm not one of them, and only one of them is registered as an Adventurer, the rest are related to merchants in some way."

"That reminds me," said Yuri as he continued to pick the clover, "the guild master is the one who gave the general order to the guards and town regarding males, does the town not have a mayor or something?"

Returning to her picking, Thelsia said, "The town grew up around the guildhall, and because of that it played the part of the administrative building so early on they decided to just have the guild master double up as the mayor as the place turned into a town, almost everyone in town or business in town has ties to the Adventure's Guild outpost structure the guildhall started out as. So, the guild master is also the town mayor."

"Isn't that conflict of interest or go against rules about consolidation of power?"

"With a town as small as ours, out on the edge of nation's borders with the wilderness, that's not much of a problem. Maybe if we were sized enough to be a proper town or city things would be different, but until that happens we're not in any real trouble. Although, we might start growing when rumors about a male Adventurer out here start circulating more civilized areas."

"Makes sense, I noticed something else, there don't seem to be any elves or dwarves around here, is that normal?"

"Elves and dwarves are nothing more than stories for children in this world, no evidence that either of those races existed in this world has come up. Occasionally people from worlds where those races are present will end up in this world but it's more due to magical mishaps on their part than anything else."

"And let me guess, they're all female."

"Yep, sometimes they even find themselves being a race they weren't back where they came from. Quite a few 'sea elves' have popped up at coastal regions or islands shark-kin, almost half of all the shark-kin in this world claim to have either been a 'sea elf' or descended from someone who made the claim."

"Interesting, the two most common races in Fantasy stories in my world aren't found in this world. I suppose it was a matter of time before those races were omitted from a world of magic. You also mentioned I have a rare magical ability, are some abilities hereditary?"

"Magical abilities and elemental affinities are usually passed on from parent to child, why do you ask?"

"Because I think I impregnated the guild master and the high priestess. They insisted, but still..."

"The guild master has been teetering about getting pregnant for a few years now, every time she went down to the temple she was told her body was more than capable of supporting a baby and she just had to find someone willing to be the sire but backed out after all that because she claimed to never find a suitable partner; frankly, I'm relieved she finally got knocked up. As for the high priestess, it's hard for her to find suitable partners and, frankly speaking, she and the guild master always came to arguments about who would carry the child."

"Yeah, but I knocked the guild master up with twins."

"I read about that, it's where multiple children are born of the same number on the same day, right? Panda beastkin always have twins, it's a quirk of their demographic."

"That description of twins is an oversimplification. Twins are when two children are born very close together, it's usually the same day and within minutes of each other, but sometimes you can have twins born on different days because how close to midnight it was when one the first was born and the second is born on or after midnight and thus is technically born on a different day. If you have 3 born together that way you get triplets, 4 are quadruplets, and so on. The most I've personally heard of being born together is septuplets, which is a case where nine children from the same mother in the same birthing cycle. But there are terms for higher numbers of children born that way."

"Dear, sweet goddess! That is a lot of offspring to tend to, I'm thankful you only gave her twins."

"Yeah, well medical knowledge from the world I grew up in says that having multiple babies as a first-time mother can be harmful to the mother's body."

"I'll include that note in my report, but we don't have to worry about sort of thing much, since healing magics can help mitigate that kind of thing."

With that, the two of them headed over to the drowned rabbits, they had finished picking all the clover, and Yuri pulled the bodies into his item box then asked about the remaining requests. If he recalled right, there was a local merchant who had part of their arriving shipment lost en route to the town and the local apothecary was asking for a kind of moss that grows in the forest near the town. Thelsia looked over the sheets and said which was closest to their current location.