by Kumo Kagyu
Huh. They were the same.
She knew her sense of solidarity might be a little one-sided, but Cow Girl still breathed a sigh and relaxed a little. She had always been outgoing, after all; she didn’t feel nervous. And anyway, this was one of his party members.
It would be wrong to say that there was no shadow of a doubt in her mind—but Cow Girl determined to make herself keep an easygoing attitude.
“You said you stayed behind this time? Why’s that?”
“Oh, umm, it’s…” Suddenly, Priestess couldn’t quite finish her sentence; her eyes darted this way and that. Her cheeks flushed red—had her temperature gone up a little?—and her eyes turned to the ground with a downcast look.
Hm? Cow Girl thought suspiciously, but an explanation was soon forthcoming.
“Today is…a bit of a rough day for it…”
“Sure.” Cow Girl gave a strained smile and nodded. It was something every woman had to deal with.
It must have been hard on the abashed younger girl to have the information pried out of her like that.
“What do you usually do, you know, when you’re not on an adventure?”
“I pray.”
Cow Girl knew it was a clumsy attempt to change topics, but the girl’s answer was brief and guileless. She more or less fit the image Cow Girl had come up with after seeing her from afar a few times.
“Really!” Cow Girl said admiringly, and Priestess put a slim, white finger to her lips and thought a moment.
“I also read the scriptures, and the Monster Manual, and I train…”
“Gosh, you’re the serious type, huh?”
“I just haven’t learned enough yet.”
Perhaps Priestess wasn’t used to being praised, because Cow Girl’s expression of surprise caused her to blush in embarrassment.
Hmm…
She decided not to say that she planned to praise Priestess to him later.
Despite how he looked, he did care for people in his own way, so perhaps it would be overreaching herself a bit, but…
“…Hey.”
“Yes?”
“How about we take a walk?” Cow Girl smiled. “Since we ran into each other and all.”
“…You’re right.” Priestess smiled again, like a small flower coming into bloom. “Yes, let’s wander a bit.”
§
“Come to think of it, it’s still a ways off, but when summer’s over, it’ll be time for the harvest festival, won’t it?”
“Oh, yes. The Temple will be starting preparations for the offering dance soon.”
“I wonder who the dancer will be. Thought about becoming a candidate?”
“No, hardly. It carries a lot of responsibility. I’m not ready yet.”
“You think? Maybe our farm should set up a stall… We could do something besides just food.”
“It’s gotten pretty hot already, but fall will be here before you know it, won’t it?”
As the two of them walked side by side, with no particular destination, they conversed idly.
The frontier town was one of the farthest pioneer settlements. Naturally, it had many visitors, and plenty of people walking about. But not, of course, as many as the water town or the Capital, so as they went they saw faces they knew here and there.
“Oh, good to see you!”
“Hello!”
Cow Girl bowed, and Priestess gave a respectful nod as they passed an adventurer they recognized. Her circle of acquaintances had certainly grown since the goblin lord’s assault on the town.
It’s an odd feeling.
Cow Girl giggled involuntarily, prompting a mystified glance from Priestess.
“Nothing, nothing,” Cow Girl said, waving her hand, but the smile didn’t vanish from her face.
Whatever he might say, he was clearly connected to a large number of people.
Not like me, huh?
“…Hey. What’s he like? I mean, usually.”
“What’s he like? How do you mean?”
“I just wondered if he, you know, was a pain in the neck or anything…”
Cow Girl laced her hands behind her and spun around, but Priestess waved her hands and said, “Oh, hardly! He’s always helping me and everything. I’m afraid I’m the one who causes all the trouble…”
There didn’t appear to be any falsehood in Priestess’s words or expression.
Cow Girl smoothed down her ample chest with relief. Relief that he wasn’t causing trouble? Or that he wasn’t disliked? She didn’t know which.
“But…” Priestess lowered her voice and winked one eye teasingly. “…Maybe he’s just a tiny pain.”
“Oh yeah?”
The two of them looked at each other and giggled.
It was questionable, in some ways, that he was the topic they shared, but at the same time, he was easy to talk about. How he could be strange and serious and dense and you couldn’t leave him to his own devices. It gave them plenty of fodder for conversation.
“But it’s true that I owe him a lot.”
Priestess described a side of him Cow Girl had never seen.
How when she had first seen him, she’d thought he was some kind of monster. How he was, apparently, trying to act like a Silver-ranked adventurer. How quickly he was under the table when the party got together to drink. How he was always willing to take guard duty given the large number of spell casters in his party.
That sounds so like him, Cow Girl thought. But she also thought, He’s gone drinking with everybody?
“And he’s taught me a lot about adventuring.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” Priestess tapped her lip with a finger. “Chain mail, for example.”
“Chain mail…?”
In the back of her mind, Cow Girl tried to picture all the items he kept in his shed. Chain mail was one of his favorite pieces of gear. She remembered him polishing it carefully with oil. He had even shown her how to make emergency repairs to damaged sections using wire.
“But—” She suddenly remembered a question she had had for a long time. “Isn’t that stuff heavy?”
“If you tie a belt around your hips or abdomen, it spreads the weight out over your entire body, so it’s not so bad.” Then she added, “But your shoulders do get stiff.”
Cow Girl nodded. That made sense. “It’s tough being an adventurer, huh…”
“I wear just chain mail, but I gather that many magic users don’t like to wear it at all.” The dwarf, for example, seemed to ignore it.
Cow Girl nodded noncommittally at Priestess’s words. There was an old tradition that metal interfered with magic—but she didn’t know how true it was. She was half convinced it must be superstition, but once in a while there were people who wanted horseshoes to keep away magic.
Magic, witchcraft, and divine miracles were things Cow Girl knew nothing about.
What she was more interested in was…
“Chain mail, huh?”
“Sorry?”
“…Hey, the Guild deals in chain mail and armor and helmets and stuff, right?”
“What? Oh, yes,” Priestess said, nodding hurriedly. “I buy mine there, myself.”
“In that case…” Cow Girl grinned like a child sneaking away from her parents to play. “How about a little window-shopping?”
§
“Y-yikes…”
And there, in front of Cow Girl’s eyes, was underwear.
Or more accurately, armor that was practically underwear.
It was a set that included just a chest covering and a little something for the lower body. Categorically speaking, it might be called light armor.
In terms of mobility, it easily outdid a full set of metal armor.
The armor itself was beautifully curved, elaborate, and solid. From that perspective, it was unimpeachable.
The problem was, it just didn’t cover enough surface area.
It was just chest armor—really, breast armor—and panties.
/> There were shoulder pads, true, but that wasn’t really the issue.
“Huh? D-do you wear something else with this?”
“No, that’s the whole thing.” The apprentice boy working a sword along a round whetstone behind the counter spared them a glance. He had been glancing for some time now, in fact, perhaps concerned about the girls holding the merchandise.
“Has… Has anyone actually bought this?” Priestess asked disbelievingly. It wasn’t clear whether she noticed the flush in his cheeks.
“Well, it is easy to move in. And it provides a modicum of protection… At least, that’s the sales pitch.” Then the boy muttered something that sounded like an excuse—“I’m not sure I should really say this, but”—and added, “Some people, you know. They want to, uh, appeal to guys…”
“Appeal? Yeah, you’d probably get some attention in this.” Cow Girl picked up the bikini armor, blushing and muttering, “Yikes.”
She examined it from the front, turned it around and observed it from the back, ran her finger along the severe angles of the hips, laid it out, and examined it again.
“Isn’t this a little too revealing?”
“…We get enough orders to make it worth having here,” the apprentice boy mumbled, discreetly averting his eyes.
“Hmm,” Cow Girl breathed. “I guess you’d have to have courage to wear something this dangerous. It’s basically a swimsuit.”
“That’s true…” Priestess nodded with an unreadable expression. She went on studying the items on the shelves with great curiosity. As someone who stood in the back row, maybe she hadn’t had much exposure to weapons and armor. Cow Girl was as curious as Priestess.
“Oh, this…” Suddenly, Priestess stopped in front of a display of armor. She had picked something up with a smile. It was a helmet.
“Hey, I recognize that.”
It was the natural reply for Cow Girl, who was smiling, too. Priestess had picked up a gleaming, but cheap-looking, steel helmet. Except for the horns growing out of either side and the fact that it was brand-new, it was just like his.
Cow Girl peered down into the helmet through its empty visor, then she clapped her hands.
“Hey, what if we put it on?”
“Huh? Can we do that?” Priestess tilted her head in confusion at the unexpected idea.
“The sign says you can try things on.”
“Umm, okay then, here goes nothing…”
Holding the helmet with a hint of reluctance, Priestess first took a cotton balaclava with “For Fitting” written on it. She pulled it on, paying careful attention to her long hair, then slid the steel helmet on over it.
“Y-yikes…”
Her delicate body listed to one side; the helmet must have been as heavy as it looked. Cow Girl reached out frantically to support her. The girl’s willowy form was strikingly light.
“Whoa, you okay there?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little off balance…”
Inside the visor Priestess’s eyes could be seen, still appearing innocent despite the gear. From the slight flush on her cheeks, she seemed oddly embarrassed.
“Heh-heh… I…I guess it is pretty heavy. And it makes it kind of hard to breathe…”
“That’s because it’s a full-head helmet. It’s only natural—the visor’s a pretty tight fit.”
At the apprentice boy’s remark, Priestess scrambled to release the clasps, and the visor popped up.
“Phew!”
Cow Girl chuckled at the seemingly involuntary sigh of relief, and Priestess’s face turned even redder.
“Th-this is no laughing matter…!”
“Ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sorry, sorry. Okay, me next.”
Priestess took off the helmet and then the balaclava. When Cow Girl took them and put the head covering on, she caught a faintly sweet aroma of sweat.
Hm?
Was that—not perfume, but how she naturally smelled? Jealous! With that thought, she pulled the helmet on.
“Y-yipes… Pretty tight in here.”
“Yeah, right?”
Through the fine lattice of the visor, the world was dark, narrow, and foreboding. She sucked in a breath and let it out, her vision wobbling as she did so.
Is this the world he sees?
What did she, and Priestess, and his other companions look like to him? How did their faces appear?
“I can more or less picture it, but…”
“What’s that?”
“Mm. Isn’t it kind of unfair that he can see our faces, but we can’t see his?”
“Ahh,” Priestess said in agreement, giggling. “That’s true.”
“Not that I think he’s deliberately trying to hide… Hup!”
She nodded as the apprentice boy said, “Put it back where you found it, okay?” She returned the helmet and balaclava to the shelf.
She let out a breath, her chest bouncing as she stretched her neck this way and that. She didn’t think of herself as in poor physical shape, but all the same, armor definitely left your shoulders stiff.
Hmmm… “Say…”
“Yes?”
“Since we’re here…” Cow Girl smiled like a child with a prank in mind. “Why don’t we try that armor on?”
Priestess looked where she was pointing and then quickly lowered her head, bright red.
§
“Aww, man! My country’s toast!”
“Too bad… Well, it’s not very funny.”
“That dragon is way too strong! I don’t have the equipment or the skills to handle it.”
“But you’ll find a way. Isn’t that what makes you Platinum-ranked?”
After perusing the wares at the workshop, the two of them turned to the tavern and saw a strange sight.
It was past noon but not yet twilight, and there weren’t many customers at the Guild tavern. If anything, they seemed to be just getting ready. The chairs were set on the tables, and the waitress was sweeping a corner of the floor.
Inspector, Guild Girl, and High Elf Archer were seated at a table with cards spread out in front of them. They made strange company, but a company they made.
“What are you all doing…?” Priestess asked hesitantly, blinking as she peeked at the tabletop.
She still seemed a bit agitated and had been unable to calm down yet; she straightened her slightly disheveled clothing.
“Oh, it’s a tabletop game,” Guild Girl answered, looking back over her shoulder at Priestess. She wasn’t wearing her uniform, either, but personal clothes. She made a tidy and fashionable picture.
Thinking to herself, She looks good, Cow Girl directed her eyes to the table. There was, indeed, a game board with several pieces, cards, and dice.
“I found it when I was organizing some old papers yesterday, so we thought we’d try it…”
“That dragon, though! It’s so strong!” High Elf Archer whined, her little chest pressed against the table.
“If it weren’t strong, it wouldn’t be a dragon. I understand what you’re saying, but take it easy,” Inspector—also in personal clothes—said with a strained smile. Presumably, the red-colored dragon piece sitting smack in the middle of the table was the wyrm in question. And the pieces lying on their sides around it were all the adventurers who had died challenging it.
“So how y’feeling?” High Elf Archer asked, swiveling her head toward Priestess.
“Oh, okay,” Priestess nodded in embarrassment. “It’s about over now.”
“Cool,” High Elf Archer said, waving her over. “In that case, help me out, here. I don’t have enough adventurers anymore.”
“There are…adventurers…in this tabletop game?” Cow Girl tilted her head in perplexity. It almost made sense, but she couldn’t quite put the pieces together.
“To put it simply,” Guild Girl said, “you pretend to be an adventurer. There are plenty of rules and stuff, though.”
“Pretend to be an adventurer?” Cow Girl murmured, ruminating on the idea. “So you, li
ke, slay goblins and stuff?”
“Sure. Some more basic ones exist, where you’re like a real adventurer searching through a cave.” Guild Girl poked one of the metal pieces, perhaps a shabby-looking light warrior or thief, and smiled. As far as Cow Girl could tell, the piece wasn’t wearing a helmet. She was mildly disappointed.
“This is from a higher-level perspective, where the question is how you protect the world from danger.”
“You have to collect the legendary weapons and armor and make sure your skills are up to snuff before the dragon wakes up,” High Elf Archer grumbled, abruptly raising her head and letting her ears droop. “But we don’t have enough hands or enough time.”
“You can also take quests from the village, and collect gear, and fight the dragon…” Inspector counted off the tasks on her fingers, nodding to herself. She seemed full of confidence despite having lost the battle, which made her appear silly yet reliable. “It can give you a taste of running an Adventurers Guild, where you have to do everything.”
“I didn’t know there were games like this,” Cow Girl said, reaching out with great interest and picking up a piece that looked like a knight in armor and helmet.
He looked a little more ragged, or at least, his equipment looked cheaper—but what a fine knight. Not bad.
“This is completely new to me…”
In her mind, “games” were mostly limited to those where you scored points with combinations of cards. Similar entertainments might include listening to songs, playing dice, and maybe competitions if there was a festival.
Guild Girl chuckled, watching her stare at the pieces and board.
“Want to try it?”
“Huh? Can I?”
“Sure,” Guild Girl said, crinkling her eyes and nodding at the way Cow Girl’s face lit up. “It’s not easy to just wait there doing nothing, is it?”
“Hrm.” Cow Girl let out a small sound. There was no besting this girl. I guess this is what they call an adult woman.
Whether or not she was aware of Cow Girl’s thoughts, Guild Girl never stopped smiling.
“Come on, we’d love to have more adventurers. Don’t be shy!”
“Uh, sure, don’t mind if I do, then… How about you join me? Since you’re here…”
“Oh, okay!”
Cow Girl gave Priestess a tug on the sleeve, practically pulling her into a seat. Now there were five women forming a complete circle around the round table. No doubt many adventurers, had they known about this, would have complained that they wanted to go to the tavern.