Extra-Extra Story: Electra’s Diary

Extra-Extra Story:
Electra’s Diary

AS I SCANNED the bulletin board inside the adventurer’s guild, I spotted a pretty tasty job. Some village out in the sticks was looking to hire adventurers like me. The pay wasn’t the greatest, but it guaranteed whomever they hired would have food, housing, the whole shebang. High pay was nice, but stability? Priceless.

Besides, all the men in town were just pretentious pricks who liked to show off, and none of them fit my tastes. A nice boy from the countryside sounded more like marriage material to me.

Not that I’d have much luck anywhere if I kept to the adventuring life.

“Oh?” I said. Someone else seemed interested in the posting as well. “You planning on taking this job, too?”

“Sure am,” said the guy. “If I get hired by a village on the edge of the frontier, then I’ll probably get to face off with some huge monster. Add that to my list of accomplishments and I’d be able to charge a higher price for whoever hires me next, maybe for years.”

The guy was a hulking specimen of a man with a shiny bald head, and it seemed like he had the exact opposite reasons for wanting the job.

“Name’s Dyson,” he said. “I like using a broadax to get the job done.”

“Electra. I’m more about one-on-one sword work, and I’m damn good at it. Judging by your looks, I’d guess your specialty is taking out monsters?”

“Taking them out? I turn bandits and wild animals to mulch!”

“The posting says the village is somewhere out in the middle of the wilderness, so I wouldn’t worry about bandits.”

“Then I guess there’d be nothing else to do but get to know the girlies there better and settle down! Gah ha ha!” Dyson’s gigantic pecs wiggled as he laughed heartily.

He sure talked big, but he went down without much of a fight when he went up against the village interviewer. It was pretty pathetic, too—I mean, the interviewer just used a pole.

And then the interviewer took me out with the same pole. He may have been naked, but this “Shooter” guy really was strong.

***

“So, Mr. Gimul,” I said, “what, exactly, are we expected to do at Apegut now that you’ve hired us?”

The cart trundled shakily down the road as Dyson and I made our way to the village with our new employer. The village itself was supposed to be as idyllic as they come, without much chance of a bandit attack and everyone farming and tending to livestock. But in that case, why hire adventurers?

“The village is a peaceful place. That much is proof of the talents my mothe—ahem—village chief brings as a governor. We have another problem, though.”

“And what’d that be?” Dyson asked, throwing a puzzled look my way. “It’s gotta be one helluva problem if you’re gonna be setting up another guild there in addition to hiring me ’n Electra here.”

Gimul grimaced from the driver’s seat of the cart before continuing. “Just beyond the village lies a vast and untamed wilderness. There are mountains just beyond the forest where wyverns make their home.”

“W-wyverns?!”

“We were actually just attacked by one the other day. We had to hire adventurers from town to help take care of it.”

Even talkative Dyson was quiet now. That definitely explained why the village wanted adventurers staying in their village. I had expected nothing more than steady pay and free meals out of the deal. How naïve of me.

“What’s wrong, Electra?” Dyson stammered. “You aren’t s-scared, are you?”

“Ha, y-you’re one to talk! You look even more freaked than before.”

“Hah! Flying lizards? Nothing! You’re, uh, looking at the…the great Dyson!”

The great and definitely not terrified Dyson.

Gimul kept calm throughout the whole conversation, so maybe that meant he was used to wyvern attacks. Which did not bode well.

“Then did those adventurers from Bulka end up killing the wyvern?” I asked.

“No. It was a naked barbarian and a drunkard who ended up dealing the final blow.”

What were their names? “Shooter and Nishka, then?”

“Right.”

Shooter could use a pole to beat other adventurers without even breaking a sweat, so I could easily imagine him charging in close to a wyvern and taking it down with one well-placed stab. I wasn’t as well versed on what Nishka was capable of, but she was Shooter’s partner. Anyone like that had to be the real deal.

“Both of them are hunters, so they end up away from the village to head into the forest often. There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to respond to threats immediately. That’s why we need you. Adventurers are supposed to be experts when it comes to hunting monsters and the like, so I’m expecting good work from you two.”

Dyson forced a laugh. It took a couple tries. “Y-yeah, you can count on us! Right, Electra?”

“Y-yes, of course! I can handle anyone that comes our way!”

When we asked for more details, we learned that the wyvern had also just-so-happened to be much bigger than most, and the adventurers from town hadn’t stood a chance against it.

Stability, huh? What a delusion on my part. Settle down in a peaceful village, find myself a good man…it was all too good to be true. Still, there was some part of me that thought Gimul was bluffing in order to make Dyson and I think this wasn’t going to be an easy job.

It didn’t take long to realize that he hadn’t been exaggerating. Once we arrived in the village, we were led to the manor of the woman in charge.

“Welcome to the village of Apegut! What do you think? Disappointed that it’s just a quiet place in the middle of nowhere?” The village chief laughed at the thought.

The village chief greeted us in her personal study, the head of a wyvern mounted on the wall behind her. I had never seen one in real life, but the fact it looked big enough to swallow a person whole made it hard to think about anything else. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing what village life had in store for me.

At the very least, I had to find a good man to marry. I was going to end up single forever if I did nothing but fight off all these wyverns. Just a good man, somewhere! I’d be fine with Shooter, for instance!

Huh. Yeah. I guess I would be fine with Shooter. Now there’s a thought…