Guardians Academy

Riki spluttered. "This is the place I was at for the Mole Serpent bounty!"

Farmer Andrews?! When they said 'recently killed farmer', they weren't kidding!

"Forget it, I'm not fighting that Mole Serpent!" Riki retreated.

"But the Mole Serpent is gone!" Cody pointed out. "Crystal killed it already!"

Riki paused. "That's right…"

A slow smile grew on his face. Cody felt a similar smile growing on his. "Let's do it!"

Renting the electric tricycle and the cart would cost him 40 credits a day. Cody half-cried as he handed out the money he'd been saving for tomorrow's class, but he felt reasonably sure he could earn it all back in a couple of trips to Farmer Andrews' place.

"I'll owe you 20 credits." Riki promised as they headed out.

"What number does that put me in your pay-back queue?" Cody asked, curious.

"Uhh…"

With one on the tricycle and one in the cart, two boys and their machetes headed to Farmer Andrews' place.

"You're sure the Mole Serpent is dead?" Riki asked, cautiously gripping his machete tightly.

"We saw it die." Cody reminded him.

"Great." Riki said, loosening his grip and patting the hilt of his sheathed machete. "You know, this very same machete was the one I borrowed from Farmer Andrews for the bounty hunt."

"Really? You got it for free?" Cody squinted. "Are you giving it back?"

"No way!" Riki burst out. "Besides, he doesn't need it any more. In fact, I think on top of the machete and the hoe he used, he also had a pitchfork that he could have lent out…"

"A pitchfork, huh?" Cody mused.

"You can take it if you want it." Riki said generously. "As thanks for the ride here. And back. And again."

It was leaning against the barn wall, right next to the entrance. Cody picked it up and brought it along.

They found the grain in heaps of sacks like sandbags stacked up waist-high in Farmer Andrews' barn. Bringing the tricycle over, they happily loaded up the cart with no less than twelve sacks.

"One hundred and twenty kilograms!" Riki exulted. "We're going to be rich!" .

So he said, but after he painstakingly climbed on top of the sacks on the cart, and Cody started up the electric tricycle again, they realized that they had a problem.

"We're hardly moving." Riki gulped, hopping off the cart. Even then, the tricycle moved so slow, it was literally inching along.

"Take off another bag." Cody suggested.

Riki took off one bag, and then another, and then a third before the tricycle moved along at a decent pace. Even then, it was akin to Riki's walking speed.

With a sigh, Cody added his own pedaling to speed up the Tricycle. It didn't amount to much, bȧrėly increasing the speed to a faster walk.

"I'll take another bag off." Riki grimaced, and reduced the load some more.

One last bag came off before they managed jogging speed.

"That's it. Seventy kilograms would give us 35 kg each, enough for the Advancement Mission. That's as low as we can go. I think it should be fast enough already." Cody decided.

"I don't know." Riki eyed it thoughtfully. "I think if we reduce the weight farther, we could go faster and take two trips, maybe come back with a better bike or something…"

Cody considered it. The speeds he reached when hauling ore with Laila and Melinda were better, but that was with some fifty kilograms, not seventy. But still… "You wanna pay for a better motor?"

"Uh… no." Riki grimaced.

"We can take this back now, and try for a second load later." Cody suggested. "Then we'll see. But even if we didn't, we'd at least have fulfilled the Advancement requirements."

So they rolled out of the farm, but as they were going, Riki said, "Cody, how big do raccoons get around here?"

"Uh… raccoons?" Cody checked online. "About two feet, two-and-a-half. Floran Amber Raccons reach four feet. Why?"

"I think... that big one is watching us." Cody gulped.

Cody turned around, but it was too late. All he saw was a big shape scurrying around the corner. "Was that really a raccoon? Are you sure it wasn't one of the others?"

"It… kinda looked like a raccoon. An evil one." Riki gulped.

Cody didn't think it was one of the other students either. There was no reason for other students to avoid them. Plus, they'd have brought vehicles or carts or at least wheelbarrows…

"Let's get out of here." Cody said.

"Cody?"

"Hmm?"

"I think… that might have been another Bounty creature."

"Really?"

"The term 'trash can bandit'… it kinda brings to mind the face of that evil giant raccoon."

Cody thought about it. "You might have a point."

There were a couple of zebra-monkeys beside the road, but Cody steered clear of them and they didn't pursue. They just stared at the boys menacingly.

"Cody… is it just me, or are their eyes… green?" Riki asked in a low voice.

"They're green." Cody gulped. "And glowing."

Oddly enough, the zebra-monkeys didn't attack. They just sat there by the roadside, far away from their usual haunts, staring.

As they increased the distance between themselves and the monkeys, Cody turned back to see a third zebra-monkey had joined the earlier two. They were no longer beside the road, but moving to block it.

"I'm not sure we should come back for a second run." Riki said, with a gulp.

"I'm not sure we should either." Cody grimaced. "At least, not without backup. In any case, we'd already have access to Level 7 missions, so let's not decide just yet."

***

They met Kalen and Oren with three armed villagers outside Initial Village.

"What's going on?" Cody asked.

"Perimeter Patrol." Kalen said, glancing at them. "You?"

"Supply Run for Provisions." Cody shrugged.

"Level 6 advancement?" Kalen snorted. "You'd need to reach Level 8 to join our Patrol. Plus, Tier 2 survival rating."

"Good to know." Cody felt a bit annoyed at the way Kalen looked at him but he didn't make a fuss of it.

"Tier 2?" Riki half-spluttered. "I haven't even taken the classes for Tier 1 yet!"

"Me neither." Cody admitted. He still needed tomorrow's class first.

With Cody driving the trike and cart safely to the warehouse, he and Riki successfully passed the Advancement Mission for Level 6!