Megumin hadn't managed to get the cool, flashy battle armor she wanted, so in a fit of pique she bumped Jhin's cola ration up to three cans a day. Jhin, perfectly satisfied now that he'd completed his magic, didn't bother to make an issue of such trivial matters — on the contrary, he'd swagger around in front of her in his [Elemental Armament] for no reason at all, stamping her feet in fury, yet utterly powerless to do anything about it.
With those scrawny little arms and legs of hers, even if she snatched up her magical staff and rapped him with it, it wouldn't hurt all that much — never mind that he was wearing battle armor; actually hitting him would probably feel about the same as a little tickle.
Clearing out monsters along the road, gathering materials and food, it took two days for the Gourmet Edifice to reach a stretch of marshland where the Bubble Frogs appeared.
Round clumps of brownish-green grass, large and small, pieced together into solitary islets upon the water's surface. Growing throughout this marsh were many strange trees — trees with no branching limbs and no leaves, like rows of perfectly straight long spears thrust into the water.
"It has only a single trunk, and the center is hollow, much like a drinking straw, so it's called a Straw Tree." Kokkoro, who had read no small number of books among the Elf race, introduced these odd and curious things to everyone: "The air in this marsh is very humid, so rainfall must be quite frequent. The hollow core of a Straw Tree can even be used as a water-storage tower. There are similar plants among the Elf race too."
"So, that monster called the Bubble Frog — where exactly is it?" Megumin raised her right hand level with her eyebrows, stood on her tiptoes, and gazed all around. This marsh looked desolate and deathly still — apart from the five of them, there wasn't a single other living creature.
Pecorine picked up the thread: "I heard from others that the Bubble Frog only appears during this marsh's heaviest rainstorms."
"So we have to just sit here and wait for a downpour?" Kyaru knit her brows tightly. She really didn't want to be out catching frogs in a rainstorm — apart from bath time, she didn't want her ears and tail getting even a drop of water on them.
"It's the only way. Last time I gave up precisely because I never got a rainstorm."
"Who knows when a downpour will come — we're not going to have to stay here for ten days or half a month, are we?"
"No need." Kokkoro shook her head and gave a firm reply: "Judging by how humid the air is, there'll be a rainstorm in half a day at most."
"If all else fails, I'll just control the water element and conjure up a rainstorm myself." Jhin could sense that the water element here was unusually dense; making it pour over a small patch of ground was something he could still pull off.
Megumin tested the depth of the marsh with her hand, and when a soft, mushy sensation reached her fingertips, the water had already risen past half of her arm.
She mischievously stirred it a couple of times with her finger, turning the once fairly clear water surface murky, then drew her hand back and shook off the droplets: "Hey~ the water here is pretty deep. How are we supposed to move around in this marsh?"
"I'll just use the ice element to freeze a floor on top of it."
"Oh, right — I almost forgot you're an ancient magician."
Having decided to wait here for half a day, Kokkoro set up a campfire some distance from the marsh. At first she'd wanted to light it nearby, but because the water element around the marsh was so abundant, the air was abnormally humid, and the kindling she lit had a hard time staying alight, so she had no choice but to move elsewhere.
Kyaru brought her tail around in front of her, close to the fire. After spending just a little while at the marsh's edge, her tail had swollen up a whole size, like a sponge that had soaked up water, which left her thoroughly irritated.
Jhin rubbed his hands together; that fluffy cat tail made him really want to go over and give it a stroke. Unfortunately, she definitely wouldn't agree to it. Smacking his lips with deep regret, he decided to keep teasing Megumin instead, turning to put the [Elemental Armament] on.
Too bad Megumin had wised up: she simply shut both eyes — out of sight, out of mind. Although the corner of her mouth still leaked drool from time to time, at least she wouldn't be provoked to the point of her eyes blazing.
Having spoiled his own fun, Jhin could only dismiss the magic, pick up a twig from the ground, and poke at the firewood in the fire.
As time passed, the air gradually grew so humid that one needed only to swipe and grab with a hand to come away with a palmful of water droplets. Apart from Pecorine, who was insensitive to the elements, the other four all sensed the water element ceaselessly gathering above the marsh.
In the blink of an eye, a rainstorm descended upon the marsh. The spot where Jhin and the others stood happened to fall just outside the rainstorm's range. Gazing at the waterfall-like curtain of rain, Kyaru wore an extremely obvious expression of disgust: "Do we really have to go in there to look for Bubble Frogs?"
"Don't worry, I'll use the wind element to keep the rain out, and I'll freeze a floor beneath our feet with the ice element too."
"O-okay, fine, since you're going that far."
Walking into the marsh, the wind element draped over everyone's heads like a great, constantly spinning umbrella, flinging away the pelting rain. Treading on the ground formed of solid ice, Pecorine narrowed her eyes, searching for Bubble Frogs in the rain.
But this rainstorm was so heavy it even impaired everyone's vision. The dense rain was like an enormous pane of frosted glass laid over the outside of the wind element, blurring every feature within the marsh into a haze.
Megumin tried sticking her head out beyond the wind element, only for a faceful of muck and putrid stench to blast her right back. She wiped her face and shouted: "Jhin! Quick, use the water element to rinse the mud off my face — it stinks so bad!"
"With wind this strong you still dared stick your head out…"
"I just wanted to see a bit more clearly, that's all."
"There, all rinsed off. Here, wipe your face with a towel."
Megumin brought her hand to the tip of her nose and sniffed, her face going dark: "Don't take out my towel — if I wipe my face with it, what happens when the stench gets all over it?"
"Is it really that smelly?" Jhin leaned in close to her in curiosity, and ignoring the way she pushed and shoved at him, sniffed at her snow-white little face: "It really is a rotten smell. Feels like you just crawled straight out of a garbage heap."
"I am NOT smelly!" Megumin, flushed with shame and anger, landed a punch on the chest of this unfiltered jerk: "It's the mud that stinks!"
Pecorine, who had originally been thinking of braving the rain to dash out and look for Bubble Frogs, instantly dropped the idea at the sight of this — taking even more steps back than she'd taken forward. No girl, whoever she might be, could put up with reeking from head to toe, let alone in front of a boy.
Kyaru noticed that, starting a moment ago, something had been pelting against the wind-element barrier and then getting flung away: "Hey, did any of you notice something dropping down on top of us?"
"It looks like a small animal?" Kokkoro said uncertainly.
"An animal? Don't tell me it's a Bubble Frog?"
At those words, Jhin slowed the wind element down a little. This time, everyone saw a palm-sized black shadow drop onto the top of their heads. The sharp-eyed Kyaru made out the true appearance of this little black mass — it was a frog with a red fruit growing on its back.
"A frog with fruit growing on it — could it be a Bubble Frog?"
"It can't be wrong — in this marsh, only Bubble Frogs appear during a rainstorm."
"Then I'll send the [Elemental Armament] out to catch it."
After all, the [Elemental Armament] was battle armor constructed from magic. Even if it got the stench on it, once the magic dispersed, that stench would vanish along with it, so Jhin wasn't worried about it turning into Snow-Eater Armor.
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