“Are you two like fake twins, or something?” said the traveler, cog an eyebrow at Rye and Balthazar.

  “No!” they replied in unison again.

  “You sure?”

  “Argh! Never mind that,” excimed the crab.

  “Just tell us where this dragon was,” said Rye.

  The mahe handles of the cart down and stretched his back.

  “Why? You two got a death wish?” he said.

  “Please, it’s very important,” pleaded the ranger.

  Balthazar was already sizing up the man’s ankles, but thankfully for him, the traveler decided to spill the information.

  “Fi’s your funeral. There’s a small vilge back up this road I’m ing from. You’ll know it when you see the cloud of smoke. It’s a couple of hours walk arobably faster if you’re not hauling a big cart with you.”

  “Thank you,” Rye quickly said, before taking off in the dire the traveler pointed with a hurried step.

  The crab skittered behind him, trying to keep up, with the goblin and drake following along.

  The man watched on as the peculiar group of travelers passed by, scratg the side of his face with a slightly bewildered look.

  “And I thought nobody would believe I saw a dragon. Wait until I tell people about this enter.” He paused for a moment, thinking, as the group disappeared up the road. “Wait, that was a crab. A talking crab. Could it have been…”

  “Hey, Rye, wait up,” said the mert, struggling to keep up with the young man’s quick steps.

  “What is it, Balthazar?” he replied without slowing down, eyes still fixed oh ahead. “You heard the man, the vilge is this way. There’s no time to waste, or we might lose the dragon’s trail.”

  “Yes, but you know that thing fly, right? It’s been hours too, it’s probably long gone already.”

  Rye came to a sudden stop and turo face the crab.

  “And? Do you have a better lead? What do you suggest we do? Just ighis? Madeleine is out there, waiting for our help. We o find this dragon!”

  Balthazar hesitated for a moment, eyes gng at the ground.

  He khe boy was right, of course, and he agreed pletely. Yet, he also khat as they were, they stood no ce against such a creature. Whether through might or smarts, they had no way to overe the dragon and rescue the baker, which was why the crab’s pn involved gaining access to the system again before anything else.

  As much as he always disliked the damhing, Balthazar khe only way they could win that fight would be to py by its rules, levels, and skills. The red dragon would not be something he could overe by simply talking to it.

  The crab knew he would need more power. A lot more.

  “I hear you, Rye,” he started. “And you’re right, but at the moment I don’t think I would be of much help with chasing a big flying lizard. Look at me, lots of legs, but not great at using them. I think it might be better if we just split up for now. You go chase this vilge lead at your own pace, which I’m sure will be much swifter without me, and I’ll go down to that beach, chase my own lead on something I’m hoping will help us.”

  The young man looked at the crab with a less tense expression. “Are you sure?”

  “Pfft, of course I am, Rye,” said Balthazar. “When have you ever see being sure? Now go o going quickly, before that fiery trail goes cold!”

  “Alright, once you’re dohere e to the vilge and figure out which dire the drago from the vilgers, that’s where I’ll be heading too. If that fails… I’ll just find you. Don’t worry, I have pretty good scouting skills, I’m sure I find a giant crab on the road. See you soon.”

  Wasting no more time, the young adventurer broke into a brisk jog up the road.

  The crab looked around at the endless wilderness around him. It all still felt very alien to him, being away from home, in sufamiliar pces.

  “Wait a minute… where am I supposed to go?!” excimed the mert. “Rye!”

  The raurned around, already a ways off into the distance.

  “Which way is Star Beach?” shouted the crab with both cws around his mouth, somehow missing the fact he didn’t have palms to amplify his voice.

  “West!” Rye replied from up the road.

  “Alright, alright…” muttered the crab, looking around.

  The adveood there for a moment, watg the crab, before shouting again. “You don’t know which way is west, do you?”

  “Nope!”

  “It’s that way,” yelled Rye, pointing to the crab’s left. “Just follow that road until you see the coast.”

  “Great! Thanks!” Balthazar yelled back, before heading in the pointed dire.

  As the crab and his two panions tinued on down the road, Balthazar pondered on what he had gotten himself into.

  Out there, iside world, chasing a dangerous beast, and trying to find a way to get back the stupid system he never wanted in the first pce.

  Past me would have called present me crazy if he could see me now.

  Then again, Balthazar recalled that old him also used to colleon rocks a raw fish without seasoning, so he figured that crab’s opinion wasn’t of much to him now.

  I wonder what this o will be like. ’t be that much bigger than my pond. I bet those silly human writers exaggerated it, as they always do.

  Balthazar had never seen the sea. Or the desert. Or a trine. Basically, if it did near his pond, he likely had never seen it, but he made sure to read lots about them from whatever books he could get his cws on from the piles of loot adventurers brought around his pce.

  Ever since he gaihe ability to read humas, he made it one of his daily activities to learn as much as possible about their world. He often wondered why most adventurers were always so keen on selling books like cheap junk instead of reading them too, but given what he had learned about their kind, ces were most of them would get bored after two pages and want to go back to whag things with their sword.

  Truly an uncultured kind, thought the crab, gently shaking his shell as he broke off a piece of bread from the loaf he got in town and stuffing it in his mouth.

  After some more time walking and amusing himself with thoughts of how dumb humans were, Balthazar stopped, looking at the map he had brought along, trying to make sense of its drawings retive to where he was.

  He knew where his pond was on it, he etched a little “X” on it to mark it before, and from there he could easily tell Ardville was directly above it, but everything else beyond that and maybe the neighb mountain was basically fog to him. He knew west was left, however, and that a beach would be by the edge of the nd on the piece of part, so he pressed on the same way, hoping to not miss any bodies of water on the way.

  Finally, the crab saw something over the horizon that made him raise aalk.

  A shimmering line of clear blue appeared over the distance, between the green hill where his road was headed and the e afternoon sky.

  “What is that?” pohe curious crab, pg one cw above his eyes as he squi the horizon.

  Skittering ahead with more hurried steps, Balthazar made it to the top of the hill, finally seeing what was oher side: a small beach with white sands and a few palm trees, bathed by the calm waves of the crystal blue sea that extended as far as the eye could see over the distant horizon.

  The crab’s eyestalks slowly raised as his jaw lowered.

  “That is one big pond…”

  Quiing their pace too, Druma and Blue caught up to him over the grassy hill.

  “Look at all that, guys,” Balthazar said to them, pointing a pi the o. “ you imagine how much fish there is in there?”

  “Druma don’t like sea,” said the goblin. “Big deep water and Druma is bad swimmer.”

  The drake gazed at the sea with her deep golden eyes, her expression mildly less disied than her usual gre.

  Taking a deep breath, the mert looked down at the sandy coast again.

  This was it, the pce where all adventurers started in this world, arriving from… wherever mad pce adventurers inated from. If there was one pce Balthazar could hope to find a Scroll of Character Creation again, this would be it.

  “Alright,” the crab said, “you two stay here and watch the road in case Rye es back, or someone else shows up. I’ll go down there alone and take care of something no one else do for me.”

  Blue lingered arouween the hill and the road, examining her surroundings and showing little i in what was being said, while Druma gave the crab aic salute.

  “Yes, yes, boss! Druma watch road while boss go pee in the sea!”

  Balthazar carefully skittered his way down the sandy side of the hill onto the beach. He had sand at his pond too, but it surprised him how abundant and much more loose it was in this pce, the tips of his eight legs sinking into it as he walked. Despite the strangeness of it all, something within the crab made him feel fortable, like a primordial sensation in the depths of his brain that made him feel at home in that pce.

  My pond is still better, though.

  Finally making it to the shore, the crab tentatively stepped onto the wet sand where the waves zily came a, dipping one of his legs into the foamy water as it reached forward towards him.

  “Oh!” he said as the wave washed over his leg and spshed onto his shell.

  He was used to water, he had plenty of it at home, but the water of the pond was still and predictable. This water moved and seemed to have a life and will of its owe his usual distaste for anything new and unfamiliar, the crab was finding it hard to dislike this new experience, and the more he felt the waves, the more inviting the water became.

  Land crab or not, Balthazar could not ignore his e to the water, and how natural it felt to simply sit down ahe water wash over him, eveing himself make a few bubbles here and there, after carefully making sure no one else was around to see it.

  After a long day’s journey, which felt like a trip around the world for someone who had never gone anywhere before, it felt o just take a moment to rex ier and think about his pond bae.

  It’s still better there. At least the water is less salty. Balthazar assured himself.

  Finally standing up, the mert reminded himself of why he was there, and that there was no time to be taking long baths.

  As he meandered around the beach, taking in the sights for the first time, the crab started realizing that, as cozy as it all was, there wasly much around the po buildings, no people. No roads, no signs. What exactly was a new adventurer supposed to do at that pce?

  The only thing he had spotted so far were a few strange creatures lying ft o sand as the waves came a.

  Balthazar had never seen such things. Mostly immobile, they looked fleshy and spongy, with a bright red color that was almost pink, and stra of all, they were shaped like stars.

  As was usually the crab’s priority, he quickly came to the clusion that they did not look very appetizing.

  Stepping closer to one of the starfish scattered throughout the shore, Balthazar looked down at the creature with curious i.

  “Hmm, what are these things?”

  As he tentatively reached down to perform a crab’s usual stifialysis—poke the thing with a pincer and see what happens—the floppy star-shaped iebrate suddenly uself upwards at Balthazar’s face, firmly gluing its entire body to it as the crab fell backwards, kig and screaming muffled yells, fighting to pull the killer starfish off.