Bonus Chapter: Remembering Names Is Surprisingly Difficult

Bonus Chapter:
Remembering Names Is Surprisingly Difficult

 

THE MINUTE Filia and I opened the doors to the guild, we heard a young boy’s voice.

“Please!” he shouted. The boy looked young and pretty innocent, aimlessly roaming around the guild while clutching a request form. He kept going up to different people and bowing his head, begging them for help, but no one was accepting his request.

“Hey, Filia, whaddya think?”

“Why don’t we at least go hear him out?”

We didn’t know what the boy—and dang, he was so young—was doing, but his desperation was plain to see. Most of the adventurers seemed to turn him down apologetically, so at least he wasn’t being shunned or anything. Our minds made up, Filia and I approached him.

“You want to go into the Boon Forest and pick some flowers?”

“Mmhm! My mom’s birthday is the day after tomorrow, and I wanted to give her a flower called a Sun Flower. My mom gave me one a long time ago, so now I wanna give her one, along with a letter. But my mom’s always telling me that it’s dangerous to go into the forest, so I came to the guild, and…”

A waste of effort. He’d been rejected by everyone, huh?

“Please. I’ll give you all my allowance!” The boy banged his head against the desk, pleading with us. He clutched some coins in his hand. Putting out a request was by no means cheap, but the boy seemed to have enough money to pay for it. Considering the amount, he must have been saving for months. What a good kid, thinking so much about his parents.

“Hmm…” In terms of rank, this wasn’t really a problematic request, but. Hm. I couldn’t really see why anyone would refuse this kid’s request, which made it weird that so many had. Ehh, it didn’t matter.

“Sure. We’ll accept.”

The young boy’s eyes lit up. “Y-you’re sure?!”

“Yeah. Let me and Filia handle it.”

“Th-thank you very much! I…well, thank you so, so much!” The boy stammered, overcome with joy.

“Are you sure about this?” Filia whispered during our short walk to the guild counter. “We don’t even know why everyone else turned him down.”

“I don’t think I could say I’m moved or anything, and maybe that’s ’cause I don’t have a family myself, but I kind of admire people who do stuff for their folks, somehow. Maybe that’s it.”

At that, Filia smiled kindly. “I see. My own relationship with my family is somewhat, you know, complicated after everything that’s happened… But that’s exactly why I love seeing a family doing well.”

As we talked, Filia and I submitted the request to the girl at the counter. She looked up from the form to stare at each of us intently, one at a time. “Are you really going to accept this request?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Several people have issued reports of a gigantic monster appearing within Boon Forest for about a week now. After reviewing their testimonies, the guild has concluded it’s most likely a mid-to-low A-Rank monster, a gagagastripe. It is quite the dangerous request. Are you sure you’d like to accept?”

Ah, so that was why everyone else had turned this one down. Well, a small fry like that wasn’t much of an obstacle for us. If anything, the chance to fight a powerful monster was a bonus. I was dynamite, and just hearing this lit my fuse. “Not a problem. Right, Filia?”

“Well, yeah, I can handle it.”

Heh, good to hear. We accepted the request like we’d planned and made our way to Boon Forest.

 

***

 

When we arrived, we got to work on the request right away. Of course, I’d already unleashed my muscles in preparation to fight a powerful enemy. (They were looking as wonderful as ever, thanks for asking!)

“All right. Let’s find some Sun Flowers. And uh, maybe that gargleblaster-whatever…seeing one of ’em would be nice too.”

“It’s obviously better if we don’t run into one, though. Also, ‘gargleblaster-whatever’? It’s a gagagaspike. For goodness’ sake, Yuri, you just forget things right away. You’d be completely hopeless without me,” teased Filia, poking my cheek with her finger.

Ah, yeah, yeah, I see. It was called a gagagaspike, huh?

A, uh…gagagaspike?

“Hey, Filia. Wasn’t it called ‘gagagastripe’?”

Filia’s face stiffened. She turned away, almost creaking as she did so, kinda like a magic soldier that had run out of magical energy.

“Y-yes, of course, that’s what I said. That’s right.”

Uh, nope, Filia, you hadn’t. It was called a gagagastripe. Sure, Filia was always pretty useful to me, but, uh…

I wasn’t sure what to say, so instead went with: “You’re always so dependable, Filia.”

“What was that? Was that sarcasm?! Are you sarcasticking me?!”

“It wasn’t sarcasm. It was muscle,” I replied, giving a little flex to prove it.

“Ugh. It makes me sad to the point of tears when someone like you points out my mistakes…” Wow, so impressed by my muscles that she was moved to tears…almost embarrassing.

Anyway, as we chatted back and forth, we continued on through Boon Forest. The monsters there weren’t very dangerous, by and large; if we ran into any monster other than the gagagastripe, I could win with my eyes closed.

The, uh, or no, was it gagagaspike?

“Just forget about it already…” said Filia, replying to my thoughts in a voice so quiet it was almost silent.

“Why? You yourself said it was gagagaspike, didn’t you? And I’m incredibly grateful to you, Filia, since you’re always so dependable. What else could I expect from the transcendentally beautiful elf girl Filia?”

“Waahh, Yuri, stop picking on me!”

 

***

 

We continued our search for a while, our conversation pretty much continuing like that, until I felt some kind of presence up ahead. It radiated strength.

“There’s something here after all.”

Filia and I quieted our footsteps and approached cautiously. What we saw was a huge monster, about fifteen feet tall, glaring at us with a scowl. It was a four-legged monster, with some kind of magnificent yellow-and-green-striped pattern on its body. Man, it was like, the most striped monster I’d ever seen. But unfortunately—or maybe naturally—there wasn’t hint of spike on the stripey, stripey pattern of the—

Then again, it was Filia who’d said it was called a gagagaspike. Surely the transcendentally beautiful elf girl Filia was right.

“Yo, gagagaspike!” I said, greeting the monster before us.

“Stripe! Gagagastripe! Look, I’m sorry, I was wrong, so can you please drop it already?!” shouted Filia in a voice that might’ve been a little more on the angry side than the annoyed one. Maybe I’d teased her a little too much? Something to think on.

“Gagagaaa!” The formerly-called-gagagaspike-but-actually-called-gagagastripe threatened us with its rather unusual cry.

“Hooah!” I slammed my fist into the gagagastripe’s torso.

It let out a “Gaga?!” and staggered. Even after taking a hit from me, his body remained intact. Whew, what a monster. Definitely Rank A.

“Yuri, I’ll handle the rest,” said Filia. When I turned, I saw she was clad in her wind giant. Wow, she was going so far as to use her Wind God ability. She meant business.

“Man, you’re really motivated today, huh?”

“I’ve built up a lot of frustration, Yuri…” Filia growled as she approached the gagagastripe. The creature was still going strong, even if it was wounded.

“Gagagaaa!” The monster let out a snarl and rushed Filia, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye.

She didn’t seem worried.

“It’s your fault that Yuri made fun of me so much! Prepare for death, insect!” shouted Filia, before smashing the gagagastripe with a giant arm of wind.

Whoa. She did all that with pent-up feelings of total resentment. Oof. Made you feel bad for the gagagastripe.

And thus, the poor, unfortunate gagagastripe was defeated at the hands of transcendentally beautiful Filia.

 

***

 

“All right, good job defeating him, Filia. Uh, Filia?” But Filia wasn’t anywhere in sight. She’d been there just a moment ago, right?

“H-help me, please. I can’t move…” I lowered my gaze and found Filia lying face down on the ground for some reason.

“What’s the matter, Filia? Afternoon nap?”

“You can’t think I’d really take an afternoon nap in a forest like this. Oof, it kind of feels like I twisted my leg… Ow.” Filia groggily tried to push herself up with her forearms, but with her strength drained, she just flopped back flat onto the ground.

“Hey, don’t push yourself too hard.”

“As you surely saw, I used the Wind God spectacularly, but I’m so exhausted now…” Filia tried to get up once more, but the moment she got her feet on the ground, she crouched back down. Her complexion looked a little worse too, a little paler. Filia’s leg injury definitely wasn’t negligible.

“You okay? You didn’t need to push yourself so hard.”

“If I didn’t defeat him right away, then you’d just keep making fun of me…” said Filia, pouting and turning away in a huff.

So that’s why she’d been so gung ho. “Sorry. I teased you too much.”

“You really did. If you wish to make it right with me…you’ll give me a piggyback ride,” replied Filia, glaring at me with resentment in her eyes.

Even if her mood was only a little bit my fault, I couldn’t exactly refuse. The least I could do for an apology would be to do what Filia asked. “All right.”

I hefted Filia up and ended with a soft, gentle sensation on my back.

“Interesting, Yuri: a strong, muscle-bound man picking up a woman of peerless beauty and carrying her on his back. Why, the scenario looks positively criminal, doesn’t it?”

“It’s nothin’ to write home about.” Besides—just putting this out there—wasn’t she the one who’d asked for this? Well, she couldn’t walk, so I guess there wasn’t a point in arguing, but all the same! “Wait a minute, you can use recovery magic, Filia. Can’t you just cure your injury that way?”

“Err.”

“Hey!”

“Ahhhhhh…hmm. Yes, I can heal myself, but I don’t want to waste the energy. It’s easier this way. For me, I mean,” said Filia, holding her hands over her ears and shaking her head.

This girl… Ugh, she was getting into one of those moods of hers again. Well, no biggie. Given the low rank of the monsters in this forest, it’d honestly be better training to have a handicap like carrying Filia around on my back. Kinda fired me up, actually!

Hauling Filia onward, I continued keeping an eye out for the Sun Flower, our real goal for the day. As Filia looked around with me, she started talking.

“Do you have any favorite animals or anything, Yuri? Or favorite things in general? Oh, your favorite thing is me? Oh, Yuri, you’re too much!”

“Give me time to answer.” Jeez, how far did she push ahead on her own? She was like an adventurer of conversation.

“An adventurer of conversation, hmm?”

“…”

“An adventurer…of con-ver-sa-tion.”

“Hey, stop exposing what I said in my mind out loud, lookin’ all serious like that…” I didn’t know why, but it was real embarrassing.

“Oh, but making Yuri look all flustered is my calling in life. It sustains me. I can’t help it!”

“Please, I’m begging you, find a better calling in life, and do it fast.” Seriously, she had a twisted personality, huh?

Filia replied to the bitter look on my face with a laugh. “I’m joking, it was only a joke. Sorry.”

Man, she had to straighten out that personality.

Filia suddenly pointed up toward the sky. “Oh, look, Yuri! It’s a rainbow! A rainbow!”

Oh man, that was a rainbow all right—the arch positively glowed with seven colors. Filia’s eyes lit up as she stared up at the sky, almost childlike. Nah, I couldn’t get too mad at her despite her awful personality. Not when she could admire stuff like this with such innocence.

“It’s beautiful, Yuri, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s sparkling, just like yours truly.”

“If you say so.”

We stopped in place for just a few minutes just to gaze at it.

A short while later, Filia pointed her arm out from her place on my back. “Oh, isn’t that it? The Sun Flower?”

I looked where she was pointing, and yep—flower, 10 o’clock.

“Looks like it.” I approached the flower, still carrying Filia. The Sun Flower was definitely worthy of its name. It was a bright, passionate red, so vibrant it felt like the power to live welled up inside me just from looking at it.

“Oh, I’ll go and pick it. I’d feel anxious if you did, Yuri,” said Filia, hopping off my back to go over and pick the flower, puffing out her modest chest proudly as she spoke.

I stared intently at Filia’s ankles.

“Hey, what happened to your supposedly injured leg?” I asked.

“Oh, as soon as you started giving me a piggyback ride, I used recovery magic. I couldn’t stand the pain. Thank you very much for carrying me up until now.”

I studied Filia as she expressed her gratitude. And there I’d been, trying to keep the impact of my movements to a minimum as we moved forward, thinking about her aching leg. But my efforts had meant absolutely nothing at all, huh? I see, I see…

“Hm. Yuri, are you angry?”

“Nah, not really.” Not at something like that. Why? Because I was a true gentle muscle man.

Buuut I was still a little frustrated, so I’d give her a warning. Not that I was angry, though. Nope.

“Walk home on your own two legs, okay?”

“That’s what I was planning on. It would be embarrassing if someone saw me, the transcendentally beautiful elf girl Filia, getting a piggyback ride from anyone.” As Filia spoke, she picked the Sun Flower, her hand movements steady and careful. I wasn’t very good at that kind of delicate work myself. I was honestly glad Filia was around to help me out with stuff like this.

“Wow!” Filia’s face lit up with a broad smile as she glanced at the nearby thicket. I’d felt a presence there earlier, but I hadn’t really done anything about it—whatever was there was too weak to worry about.

“What’s up?”

“Yuri. Look at that monster over there,” said Filia, crouching down, beckoning me over with a whisper.

Curious, I moved over to check it out, and I spied a monster covered in brown fur. It looked a whole lot like a monkey, except for the fact that its hands were disproportionately long and thin compared to its body.

“They call this monster a ‘medikong.’ If you give it some medicinal herbs, it’ll give you various fruits in return, based on the quality of the herbs you gave it. Wow, being able to meet one like this—talk about good fortune! We’re really lucky.”

So it gave you fruit for medicinal herbs? “That’s a weird trait.”

“Well, think of it this way—when you meet someone stronger than you, you want to show them you’re not their enemy. The medikong does that by giving us a gift in exchange for a gift, though I don’t know how effective it really is.”

Huh. So there were friendly monsters out in the world too, huh? Deep down, I was pretty impressed. Some monsters could even think, then.

“I’m sure this monster has a much richer intellectual life than yours, Yuri.”

“I doubt it. I’m an intellectual muscle man.” (And don’t read my mind without permission!)

“Yuri, Yuri! Let’s give him some herbs!”

Well, okay, I hadn’t really ever had a chance to barter with monsters. It was rarely a bad idea to try new things for yourself, you know, life experience and all that. Fortunately, I had plenty of herbs in the bag of holding at my hip.

“Here. Take it.” I offered a medicinal herb to the medikong, who was half-hidden in the thicket.

The medikong repeatedly reached out his hairy arm and then pulled it back, over and over, until finally he snatched the herb from my hand. Then he quickly hid his entire body in the thicket. Soon enough, I heard the sound of something clattering lightly—thwack!—and a yellow fruit appeared in front of the thicket.

Oooh, banana!

“See?” Filia clapped. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“Yeah. I kinda feel like we connected, somehow.” I took another herb out from my bag of holding and held it out in front of the thicket. The medikong revealed himself once again and snatched the herb from my palm. Thwack. Another banana was placed in front of the thicket.

“Whoa, amazing.”

I tried it again.

And (thwack!) there was yet another banana.

I couldn’t help but raise my brows. “Filia? What’s with all the bananas? You said he’d give out all kinds of fruits, but it’s a bananapalooza here.”

“Maybe…he’s mistaken you for a gorilla? When someone says gorilla, the first thing that comes to mind is bananas.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. In fact, I’m absolutely sure of it.”

Filia was holding her laughter in. She seemed absolutely confident. Could I really have been mistaken for a gorilla? N-no, there was no way.

“All right, one more time!” I grabbed another medicinal herb out from my bag, handed it to the medikong, and—

Banana.

“Again?!” I shouted to the heavens, forced to face the cruel reality of the situation.

But no, I wasn’t giving up!

“All right, then it’s a question of numbers! I’ll fight with numbers!” I grabbed a few bunches of herbs out of the bag and thrust them toward the medikong.

A bunch of bananas.

“Dammit! Okay, one more time! All right, this time, I’m going with real quality herbs. I’ll fight with quality!” I selected some especially nice herbs, handed them to the medikong, and—

An inexplicably prestigious-looking banana.

“Augh!” Seriously, what the hell was happening here? Did I really look like a gorilla to the medikong? No way, that couldn’t be. I had to find a way how to deal with this, somehow.

“Aha!” A lightbulb flicked on. “That’s it. I got it, Filia!”

“Wh-what do you get?” Filia’s cheeks puffed out as she desperately struggled to hold in her laughter.

“I gotta flip the thinking here,” I said, turning to Filia with an audacious smile on my face. “Get it? If I’m being mistaken for a gorilla, then I should do the opposite of what’s expected and just go ahead and act like one. If I do that, his mistake will be made clear. He won’t mistake me for a gorilla anymore!”

Sometimes my incredible thinking amazed even myself. This was truly the “fruit” of an intellectual muscle man. Filia’s mouth was agape. I guess even she was awestruck.

“Get a good look, Filia! Gaze upon my majestic form!”

I took off my shirt and struck an imposing half-naked stance in front of the thicket where the medikong hid. The medikong peered out from the thicket, deeply interested. After confirming he was looking my way, I spread my legs and puffed out my chest to show off my well-developed pecs.

“Ooh. Oooh ooh! Ooh ah ah?” I grunted, dangling my arms and pacing back and forth in front of the thicket. That alone might have been enough here, but I had a little something extra to seal the deal. “Ooh ooh ah ah!”

I started drumming on my chest. Then, finally, I handed over some herbs.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s the stuff! I’d done it. And now—

Banana.

“Why?!”

“D-don’t make me laugh any more, please! H-hee, m-my stomach hurts!” Filia crouched down on the ground, clutching her tummy, her face crimson from laughter.

How was this happening?! I had way prettier muscles than a gorilla, remarkably so. The world was so strange…

“Ahh, that was so good,” said Filia a while later, wiping the tears from her eyes. Jeez, she’d busted her gut.

“Damn. I gotta work out more.”

“How on earth did you arrive at that conclusion?”

I had to build up muscles that couldn’t be mistaken for a gorilla’s, obviously. Yeah, I was determined!

Incidentally, when Filia gave the medikong some herbs a minute later, it placed a basket in front of the thicket that positively overflowed with an assortment of fruits, all of the highest quality. Compared to the bananas I’d gotten for nice quality herbs, the fruit she got was way better.

“Would you look at that, Yuri? Transcendentally gorgeous elf girls are just in a different class altogether.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever…”

Filia, elated with her success, smiled cheekily. I just shook my head. She couldn’t prove it, ya know?

 

***

 

When we returned to the guild, Filia and I handed the Sun Flower to the young boy. “Thank you so much, sir, miss! This is going to make my mom so happy!”

The look of genuine joy on the young boy’s face was so nice that it felt totally worth all the work we did.

“I’m glad to hear that. Oh, while we’re at it, take these too.” I gave the boy a handbag.

When he took it, he peered inside. “What’s this? Sir, these are…bananas? Why are you giving me these?”

“Because I’m not a gorilla.”

The boy tilted his head to one side, as if he didn’t understand what I meant.

“What’s up? You need another bag?” I asked, handing the perplexed boy said another bag.

“Wh-why are there so many…? Uh. Anyway, thank you! I’ll eat these together with my mom!” said the boy, running off in good spirits, holding bags of bananas in both hands.

Off he went to his home. Another successful request, then.

“Pfft…pff he he. Pfa ha ha ha ha!”

I narrowed my eyes at Filia. “How long are you gonna laugh at me?”

“Eh he he he heeeh! It’s not like I’m laughing because I want to—just—just seeing you carry around all those bananas, it’s too much. It just set me off!” Filia hid her eyes with her hands, but I could see the corners of her mouth curved into a smile.

“Filia?”

“Wh-what is it?”

I removed Filia’s hands from her face and brought mine in close. Then, with a completely blank expression, I said but one word:

“Banana.”

“Hhk! Pffft…!”

“Baanaanaaa. Ooh, ooh ooh!”

“PPfft! Heee! Ah ha ha ha! Th-that’s cheating! I-I can’t breathe!” Filia fell off her chair laughing and rolled around on the floor.

“You seriously have the worst personality!”

“Can’t breathe…eh he hee! I-I’m really gonna die! Ah! Yuri, help!”

“Like hell I will! I hate you!”

“D-don’t hate m-m-meee hee hee he he ha ha ha!”

“Stop laughing then!”

For the rest of the day, Filia burst into laughter every time she saw my face. Jeez, talk about rude!