Chapter 3: Beastkin Clerk (Feline-type) and Beastkin Apothecary (Mouse-Type)

One’s mission was not complete until one successfully returned home and turned in the mission report. Even in the safety of a small village, the dangers still threatened adventurers, so heading to the adventurer’s guild immediately after entering town was a natural routine for travellers. There, any and all accommodations and services were available for registered adventurers from appraisals to sales to lodging. The adventurer’s guild was a wanderer’s go to destination in every town which had a guild building.

For an experienced mercenary like the Dragon Rider Alain, heading to the guild was second nature after completing a request. How else would he earn a living while travelling the world like a vagabond? Caring for his beloved Emerald Dragon, Gale, was not cheap.

Unfortunately, as a constant victim of bad status effects, his mission was still incomplete despite having returned to the adventurer’s guild in the town of Ramil he had been using as his temporary base of operations for a month. His luck with Mini had gotten the best of him again.

The only thing he could be thankful for was that working for the Ramil guild was a beastkin duo of potion makers. They were acquainted with small sized customers enough that there was actually an entrance to their storefront that was connected to the guild building. 

“Mini’d again, you two?” asked the clerk of the Ly-Ro Potions, Lysa. Her feline-like ears twitched as she stared down at the man and dragon who landed atop her desk. “You’re pretty big actually. Usually you two end up a lot smaller.”

“We were able to get stronger protective enchantments on our equipment, but our magic resistance still leaves a lot to be desired,” sighed Alain who got off his mount. His one investment he had hoped would protect him and his mount against bad status ailments was costly, but it did raise their collective magic resistance enough to ensure them that Mini would not make them as small as bugs. It was just shame however, that their resistance was still abysmally pathetic.

Standing on the wooden desk being stared down upon by the cat-eyed beastkin girl was unnerving. He had been reduced to 15 elvish centimeters tall. Compared to the 170 cm lynx girl, he and Gale looked like dolls made for young children.

“Fufu~n~” giggled Lysa. Her short tail curled as she put her finger under Gale’s chin to gently pet the dragon like an ordinary house cat. “How’d it happen this time?”

“A magic trap in Noran Forest,” he sighed. “That blasted half-elf living there for research must have set them up.”

Magic traps had a fixed amount of magic power within them, so they weren’t supposed to be able to make people that small, but unfortunately, their low magic resistance and luck led to them being brought down to such a state.

“Miss Dialantha really hates visitors after all,” nodded Lysa as she brought out a transparent lens roughly 5 centimeters in diameter. She held it up to her eye as she looked at the dragon rider and his mount. “Hm… The Appraisal Glass says the effects will wear off in five more hours.”

“Five hours?” That was far too long.

His reaction made the cat-type girl smile. She placed both of her elbows onto the desk with a heavy thud from his perspective. Even Gale was perturbed by her sudden movement. “We could always get you the medicine. You would have to pay, though. One panacea is 20000 but with the guild discount, it’s 18000. Since it’s the two of you, that would cost 36000.”

“Even with the discount, that’s still too much.” Panaceas, unfortunately, were far beyond their spending capabilities.

Purrr…

Lysa’s smile continued to widen. She changed her seating position, putting both hands onto the desk and lowering her head, which was around twice Alain’s height, down to the table. Her feline eyes followed his every movement. “It’s your fault for dropping your guard that this keeps happening to you, Mister Alain~! I don’t mind. You’re cute when so small. you’re like a cute little mousey. It’s a shame you didn’t get smaller like you usually do.” 

Lysa was in a good mood. Instinctually, she was attracted to smaller creatures like a predator. Though she was civilized enough to know attacking customers was bad, she couldn’t resist talking down to Alain.

“I’d rather just wait for the effects to wear off then,” groaned the man as he turned to his mount. “Sorry, girl. We don’t exactly have that kind of money, so we’ll have to grin and bear it.”

“Ewoo...” the Emerald Dragon understood but was disappointed.

This meant, however, that they were going to have to find a safe place to stay while Mini was still in effect. Considering how hectic the adventurer’s guild and the pharmacy could be, he couldn’t just stay on the countertop.

“Urggh!” “W-Woo!”

The beastkin girl was not rough with them, as she cupped her hands around them to pick them up, however, she was not cautious. She lifted them up - straight into her chest.

“Well, let me take you to a more comfortable place to wait then, you two~!” the clerk giggled. She purposefully pressed them against her bosom. She could feel Alain’s hands and Gale’s claws gripping on her blouse. Mischievously, she chose to move with a spring in her step, causing her chest to bounce more exaggeratedly as she walked.

“W-Whoa! Miss Lysa… This is...” the dragon rider was flustered. There were a number of people within the guild who would envy his current position, and he would trade places with them immediately if he could. Though he was accustomed to sudden jerking motions while riding his mount, the weight of Lysa’s breasts slamming into them made both his and Gale’s stomachs churn.

“Is something wrong, Mister Alain~?” she pretended to ask naively. She wasn’t going to listen to any objections anyways. Bringing the dragon rider to the backroom of the store was the safest option for him and would keep him out of the way. 

Knock. Knock.

“Rona! Are you busy? We’ve got a Mini’d adventurer with us. Can you keep an eye on him until it wears off?”

Of course, leaving the adventurer alone with their stock of goods, medicines, and potion making equipment was not going to be a good idea. While Alain was a respectable individual who was trusted enough to not steal, even the happy-go-lucky Lysa wasn’t careless enough to leave him there just because he was small. 

“Eh? Just him put under a glass or something. I’m busy here.”

“Are you sure? It’s Mister Alain and his dragon! Weren’t you interested in him?”

“H-H-Hey! Please don’t that put it that way, Lysa! I was simply interested in why they were so susceptible to Mini. That was all!”

“Aw~ You’re so cute, Rona! I didn’t think mentioning his name was all it’d take to get you to put down your book.”

“Lysa, you cheeky kid...! I keep telling you to respect your elders!”

The conversation between the two owners of Ly-Ro Potions continued as Lysa released him and his dragon onto the table the feline beastkin’s partner was seated at. In the month he had stayed in Ramil, he had gotten acquainted with the other girl with animal features working at the guild shop. He wasn’t exactly happy Rona was interested in him and Gale for their lack of magic resistance, but he did feel safer around Rona than Lysa.

Though that was probably because of Rona’s height. The 33 cm mouse-type beastkin was a little genius and the actual potion maker of Ly-Ro. Considering the current effects on Mini on them, though, even the mouse woman clad in her handmade dress was over twice as tall as him.

“I’ll be tending to the store, okay? Take good care of him, Rona!” Lysa walked away, leaving Alain and Gale with the little apothecary.

“That Lysa… I swear…,” Rona shook her head as she approached the two of them.

Alain could see he was under waist high to the woman. He resembled a child in comparison to the mouse girl while Gale was more akin to a large dog. Considering Rona was the older of the two potion shop owners and actually 3 years his senior, it actually would be possible for other mouse-type beastkin to mistake him as her child if he actually possessed animal features.

“Well, welcome again, Alain,” Rona gave up on being frustrated and welcomed the man. She looked at him and the dragon over with her hand on her chin. “You two are certainly larger than usual. I suppose you paid an enchanter to strengthen your equipment?”

“It still wasn’t enough, sadly,” Alain nodded as the mouse girl squatted to get a better look at him. Even bending her knees, she was still taller than him. However, this was better than how it previous was when they were shrunken down to 5 elvish centimeters. 10 centimeters was the difference from being doll-sized to Rona and being child-sized.

“Well, you two at least made it here safely instead of getting crushed or swatted away,” she praised and turned to Gale. The Emerald Dragon was wary, especially when the mouse girl reached forward to pull her into a brief embrace. “You’re quite the impressive girl, Gale. You’ve done well to get all the way here safely at your size.”

“Woo~! Ewoo!” At first, the dragon struggled, but she couldn’t break out of the mouse beastkin’s grasp. When she realized this, she simply accepted this and let the mouse girl nuzzle her.

“Um… Miss Rona?” coughed the dragon rider for the sake of his mount. He called the potion maker’s attention.

“Huh? Oh my goodness, I’m sorry. I don’t usually get to handle dragons considering my size, so I couldn’t resist,” apologized the apothecary. “As an apology, I’ll ask Lysa to give you another discount.”

He appreciated being able to get things for cheaper. Unfortunately, he was aware it still wouldn’t be enough to get what he wanted. “I don’t suppose you can just give us a panacea instead of a discount, could you?”

“You do know how much those cost, Alain. I’m afraid I can’t do that unless you do something extra to compensate. And I’m not sure you’d be willing to do that for Lil’ Ol’ me,” was Rona’s answer. She turned back to the small dragon rider and poked him in the forehead like she would a child. To her surprise as well as his, he was pushed backwards. “Oops. My mistake. Mini reduces your physical ability far too much. I forgot you’re actually weaker than my six year old niece like this.”

Her comparison put their current size into perspective. Alain scowled.

“That blasted witch of a half-elf… I’ve half a mind to land through her roof for doing this to us,” he grumbled. “I’ll do what you want, Miss Rona. But please, give us the panacea.”

“Ah, so Dialantha’s the culprit this time. I was sure it’d be another monster,” chuckled the mouse girl as she stood up to her full height again. She was glad to hear the man’s approval for her deal. Her mouse tail curled around Alain for a moment before she turned around to go pick up the notebook she had been jotting her notes in earlier. “Okay, if you’re fine satisfying my curiosity, I’ll cure you afterwards.”

“What do we have to do? I’m not sure about the safety of testing your potions in this state.”

“Oh, it’s simple. I’d like you two to strip.”

Alain paused. So did his mount who understood the beastkin girl’s words. Gale mimicked her owner when the dragon rider stared incredulously up at the mouse woman. Was what Lysa trying to imply earlier correct?

“Excuse me, Miss Rona, could you repeat that again?”

This time, it was Rona’s turn to pause. It took her a moment to realize what she had even said. Her pale face turned red when she figured it out. “S-Sorry. I phrased that poorly. I meant that I wanted to see what would happen if you took off your enchantments.”

“Grk…” the dragon rider hesitated. He suddenly preferred what he initially assumed to what Rona actually desired. “Miss Rona. If we do that, we’ll lose our extra magic resistance.”

“I know,” nodded the mouse girl as she put her hand on the miniscule dragon rider’s shoulder. She had to squat down to properly place it on him, but its firm grip kept him in pace. Furthermore, Gale found her tail caught as well by Rona’s tail coiling around it. “But that’s precisely why I’m curious. I’ve been researching status ailments for years, and Mini is still a mysterious curse. If I learned more about it, I definitely could create a potion that cures on Mini without having to rely on those expensive, rare ingredients for the Panacea.”

She wanted to know more about what would happen if they lost their magic resistance while Mini.

Alain wondered if it was because the mouse beastkin’s researcher switch had been flipped or if it was just because she was more comfortable speaking up due to being bigger than him. Whatever the case, she was being more assertive than he had ever seen her. It unnerved the dragon rider. 

However, the reward of a Panacea was too much to pass up in this case. If all they had to do was remove their enchanted equipment to receive the precious recovery item, they would.

“Alright then,” decided the adventurer as he climbed back onto his mount. The pair were of one mind and one soul. They would remove the magic resistance enchantment together. He gulped. “Gale, get ready.”

“Ewoo!” affirmed the dragon as her rider removed the enchanted equipment they both were wearing.

“U-Urgk...” “W-Woo...”

In an instant, the duo found a heavy force pushing into them from all directions - like an omni-directional Gravity spell. They were familiar with this feeling - the effects of Mini on their bodies. As Alain had thought, if they lost the magic resistance that had allowed them to be 15 cm tall instead of 5, the cursed status effect would bring them back to that height.

Alain watched as the 33 cm mouse woman rose up in his perspective. As their heights went beneath Rona’s knees, the man tried to keep his head facing forward instead of upwards because they were now able to see under the mouse girl’s knee-length dress. They were going down from child-sized to doll sized again. 

But doll-sized to the mouse girl ended up being a height they passed over.

“Wait… B-Blasted! What’s going on?” he stuttered, watching Rona continue to rise up higher and higher. By the time his shrinking finished, the pair had gone from 15 cm to 1 cm. They were barely taller than the mouse beast-kin’s ankles.

“Oh. Dialantha is good...” he heard the mouse girl comment, impressed.

“W-What happened?”

“Hehehe….” A giggle escaped Rona before she could stifle it by putting her hand over her mouth. She made sure to take a step back so she could see the miniscule dragon rider and his mount properly. “My apologies, Alain. I didn’t think you’d end up so small. This is even worse than the norm.”

He figured that much out. Gale began to flap her wings. The Emerald Dragon did not like the idea of being on the ground next to a barefoot that could crush her so she took flight, slowly trying to bring herself up to Rona’s eye level. She was so slow due to her minute size, however, that without any enhancements it was quicker for the mouse woman to kneel down than for her to fly up. In doing so however, she created enough of a gust of wind that the dragon couldn’t continue upwards.

“Whoa, Gale! Hold on tight there!” Alain ordered as he tried to get his mount to get upright in midair.

Rona tried to explain her observations to the centimeter tall pair as she watched them fly around. “From what I can gather, her trap didn’t just simply inflict Mini on you two. It’s clear that there was a Reduce Magic Resistance curse applied onto it as well.”

So that was why they had been shrunken down so small even when they had the enchantments. They had been cripled by the weakening curse in tandem with the Mini curse.

“Gale, we are making a mess of that woman’s hut when this is all over,” Alain ground his teeth.

“Woo! Woo!” the dragon was equally as furious.

The mouse girl’s interest continued to grow as she watched the diminished adventurer fly about around her knees. Critters like butterflies were fairly large to her normally, but she wondered if seeing Alain and Gale fly about the same experience Lysa had with them.

“Hehehe...” a light laugh escaped Rona as her tail curled happily. “To think I’m so much bigger than someone like this. It makes me wish I actually studied magic to be able to use Mini. Fooooo~!”

The 33 cm potion maker playfully blew down onto where the dragon rider was circling. To the adventurer, it felt like a storm’s gusts started to batter down on them.

“H-Hey! This wasn’t part of the deal, Miss Rona! This is dangerous to us!” he shouted as he and Gale fought the gust of the mouse girl’s breath.

“My apologies. I simply couldn’t resist,” spoke the apothecary, though it was clear she was amused. She was content after having seen Alain shrink further, however, so that meant she had to uphold her end of the bargain. Standing back up to her towering full height of 33 cm, she stepped away from the flying bug that was the dragon rider and dragon duo. “I’ll go grab a panacea bottle, so you just wait there, okay?”

“Finally…,” the dragon rider let out a breath of relief as he watched the mouse woman walk over to a steel box. She used her tail to take out a small key that was hidden beneath a potted plant that was on the table and then used it to open the box. It was quite a sight seeing the giant (to him) woman struggle to lift the box and then pull out the gargantuan glass vial that was the status ailment curing Panacea.

He was thankful Rona was actually a reasonable sort of woman. Though she had playfully blown down on them, she did not do anything beyond that. She cared for her customers’ safety despite her intellectual curiosity. It was why she was the brains of the operation at Ly-Ro Potions as well as why Alain was willing to remain in Ramil for an entire month. The ability to get a trusted supplier of restorative products was a boon to any travelling vagabond.

Rona was also quite a beauty now that he was of a small enough size to see more of her. If their normal sizes were actually similar enough, Alain admitted he wouldn’t have actually minded disrobing at her request… without the dangers of Mini still affecting him of course.

The mouse woman was a far better option than the young lynx, Lysa, after all.

Wham!

“Break time!” a loud voice echoed in the backroom of the guild’s potion store as the clerk slammed open the door with great force. Even as far away as the door was, Lysa was forceful enough that the table Rona was on shook, causing the mouse woman to stumble for a moment.

“L-Lysa! Please be more gentle! You nearly made me break a bottle.”

“Oops. Sorry, Rona,” apologized the feline beastkin.

“Is that a Panacea? Did you and Mister Alain make a deal?” 

“Yes. I was curious about his enchantments, and I wanted to know more. I’m sorry for giving him such a big discount without talking to you first. I think I’m one step closer to an Anti-Mini potion, though.”

“If that’s the case, I don’t mind at all. You’re the potion maker here. If you actually manage to make a cheap Anti-Mini potion, I won’t complain! More money means more profits~! Hehehe~!”

Alain and Gale were wary as they watched Lysa approach the table. Her gargantuan form was mountainous in height. If the two needed to get to her eyes, it would require a strong effort on Gale’s part. The buckle of the belt on the clerk’s hip alone was five times their height. 

At the very least, the beastkin were far more civilized than monsters; however, the smallest they had ever gotten was 2 cm. Being small in front of someone who was regular sized was not too unfamiliar to them, but 1 cm was far more miniscule than the previous incidents. And considering they were now 15 times smaller than before, Lysa was just as dangerous as encountering a predator of a monster while Mini’d. Additionally, because she had seen him at 15 cm tall earlier, she wouldn’t have realized he’d gotten smaller. She was unaware that her movements pushed the air aside, causing a heavy burst of wind that the dragon rider had to fight to stay airborne. 

When Lysa sat down by the table, her attention was focused on Rona, so she did not realize he and Gale were flying in circles above the desk. However, she was not blind. Beastkin had sharp instincts and feline-types were able to detect even the slightest bit of movement.

“Hm…? A bug?”

Though she didn’t realize it was them, she had spotted them. Their miniscule size registered them as a bug to the beastkin clerk who did not realize they had gotten smaller.

“Huh? W-Wait Lys-” Rona realized too late to stop her partner.

“B-Blas-”

Smaaaaaaack!

In an instant, an enormous skin colored ceiling appeared before the dragon rider and dragon. It came down on them, slamming into them and pushing them through the air downwards. There was no evading the titanic lynx-like beastkin as she slammed her hand down onto the table, intent to squish the ‘fly’ she had spotted.

And that was precisely what happened. Alain’s attempts to put up a defensive barrier in time were in vain because the moment he generated a magic shield, Lysa’s village-sized hand hit it, sending both the dragon rider and dragon into the table with intense strength. The shield was only able to protect them for a short time before it shattered from the force of Lysa’s hand impacting the table.

“There we go~!” giggled the feline beastkin.

“No! Lysa! That was Alain and Gale you just smacked! They got even smaller earlier!” Rona shouted, letting go of the table to run all the way over to the injured bug-sized duo.

“What? Eh? M-Mister Alain? I didn’t realize.”

The pair were alive but in intense pain. 

“G-Grk! That hurt… If it weren’t for the barrier… we’d be paste…,” the dragon rider managed to speak. He had been right to be wary and ready to defend. “Gale… are you alright?”

“Woo woo…,” the dragon uttered weakly. Her wings were bruised but not broken. Her rider’s magic protected her well.

It was then that Rona finally came up to them. The mouse girl’s shadow fell over the fallen pair as she looked down at them with worry. She carefully picked them up. She was well aware that it was her request that had gotten him smaller and weaker. Though the cause of his being affected by Mini was a magic trap’s fault, the two wouldn’t have shrunken down further if she hadn’t asked for them to take off their protective enchantments.

“Uwah... We might need to give him a big discount to make up for this.”

The beastkin clerk had been no adventurer, but she had been able to catch them and swat them like an insect so easily. And they were even small enough for a mouse-type beastkin to be able to hold them in the palm of her hand. Even back in an innocent town, while under the effects of Mini, even an ordinary villager could overpower them. This was precisely why the Panacea was so vital to them. If a cheaper way to remove the bad status effect existed, they would purchase it in a heartbeat, but until then, the dragon rider and his mount would have to endure more trials and tribulations brought about whenever they were reduced in scale.