The morning sun spilled over the cobblestone streets of Silverhaven like golden syrup. The trio, Selena, Lio, and Sarah arrived at the bustling adventurer guild hall, still energized from their last odd-job spree and riding the high of laughter from their recent Kokoroko misadventure.
Selena was the first to spot it.
Selena: "Look! A rookie quest! There's actually one!" she shouted, eyes sparkling with ambition.
Lio and Sarah lunged toward the board with equal desperation, all three grabbing the same parchment in synchronized chaos.
Sarah: "Mine!"
Selena: "No way, I saw it first!"
Lio: "I grabbed the corner, that counts!"
A young copper-ranked adventurer approached with curious eyes, only to see the trio huddled and growling over the quest. He quickly backed away, whispering, "Never mind…"
Meanwhile, Red, trailing behind them with his signature black cloak and coffee in hand, merely sipped and sighed. No questions. No objections. Just coffee.
After fighting for ownership rights and realizing all three were in the same party anyway, they slapped the quest on the receptionist's desk and marched toward Silverhaven's west gate.
None of them had read the details.
It wasn't until they were halfway through the golden grasslands outside the city that Lio blinked and muttered,
Lio: "Uh… guys… what are we hunting?"
Selena, confident as ever, waved the parchment like a flag.
Selena: "It's just silk. How hard could it be? We find the bugs, poke them with sticks, get the silk. Easy."
Sarah squinted.
Sarah: "Wait… what kind of bugs?"
Red finally decided to grace them with his voice.
Red: "If you're hoping it's butterflies… you'll be disappointed."
Selena unrolled the quest parchment and began reading aloud.
Selena: "Harvest high-quality silk from... a Kokoni." She paused.
Selena: "…What the hell is a Kokoni?"
Red took another sip of his coffee, his face unreadable.
Red: "Overgrown silk caterpillars. Aggressive. Territorial. Not fond of humans."
Lio: "Do they… bite?"
Red: "No. They constrict. Then they wrap you in silk. Then they suck the moisture out of your skin."
Selena's face turned pale.
Selena: "WHY is this a rookie quest?!"
They were too far now to turn back without losing face.
The clearing came into view, marked by thick webbing on trees and tufts of soft, glimmering silk hanging like haunted curtains. In the middle of it all—, giant, fat green caterpillars with beady black eyes and small mandibles twitching in anticipation.
Kokoni.
And they were huge. Nearly the size of sheep.
Lio: "Oh gods no, they look like living green sausages!"
Selena: "We are not dying in a caterpillar cocoon today, I refuse!"
Sarah: "I didn't survive slavers to get wrapped up like a lunch burrito!"
Before they could retreat, one of the Kokoni launched silk like a cannon. Lio screamed as it hit him square in the chest and legs, yanking him off his feet.
Lio: "WHY IS THIS SO STICKY—NOOOO—"
He flailed, flopped, and was promptly mummified in a comically suggestive pose, legs up, arms pinned, and his butt hovering awkwardly in the air.
Selena burst out laughing.
Selena: "Lio! You look like a tied-up roast chicken!"
Sarah, giggling:
Sarah: "It's like bondage but tragic!"
Lio's muffled voice came from within the cocoon.
Lio: "This is EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!"
Just as the trio was flailing in half-fight, half-panic mode, three more figures stumbled into the clearing.
Hina, pink-haired, staff-wielding, and clearly not ready for combat.
Yuzu and Rika, black-haired cousins, the former clinging to her staff like it was a security blanket, the latter notching an arrow that shook in her hand.
Hina: "Are those the Kokoni…?"
Yuzu: "I hate bugs. I hate this quest. I hate my life."
Rika, aiming, whispered:
Rika: "Just don't let them see you're afraid…"
The Kokoni immediately turned toward them. All three girls screamed in unison, backed into each other, and waved their weapons uselessly in the air.
Red, finally done with his coffee, stood and strolled casually into the field. Without effort, he drew his short sword and sliced through the silk webbing pinning Lio, who flopped onto the grass like a broken sausage roll.
Red didn't speak. He just gestured at the Kokoni.
Red: "Beginner training."
The six rookies stared at him in horror.
Lio sat in the grass, wrapped in leftover strands of silk, shivering from emotional trauma.
Lio: "I'll never wear silk again... It touched places... Places I didn't give permission…"
Selena, trying to help, just pulled another strand of silk from Lio's butt.
Selena: "Hold still! You're like a badly wrapped dumpling!"
Sarah: "He smells like one too. Ugh."
The three cousin rookies — Hina, Yuzu, and Rika — watched from behind a bush, absolutely done with everything.
Hina: "Do you think we'll die if we just quit now?"
Yuzu: "Yes. But faster than being eaten by a fat caterpillar."
Rika, aiming her bow at the Kokoni again:
Rika: "I'm gonna try diplomacy."
Red, ever the quiet specter of calm in their chaos, finally sighed.
He stood, picked up a small pouch from his belt, and walked straight toward the Kokoni field.
Selena: "Wait, Red, what are you doing?! That thing's gonna"
Red knelt calmly near a patch of grass and pulled out… a shiny apple.
He gently placed the fruit on a flat rock near a silk bundle and stepped back.
The Kokoni, large and squishy, inched toward the apple with slow, jiggling grace. Its eyes sparkled. It nibbled. It purred.
Purred.
And while the Kokoni was distracted, Red took out a small curved blade and snipped a silk strand hanging loosely from the tree behind it.
Red: "Kokoni love sweet things. Distract. Harvest. Repeat."
He walked back and dropped the perfect coil of silk in front of the group.
Selena, jaw-dropped: "Wait… that's it?!"
Sarah: "We almost died for that?!"
Lio, still cocooned:
Lio: "THEY HUGGED ME. WITH MALICE."
Yuzu: "Are you telling me... we could've bribed them with snacks?!"
Red, sipping from his coffee again
Red: "Rookie mistake."
Hina: "So… you're telling us this is like... feeding ducks?"
Red: "Except ducks don't tie you up in bondage and suck your moisture."
The group stared at the Kokoni, now happily munching on a second apple Red had tossed into the field.
Rika, lowering her bow:
Rika: "So… we farm silk... with apples."
Red nodded.
Red: "Efficient. No injuries. No emotional scarring."
Lio, twitching:
Lio: "Too late…"
The rookies, now armed with apple slices and bruised dignity, began their silk farming in silence, while the Kokoni wiggled in delight and nuzzled up like overgrown pets.
The sun hung low over Silverhaven by the time they trudged back through the western gate, bags full of soft, shimmering Kokoni silk.
Selena had grass in her hair.
Sarah's boots were soggy with whatever fluid Kokoni secreted when tickled.
Lio... still smelled weird.
They marched into the guild hall like tired veterans returning from war. Only this war had involved cute but terrifying silk caterpillars with judgmental eyes and sticky hugs.
Behind the front counter stood Mirielle, the ever-smirking adventurer guild receptionist, flipping through quest logs with her usual cool indifference.
That is, until she saw them.
She raised a single amused brow.
Mirielle: "Back from the silk quest, I see."
Selena, attempting grace, slapped the quest sheet and silk bundle down.
Selena: "Completed. No casualties."
Mirielle: "Physically."
Lio, glaring.
Lio: "I was violated, Mirielle. Those things wrapped me like a forbidden birthday present!"
The receptionist leaned her chin onto her hand.
Mirielle: "You're lucky the Kokoni didn't use double wrap. That's how we lost rookie Barry."
Selena: "There was a Barry?!"
Mirielle: "There was."
Red, silent as always, dropped a second bag of silk beside the first, took a sip from his mug, and walked toward the seating area without a word.
Sarah: "Is he even real…?"
Mirielle, processing the quest paperwork: "Looks like everything's in order. Full reward, 30 silver. Split three ways?"
Lio:"Hey! What about Red?"
Mirielle: "Does he look like he needs silver?"
They all looked over.
Red was sitting calmly in the corner, sipping coffee as if nothing in the world could ever touch him. A beam of light from a high window framed him like a painting of a stoic god.
Sarah sighed.
Selena growled.
Lio rubbed his butt protectively.
Lio: "If I ever see another silk bug, I'm burning it."
Mirielle, handing out the silver:
Mirielle: "Oh, I almost forgot—Selena, someone left this for you."
She handed over a small box with a red ribbon.
Selena opened it.
Inside: a tiny plush Kokoni, hand-stitched and smiling.
Attached was a note: "To commemorate your first silk mission. Don't let them tie you up too." – M."
Selena: "...I will destroy whoever did this."
Lio, already laughing:
Lio: "You're gonna match mine!"
He pulled a similar plush from his pouch. It wore a tiny black blindfold. "Mine has trauma eyes."
Sarah, holding hers:
Sarah: "...Mine has a knife."
Mirielle, smiling sweetly:
Mirielle: "Guild tradition. Every rookie gets one. A reminder."
Selena, eyes narrowed
Selena: "Reminder of what?"
Mirielle: "That no matter what you survive... we're always watching."
The trio left the counter in varying degrees of emotional damage while Red, as always, simply stood and sipped his coffee.
He held up his hand.
In it... was his plush Kokoni.
It had sunglasses.
And somehow… it looked smug.