Looking over the pond, Balthazar observed Hea sitting on a rock by the small waterfall that rolled down from the mountaihe toad had her eyes closed and a tent expression on her wide face. She had been like that all m, and the crab had a feeling she was not about to get tired of it any time soon.

  As much as he felt protective of his little pond, even the grumpy crab had a hard time hizing with her. After having spent so long being held prisoner in a cage, down in a basement, suffering at the hands of a petty, vindictive man, he could only imagine how good it must have felt for her to just sit idly by the water, feeling the sun and enjoying the breeze.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized how precious his little territory was, and how much he o value what he had.

  “Speaking of value…” Balthazar said, finally snapping out of his trand fog ba the gold s he was ting on the ter.

  Just as he was about doh his t, the sound of heavy steps ing from the road pulled his gaze up to the bazaar’s entrance, where soon an imposing figure appeared.

  It was a woman, muscur and taller than most. She wore a sleeveless leather top that exposed her toned arms, which matched her chosen on that hung from her back: a long and thick wooden handle ending in a steel axe head. Swinging such a on could not be an easy task for most.

  As the woman stepped inside, she looked around, light blue eyes peering from behind her helmet. Whatever that piece of headgear was, it resembled an upside dowal bucket with two holes for the eyes and a portion of the edge cut off for the mouth.

  Balthazar eyed her through his monocle, w what kind of adventurer had stumbled upon his pce that day.

  [Level 26 Barbarian]

  As the crab hopped off his stool and moved to meet the new arrival, he noticed there was a sed, much smaller figure following behind the barbarian.

  A young man, sy figure and messy sun bleached hair, framed by a rge backpack strapped to his back that seemed to threaten to topple him at any moment.

  [Level 4 Farmer]

  “Hello there,” Balthazar greeted, staying a few extra paces out of reach from the intimidating adventurer. “What I do for you?”

  “Soles,” the barbarian woman grunted bluntly.

  “Excuse me?” the crab asked, fused by the request. “Souls? I don’t really have any of those to sell.”

  “No,” she grunted again, slightly louder, before lifting her foot off the floor and pointing at the bottom of her thick leather boot, which was riddled with holes and small tears. “Soles!”

  “Oh! Soles, like shoe soles,” Balthazar said. “I get it now. Still, I don’t sell those either. I sell full boots and shoes, though. You look around at my sele of footwear over on that shelf. I’m sure you’ll find something that will suit you.”

  The mert directed her attention to a nearby shelf full of shoes with his pincers, and the barbarian followed them with her eyes before walking over to ihe wares without giving another word.

  “Strong silent type, that one,” Balthazar casually remarked, before turning his attention to the bag boy. “What about you? Need anything from Balthazar’s bazaar, young adventurer?”

  “Who, me?” the boy responded, pointing a fi himself, as if surprised to be noticed at all. “Oh, no, no. I’m no adventurer. I’m just tagging along.”

  “So you’re not an adventurer? But you’re traveling with ohe now intrigued crab asked.

  “Not really traveling. Well, sort of, I guess.” He readjusted the strairaps of the backpa his shoulders, eyes sing the floor, looking as if he was feeling awkward about his own expnation. “I’m just a humble farmer from outside Ardville, see? My friend over there, she passed by my family’s farm three weeks ago, and I asked her if she would help me look around the nearby fields for our mule that had escaped through a hole in the fence.”

  “Wait,” said the mert. “Did you just say three weeks ago? You’ve been looking for a runaway mule for that long?”

  “Uhh, no, ly,” the farmer boy said. “We cluded the stubborn thing robably gone food after just a few days and that it was time to ese bay farm.”

  “But… you just said you’re from the farms outside Ardville. Aren’t thht outside the gates of town to the west? That’s barely a couple of hours' walk, as far as I know. How the hell are you still here, going south of town three weeks ter?”

  “Ah, you know how it is,” the boy said, scratg the back of his head. “She has a lot of opes, and so ohing keeps getting in the way of anet a little sidetracked here, a little sidetracked there, ahing you know, weeks have gone by, you’ve visited half a dozen dungeons, went halfway across the ti and back, but never get around to pass by the farm again.”

  “What?!” the baffled crab excimed. “That’s ridiculous! Why don’t you just go bae on your own?”

  “Alone? No way! The whole reason I asked an adveo help me look for the mule was because I didn’t want to go out there into the wilds on my own. There’s no ce I’ll try going bae on my own. I wouldn’t even know how to handle a rat by myself. No sir! I’m stig with Thunk. She handle everything we’ve e across so far.”

  “With… Thunk?” Balthazar repeated, unsure if he even should be asking.

  “Oh, yes, that’s her name,” said the farmer boy. “Or at least, what I call her. I’m irely sure what her name is, but she really seems to like that word, ‘thunk,’ so I took to using it as her name. She’s not the talking type.”

  “I’ve noticed,” the crab muttered, looking back at the barbarian, who was still browsing the shelves, having picked up a boot and brought it up to her ear, as if expeg to hear something from within. “Not the type to i mu Intelligeher, I suspect.”

  “What you said?” asked the farmer.

  “Nothing, never mind.”

  “Alright, well, that’s her, brave and strong barbarian. I’m Joshua, by the way.”

  “Yes, yes, o meet you,” the mert said dismissively. “Balthazar. The name’s outside. I’m sure you didn’t miss it. Not sure about her, though. I have my doubts she read, holy.”

  “Oh, e on, she’s not so bad,” Joshua said.

  Balthazar turned his gaze back to the young man, looking him up and down with an expression of disbelief.

  “Boy, you just wao go look for a mule, and now you’ve been roped into being a bag boy to an adventurer for almost a month! How are you not mad about it?”

  “Don’t be so harsh,” the overburdened panion said, his knees occasionally bug from strain. “I kind of enjoy it, to be ho. It gave me an excuse to get out here, leave the fines of the farm I’ve lived my whole life. I actually get to see the world, go on adventures! It feels almost like I’m an adventurer myself! I know it started as a small quest for her, but now it feels like my own epic quest! Besides, look at her, she’s great! What’s there not to be impressed by?”

  Balthazar turo look at Thunk again, who was impolitely scratg her backside while looking at a horned helmet on a nearby shelf before scoffing away from it.

  “Yes, of course. Very… charming,” the crab said with little vi.

  The barbarian rejoihem, bringing a pair of heavy leather boots in her hand.

  “Boot,” Thunk grunted, briefly showing her choice of shoes before turning to leave.

  The mert opened his mouth to protest and remind her his items weren’t free, but Joshua spoke first.

  “No, no, Thunk,” the farmer said in a soft tone of someone expining something to a small child. “We ’t just take things from merts, remember? The crab isn’t a dungeon monster. We have to pay, like I showed you before, you know?”

  The barbarian gazed at the boy for a moment with her mouth slightly ajar and scratched the top of her bucket-like helmet. Balthazar could have sworn that one more sed and drool would have started dripping from her mouth.

  “Pay. Give something, like gold s, in exge for what we want,” Joshua insisted.

  Thu out a long grunt that could only be assumed to mean some sembnce of uanding had finally reached her.

  The young man put his backpack down on the floor and started looking through its pockets and pouches.

  “Unfortunately,” he started, wing slightly as he searched, “I’m afraid we’re all out of after she used it all to pay for ale at the tavern st night.”

  “That’s a shame, but no pay, no product,” the crab said, reag for the boots the barbarian was still holding.

  Thunk pulled her arm away, refusing to return her chosen items.

  “No,” she grunted. “No . No problem. Trade stuff.”

  “That’s right!” Joshua said, looking proud of his adventurer. “We may not have money, but surely we could trade you some loot for the boots, right?”

  “If you have something good, sure,” Balthazar agreed, giving the side eye to the barbarian, who was looking smug and proud of herself for her grand solution.

  Putting the boots dowo it, Thunk began rummaging through the backpack. Joshua stood back, looking at her with curiosity.

  Finally, she pulled her hand out, holding withihick leather gau a box, shiny, ornate, airely golden.

  Balthazar’s eye stalks popped up at the sight of the box, his monocle falling off and hanging by its as the mert’s mouth opened in surprise.

  “What is that?” the farmer boy asked. “I don’t remember you getting that. Did you find it ierday’s dungeon?”

  The barbariaended her arm towards Balthazar, the orifa with a grunt.

  “I don’t know, Thunk,” Joshua said. “Maybe you shouldn’t trade away that for a pair of boots. It looks pretty valu—”

  “I’ll take it!” the crab blurted out. “That box for the pair of boots. They’re all yours! Done deal!”

  The adventurer smiled from ear to ear, pleased with her bargaining skills, as she picked up the pair of boots again with her free hand.

  Balthazar struggled with his morying to pce it ba his eye with his shaky pincers, the excitement of taking a better look at his shiny new golden treasure taking over him.

  As soon as the lens sat in front of his eye again, he saw a new notification.

  [High-value item traded. Experience gained.]

  [[Heavy Leather Boots] traded for [Cursed Music Box]]

  [You have reached level 15!]

  Balthazar sed through the text quickly, before his eyes stopped ahrough the name of the object he had just purchased again.

  “What is that thing, anyway? Some kind of music box?” Joshua asked Thunk.

  The barbarian shrugged and pced the boots back down before opening the small box’s lid.

  “No! Don’t open that—”

  The opening of the box cut Balthazar’s warning short. As soon as the adventurer flipped the lid open, an ear-pierg shriek filled the air around them, like a banshee’s shrill.

  The three of them were forced to cover their ears with their hands. Except for the crab, who did not have hands, so had to use his pincers. To cover the sides of his shell, because he also did not have actual ears.

  Through tearful eyes, Balthazar could see the barbarian and farmer screaming, their mouths open in an expression of pain, but none of their screams could even be heard over the sound the box rodug.

  Just as the crab thought his shell was about to crack from the deafening cries p out of the cursed object, the sound suddenly stopped.

  The trio looked at each other, hands slowly ing down from their heads.

  Balthazar looked at the box lying open on the floor through his monocle.

  [Cursed Music Box]

  [Pys a cursed sound when opehat calls out unpleasantness from nearby]

  “What in the world was that?” Joshua loudly asked.

  “Shh! Wait. Do you hear that?” the crab said, freezing in pce as he tried to listen for something over the ringi by the box that was slowly dissipating from his hearing.

  The farmer and the barbarian looked around and listened as well, their frowns deepening as they caught something too.

  “I think it’s ing from that way,” the boy said, pointing to the back of the bazaar.

  Balthazar skittered his way across the shop and towards the back exit, the other two following him.

  As they stepped out of the ptform and onto the grounds around the pond, it became clear the sound was ing from the water.

  A buzzing, first quiet and barely noticeable, was rapidly being louder and filling the air around them with its noise.

  Notig tiny ripples appearing all over the surface of the pond, Balthazar squi it, trying to figure out what was causing them.

  Tiny bck dots were flying above the water, their numbers quickly increasing as if they were materializing from nowhere.

  “Oh, crap…”

  Balthazar took a step back as he saw the giant cloud of thousands of buzzing mosquitoes that began f over the surface of his pond and that was quickly rolling in their dire.

  H0st