It was starting to become very late in the day now. Mirume was sure to be back at any minute and so far, Jesse and I had done nothing but gain a new recruit.
It was frustrating to me, as I was the kind of girl who liked to do everything in a timely and orderly fashion. But I guess I can't always have things the way I want them, huh?
"Then it's settled." Jesse said to Tae, breaking through my concentrated thoughts. "Welcome to the team, my guy. My name is Jesse Sykes, and my friend here's name is May Yanagi."
I decided I should remind Jesse of the task we had yet to fulfill, hoping he wouldn't find any kinds of ways to waste any more time.
"Hey, Jesse?" I said, getting his attention. "All of this is really great and all, but don't you think we still need to collect the shells of those punch trolls?" Jesse's face fell flat before he facepalmed, feeling embarrassed no doubt.
"Right. We should get to that." He sighed. "I'm sorry, I lost track of time, didn't I?
"Punch trolls?" Tae interrupted. "Is that what you're here to find?"
"Uh, yeah." Jesse said with a bit of an attitude. "I'm pretty sure I had told you that, right before you had an almost death battle with our snack provider." I couldn't help but laugh a little at the way he said that.
"Yes, I do recall that now." Tae replied subtly. "Well, I can help you to locate and battle the punch trolls."
"With what? Your bare hands?" Jesse sassed.
"For your information, I am still very capable of using the elemental magic of wind." Tae retorted
"Fair." Jesse admitted. "But you don't have the energy to do that right now, do you?"
"Tch... I'll be fine!" Tae grunted.
"Hey, Jesse." I said, calling for his attention. "Now that I think about it, if the armored shells of these punch trolls, are as competent as they're said to be, then grand sleeper would be a necessary weapon of choice, right?"
"Well, yeah that is true." Jesse responded. "What about it?"
"So since you'll be using grand sleeper for this mission, why don't you just let Tae here, borrow your other weapon, echo splitter?"
Jesse thought about it for a moment before nodding with a smile. "Yeah, okay. I guess that can work." He said with a casual smile. Afterwards, he took out the weapon in question and handed it over to Tae.
Tae looked on at the weapon, admiring the way that it held it's glow. He seemed to be absolutely mesmerized by the weapon and was Trappe in an a state of awe before even taking it to hold in his own hands.
"Now, if you're done gawking at echo splitter, we can get going." Jesse said, sarcastically.
"Right." Tae said, shaking his head and forcing himself to come back to his senses. "So, the punch trolls are known for their cooking habits, despite being less than great it. And because of this, they like to hunker down in forests for the fact that they are then provided with the necessary materials needed for preparing a campfire, used for cooking."
"Good to know." Said Jesse. "So that leads us in what direction exactly?"
"There is an open space in the center of this forest as long as we continue heading north from here." Tae answered. "This open space allows the punch trolls the room they need for their feasts to be prepared. It is very likely that quite a few of them are there right now, cooking."
"Alright, let's go." Jesse said as he led the party in the right direction. I followed closely behind him and similarly, the new recruit, Tae, followed closely behind myself.
The forest only seemed to become more and more grim, the deeper we went into it. And it certain didn't help that it was now late enough in the evening that the sky had grown dark. Mirume was sure to be back soon. Him being away for as long as he was, I figured that maybe he decided to stay with Tazor for a while to see if he was okay.
The travel to the center of the forest was certainly not a long one. We'd made it there in only a matter of minutes. It was a perfect circle that offered a lot of room and convenience.
Right in the middle of the atmosphere, there was an active campfire and remains of cooked meat and bones slopped on the ground. But, much to our dismay, we saw no punch trolls.
"Well, looks like this was a bust." Jesse said, trying to hide the irritation that leaked out of his words.
"Patience." Tae said, simply.
"Patience?" Jesse questioned. "What, are we supposed to just wait for them to come back?"
"And....right about...now." Tae sighed.
"What are you on ab-" Jesse started but was suddenly interrupted by a huge crash that knocked him off of his feet.
They were here.