Peering out the window, I watched the gentle hills roll by.
There was something peaceful about the pastoral scenery—so different from the developed imperial capital. Other than the well-maintained road we were traveling on, there were no signs of human activity, and not a single other traveler in sight.
The monsters and animals that occasionally appeared were mostly docile, and almost none attacked the carriage. On the rare occasion one did, the three people Citry had hired dispatched it without fuss. I didn't even need to step outside.
One day had passed since we fled Eran. The weather was perfectly clear. Under a sky so transparent you could see right through it, our leisurely carriage ride was proceeding without a hitch.
When we'd been hit by that massive storm on the first day, I'd wondered what would become of us, but apparently this was what travel along the main roads was like.
While we weren't in the middle of a town, the imperial territory was generally safe. You still needed to defend yourself against monsters and Phantoms, but the big ones were exterminated, so as long as you hired reasonable guards and picked your route, getting around posed no problem.
Even so, being able to casually venture through monster territory and enjoy beautiful scenery like this—that was a privilege only Hunters could claim.
This is the way it should be. This right here.
I slouched lazily out the carriage window, gazing at the scenery, and yawned once more.
That was when a low, irritable voice came from behind me.
"...Bored."
Riz was someone who simply couldn't stand sitting still.
As far as I remembered, she was always on the move. When traveling long distances by carriage, she basically ran outside the whole time, and whenever she had free time in town, she threw herself into training. She didn't seem to hate bookwork, but compared to when she was doing practical exercises, she was clearly bored out of her mind.
For someone like her, being forbidden from intense training and cooped up inside a carriage was apparently excruciating.
Still, she'd lasted a full day—she was showing more patience than I'd expected.
Tino, who had been quietly reading a book in the corner of the carriage, looked up and turned her eyes—still sporting the same dark circles she'd had yesterday—at her perpetually irritated master.
"Ti, I'm bored. If something exciting doesn't happen soon, I'm going to die of tedium. Can't you do something fun? Come on, hurry up!"
"Eh...!? Um... how about we study Treasure Weapons? Master Marchis gave me a beginner's book—"
"No way! Forget that—do something interesting!"
"Huh? Huh? ...Then, then... how about I do an impression of Branch Chief Gaark? The, um—"
Before Tino could carry through with yet another reckless response to her master's reckless prompting, I turned around inside the carriage.
What on earth was diminutive little Tino planning to do for an impression of that towering man? I was curious, but fixing Riz's bad mood was going to be difficult either way.
Riz's attention switched from Tino to me in an instant. Tino, who had been putting on a stern-faced Gaark act, hurriedly composed her expression.
Riz crawled over on all fours with a bright smile.
"Hey, Klye. I'm bored. Hey, I've got a great idea! I'll run outside, and I'll hold onto a rope attached to a crate, and you ride on top of it. It'd be way faster than this carriage, and you'd feel the wind—I bet it'd feel amazing! This wouldn't count as training, right?"
We used to play like that back in the day... It was part of Riz's training regimen, so I was always the one riding the crate.
But with Riz as she was now, she'd pick up too much speed and I'd get flung off.
"Aww, this is supposed to be a long trip with Klye for the first time in ages, but Ti and Cit keep getting in the way, and these restrictions are way too strict! If I don't use my muscles, they might atrophy... Hey, have they? Take a look!"
She flopped onto her back and bared her sun-tanned stomach for inspection.
Her skin was unblemished as always—not a single scar. She didn't look overly muscular, but there was no excess fat either; she had the lean, supple beauty of a wild animal.
Mana Material enhancement didn't really show on the outside to begin with. Even if she showed me her stomach, I had no way of telling whether her strength had decreased, but I was pretty sure it hadn't...
While I studied her skin with interest, Riz extended both hands toward me with a vaguely enchanting smile.
"Hey, Klye... pay attention to me?"
"Sis! Stop acting so undignified!"
Citry, who had been writing up until that moment, swung her leg down onto the exposed stomach in a heel-drop motion.
Tino scooted backward frantically, and Riz, having been kicked, sprang upright.
"Hey?! What do you think you're doing?! Don't get in my way!"
"Because you're trying to cause trouble for Klye! Sis, you're always like this—! If you want to run so badly, just run with Ti! Klye said it was okay to train if you really can't hold back!"
Here we go again. Whether to call it "they fight because they're close" or what, I wasn't sure...
Not only did Tino and I have to watch, but the coachman on the driver's seat could surely hear every word too. Neither of them seemed to care.
"I t-o-l-d you, I'm not falling for that trick! Besides, it's pointless! Klye is crazy about me, so everything you do is wasted effort! Get lost! Just because Lucia isn't here doesn't mean you get to—"
Riz declared loudly.
So that was it... Lucia wasn't here, and that was why they were fighting. Come to think of it, when things got like this, it was usually Lucia or Anthem who stepped in to break it up.
In particular, Lucia Roje had been my adoptive sister and was always nearby, scolding me for being lazy, so she'd naturally ended up mediating the arguments that erupted in front of her. As an aside, for some reason it always ended up being me who got scolded instead.
But come to think of it... Lucia, huh.
While Tino panicked, the argument escalated.
The restrictions I'd imposed had probably given Citry a fair amount of stress too. The normally calm Citry would never have gotten this heated.
Maybe I needed to rethink the limits.
"I'm not like Sis, causing trouble for Klye! Besides, I've told you over and over—! Sis and Klye are genetically incompatible!"
"We're sisters, so you've got the same genes, you idiot! That's exactly what makes you so underhanded! You little cat burglar!"
Genetic compatibility—I'd never heard that expression before.
In a rare show of emotion, Citry's cheeks were flushed with excitement. Had she worked herself up too much? Without thinking, Citry pulled a white potion from her pouch in a smooth motion. Before anyone could stop her, she hurled it at Riz.
The potion came flying, glittering in the sunlight streaming through the window. Riz dodged it as a matter of course. The potion sailed out the open window and hit the ground. The sound of shattering glass rang out.
"Why did you dodge it?!"
"Of course I dodged it, idiot! You're always making nothing but useless potions! If you screw up and get captured, I am absolutely not coming to save you!"
The argument raged on as the carriage continued forward.
I leaned out the window and looked back, but at this point my eyesight couldn't pick out any trace of Citry's potion.
...Was it going to be okay? I furrowed my brow while enjoying the fresh breeze.
I really wished they'd stop throwing potions during arguments. Recovery potions were one thing, but half of Citry's potion stockpile was offensive.
"Come on, break it up. Riz, we'll be in the next town soon, so just hold on a little longer. ...Citry, about that potion you threw—is it going to be alright?"
I wedged myself between the two of them as they glared at each other, belatedly feeling like a Party leader for the first time in a while.
Citry and Riz argued frequently, but it almost never escalated to the point of genuine hostility. The fact that Riz's first-person pronoun hadn't changed was proof of that.
This time too, once I intervened, the tension eased slightly from both their expressions.
"...Fiiine."
"I'm sorry. I got a little carried away... The potion just now? That was—"
So that was only "a little"... They really were sisters.
Riz plopped down on the floor, and Citry caught her breath.
The next town would be my first time visiting too. It wasn't a particularly large town, but apparently its specialty was chocolate. The imperial capital had access to everything, so I'd eaten it before, but I was still looking forward to it a bit.
Once Citry had returned to her usual expression, she spoke in a near-whisper.
"That potion was... an enhanced version of the dangerous 'Monster Attractant' I made for training purposes. If Klye needs one, I can make it, but—"
I wasn't exactly in a position to complain, but wasn't she being a little too indiscriminate with her methods for training?
"...You dropped it just now, didn't you? Isn't that dangerous?"
"It's fine. It wouldn't matter in town, but out here it'll disperse on its own with time. ...Even if something did happen, there's no evidence we were involved."
Citry flashed a reassuring smile.