by Hiro Ainana
I reached into Storage via my pocket, pulled out the ring, and handed it to Number 1.
“This is…!”
“Zen entrusted it to me. Please make sure that it reaches his wife’s grave safely.”
“Even if it costs me my life, I shall!”
Number 1 pressed her hand to her chest and promised with a deathly serious expression.
Yikes, you don’t need to be that determined about it.
“With that being the case, we would like for you to please designate one of our number as a representative to be your personal attendant.”
I wouldn’t have a problem choosing a hostess at a hostess bar or something, but it was pretty difficult to choose from a group of eight beautiful women with identical faces.
“It’s all right if you all go to the graveyard together.”
“No, we can do no such thing.”
“Then I’ll let you choose among yourselves.”
Since my first suggestion was immediately rejected, I decided to just leave the decision to them. We already had five people in our group, not including me, so it shouldn’t be a big deal if we gained one more member.
The women were apparently deciding who would stay behind with a rock-paper-scissors tournament. The group of beautiful, chesty women playing rock-paper-scissors with very serious expressions was a pretty surreal sight.
In the end, Number 7 was the one who was chosen.
“Master, I look forward to serving you from now on, I do declare.”
“Sure, thanks.”
The seven women behind her gritted their teeth in vexation.
Apparently, Number 7 had won the right to be my attendant in the rock-paper-scissors game.
This surprised me, since I’d assumed that the loser would be the one who would stay behind with us.
It would be a pain to keep calling her Number 7, so I asked her to let me give her a nickname. It was meant to be only a temporary alias, but it actually changed her name in her status window.
“Okay. Let’s get along well, Nana.”
“Yes, master.”
The other women wanted me to give them all names, too, but it would be difficult to think of that many on the spot, so I put it off by saying I would give them names when they returned.
When Arisa heard the name I’d given her (which was really just seven in Japanese), she shot me a scolding look, but I couldn’t help that I didn’t have a good sense for naming.
Once I’d given Nana a name, her title changed from Zen’s Puppet to Satou’s Servant. Then, the other seven women’s titles all changed in the same way, as if responding.
In the end, Nana became part of our group as a sort of first payment in an installment plan.
I had no problem welcoming a large-chested beauty into the fold, but the problem was that her real age was technically…zero years old. Since Number 1 had been two years old, maybe Nana’s eccentric manner of speech would improve within two years?
Arisa and the others looked at us with expressions of thinly veiled dissatisfaction.
It would be hard to persuade them about this.
While we waited for the sun to rise, I tried suggesting to the store manager that we could take Mia to the elves’ village.
Mia herself wanted us to as well, so he gave permission more easily than I’d expected.
Their conversation went something like this.
“Yuya.”
“What.”
“Going home.”
“I’ll take you.”
“It’s fine.”
“You’ll be okay?”
“With Satou.”
“I see.”
I really wished they’d communicate in more complete sentences.
The store manager called out to me and clasped my hand. Arisa raised what sounded like a shriek of excitement.
“Will you?”
“Take Mia home, you mean? Yes, of course. I was already planning to go to the old capital, so that should be right nearby.”
“I see…”
Still holding on to my hand with both of his, the store manager looked at me steadily.
Um, please tell me this isn’t actually a boys’ love situation?
“I, Yusaratoya of Bolenan Forest, implore you, Satou of the Shiga Kingdom. Please take Misanaria, the child of Bolenan Forest, back to our hometown.”
“Sure, leave it to me.”
Whoa, that was the first long sentence I’ve heard from him.
I was going to suggest this plan anyway, so I readily agreed to his request.
Now after we went sightseeing in the old capital, we’d get to visit the elfin village, which was hidden by a secret veil.
Zen had said an earlier hero had been sent back home to the world he came from, so I could go sightseeing free of concern. Just as I’d planned, it looked like my itinerary of going to the Saga Empire after I finished my tour of the Shiga Kingdom would be a good way to go.
Once the sun rose, the store manager used his magic to transport us to a forest near Seiryuu City.
It would have been a fun fantasy scene to make our way through an overgrown forest while pushing aside branches, but all we actually had to do was walk along an “Elf Road” for ten minutes or so before we came out near the city.
I’d love to learn this kind of magic.
As usual, I got the “Forest Magic” skill the instant I stepped onto the Elf Road, but apparently, the incantation for using it was an elfin secret, so the store manager wouldn’t teach me.
We’d parted ways with the ratman before leaving the Cradle. The store manager had offered to transport him with Forest Magic, but he insisted on walking back to his village on foot. Of course, I remembered to return the magic hatchet I’d been holding on to for him.
Nana’s sisters came with us as far as the forest near Seiryuu City, then went off on their own.
Their simple miniskirt dresses had been a sight for sore eyes, but they were hardly suited to a long journey, so I gave them some of my and Liza’s spare clothes and overcoats. There were plenty of things in my most recent spoils that they might need for a journey, so I gave them as much as they could carry without too much trouble.
The girls’ race seemed like it might be a problem on their journey, but luckily there was a proper countermeasure to be found. Among the new loot I’d gotten was an item called the Amulet of Humanity, which could disguise the user’s race as “human” and even hide their race-specific abilities. This talisman was apparently what Zen had used to infiltrate the city and such.
It wouldn’t fool the original Yamato stone, but the replica Yamato stones like the ones placed at city entrances and general skills like “Status Check” couldn’t see through it.
There were plenty of them in my Storage, so I saved one for Nana and gave the rest to Number 1.
Now that we were back in Seiryuu City, there was still one thing we had to do before we could rest at the inn.
“…I see, so it was the spirit of an unknown sorcerer with a grudge against the Shiga Kingdom?”
“Yes, that’s what the six warriors who rescued us said.”
I described the situation to the knight Sir Thorne in the guardhouse by the gate. I gave the excuse that I’d been mistaken for the store manager and kidnapped.
Of course, this was a fabrication that I’d thought up with Arisa and the others the night before. The so-called “six warriors” were based on an organization of heroes from the Saga Empire that Arisa knew.
They clearly had some sort of reputation, though, because Sir Thorne declared that it must have been that brave group of heroes who’d helped us.
I also added that the tower the sorcerer had been using as a base had been destroyed and was now a pile of rubble.
Apparently, a Sorcerer’s Tower without a master was a hot spot for treasure hunting, so mentioning its destruction would discourage the count’s army from aggressively invading the gray ratmen’s territory.
I wasn’t going
to give them the exact location, so I just said it was on the border between the Gray Rat Emirate and the Longhaired Rat Emirate.
“Wait, Zenacchi!”
“Yeah, slow down!”
“Let go of me—I have to help him!”
I heard a familiar voice from outside the station.
“Is the knight Sir Thorne here?”
I locked eyes with Iona as she entered the station, so I gave her a nod. She returned the nod and immediately turned on her heel to go back outside. Had I done something to make her hate me?
Anyway, if she was here, then the people making a fuss outside the station must be Zena, Lilio, and the other female escort whose name I couldn’t remember.
“S-Satou! You’re safe!”
Iona returned with Zena in tow, who seemed relieved that I’d returned safely.
“I apologize for worrying y—”
Zena’s sudden weeping drowned out the end of my sentence; she had sat down on the spot and burst into childlike wails.
I frantically tried to pacify her, apologizing up and down for causing her concern.
Lilio and the other woman tried to calm her, too, but Iona stopped them. That kind of concern wasn’t really necessary…
Thanks to Sir Thorne’s discretion, we were able to occupy one of the rooms at the station until Zena could settle down.
After a while, Zena calmed herself, looking small as she sat on a stool.
“I’m sorry, that was very childish…”
“No, no, I should apologize for worrying you.”
Turns out that after Zena returned to the barracks from her night shift and was changing clothes to go see me, Lilio and company informed her that I’d been kidnapped.
At that, she had immediately tried to borrow one of the army’s horses and rush out of the city to search for me, but Lilio and her friends had stopped her.
If I’d taken any longer, we might have just missed each other.
I’m grateful that you were worried about me, but you have to rein it in a little, Zena.
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot to give you this the other day after the whole ordeal with the monsters…”
“What…?”
I handed over the earrings that I’d bought for her back at the flea market.
We’d be leaving Seiryuu City in the next few days, so I thought it best to give them to her while I had the chance, since I didn’t know when we’d meet again. Right. It would be difficult to say it to Zena as she gazed happily at the earrings, but I should tell her that, too.
To leave without saying anything would do a disservice to her as a friend.
“Zena…”
“Y-yes?”
I looked into her eyes as I spoke, and I could see my face reflected there.
…It was hard to broach the subject with her staring at me like that.
“You see, I was asked to take the elf child who was kidnapped along with me back to her hometown. And since my kids are so talented, I can’t really take time off from being a peddler forever.”
Zena’s smile faded, and the light started to fade from her eyes.
I suddenly felt incredibly guilty somehow.
“Her hometown…?”
“It’s apparently south of the old capital.”
“A-are you not going to come back to Seiryuu City anymore?!”
Zena half leaped out of her seat.
Feeling overpowered by the desperate situation, I quickly responded.
“Of course I’ll come back.”
“…Thank goodness.”
Zena collapsed back into the chair as if drained of all her strength.
Once I’d seen the old capital and the royal capital and helped Arisa and the girls train in Labyrinth City, it might be good to come back to the west and Seiryuu City.
Then, once I’d made the rounds in the Shiga Kingdom and returned to my starting place of Seiryuu City, I could explore some other countries.
I’ve got big dreams now, huh?
“It might be a little while, since I’m going to have my kids train in Labyrinth City, but once we come back to Seiryuu City, I’ll be sure to tell you plenty of stories from my travels.”
“…Okay, it’s a promise.”
Just as I had with Arisa before, I made a pinkie promise with Zena. Seems it was a custom established by the ancestral king Yamato.
Zena smiled at me after our fingers parted, but…it wasn’t a bright smile like I’d seen before, but a stiff and somewhat forced one.
Since we were terribly sleep-deprived on the day we got back, we all ended up sleeping like logs until the next day.
Once we were rested, I gave everyone assignments to begin preparing for the journey.
We already had a carriage and horses, but we still needed a lot of goods to load onto the carriage. This included food and daily necessities for us, plus feed for the horses.
I asked Nadi to help with the arrangements, so she set us up with supplies.
Then we went around buying the belongings each of us would need.
I wanted to buy leather armor for Nana and the beastfolk girls, but the craftsmen all refused to make armor for demi-humans. For now, I was able to get armor and shields only for Nana and myself.
We didn’t have enough time before our departure to get the armor custom-made, so I bought ready-made goods that could be adjusted with belts instead. Its defensive power wouldn’t be quite as high, but this way Liza could also use mine.
I had the “Leather Crafting” skill, too, so if I bought the materials I could probably make armor for Pochi and Tama myself.
To serve as dummy trade goods, I purchased leather, a feltlike material, knitting wool, cotton, and other such supplies. Un-tanned skins were cheaper than leather, but I figured the process of tanning would probably produce a terrible smell, so I stuck with the processed type.
I didn’t have a commerce permit for the Shiga Kingdom, but when I paid a gold coin at the merchants’ guild, they were able to produce a membership card for me the same day, like a rental shop.
I had just gotten my visiting pass reissued at the government offices, so most of the formalities could be circumvented.
The permit I’d gotten was a low-level one that allowed me to buy and sell large amounts of goods at the merchants’ guild, not a high-level one that involved tax breaks when going in and out of the city.
Of course, this sort of permit wasn’t needed for small transactions, but it would be strange for someone to buy a lot of goods without having one, so I got it just in case.
In order to make good use of the materials I’d purchased, I also stopped at a bookstore to look for the appropriate manuals.
The saleswoman at the bookstore inside the wall was a woman almost as busty as Nana, so the visit was a huge success—I mean, there were at least seven large bookshelves with a wide variety of books, containing not only manuals but novels and even picture books.
They didn’t have any maps, though. Those could purportedly be purchased at a government office, but there was a time-consuming investigation process involved in addition to the high price.
As a rule, there were stone markers every mile or so along the main roads, so as long as we didn’t stray from those, we were unlikely to get lost.
I gave up on the map and asked the elderly manager to find a few manuals for me instead, then asked the saleswoman, Ms. Samone, to recommend some novels and picture books.
The manager offered me an intriguing and varied lineup, from practical books like Edible Plants on Your Journey, Encyclopedia of Medicinal Herbs, Carriage Repair, and so on, to guides for the more adventurous, like The Basics of Magic Items.
To be honest, I would’ve liked to buy up everything in the store, but I had to be patient. It would be selfish to monopolize all the books for myself in a parallel world with little distribution of goods.
I narrowed down the selection to about thirty essential books.
The cost of the books added up to a ver
y high price of more than ten gold coins. Since we weren’t in a rush today, I managed to get the price down to ten on the dot with “Haggling” and “Negotiation.”
The book about magic items was particularly costly, but it was a necessary expense.
How could I resist the idea of making magic items of my own?
There was a magic shop next to the bookstore, so I stopped in there as well.
Unfortunately, noncitizens could purchase only the most basic spell books.
As for magic scrolls, one had to have permission from the count himself to purchase them, no matter what kind.
I guess I could understand that. Since all you needed for using a magic scroll was MP, it was basically a weapon. But still…
…there didn’t seem to be any such limitations on the buying and selling of swords, so it still seemed a little overly strict.
But there was no helping it, so I just bought one of the basic spell books. The price was pretty high, but it was in line with the market price my “Estimation” skill showed me, so I didn’t complain.
The shopkeeper here seemed uninterested in haggling, since he offered me the market price right away, so I bought it without trying to bargain with him.
The store also sold magic potions, so I purchased several intermediate healing potions and a few lesser mana potions.
Finally, I bought long staffs for Arisa and Mia and a short one for myself.
I thought it would be convenient to be able to make magic potions myself, so I asked if there were any tools or manuals for that, but I was informed rather rudely that I could buy those at an alchemy shop.
The proprietor of the alchemy shop must have thought I looked like an easy mark, because the beginner’s set he sold me was incredibly expensive.
That alone would have been fine, but I was nonplussed to see that the status of the all-important Transmutation Tablet read Broken.
Since its appearance gave no indication it was anything but a first-rate tablet, I couldn’t suddenly say it was defective and ask him to exchange it, so I just said I didn’t like the design so that he would give me a new one.
But the next Transmutation Tablet he brought out had the same problem, so I had to keep repeating the same technique until I finally got a working one.