Epilogue: A Party Was Formed, or So It Was Told

“I need money. And not just any amount. I need lots of it. And I’ll need it regularly.”

“W-Wait, what? Huh? What do you mean?”

A night had passed since Rona had made her advances on Renya. Rendered helpless before her complete and utter lack of regard for the sanctity of her own body, he’d quickly capitulated to her demands. The following morning, he had arrived early at the cafeteria for breakfast and was waiting for the two girls to show up. As soon as they sat down at his table, he threw out his demands without the slightest lead-in or context. The outburst left Shion gasping and stuttering in confusion. Beside her, Rona watched the proceedings with a perfectly placid expression. The panache she’d displayed when she barged into his room last night was nowhere to be seen.

Renya was well aware that such an abrupt entry into the topic would confuse Shion. Nevertheless, he went with it because a confused Shion would ask fewer questions. He was hoping to settle the matter before she started wondering how he had arrived at his conclusions.

“I spent some time by myself thinking about it. In the end, I decided that it would be overly optimistic to assume I’ll be okay on my own. I’m going to need someone’s help.”

“O-Okay…”

“However, being a Wanderer, I know next to nothing about this world. I’m not brimming with talent either, and I have no friends. Under these circumstances, it’ll take an immense amount of effort to find the friends I’ll need to make money.”

“I… I guess so,” replied Shion. In her daze, a stuttered affirmation was the most she could manage. She was barely managing to keep up with the quick pace of the conversation.

“Therefore, the offer you made yesterday is extremely appealing, and in fact, I’m thinking of accepting your invitation. That leaves us with one last condition you have to accept, which is that my primary objective is making money. If you’re okay with that, then we have ourselves a deal. What do you say?”

“U-Um… Huh?” When prompted for an answer, Shion went into full panic mode.

“What exactly is the purpose of making all this money?” interrupted Rona. At a glance, it seemed like she was giving Shion some time to think, but her true aim was to subtly redirect the conversation toward what Renya intendeds to use the money on. It was a convenient change of topic for him, but it was separately and equally convenient for her.

You wily witch, he thought as he tried to convey his disgust through his glare. You foxy fraudster. Eventually, he had to turn back to Shion, who was waiting for his answer.

“I need a foothold. A home base of sorts. Specifically, I want a house with a workshop attached. It has to be the kind of place where I can really work on something and not disturb anyone else.”

“And why might that be?”

“The circumstances at the settlers’ village being what they were, I just had to put up with it. But now we’re back in the city and there are still too many things that I can’t stand. The city isn’t going to change to please me, though, so I want a space to myself where I can fix those problems.”

“A stand-alone home with a fair bit of land, huh. Add in a workshop and it’ll probably cost you around a platinum.”

Rona seemed to be commenting on Renya’s demands, but she was also discreetly informing him and Shion of the market price without sounding unnatural. It went without saying that he had no idea of the cost, but Shion was probably also clueless about how much money would be required to fulfill his wish.

“Well, we can look into the price later, but that’s the gist of my reply. So?”

“H-Huh? Um… uh, right. Hmm…”

Shion had yet to recover from his rapid-fire demands, but put on the spot, she took only a moment to think before nodding.

“All right. Good idea. I would have been fine with just making a living, but we’ll aim for buying a house, then. It’ll be good motivation to work, too.”

“Buying the house is my goal, by the way…”

“Saving up a platinum by yourself is really hard, though. Since we’re going to be in this together, why don’t we just make that the home base for our party?” said Shion, as though it were the simplest answer in the world.

Speechless, Renya looked to Rona, who immediately averted her gaze.

What happened to making her more aware of danger, huh?

Even he knew he should not be blaming Rona, but he continued to gripe at her with his gaze. He could not do it to Shion, after all. Who else was he supposed to complain to? Rona, for her part, kept her eyes steadfastly trained on things that were not him. Eventually, he gave up and turned back to Shion, choosing his words carefully before he spoke.

“Okay, look. I assume you’re old enough to understand what it means when a man and a woman live together under the same roof, right?”

“What’s wrong with that? We’re going to be good friends. It’ll be a family, right?”

A couple of descriptors flashed through Renya’s mind: innocent to the core, needs more sex ed, clueless about her own beauty, and hopelessly trusting of others. While she was completely different from Rona, she was also a handful. For the second time in 24 hours, he felt like raising his hands in surrender. It was likely that she would have to be put in a serious incident that went almost all the way — or maybe just a teeny bit past — before she would learn.

“…Whatever. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.”

Procrastination. Man’s best friend. Or maybe worst enemy. Who knows? That could be figured out later.

“Huh? I’m not sure what you mean. Anyway, making money will be our main goal, right? That’s no problem. I’ll help out, too. Is that okay for you?”

There was a distinct decrescendo to her voice toward the end. She looked up at Renya nervously. Meanwhile, Rona was doing that freaky thing where she was smiling with everything but her eyes again. The intent was clear: “Say no now, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

“Well, it’s hard to tell if everything will work out, but let’s say yes for the time being.”

He had barely finished speaking when Shion leapt out of her seat and took his hands in hers. She shook them up and down, beaming.

“Yes! You said yes! Thank you, Renya! I’m sure we’ll be the best of friends!”

“Huh? Oh, uh, sure?”

This time, it was Renya who could not keep up with Shion’s sudden exuberance. Shion paid him no mind as she worked herself into a frenzy of enthusiasm.

“You’re a lifesaver! The whole night, I was worrying about what I’d do if you said no. I’d have to start approaching strangers, maybe go to the guild and ask every single man there if they’ll join my party…”

“Okay, you’d just be annoying people if you did that…”

He tried to mention that they would take her invitation to mean something else, but she was no longer listening.

“I’m so glad you said yes… It really means a lot to me. This way, I get to keep adventuring, and it solves the issue at home, too. I won’t have to worry about them dragging me ba—”

“Shion?!”

Having heard something that finally crossed the line, Rona jumped up and slammed her hand over Shion’s mouth. With Renya’s hands still in hers and Rona’s hand over her mouth, Shion’s eyes went wide as she realized what she had done. Renya smiled awkwardly, trying very hard to not yell.

How the hell am I supposed to smooth this one over?!

His head hurt. Shion was way too close for him to pretend to not have heard.

Were he an aurally-challenged protagonist of a romcom, he would simply act as if he did not hear. Unfortunately, he was not in a romcom, nor was he an actor. And he definitely was not hard of hearing. On the other hand, what he heard was undoubtedly the kind of thing that would immediately raise suspicions. Time slowed to a crawl as he frantically scrambled for a way out. With the gears in his head spinning in overdrive, he squeezed out more brain juices than he had ever done before, and after a long second, he spoke.

“What was that about a dragon?”

“Huh?”

Both girls raised their voices in concert.

Okay. Don’t laugh. Don’t sweat. Don’t make a scene. Just keep everything nice and under control.

He heard something he was not supposed to hear, and he could not pretend he did not hear. That left him with only one option; he had to sell them on his mishearing. Trying his hardest to sound puzzled, he slowly worked through his thoughts out loud.

“Uh… Well, you said something about home and dragons. What, you keep one as a pet or something?”

“Wh-What? No, of course not. There’s no dragons…”

“You must have heard wrong, Renya. Right, Shion?”

“Yeah, it must be just you, Renya. I didn’t say a thing.”

“Really? Huh, I guess it’s just me, then. Sorry.”

Putting on his best I-could-have-sworn-I-heard impression, he scrunched up his face into a frown and made conspicuous thinking noises. All the while, he kept his gaze wandering from one point on the ceiling to another, making sure to avoid Shion in the middle. Otherwise, he feared that he might see something he was not supposed to see next. Ultimately, he could avert the focus of his vision, but he could not shut off its peripheries. As he expected, out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted a flustered Shion, wide, nervous eyes flitting about on her reddened visage. Drops of sweat rolled down her forehead. Rona rushed to dab them away with a handkerchief. At the same time, she whispered something in Shion’s ear, making sure her voice was soft enough for Renya to be out of earshot.

All things considered, it was perfectly understandable for Shion to be nervous about whether or not Renya was going to join their party. That was fine. Being overwhelmed by relief and blabbing all her secrets to everyone, however, was not fine. In the end, all she really did was transfer her nervousness to Renya, who began desperately hoping he would not regret his decision to join the party today.