Tap, tap-tap-tap-tap~
There's a sound.
Tap, tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap~
A light rhythm. I like this sound.
A savory smell wafts in from somewhere.
"…Mmm…nnn…"
"Nah!"
Dagaa let out a cry. She smacked my forehead — pat, pat, pat. Subtly annoying.
Meaning "get up," obviously.
"Nah!"
But the new bed's sheets were brand-new white — not straw like before — and the down comforter was too comfortable.
Ah, but fine, I get it. I'll get up. So stop hitting me.
And besides, you're clearly enjoying the hitting at this point.
"Nah?"
Tap, tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap~
That sound again. It's a chopping sound. No — a cutting sound.
A kitchen knife. Right, right.
"…Nnn…nnn…?"
Slowly, I opened my eyes — and there were two rear ends right in front of me.
Two plump, rounded rear ends of the opposite sex, side by side.
"????"
If there were just one, I'd get it. It's Mineha.
As always — big, soft-looking, swaying with innocent nonchalance.
So sexy it's hard to believe they belong to a ten-year-old girl.
They're a grown woman's rear end, plain and simple.
And this morning she's wearing pants. The shape shows through so clearly it's almost dishonest.
I'm used to the sight by now, but it's still a view I could stare at forever.
But today there was a second one, lined up right next to Mineha.
This one wore a white skirt. And something was extending from beneath that skirt.
A pair of white cat tails — one long, one short — swaying lazily, as if they had a mind of their own.
I figured it out immediately. It's Pakira. A rear end in the most literal sense of the word.
"…G-Good… morning…"
"Morning."
"You're up."
When I mumbled my greeting, the two of them turned around.
Mineha and Pakira.
It's a rare miracle when beauty and cuteness are both crammed into this tiny room.
"Pakira…?"
"Mm. I'm borrowing the kitchen."
"Y-Yes. Please, go ahead."
"Of course, I'm Mineha's assistant, but still."
"Your technique is quite impressive."
"Oh. Then perhaps I should learn from you. I'm starting to have fun with this."
"Learning from Lupinus?"
"Her cooking is certainly delicious, but it's not the food of the common folk. I prefer this sort of thing. Especially potatoes—they remind me of my homeland."
"What kind of food is from Pakira's homeland?"
"Let's see. My homeland was a cold place, I recall. What I remember is a warm potato soup. It was a fried pie wrap. Inside, there was a thick soup of vegetables and bacon. You'd eat it with hard bread. If I'm to mention something unique, we had a large pot where we'd throw in lots of eggs, tomatoes, and big chunks of meat to simmer. We'd add special spices, stir, add more, and repeat the stirring until the meat dissolved into the soup."
"That sounds like a lot of work."
"It must be tiring."
Pakira-san smiled at our comments.
Then we ate the breakfast she'd prepared.
Today's menu consisted of two types of fried bread-beans: black and white. There were also fried eggs and thick-cut bacon.
A tomato and onion soup. Pickles. Salted scrambled eggs.
"Ah, these fried bread-beans."
"Surprised, weren't you?"
"To think you'd stuff them with cucumber and meatballs."
They were delicious, kind of like a unique stuffed bun.
Well, Pakira-san and the others were continuing with their requests today.
Incidentally, the reason Pakira-san was here so early this morning was that she'd forgotten to tell them about the change in meeting place.
She said she got here about an hour ago.
"What's the monster everyone's chasing?"
"A chimera variant."
"That's—"
Pakira nodded at me, seeing my eyes go wide.
A chimera variant. The monster from the dungeon where Pakira and the others had been defeated.
I'd beaten it and saved them with the elixirs I'd only just found when they were on the brink of death.
You could say that was where it all started.
"...Are you sure you're alright?"
"Mm. We've figured out what caused the defeat. It was the [Evil Eye]."
"Huh?"
"It's a vision-type Relic. It affects the target just by looking at them."
Mineha was the one who answered.
Not small—she was sitting at the edge of the bed at full size, eating.
Thanks to that, my bed was at full capacity.
"The chimera variant's [Evil Eye] freezes the target's movements for a few seconds..."
"That's the worst."
Just a few seconds. But a few seconds. Having your movement forcibly stopped was fatal.
If I'd fought without knowing about it, losing would have been perfectly understandable... so how did I win?
I'm pretty sure it looked at me plenty, but I don't really remember.
"But don't you worry. The countermeasure is locked down tight."
"It's annoying, but I consulted with that pervert rabbit and had him make anti-Malevolent Gaze glasses for everyone. They're a Legacy, though — they break after four uses."
"Something like that actually exists?"
"Well, for a Legendary, materials were the issue, as you'd expect."
"As long as it blocks the attack, that's plenty."
"Aye, that it is."
"...Oh, come to think of it, where's Haiarn?"
I noticed she was gone. The two of us looked down at the bronze jar under the kitchen.
There again. Geniuses and idiots really are separated by a razor's edge.
"That reminds me of Haiarn," Gauro said.
"What about her?"
"With the venue for the Grade I gathering here, the local security's been going to pot, it has."
"That's right."
"Um, what do you mean?"
"I don't think I mentioned it. We were attacked by a bunch of men on the way back yesterday."
"Huh? Wait — you and Torquetam were attacked? You were attacked?!"
"Aye. Hard to believe, isn't it?"
"I was stunned, honestly. I knew it was coming, so I lured them to a spot where no one was around, and they just lunged. Dumber than monsters, those ones."
"So what happened after that?"
"We couldn't help ourselves — we finished off the ones who deserved it and tied the rest up to hand over to the guards. That's when we heard a flood of outsiders has been pouring in. Attacks, thefts — all kinds of incidents. We weren't the only ones targeted. Apparently there's been real damage across the board."
"…The damages too."
"Sounds like they found them before anything was carried off and stopped the worst of it, at least. But now the guards are so short on hands that they've had to put out escort and patrol requests to delvers."
"Even so, just attacking out of nowhere like that…"
Some new breed of would-be suicides?
"Hydrangea's actually on the better end when it comes to safety. In other places, it happens all the time. It's a crime, of course, but whether anyone actually treats it as one is a whole other story."
"The village we stayed at during that escort job had some kind of custom of nocturnal visits. It was awful."
"There were places where nobles had their fingers in it behind the scenes, too. Master wiped them out, though."
"Wow… women couldn't really live normally in places like that."
How does that stuff even work.
"People living normal lives get caught up in it too, I'm sure, but most of it targets delvers. Delvers have a strong sense of personal responsibility — they can lose their lives in a dungeon — and that gets exploited."
"That's the foundation of it, after all. Search parties are practically nonexistent."
"In the end, all you can do is get stronger."
"I suppose that's how it is."
"……"
Listening to all this, I couldn't help but feel how unfair everything was.
As a man myself, it felt like I was somehow being held responsible, and it was almost more than I could bear.
"What are you doing today, Wof?"
"Huh? Oh, um, I've got bow practice today."
"A bow?"
"I'm learning from Juicy right now."
Because this conversation is followed by [that], I feel guilty about putting things off.
I was looking forward to it, but I made a promise, and Juicy is looking forward to it too.
So I'm definitely going.
"Ah, Juicy does indeed handle a bow."
"Surprisingly, unlike Bid, she's old-school."
"Well, Bid is traditional too…"
"That one's been obsessed with the sword lately. Thanks to someone, mind you."
Pakira looks at me with an ironic expression.
"Ha ha ha…"
"Well, now. It's not a bad thing — quite the opposite, really. That one, you know, after the party disbanded, she completely fell apart. At one point she was even thinking of quitting as a delver and heading back to the countryside."
"Is that so?"
"Thanks to you, she has no intention of quitting as a delver for the time being."
Pakira smiles softly.
"I'm glad to hear that."
"…Party disbandment, huh. That's the kind of thing that weighs on you. Sometimes for decades."
Perhaps recalling something, Mineha suddenly speaks up.
"Did something happen?"
"It certainly isn't about you."
"—It's about my master. Ever since her husband passed away, she's been solo the whole time."
"The one they say used to team up with the Witch."
Axe's father. So he was already gone.
"Yes. My mother, my father, the witch, my master, my master's husband, and one more person — that was the party. The name was 'White Daphne,' if I remember correctly."
"Quite the roster."
"A legendary party that blazed through everything. But during a high-difficulty dungeon exploration, my master's husband died in an unforeseen accident, and the party broke up. After that, my master never formed another party. Just substitute work and solo runs. She said she could never be in one again."
"Can't blame her."
"My master is an elf, but I doubt she'll ever remarry for the rest of her life."
"...A thousand years, huh."
Pakira groaned.
The average lifespan of an elf is said to be a thousand years.
Mineha smiled bitterly.
"Probably. My mother is the same way."
"That's love, alright."
"...Come to think of it, I've never heard Axe talk about his father."
"Axe's father died shortly after Axe was born. My master was still carrying the shock of it, and she said she never really talked to him about his father. On top of that, they'd had a falling out, so they lost the chance to talk. I think things are probably different now, but my master hasn't been in touch at all."
"Honestly," Mineha sighed.
"Axe told me the same. She sends letter after letter, but never gets a reply."
"That's got to be worrying."
"The worst case...?"
"—Knowing my master, she's probably fine with all that. If she had died, we would have already received word of her passing."
That was certainly true.
I casually asked the witch about it.
"That's a tough one, even for me. If either Lupinus or Riv died and Torquetam fell apart, I'd probably never join another party again."
"Is that so?"
"I don't know about Lupinus and Riv, but that's how it is for me."
"They'd probably feel the same way."
"What do you mean?"
"Huh?"
"Thunder Fang. Axe and the others."
Pakira and I both nodded in understanding.
After breakfast, we got ready to head out.
"Oh, Wof. Pick up the usual meat on your way back."
"The cheap cuts are fine?"
"Yep, and bacon too. We used the last of it today."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"Let me see — cucumbers. Onions. Potatoes. Cabbage. Green onions. We still have bread-bean, so that's fine. Get extra onions and cucumbers, okay? Hey, we still have panko and flour, right?"
"We do."
"Then that's all I need."
"Understood."
A rapid-fire stream of instructions.
She must have thought of something for tonight's dinner or tomorrow's breakfast.
Mineha seemed to have awakened to cooking, to the point where she was now buying recipe books.
Not only that, but recently she had also taken the initiative with all the housework I'd been handling on my own.
She's really grown. That's a good thing.
"Oh right. That reminds me — dried meat. New—"
"Want some!"
"Yes please!"
She dove right in without hesitation. Haha... I'd made a huge batch, so I'd let her have a generous portion.
Oh, salt. I should start buying that by the jar soon.
Come to think of it, am I forgetting something?
Speaking of which, Dagaa. He's unusually quiet. — Turns out he'd already fallen asleep after finishing his food.
Well, I guess he'll head over to Mineha's place again today.
Oh — ah, I remember. The heyarn! I hurriedly pulled it out of the jar.
On the walk home from archery practice, feeling somewhat satisfied.
Just as I'd set my course toward the butcher's first, someone called out to me.
"Um, excuse me. Have you happened to see a dog around here?"
A husky voice, speaking hesitantly from slightly below my line of sight.
She was an elf woman with dark skin and long blue hair gathered into a single ponytail.
She wore something like a blue military uniform and carried a sword at her hip. Her pale green eyes wavered with anxiety.
Her blue hair was even more vivid than my own. There was a kind of trained, translucent beauty about her.
"A dog? What does it look like?"
A dog search, huh? Putting aside the present situation, Hydrangea's crime rate is actually pretty good.
But stray dogs and cats are just as common here as anywhere else.
We do get the occasional commission to find a lost dog or cat, but it's no easy task.
"Yes. It's a very large dog with blue fur, and it carries a greatsword on its back."
"Th-that's quite the unforgettable feature, isn't it."
I had a feeling it would be found in no time.