C-1.18

"But seriously, do you want to go and take them out?" I asked Linkle with a raised eyebrow.

She simply rolled her eyes. "No, let's just continue towards Kakariko. We should have enough weapons for a while and that first Stone Talus should have given us enough money to stay at an inn or something for at least a while." 

Well, she isn't wrong but then again...

"You can never have enough loot and nothing you can say will change my mind."

She gave a short laugh from her. "Heh, you aren't wrong. But they won't run away from us, the Stone Talus at least won't move a lot, and the Bokoblins might settle somewhere else... but they don't really have anything that we could use. At least not right now, but we should have enough for the foreseeable future, so wasting time cleaning up the area is just that, wasting time. Besides, every single monster comes back alive after the red moon."

Ah, right a blood moon or something like that exists, and if I remember right every mob in the game respawned after it... I wonder how this works here or in general... maybe monsters are simply made out of some kind of dark magic or something like that? That would at least explain why every single monster explodes into smoke after they are killed...

Anyway, I guess Linkle is kind of right. We should be able to clear them later...

"Well then, let us continue." She nodded and pulled out her S-Slate. After which she started walking and I simply followed her. We fell into a simple silence, without any of us having something to talk about. And although it wasn't really an awkward silence it still wasn't something that I was quite comfortable with and so I started to try a conversation.

"So, Linkle, why do you think the King wanted us to go to Kakariko?" She seemed to think for a bit.

"I guess, someone or something is waiting for me. I think there it would have been quite smart to start preparing for when the 'Hero of Hyrule' returns... the only question is whether they expected me to lose my memories. But I would guess they have, or at the very least prepared for it, if it did happen. I don't think that they would put me inside something that they don't know everything about."

"Well, it depends on how badly you were hurt. If a person, that is important to me, would certainly die if I did nothing then I would try everything that could possibly help, even if the chances are low for anything to happen at all. And I do think that Zelda would think similarly."

She made a face at that.

"I guess..."

So that wasn't the right thing to talk about... she said she liked cooking, yes, maybe that is something she would like to talk about more?

"Well, let us stop talking about that for now and talk about more important things." I stopped talking a bit and her face changed to a more serious one, compared to her sad face before. And although she didn't say anything, I could almost feel her waiting for me to continue.

"Well, what will we eat later?" After she heard me, she immediately missed a step and almost fell, her being so nimble, being the only thing that saved her from kissing the ground. "We both cleared a camp each and I could go for a small snack, at the very least." That wasn't the truth, I haven't felt hunger since waking up but then again, I am Doomsday now...

"You fine?" I asked her trying to hold back a smile and failing if her anger was anything to go by... although said anger is not able to hide her embarrassment.

"You... sure, fine. I guess I could eat a bit, too. Not much but maybe a small snack isn't too bad of an idea." She mumbled, her anger fading after her short accusation, if you could even call it that. And then seemingly started to think about what she should cook. 

"How about some Mushroom Skewer? They should are quite easy to cook and finding some mushrooms around shouldn't be too hard either. Besides I can easily do smaller portions… we did eat just a few hours before after all, not that I wouldn't like to eat something, but we should be careful to not overdo it."

To be honest, I don't think I could ever overeat myself, even if I tried to do that…

"Sure, if you say so… you are the expert when it comes to cooking after all…" She seemed to puff her chest out at that, and I was once more able to quite literally feel how happy she was with my compliment, there was also a small blush on her face.

Seems like I can do something right, too… at least sometimes.

"Yes, I am. And as the newly appointed Cooking Expert, by yours truly, I promote you to Cooking Helper! And your first task is to immediately search for some mushrooms and a cooking put, would be nice if we can find one, then we don't need to put the one I have up."

This girl… well if this makes her feel better, why not? 

Which is why I did a sloppy two finger salute. "Sure, Miss Cooking Expert! " After that I concentrated on one of my senses that I had neglected until now… my smell. I closed my ears and tried to smell take in everything around me. The first thing I smelled was Linkle, no surprise here. Although what did surprise me was that she didn't stink, which, considering she just cleared a Bokoblin camp on her own, was quite surprising…

And speaking of the devil, or devils, I guess. The next thing I smelled were Bokoblins and holy sh*t do they smell bad. Like, take someone who hadn't showered in days. Then make that ten times worse and you are close to understand how bad those things really reeked. And because I wasn't expecting to smell something like that, I wasn't able to suppress a small gag, which instantly brought Linkle's attention towards me.

"Cid?" And I was instantly able to see a bit of worry in her expression.

"I'm fine. I tried smelling some mushrooms, but I kind of forgot that there are Bokoblins near us… and let's just say that they smell really, really bad and leave it at that."

"Really? Your sense of smell got stronger, too? Well, maybe next time try to be a bit more careful with using new powers…" She continued and wasn't quite able to hide the mirth in her eyes while saying that.

I simply rolled my eyes to let her know what I thought about that… after which I closed my eyes again and simply tried to block out the smell of those damned beasts. And to my surprise the foul smell faded into the background, I was able to tell that it was still there, but it didn't really bother me too much.

I then concentrated on finding anything else that smelled just a bit different. And soon enough I was able to smell something, I walked towards it and sure enough. Mushrooms. But instead of simply harvesting them, I called Linkle.

"Linkle! I found some!" And soon enough Linkle was next to me. She simply looked at them and nodded.

"Perfect, they should do just fine and while you found some mushrooms, I was able to find a small camp. Come on." While talking to me, she already bowed down and started harvesting the mushrooms, while unintentionally giving me a nice view of her behind… 

Damn… 

But instead of staring at her for too long, I averted my eyes. Don't want to waste all the goodwill I built up just for a short peek, a very nice one yes, but still not enough. Soon enough I heard her stand up and start walking towards where, I presume, the camp was. Luckily without ever turning towards me, although that did mean that I wouldn't have to had averted my eyes…

ANYWAYS.

I followed her and soon we arrived at a cooking pot with a few logs around it. A small pond, next to it, which had a column on it, and I swear to god, I was able to hear some kind of twinkling? from it or rather from it's top. Which is why I simply jumped on top of it. And I found a rupee, a silver one…

Wow… I think these were worth quite a lot, aren't they?

I picked it up and jumped back to Linkle, who followed me with her eyes, which widened after seeing what I picked up.

"You found a silver rupee? On top of a random column no less? How?" I rolled my eyes.

"Would you believe me, if I said that I heard it?"

"..."