by Funa
She was like a shell of her former self.
Now that her worries for the future of her sisters and their inn had been all but eliminated, she had lost all will to fight. The rosy future that she had only just begun to dream of had been snatched out of her hands in an instant. Furthermore, her sisters, only thirteen and eight, had soared past her, snagging two good men for themselves, and leaving only her, sixteen years old and all alone.
At this point, it would be fruitless to try and convince her otherwise.
For what had she struggled all this time? Apparently, her sisters had already had a happy future laid out for them from the start.
And as for her? What about her happiness?
“Nnnnnnnnngh…”
She could not cause her sisters worry, Meliza thought, but she also could not help the growl of resentment that escaped from her chest.
Her sisters, for their part, knew exactly how she was feeling. However, they would never relinquish the objects of their affection. Certainly not on this day, when they and their sweethearts had finally been reunited after three long years of waiting, when they had all sworn, on both sides, that their feelings would not change no matter how many days went by. Their eldest sister, who had looked down on the boys as nothing but a pair of squirts, treating them like children and not considering their future prospects, had brought this on herself.
Sorry, sis, the two thought. And thank you for having such a lack of foresight!
Indeed, had Meliza played the part of the “wonderful older sister,” a beauty with a silver tongue, the two younger girls would have never stood a chance. This was all made possible thanks to their dunce of a sister.
Lafia and Alile thanked her, truly and deeply, from the bottom of their hearts.
A pair of grins spread across their faces. Hehe.
Waaaaaaah! They’re scary! These two are seriously scary!! Seeing the sneers that the two girls wore, Mavis, Reina, and Pauline shuddered with fear… Though of course, what Pauline was most frightened by was their skill.
Seeing how Mile grinned blithely, not realizing that anything was amiss, the three found themselves, for once, just a little bit envious.
The only people in attendance at this homecoming party were the employees of both inns and the members of the Crimson Vow. After the owner said a few words, they all toasted, and then spent the evening in lively conversation while eating and drinking their fill. Of course, Elethen and Lafia, and Beist and Alile were surrounded by force fields of their own making—invisible walls with all the strength of a lattice-power barrier.
Atop the tables was the food that the owner and his wife had been preparing since the last call for evening dinner, along with plenty of ale for the boys, who were now full-fledged adults. As with many countries in this land, there was no minimum drinking age here, but Mile, Lafia, and Alile kept only to tea and diluted fruit juice. Meliza, however, drank and then drank some more. No one, including the owner and his wife, who seemed to have finally gotten a grasp on the situation, would have dared to stop her.
This was dangerous. Everyone, save for Meliza herself, and the four who were in their own little worlds, sensed this.
“Um,” Mile ventured, “are there no other good men in this town? Say someone who’s young and attractive, earns a good living, and would be interested in Miss Meliza?”
The owner, who looked as though he had all but given up, replied, “Well, there are…”
“Whaaaaaaaaat?!?!”
The four were shocked. What an unexpected reply!
“Y-you’re saying there is someone like that?!”
Though they had heard it with their own ears, Mile and her three companions were half in disbelief.
“Meliza’s never minded having hunters as customers, but she’s always said things like, ‘hunters are all just a bunch of broke losers,’ and, ‘it’s a trade for ruffians who could die any day.’ She always ruled them out as potential marriage partners from the get-go. But you yourselves should know that not every hunter is like that, right?”
It was not untrue that many hunters were guys who couldn’t make it in any other job or people who schemed to claw their way to the top by strength and skill. In fact, this included even Mavis, who was striving to become a young, noble A-rank, and then a knight. These were the types of men whom Meliza would be keen to avoid.
However, there were also those who would someday be forced to follow in their parents’ footsteps and assume a life of boredom, who worked as hunters to live a life of freedom while they could, and joined parties who only took on relatively safe jobs. Moreover, there were whole parties of veterans who were brought together by parents to look after youths. Colloquially, these were referred to as “young lord hunters” and “the hired help.” Such arrangements were not especially numerous, but they were not so rare, either.
There were also those who were saving up money in order to open their own businesses and those who only did simple things like herb gathering once a week for the sake of their health and had other jobs for their primary income—hunters who only did the work as a hobby and other such anomalies.
Without knowing of such exceptional circumstances, Meliza was likely to eliminate any hunter from the pool of potential marriage candidates simply because they were hunters. Yet leaving these prejudices aside, who knew how many of the regulars at the Maiden’s Prayer were honest, reliable, and attractive enough to catch the eye of the rather shallow Meliza?
“A-are there really guys around here like that?”
“Of course there are. Meliza herself probably doesn’t even know it, but there’s a young man who works as a hunter and is the heir to his family’s small, but successful shop, as well as a guy who calls himself a D-rank hunter but really only works one or two days a week to spend time with his hunter buddies. He spends the rest of the time tutoring the children of nobles. That’s not to mention the guys who never have to worry about money and hunt just for sport, takin’ on only jobs that excite them, and well—all sorts of others in various circumstances.”
“………”
Now that they thought about it, the owner must be right.
No hunters who were strapped for coin and living payment to payment would have been able to afford to dine at the rather expensive Maiden’s Prayer every day—staying all the way through both breakfast and dinner at that…
They were the sort of guys who you’d have to ask, “When do you ever work?”
“I-In that case…”
“Now that her two sisters have found men for themselves, Meliza’s gonna be in a hurry to do so, too… Probably too much of a hurry,” said the owner, throwing a glance Meliza’s way as she continued to gulp ale.
“So if someone who was likely to give up their trade as a hunter and settle down after they get married found out…”
“Plus, Meliza’s pretty popular. I’m sure there are plenty of guys who would be game to devote themselves to a non-hunting trade if they knew that they would get to court Meliza—and if she knew what those trades were, Meliza might be swayed also.”
The owner looked to Meliza, who was still drinking like a fish, and the two couples, who were surrounded by force fields so impenetrable that not even alien invaders would have been able to disturb them. Just a few years ago, he never would have been able to fathom the idea of those girls and his own sons getting together. However, now that that reality had been thrust before his very eyes—along with the impossible tragedy of the eldest daughter having been skipped over in the process—a whirlwind of emotions swirled through the owner and his wife’s minds…
“Is it my age? Is my age the problem? Or is it my chest? Is something wrong with my chest?”
The eldest of the party, Mavis, who, based on her age, would likely stop growing soon in a measure that was not her height, began to fret over the inadequacy of her bust.
Hearing this, Reina, who was perpetually enveloped by a feeling of inadequacy at the fact that both her height and bus
t seemed to have stopped developing, pulled the liquor bottle toward herself and filled her cup up to the top, chugging it down in a single swig—“R-Reina, you shouldn’t drink so much!”—all the while glaring at Pauline, who was the one person who had no room to talk.
Mile, of course, was carefree as ever.
She still had plenty of time.
Her height and her bust were still blossoming. She had only just turned thirteen, after all.
Ignorance, it would seem, truly is bliss.
Chapter 44:
A New Blast
“We should make it to the next town pretty soon,” said Reina, hunched over a map. The Crimson Vow were taking a short break.
They were on a journey, so naturally, even they had a map on hand. Without one, they would find themselves lost very quickly. However, said map was nothing like the kind in use on modern-day Earth. It was a rough thing, much like the maps you might find in the guidebook of an RPG. Indeed, it was the sort of thing that marked only mountains and forests and rivers, and paid no regard to scale. Nevertheless, if one were to encounter a road with three forks or something of the kind, a map was still indispensable. It was the sort of world where taking a turn onto the wrong path could mean death, after all.
After somehow slogging through what they had begun to think of as “the celebration with delicious food but super bad
vibes” at the Wild Bear Lodge, the Crimson Vow had booked it out of that town first thing in the morning. There was nothing left for them to do there, and even if they wanted to stay, they could not bear the atmosphere any longer. They could not handle having to watch the continued flirtations of the two young couples—or the grim and ghastly looks upon Meliza’s face as she looked upon the same.
Plus, the discussion of the previous evening had quickly morphed into the tale of why not one of the four, cute as they were, had managed to find a boyfriend their age who was their equal. They all came from very different circumstances. There was Mavis, who was aiming to become an A-rank as quickly as possible. Reina hoped to be a B-rank. And Pauline wanted money. Still, they all had one thing in common: none of them had any time to waste on something so frivolous as men.
Only one amongst them, Mile, thought to herself now and then how nice it would be to make friends with some boy sooner or later. However, such a thing was impossible while they were on a journey such as this one. In any case, Reina was a horrible saboteur, even if Mile was never aware of it.
At any rate, though the owner and his wife had tried again and again that morning to offer them a monetary reward, the party refused, saying that they had no intention of profiting off a project that they had merely undertaken for the sake of amusement. With that, they bid farewell to the owner, his wife, their pitiful sons, Lafia and Alile (who looked somewhat relieved), and Meliza, who was still down in the dumps, before leaving the town behind.
“I really hope that Miss Meliza can be happy,” said Mile.
“She’ll be fine,” Reina replied. “The owner and his wife said they’d find some men who suited Meliza and try to sway them into a proper career. She’s a beautiful girl who comes with her own inn! I bet there are tons of guys who would love to get their hands on her. She’ll have the pick of the litter. There’s no need to worry!”
Somehow or the other, Reina and Mile had begun to grow fond of the girl, and together, they prayed for her happiness.
Why they felt such a kinship with her was unclear…
***
It was late that same afternoon.
Thanks to Mile’s inventory, the Crimson Vow moved much quicker than most hunters, traveling over 40 kilometers a day on average. Most travelers could only make it thirty kilometers if they were feeling particularly sprightly, so needless to say the four were incredibly fast-paced for a group of young girls, rookie hunters or not.
It was mostly thanks to the inventory. Furthermore, they had healing and recovery magic on their side.
In any case, after arriving a bit early at the next town where they planned to stop for the night, they popped into the local guildhall as always, to make themselves known and check out the job and information boards. Then they headed to an inn to rent a room.
In this town, there was little difference between the inns. The rates differed very slightly, but the food and amenities were more or less the same, so it seemed that the choice was up to them.
This was how things usually were, anyway.
After picking a suitable inn and scarfing down dinner, they headed up to their room. Weary from a full day’s travel, Mavis, Reina, and Pauline tidied themselves up with cleaning magic and then headed straight to bed,
Mile, as always, was burning the midnight oil.
Aside from the times they were camping out, the three other members of the Crimson Vow always got a full eight hours’ sleep, while six hours was more than enough for Mile. Such had been her pattern even in her previous life.
And so, after erecting a magical cloak to keep the light from leaking out and disturbing her companions, Mile illuminated the area around her with a spell and withdrew from her inventory a ratty piece of paper, along with the ballpoint pen-like object that she had asked the nanomachines to make for her, and began to write.
In the beginning, she had attempted to use the quills that people in this world normally used for this purpose, but having to dip the quill in ink over and over again was such a bother, and when she had tried to create something like a fountain pen, the paper was so thin that the nib snagged it and ink spread everywhere. It was quite the disaster.
Next, she tried a pencil, the simplest and most reliable implement, but of course it dragged on the paper, and she kept having to erase things, so all it did was irritate her.
Mile had a rather short temper.
In truth, she was normally quite patient, but when it came to anything that interfered with her reading or writing, she morphed into a Mr. Hyde very quickly. This was the sort of girl she was.
And so, what she finally landed upon was something like a ballpoint pen.
Mile had instructed the nanomachines to make the item however they liked, but of course, that was a little bit outside of the rules, and they could not accept such an instruction. Fortunately, Mile herself knew enough about the basic function and construction of a ballpoint pen to guess that, given time, such an item might come to appear in this world even without the nanomachines’ intervention. Thus, the instruction was not to make an item that couldn’t exist in this world, but rather, to simply cut down on the time it would take for such a thing to be invented. As such, the nanomachines accepted the task as something that was within the bounds of Mile’s knowledge and gave her order the okay.
It was always rather difficult to determine precisely where the limits lay…
All that aside, Mile now continued writing with her ballpoint pen-like object.
The fact that the tip of that pen was made from something like orichalcum or mithril was, again, of no great concern to the nanomachines. The paper was what was going to someone else, and it was not as though Mile had any plans for mass-production or putting the objects on the market. Even if she tried, it would be a wildly, absurdly expensive venture to undertake.
And so, around the stroke of midnight, Mile finally tucked herself into bed.
***
The next morning, once the Crimson Vow had finished eating breakfast, they packed up at the inn and headed over to the guild.
They had no intention of lingering in such an ordinary town as this one. Indeed, they planned to continue heading straight on to the capital of this kingdom. Just in case, however, they decided to stop in and check if there were any good jobs that would take them in the direction of the capital or any relevant bits of intel to be had.
It was normally quite rare to find jobs that were difficult, unusual, or even interesting in such a small town as this. Therefore, they deemed that it was best to ignore these small places and instead carry on to a bigger city, where they cou
ld stay a short while.
Sure enough, once they checked the board, they found that there were no interesting or good-paying jobs. The next merchant caravan bound for the capital was not leaving for several days yet and had already assembled its full escort.
“Well, guess that’s it for us here, then,” said Reina. “If we set out now…”
“Oh, wait a minute!” Mile interrupted. “I need to send something out. Give me a few moments, please.”
With that, she pulled some sort of bundle out of the pack that she carried for those times when she wanted to appear as though she were a normal hunter.
“I’ll just be a moment!”
She rushed over to the reception window. It was not the job acceptance and completion window that the four were so familiar with, but the request window, a place that was as good as foreign territory to them.
“Excuse me! I’d like to have this sent out, standard service. Certified delivery to the capital of Tils.”
Such delivery requests were a standard service of the guild. Normally, if one needed to transport something from one town to another, you did it yourself, or else made a request to a merchant to do so by way of the Merchants’ Guild. However, if it was an unusual item—a bulky package or something valuable—one could also go to the Hunters’ Guild to make a standardized transport request. Even if it was a fair bit more expensive than hiring a merchant…
So, why would one contract the Hunters’ Guild, despite the higher cost?
For one, it was overwhelmingly more secure.
Even if the Merchants’ Guild were involved in the request process, for requests made through the guild, the individual who was transporting the item would still be a normal merchant. Among such people were those of poor character, and moreover, the possibility that even honest merchants would be attacked by bandits.
In the case of the Hunters’ Guild’s standard service, transporting guild documents was the carriers’ main job, so even if they were attacked, there was little chance of them having much money to steal on their person. Plus, because they were carrying such important documents, they often had an escort of other skilled hunters in sufficient number to ward off attacks. Furthermore, assaulting an official guild convoy would make one an enemy of the Hunters’ Guild throughout the land, meaning that a large-scale subjugation force would immediately be organized, regardless of cost or profit, extending to all of the neighboring lands.