Crocodiles and How to Deal with Them
The buar cart comes to a stop in a depression on a rocky hill as the man sleeping on top of the cart’s covering gives a full stretch and lets out big yawn. “We’re in their territory now,” he says sleepily, “so look sharp.”
“Then why don’t you come down from there as well, Captain?”
“Want to spear him from underneath?”
I think that’s a good idea. Nice suggestion, red-and-white twins.
Two days have passed since leaving the settlement; we’re on our third day now. We seemed to enter crocodile-fiend territory as a star, which I believe is the sun, climbed to its apex overhead.
“Captain, please, get down already. We’re here for reconnaissance and investigation.”
“All right, all right. Sheesh. You’re so quick to anger, Vice Captain.”
Holding his hat with his right hand so it doesn’t fly off, Captain Kerioyl jumps down. Frustratingly, the movement is fluid, and I accidentally think to myself that it looked a little cool.
“Red, White, you two are on reconnaissance, then.”
“Will do.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Are they usually on scouting duty? Looking at them, they seem like the characters in charge of hyping up the mood, the kind you usually see at least one of in any real-life friend group. The sort you’d expect to be gung ho about everything.
They’re not unattractive, but their tones are too silly, and their personalities are too easygoing for Lammis or Hulemy to fall for either of them, even by mistake.
Red uses a short spear as his weapon, and White uses a short sword. Their armor consists of things that look like button-down shirts made from thick fabric, their coloring a well-worn brown. They must get a lot of use out of them.
Whoa, their expressions just vanished. Their eyes sharpen, and the air around them changes in an instant. If they were always like that, they might actually be popular.
The two crouch and disappear into the tall grasses. Since this is a marshland, simply walking might be heard, but they’re running without making a sound. Despite their appearances, they seem quite talented.
“Great, let’s put our feet up until they get back. Boxxo, you got any good sweets in there?”
“I’ll have some sweet tea.”
“Welcome.”
Both the captain and vice captain have moved into relaxation mode. Neither displays a hint of worry. The other member, the girl with the short hair, simply adjusts her bow, not paying any mind to the pair that went off to scout. They must be well trusted.
Lammis leans up against my back to take a comfortable nap. Hulemy seems to have taken an interest in how cans work. Without taking a sip of hers, she fiddles with it, jotting things down in a small notepad.
It’s all so defenseless, considering crocodile fiends are on the prowl in this region, but their skills are first-rate. Maybe there’s no need for me to be on my guard. But I won’t slip up and make the same mistake again.
When the sun sets over halfway, the Menagerie of Fools begins to make camp. Lammis tries to help as well, but they politely refuse. She’s broken equipment and items with her excessive Might in the past, so they’re probably being wary of that.
She sits next to me, looking a little alienated, so I give her a warm milk tea as a present.
Don’t worry about it so much, Lammis. Just take it easy. Look at Hulemy—scratching at her exposed, bloated tummy, snoring away… Okay, maybe you don’t need to learn from her.
“We’re back.”
“All finished!”
Whoa, that scared me. I didn’t notice the red-and-white twins suddenly standing next to me. I don’t know whether a vending machine can sense presences, but I didn’t even notice one bit.
“Captain, we’ve taken a look around.”
“Nice work,” says Kerioyl. “Dinner’s soon, so give me your report.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Um, it was about two hours northeast from here, right, Red?”
“About that, White. There’s a small marsh there, with about thirty of them splashing around in it.”
They call each other Red and White? Their explanation was half-hearted, too. Are things going to be all right? I’m a little worried.
“Thirty, eh? How big a bask is that?” asks the captain, looking over to Hulemy, who has woken up and is now examining a plastic bottle’s material again.
“Hmm. They say a bask can be anywhere from ten to fifty at most. Thirty is a middle-size one. How big were the individuals?”
“Well, they were about the same height as us standing up, right, White?”
“Yeah, Red. About that height.”
A little shorter than I am, then. Pretty big specimens. Considering what the frog people look like, I imagine crocodiles standing up straight on two legs, with their arms and legs the same length as usual, which probably makes them slow-moving.
“That’s punier than normal. Normally, they’re about five feet. The frogs increased in number and made their own group, so maybe the crocodiles have been out of food since they can’t attack… Well actually, if there’s thirty, they could take on close to a hundred.”
By simple math, that means the crocodile people have three times the strength of frog people. Their skin is hard as armor, too, and their tails and giant mouths are fine weapons. I suppose it’s not strange for there to be such a power differential.
“We’re not experts on this stratum, so maybe I’m talking out of my butt. But the crocodile fiends are the most violent of the Three Factions here, right? If there were more frog friends, why didn’t they go and have themselves a feast?”
“Normally, you’d think that. But there was a king frog fiend there this time. We don’t know the conditions for a king to appear, and its crazy power is one thing, but the issue is that it can unify armies of frogs. Even the smaller armies and rogue ones will gather together.”
“And that meant the crocodile fiends had to be careful,” said Kerioyl. “That giant double serpent that attacked the settlement was out of the ordinary, too.”
Ah, I’ve been wondering about that. I’ve heard the double-serpent fiends generally move alone, and they’re about five feet in size.
“The more a double-serpent fiend eats, the more times it molts, getting bigger every time. But their meat is very tasty, and their materials sell for a high price, so a lot of hunters go after them. If any are wandering around alone, they make a perfect target.”
Frog fiends are targeted by crocodile fiends and double-serpent fiends.
Double serpents are targeted by hunters.
And the crocodile fiends…are left alone?
“Anyway, yeah. Their food source, the frog fiends, rallied under a king, the double serpents devoured all that remained—not that there was much to begin with—to get giant, making them hard to deal with. Probably means the crocodiles are weakened now due to food shortages.”
“I see,” says Kerioyl. “We don’t have to do anything about them, then, do we?”
“Captain, crocodile fiends are carnivorous. With a lack of a food supply, what do you think they’ll attack to sate their hunger?”
“Well, us humans, I guess. Then we should wipe them all out?”
What is going on with the ecosystem on this stratum? If they wipe out all the monsters, will they just disappear from the stratum? Or do they bubble forth from some mysterious power in the dungeon?
I’m sure if I asked Hulemy, she’d be more than happy to explain, but I have no way to bring up the topic.
“I don’t believe there would be an issue were we to eliminate a bask close to the settlement.”
Unusually, Vice Captain Filmina is in agreement.
Come to think of it, doesn’t it take three weeks of walking to get from one end of the Clearflow Lake stratum to the other? I understand what she means—wiping out a bask two or three days out shouldn’t cause a problem.
“Anyway, what are we doing? The request was to gather information on their basks. We don’t have to beat them—we’ll get a reward anyway.”
“But we can sell materials scavenged from them for high prices. I believe we have the option of felling several of the weakened ones ourselves. Those materials are valuable.”
What’s this? I’ve never seen Vice Captain Filmina raring for battle before. Wait, is the Menagerie of Fools in a financial crisis?
“She really changes when it comes to money.”
“She’s normally so calm and collected, too.”
“Last time, she got angry at me and said it was because I eat too much.”
The members huddle around and trade hushed remarks.
It’s possible she’s just a miser… But I guess under such a haphazard captain, one would naturally become strict with money management. From the looks of things, they do seem to be having a hard time.
“If we wanted to exterminate them, how would we do it?” asks Lammis. “Wait until night and attack, I guess?”
“You’d better not,” says Hulemy. “Crocodile fiends are nocturnal. They get more violent at night.”
“Huh, I see.”
Huh, I see. Ack, I said the same thing as Lammis. Hulemy really does know a lot.
Crocodilian ecology, huh? This one time, when I went to a zoo to see its animal-feed vending machines, I took a peek at the crocodile corner, and something was written there.
What do crocodiles eat again…? I remember seeing people feeding them fish and chicken. The vending machines didn’t carry raw food. Fish…paste products…chikuwa fish cakes— No, that wouldn’t work.
As for other characteristics… Oh, they mentioned how the frog people are weak with the winter, so maybe the cold affects the crocodile people, too. Crocodiles are cold-blooded, so it’s possible.
In the first place, the entire point was to get recon on the crocodile people before they entered their active season. We’re on the cusp of spring now, with the temperature on the rise. Coldness… Could I do that, maybe?
“Well, let’s all get a good rest tonight, then, and move out tomorrow morning,” says Kerioyl. “We’ll take care of any of them that stray from the bask!”
“I agree. We shall move tomorrow, and for now, we will make dinner. Red and White, please keep watch.”
“What? But we just came back from our reconnaissance.”
“You’re a tyrant! I demand better working conditions!”
“All right, all right. I’ll help, too, so let’s get going.”
As the twins complain of discontent, the archer girl goes between them, takes their arms, and drags them away.
After they finish the meal they made with the ingredients I provided, Lammis and Hulemy request to go on watch, so I decide to go with them. I’ll turn off my vending machine light for now.
“Tomorrow’s the battle, eh? You won’t be needing me, then. Lammis, Boxxo, don’t do anything crazy. It’s highly likely they’ll be real violent, thanks to the food shortage. If things get bad, Boxxo, protect her with your Force Field.”
“Welcome.”
“I’ll be counting on you, Boxxo!”
Roger that. Protection is my specialty. I have quite a few points to spare, so I’ll put my heart and soul into it if it comes to it.
“I still wish I could help, though.”
Oh, right. I wonder if Hulemy would be able to guess the trick I thought of earlier. Let’s give it a try.
“If the crocodile fiends have any weakness, it’s— Whoa, what’s up, Boxxo? You changed shape again.”
My form becomes slimmer than normal, with most of my body becoming white and the word ICE appearing on the top part. The compartment is fairly large—there’s easily enough space to put a bucket in there.
“What does this one sell? Boxxo wouldn’t change forms without a reason.”
You got it, Lammis. If you look inside, you’ll realize what I’m selling right away.
I rev up my vending machine engines and drop some ice cubes into my compartment. This is an ice vending machine, the kind in supermarkets and fish markets.
“Whoa, is this ice? I bet this would sell really well in the summer.”
“Fwah, it’s cold. But what do you want to do with this ice?”
“Based on what we were talking about earlier, you want to use this ice to help exterminate the crocodile fiends?”
“Are we going to throw them?!”
That idea is very much like Lammis, but that’s “Too bad.”
“Ice, crocodile fiends, ecology—there’s only one answer. Boxxo, can you put out cartfuls of this ice, by chance?”
“Welcome.”
“I see how it is. This could get interesting.”
“Hey, come on, tell me so I can understand, too!”
Oh, Lammis can’t keep up, and now she’s puffing out her cheeks and sulking.
I’ll let Hulemy explain in detail. She won’t listen to me once she gets mad at something, after all… It’s in your hands now. I’ll do my best as a lookout in your stead.
As I watch over Hulemy trying to soothe and humor Lammis, I use my Omnidirectional Vision to its fullest, keeping watch alone until she’s out of her bad mood.
When Hulemy explains the tactic the next day to the Menagerie of Fools, they seem like they’re all for it and decide to help. The red-and-white twins guide us to a stream that flows into the lake, and they set me down next to it. Then I begin pouring ice into it.
The stream isn’t even a foot wide, so it doesn’t have much water, but the ice floats up to its surface perfectly and flows toward the lake.
Time to give it everything I’ve got. Well, I have huge doubts as to how much this ice will actually lower the temperature, but the marsh isn’t that large. It’s still very early spring, so the water is cold; the ice should have trouble melting. Marshes serving as crocodile-fiend habitats are apparently shallow, so it should decrease the water temperature by some degree… I hope.
The crocodile fiends are the toughest to handle when they’re in the water, so if the temperature falls to a point where they decide to get out of the marsh, that’ll be a huge help, according to them. Which means it’s time to dump truckloads of ice in.
The cubes continue to clatter out and into the stream. The point conversion for ice is pretty cheap, so I can keep dumping it for about an hour and not hurt much.
It would be a godsend if their body temperature fell at all and their movements dulled. This is a cheap cost if it means making Lammis’s fight easier.
