Chapter 16: Setting Off on a Journey

Chapter 16:
Setting Off on a Journey

 

AFTER “CRAZY FACE” MISERY MOSERY’S attack and the death of the village chief, Elfeit Mistral, little by little, life in the elf village returned to normal. Elfeit was given a funeral service the day after his death—cremation. It was customary for elves to burn the corpse with fire magic and let the wind carry the ashes away. I guess everybody mourns different.

Elgis, who’d already had important responsibilities in the village, was chosen as Elfeit’s successor and inherited the position of chief. Since Elfeit didn’t have any blood relatives, the bloodline of the village chief—after seemingly endless generations—had come to an end. Even though it sounded like they’d still be following the teachings of their Almighty Wind God, they were also cooking up plans to actively interact with outsiders.

 

***

 

And so there I was, a week after all the drama, sitting in Filia’s room. It was the first time I’d been in it since we’d come to the village, actually.

“We’re going to be leaving soon,” Filia had told me, “so I don’t want to forget anything important. Yuri, can you help me look for something?”

But we’d already finished everything important, and we were just kind of lazing around now.

“Ah!” Suddenly Filia let out a little shout.

“What’s wrong?!”

“You simply must take a look at this, Yuri. Isn’t it adorable?” said Filia, holding a cat-ear headband. “Yuuuuuri?”

“Filiaaaa?”

Filia put it on her head. “Does it look good on me?” she asked, curling her hands like cat claws and holding them in front of her chest. “Meow, meow? What do you think, meow?”

“Your calculating nature knows no bounds.”

“Meow!”

Filia got closer and closer to me, until she was finally close enough to start poking my feet. Jeez, Filia. She didn’t show any sign of stopping.

“C’mon, Filia, you’re real close. Back off.”

“Aww, are mew all empurrassed meow, Yuri?”

“I have no idea how you can say that kind of thing out loud, But shut up and lemme do my muscle training!”

She’d hit the nail on the head, so I decided I would focus on training. I was in splendid form, too, doing two consecutive backflips with just one pinky finger and a thrusting motion. Who knew? Maybe this technique would be useful in combat one day! This training method killed two birds with one stone. Granted, I hadn’t found it useful yet, but just one time would be enough. Could you imagine how humiliating it would be if I ever needed to do two consecutive back flips with my pinky and then thrust, and couldn’t pull it off?

I’d never forgive myself.

“Yuurii? Meow, meow?”

Must…ignore…Filia. Ignore…ignore. She wanted a reaction, because she always did, and then she’d tease me again.

After a few minutes of me giving her the cold shoulder, Filia puffed out her cheeks in a huff. “Mmph… Well, since Yuri doesn’t think I’m a cool cat anymore, I’ll check myself out in the mirror and see how cute I am.”

“Meow, meow meow? Meo—”

Filia suddenly stopped moving. Uh. Had something happened?

“What’s the matter?” It probably wasn’t worth it, but I figured I’d react just this once.

“Th-there’s…” Filia stammered, “…a catgirl angel in the mirror! Sh-she’s way too cute…”

Wow. I’d expected it to be bad, but I hadn’t expect it to be that bad. The worst part was that it worked, and she had my attention. I had been thoroughly, completely owned.

“Oh no, Yuri, what is a poor catgirl to do? I’m quite simply too cute. I’ve become a victim to my own meow-velous charms!”

“Why don’t you take it off then?”

“I-I suppose I shall…” Her face beet-red, Filia took off the headband.

I don’t even know if Filia knows what she’s trying to do half the time.

After Filia took off the cat-ear headband, she handed it over to me for some reason. “Okay, Yuri.”

What? What in the world was this about?

As my mind raced, Filia said. “I’ve worn the legendary cat ears, Yuri, and now it’s your turn.”

“What kind of reasoning is that?”

Was this, uh, a thing? With who? And why?

“Come on, you can’t tell me that you’re not a little curious about how you’d look, Yuri. A cat-ear headband and a muscley Yuri? It’s like fire and ice: polar opposites.”

Well, if she was gonna go hard on this, I supposed I might as well.

I put it on my head and unleashed my muscles.

“HOOOAAAHH!!”

“Oh my goodness, you killed it. You killed the cuteness. That shout… Gosh, there isn’t a shred left.” Filia looked pretty taken aback at the sight of muscley, cat-eared Yuri.

That didn’t seem fair! Wasn’t she the one who’d wanted me to do this?

“Do I look strong?”

“Well, ah, that isn’t precisely the word I would use, no. I’ll certainly say that you don’t look like the sort I’d want to come near me. At all. Especially at night.”

“Hmm. In that case, good.” So it was like weighted training clothing but for intimidation. I could still terrify opponents, even with cat ears. But I wasn’t really in a catboy sorta mood, so I took ’em off.

“If you like them, I’ll give them to you, okay?” said Filia.

“Nah, it’s not quite clicking with me…” I graciously declined Filia’s offer and then, with a couple last backsprings for my workout, we left Filia’s room.

“He he he he. I’m shuddering at my own cuteness again,” said Filia as we headed downstairs to the living room.

“Ah, I see. Well, congratulations?”

“Heh. No need to congratulate me; my cuteness is its own reward!”

We found Elgis and Fira waiting for us. “I heard a tremendous shout from upstairs,” said Elgis. “Did something happen?”

“Oh, you mean the shout from Yuri earlier?”

Oh, right, I guess I could get pretty loud. Had I disturbed the neighbors? “Oh, I was just being a cat. Sorry if it was a bother.”

Fira blinked. “Is that…is that a cat sound…?”

Filia and I took a seat across from her parents at the other end of the table, catching up one last time. Filia and I were leaving the village that afternoon after all, so it was going to be a while before she’d see her parents again. I hoped they were having a nice goodbye.

For their part, Elgis and Fira were reminiscing passionately about Filia’s first words.

“I’ll never forget the first time Lia spoke. ‘Dada! Hungy!’ Sorry, Fira, but she spoke to me first—I’m clearly Lia’s favorite parent.”

Fira chuckled. “Oh, is that what you thought? You were out hunting at the time and didn’t know this, but Lia’s actual first words were ‘Mama! Hungy!’ I’m her favorite parent, Elgis.”

“N-no way…” Elgis went pale with shock.

I didn’t think it made much difference who a literal baby talked to first, but I supposed it was a different story from a parent’s point of view. Filia also liked it and was blushing slightly.

“You were kinda a glutton, huh?” I said.

“W-well, I think it was quite mature of me to be so focused on nutrition at such a young age. Anyway, uh…Dad? Mom? Can we stop with these stories? Or at least tell them more accurately. I’m sure I was way more proper in my…food…inquiries…”

The mental wall between Filia and her parents seemed to have vanished. Filia no longer spoke so stiffly with her parents. Hearing her get all casual with them was a little weird at first, but I suppose it was weirder to be uptight with your parents all the time. When I thought of it that way, I quickly adjusted to it.

“Oh, that reminds me!” said Elgis. “I found the photo album. It was pretty deep in a closet, so I had a tough time finding it.” He brought out a magnificently decorated red book and blew off what must’ve been years and years of dust from the cover.

On our first day here, he’d mentioned “a Filia-photo-viewing contest” or something, so it seemed related to that. Anyway, Filia’s parents couldn’t help but want to show their kid off to others.

“All right…” said Elgis dramatically. “Here we go.” Elgis opened the book, and there they were: tons of photos from Filia’s childhood, neatly laid out on the pages.

“Hey, Dad? How come I didn’t know about this?”

“Ah, I suppose you wouldn’t have, eh, Lia? That’s because it only has pictures of you from when you were three and four years old. Our magitool broke after that. It’s a real pity.”

Fira laughed. “That’s because you took too many pictures of Lia. Over a hundred a day!”

“Well, Lia was growing bit by bit every moment. It’s only natural I’d want to keep record of all the Lias!” The incredibly high-strung Elgis snorted excitedly—man, he was hyped. There was something about Elgis that reminded me of Babandongas, honestly. You know, in the way they doted on their loved ones.

By the way, a magitool is pretty much what it sounds like: a tool made by using magic—like those crystalleyez they used during the magic battle tournament. I don’t really know the principles behind the things, though, not that it would matter if I did. No magical power and all.

“These are all really from Filia’s childhood?” Wow, Filia really did have a pretty face even when she was a kid, huh? Just an adorable little girl.

“Look, doesn’t she look so cute in this picture?” Fira pointed to a picture of a very young Filia, who had a broad, flowery smile on her face.

Okay, yeah. That was a pretty cute one.

“Oh, but this one! This is my favorite.” Elgis pointed to a picture of little Filia using wind magic. She had this really dignified look on her face, with a hint of nervousness in her eyes.

“Oh my, this one is cute too.”

“Hey, doesn’t our Lia look almost like a goddess in this one?”

“Oh ho ho ho, look at Lia’s little cheeks, though! They’re all puffed out! I think it’s probably that picture we took of her when we made her wait to have a snack.”

“She couldn’t get enough strawberries back then, eh? She’d say the things like ‘I’m gonna be a strawberry when I grow up!’ all the time.”

Okay, this had to stop. C’mon. Filia was trembling from sheer embarrassment; it was gonna kill her.

But they didn’t. In fact, her parents showed me every single picture in the photo album. I kinda drifted off in the middle, thinking about what kind of training I was going to do later, all while training my eyes by trying not to ever close them. (People are always training, even if they don’t know it.)

Once we finished looking through the photo album, we got ready to depart.

“You know,” Filia mused, “I suppose I really was adorable. Who cares if anyone else sees that?”

“Well, yeah. With you being that cute and all, I didn’t get why it mattered at all.”

“Oh my.” Fira put her hand over her mouth and giggled softly.

As for Elgis, he was suddenly glaring at me with a deep distrust.

Glaring? But why?! I’d just complimented his daughter!

“It’s going to be so lonely around here with you two gone,” lamented Fira.

“I think,” said Filia, “that things are probably lively enough around here with just the two of you, Mom and Dad.”

She wasn’t wrong; those two were always full of energy, that was for sure.

“You think so?” said Elgis. “I suppose it’s because we love each other so very, very much!”

“Oh, darling, really now!”

The two of them started, er, flirting, I guess? Though they were middle-aged, they still looked like a beautiful young couple. The whole thing was weirding me out; I averted my eyes as they whispered sweet nothings to each other.

“What’s this? Oh, Yuri, you’re surprisingly innocent, aren’t you? Eh? Eh?” said Elgis, taking notice and teasing me.

Filia nodded. “Yes, Yuri is incredibly innocent, isn’t he?”

“No, uh, I’m normal!” I insisted I am normal, right? “A-all right, I guess we’re headin’ out.”

Man, just the thought of it was getting me a little emotional, to be honest. Coming to this village had made me want even more to be stronger than anybody else. When I got back to the rest of the world, I’d for sure immerse myself in my training every single day. I was already psyched just thinking about it!

“Take care, Lia.”

“You come back home whenever you want.”

“Okay. Okay, yeah!” Filia wiped a few tears from her eyes, but there was so much joy in her face too. I was so glad she got to reconcile with her parents. Her expression had gotten so much softer somehow.

Elgis and Fira bowed deeply at me. “Yuri, please take care of Lia.”

“She might be a little naïve, but she’s a good girl. Please be good to her.”

“As you wish,” I said, returning their bow. I swore to myself that I’d never let Filia be sad. “Okay, Filia, ya ready?”

“Dad. Mom. We’re off!”

At last, Filia and I left the village, and Elgis and Fira waved enthusiastically at us until they were out of sight.

 

***

 

We’d made it safely through the forest by dawn of the next day, and from there we approached a great vantage point—a place where we could really keep an eye on our surroundings and spot any enemies. With most of my brain thus occupied, the rest of my brain started to wander.

Lia, huh? Could I call her that?

Nah, probably not. Pointless to think about that stuff. Better to think about muscles.

“Yuri!”

“What?”

Standing in front of me, Filia looked up. The corners of her mouth curved into a grin. “It’s okay. If you call me Lia, I mean.”

“Hey, you peeked into my mind, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t. I looked at your face, Yuri, and guessed that you were thinking, ‘Lia, huh? Could I call her that? Bwa ha ha, hee hee hee.’ That kind of thing.” Filia crossed her arms behind her back, swaying gently from side to side.

Wait a minute, she definitely peeked into my head, right? And what was with the dramatization, giving me that perverted laugh and all? What did she want right now with this psychological warfare?

“But you’re surely far too innocent, Yuri, to call me by a pet name.”

“Am not!” I blurted. I couldn’t help it, not after Filia said something like that, especially not with her index finger on her lip, looking up at me like she was trying to provoke me.

“Well, give it a try, won’t you?”

“F-fine.” I took a deep breath.

Filia kept grinning at me. I had to calm down. Compared to battle, this was a cake walk. I wasn’t about to get wounded, my life wasn’t in danger… So why was my heart beating so fast?

“Lia! There. There, I said it.” But why was it so embarrassing? What was this?

“Eh he he, Yuri, your face is totally red,” said Filia, looking just as red as I did.

“Shut up. I’m leaving you behind.”

“Hey, wait, Yuri!” Filia followed after me as I started to run. “Are you embarrassed, Yuri? Hey, are you?”

“No way, no how.”

“Oh my, you’re blushing again, aren’t you?”

“Am not! Ugh, I’m never calling you that again!”

My voice echoed out through the expansive, cloudless sky. A sudden wind blew, softly caressing our cheeks, heading off into some other place. A new and unbound wind, sweeping away to parts unknown.