Chapter 5: Searching for Pets Is Your Specialty?

Chapter 5:
Searching for Pets Is Your Specialty?

 

MUSCLE MORNING comes early. For me, it starts right after a good night’s sleep of one hour, and then it’s straight on to muscle training. Because I hadn’t found as much time for working out since leaving the forest, my early morning routine was precious.

Filia woke several hours later. “Morning, Yuri.” She yawned as she sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. Hm. It seemed like Filia was weak in the morning. When she woke up, she spoke in a somewhat childish manner.

“Oh, mornin’.”

“What are you doing?” asked Filia, eyeing me up like she’d stumbled on something suspicious.

“Oh this? See, I stand on one toe with one leg, and right now I’m doing an air chair,” I answered, proudly swaying my floating leg through the air.

“Okay, but what are you doing?” From suspicion to exasperation. I didn’t think I was doing anything strange, but I guess air chairs just aren’t an elf thing.

“Tell you what,” I said, “I recommend you train your muscles. Want to do it together?”

“You recommend—oh, come on, you muscle-headed lug! I’ll pass, thank you very much.”

“I see. Shame.”

Now that Filia was awake, it marked the beginning of today’s adventuring. We had breakfast, left the inn, and headed for the guild. I intended to take on another medicinal herb-gathering request like usual, so I made my way over to the request bulletin board to pick up one of the relevant notices.

Today, though, Filia called out to me, her voice like a clear bell. “Yuri, how about we take a quest other than gathering herbs once in a while?”

“You listen to more than enough of my selfish requests, so that’s fine. But why?”

“Why, being an adventurer is a beautifully meaningful thing! We two are but heroic servants of society at large!” Filia gave a poster-girl smile and an emphatic thumbs-up.

Very cute! Also? Come on. “And your real reason?”

“If I have to fight another big stupid monster, I’m going to dig a hole and live underground for the rest of my long and gorgeous life. Which would be a terrible waste of my beauty, by the by.”

“Hmm…” I put my finger to my chin and thought about it. Sure, I wanted to keep playing around with monsters every day, but it would be no good for me to just ignore my partner’s opinion. Without mutual trust, how could we become a real team?

“Precisely!” said Filia, snapping her fingers and giving me a wink.

“Mind reading’s rude.”

Filia stuck her pink tongue at me, let out a tiny “tee hee,” and lightly tapped herself on the head. She was a cunning one. Too cunning. But she was right—I had to go along with what Filia wanted now and again.

“Okay, got it. Let’s take a different kind of request today.”

“Levelheaded, responsible Yuri! I do appreciate a man who knows when to take orders.”

“All right, then, which request should we do?”

“Let’s decide together. Oh goodness, this is the first time we’re doing some real collaborative work, wouldn’t you say? Just think about it! Why, doesn’t it make you all excited? Doesn’t your heart go wild in your chest? Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump!” Filia finished the onslaught with a perfect bat of her eyelashes.

There is nothing more dangerous than a beautiful girl aware of her own cuteness. I shifted my gaze down to my rockin’ bod to avoid her charisma attacks.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “That sounds more like the feelin’ I get when I look at muscles.”

“I…I’ve been defeated by muscles. I’ve been defeated by his own muscles.” Filia took a deep, shaky breath and swooned onto the floor of the guild in front of the gods and everyone.

It took a while for us to decide, but in the end we went for the request that said “my pet is gone,” which…when I thought about it, wasn’t really a request, was it? Normally I’d expect to see something like “please find my kitty” or something. Ah, well. After we got the location of the client’s home, we left the guild and made our way there.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about the house, except that it was kind of exciting for both of us by dint of being in a town and not in an elven village or the Forest of Death or whatever.

“This is the place, right?”

“Appears to be, yes.”

I knocked on the door. Not long after, footsteps approached on the other side of the door, and fast—thump thump thump. The door swung open so quickly it nearly smacked into the wall, and standing before us was a young girl. She looked guarded at the sight of us.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m Yuri. This is Filia. We came here to take on your request.”

I showed her the guild form, at which she relaxed a little—enough to let us inside, at least.

“My, my,” said Filia to the girl, “you are quite the lovely young lady.”

“Oh my gosh, thank you! You’re super cute too, miss!”

Filia squeed. “Ah ha ha, you think so? That means a great deal coming from you!”

The two of them seemed to be getting excited, but I hadn’t the faintest idea why and couldn’t seem to nose my way into the conversation besides. In fact, the girl wouldn’t even really look at me. Was she…was she scared of me? My muscles were being restrained right now, so my current form didn’t look that much different from an average guy, but…ah, no, it all made sense. My sheer muscley energy could, at times, overflow like an aura, and especially capable people could sense it. Science.

Which meant that despite her childish looks, this girl was quite capable.

“Thank you so much for accepting our request,” said the girl’s mother, who came to meet us in their sitting room.

I was feeling kind of left out, so I focused on asking the mother about the pet’s distinctive characteristics. According to her, the girl’s pet was a monster called a pseudog, which resembled a dog, but was in fact a monster. Even so, it was a docile creature with a fair degree of intelligence and was apparently a common enough pet. I’d actually seen people strolling around with pet monsters all over this town. And, eh, it seemed like a reasonable enough thing to do with your life.

The pseudog we were looking for had black fur and stood at about a foot tall. The other day, when the girl and her pseudog had been out on a walk, it suddenly started pouring rain and the pseudog got spooked by a roll of thunder. Poor thing ran off somewhere.

“And I still haven’t seen Cocoa anywhere at all! Oh, Cocoa, sniff!” the young girl sobbed.

“Don’t worry, honey. This young woman and man will definitely find him for us,” the mother soothed her.

The young girl—Sharon—spoke so sorrowfully. Even if this Cocoa was a monster, it was a beloved pet. For Sharon, it was probably more like a proper member of her family. Though…Cocoa seemed like a pretty tame name for a monster dog, didn’t it?

I didn’t really understand family stuff that well, but looking at those tears, I knew I wanted to find this girl’s pet. Losing someone you’ve loved for a long time is painful. I understood that much.

“Ma’am, do you have anything that still has Cocoa’s scent on it? Like a favorite toy or anything? It doesn’t have to be clean. A dirty one’s better, actually.”

“Oh, in that case…this bone-shaped plush was her favorite. She was always playing with it, though it seemed she’d been getting bored of it recently, so I don’t particularly mind what you do with it.”

The mother handed me the plush, and I pushed it up to my mighty nostrils.

“Yuri,” said Filia. “Really, now? Really? Now?”

Ignoring the disgust in Filia’s tone, I analyzed the scent. The fragrance of perfume…that was the lady of the house! And ah, below it, I could detect the unique musk of that dire beast, fell Cocoa… The hunt was on.

“All right, I’ve got the scent. We’ll start searching the town now. Let’s go, Filia.”

“Huh? I’m sorry, what purpose do I serve at this point in the mission? Wouldn’t it be better to—”

“If you don’t come, I’m not sharing the reward for completing the request.”

No way was I going to let her take reward money for this “great collaboration” she’d been so excited about if I was the only one running around doing any of the work.

“Oh, no, come now, clearly I was only being hypothetical, dear Yuri! Sharon, please wait just a bit, if you would. We’ll come right back, okay?”

“Okay!”

Filia’s attitude immediately changed the second I threatened her payday. Boy, her mood sure picked up quick, huh?

“What’s the matter?” asked Filia, a puzzled look on her face.

“Nothing, really.”

We hiked back into the town to search for Cocoa and there began to track her scent. My nose never lost its prey once I got a lock on it. Not my nose—the very idea was unthinkable!

“This way. Follow me.”

“All right, I’ll shoot: what is the deal with your nose, Yuri?”

I sniffed the air, my nose twitching with effort. Filia stared into the dark and powerful abyss of my mighty nostrils, and the abyss stared back.

“Filia, anyone can do this much if they train.”

“To be clear, you’re talking about training your nose. Your nose,” she repeated helplessly.

Normally, my nose was just like any other person’s, but if I concentrated, I could ramp that baby up to dog-level. For me, this request wasn’t difficult at all.

As we tracked the dire pseudog Cocoa through Astarte, the shadows lengthened, the roads narrowed, and we stepped into a dark and sunless alley. Just a few more meters and there—a moving silhouette. One that matched Cocoa’s characteristics! All black, foot tall—gotcha.

“There she is.”

“Seems so.”

As I drew closer, the little fuzzball let out a deep, throaty growl to intimidate me. Pet or no, a monster was still a monster. That growl was pretty good, too, a real gravelly snarl with a decent oomph to it. But if I kept drawing closer at this snail’s pace, Cocoa might turn tail and flee. Maybe counter-intimidation was the answer?

“Awooo!” I howled.

Cocoa stumbled back. “Yaaarrrff?!” she yelped.

One more howl and Cocoa was tucking her tail between her legs and curled up into a ball. As she shivered and trembled, I jogged over and scooped up the little troublemaker.

Another request complete!

 

With that, we took the whimpering Cocoa back to the client’s house. Upon seeing the fuzzy dark lump of pseudog quaking in my arms, Sharon broke out into a huge smile.

“Yayyyyyy! Thank you, Miss Filia! And, um…”

“He’s Yuri,” Filia whispered in Sharon’s ear.

“Thank you, Yuri!”

“No prob.”

Sharon and her mother were overjoyed. A part of me was dissatisfied that I hadn’t been able to go one-on-one in a hair-raising fight with a strong opponent, but on the other hand…I’d made this family happy. I liked that.

Maybe doing requests like this now and again was worthwhile after all.

“Was I even needed this time around?” muttered Filia on our way back to the guild.

“Uh, no?”

“Then whyyyy did you take me with you? Peak lazing time is done for the day. I’ve followed you round and round and I did not get to be even a little slothful.” Filia pouted, kicking a pebble on the side of the road.

“You’re the one who was going on and on about collaboration, though.”

“That was the Filia of this morning. She has passed on. This Filia wanted naps. And snacks! And more naps.”

I managed not to roll my eyes, though it took me much muscle power.

“The truth is, you resolved everything on your own this time, Yuri. So for all of your excuses, there wouldn’t have been a single problem even if I did hang back at the house with Sharon. So why, oh, why did you bring me along?” A devilish look crossed her face. “Oh dear, could it be—yes, I suspect it is!—that perhaps you were overwhelmed by your yearning for me? By your burning desire to always remain in the sunlight of my company! How terribly embarrassing!”

Filia covered her face with her hands in a clownish display of fake-bashfulness. It didn’t work on me, but everyone passing by couldn’t help eyeing the lovely sulking waif.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “It was because I didn’t want to be the only one stuck doing it. It was a pain in the butt, you know.”

If it had been a battle, I would’ve happily taken it on solo, but pet rescue? I don’t think I really had the motivation to go out and get that done of my own free will.

“Hmph! I see you’re just ignoring my tour-de-force performance as ‘the tragic elven ingenue.’ And thank you very much for your most vicious and thoughtless response!”

“Don’t thank me, there’s no reason.”

“What an incredibly high-quality set of ears you have. So good at only hearing your favorite parts of the conversation. I’m really quite envious,” she said, flicking the point of her own ear absently.

“Took years of training for these, yep.”

“Do I need to hang a sign around my neck when I’m sarcastic?”

Hm? What was Filia talking about? She really needed to train her muscles more, because she clearly didn’t know what she was talking about.

Filia sighed. “Yuri, there really is nothing in that muscle-brain of yours but muscles, eh?”

“Hey! Did you just read my mind?”

“You were being rude, too,” said Filia, then she pulled her eyelid down and stuck her tongue out at me.

Wow, how does a gorgeous person look so pretty even when they’re making a funny face like that? I needed to be careful or she’d get my heart racing, and that’d be no good at all.

“H-huh?” blurted Filia.

“Hey, what are you staring into space for? We’re here, let’s turn in the request.”

Leaving Filia, who was blushing and standing in place for some reason, I entered the guild and went to report our completed request to the receptionist.

“Pardon me, sir, but you already found it? Search requests usually take a bit of time.”

“My nose is even sharper than a dog’s. You know, because I work out.”

“I-I see. Well then, here is your reward for successfully completing the request.”

After that brief exchange with the receptionist, she handed me the reward money. Just then, Filia finally entered the guild. She scurried over to join me.

“I would appreciate it if my partner didn’t leave me all alone, loitering outside.”

“You were the one who just stopped by the door, though.”

“Grr, well, I suppose that’s a logical argument…”

“I would never use an illogical one.”

“Fine, sure, whatever you say,” said Filia, shaking her head.

“Okay, well, how was it? Did doing a request other than gathering herbs feel like a good change of pace?” I asked.

“You know what? Yes, it did. What about you, Yuri?”

“Well, it wasn’t bad. I think it might be good to take those kinds of requests every once in a while.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Filia grinned at me. A genuine smile from a beauty like Filia really was amazing. Dazzling, even, as if a second sun shone into the guild and brightened the worn furniture.

“But for the time being, we’ll go back to gathering herbs tomorrow,” I said.

At which point Filia hung her head low and let out the phlegmiest, whiniest “ugh” I’d heard yet, and just like that, all that extra sunlight zipped outta the room.