She was like a budding rose. Her innocent face was a captivating combination of a young girl's cuteness and a grown woman's beauty. Although her clothes were dirty, she didn't seem like a doll or one of those smutty 3D game models. No amount of dirt and grime could obscure the fact that she was a spunky cute girl full of life. I wouldn't keep my composure even if you had told me this was just a game event, so I rushed to her side.
---I don't care if you're an illusion or if I've finally lost my mind thanks to those pumpkins. I don't care what happens afterwards, just please be alive...!
I reached out to her as gently as I could, and touched her soft-looking cheeks. I felt the warm and soft, yet somewhat rough, sensation of her skin.
"Thank goodness, she's still alive."
The warmth of life in the girl which ran through my fingers relieved me from the bottom of my heart.
---But I still need to treat her. If we were in Japan, I would carry her to a hospital so they could take a good look at her, but...
There were no such things as hospitals in this fantasy ravine that I didn't even know how to get out of. But first aid from a rookie like me was better than no treatment at all.
---Did the fragile waterdry tree branches cushion her fall? Well, it's good that the soil where she fell is also close to the wet, marshy part of the valley.
The waterdry tree trunks were scattered all over the damp ground. They might be useless as firewood now, but it was a cheap price to pay for saving the girl's life. Though... Wouldn't it be rude to say the poor trees were cheap?
"Oh, she's pretty light."
I placed my hands on her back and her legs to hold her up and looked back at the broken waterdry trees.
---Thank you for saving her. I'll be sure to come back and dry all of you off. No one's life will be lost in vain while I'm around.
I thanked the broken waterdry trees before I carried the girl back to the cabin. I had raised the trees to be used as firewood, so it wasn't like they were going to thank me or respond in any way, but I didn't want to seem ungrateful. Maybe I was being a little too Japanese, but I liked being this way.
◇
---Right, I want you to live, and I did say I wouldn't mind whatever came after, but...
My strength was dissipating quickly. I felt my legs were on the verge of collapse and soon I would find myself on the ground, too. Did this world have to throw me a curveball every time?
I placed the girl on top of a table in front of the cabin that I had cobbled together from piled up stone. I had to clean the dirt off her before I did anything else, so I went inside to fetch a towel from the cabin. I dipped it into water and wrung it out. When I returned, the girl I had placed on the table was nowhere to be found. In her place was a tawny, fluffy dog-looking thing!
It wasn't possible that they switched places. The dog-looking thing was wearing the same dress as the girl had. How could this furball of a pet be such a cute-looking girl? I almost wanted to drop to my knees and cry out "Why!?" at the top of my lungs. Maybe I was just so tired that this was a hallucination.
---A... god? No, it's more like a human...
The tawny dress-wearing ball of fur was about 130 centimeters long. The palm of her hand seemed to have a paw pad, but she still had five long fingers. There were also a lot of joints, so I supposed she could use tools like a normal person. Her bone structure from her spine down to her legs looked more like a human's instead of an animal's too, so she must be able to stand on two legs and walk around. Nothing about it really made any sense to me, but there wasn't any time to process what had happened. I had more pressing matters to deal with.
"Maybe I really haven't gotten used to this life after all..."
Why did this doggy look like a cute girl? I couldn't believe it myself.
---Wait... I don't remember ever having a preference for furry things, could it be that I---
From all the games with heroines that I had encountered so far in life... I was confident that human companions always beat out furry ones, according to me that is.
---No! Now's not the time to be thinking about that!
The girl turned dog didn't change the fact that she needed treatment. She just looks a little... No, it would be terrible of me to change my attitude just because her appearance was different. After I slapped some sense into myself I cleaned the parts of her which were dirty, while I checked out the condition of the rest of her body. There were severe cuts and bruises, but there didn't seem to be any fractures or heavy bleeding. I was glad there was nothing that needed to be sewn or operated on.
---She looks okay, at least.
"Execute Appraisal."
Ann
Half-Kobold
Vitality : 4/18 Strength : 5/28 Willpower : 8/25
Kobolds were a pretty famous monster race in fantasy games, right? It had decreased a lot, but she still had some Vitality left, and it didn't seem like she had any severe injuries as it wasn't decreasing. What a relief. According to my fantasy knowledge, kobolds were monsters, but this girl had such a gentle look to her, and her fangs weren't even sharp. She also seemed to groom her claws as they weren't really long. If anything, she looked more like a gentle herbivore than a carnivorous beast to me.
She was also wearing clothes, so it was safe to assume her species was intelligent enough to talk, at the very least. I felt like this would be one of those game events in which a window popped up and I would need to choose between "End Her Misery" or "Save Her". But the thought of ending the life of a fluffy creature in pain seemed too much for me.
I wasn't sure what kind of higher being this labyrinth had, if any at all, but after seeing her as a normal cute girl, the consequence of choosing "End Her Misery" would be too much for me to bear. She didn't seem that strong status-wise, and I probably could manage even if I got attacked, so let's choose "Save Her".
I took her inside so I could treat her easier. There was something I noticed as I held up her fluffy kobold body. If this was a normal RPG then just placing her on the bed would be more than enough to restore her Vitality, but in this case I would have to take her clothes off in order to wipe down her whole body with the cloth.
---She smells like an unwashed dog...
You may think I was being rather harsh, but I was having second thoughts about putting her on the bed. I took off the dusty dress and wiped her fur down with a cloth until the dirt started to come off. Eventually the cloth would become pitch black with soot, so I rinsed it out and pressed onward. By the end of it, her fur seemed to be more glossy than before. Once she was clean, I carried her to the bed and laid her down, and continued to monitor her situation.
◇
"Execute Appraisal..."
---Her Vitality's still four, huh? The fact that it's been a few hours since I found her, yet she has shown no signs of recovering, is worrying. Even if we are in a fantasy RPG-like world, isn't it bad that she isn't recovering over time?
I had been watching her the whole time since I laid her down on the bed, but her condition remained the same. The only thing I had heard come out of her were strained gasps. If you discounted old game systems, it was very strange she wasn't recovering with rest here. Even if they wanted to take a more realistic approach to recovery time, it just didn't make sense not to regain anything after all these hours.
The only possibility I could think of was... Maybe some of her internal organs were damaged? If so, then the amount of Vitality she regained and lost would be almost the same over time. Should I rely on Tundra again? It didn't seem like something I could solve with just first aid. Next time, I'd like to get a book on herbalism and memorize it. In the end, I opened up the catalog and looked for something that would be useful.
---Hm, I see magic potions, vitality potions, and revive potions in the Medicine category here.
Amazing, they sold potions right next to the usual stuff like compresses and disinfectant, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
"The simplest
Grade 9 Vitality potions costs 20000 DL. It's a pretty hefty price, but I don't think I can do much about it. The cheapest Grade 10 Revive potions go for 45000 DL. Good Dark Lord..."
The price made me spout out something pretty weird just now. It wasn't like I couldn't pay it, but my savings would melt after getting both.
---Dang it. It'll hurt my wallet, but I'd feel bad later if she dies like this.
As I looked at her fluffy fur getting cold... The only thing that went through my mind was how I wanted to avoid having to bury it into the ground if it got any colder. I could save money again, but I couldn't do anything but face regret when it came to an actual living being.
"It's better to regret what you've done, than not doing anything at all, I guess."
If it was all about the money, I could always dig out more stone and sell it again. It was better to try and help now, rather than living on wondering if I could have---should have---done something. Rather than missing out on a limited availability game and regretting it, isn't it better to laugh all the way home after finding out it's shovelware?
I ordered the vitality and revive potions from Tundra. Both of them came inside separate blue and green pots, with a dubious smell. Well, I wasn't expecting less from magical medicine.
From the reviews, it was the sort of medicine you drank that had lasting effects, so it would be pointless to drink it all in one go. It also said you could apply the potion to an affected area, but ingesting it had a stronger effect.
So there was one problem now.
The potion was like a normal medicine, and she wasn't conscious... How can I have her drink it? I could just pour it into her mouth, but if she choked or spit out something this expensive I think I would just cry. The traditional method to get unconscious people to drink medicine was doing it mouth-to-mouth, but she had a dog muzzle... And I had no experience with kissing at all. Do you understand my dilemma, now?
---My first kiss will be with a dog... No, this doesn't count, right? I'm just closing her mouth with mine so she doesn't spit the medicine out!
If you compared mouth-to-mouth between humans and someone with a long and thin dog muzzle like her, I think I would have to give her a very deep kiss to make her drink the medicine.
---This sure is hardcore... No! This is where a gamer has to be brave!
I remembered the words I learned in a certain guild of a war-themed online game I was part of for many years. "When the going gets tough, the tough get going!" So I got a mouthful of both potions. Despite the dubious smell, they tasted like mint. When I placed my lips against her muzzle and poured the liquid right into her throat, she tried to spit it back out. But I still forced it in... Yeah, the hurdle to have had such a passionate kiss was high even for lovers.
---Hehe... I did it, I really did! I got over the difficult challenge!
After I was finished making her drink both potions, the mental fatigue was so great I ended up with my hands on the floor. But I still wanted to praise myself for doing it well. I never thought I would have to overcome giving medicine mouth-to-mouth to a dog-faced girl. Cross-species communication sure sounded like it was gonna be hard... I just prayed this kobold was really a female; I didn't want my first kiss being with a boy.
I didn't know if it was a hallucination or something, but I was sure she seemed like a normal girl at first. I wanted to believe she was a female since she wore a dress at first, but then I realized our cultures might be different. Maybe I got a little careless. If it turned out to be a male... Then I guess I would just seal away the memories of the past hour.
"If she really turned out just to be a cute trap, I don't think I could laugh it off. I really don't!"
I felt as if some sort of flag had gone off as a pretty nasty word had come out of my mouth, unintentionally.
---Oh, right. I need to order some clothes, don't I? I can't really put those dirty clothes back on her without washing them first, can I?
The clothes she was wearing at first were torn off in a corner and were dirty, so I didn't really want to put them on her again. I opened Tundra yet again, and used nearly all of my remaining savings, after the potions, to order a simple children-sized linen dress for her to put on.
---I guess I'll be eating grilled pumpkin for a while longer...
I started to notice the effects of the potion as my mental fatigue wore off.
Two hours later and her Vitality had gone up past 10, and her Strength and Willpower had recovered considerably as well. I sat on a simple wooden chair I had made using the trunk of a waterdry tree and watched over her now restful sleep while I flipped through a book.
I entered the
The monster language seemed easy enough to understand, so at least that was good, I guess. There were some sort of dialects in different places, but it was almost like modern Japanese. They even had the same characters and all that. I can only assume this monster language used Japanese as a base, but who in the heck spread it into this world? Whatever, it was convenient to say the least.
◇
The kobold finally woke up right as sunset began to turn into night.
"Wh-Where... am I?"
Her voice was cute, and you could sense the intelligence behind her words. If we were talking voice only, there wasn't much difference between her and a normal Japanese girl. The kind of cute I like... Now that I thought about it, it was pretty close to one of those cute anime voices.
My chest was filled with relief. If she had that kind of voice then the chance of her being a female was high. My whole rescue act wouldn't become something I'd want to pretend never happened. I was pretty secular myself, being Japanese, but I'd like to offer a prayer of thanks right now.
"Good morning, this is Labyrinth #228. I'm the manager. I think you fell down from above. Would you happen to remember anything about that?"
It was important to be polite in every first meeting; just common sense as a working adult.
"Labyrinth... Fell... down..."
She seemed a little confused. Might be because of the shock of the fall. But the fact she could communicate at all, and wasn't hostile, made me happy.
"You still look kind of tired. Take it easy and sleep a little more, please."
I gently patted her head until she finally closed her eyes. She seemed pretty pleased and fell asleep right away. I prepared grilled pumpkin for dinner, if you could call that dinner, but the kobold didn't wake up again that night.
Since she occupied the only bed, I worried about what to do for a moment, but I figured it would be like sleeping with a dog, so I slipped into the bed as well. Maybe it was because I dedicated my whole life to play, but I had never owned a cat or a dog myself. I'd always wanted to sleep with a pet, though. That night I fell soundly asleep while wrapped in the soft blanket, with the warm and fluffy kobold as a body pillow. Having lived a completely solitary life in the bottom of a ravine for a week, the sensation of having someone close by was really appreciated.
◇
I was awoken by a pleasant shake---I wondered if it was morning outside already. I could feel the gentle sunlight pouring onto me from the gaps of the closed window. The one shaking me awake was yesterday's kobold. The soft feeling of her paws on my shoulder was pretty comfy.
"Hey, hey! Wake up, Mister. It's morning already!"
Being woken up by such a sweet voice sure was nice. I wasn't really interested in the actual goods, but I kind of understood how the guys that bought alarm clocks that woke them up with the voice of game heroines felt like.
"Hgnh...!"
I got up and stretched out. I felt like I slept a thousand times better than every ni
ght since I arrived here, thanks to the blanket and furry body pillow.
"Good morning. You're looking better now."
I greeted her with a smile on my face. Smiling while greeting was an important part of communication.
"Good morning. Say, where are we? Heaven?" she asked.
Something felt kinda off when such a cute anime girl voice was let out by this furry little thing. There were lots of talking animals in shows aimed at kids, but actually seeing it in real life felt more uncomfortable than exciting.
"This place is called Labyrinth #228. I'm the manager here, my name's Aoi."
It might not be my fault, but l felt kinda embarrassed to call this place, with nothing but this shabby cabin, a labyrinth.
"I think you probably fell down here from above around midday yesterday. Do you remember anything about it?"
I wanted to say "Boss, a girl fell from the sky!", but I doubt a girl from a completely different species, in another world, would catch the reference. Man, I wanted someone around that understood my jokes.
"Fell down... Huh...? So I'm alive even though I fell down from the Great Saredo Rift bridge? And in a labyrinth? Are you one of the Dark Lord's subordinates!?"
Now that was quite the info dump. The only thing I caught of that for now was that this ravine was apparently called Great Saredo Rift.
"Maybe we should slow down a little. Would you tell me your name first?" I asked.
"Huh? Oh, okay... I'm Ann, from the Kobold clan. I forgot to say it, but thank you so much for saving me, Mister!"
"You're such a polite nice girl, aren't you?"
Ann's polite but friendly words made me smile unexpectedly. Ann let out a strange sound, almost like an "Awoo!?" all of a sudden when I did. I wondered if human smiles were creepy for kobolds... Interspecies communication sure was difficult.
"I am the manager of Labyrinth #228, but I started pretty recently, so I don't know much about this world. Do you think you could tell me what you know about this place, Ann?"
Strongest Gamer; Let's Play in Another World Volume 1 Page 5