♣Me at Age 10

 

 

 

♣Me at Age 10

 

THERE, it’s ready! Hehe, I’ve gotten better at baking, if I do say so myself!

Cooking does become easier as you get older and taller. Especially when it comes to the oven…though I admit I wouldn’t have known how to put firewood into a stove and cook off the residual heat if I didn’t see a movie about a certain witch’s delivery service in my past life.

“…Looking good. So, now that I’ve made some gratin, what should I try making next?”

“Morning, Tina!” Nakona approached me. “Breakfast smells good. What’re you making?!”

“Good morning, Nakona! Today, I put maforoni, demi-glace sauce, and cheese inside a poteto… Erm, it’s called… Ah, I’ll call it gratin!”

“Oooh! That sounds tasty. I’ll call Daddy over!”

“Sure, thanks.”

Nakona Ril came to our inn four years ago after running away from De Marl in displeasure over her mother’s remarriage. By now, she’d completely taken to her role as my stepsister and as a member of the inn. She’s nimble, vigorous, and a strong warrior who clearly takes after her father.

Whenever guests showed up, she would challenge their bodyguards to practice matches. Before long, our inn got a somewhat dubious reputation as “That inn with the really strong bodyguard girl…”

O-Of course, we still have plenty of other good selling points! Gorgeous views, a hot spring, tasty, creative cuisine, and high-quality medicine for sale. The rumors spread and we got more guests. Rumors about Nakona seemed to stand out, though, as far as the inn was concerned…

I mean, having bad guys stay away from our inn is a good thing!

“Tina, you got some letters,” Dad said, walking into the inn.

“Oh, welcome home, Dad. Letters? For me? Who are they from?”

“Lico and Mister Jilril.”

“Ah!”

Mister Jilril was one of our inn’s past guests and the chairman of a school in the scholar country of Saikorea! He was a friend of Sirius, an archaeologist and a member of Aaron’s adventurer group, who was also our occasional guest.

Sirius was the one who praised my talent as an alchemical apothecary and mage. Apparently, he told Mister Jilril about me when he went to Saikorea, making him want to meet me in person.

Mister Jilril was a very nice, polite gentleman who had an odd fixation with food hot enough to burn his tongue. He really seemed to like the dishes I made based on my past life… He was so enthusiastic about my udon that he still sent me letters every now and then.

Lico was an old colleague of Dad’s and a state alchemist for the country of De Marl. She had a larger build than Dad and wore imposing, eerie armor when she fought using battle-optimized alchemy. Still, she was effectively my alchemy teacher.

She’d come to rest here at the Rofola Lodge between monster subjugation missions and teach me all sorts of things. As you might expect from a state alchemist, she knew more about making alchemical medicine than I did, even though it wasn’t her field. Compared to her, I wasn’t sure I was really the genius everyone called me.

“Lico wrote she’s coming over soon!” I read out loud.

“Again…?” Dad grumbled.

“Huh?!” Nakona exclaimed excitedly. “So, does that mean Vector and the others are coming too?!”

“According to her letter, people from other knightly orders started joining her missions, so apparently, they are. She asked to reserve a room for six.”

“Yay! This time, I’ll beat Vector silly!”

Dad and I both stared at Nakona.

No, Nakona. That’s not what’s important here…

She looks so cute. So why is she so savage?!

“A room for six, yeah?” Dad asked to confirm. I nodded. “Well, we haven’t used that cottage since Giyaga’s last visit. Guess I’ll spend the day cleaning it out. Tina, you’ll be brewing medicine today, right? What are you going to make?”

“Of course! I’ll be using the ingredients I bought from Miser Giyaga to make a high-grade tonic! I’ll keep trying until I get good enough to make ideal ones!”

“But Tina, adventurers don’t really buy high-grade tonics. Make too many of them, and they’ll just end up in storage.”

“Ugh…!” He had a good point there.

“Well, don’t worry too much. Giyaga has connections with different military medical facilities and knightly orders all over the world, so maybe he’ll find someone to buy it off you… They’re just too pricey for the common adventurer…”

…Right. I could make low-grade tonics—healing salves—in pretty large numbers and sell them for a reasonable price. Medium-grade tonics were pricier, but veteran adventurers sometimes bought two or three just to be on the safe side.

But high-grade tonics were more expensive, so adventurers couldn’t really afford them. Healing salves cost about two hundred colts, and medium-grade tonics cost two thousand colts. Since high-grade tonics required expensive ingredients, their price jumped to about twenty thousand colts.

Speaking of price hikes, other medicinal ingredients had been becoming more expensive recently. According to Mister Giyaga’s informant, the human supremacist country, Edesa Kura, had been buying up all the medicine and medicinal ingredients it could.

Due to that, prices for ingredients that used to be cheap had spiked. Mister Giyaga had been selling me things cheaper as a favor, but the ingredients for the high-grade tonic were very expensive…

It feels like I can’t freely practice transmutation like I could before. Grr…

“Well, I don’t think you’ll have trouble selling tonics, what with monster attacks being on the rise. The knights will probably buy a high-grade tonic from you in a heartbeat, too… So yeah, if you end up with some spare tonics, I’ll have the knights in De Marl buy them off of you.”

“Dad?” I called his name, noticing something in his tone was off.

“Hm?”

“…Are you worried about something? Recently, you’ve been a little…”

“Oh, it’s nothing. What did Mister Jilril send you?”

…Huh. He just dodged my question.

But I was interested in Mister Jilril’s letter too, so I went along with it.

“Lemme see… Huh?!”

“What’s wrong?” Dad asked.

“What does it say?” Nakona peeked at the letter.

“…It says he wants me to send him tonics. As many as possible, even low-grade ones… He says he wants me to accept it as a job. And if possible, he’d like for me to go to their ally, De Marl, and make as many tonics as possible… What happened? Why does he need me to make so many tonics…?”

Dad fell silent.

“…Daddy…does this mean what I think…?”

Nakona looked like she knew something. Dad’s expression turned even more severe.

What’s happening…? I’m scared…

“It’s finally time, huh?” Dad said grimly.

“Time for what?” I asked.

“War’s about to start… Edesa Kura’s about to launch another war.”

I was stunned into silence. A war…

“W-War…”

It just didn’t feel real. But the rising prices. The request to mass-produce tonics. Mister Giyaga did sound pretty grave when he said that Edesa Kura was buying things up… That was all happening because everyone was preparing for war.

No, why…?

“This’ll be your first time experiencing a war, won’t it, Tina…?” Nakona muttered.

“Huh? Oh, y-yes. This isn’t your first time, Nakona?”

“Yeah. There was a war going on since before I was born, and it kept going until I was five or six. We always had something to eat because Dad was a knight, but…most of De Marl’s citizens struggled for food.”

“Knights, senate members, priests, and their families all got rationed food first… No one starved to death thanks to the rationing of course, but…things were pretty awful in the smaller countries that were close to Edesa Kura, like Uru Ki,” Dad explained.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t believe it. It was just hard to swallow that in this world…countries were actively waging war, unlike the country and time I lived in during my past life.

A war is coming…really soon… I don’t want that…

“It only took them ten years to gather their strength again…” Dad muttered bitterly.

“And after you and the other knights fought so hard… What’s with that stupid country! They piss me off!” Nakona vented in irritation.

“I just hope the lizardmen and ogres don’t get provoked into joining the fight… When they get involved, they have a way of not being able to tell who’s on their side and who’s against them.”

“…I see.”

Lizardmen and ogres were technically allied with De Marl, but they were among the most belligerent demi-human races. Dad cradled his head with a sullen expression.

Y-Yeah, I understand, Dad. De Marl’s fighting to coexist with the demi-humans, so being attacked from behind must suck.

“So, what are you gonna do, Tina?” Nakona asked. “You only spoke with Mister Jilril for a little bit two years ago, so you don’t have to care that much about his request.”

“Yeah, but…I’ll make the tonics. This is a request for a job. I’ll have to think before I decide if I go to De Marl or not, but…”

“Yeah, not a bad idea,” Dad said. “You shouldn’t have to actively take sides.”

“Huh?”

“Mm?”

…Dad, weren’t you a De Marl knight? Can you really say that?!

“What’s with that face you’re making? I think it’s pretty obvious it’s better not to get involved… Edesa Kura wouldn’t hesitate to kidnap a skilled alchemical apothecary or alchemist. What if they go after you?”

“If that’s the case, wouldn’t I be safer making tonics with De Marl’s knights around to protect me?”

“Ugh!” Dad panicked. “W-Well, yeah, but…if you take sides blatantly like that, they might try to assassinate you! Countries send assassins to take out skilled people during wars, you know. If they think you’re in the way, they might decide to eliminate you. I think an alchemical apothecary is safer taking work from afar.”

“…I guess so…”

A former knight really would know all the inner workings of war.

But, as far as safety is concerned…I get the feeling once the war starts, nowhere will really be safe.

“Either way, war is a problem between countries. Edesa Kura’s objective is to dominate the demis and the Mythicals. Strategically speaking, they’re picking an incredibly reckless fight… I’m sure the people in active service will manage…”

Despite saying that, Dad’s expression was terribly embittered. He was clearly vexed, but…I didn’t think it had to do with him being a former knight. Nakona looked much the same.

A war…

I was only ten years old, and these matters “between countries” had nothing to do with me. Right. This was a world I only ever saw on TV… It’s like that question I used to always ask myself: “How could you drag children into your war?!”

“For now, we should get to cleaning that cottage for six,” Dad said, trying to change the subject.

“We should,” I said.

“Huh? Aren’t you going to transmute a high-grade tonic, Tina?”

“Oh, I’ll do that, of course! And I’ll make German Poteto and pizza for lunch, too! I’m gonna work double hard today!”

“G-Good for you?” Dad said, sounding a little baffled.

“Why are you so cheerful all of a sudden?” Nakona asked, blinking with a hint of confusion.

I can’t keep going if I don’t kick things up a notch! Either way, what I need to do hasn’t changed.

♣♣♣

TWO years ago, a man called Mister Jirok came from De Lulua to make us a road to the hot spring. He was a construction contractor and used his spare materials to build me my own alchemy workshop. A single room built at the back of the inn!

The shelves on both sides were stacked with potion ingredients, and the room had its own key. There were some dangerous materials in there, after all. It was also equipped with a small underground silo for materials that needed to be stored in specific moisture and temperature conditions.

I went into that room to brew the high-grade tonic up quick. I collected the result in a big jar and handed it over to Dad for Appraisal.

“Y-You sure made a lot!” he exclaimed, surprised upon seeing the jar.

“I used Condensing! It lets me use as few ingredients as possible for the maximum effect. I figured I shouldn’t waste the ingredients Mister Giyaga sold me. Lico taught me how to do it!”

“H-Huh. Well, I don’t really get it, but it sounds impressive.”

He complimented me without really understanding what I was saying. Typical Dad, I guess…

“Let’s see.”

The excitement…!

“…It’s good quality. So is this one and this one.”

“Nngh!”

I couldn’t make it Ideal after all! It’s so frustrating!

“Well, how’s this? I made it with the last of my ingredients.”

“Let’s see?”

I took out another bottle of medicine from the pouch. It was a bit paler compared to the rest, and there was only enough of it to fit in a small bottle. It was a little weird, actually… I made it with ingredients for a high-grade tonic, but it was a faint pink color, like a low-grade one, and it had something like a layer of gold dust in it. I assumed it was a failure.

Dad Appraised it with his magic and then paused. He looked at it stiffly.

“Dad?”

He tipped it over and examined it from beneath. His expression was kind of funny.

Wh-What? Did I make something that weird? S-Stop making faces like that. Now I’m curious! Aaaah, what does that expression mean?! I wish I could use Appraisal magic too! It’s driving me up the wall!

“…How did you…make this?” Dad eventually asked.

“Huh? How? Erm, the usual way. Like the rest of them…”

“…No, but…I know my Appraisal magic is the lowest possible rank. But…”

“What is it? I’m kind of curious here…”

“…It’s a Supreme tonic… Average quality… That’s what the Appraisal says. A Supreme tonic… Wh-What are you g-gonna do with it?”

“…Huh? S-Supr— What?!”

We both stared at each other, our faces stiff and our mouths shut. I wasn’t sure what to say. Dad’s expression turned serious all of a sudden. Very stern. Extremely grave…

Y-Yeah. No! Huh, what? Wait. Erm, huh, what?

“How about we…let Lico Appraise it too?” Dad suggested wearily.

“Y-Yeah!” I nodded desperately.

I carefully, preciously put the little bottle in my pouch… And I don’t remember what I did afterward…

♣♣♣

“…IS it just me, or have you two been acting strange recently?” Nakona asked me while I was baking some cookies on the other side of the counter.

S-Strange? Me? Wh-Whatever do you mean?!

“What?” Nakona asked, noticing my silence.

A few travelers were enjoying light meals or dessert on the other side of the counter. We’d recently expanded our coffee corner so that visitors could stop by and relax at the Rofola Lodge even if they weren’t staying the night. We left the door open, allowing customers to pick if they wanted to sit at the tables set up on the cottage-style balcony or the small patio ahead of the inn’s main building.

And in case someone wanted to spend the night after all, we dedicated a large area near the lake’s suspension bridge for camping purposes. This way, even if someone didn’t rent a room—like if they only came for the hot springs or just to eat and drink—visitors still had a means of staying at the Rofola Lodge.

Except for the hot springs, which were free, we’d set up fees for the other services we offered. A one-night stay with a meal was 2,500 colts. A stay without a meal was 2,000 colts. A meal was 800 colts, and setting up camp near the lake was 1,000 colts. Etcetera, etcetera. We’d completely revamped our prices this way.

At noon, we prepared lunch. Lunches uniformly cost 500 colts! This was easy money. We procured the ingredients ourselves, and we’d make lunch for ourselves anyway, so we didn’t really spend much money on that. Heheheh…

That didn’t apply to dessert, though. In this world of Wisty Air, sweets were the sole privilege of the nobility and clergy. They were hardly in circulation among the common folk. So, to that end, sweets cost that much more! 800 colts a serving!

Plus, Mister Giyaga got me some sugar cane seedlings, so I made a sugar cane field that allowed me to transmute sugar freely! Though it took time to cultivate the field. So it wasn’t quite that simple…but either way, I had a safe source of sugar!

The power of sweets was impressive… Word got around about the inn, and people were coming to the Rofola Lodge just to try out our dessert. In other words: tourists!

And it was exactly because we were in the presence of such guests that I’d rather they didn’t overhear my conversation with Nakona…

“Huh? No way, for real?!” Nakona stared at me with round eyes as I answered her in a hushed whisper.

“That’s what Dad’s Appraisal said. But it can’t be, right? So we’ll have Lico reevaluate it.”

“G-Good idea. But if it really is the real thing, you really did it! You can cure Dad’s arm now!”

“Yeah…”

Seeing the pleased faces of people who’d come from afar to taste my sweets was satisfying. But they never really talked to me… I couldn’t have unfamiliar guests from some other country learn about the Supreme tonic. It was too dangerous.

Even without anyone knowing about that particular accomplishment, there were already some weird people who started coming after hearing we sold medicine too…

A Supreme tonic was considered an illusory concoction—no country was able to establish a recipe for making it. It could heal any wound. Reports said it could even recover lost limbs, like Dad’s arm. And that naturally gave it the kind of value one couldn’t place a price tag on.

And honestly…despite being the one who made it, I didn’t know how I created this Supreme tonic. I simply followed the recipe for the high-grade tonic, and I didn’t think that could possibly result in a Supreme one.

But if this really is a Supreme tonic, it might be capable of recovering Dad’s lost right arm.

He lost his arm in battle and now he used a wooden prosthetic. Recently, he’d been joking that he’s gotten used to using his left hand as if it was his dominant one, but Dad was always right-handed.

“Excuse me, I’d like to buy some medicine.” A voice reached us from the other side of the counter.

“Coming!” Nakona called back. “I’ll handle it.”

“Thanks.”

I still had some more sweets to make. That day, I was making a remoon and orenga pound cake. We had an orchard about half a mile away from the inn. There we grew remoons (lemons), orengas (oranges), apoons (apples), and benans (bananas), among other fruit. Of course, Mount Rofola offered wild grapes and berries, which we also put to use.

Making sweets wasn’t a hobby of mine in my past life, but I did help out around the house for lack of anything better to do when I was unemployed. As I did, I learned how to make different desserts, to lessen the load for Mom and treat her to something special… That experience carried over to this life. I felt a bit mixed about it, to be honest.

“Table five, here’s your remoon and oregna pound cake.”

“Ooh! So this is a cake!”

Yep, they look happy!

We’d been getting more customers, and our income was on the rise. At this rate, we might’ve been able to have the road to the hot spring serviced soon. Right now, it was only just a dirt road. So far, we’d just cleared the path into more of a road, built up a hot spring, and made dressing rooms for men and women. It was an improvement over how things were a couple of years ago, but it was still quite uncomfortable for the guests.

I was hoping to pave the road with flagstones and build a wall to divide the hot spring. But that meant carrying all those materials up the mountain, and it was pretty steep… There was really no way around it.

And I really wanted to make a café between the inn and the highway! The coffee corner near the lodge’s entrance was just too cramped. I also sold medicine over the counter, so that worked out fine, but…

Hm, I wonder how much a café would cost…

“Haa, haa!” A guest stormed inside, visibly out of breath and in quite the panic. “Everyone, run! Bandits!”

“What?”

His words made everyone in the room go pale except for Nakona, who broke into an indomitable smirk.

Ugh… Getting a name for ourselves has its downsides…

Bandits started becoming a frequent problem for us recently. A couple of years back, this never would have happened. The customers often complained that a shop that sold medicine would make an easy target for burglary. But, unfortunately for the bandits…

“Don’t worry!” Nakona called out. “Everyone, please stay here! I’ll go mop them up!”

“Be careful!” I told her.

“I will!” she said with a confident expression.

Honestly speaking, I wasn’t terribly worried about her. In this world, be it magic, alchemy, or battle…or, indeed, just about anything, using mana is the deciding factor. Aaron and Gina once described it in really abstract ways like “bang” and “boom,” but that pretty much summed it up.

And when it came to that kind of mana usage, Nakona was a genius in her own right.

“Gyahaha!”

I heard vulgar laughter.

“Oooh! Look at all these people they’ve got here!”

“All right, boys! Round up the guests and—”

“So, it’s you I have to beat up first!” Nakona said, approaching the bandits while cracking her fists. “It’ll make for a nice warm-up!”

“Huh?!” the bandits all said at once.

I had the guests all take cover inside the inn. It was cramped, but we couldn’t let them get caught up in the fight. They were probably safer here. Looking from afar, it seemed like there were about thirty people… I hoped they had a bounty out on them. Maybe fifty thousand colts a head. We’d be swimming in cash…!

“H-Hey, is that girl gonna be all right out there?” one guest asked me. “I hear there are knights coming this way. Maybe we should look for them…?”

“What, is it your first time here?” another guest interrupted him.

“Yeah, why?”

“We’ll be fine. If anything, we’re lucky.”

“Not often you get to see that spectacle.”

“See what spectacle?”

Our regulars already knew what was coming.

“Dispersing Sixteen-Hit Combo!”

“Gah?!”

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The bandits went flying, drawing perfect arcs through the air. It was impressive even for me, with my lack of combat knowledge.

Wow, Nakona’s on a roll today!

She closed the distance between herself and the bandits at once and sent all thirty of them flying with a single barrage. She always looked so elegant when she did that…

---

---

“Wow, she’s strong…!” the frightened guest exclaimed.

“Of course she is. Her father’s the Azure Demon Wolf of De Marl, Marcus Ril.”

“S-Seriously?!”

“That girl’s probably stronger than most adventurers.”

“No doubt about that. The fact she can pull off techniques is all the proof you need to know she’s strong.”

…That was apparently the case. I knew techniques as the way one regulates mana when they pour it into a pot or a flask. For knights and high-ranking adventurers, using mana like that results in combat techniques. In layman’s terms, if your body had something like a faucet of mana, techniques are how you used that “water” effectively.

You could connect a hose and narrow the faucet’s mouth to make a smaller amount of water gush out faster. That’s kind of how techniques worked. Using too much can result in mana deficiency, so it’s recommended to learn the mana restoration technique. Unlike us alchemists, though, warriors don’t need to use the technique at the same time as they put their mana to use. That was something I was jealous of.

Of course, knights like Lico who could use the mana restoration technique as they used techniques were considered extremely capable. How much someone can use their techniques depended on their proficiency with the mana restoration technique after all!

Incidentally, most people in this world were terrible at channeling their bodies’ mana, so 80 percent of all adventurers couldn’t really use techniques. Having someone teach you how to use mana cost money, and learning it on your own was hard. As a result, most people just gave up on it.

When someone becomes a knight, they get taught how to channel mana during training, but how well they can use it depends on their instincts, wit, and effort. To that end, the fact Nakona learned multiple techniques at her age meant she really was a genius.

“Hehe, you improved again!”

“Really! You completely stole our thunder, lass.”

The coffee corner suddenly became louder. A group of knights walked into the inn with Nakona, led by someone I knew—a knight with purplish-blue armor and a skull helmet. Behind her were knights in blue, red, and black armor.

“Knights from De Marl! I can’t believe it; all three colors are here!” a young woman exclaimed, excited.

“This is amazing… It’s my first time seeing them all together!”

“Hey, isn’t that blue knight pretty cute?!”

“Hmm. I like that red knight better.”

“They’re all good-looking!”

The female travelers chattered among themselves, letting out shrill squeals.

Ah… Yeah, I guess you would feel that way…

“What? Lico, you were this close by?” Nakona asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“We just didn’t want to steal your ‘prey.’ Should we have taken care of it for you?”

“Oh, no, no! I was looking for a chance to put these skills to use, so thanks!”

“Good grief. You’re extra energetic today, lass,” one of the knights said.

“They’re measly bandits. We figured you’d handle them, lass,” another knight added.

“Yeah, but it’d be a different story if it was a monster,” Lico said grimly.

The first knight, with the purplish-blue armor and the skull helmet, was the hulking Licorice Avide. My alchemy teacher. Her subordinate, the other black knight, was Lysteinn Avide. He was Licorice’s cousin’s son and another offensive-focused alchemist.

Licorice always said Lysteinn had a “long way to go,” but since offensive alchemy wasn’t my field, I couldn’t really tell. Even when she tried to explain why he wasn’t good yet, it all sounded like gibberish to me.

That left the blue and red knights the ladies were squealing about. The blue knight was one of Dad’s former subordinates, Gawain. He didn’t have a last name yet—meaning he didn’t rank high enough for one—but he was a handsome young man with blond hair and green eyes. In terms of looks, he was the very image of a fairy tale prince.

But he was a hard worker and had built his career up from commoner status. Dad acknowledged his efforts. Apparently, when Dad had been a knight, Gawain was still a young squire and apprentice.

The red knight was Vector Mashid, Gawain’s rival in the Crimson Knights. He had a last name as the legitimate son and heir of the noble House Mashid. He had dark skin and ebony hair, giving him more of an Asian beauty that contrasted with the blue-eyed Gawain. Both were incredibly good-looking.

House Mashid was a house of clergymen in De Marl and had been guarding the cathedral to the Gods of De Marl for many generations.

One knight was a commoner, and the other was the heir of a respected family…

Personally, I felt like rooting for Gawain more, but who’s to say who’s more popular with the ladies?

“Anyway, how about we tie them up and carry them off to Fei Lu? I’d say there’s too many to make the trip back to De Marl.”

“If it turns out well, we can use them as bait to draw in monsters,” Lico said dryly.

“Huh?!”

Almost everyone present exclaimed in shock.

A-Are you serious, Lico? Th-That’s dark!

“Bandits get hung in De Marl anyway. No one’s gonna care if a few of them die another way. Besides, they chose this way of life. Who knows when they might be eaten by animals or the like?”

“R-Really?” Lysteinn asked. “Don’t you think you’re being a little too extreme, Lico? If you’re gonna use them as monster bait, do it after we pull out all their bones. Their bones at least can become something useful.”

“L-Lys?!” Gawain looked at him in shock. “I-I think that’s a pretty questionable thing to say too!”

“Alchemists are scary!” one of the guests cried.

Alchemy’s reputation is taking a blow…!

Offensive alchemists use skeletons as materials? That is scary!

“H-Hello, Lico!” I raised my voice in greeting. “Hello, everyone! Oh? I thought you reserved a room for six.”

I spoke up to stop them from ruining alchemy’s reputation further. Everyone in the coffee corner was looking at them with pale faces.

I went outside to escort them to their cottage. Lico’s letter mentioned six people, but I only saw four.

“Oh, Tinaris. It’s been a while,” Lico greeted me. “Yeah, we reserved it for six. The other two will come later. They picked up some strays.”

“Strays?” I asked.

“What do you mean? Are they okay? Should we go pick them up?” Nakona suggested with a hint of concern.

There have been a lot more wild animal attacks in the area recently.

“They’ll be fine. They’re self-proclaimed adventurers,” Lico waved her hand dismissively.

“Self-proclaimed?” Nakona repeated.

“Adventurers?” I continued after her.

Adventurers should be fine, I guess? But why “self-proclaimed?”

Gawain and Vector snickered for some reason.

“Believe it or not, it’s a demi-human adventurer party,” Gawain explained.

“Demi-human adventurers?!”

“Yeah, they were inspired by human adventurers, so the three of them formed a party,” Lys said. “An elf, a dwarf, and a kobold. They came to the human continent to have an adventure, but they got lost in the forest. So now, our comrades are off to pick them up.”

“So yeah, they’re our demi-human allies on a trip in the human continent, and they don’t know which way is which,” Lico said. “We want to make sure their trip is a good one. Do you happen to have another room for four?”

“I’ll go check!” I exclaimed.

Their story made me really happy. Demi-humans were coming to stay at our inn! It was so exciting! A lot of demi-humans feared and disliked humans because of Edesa Kura’s invasions. But despite that, many merchants and adventurers made their way to the demi-human continent, and through contact with them, some demi-humans decided to become adventurers too.

This is progress! It’s wonderful! We have to show them the best hospitality we can!

I let Nakona handle the bandits outside and went to check the cottages.

And…yes, all the cottages for four are free…! Or rather, the cottages have been rented less and less since we opened the campsite…

After all, while the dirt road leading to it wasn’t the best, the hot springs were a short climb away, and guests only needed to pay a little for a place to camp. Travelers were used to camping out, so why would they pay extra for a cottage with a roof? Only knights and merchants who wanted to take their time did…

Aah, this isn’t how it should be…!

Should we add a toll for the hot springs, after all? But even if we do, we can’t tell if someone is gonna just slip inside for a dip without us knowing. We can’t keep a constant watch on the place with it so far from the lodge.

“I think we’re good on food for that many people too,” I noted out loud, when I checked the pantry and everything looked to be in order.

We had our field, orchard, and the lake, and at the back, we had Mount Rofola to forage from. Our food stocks were guaranteed.

Still, demi-human adventurers… I’m looking forward to meeting them!

“Thank you for waiting! We have rooms for everyone,” I said as I returned to the main building.

“That’s great, thank you. We’d love some food and dessert, if possible. Also, how many tonics do you have?”

“Okay, food and dessert…” I jotted down the request on a memo pad.

Of course, since Lico was a knight captain, she wanted to stock up on tonics!

“My stock right now is twenty-two low-grade tonics, fifteen medium-grade ones, and…eight large bottles of high-grade tonics.”

All freshly made this morning…

“Huh…? Did I hear wrong?” Gawain asked me.

“No, it’s just… I haven’t had time to move them into smaller bottles yet!”

“A-Ah, no, I didn’t mean that. I was questioning the eight large bottles of high-grade tonic… Are you sure you didn’t mean low-grade tonic?”

Oh, that. I thought he meant that large jars are harder to carry around.

“No. Er, Lico taught me how to use Condensing, so I tried it out! And I ended up making more than I meant to…”

“Don’t you think you made way too much?!” Lico asked me, surprised.

“Y-You think so…?”

Lico and Lys stared at me, their eyes round with amazement.

Wh-What? Did I do something strange again?

“Yeah, I’d say so. Condensing typically only increases the extra amount by a bit or boosts the quality,” Lys said. “It’s usually a choice between producing in bulk or increasing the quality.”

“R-Really?”

If Lys says so, it must be true. Did I do something wrong then? I thought I just brewed it the way Lico taught me… And I couldn’t even produce any in ideal quality, which was what I was trying to do.

“Maybe you had a lot of ingredients on hand?”

“Erm, in terms of amount, it was the same as what I’d use to get two jars.”

“Th-That’s a lot as it is, but can you really increase the output that much with Condensing, Lico?” Lys asked.

“No, you can’t… Condensing uses alchemy to condense the amount you have to elevate the ingredients’ effects, increasing production efficiency. Making ingredients for two jars last for eight is…unheard of.”

“I-It is?”

That’s strange? Did I do something wrong after all? Lico, my alchemy teacher, is saying what I did shouldn’t be possible, so I must have done something wrong.

“But put another way, if we use Condensing the way Tinaris does, our production rate should skyrocket, too,” Lico added.

“Ah! You’re right!” Lys exclaimed in realization.

“…But I just made it the way you taught me, Lico…”

“Did you do it according to your notes?”

“Y-Yes. And I’ve tried it a few times before, too. I’ve only recently gotten the hang of how to use Condensing…”

I’d failed until this last time and just ended up producing the usual amounts at my usual quality. I’d assumed I finally understood how to do it after rereading the notes I jotted down when Lico taught me the method.

“Captain Licorice, is this Condensing thing some kind of alchemical technique?” Gawain asked.

“Yes, you crush all the ingredients into a powder and mix them together. This lets you reduce the number of ingredients you use by a small percent. And if you use the same amount as usual, it elevates your quality.”

“Huh, but is that really condensing?” Vector asked. “It sounds like you just crush everything into powder…”

“You just don’t get it, you two. Ugh! This is why you meathead knights are so useless,” Lico huffed. “You have to use alchemy in order to crush ingredients into powder. Powderizing is an advanced alchemy technique, you know? Powderizing ingredients already increases their quality, and when you use those in another recipe, you are using at least double the amount of mana to produce the end product.”

“Huh…?” Gawain and Vector exchanged quizzical looks.

These two beefcake knights just don’t get it…

What Lico said didn’t strike me as that complicated.

“So basically, it means there’s a ton of mana put into it?” Nakona tried to simplify it for them.

Well, I guess that’s one way of putting it… But it feels like that’s oversimplifying things. Or maybe it isn’t…?

“That explanation works in layman’s terms, but… It’s actually kind of complicated,” Lys said. “Powderizing takes a long time, and maintaining the right mana amounts is complicated. And you have to recover your mana at the same time, or it fails. The only people in our country who can manage it are Lico and Elysis.”

“Well, what she’s doing isn’t my area of expertise. I can turn things into powder, but I can’t make medicine.”

I-I mean, that’s true, but you don’t have to put it so bluntly, Lico…

“I-I see…” Nakona said. “But you really do pull off some amazing stunts like it’s nothing, Tina…”

“I failed a lot of times before I could do it.”

Besides, I think Nakona makes pulling off some jaw-dropping techniques look easier than it is. Beating thirty bandits in one blow is kind of incredible!

“No, I don’t think this is a technique on a level where you can just explain it away with ‘I failed a lot before perfecting it,’” Lys said, glancing at me reproachfully.

D-Don’t look at me like that. I mean, it was probably something in the flick of my wrist or the like.

“Either way, it’s fascinating. Show me how you handle Condensing later,” Lico said.

“I-I don’t mind. I wanted to show you I can do it, too, so I would have asked you to watch me either way. We can take care of that later. First, let me show you to your room. Nakona, can you close up the coffee corner? It’s almost time for lunch to end.”

“Right. You got it!”

“Noooo?!” I heard two voices let out shocked cries in unison.

“What’s wrong?”

I turned around, finding the two beefcake knights lying prostrate on the floor.

Huh? What? What’s gotten into those two?

“Don’t mind them,” Lico said. “They made a bet that whoever gets to kill more beasts and bandits on the way here buys the other lunch. Idiots.”

“O-Oh, really…”

Lunch cost less than dinner, after all…

♣♣♣

“LOOKS like business is booming,” Lico said to Dad after she came back from changing into more comfortable clothes.

“Yeah, thankfully. Tina and Nakona keep coming up with new ideas, so we’re getting more guests… Still, everyone wants to use the campsite, so the rooms aren’t any more occupied than they were before! Ahaha!”

“It’s not funny, Dad,” I chided him.

“That’s right, Daddy. That’s bad news for the inn!”

“Ah, yeah… Sorry…”

An inn where no one stays in the rooms is like putting the cart before the horse. We’d considered reserving the hot spring for guests who rented a room, but it left the same problem as earlier. We can’t tell if someone sneaks into the springs anyway…

Lico was sitting down at the coffee corner, sipping on some tea. She always looked so elegant, like a noblewoman…until she started drinking alcohol, that is.

“By the way, where is that relative of yours and the other two young knights?” Dad asked.

“Hm, they’re off fishing. Apparently, Lys is interested in fishing, and Gawain and Vector are competing to see who can catch the most fish.”

“They’re off having fun and they didn’t call me?!” Nakona pouted, seemingly outraged. “Daddy, I’ll go catch us some fish for dinner!”

“Yeah, you do that.”

So we’re having meunière tonight… Oh well.

“Those demi-human adventurers and the other two knights aren’t showing up, huh?” I said.

“Yeah, but it’s Michael and Kunon we’re talking about here. They’ll be fine.”

“Oh, those two!” Dad nodded. “Yeah, no need to worry about them.”

“Are they strong?” I asked.

These weren’t knights who had visited the inn before. It was the first time I’d heard their names. If both Dad and Lico vouch for them, they must be really skilled.

“They sure are,” Dad said. “They’re both heavily armed knights focused on defense. Normally, having that much armor makes you pretty slow, but those guys can move pretty fast. They’re experienced, too. Fought in the war ten years ago.”

“Mm-hm. They’ve got better judgment and skill than those three dolts,” Lico said, jerking her chin in the lake’s general direction.

“I see.”

I can’t argue, considering the first thing they did upon getting to the inn was start playing around to see who can catch the most fish. It’s hard to see them as reliable. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with catching your own meal. And they did pay for it.

“Anyway, you said you needed to talk?” Lico turned her eyes back to Dad and me.

“Yeah… Tina.”

“Yes…”

We put up the “Closed” sign on the door to keep the other guests from coming in, and with Nakona out of the inn, it left just me, Dad, and Lico inside. At Dad’s urging, I took the item in question out of my pouch.

“…Is that…?” Lico gasped.

So, it really is…

“…What do you think?” Dad asked. “If my Appraisal magic isn’t wrong…”

“Y-Yeah. My Appraisal says…”

“Y-Yeah, I guess it is what it is, then. How’s its quality? I saw it’s average.”

“That’s what I saw, too… Where did you get this? Don’t tell me…”

“Y-Yes, erm…,” I said bashfully. “I was making a lot of high-grade tonics, and I was trying to transmute the leftovers…and it came out strange. It was a little paler, too. I thought I messed up…”

“Then you don’t know how you made it…?” Lico asked.

“I just did what I always do. I used Powderized and Condensed ingredients…”

“How many materials did you use?”

“Huh, um…”

I used what was considered a standard amount. I used two-thirds of that with the large jars, but using the standard amount couldn’t have been the reason, could it?

“I see… But I’ve previously seen people use Condensing on a standard amount of materials before. And I don’t think the fact it was you doing it that made the difference.”

“Yes, I don’t think so, either…”

If many famous alchemists used this method before, I couldn’t assume the fact I did it was why I produced this result. And besides, if the reason I produced this Supreme tonic laid within me, it meant I could pull it off again if I tried. And then people would be inclined to find out what makes me so special. And that was bad. I didn’t want that.

Or maybe I should have people look into what’s different about me for once…? No, that’s scary…

Closing my eyes, I could imagine it. For some reason, I had this image in my head of Lys approaching me with scalpels in hand and a slasher’s grin…

No, no, no, no, no, nooooope!

“Anyway, the best plan for now is for me to watch how you do it a second time. This time, write the quantities and process at every step. If you can establish a method of producing a Supreme tonic, you’d move the world of alchemy to a new stage.”

“A-All right! And, um, Lico?”

“What?”

“…Assuming I can establish a recipe for a Supreme tonic, what will alchemical apothecaries aspire to make next?”

“…That’d probably be the Water of Life.”

“The Water of Life?”

“It’s an illusory concoction. It’s also called the Spirit Elixir. It’s said to grant eternal life, and only one was ever made long ago. Its creator was the forerunner of alchemy, the Saint Keria Varj. He was blessed by the primal star, Stella, and became an alchemist that transmuted the Water of Life. It is said he then fell to his knees and offered it to his wife, who refused to take it and decided to live out her lifespan. The stories say Keria Varj then said that if she did not wish for it, leaving it behind would just bring forth conflict, and he spilled it into the bottom of a dry well. It’s a well-known legend among alchemists.”

I listened to her story in silence. So, this Water of Life was basically an immortality potion? A concoction that heals all diseases sounds like a wonderful thing to me, but the idea of eternal youth and vitality sounds like it really could trigger conflict and wars. I could do without all of that, really.

“You don’t look interested in it,” Lico pointed out.

“Well, yes, I don’t need something like that.”

“Heheh, no such greed in you, is there…? Well, with that said, what are you gonna do with this?”

“Ah…”

Right… I wanted to use the Supreme tonic on Dad…

“Um, Dad…”

Dad stood silent.

“…Dad?”

He folded his hands and looked really grave. Actually, no, he looked outright severe. I fell silent and looked up at Dad. Lico gave the Supreme tonic back to me.

This thing can heal his arm. This would be how I repay him for everything. I’ve always wanted to repay Dad. But…

“Tina… Shouldn’t you give that tonic to Lico?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Wh-What?!” Lico looked at Dad wide-eyed.

What is he saying? Give it to Lico? Because De Marl’s knights are collecting tonics?

Lico pitched forward, her expression even graver than Dad’s.

“I’ll be fine,” Dad said. “But you’re a woman, Lico. I’m sure what happened to your face has been bothering you.”

“Ah!” I raised my voice in realization.

Lico scarred the right side of her face during an alchemy accident. The Supreme tonic could heal her face, too…!

“You dolt!” Lico snarled at Dad. “Are you a total idiot, Marcus?! These scars are me reaping what I sowed!”

“You say that, but you could say the same about my arm. No matter how trivial it was, I let my guard down on the battlefield. But your face has always bothered you. You kept complaining about how those scars are part of why Rondered stopped caring about you.”

“Th-That’s true, but that’s not all there was to it! He’d been giving me the cold shoulder even before that! Wh-Why am I even telling you this?!” she groaned.

“Still, you’re better off looking like you did before. If you can fix your face, you’ll find another husband. You’re a direct heir to House Avide. If you can heal your scars, everyone would want you. Just don’t choose your man based on looks this time.”

“Wh-Wh-What… What are you— Who are you to even talk about that…?!”

Uh…why’s everything taking such a dark turn all of a sudden…? Or, well, I guess they’re just overexcited?

Lico rose to her feet and slammed her hands on the table while Dad crossed his arms and grimaced at her.

Uh, um…excuse me?

“Tinaris wanted to make a Supreme tonic for you, Marcus! And you have the nerve—the gall to walk all over your daughter’s efforts?!”

“That’s not what this is about! Tina’s a girl, too. She thinks your face should be healed as much as I do!”

…You could at least ask me, Dad.

I mean, I do agree. If we can heal Lico’s face, we should. She’s my teacher, after all, and it’s thanks to her advice that I even made this Supreme tonic. Even if it was a total coincidence, it was thanks to her guidance. I couldn’t have done it without her.

So, I wanted to repay her as my teacher, too. But if I had to pick an order to repay my debts of gratitude, I’d rather repay Dad first. Or so I thought, but when he mentioned marriage…

If we wanted to think about marriage prospects first, maybe it would be better if I let Lico have it first… I don’t know how divorced women get treated in this world, but if Nakona’s mother was able to get a happily ever after, maybe it’s like my past life…

Still, marriage is a once-in-a-lifetime event in a woman’s life! Like wearing a dress during a wedding ceremony, kissing the man you love…and in Lico’s case, not having half your face burnt off.

I-I want to heal her! I really want to heal her!

It didn’t occur to me until then just how terrible her injury was. As a fellow woman, I really wanted to help her! Honestly, Supreme tonics weren’t things I could make that easy, but the rarest ingredient to get for it was Walpurgis herbs, and I could harvest those from the mountain! In fact, it was the only ingredient I didn’t need to buy from Mister Giyaga.

If I just need to repeat the process, Dad might just have to wait for the next time…

But the Supreme tonic is an illusory concoction. Who knows if I can produce it a second time…?

“You big fat idiot! And you called yourself the Vice-Captain of the Azure Knights!” Lico continued hurling insults at Dad.

“What…?” Dad started to reply, but she cut him off.

“If the people of De Marl see I healed my face, they’ll know someone made a Supreme tonic! And if that happens, the Ebony Knights and the Senate will call Tinaris to De Marl! And as nice as it might sound on the surface… Did you truly lose your wit that badly, Marcus Ril?!”

“That’s…”

“But if you restored your arm, who would notice?! No one would care if the owner of some off-road inn grows back his arm, would they? Don’t you see? My face…I can hide that behind my armor! I’m a knight! An alchemist! I cast away any ideas of womanly joy and happiness a long time ago!”

“And I’m telling you I don’t like that!” Dad slammed his right hand on the table this time and rose to his feet.

This made Lico visibly recoil.

I had some mixed feelings about him hitting the desk like that… At least use your prosthetic arm! That way, it won’t hurt…

But that wasn’t what really bothered me. Dad was upset. I’d only seen him act like this and raise his voice when Nakona and I were in danger, but this felt completely different from that. Dad—no, Marcus didn’t have a father’s face on. This might have been the first time I’d seen that…

“You use it!”

“I refuse! I won’t use it for a whole slew of reasons! But more than anything, I refuse to waste Tinaris’ efforts!” Lico asserted.

“If you’re just going to hide your face behind your bangs and helmet, you might as well use it!”

“I keep telling you, that’s not the problem here!”

H-Hey, why are you two pushing it onto each other like that?

They faced off and…started playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets it. Which might come as a surprise, but it was actually because I taught people about the game, and it soon spread throughout De Marl. It quickly became an easy, peaceful way to resolve arguments.

“Best of three!”

But no matter who started it…

“Best of five!”

It didn’t look…

“Best of seven!”

…like anything would actually get resolved.

 

♣♣♣

THE following day, I was sweeping the entryway while Dad and Nakona were off hunting a boar on its way back to its den. As I was busy cleaning, I noticed a knight approach the Rofola Lodge. I stiffened for a moment, wondering if I’d seen something wrong.

…I-Is that a ghost? Wait, maybe not…

It was a tall soldier in white and blue armor. Seeing that imposing figure walk out of the fog, I leaned my broom against the staircase railing and hurried over to greet them.

“Good morning! Are you part of Lico’s group?”

“Indeed. I am Kunon, vice-captain of the Azure Knights’ fifth unit. Where can I find Licorice, captain of the Ebony Knights?”

“Let me escort you to her.”

I wasn’t sure why they were alone. The knight had a feminine voice, but I couldn’t see their face or expression behind their helmet. Their white and blue armor and shield were filthy, though. Their business sounded urgent…

“Excuse me, I heard there was supposed to be another knight and some demi-human adventurers with you…?”

“…I suppose it only makes sense someone from the inn would be well-informed about their guests.”

“Is something wrong?”

M-Maybe I shouldn’t have asked her about them?!

I glanced up at Kunon with concern, only to find her removing her helmet. She had dark, almost tanned skin and dried-out ebony hair tied into a ponytail.

Huh…? She kind of reminds me of someone…

“I suppose it would also make sense for you to partake in our discussion, then. There’s been something of a complication.”

“I-I see…”

I led her over to the cottage for six Lico was staying in. Everyone was out of their armor and clad in casual clothing…one of them was even curled up under the covers, happily snoozing away. It was still early in the morning, after all.

“Get up, you oaf.”

“Ngh?!”

“Whoa?!” I exclaimed as Kunon literally smacked Vector awake with her shield.

Lico, Gawain, and Lys simply greeted me with a casual “Good morning, Tinaris,” as if this was somehow a regular occurrence.

W-Won’t that kill him?!

One gruesome story from my past life came to mind—during one of my school field trips, someone was stepped on while in their sleeping bag, which made an internal organ rupture…killing them. Wouldn’t a shield do worse damage than a foot?!

“E-Erm…” I stuttered, my eyes darting toward Vector.

“Oh, don’t worry about him. Kunon was holding back,” Lico said off-handedly.

“Forget about him, Kunon. Where’s Michael?” Gawain asked.

Vector got up in a coughing fit, murmuring a muffled “Cut me some slack, Sis… G’morning to you, too” grumpily. Like I assumed, she was his sister…!

I did think they looked alike!

“Mm, yeah, I came to deliver word to you, since the situation’s changed,” Kunon said. “Apparently, they had one more companion.”

“What? So there’s four of them?”

“The kobold warrior said they simply didn’t trust human knights, so they didn’t tell us right away. I suppose we can’t fault them for that…”

“Of course. So, what about that fourth member?”

“Apparently, they got separated from the rest in the forest. They’re of the wingedfolk and flew off… Michael and I realized we wouldn’t be enough to search for them.”

“True, monsters do appear around these parts…”

It really did feel like a conversation between knights. Long story short, there were a total of four demi-human adventurers, but one of them got separated from the rest of the group, and the others ended up lost in the forest while looking for him. Lico and her knights tried to help them find their way, but they didn’t trust humans enough to let them know they weren’t just lost but also looking for someone. They decided to search for their missing friend on the way to the inn but eventually gave up and told Kunon about it.

Mm-hm… They’re problematic in their own way, aren’t they…?

“How about we have the former Vice-Captain show us the way?” Gawain suggested. “I’d assume Sir Marcus is familiar with the land here. Asking for his help would be the wisest course of action.”

Lico furrowed her brows at his suggestion. Her subordinates all jolted in fright, their expressions hardening. I can understand why they’re scared of her glare… It’s pretty menacing.

“…Um, if you don’t mind, I could show you around,” I offered. “I live here too, and I go to gather ingredients in the forest a lot, so I know my way around.”

“Y-You? But we can’t ask a little girl like you to help us…”

“It’ll be fine. Working in the field is my only chore for today, anyway.”

Lunch time and dessert were usually prepared within one hour, although I did like to have two hours for it…but since today’s dessert was apoon pie, I didn’t need as much time. I’d prepared the batter for the pie and the apoons yesterday—after I left Dad and Lico, who wouldn’t stop arguing—so I had it all ready. It just needed to be wrapped and baked.

I could have Nakona warm the oven for me, and that way, I’d just need to bake it. All that’d be left to do is cut it up so we can serve it to the guests, and Dad and Nakona can handle that.

“Your chores aren’t the problem…”

“And I’ve been meaning to go look for Walpurgis herbs!” I added.

“Walpurgis? What’s that?”

“Herbs you can use to make high-grade tonics. They’re very rare! If you want to buy them, you won’t find them for less than ten thousand colts!”

“Ah! Really?!” Lys exclaimed.

Of course, you’d know about it, Lys. Walpurgis herbs are precious to alchemists!

His eyes shined visibly as he scrambled to his feet and approached me, his attitude quite different from before.

“Please! Let me come with you!”

“Lysteinn…” Lico eyed him with exasperation.

“But Lico, we’re talking Walpurgis herbs here! Fresh ones are so hard to come by!”

“They are, but…”

For all her complaints, it looked like Lico realized she couldn’t stop Lys at this point…

Honestly, I didn’t know what kind of alchemy Lys was researching, but it was probably for much more dangerous purposes than what I used it for…

“I could make a fusion bullet that goes right through the enemy’s armor and melts their flesh!”

That’s even darker than I thought. How can he say stuff like that with a smile?!

“Didn’t I tell you to develop anti-monster bullets?!” Lico chided him.

“Huh? Oh yeah, right, yes, anti-monster bullets, yeah,” Lys said, still smiling like a dork even after Lico scolded him.

…Anyway, it was settled that I would be going with them!

♣♣♣

AFTER eating a quick breakfast, everyone put on their armor. In preparation for the trip to the forest, I brought a pouch for storing the ingredients I’d gather and my personal medicine pouch.

The medicine pouch was stuffed with four high-grade tonics, three low-grade tonics, two antidotes, and two potions for abnormal conditions. Inside the ingredient pouch, I stashed my gathering gloves, pincers, and several empty bottles.

I left the apoon pie in Nakona’s care. Now I was all set to go. While I was giving directions to Nakona, everyone else noticed the tense air between Dad and Lico and guessed they must have argued about something.

“…Say, Tina, do you know why they fought? Were they drinking or something?” Nakona asked me.

“No, they weren’t drinking…”

I knew the reason, but couldn’t mention it while the other knights were around. Nakona looked pretty worried, since she’d hardly ever seen Dad act upset. It’s just that, erm, how do I put it…it’s pretty complicated for me, too. Both of them are right in what they say, but…

“Well, I don’t know if this is so much an argument as it is…a lovers’ spat, I guess?” I said.

“A lovers’ spat…?”

“Yeah, it’s like… They fought because they both really care about each other.”

Nakona looked shocked. I didn’t mean it in a romantic sense, so maybe calling it a lovers’ spat was misleading. Lico was worried about both my own and dad’s well-being, while Dad was worried about Lico’s life and feelings as a woman…

I felt both of them were right. They weren’t mad for selfish reasons…but sadly, we only had one Supreme tonic.

Dad was missing his arm, while Lico lost half her face. Only one of them could use it, and they kept pushing it on the other person.

“…What does that mean?” Nakona asked, out of the loop.

“Well, they’re both pushing their kindness onto each other.”

“O-Oh…”

Nakona seemed to catch onto the gist of it, one way or another. It made sense, all in all. Dad and Lico were really alike. They were both kindhearted, hardheaded, and sore losers, probably owing to exactly what called them to be knights in the first place. Put another way, they were both kind of a mess.

“You’ll probably be fine with the knights, but don’t walk too far ahead of them or fall behind because you get engrossed in gathering ingredients,” Nakona cautioned. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost, you hear? You’re their guide, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Nakona could be a bit of a worrywart sometimes. Meanwhile, Dad was still crossing his arms and glaring back at Lico. I figured we should leave as soon as we could to break this tension.

Having those two in such a foul mood seemed to negatively affect the other knights.

“Let’s get going!” I piped up. “By the way, Kunon, where did you last see the demi-humans?”

“H-Hmm, I think it was slightly southwest of the inn. In a forest at the foot of the mountain.”

Mount Rofola was to the west, while Lake Rhiode was to the east, with the inn sitting right between them. Rofola Lodge was at the foot of the mountain, with forest on both sides.

Heading south would lead you to a road to the highway, and the southern forest was on the side of that road. Nakona got lost there once, and that’s where we met Lico fighting a monster.

Still, the southern forest was comparatively safer of the two. The northern forest was over twice its size and that much more complex. I more or less knew my way around the southern forest, but the northern forest sprawled all around the mountain. Even Dad probably didn’t know everything there was to know about it. I honestly couldn’t imagine getting lost in there…

“Okay. Let’s just go there for now,” I said.

And so, I made my way into the woods, accompanied by five knights. While the southern forest was nowhere near as large as the northern one, it was still pretty vast. Plus, in this world, borders weren’t really drawn out, so it was hard to tell whose territory you were in.

“We shouldn’t just wander around randomly looking for them,” I said. “You said they were on the eastern side of the southern forest, right? How about we look around the southern areas of the forest first?”

“Agreed. We can split the southern forest into four areas and start by thoroughly searching the southeastern corner,” Lico consented. “Yes, let’s go with that.”

At her approval, we set out to regroup with Michael and the four demi-human adventurers. Our plan was to break up into groups and thoroughly search each part of the forest, while staying within earshot of each other.

This’d be so much easier with a smartphone…

Another thought then crossed my mind.

“What’s wrong, Tinaris?” Lys asked, noticing my gaze.

“Oh, erm, I was just wondering, what kind of alchemy do you and Lico research?”

Lys’s research didn’t look like it was meant for anything good, but stuff like microwaves and cell phones were originally military technology modified for civilian use too. In which case, maybe their technologies could be adapted for general uses as well. Like, maybe they’d end up making a cell phone, or a microwave oven, or an electric kettle, or a gas cooker? I asked him about it anticipating something along those lines, but…

“What, you’re interested in alchemical weapons?” Lys asked me.

“N-Not in weapons, no.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Even if you were, I wouldn’t tell you. Sorry. No alchemist alive would share their research with another one.”

“Ugh…”

Yeah, that makes sense. But wait, I told Lico a lot about my work, didn’t I?!

“Besides, the things Lico and I work on are military affairs, so we’re sworn to confidentiality.”

“I-I see.”

That felt like a fairly obvious and justifiable reason not to tell me.

“But I can probably share a little about this. I think I mentioned a bit about it to you before.”

“Ah, yes, you’ve told me about it once…”

Lys showed off the two guns attached to his arms. In this world, they are called an Air Gun. As the name may imply, they were similar to Earth’s guns and were powerful enough to blow someone’s head off. Lico had a similar weapon, except it packed greater firepower and could blow a person’s torso off.

These guns were meant as anti-monster weapons, but if used during wartime, they would likely become weapons of mass murder. Lys started explaining how it had some mechanism or another in place to curb the recoil, but I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Everything he said went in one ear and out the other.

I can do without using this thing to make a phone or a microwave, thank you very much…

“But that’s a weapon, right?” I asked. “It’s not exactly alchemy; it’s just technology you developed and engineered…”

“Well, that’s true for the exterior… You wanna hear about the interior?”

“No, that’s fine. I wouldn’t understand even if you explained.”

I didn’t really care for its structure, more about the Air it used to form its bullets… But that was probably confidential.

Guess I’ll give up on it. I really wanted to have a microwave, though… Getting firewood for the oven is really annoying…

As we talked about alchemy, we reached a campsite Michael and the demi-human adventurers had set up. It was on the bank of a small river that flowed into Lake Rhiode, and there were four tents set up there.

W-Wooow! There really are demi-humans here! This is my first time seeing them!

“Michael!” Kunon jogged over to a knight in red armor, faster than I could ever imagine her heavy gear would allow her to.

“Kunon!”

…Huh?

“I’m sorry I’m late!”

“You’re not late… So long as you’re safe, everything’s fine.”

“Michael…”

…Huh? Oooh? Er? What?

“Erm, e-excuse me?” I stuttered, at a loss.

Kunon always struck me as so cautious and taciturn, but as she flipped up her helmet to face the other knight, she had the expression of a blushing maiden. She approached him, after which they embraced and held hands, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes all the while.

I turned to look at Vector, her younger brother, in disbelief, and he simply grinned at me.

“Yeah, Michael is Kunon’s fiancé.”

“R-Really? But, they’re in different knight orders…”

“Yeah, they have different colors, but they’re both knights of De Marl.”

“C-Cool.”

I was under the impression that the Azure and Crimson Knights didn’t get along too well. Maybe they just got along because they were both heavily armored knights? But still, they could be together even if their colors were different…it was a heartwarming sight.

“Ahem!” Lico let out a loud, dry cough.

“Ah!” The happy couple jolted.

Sure, it was heartwarming, but they were still supposed to be working. Us and the demi-humans all stared coldly at them.

…Oh yeah, it was just the two of them helping the demi-humans search before we came. The demi-humans probably had to watch them be clingy like this the whole time… I can’t believe they took advantage of their superior not being there to do something like that…!

“O-Our apologies, Captain!”

“No, it’s fine. Anyway, I’ve heard of your circumstances from Kunon, demi-human adventurers. I have a suggestion…”

Lico’s words made everyone tense up. The demi-humans listened in to her suggestion as to how to find their missing friend. Two of them, an elf boy and a dark-skinned boy, were nodding as she spoke. But the kobold boy looked so bored, even I could easily notice it.

“This here is Tinaris. She’s the innkeeper’s daughter of the lodge we were supposed to go to and an alchemical apothecary. She offered to join us as a guide.”

“Ah, nice to meet you all.” I bowed my head at Lico’s introduction.

“Tinaris?” one of the demi-humans asked, prompting me to look up.

“Hm? Yes?”

“So you’re that genius kid the old man wouldn’t shut up about,” the boy with elf ears remarked. “Hm, you’re not too bad, but… No good. You’re as flat as a board, front and back. How old are you?”

“E-Excuse me?!”

Wh-What is he saying?!

I couldn’t believe how rude he was being to me! He had glasses, green eyes, and blond hair with green tips. He wore a long jacket that was too big for him. The sleeves extended longer than his fingertips. His pants were weirdly shaped and had stitches in what looked like set intervals. He was carrying a book big enough to hide his entire upper body under his arm.

“Oh, I guess I forgot to introduce myself. Sorry about that. I’m Shida, 37th Prince of the Elven Empire of Forestria! My mother is the 19th princess, and my father has no claim to the throne since he’s a half-elf. That’s enough to clarify who I am, yes? I said my father called you a genius. You understand who I am now, yes? Right?”

“…So, you’re Sirius’s…”

“Hahaha! Exactly!”

---

---

I fell into shocked silence. Sirius has a kid like this?! But wait, Sirius still comes to visit every now and then…

“E-Erm, didn’t Sirius say you were over fifty years old…?”

I was curious about him being an imperial prince, but there was a much more pressing matter than that. This elf boy looked slightly younger than me. Or, well, I guess his clothes were the right size for that age? But his overbearing attitude aside, he looked like a seven or eight-year-old kid.

“I’m turning fifty-one this year, yes…but in elf terms, I’m still pretty much a youngling.”

…Is he for real?!

Either way, I’m not going to consider marrying Sirius’s son now. I’m sorry, Sirius, but I’m going to have to politely—if not sternly—refuse.

“I’ll introduce meself too, then! Me name’s Ledo. I’m a dwarf. I’m good at buildin’ things. A pleasure to meet ya, Tinaris!”

“And the pup sulking over there is Sierro, a kobold,” Shida gestured toward the kobold. “He’s the largest one in the group, but he’s the youngest among us. He’s only thirteen.”

“Ayup, for how I look, I’m at the chipper age of twenty-eight!” Ledo appended merrily.

“Still young for a dwarf, though,” Shida remarked.

“Guess that makes you the only adult here, Shida!”

“Ahahahahahaha!” The two of them laughed in unison.

…I get the feeling neither of them really listens to what other people say.

Ledo the dwarf wore green overalls, and the only one dressed in an adventurer’s attire was Sierro.

“A pleasure to meet you,” I nodded toward him.

“Hmph,” Sierro simply scoffed at me and looked away in an exaggerated fashion.

What an annoying kid.

Honestly, none of these adventurers struck me as particularly pleasant.

“Do you have any objections to the method I’ve suggested?” Lico asked them.

“I don’t. If my search magic and Sierro’s nose don’t work, the only thing that’s left is to rely on numbers.”

“Still, still! I never thought your magic wouldn’t work, Shida!” Ledo chirped.

“Neither did I!” Shida, by contrast, grimaced in displeasure. “I’ve heard the Air on the human continent was impure, but I didn’t think it’d be outright gone over such a wide area. It’s so unexpected, I can’t help but laugh! Ahahaha!”

“Magic…”

Right, Sirius did tell me the demi-human continent’s Air was purer than here. Since humans worshiped multiple gods, it caused the Air on this continent to become muddled…and that influences magic.

“But what do you mean, Sierro’s nose isn’t working…?” I asked.

Sierro was a kobold. Kobolds were canine beastmen. Feline beastmen were called catbolds, by the way, and rabbit beastmen were called rabbibolds. Apparently, canine kobolds were originally called dogbolds, but people tended to colloquially call all carnivore beastmen “kobolds.” Honestly, I couldn’t really tell them all apart.

What do you call an animal that’s between a carnivore and an herbivore?

Either way, they were probably different from the image I had of kobolds in my past life. Dogbolds were famous among the different kobold variants as having an exceptionally good sense of smell.

So wouldn’t Sierro be able to track their missing friend by his smell? Why couldn’t they find him, then?

“Hmph,” Sierro grumbled. “Turns out Kuula doesn’t have a scent.”

“H-Huh? He doesn’t have a scent?”

“Maybe it’s because he’s not a normal birdbold. Apparently, he smells like the wind!” Ledo said.

“They smell like the wind…?” I repeated.

That makes even less sense. And what does he mean, he’s not a normal birdbold? How are we supposed to find him, then?

“By the way, does your missing friend have any distinctive traits besides being a birdbold?” Gawain asked Ledo. “Something he wears or the color of his wings?”

“He does! Kuula’s wings are white! His hair is blue like the sky, his eyes are blue too, and his clothes are white! And he has a ring floating over his head!”

Gawain stiffened at that description.

Don’t freeze up! You’re the one who asked him…!

Not that I couldn’t relate.

He has a what over his head? A ring?! Did I hear that right?

White clothes, blue hair and eyes, a ring over his head… For how simple the description was, that last piece of information was a pretty distinctive point.

“Erm, Lico…do birdbolds usually have rings over their heads?” I asked.

“None of the birdbolds I met on the demi-human continent had any rings over their heads, no.”

“He’s a strange fellow,” Shida said. “He doesn’t remember where he came from, or anything except his name, for that matter. He’s weird.”

“What? He has no memories…? I’m surprised a prince of Forestria let someone so suspicious travel with them.”

“Ahahaha! Well, I had my ulterior motives, of course! I thought he looked cute and pretty, so I figured I’d make a move on him during our adventures. Had to give up once I realized he was a man from his way of speaking!”

I thought Shida counted as the cute type in terms of appearance too, but what he’d said made me realize I was dealing with a real creep despite his childish looks.

I guess you can’t judge elves by their appearance, I concluded to myself sagely. Like…at all…

I could just tell that Lico’s expression was the same as mine under her helmet.

“A-Anyway, let’s look for someone who fits that description,” she said. “Split up into groups of two and search around a fifteen-foot radius in all directions. Once Tinaris says the word, make a U-turn and go back to the inn. After lunch, we’ll scan the northern area of the forest using the same method.”

“Yes, ma’am!” the knights nodded, their attitudes shifting to work mode.

They split up into teams of two and spread out around Lico and me. It felt like I was being guarded by everyone, but I was actually their “axis” for exploring the forest. My plan was to look for this birdbold, Kuula, and if I found some Walpurgis grass along the way, that would be great.

We called out for Kuula, but got no response.

I just hope he didn’t get into an accident. Or ran into a monster…

“Kuula!”

“Kuula, can you hear us?!”

“Kuuuulaaa!”

We all called for him as we walked deeper into the dense forest, but I was so distracted by the vines and brush tripping me up, I couldn’t focus on the search all that much.

Grr, these weeds are up to my knees! If only my body was a little bigger, I wouldn’t trip over them!

“Ah… I think I heard something!” Sierro, who was walking to the left of me, said as his drooping ears perked up.

“What, is it Kuula?” Shida asked.

“Wait, quiet!”

The two of them stopped, and I started waving my hands and jumping up and down to signal the knights behind me. Lico gestured for everyone to hold their positions, and everyone else stopped calling out and strained their ears to listen. Ledo and Lys’s groups, which were ahead and to the right of us, approached Sierro.

“…I think I heard a scream,” Sierro eventually said. “And it’s coming closer.”

“A scream?”

“Y-Yeah. A scream…and I think I feel something bad coming this way.”

“Ngh! Get back, Sierro!” Shida called out. “I sense Kathra in the area!”

“What?!”

“Ah…!”

Shida opened his large book while Sierro drew his sword. Ledo nocked an arrow in his bow and took cover within the bushes. Seeing them brace themselves, Lico held up her Air Gun as she and the other knights moved ahead of us. We stood in the middle of the forest, with its poor footing, as the air around us grew heavy.

“E-Erm, this can’t be a…?” I asked nervously.

“It probably is,” Lico said. “Demi-humans are much more sensitive to the monsters’ presence than we are. Don’t move away from me, Tinaris.”

“O-Okay.”

I didn’t know what kind of monster was coming, but I opened my medicine pouch. It had high-grade tonics, antidotes, and medicine for assorted conditions. I couldn’t help on the fighting front, but I could at least support them…

“Ah, no good! It circled around us!” Shida called out. “Commander, it’s behind us!”

“What?!”

Hearing an ominous rustling sound, I turned around, only to catch sight of a black lump being blown away to the right. Shida’s book flashed, creating an explosion before my eyes that blew away the enemy.

Was that magic? No…that’s not important right now!

“Lico?!” I cried.

“I’m fine! Kuh!”

Apparently, she was the black lump I saw get blown away—her armor’s left side was full of cracks.

It’s so powerful…!

That monster was capable of causing this much damage, but I couldn’t even see it. It probably hid in the grass again.

Wh-What do I do? I can’t even keep up with how fast it moves…

“Get back, Captain!” Kunon said, stepping in front of me with her thick armor and shield brandished.

“Dammit, what was that thing?” Michael murmured, holding up his shield behind us.

Lico got to her feet and hurried back to her position beside me, within their protective circle.

I could hear something rustling through the grass. The forest, which was dark even during the daytime, was filled with strained tension.

“Lico, take this tonic…” I said, offering her one of the bottles.

“Not yet,” she curtly shook her head.

“B-but…”

“These injuries aren’t serious. We need to get a handle on where the monster is and beat it right now! That’s our mission here.”

Lico… Aah, why do I always need to have people protect me like this? Wait, the monster…I can help look for it, too!

I strained my ears, cautiously listening to the rustling. It was definitely there, close by. The way it moved wasn’t unlike the way the monster that had attacked me when I first met Lico slithered around.

Based on how it moved through the grass and how hard it was to see it, maybe that serpent monster came back somehow?

No, this one blew Lico away. That serpent monster used its venomous fangs to attack. Maybe this one was just cautious because there were so many of us…?

“Sierro, can you see Kuula somewhere around here?” Shida asked.

“I think the screaming stopped a few feet away from here. Lemme go and— No good! We’re surrounded!”

“Hmph…”

“Surrounded? What do you mean?!” Vector shouted at the two of them.

We were standing fairly close together, but we were still divided into two groups, with the knights standing in formation a short distance away. But even so, Sierro stood with his sword drawn, refusing to move.

I think there’s still some distance between us and the monster… Why do they think we’re surrounded?

“We’re surrounded by a great mass of Kathra right now… This human continent is such a terrifying place. I never knew your land housed so much Kathra…”

“Shida, what kind of monster is it?!” Sierro asked.

“Right! Its category is ‘monster,’ and its threat level is A! It’s a Centipede—a bug monster!”

“Seriously…?!

“And there’s another one underground, too! A threat level B monster, Earthworm…!”

“Two of them?”

“At once…?!”

“Ahahaha!” Shida laughed grandly. “The monsters are fighting over prey, since there’s so many of us here!”

“This is no laughing matter!” Sierro snapped at him.

Even from this distance, I saw both Gawain and Vector direct bitter glances toward him. Sierro was right; this wasn’t the time to laugh. I had to marvel at his ability to identify monsters like that, though. Was it some kind of magic?

Either way, there were two of them attacking us at once, one of them from underground…

This is really bad!

“Can’t we get them to attack each other?!”

“I doubt it! Monsters only show interest in living beings,” Shida said. “That said, isn’t it a little too big? Are all the monsters on this continent this big…? Mm… No, wait. The way it’s moving…”

I’m surprised you can talk so much in this situation…

It felt like he was using Vector’s question as a reason to keep blabbering, and that made us all glare at him for a second. But the monsters’ movements really were strange. Shida’s cheeky smile turned to a nervous scowl.

“…Hey, knights… Is there something off to the east? Some kind of place where people gather, like a city or a town?” he asked.

“Huh? There’s an inn to the east at the foot of Mount Rofola where travelers rest—”

“An inn?! Oh, no… They were trying to lure us away from the inn! Commander, quick! Lead us back to the inn! We can leave Kuula for later! Monsters have a tendency to seek out places full of people!”

“What?!” Lico’s eyes widened in surprise. “Everyone, head back to the inn, now! Vector, Gawain, Lys, you run ahead! Tell the people at the inn that danger is coming!”

“Ah!”

“Roger that!”

By the time I realized what was going on, the three knights had already left. I felt my body shaking despite myself.

Wait. Wait. Wait a second… What did they just say? They have a tendency to seek out places full of people…?

“L-Lico…” I turned to look at her.

“We have to hurry back.”

“Yes!”

“Roger!”

“Shida, Ledo, Sierro, my apologies, but take care of her, will you?” Lico told the demi-human party.

“Mm,” Shida said.

“Lico, wait! I’ll come—” I started.

“No! Wait here with them!”

Lico and the rest were checking their equipment as they prepared to follow the other three. I wanted to go back to the Rofola Lodge with them!

The monsters are heading for the inn. They want to attack the people there! I can’t let them do that!

“Ah…”

…But, but…what can I even do?! I’m just a ten-year-old girl; I can’t fight! No…even if I was an adult, I don’t know how to fight. I’d just get in the way if I went there. But, but…!

“Wh-What are we gonna do?” Ledo asked anxiously as he hurried over to Sierro and Shida.

He was talking about the monsters heading for the inn, of course. This wasn’t their problem. I was left in their care, but they could just leave me here and go off to do their own thing. After all, none of them said they’d look after me.

That’s right. They didn’t agree to babysit me…

“Wait, where are you going?!” Shida shouted as I ran off.

“Back to the inn! I’ll help evacuate the guests!”

“What are you saying?! There’s a massive monster headed there! You going isn’t going to—”

“I know! I’ll probably just get in the way, but my medicine might help!”

“Come to think of it, the old man did say you were an alchemical apothecary when he was praising you. Hm…” Shida hummed thoughtfully.

Ledo had grabbed my arm, and I couldn’t shake him off.

N-Nnng! Let go, I have to get going!

“Y-You guuuuuuuuuys!” a shout suddenly reached my ears.

“Mm?” Shida looked in the voice’s direction.

“Ah! Kuula!” Ledo called out.

“Huh?!” I exclaimed.

What?!

A blue mass flew in our direction from the woods with the sound of fluttering wings.

What’s that? The bluebird of happiness? But it talks, and it has a ring over its head…

It matched the description perfectly. The three demi-humans chided the creature, asking it where it had been.

Wait, no… It can’t be…

“A-An angel?” I said aloud.

“Mm? Angel? What’s that?” The creature regarded me curiously, his wings flapping.

“Huh?”

It floated in the air, wearing a cloth outfit that reminded me of Greek mythology…and it had wings on its back, and a ring of light over its head.

H-Huh? That’s…an angel. That’s totally an angel!

“Anyway, good timing, Kuula! Fly us east!”

“Huh? Huh? Why, all of a sudden? I’m tired after those scary things chased me around…” Kuula whined.

“Well, those scary things went east to attack a bunch of humans. They’re our allies, and as royalty, I must go and offer my aid as reinforcements. Ah, what a drag… But still, we’ve bothered those knights a great deal. Mostly because of you!”

“Uu…” Kuula hung their head.

“Y-Yes, you’re right. Okay!” Ledo said cheerfully. “Imma go there, too! Sierro, what are you gonna do?”

“I’ll, uh… Ugh…” Sierro seemed hesitant.

“Well, if you wanna come, you’re welcome to join,” Shida said. “If you’re gonna stay, babysit the girl.”

“I-I’ll come with you!”

H-Huuuh?! You don’t have to act this creeped out by the idea of keeping an eye on me! N-Not that I care! Hmph!

“Anyway, let’s go, Kuula.”

“Er, uh, understood! Everyone, hold hands!”

“Come on!” Ledo said cheerfully, extending a hand to me.

“Erm, uh…” I stammered.

“You’re coming with us, right?”

“Ah, yes!”

I took Ledo’s hand. Sierro held onto Shida’s, who held onto Kuula’s.

I couldn’t really tell if Kuula was a boy or a girl… They just looked like an angel…

“Here we gooooo!”

Ledo held onto Kuula’s other hand, and we started levitating, freed from gravity’s grip.

“Huh? W-We’re flying…?!” I gasped in surprise.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Shida grinned at me.

We soared over the forest, up into the sky overhead.

Ah, wait, wait, wait up…!

“Whoosh!” Kuula exclaimed, flapping their wings.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

I screeched as we started diving down quickly like a bicycle rolling down a hill.

Waitasecondwhattheheckisgoingonhere?!

The forest was zooming past us at dizzying speed!

“I can see it!” Ledo called out.

“Good. Put us down here!” Shida instructed Kuula.

“All right!” the winged creature said.

“We’re touching down. Hold on tight!” Ledo told me.

“Huh? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Just as I grabbed onto Ledo’s waist, we went into a freefall!

Nooo! Have mercy on me, gravity!

Gravity, which had let go of me for a short time, yanked me back into its all-encompassing embrace.

Why can’t these people land normally?!

I gasped as my feet touched the ground again.

“Wait here!” Ledo said as he and Sierro ran toward the inn.

Shida and Kuula were still in the air, though. We were halfway down the road connecting the inn to the highway. I tried to get up, but my legs buckled. I was shivering. My entire body was shaking!

Wh-Who can blame me? I’ve always hated roller coasters!

I didn’t think that would’ve somehow come into effect in this life, though.

B-But forget that, I need to get to the inn! Dad, Nakona, Lico, Lys, Gawain, Vector, Michael, Kunon…all the guests… They’re in trouble!

“I…I’ve got to get up…and get to everyone! I don’t have time to sit here like a coward! Get up! You can do it; you gotta do it! Go, me!”

I used the words I’d always tell myself when I’d get depressed and lethargic. It felt like it’d been a while since I’d used those words, but now was the time…

Now’s the time to do it! I have to do it! I have to get up! If I won’t do it, who will?! It’s gotta be me!

“Nng…!”

My knees still felt a bit weak and wobbly, but I somehow managed to get to my feet.

Now, run!

I couldn’t do anything to help, but the one thing I didn’t want to do was be a helpless child who sat back while other people got hurt.

I can’t let you die before I thank you for everything, Dad!

“Haa, haa!”

My lack of stamina was a problem that was hard to ignore now.

I can’t…breathe…! I knew I was out of shape, but… Haa, haa… Maybe I should… haa, haa…consider jogging a bit…!

“Nakona! Aim to the right and down!” Dad was shouting orders. “Lysteinn, once she crushes its right side, shoot its tail! Gawain and Vector, once it stops twisting, attack its left flank and get behind it! Lico! Once you’re done reloading, shoot it the moment it turns its back on you!”

“Roger that!”

“Okay, Daddy!”

“Let’s go! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

H-Huuuuh?

“What are you doing here? We told you to wait back there,” Shida said upon seeing me.

“E-Erm, what are they doing?”

He was watching Dad and Nakona help the knights fight the monsters. I approached him, still catching my breath.

Things had turned out differently from what I was expecting…

“Apparently, they have a really skilled commander. It’s quite impressive; he’s leading them all so well, the monsters don’t stand a chance.”

“Th-They don’t?”

They’re putting up a good fight…? Wait… They’re fighting the earthworm monster!

It was jet-black and long, like a thread…though I couldn’t gauge its full length from this distance. Some of its body was still underground.

“I didn’t know some monsters live underground…”

“They do. And it’s gotten quite large, too…” Shida said.

“Monsters can grow bigger?”

“Certainly. The more Kathra they hold within their bodies, the bigger they become… Simply eating living things doesn’t make them grow this much.”

“Huh? Then why do the monsters on this continent get so big?” Ledo asked.

Shida opened the book floating next to him. The letters within it shined. I couldn’t read what it said, but the mystical sight was obviously out of the ordinary. Shida reacted to Ledo’s question with a serious expression, and I could certainly see some semblance of Sirius in his young countenance.

“That’s obvious. It’s because this continent continually scatters Camilla into the Air. And once Camilla ripens, it can turn into Kathra. My old man seems to think the way humans worship their gods is the problem, but…hmph! That old softie. He should just come out and tell them the truth. But I doubt they’d believe him even if he did. Human pride overshadows even that of the elves!”

I didn’t believe in any gods, though. And Dad may have believed in the Gods of De Marl, but he didn’t worship them that religiously.

“S-Stop it, Shida. You shouldn’t say things like that… You’re making it sound like the gods humans worship are the Camilla itself.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“What?!”

“The Camilla is what’s polluting and degrading this continent’s Air. The gods the people in this continent worship and believe in are nothing more than meaningless illusions fabricated by those in power to manipulate the masses! And this is the result of these vile acts! Look at it!”

I looked at Shida in stunned silence. It couldn’t be… This giant earthworm monster was influenced by nonexistent gods humans made up?

I glanced around and found to my relief that the guests were safe. They were watching Dad and the knights fight from the campsite. Thank goodness…

“That’s enough talking, though. Hey, commander man!”

“Huh?” Dad seemed to have heard Shida. “You guys, take care of Tina and the guests!”

“That’s not what I called out to you for, fool! There’s a centipede coming! It’s coming through the forest. The earthworm got here faster because it went directly underground! And the centipede’s probably faster! It has no intelligence, but it moves on instinct!”

“What…?”

“Looking at the way you fight, I think you’ll be fine. We’ll keep that one in check, so beat it back quickly and come help us! Let’s go, Ledo, Sierro! It’s coming from the direction of the lake! We have to stall it!”

“G-Got it!”

“Tch; I hate humans, though!” Sierro growled.

Shida levitated a few inches off the ground. His large book opened again, its text lighting up as the roof of one of the four-room cottages was blown off.

“Aaaaah! Cottage number two’s roof!” I let out a scream, but the next moment, the centipede burst through another cottage’s wall.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah, stop it! Not cottage number one, too?! S-Stop it; why are you breaking our cottages?!”

“Taaaaaah!”

“Fire Arrow!”

Sierro and Ledo attacked the centipede as it landed on the ground, but the monster approached the lake and began scurrying in the campsite’s direction.

It’s headed to where the guests are…!

A monster’s instincts were to attack as many living beings as it could.

We’ve finally been getting more guests, but it only led to this! It’s not faiiiir!

“Photon Bomb!”

As Ledo’s burning arrow sank into the centipede, it started slowing down—though it didn’t completely stop. Shida’s spells then created an explosion that blasted its head and sent it scurrying away from the inn. Sierro charged at it with his sword, forcing the centipede to change its target to the nuisances in its way.

“Ugh, it’s hard!” Sierro huffed as his sword clanged against the centipede’s exoskeleton.

“Of course it is, you stupid mutt!” Shida shouted at him. “Don’t let down your guard; centipedes have a very tough hide compared to other monsters! And when it’s this large, your sword can’t even scratch it!”

“Then what am I supposed to do?!”

“Just keep it occupied until the knights beat back the earthworm! Their alchemical weapons should be able to tear off a layer of its exoskeleton!”

“That so?!” Dad responded to their conversation. “Then Lico, Michael, go and help them! Nakona, pull that earthworm out of the ground!”

“A-All right!” Nakona nodded.

“Don’t order me around,” Lico growled at Dad.

“Listen, Lico, we should listen to the former Vice-Captain for now!” Lys warned her.

Whoa, this is chaotic… Lico’s still mad at Dad…

Still, she seemed to heed his instructions and moved with Michael over to Shida’s position. This left Nakona, Kunon, Vector, Gawain, and Lysteinn to handle the earthworm, while Shida, Sierro, Ledo, Lico, and Michael concentrated on the centipede, with Dad commanding the scene.

“You there, elf boy! What’s your name?” Dad asked.

“It’s Shida, and don’t treat me like a child! I’m older than you are!”

“Fine, Shida! Tell me everything you know about these monsters! Keep it brief!”

“Don’t be absurd…but fine! Centipede monsters have thick armor, so swords and arrows can’t damage them! Watch out for the pincers on their mouth. The venom on them can paralyze and cause convulsions. Though if it does bite you, it’ll probably just cut you in half anyway!”

“Gawain, Vector, cover the worm from both sides! Kunon, you face it head-on and deflect its attacks! While she does that, Nakona, Gawain, Vector, you three draw its attention. Lysteinn, you see if you can widen the hole around it!”

“Roger that! Beginning to load my weapon!”

Wh-Whoa…Dad’s so cool!

He gave the knights proper instructions and kept coming up with ways to resolve the situation.

Was he always this cool…?

Everyone moved according to Dad’s orders, so no one was hurt by the earthworm’s attacks. No one was visibly injured.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the right way to handle the earthworm,” Shida said, observing their battle when he could. “But it tends to attack with two-thirds of its body underground. Watch out for its dissolving juices! It’ll narrow its mouth to spew it out over a large area. You’ll probably be helpless against it without magic, so you, black alchemy youngster, change places with me. I’ll use wind magic to block it off.”

“All right! Lysteinn, change places with him! Go help Lico blow through the centipede’s armor!” Dad ordered.

“Roger!”

“The centipede is weak to heat and the earthworm is sensitive to bright lights!” Shida continued. “If you can direct a bright light right above it, it should make the earthworm flee! I’ll give you one of my photons to create a light source, so Commander, I’m counting on your people to distract it!”

“All righty, drag its head down! Nakona, come back here! Kunon, put your shield on your back!”

“Huh?”

Kunon turned around questioningly, but Dad simply urged her on with a “Hurry!”

Th-They’re really coordinated… Dad and Shida are really amazing. Did they really just meet?

Dad stood in front of Nakona, and Gawain and Vector were standing diagonally behind the earthworm. What were they trying to do?

“Kunon! Get down! Nakona!”

“Roger, Daddy! Kunon, excuse me for a second!”

“Ah, y-yes, young miss!”

Did someone train all the knights to call Nakona that?

Either way, Nakona sprinted toward Kunon’s back, who was carrying her shield behind her, and then jumped.

Huh? Wait, that’s dangerous…!

“Shida!”

“I hear you!”

Huh?! Wait, what?!

It looked like the two of them somehow understood each other’s plan.

The moment Nakona reached the zenith of her jump…!

“Concentrated 10-Hit Combo!”

“…!”

Nakona showered a series of shining blows into the earthworm’s face!

Wh-Wha… Nakona had this kind of technique up her sleeve…?!

The earthworm toppled backward with a thud, but Vector and Gawain were waiting for it, their swords swinging down at once.

“Heavy Glow Slash!”

Ah, Gawain is left-handed…

That out-of-place thought crossed my mind as they executed two perfect, exact slashes at once. Nakona’s attack sent the monster falling backward, and the knights’ attacks bounced it into the air, making it crash into the ground below.

Wh-What a beatdown…

“I’ll finish it off!” Shida shouted. “Everyone, close your eyes! Photon flash!”

Gyah?! It’s so bright! Couldn’t you warn me a second sooner…?!

A flash of dazzling light hit the earthworm’s head, forcing me to cover my face with my hands. Even with that, the light was blinding. It was like the sun had appeared right in front of me.

“All right, everyone; we’re fighting the centipede next!” Dad said, continuing to control the situation. “Nakona, can you still fight?!”

“I can use a technique one…maybe two more times!”

“All right! Shida, can you use any heat magic?!”

“You underestimate me, human! I’m the 37th Prince of Forestria and the Elf of the Sun, chosen by the olden king’s grimoire! I may be of mixed blood, but those who wield grimoires are not confined to any one field of magic!”

“Good! Then Lico, Lysteinn! Once you’re done reloading your weapons, chase that thing off!”

“Stop ordering me around!” Lico snarled at Dad again.

“L-Licooo…” Lys chided her.

By the time my eyes recovered from the flash, the earthworm was gone, leaving only a hole in the ground in its wake. Dad and the others moved to help push back the centipede.

Lico’s still being huffy. Is this gonna be all right? I mean, I think it will… They beat the earthworm without getting hurt at all! And now they’re facing the centipede with more people!

“Keep your wits about you! It’s more dangerous than the earthworm!” Shida warned everyone.

“You heard him, people! Michael, Kunon, move ahead and attack it!”

“Roger!” The two of them moved per Dad’s orders.

“Watch out for its mandibles and tail while it attacks! Vector, Gawain, and the kobold warrior, go around its right flank while keeping your head down and attack it! Dwarf warrior, go to Lico and Lysteinn’s side! Nakona, keep an eye on how it moves, get behind it, and draw its attention!”

W-Wooow…this is cool. Everything’s going the way Daddy says.

Michael and Kunon approached the centipede, their heads ducked as the centipede thrust its fangs into their shields. It pushed them back, their legs dragging against the ground as it did…but the mandibles never penetrated their shields.

While the monster was occupied, Sierro, Vector, and Gawain ran to its right side, thrusting their swords into its flank. As it turned its underbelly in my direction, the centipede seemed to have noticed Nakona. It twisted its body, going after Nakona with its mandibles bared!

“Lico, now!”

“Everyone, open fire!”

As it went after Nakona, Lico, Lysteinn, and Ledo all mercilessly fired their weapons at the centipede’s exposed underbelly! Had it been the serpent monster I’d seen before, it probably would’ve been completely blown away.

“Hisssssssssssss!”

“Huh?!”

“Are you serious…?!”

My hands clasped over my mouth in terror.

How is it unharmed?!

Even after taking all those attacks, the centipede’s shell hadn’t lost its luster. It was frustrating, to be honest. Lys clicked his tongue.

“Maybe I should have used my full firepower on it.” Lico shook her head.

“What? Lico, you were holding back on it?!” Lys stared at her, frustrated.

“It’s not like we can risk accidentally killing it,” she said.

L-Lico was holding back? Then maybe we have hope after all…?

“You’re joking. I just fired at maximum firepower!”

“I-I shot my strongest arrows, too…” Ledo stammered.

“Hm, how high can your firepower go, skulled alchemist?” Shida asked Lico.

“I’ve been firing at half power. Next time, I’ll hit it at full force.”

“All right, let’s try it,” Dad said. “Everyone else, give it one more push!”

“Yes!”

“Of course we will!” Nakona chimed in. “If I could, I’d have this thing compensate us for those cottages!”

Me too, Nakona! How dare that stupid centipede wreck two of our cottages!

“Go, go, Nakona!” I cheered for her.

“You know it! Daddy, I’ll knock this thing into the ground!”

“I’m counting on it, Nakona! Gawain, Vector, and the kobold warrior, hold your positions and keep your distance from its tail! Dwarf warrior, shoot a flaming arrow at its tail! Once it starts panicking, all of you, hit it as hard as you can! Once it topples over and shows its stomach, shoot it, Lico!”

“Fine. But don’t order me around,” she huffed.

“…Could you drop the grudge already…?”

Wow, Dad’s starting to give up. Lico’s grudges sure are something…

“Whoaaa, everyone’s so cool,” I heard a voice say behind me.

“Ah!” I wheeled around in surprise.

That angel from earlier was hiding behind a tree. I did notice they’d disappeared at some point!

“It’s dangerous, so you should stay there,” I said.

“Then shouldn’t you hide, too?” the angel asked me.

“P-Probably…”

They weren’t wrong. Where would I hide, though?

The people hiding near the campsite were looking over here anxiously. If I wanted to go there, I’d have to run behind everyone as they were fighting. And that would only distract them…

“Ah, the way it’s moving…?! This is bad!” Shida shouted.

“Tinaris!”

“Huh?” I uttered, dumbfounded.

The fighters turned to look at me. A cobalt sheen filled my eyes as an armored figure rushed toward me, grabbed me by the arm, and threw me away to the left.

“Ah…!”

As I flew in midair, I saw a thick, yellow liquid splash over Lico. I landed hard on the ground, rolling a few feet away. It hurt, but I got the feeling what I’d just seen was far scarier than this pain…!

I couldn’t stop my teeth from clattering in terror as I fearfully looked up.

“Don’t lose your composure! Everyone, look ahead! The enemy’s still at large!”

The knights turned to face the centipede at Dad’s rebuking. But a large body lay on the ground, with steam-like smoke rising from it. Nakona was the only one to hurry over to it. Sierro, Ledo, and Shida remained focused on fighting the centipede, but everyone was definitely shaken by this. My arms and legs ached, but more importantly than that…!

“L-Lico!”

“Tina!” Dad barked at me.

“Ah…!”

My hair was unkempt, and I was dirty with mud and brush bristles, but all of that could wait! I made to hurry over to Lico, but Dad’s shout jolted me.

His angry voice reminded me of my past life…of the times when my “father” from back then beat my mother and me.

“She can still make it! If you give her the Supreme tonic now, she’ll make it!”

“Ah…!”

Those were words that that man—who would always shout, wave his fists, and throw beer cans at me—would never say. Something warm filled my heart, and I clenched my fists before my chest.

I…

“Can you do that for me?!”

“Yes!”

My body, which had frozen up with the fear of those memories, turned hot. I broke into a desperate sprint and slid down next to Lico on my knees. I said nothing as Nakona looked on anxiously. I simply opened my pouch and scattered the bottles full of faint-pink fluid to the ground. I then opened one of them, one that had what looked like faint gold powder floating in the liquid.

“Tina…” Nakona muttered.

“Lico, drink this! Nakona, watch our backs, please!”

“A-All right!”

I lifted Lico’s head. Her injuries were…horrible. Her breastplate was crushed, the metal digging into her flesh. There was steam rising from a few spots on her body.

Was it because of that yellow liquid?

“If you have medicine for assorted conditions, have her drink that, too!” Shida called out to me.

“Why?!”

“That’s probably the centipede’s specialty, the paralyzing venom! I’ve never heard of one spitting it out in a glob like this, but…”

“Understood!”

I took out a bottle filled with a green fluid too.

“Lico, please! Please!” I called out to her.

Nakona and Lys also joined in, calling her name. Nakona was shivering as she spoke. I then brought the Supreme tonic to Lico’s lips.

---

---

Drink it… Come on… Swallow! Please, please! Don’t die…!

I could make out the faint sound of her gulping it down. I’ve never been so happy to hear any sound in my life… Tears spilled from my eyes. I poured the green liquid into her mouth with shaking fingers, and Lico proceeded to swallow that, too.

At this point, I was crying so hard, I couldn’t even see in front of me. The tears spilled freely, obscuring my field of vision.

“Sh-She drank it, Tina…” Nakona said, her voice choked with tears.

“Y-Yeah!” I nodded.

“Lico, thank goodness…” Lys said.

“Lysteinn! I told you to keep your eyes on the enemy!” Dad chided him.

“Y-Yes! My apologies, Vice-Captain!”

“Former Vice-Captain!”

Lys was being chewed out by Dad. It was kind of funny to listen to.

Were Lico’s wounds healing properly, though?

Based on both Dad and Lico’s Appraisal magic, the Supreme tonic’s quality was average, so maybe it wasn’t strong enough to heal wounds this severe…

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve, still sobbing. But then, what looked like golden scales began closing her wounds, and the bits of the armor that stabbed into her flesh were pushed out of her body.

Lico was healing… Everything, from her bloody wounds to her scarred face, was recovering. She opened her eyes slowly, coughed a couple of times to resume breathing, and sat up.

My vision once again clouded over with tears.

I mean, it’s just…!

“Licoooooooooooooo!”

“Whoa!”

I was just a mess. I could tell Nakona plunged into Lico’s arms, but I couldn’t even tell if her body felt warm or not. I couldn’t stop sobbing and shaking…

Ugh, I’m getting snot all over her… I can’t let anyone see me like this…

“I have a suggestion, bearded commander!” Shida told Dad.

“What is it?!”

“The situation’s only going to get worse at this rate. With the skull alchemist’s weapon ruined, we don’t have a way of dealing a decisive blow. So, I’ll have to use something a bit stronger, but it’s hard to gather the Air for the spell with all the Camilla around here. I’ll need you to buy me five minutes.”

“Five minutes…”

“Wait! I still have one arm I can use.”

“Huh? Lico!”

While I was busy sobbing, Lico put a hand on my head…and then got to her feet, still wobbling a bit. She pushed me away and then jammed something into the Air Gun in her left hand.

Was she reloading?

“Tinaris, thank you. You saved me again. I’ll finish this off.”

“Lico…”

She turned to look at me over her shoulder and flashed a smile.

You look cool. You’re so cool, Lico!

“As Captain of the Ebony Knights and a member of House Avide, I guarantee I’ll produce the same firepower of both hands with just my left.”

“Hm… Three minutes, then!” Shida amended.

“Right! Well, you all heard them!” Dad called out. “That big boy over there is starting to get bored with us, so let’s take it down this time!”

“Yes, sir!” the knights said in unison.

“I’ll give it my best shot too, Daddy!” Nakona said resolutely. “I haven’t seen a guest this rude in forever! I’ll pick him up by his collar and kick him to the moons! And there’ll be no coming back to the Rofola Lodge for him!”

“Ahaha! Ya ain’t wrong!”

Yeah…we gotta teach a guest like this that he’s not welcome in our business!

I wiped away the tears and got to my feet.

“Good luck, you guys!”

Hearing something, I turned around and saw people—our guests—calling out to us to “Do your best!” and some of the knights gave a resounding “We will!”

Yeah… We’re not losing this!

“All right, Tina, take a few steps back and get some low-grade tonics ready!”

“Y-Yes, sir!”

Dad started giving me instructions too. It filled me with excitement because this meant I was as much a part of this battle as everyone else. Something welled up within me, a sort of…

Heat.

“Let’s go! Michael, Kunon, get to its flank with the shields on your back! Gawain, Vector, you get behind it and step away until I give the signal! Ledo, prepare the strongest arrow your magic can shoot and fire at will!”

“You got it!”

“Lysteinn, keep it pinned down with a volley!”

“Roger that, sir! Firing a light volley!”

“Sierro, fight with Nakona and use all your mana! Just hit it as hard as you can!”

“D-Don’t boss me around, human!” Sierro imitated Lico, but did as he was told.

“You got it, Daddy!”

Lysteinn fired volleys of bullets with Air Guns in both hands, forcing the centipede to stand up and start curling around. We needed to buy three minutes of time. It was like we were drawing this out as long as we could.

W-Wow… Lys could do something like that?

“Hey, miss, miss!” someone called out next to me,

“Whoa!” I jolted. “Oh, it’s just you, Kuula… I think you should still be hiding.”

“Yes, but, er, is the person in the skull armor all right now?”

“Yes, one way or another… We’re giving it one more push to finish this! Keep yourself hidden and cheer everyone on!”

“Ah, yes! Understood! I’ll help cheer for everyone!”

…Such a c-cute angel… Aaah…

Looking at Kuula up close, I noticed they were floating despite their wings not really moving. Plus, they had a ring of light over their head like a halo.

A-Amazing. Is this really an angel? It is, right?

Either way, right now, I needed to cheer Michael and Kunon on!

“Fight on! Good luck!” I called out to them.

“Good luck!” Kuula parroted me.

“Mm? What is this feeling?” Michael asked right after we cheered them on.

“Something feels different…” Kunon said.

Kuula got down from the tree and started cheering alongside me. That’s all we could really do, after all, and we were far enough from the action that, even if the centipede shot another glob of venom, we wouldn’t get hit!

Next, we cheered on Gawain and Vector.

“Go, go, you two!”

“Good luck!”

“I feel good…” Gawain muttered.

“What is this? I was exhausted and out of mana, but now it’s all coming back…” Vector said.

“Nakona, Sierro, you two keep going, too!”

“Huh?” Nakona gazed at her hands. “My mana…”

“Mm? My body feels light!” Sierro growled.

“Lys, Lico, Shida, Ledo!” I called. “Keep fighting, win! Kick him away! Just don’t get hurt!”

“Mm? My mana’s recovering?”

“What is this? My body feels warm…”

“Oooh! I feel motivated all of a sudden!”

“…Is this Kuula’s ability?” Shida asked. “I didn’t know they had that kind of power… I’ll demand an explanation later. Not that I expect any good answers out of them. All right, time to do this…”

“Vice-Captain Marcus, I’m gonna run out of bullets soon!” Lys groaned.

“It’s former Vice-Captain! Ledo!”

“All righty! Leave it to me!”

The centipede frolicked about, evading Lys’s shots. But just as the barrage died down, Ledo unleashed an arrow into the sky above them.

“Eternal Arrows!”

The single arrow he shot suddenly split, turning into a shower of arrows that blotted the monster out.

Huuuuuuh?! How did he do that?! How does that work?! This looks more like magic than a technique!

“Kuh… Twenty…more…seconds!” Shida said, his face contorted with effort. “Let’s go… Sea of Stars, Song of the Wind, Mark of the Earth, and Song of Flames. I hereby transcribe one decree of the monolith at the furthest end of the world and borrow its power. I weave a new prayer so that the accumulated sins of our life may be forgiven! By my name, Shida Forestria, I ask the King, the Holy Woman, and the God for forgiveness! May thy forgiveness of that God shine down on us. I invoke a fraction of that power onto this world!”

With his spell finished, he shouted, “Bearded commander!”

“All right! Gawain, Vector!” Dad bellowed.

Ledo’s shower of arrows died down, and at that exact moment, Gawain and Vector broke into a sprint. Just like Nakona did earlier, they used Kunon and Michael, who were crouching, as springboards to leap up!

Whoa, they’re so high up! They’re way over the centipede’s head!

“This is our secret technique!” Vector called out.

“No holding back! This will finish it! Let’s go, Vector!” Gawain raised his voice.

“Overcross Light!”

As the centipede snarled, it seemed to know it couldn’t avoid this pincer attack. Their attack drew a cross of light that bore down on the monster. Its head went plummeting toward the ground, but that’s when Nakona and Sierro pounced on it!

“And stay away from our inn! Three-Pointed Concentrated Thirty-Blow Flurry!”

“This is my only technique! Haaaaaa… Justice Sword!”

Whoa, this is dazzling!

Both their attacks shined like some kind of rainbow!

I didn’t know you could do something like that, Nakona! You really are a genius!

“Its stomach is exposed! Now!” Dad called out.

“Feel the full extent of this power!”

“Let’s go, Lysteinn!”

“You got it, Lico!”

“Photon Flame Room!” Shida swung his hand as his book lit up.

A blast hit the centipede monster’s tail, knocking its massive body into the air. And at that moment, Lico and Lys’s alchemical weapons fired.

“Grenade Launcher!” Lico and Lys cried together.

The centipede let out an odd screech as their gunfire hit it. It crashed on the ground, thrashing and letting out panicked chirps before scrambling to its feet and scurrying into the forest toward the mountain.

“Yaaaaa—”

But just as I was about to let out a relieved “Yaaaaay…”

Bang! Brrrrrrrrrrr….!

“Ah…”

“Uh…”

“C-Cottage number three and number six!”

That stupid monster left us with a pretty big parting present, in the form of two more cottages reduced to rubble.

Heyyyyy! What did you do that for?! Why did you have to go through there of all places?! Stupid centipede! Never come anywhere near this place again! Seriously!!!

♣♣♣

THE morning after the attack, the knights’ six-room cottage and the five-room cottage Shida’s party used were thankfully still intact, but…

“How much do you think it’ll cost to fix them…?” Nakona asked with distant eyes.

“I don’t know… Heh, but look on the bright side, we’ll have plenty of firewood to sell the campers,” Dad replied dryly.

“But now, all people will talk about is how monsters attacked our inn,” I said, slumped over one of the coffee corner’s tables. “We were finally getting guests, and now people are gonna stay away from us again…”

After the monster attack, the guests who’d celebrated our grand victory hurriedly checked out and left. Which was understandable… Most adventurers would never pick a fight with a monster. Especially not big ones. An inn that got attacked by two monsters couldn’t be seen as safe.

It’s strange. An inn should be a place where people can relax in safety and enjoy good cooking and a nice view. Some inns have made being haunted a selling point, but a monster-infested inn? That wouldn’t sell.

What are we supposed to do?! And now, all our four-room cottages are ruined… Damn that stupid centipede!

“Why don’t you set up a monster-repelling barrier?” Shida proposed as he entered the main building with his group. “With this land’s leylines, once you set up a barrier, it should last for a thousand years.”

“Huh?”

“A monster repelling…what?”

“A barrier. It takes quite a bit of preparation, so it’d be too taxing on me alone. I could use someone to help me… Right, how about you, girl?” Shida said to me. “I could manage it within a month if you help me. What say you? Naturally, this means I’d be exempt from lodging and meal fees. Oh, and of course, this would also serve as an introductory course to magic for you. Free of charge.”

“I’d love to!” I said immediately.

“Hey, Tina?!” Dad looked at me, surprised.

I didn’t know anything about magic or barriers, but if that would keep the monsters away, I figured it’d be for the best to understand how to do it.

Plus, a magic course?! How cool was that?

“Listen, Dad, we’ll actually be profiting off of this!”

“B-But Tina, magic is dangerous business…”

“But she’s good at alchemy, isn’t she?” Shida asked. “The old man kept blabbering on about how talented she is. Even said he wants me to marry her…”

“Huh?” Dad let out a shocked grunt.

“Oh, about that! I have to politely refuse,” I told Shida off-handedly.

“Ahaha! That’s what I thought!”

I-It is?

“We’ll help you with fixing the cottages!” Ledo said.

“Really?!” I asked.

“We’ve got a month, right? That’s plenty of time! I’m a dwarf, after all. Building and fixing things is my specialty!”

“O-Oh…” Dad said pensively. “But the materials are gonna be expensive…”

“If we’re missing anything, we can just make more! We’ll manage,” Ledo said.

“In exchange for a free dessert every meal,” Shida appended.

He really knows how to use the situation to his advantage.

Dad sighed in resignation. Still, they’d be helping fix the cottages, so we had to treat them to something. And since Shida was making a barrier to keep monsters away from the inn, we really should give them all the little discounts we could!

“All that in exchange for setting up a monster-repelling barrier and fixing your cottages. I think it’s quite the reasonable trade.”

“H-Hm,” Dad crossed his arms.

I could see he was bothered by the fact that we were getting more out of this deal than they were. I had to admit that weighed on my mind, too. Dad then started negotiating with them, asking about the costs and effort needed to set up the barrier.

It was a legitimate question. Shida and his group didn’t really know the market price here. They needed to be introduced to how the economics of this continent worked.

“So you see, just one month’s lodging and meal fees aren’t enough to cover for this…” Dad said.

“It’s fine,” Shida replied, dismissing his concerns.

“Huh…? B-But, listen to me…”

“No, you listen to me. If you’re the Azure Demon Wolf of De Marl, then we owe you this much. You came to our lands and helped fight off that band of fools. I’ll have you know, you’re quite famous in Forestria. It’s said you lost your arm during the Jiera Defensive Campaign…”

Dad gasped at the mention of that name.

“The people of Jiera went extinct… It was quite a regrettable loss. Forestria sent troops to help, but they failed to arrive in time, so we cannot fault De Marl’s knights for this. In fact, you arrived there before we did… How pathetic of us.”

“No…”

Jiera? I think I’ve heard that name somewhere… But Dad really is amazing. He’s even famous among the demi-humans.

Still, something was bothering me about that name. Jiera…

“Erm, Dad, Shida. What’s Jiera…?” I asked.

“Mm? O-Oh. It used to be the only demi-human country on the human continent. It was to the west of Fei Lu, hidden in the westernmost forest. A species of demi-humans called the Spherit Folk lived there. They had Spherit Stones embedded in their foreheads…”

“…Huh, er…? Spherit Stones?”

“Yes, you know about Spherit Stones, don’t you?” Shida asked. “Humans require the aid of Spherit Stones to use magic, I believe. Spherit Stones were typically created when the Spherit Folk concentrated mana into ordinary stones. That said, there was a simpler way of getting Spherit Stones…killing the Spherit Folk and extracting the stones from their foreheads. Ten years ago, the people of that country, Edesa Kura, went about doing this quite ruthlessly.”

That’s…

“That’s awful…” Nakona said, visibly appalled. “So, Uncle Romulus died because he was trying to stop Edesa Kura from taking away the Spherit Folk’s stones?”

“That’s right,” Dad answered her. “Romulus had a partner, an adventurer called Jinray, and he was married to Jiera’s princess… That connection was probably what made him do it. Imagine throwing your life away to help a friend like that. He was…one impressive man, Romulus.”

“…Yeah,” Nakona nodded sadly. “Uncle Romulus was one awesome man.”

The country of Jiera.

Spherit Folk.

Edesa Kura.

Stones embedded in their foreheads…

“Rubia…my precious daughter… Our country of Jiera is at its end. But you will survive…”

“May the blood of the Stone of Daybreak…never come to awaken. And may she always be safe…”

“Aah… Aaah…”

“You must live on.”

Thump. Thump.

The loud sound of something beating thundered in my ears. My chest tightened up and I became dizzy.

Memories of ten years ago.

But I remember.

I…I remember!

It was just after I recalled my past life!

“Huh?” Nakona exclaimed, looking at me. “T-Tina, what’s wrong?!”

“What?”

Maybe all the flashes yesterday did something to my tear ducts.

“That’s weird…”

Nakona’s concerned gaze made me realize I was crying. I remembered—those people were my mother and father. I’d always had that feeling. But…

“…I don’t really understand, but…”

That was why? That was why they sent me away?

That’s horrible. It’s…too horrible…!

That was why my mother and father “abandoned” me. It was then. It must have been that day! They washed me down the river because…I…

“…Thinking about that must have really shaken you up,” Dad said. “You were always a sensitive girl.”

“Right,” Nakona nodded. “Don’t worry, Tina, I’ll handle dinner today.”

“Y-Yeah…” I murmured, tears still streaming down my cheeks.

Nakona sat me down at the edge of the coffee corner and wiped my tears away with a handkerchief, but nothing helped.

The people of Jiera were wiped out. Massacred. The people of my own race, whom I’d never met before, were all killed so horrible people could gouge the stones out of their foreheads. Just imagining it made me shake nonstop.

A massacre meant even the women, elderly, and children were slaughtered. Everyone died. Our kind went extinct.

Was the stone in my mother’s forehead torn off, too…? No… That’s…that’s horrible! So the Stone of Daybreak means the stone in their foreheads? I don’t want that, then!

“Well, either way, us demi-humans owe you a debt of gratitude, Azure Demon Wolf of De Marl,” Shida said. “Several of my brothers have decided to trade with the human continent solely out of respect for you. If you are in need of help, I will offer you my aid.”

“Yep, yep! Imma offer my help, too!” Ledo nodded with a grin.

“What about you, Sierro? We’ll be staying here for a month, but what are you gonna do?”

“Uh,” Sierro growled, visibly torn. “F-Fine, I’ll help you. But I don’t get along with humans!”

“Yayyyy! I’ll help, too!” Kuula piped in.

“That’s discounts for all four of us, then.”

“…Thank you, Prince of Forestria.”

“Don’t be a bloody fool. I’m saying I’ll help you not as a Prince of Forestria, but as a single elf. Don’t push your luck.”

“Ahaha. That was presumptuous of me. All right, I’ll accept your help, then,” Dad said with a smile.

I somehow managed to walk back to the attic, despite insisting I’d help out with dinner. I went out on the balcony and looked up at the sky in silence.

They were all massacred…

Putting my memories and what Shida and Dad said earlier together, it became clear to me that I was one of the Spherit Folk. I recalled my real father didn’t have a Spherit Stone in his forehead either, but that didn’t matter as much…

What did matter was that Jiera, the country of the Spherit Folk, was destroyed by Edesa Kura ten years ago. All because they wanted the Spherit Stones embedded into the Spherit Folk’s foreheads.

Spherit Stones were rare, unique stones that assisted humans in using magic. The Spherit Folk could turn normal stones into Spherit Stones, but Edesa Kura wanted to get a large stash of them at once. So, they attacked Jiera and slaughtered the Spherit Folk to extract the stones in their foreheads…

Aaah, that’s horrible… My parents probably realized the country’s fate and sent me down the river to save me…

Those that had stones embedded into their forehead were killed, but I didn’t have one. But despite that…if the Stone of Daybreak my parents spoke of was actually a Spherit Stone…once the bloodline of the Stone of Daybreak awakens in me, a stone might just appear in my forehead. And if that happens…

Dad, Nakona…everyone will know I’m not human. They’ll know I’m one of the Spherit Folk, and the rumors will spread all the way over to Edesa Kura…

No, Edesa Kura isn’t the only problem. Bandits or bad people might target me, too. Killing me would get them a precious Spherit Stone for free, after all…

What would I do? I had no kinsmen to help me, since my entire species was eradicated. Was I really the last of the Spherit Folk? I was on the human continent. Even if I crossed over to the demi-human continent, there was no one I could really rely on there. So what do I do…?

“Tinaris?”

“Ah!”

I heard someone call out to me from the hall. I looked into my room through the window and saw someone looking around.

It was Lico…

“Lico! Are you feeling better now?” I asked.

“Tinaris, are you out on the balcony?”

“Yes. Come on over.”

My room and the balcony were separated by a glass door. The balcony had a wooden deck floor and offered a clear view of the surrounding area. The clear morning air would gradually rise up, filling the balcony with the refreshing scent of the noon wind.

This spot gave me a good view of everything. I could see the lake, the campsite, the field, and the vegetable garden. The lake’s horizon was especially pretty. The colors of the vegetable garden and the verdant shades of the forest all complimented the blue sky.

I would always come out here and take long, deep breaths that made me feel that much lighter. As if I’d breathed out the gloom that built up within me and took in something fresh and pure instead.

Right… Why am I hesitating so much when I grew up in such a pretty place?

I couldn’t work up the courage to talk to Dad and Nakona about this yet. The expressions on their faces when they spoke of Dad’s brother still weighed on me. But if the stone does end up surfacing on my forehead, we can find a way to hide it and just keep on living the way we always did!

“The view here is stunning,” Lico said as she stepped out on the deck.

“It is!”

“It feels like my heart is renewed just by looking at it…”

“Yes, it does…”

Lico and I looked out at the scenery, our hands resting on the railing. All my worries felt so small compared to this expanse of nature.

Yeah…everything will turn out just fine! I’m still alive, after all… I have to repay Dad for everything he did for me. And that black beast guy who saved me, too.

…How will I repay him, though? I guess I have to find him first…

Based on what Dad said, he was a Mythical Beast. Was he from the Mythical continent, then?

Wait, but I was saved on this continent, right…?

“Let me thank you again, Tinaris,” Lico said, yanking me out of my thoughts.

“For what?”

“Thank you for saving me… You ended up healing my face, too.”

A pleasant wind blew by, playing with Lico’s long bangs. The gouged, red right half of her face was healed, her skin clear and unblemished. My tonic didn’t just heal the injuries from the venom and her armor stabbing into her, it also restored her face…

“So even that injury from when the serpent monster bit you, back when we first met…”

“All better now… I guess they call it a Supreme tonic for a reason…”

“Really?! That’s wonderful.”

There was always something a little scary about her, but now, she looked like such a pretty lady. Seeing this made me smile. Lico taught me so much about alchemy, so I’d been looking for a chance to return the favor!

I should polish up my skills and make an ideal quality Supreme tonic next time!

I decided this would be a fine goal to strive toward. And about my race…I decided I’d look into things a bit more and talk about it when I had a better grasp on the situation.

Maybe I should go to where Jiera used to be. I might find a clue there. And maybe the demi-human continent, too… Why was Jiera, the country of the Spherit Folk, set on the human continent? Maybe Shida knows…

“Tinaris, we need to discuss your future,” Lico said gravely.

“Huh? Wh-What? My future?”

“Yes. When I go back home, De Marl’s higher-ups will ask me how I healed my face. The only thing that could possibly heal those kinds of scars is either a Supreme tonic, high-grade holy magic, or the lost Power of Miracles—the power of the primordial star, Stella.”

“…”

I gulped. Lico and Dad had argued over this to begin with. Healing Lico’s face meant De Marl would discover my existence…and when that happened, word about me being an alchemical apothecary capable of brewing a Supreme tonic would spread throughout the continent.

N-No, I don’t want that!

Even without that rumor, I was possibly the last member of the Spherit Folk. I wouldn’t be able to lead a normal life with that kind of attention. That was very bad…

“Wh-What should I do?”

“If they find out you made a Supreme tonic, De Marl will invite you in. They’ll try to saddle you with the title of a state alchemist, like Elysis, and bind you to them that way. The life they’ll offer you will be a convenient one. You won’t want for anything, but the one thing you won’t have is freedom. They’ll make you concoct toxins and explosives, even if you refuse to do so. Given Edesa Kura’s movements, they’ll definitely see you as a valuable part of their ‘war effort.’”

I hung my head.

“But Marcus and I…and honestly, no one wants that to happen to you. So, I asked Prince Shida if I could report that it was him who healed my wounds and scars.”

“…What?” I looked up at the mention of Shida’s name.

Lico turned to face me and squatted down to my eye level.

“Prince Shida is the Elf of the Sun, chosen by the grimoire wielded by the ancient ruler of the elves, the olden king Leishi. That grimoire is one of the Seven Sacred Treasures of the Elves and allows its wielder to use magic of all elements. In other words, Prince Shida can use holy magic. That said, from what he told me, being able to wield all the elements means he can’t use any one of them to its full power. That’s why he can’t use enough holy magic to regenerate Marcus’s arm. Do you understand what that means?”

“Ah…!”

“But, given what happened yesterday, there’s a chance the guests at the campsite saw you give me the tonic. I don’t…think any of them knew what you gave me was a Supreme tonic. But we can’t deny the possibility someone did. Still, I had my helmet on during the fight, and not many know what I look like without it. So I think everything is fine, but there’s no guarantee I’m right.”

“…Yes, I…I understand.”

For a moment, I was relieved, but…she was right. Our field stood between the spot where I was at that time and the campsite, so it was hard to see us, and everyone was focused on the knights fighting the monster. But while the possibility someone noticed what I did was unlikely…it wasn’t a sure thing.

“So what I’m trying to say is…I know it’ll be hard, but I need you to help me lie!”

“Huh?!”

“I’m lying to keep you safe. Let’s tell everyone that it was Prince Shida’s holy magic and not your tonic that restored my face… At least until you become a famous alchemical apothecary and have enough people to keep you safe.”

“…All right.”

People who would keep me safe…? Isn’t Nakona good enough?

That thought crossed my mind, but…no, I couldn’t rely on Nakona forever. She was a girl, too. I understood what Lico meant. Maybe it was because of my mental age? Maybe not. Even in terms of my mental age, I wasn’t on Lico’s level, either.

“I’ll be fine. And my goal is to heal Dad’s arm. So, I’ll keep researching the Supreme tonic! So, erm…what I’m trying to say is, please keep teaching me more about alchemy! Please!”

“…Yes. Of course I will,” Lico said with a smile.