Side Story—Jade Wings: Episode 1

You never know what might happen to you in life. I certainly didn’t expect to die in a traffic accident. I knew some people who had gotten into such accidents before, and the average person’s chances of dying in a traffic accident were supposedly higher than their chances of dying in an aircraft accident, so it wasn’t like I thought it would never happen to me, but still... Well, that’s a lie. I really did think a traffic accident would never happen to a girl like me, and I had no logical basis for thinking so. Yeah, I was wrong. I guess this is how Yoshino Kitamura’s life comes to an end.

So yeah, I was dead. It was quite a shocking truth to absorb, but I never got the time to process my emotions due to the overwhelming rush of shocking information that followed. Evil god? Transportation to a different world? What? Is this some kind of game? Oh, something that looks like a display screen appeared in midair. Okay, so we can allocate points to get skills from this list here. It looks like I have 145 Points that I can use.

The instructions on the display screen made this sound kind of similar to the character creation process for a tabletop RPG. I had played tabletop RPGs before with my big bro, since he’d needed an extra body to get a campaign started. I had only played a few times, though. I’d always been kind of annoyed whenever he’d dragged me into sitting through sessions with him; I’d had no idea that experience would turn out to be useful at this important crossroads in my life.

Thanks, big bro! I’ll always be grateful to you even after I’m reborn in another world! I hope you’ll live a good, long life and take care of our parents in my place! In exchange, I’ll forget about the lewd content I discovered on the secondhand computer I got from you! I wanted to use that as blackmail one day to extort some spare cash out of you, but I died without getting a chance to—wait, what if my mom sees those lewd files?! She would have thought I was the one who’d collected them, right? Okay, let’s forget about that. I did name the folder “Brother Blackmail Content,” so I hope she won’t misunderstand.

All right, that’s enough about the past. It was time to start creating my character. Based on what I knew from my previous experiences, a character that was specialized for one field was the strongest build you could go for. If you tried to build a character who was equally good at everything, you would end up with a character who couldn’t do anything. That would have been okay for the tabletop RPG sessions that my brother had dragged me into, but I definitely didn’t want to spend my new life as some kind of useless background character. The only logical choice here was to go with a specialized build.

As for what to choose, I had medical skills in mind. After all, in the past, I had dreamed about becoming a doctor. The heartwarming episode that inspired that dream wasn’t really relevant. All that mattered was that becoming a doctor wasn’t something you could accomplish just because you wanted to. That reality had slapped me in the face after I’d been in high school for a while.

Back in middle school, I’d been considered one of the smarter people in my class, but I’d been relegated to average once I entered high school. Then, when I was researching where to go to college, I discovered the tuition and the standard exam score required to get into a medical university, and I’d come to the realization that it would probably be impossible for me. Now, however, if I wanted to become a doctor, I wouldn’t have to spend any money on tuition or “donations” to grease the wheels. I don’t even have to study! That’s how these skills work, right?

All right, doctor it is. It also seemed like doctors earned a lot of money. I had heard stories of bad working conditions and long hours, but those probably only applied to doctors who worked at big hospitals. The doctor I knew who worked at the clinic near my house seemed to have a very easygoing life.

Wait, that’s not relevant to what’s in front of me right now. Okay, let’s focus. It looked like the skills available that were related to the medical field were Medicine and Pharmacy. Actually, there was magic available as well. It would be way cooler to heal all sorts of diseases and wounds in an instant with magic. An amazing doctor like that would surely be able to earn a lot of money. In fact, I was fairly sure that if a doctor who could heal bone fractures in an instant had existed back in Japan, then people wouldn’t have hesitated to pay tens of thousands yen for that treatment. This plan will work, right? Yeah, it definitely will. My life might be secure and easy now.

Hmm, what’s this? I couldn’t increase the level of my Light Magic at all for some reason. The name of the skill itself was grayed out on the display screen. It looked like I probably needed to get the Magic Aptitude: Light skill that was next to it in the list. The aptitude skill itself would cost 10 Points, but it looked like the logical choice to experiment with.

Okay, I see. The Magic Aptitude: Light skill is a prerequisite for the Light Magic skill, and each level of Light Magic requires an additional 5 Points. That means I would need to spend a total of 60 Points for the aptitude skill and Level 10 Light Magic. The total cost is definitely worth it—wait, hold on. I would need 10 Points to get to Level 4, but the cost per level increases by 5 Points at Levels 6, 8, and 10. I would need 25 Points to level up from Level 9 to Level 10, which means that the total number of points I would need to reach Level 10 Light Magic is 140.

Ugh. I wasn’t sure if that was worth it. I could just barely afford it, but it felt like it would be a waste. After all, I could also get a different type of magic to Level 3 with those 25 Points. That being the case, it would probably be better to stop right before the larger increases in cost at Levels 5, 7, or 9. The only problem was that I had no idea what kinds of spells would be available at particular levels. It seemed like there probably wouldn’t be many good spells available at Level 5, so I would have to get my Light Magic to either Level 7 or 9. If I leveled up my Light Magic to Level 9, then I would end up with 30 Points remaining. It didn’t sound like a bad plan for the specialized character build that I wanted, but I wasn’t completely sure.

W-Well, this is a different world I’m going to be transported to, and there might be all sorts of unknown dangers lurking, right? I just want to open a clinic in a safe area, like inside a town, and watch the money roll in, but is that actually impossible...?

Actually, I would need funds to open a clinic in the first place, and that means that I would need to start out by earning a decent sum of money on my own. I wasn’t sure what kind of world I was going to get transported to, but I would probably need money to rent a place, just like how I would have needed to pay a security deposit and rent back in Japan. In addition, I wouldn’t get a lot of patients right away, so I would need a decent amount of money for my living expenses until more people began visiting my clinic.

What else is there to take in account...? Oh yeah, it would be bad if I couldn’t protect myself against slave traders who kidnap people to sell, so it would probably be a good idea to make sure I have skills for prowess with weapons. Okay, let’s go with Level 7 for Light Magic, and that’ll leave me with 70 Points to spend on other skills.

All right, that change left me with a lot of points to spare for whatever else I need. It would probably be a good idea to decide on a weapon skill first. A blunt weapon like a club would be the simplest to use, right? With a club, I would only have to swing it around and smack people, and it would be much easier to maintain than something like a sword. I took another look at the list of skills, and I found a skill called Club Fighting. This will probably do just fine. Weapons like maces probably counted as clubs as well.

Enhanced Mana Capacity also looked like a good skill to get. I would be useless whenever I ran out of mana for healing spells, after all. Oh yeah, if I’m going to heal the sick, I’ll need to be able to prevent myself from getting infected as well. Pathology or Pharmacy? Hmm, I’ll go with Pharmacy. I should probably get the General Knowledge skill with my remaining 5 Points. As a doctor, I’ll have to interact with people who were born and raised in a different world, and a doctor without common sense would be quite sketchy.

Okay, my skill build looks like it’s complete.

General Knowledge (5 Points required), Magic Aptitude: Light (10 Points required)

Enhanced Mana Capacity (10 Points required), Level 2 Club Fighting (10 Points required)

Level 2 Robust (15 Points required), Disease Resistance (5 Points required)

Poison Resistance (5 Points required), Level 7 Light Magic (65 Points required)

Level 3 Pharmacy (20 Points required)

All that was left to do was to wait for the transportation to happen. I wanted to use the remaining time to take another look at what other skills were available in the list, but it appeared that this was a system where you were only able to see the skills you were able to afford. I had no points left since I had finished my skill build, so I was only able to see the skills that I had decided to get. There was the option of resetting my skills so I could look at the list again, but it would probably be bad if I ran out of time while I was looking at other skills. Yeah, I should hold back. I wondered if there were any skills that cost more than 150 Points, but of course, I couldn’t see any.

While I was spacing out, the evil god announced, “Well then, are you all done? It’s about time for your transportation! I’ll use any leftover points on random skills after this, so keep that in mind!”

It sounded like there was a bailout system in place for people who ran out of time while deciding on skills. However, random skills would have ruined my build, so I had made the right choice by not going back to check the other skills available. Very smart of me, if I do say so myself. It’s always a good idea to finish things ahead of time.

“Oh yeah, the souls closest to you right now will also get transported to the same place in the other world. It might be a good idea to stay near people you know—if you can tell each other apart!”

What?! We aren’t going to be transported to the same place together?! Oh God, this is bad! I didn’t expect this at all! My skill build only works if I’m in a party with other people for combat! Okay, if I have some kind of sixth sense, it better start working now!

Oh, I felt a flash of insight! Hmm, okay, that direction! No legs—gotta dash forward somehow! No arms—gotta grab a soul somehow and ram into another one with my body! Okay, I made it!

“All right, I hope you all enjoy your second life!”

As soon as I heard the evil god say those words, my surroundings were engulfed in a bright light.

★★★★★★★★★

After the light faded away and I could see again, I felt a familiar presence near me, and I yelled excitedly, “Victory!”

“Don’t yell so loud!”

“Oh, my bad—wait, who are you?!”

I was sure that it was my best friend Kaho Kawabuchi who was near me, but when I turned to take a look, her appearance wasn’t at all what I’d expected. She looked shorter than average height for a girl, which helped convince me that she was Kaho. I was used to her being short; people mistook her for an elementary school student all the time. But what’s with those fine ears on your head and that fine tail on your butt?! Also, why does your face look so much more beautiful than before?!

“No, seriously, who are you?!”

“My my, such bad manners when you were the one who yanked me to your side. I’m Kaho, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought! But what’s up with that way of talking?! I can accept the fact that you look like you went through cosmetic surgery, but I don’t remember you ever speaking like that, Kaho!”

“Oh, this is merely the character that I intend to role-play. After all, it’s entirely possible to fade away into the background as a non-player character with no distinct qualities, but the game master might deign to save a character who stands out as especially memorable, so I decided upon this persona—just in case I should ever fumble a dice roll.”

My big bro was friends with Kaho’s brother, and Kaho’s brother had also sometimes dragged her into tabletop sessions. She’d been way more eager to participate than I had been, however.

“So you’re saying that the evil god from earlier is like our game master?”

“Indeed. That god had an air of mischief about him similar to the trickster gods in all sorts of myths from around the world. He seemed like the type of god who would enjoy bestowing powers and blessings upon humans whom he deemed interesting.”

“Ugh, you’re right! But still, I feel like you have way too many character traits for this role of yours. I mean, on top of that slightly pretentious way of talking, you have what look to me like fox ears, so...”

“Don’t call it pretentious! Cough. Please, this is merely refined role-playing.” She’d dropped the character she was role-playing for a brief second, but she resumed it after the cough. If she was going to insist that it was just role-playing, then I didn’t really have any rebuttals.

“Um, I would appreciate it if you two would hold back from talking about things I don’t understand. An explanation would also work instead.”

“Oh, my bad, Sae,” I said. “Wait, you didn’t choose human as your race either?!”

The other soul I had rammed into earlier was Sae. Her full name was Saeko Yamamura. At first, I’d thought both Sae and Kaho looked the same as before, but after I took a closer look, I realized Sae appeared to be an elf.

“You two adjusted your appearances way too much! The fact that both of you look so different makes me stand out in a bad way!”

Kaho obviously looked like she had blown points on skills to adjust her appearance, and Sae had also become beautiful due to being an elf. On the other hand, all of the skills I had decided to get were practical ones, so my appearance probably hadn’t changed at all.

“It’s only natural that I would change my appearance, tee hee,” said Sae. “After all, the desire to become beautiful has crossed every girl’s mind at least once.”

“I must say, though, I’m quite impressed by the fact that you were able to distinguish us back when we were merely two souls among countless other sparks, Yoshino,” said Kaho.

“It’s because my sixth sense kicked in! Also, are you really going to continue role-playing that character of yours, Kaho?”

“Of course. It might turn out to be useful now that we have verified the existence of gods.”

Hmm, I guess that’s a good point. Oh well, it’s not really a problem. Besides, the fact that she’s doing her best to role-play is cute in its own way, so why not?

“All right, let’s share what our skills are before we do anything else,” I said. “It’ll help us decide on a course of action.”

“Indeed. It would be pure folly not to form a party after we were blessed with the good fortune to find one another like this.”

“I guess I’ll be the first one—wait, what’s this? I see something,” said Sae. She tilted her head in confusion and extended her hands out in front of her face as if she was searching for something.

“What do you see?”

“Do you not see it, Yoshino? I can see my name, my age, and the skills that I decided to get earlier. This screen appeared in front of me when I thought about what my skills were.”

Is it like a character sheet for a tabletop RPG? Do I just have to think to myself that I want to see—oh, there we go. I see all of the skills that I decided to get earlier. It looks like there are no character stats in here, though. Oh well.

“Oh, I had no idea we could access something like this,” I said.

“Indeed. It would also appear that this is the only means available to check our skills.”

“Well, this just means people who forgot some of the skills they chose can rest easy.” Before she listed her skills, Sae mentioned that she had gotten so few that she couldn’t possibly forget them.

Magic Aptitude: Fire, Magic Aptitude: Earth, Level 8 Fire Magic

Level 4 Earth Magic

What was she thinking with this skill build...? “Your build is way too specialized, Sae! How many points did you have to spend on all of this?!”

“Well, as you can see, I also chose the elf race, so I spent a total of 150 Points on my skills.”

“You had more points than I did! You should have given it more thought before you decided on what skills to get!” The skill build that I aimed for was a specialized one as well, but I look like a jack-of-all-trades compared to you, Sae!

“Isn’t this a normal skill build for a mage?” Sae asked. “I wasn’t confident in my ability to use a sword, so I felt like it would be easier for me to cast spells from the back lines. I thought our entire class would be transported together, after all.”

“That sounds like a perfectly reasonable strategy,” said Kaho. “Armed with magic of such a high caliber, you would be more than capable of carrying your own weight.”

“That’s only if you can find people with different skill builds to make up a well-balanced party, like in a game! Your strategy was gambling way too much on others!”

People like Sae who had little experience with fantasy games probably assumed a standard party would consist of something like a warrior, a mage, and a priest. That kind of party composition would work fine if you were only taking combat into consideration, but...

“Is that so, Yoshino? I happen to have a skill build that’s rather similar to Sae’s.”

General Knowledge, Attractive Appearance, Weapon Proficiency: Greatswords

Level 8 Greatsword Fighting, Level 3 Peerless Strength

“My race of choice was beastwoman, so I allocated 130 Points for my skills.”

“Your skill build is even worse, Kaho! The only thing you can do is swing around a greatsword!”

General Knowledge only provided information about common sense in this world, Attractive Appearance only affected her looks, and Peerless Strength only increased her strength, so her skill build really was specialized just for swinging around a greatsword.

“Couldn’t you have at least skipped out on getting the Attractive Appearance skill or lowered your Greatsword Fighting Skill to Level 7 in order to have points for other skills?”

“A jack-of-all-trades would have no opportunities to shine, Yoshino. Characters who are unparalleled in a certain field are the ones who can determine the course of fate.”

Doesn’t that only apply to games? This world isn’t a game, so we have to deal with daily life here, unlike in games that only have combat, you know?

“Now then, it’s time for you to reveal your skills as well, Yoshino.”

“Well, my skill build is also kind of specialized, so...”

General Knowledge, Magic Aptitude: Light, Enhanced Mana Capacity

Level 2 Club Fighting, Level 2 Robust, Disease Resistance

Poison Resistance, Level 7 Light Magic, Level 3 Pharmacy

I had aimed for a specialized skill build, but it actually looked pretty normal compared to the builds that Kaho and Sae had decided on.

“Intriguing. Your skill build appears quite well balanced.”

“Yeah, it’s well-balanced compared to you two! The two of you are good for nothing but greatsword combat and magic!”

“I’m glad you chose to specialize in close combat, though, Kaho,” said Sae. “If you’d specialized in magic like I did, then Yoshino would have to be at the front for close combat.”

“Yeah, I’m glad as well,” I said. “I would’ve felt uneasy about being responsible for holding the front line with just Level 2 Club Fighting.”

The fact that none of us had any real defensive skills also made me feel uneasy, but our only option was to have Kaho as our front line while I did my best to cast healing magic on her. Considering how small Kaho was, I felt a bit bad about this arrangement, but it was better than having a mage as our front line.

I blurted out a thought that came to me all of a sudden. “Oh yeah, it looks like none of us took skills like Plunder that seemed absurdly strong.”

Both Kaho and Sae glared at me.

“Who in their right mind would willingly accept a skill that seemed so strong from someone who called himself an evil god? I never considered that an option,” said Kaho.

“Overwhelming power most likely comes at the price of guaranteed doom as well,” said Sae.

“Indeed. It was probably the kind of power that certain gods would offer to humans to tempt them. A skill of that kind would be more fitting for the protagonist or antagonist of a story, but it would most likely lead them to misfortune or to an untimely demise,” said Kaho. “I would be reluctant to play an undistinguished background character whom the game master might choose to snuff out at any moment, but neither do I have any desire to take on the role of a protagonist who would have to overcome all manner of obstacles in her path.”

“Kaho, you’re thinking about this too much like a game—or, well, I can’t really say that, since we actually did meet a god,” I said.

“Is that what you two were talking about earlier in relation to standing out enough as a character?” Sae asked. “It sounds like a hard thing to balance.”

Sae looked like she was a bit amazed at the amount of effort Kaho was putting into role-playing, and I felt the same way. Anyway, we would probably have to go through trials and tribulations due to the fact that we had attracted enough interest from a god for him to give us blessings and powers in the first place. All right, I guess I’ll use my background character power level to help counterbalance Kaho’s main character power level. Part of me wanted to show off like a main character with my amazing healing skills, but oh well.

“Well, thankfully, our party balance isn’t that bad, is it?” I said.

If I had to classify our party, then it was actually a fairly standard one with a warrior, a priest, and a mage.

“Indeed. Fortune has not abandoned us yet. Your skill build would probably have enabled you to support any two other party members regardless of their builds, however.”

“I guess that’s true.” Even if I were in a party with two other warriors, that would still be a pretty standard configuration. A party of three priests with skill builds similar to mine would have been fine as well, since we would all technically be capable of combat and could all heal ourselves as well. The worst combination would be if the two other party members were both mages, since I would have to be the frontline fighter. It would be a bit difficult, but I felt like I would be able to pull it off somehow.

“Even if all of us happened to have skill builds similar to mine, there would still be plenty of paths to circumvent the problem,” said Kaho. “However, we would have no end of trouble if we were all like Sae.”

“Wait, is my skill build bad?”

“Well, no, but we wouldn’t really make a good party of adventurers if we were all mages, you know?” I said.

That kind of party would have overwhelming firepower, but it would also fall apart if enemies got anywhere near us. It was a type of party that would shine in war, not as a normal party of adventurers. In many ways, Sae was probably the one who would have been in the most danger if she’d been transported to this world by herself.

“So I guess we were all blessed with good luck due to the fact that Yoshino didn’t go for a completely specialized build,” said Sae.

“I mean, I decided on these skills with a specialized build in mind. I did think a bit about making it balanced as well, but still.”

Kaho and Sae had been two big factors in my mind when I’d been deciding what skill build to go for. Well, the reason that I had decided to specialize in healing magic with Cure spells was just because I enjoyed the healer role, but I’d also been fairly sure, based on Kaho’s personality, that she would choose skills related to close combat, since I had played tabletop sessions with her before. On the other hand, Sae didn’t really play any games, and she didn’t seem like the type of person who would enjoy the concept of close combat, so I’d been fairly sure she would choose a build that would allow her to attack at range, like a mage or archer. They both ended up with builds that are more specialized than I thought they would be, but my predictions were more or less correct, so the bond of our friendship really is quite strong!

“Well, how about we test our combat abilities before we head somewhere else?” I asked. “It looks like there’s nobody nearby, so that’s convenient for us.”

Our party balance was technically good, but that was just on the surface. None of us had a clear idea of what any of us could actually do. Thankfully, it looked like we had been transported to the middle of a grassy plain somewhere. There was a highway visible nearby, but there were no signs of people on it. It looked like the area we were in was quite safe. However, my General Knowledge skill had taught me that outside of towns, it was normal to encounter monsters roaming around in the wild, so it was important for us to test out our combat abilities. It’s also kind of scary to me that the only one among us who might actually be able to handle combat right now is Sae...

“All right, I’ll start by testing my skills,” said Sae. “The strongest skills I have right now seem to be either Jet Fire or Explosion from my Level 8 Fire Magic.”

“Explosion! The very name of that skill sounds incredibly powerful!” Kaho exclaimed.

“Well, I guess I’ll try that spell out first, then.”

“Oh yeah, just to make sure, remember to cast at a place far away from us,” I said.

“Okay. Explosion!”

The moment Sae exclaimed the name of the spell, a shining spherical object rocketed out of her hands. It was about the size of a baseball and shone bright yellow. It flew as fast as a baseball shot out of a pitching machine and landed dozens of meters away. When it landed, it exploded in a burst of light and sound. That explosion created an enormous crater in the ground and kicked up a huge volume of dust and dirt into the air.

All of us were completely speechless at the sight of this overwhelming destructive power. It had completely surpassed our expectations. As we all fell silent, Sae wobbled on her feet as if she’d lost her balance and then collapsed to the ground.

“Are you okay, Sae?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I feel like I’ve been drained of something, though. Maybe that was my mana?” As she said that, she tried to get on her feet again, but she collapsed back onto the ground and placed one of her hands on her forehead. The spell she’d just used had definitely looked like it would cost a lot of mana given its sheer destructive power. A spell that exhausts almost all of your mana after one use sounds way too costly...

“Might that imply that the level of a magic skill and your total mana capacity are two separate statistics?” Kaho asked. “These simple restrictions upon the use of magic will certainly make life trying for us.”

I had thought that mana points or something like that would also increase if I spent points on increasing the level of a magic skill, but reality wasn’t as simple as games were. It probably wouldn’t be as bad for me, since I had decided to get the Enhanced Mana Capacity skill, but it would still be a good idea to watch out for how much mana each spell consumed.

“I guess I’ll go next? There’s not really much that I can do, though...” As soon as I’d been transported to this world, I’d found that I naturally had a grasp of what kinds of Light Magic spells I could use at my level. However, there’s one problem, and it’s that Light Magic has zero offensive spells! Well, I could use spells like Purification against undead monsters and enchant weapons with the Holy Weapon spell, but those aren’t things I can test right now...

“Oh, are you going to abstain, Yoshino?” Kaho asked. “That would mean it is I who is the next challenger, but...”

“Mm, you don’t have a greatsword on you, so we can’t really test anything. Okay, that’s it for our tests! Yay?”

If we were to summarize what we had discovered from our tests, then we’d learned that Sae’s magic was powerful, but she would only be able to use her most powerful spell once.

As for Kaho and me, we wouldn’t be able to do anything at the moment, even if we encountered a monster.

“Uh, we’re in a bad situation, right...?” Sae asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “The worst part about this is that none of us have weapons.”

“Well, Sae, there is the alternative strategy of picking weaker spells that you can use many times rather than using your strongest spell once,” said Kaho. “Yoshino requires a club to be able to make use of her skill, but there is, in a manner of speaking, a way to deal with that problem. Let’s see...”

She looked around our surroundings for a moment before going and breaking a branch from a nearby tree. The branch was about fifty centimeters long and as thick as my arm, and she stripped it of twigs and leaves before she handed it to me.

“Here. You can use this as a temporary substitute for a club.”

I took the branch from her and swung it around for a bit. However, it would be ridiculous to consider this simple tree branch an actual club.

“This would probably give off a bad impression...” I mean, this branch just makes me look even more suspicious, right?

★★★★★★★★★

“Hmm, you want to perform healing here?”

“Yes. Is that forbidden?” I asked. “We happen to be in need of some more money for our traveling expenses...”

“No, you’re free to do so, since this is outside of town, but...”

Yep, this guard is definitely suspicious of us. We were standing outside the gates of the town that we had discovered down the highway—standing there exposed to the guard’s look of suspicion. That was to be expected, since we were a group of three girls who were just wearing plain clothes. The only possession that any of us had was my fake club, and our group was also a weird mix of races, with a human, an elf, and a beastwoman who looked like a child. If there was any guard out there who wouldn’t be suspicious of a group that was strange in all of those ways, then I would have loved to meet him.

I offered my healing services for free in an attempt to make a good impression. “Well, uhm, we encountered some trouble on the way here, so that’s the reason for our plight. Oh, if you would allow me to prove myself, then I could heal any injuries that you might have.”

Luck happened to be on my side. “I’m not doubting your abilities. I do happen to have a bruise that I suffered the other day. Can you take a look at it?” When he rolled up his sleeve, I saw a black and blue bruise on the guard’s upper arm.

“No problem! Leave this to me.”

It was a great trade: a single use of Light Cure to counter his initial suspicion. I would be able to test out my healing magic as well, so all things considered, this was a very convenient opportunity for me.

“Light Cure.”

Right after I had cast my spell, the bruise healed completely.

The look of suspicion in the guard’s eyes vanished just as quickly as the bruise. “Whoa, it appears you’re quite skilled at healing magic. You’ll definitely be able to earn money for traveling expenses. However, in my experience, it’s rarer to see adventurers with injuries at this gate compared to the gates of other towns.”

“Really...?”

“Yeah. You probably know this as well, since you walked here from the highway, but monsters rarely appear on that road. You would have to be very unlucky to arrive here at this town from Laffan with injuries. If you’re going to heal adventurers in exchange for money, then I would suggest doing it over there outside of the gate on the other side of the river.”

I looked in the direction the guard was pointing, and I saw what looked like a harbor at the end of the straight road in front of us. Oh, so this town is a ferry landing, and it’s more dangerous at the other side of the river. I’d be able to earn more on the other side, but that’s only if we can manage to protect ourselves there.

“Thank you very much for the useful information.”

“Don’t worry about it. Consider it my thanks for the healing.”

I felt like I had just completed a quest in a game, with sound effects playing in the background as a message window like “Yoshino obtained useful information!” popped up. If this were a game, then another message window would have appeared with the words “New Quest: Cross the river while spending as little money as possible!” to indicate what we should do next.

The total amount of money we had between the three of us was thirty large silver coins, and in front of me was a guard with a friendly smile on his face. As for my fellow party members standing behind me, I had Sae, who didn’t have the General Knowledge skill, and Kaho, who definitely looked like she wouldn’t be fit for the task of negotiating with adults due to how small she was. Great, negotiating is most likely going to end up being very difficult! I muttered those words to myself in my mind as I pretended to wipe some sweat off my forehead.