"It's... so delicious..."
Tinno said with a blissful, melted smile. The chocolate parfait turned out to be even more extraordinary than its stellar reputation suggested.
In a glass vessel roughly thirty centimeters tall, ice cream, chocolate, and crispy cookies were piled high, lavishly adorned with whipped cream and sauce. Perched on top was a chocolate crown, and it truly carried the regal presence befitting a king.
Being from a land famous for chocolate, the quality was impeccable, but more impressive still was the sheer quantity. If Liliz or Citry saw this, they'd surely grimace.
But what truly elevated the flavor above all else was something Tinno had overheard from other hunters outside — intelligence that a horde of orcs had moved on to somewhere else entirely.
When you've got something weighing on your mind, even the sweetest treat loses its appeal.
I didn't know the reason, but the trouble seemed to be moving away from us of its own accord. It felt like fortune was turning in our direction. It was proof that I'd managed to rein in my childhood friends and keep everyone out of harm's way. Not bad... me!
Tinno was smiling, and I was smiling too — everything was going perfectly.
I felt like skipping with joy, but that wouldn't be very hardboiled, so I settled for a quiet smile. I wasn't about to throw up!
But... this was perhaps a bit too much food.
I looked down at my own parfait. I've got a sweet tooth, but unlike other hunters, I'm no big eater. I'd been moving the spoon at a decent pace, yet half the parfait still remained in the pristine glass.
Meanwhile, Tinno had ordered the same thing and had long since finished, sitting perfectly still. Hunters tend to eat fast and eat a lot. Just where in that slender frame did all that parfait go?
It felt wrong to leave it behind, but... should I have Tinno eat it? No, well, you know... with Citry and Liliz, people I'd been close to forever, that would be one thing, but having a junior handle a guy's leftovers? That just didn't sit right.
Hunters who traverse this harsh world have developed resistance to everything ordinary folk would shun. So Tinno probably wouldn't mind, but it might shatter the hardboiled impression of Master... though maybe that ship had already sailed?
Tinno's jet-black eyes were looking up at me. Despite having been through so much hardship, those eyes still held nothing but pure respect for me.
Hmm... if Tinno was still hungry, I could always order more.
After wrestling with myself, I tentatively pulled out a stick-shaped cookie that had been stuck in the parfait and offered it toward Tinno. No one had bitten into it, and this much should be fine.
Tinno's eyes went wide, and they darted around nervously.
"!?! Um... uh, what... ehhh... I... I'll have it."
Tinno hesitated and hesitated, face turning beet-red, before taking a nibble of the cookie.
The white skin flushed crimson all the way to the ears — Tinno really did look embarrassed. This was an expression I'd never seen among our group, and for some reason it made me feel like I was training a wild animal.
I supposed that if the roles were reversed, I might feel a little embarrassed too.
"Good?"
"...Yes. It's... very sweet... Mastaa."
Tinno answered in a small voice while chewing gently. Truly a lover of sweets.
...I really needed to rack up points during this vacation so that Tinno would protect me when the time came.
I was enjoying a rare, peaceful mood on what felt like a date with Tinno when a middle-aged man emerged from the back of the shop. He wore a large white hat, and his stout frame was wrapped in a white apron.
The reason I immediately got the impression that he was friendly was probably because I was so accustomed to seeing intimidating-looking hunters. He walked over to us without hesitation, looked back and forth between Tinno — who had put up a slightly guarded expression — and me, and then said in a lowered voice: "...Forgive the sudden intrusion. I do apologize if I've mistaken you for someone else, but could you possibly be — the one they call 'Thousand Transformations'?"
"!!??"
Even with a fake ID, how had he figured it out? I studied his face without letting my expression slip, but as expected, I had no memory of him.
I didn't react, but apparently that was the wrong call, because the man broke into a grin and nodded deeply, as though a suspicion had been confirmed.
"So it really is...! I have been waiting for you for so long! I am the owner of this shop—"
His tone was practically trembling with excitement.
He extended his hand for a handshake, and I went along with it. He must have been involved in making the parfait too — his hands carried the scent of chocolate.
I'd been recognized by hunters before, but having an ordinary citizen see through my identity just from watching me eat sweets — that was a first. And this level of enthusiasm was directed at a hunter, no less, someone you'd typically associate with a rough-and-tumble image. Even Tinno's eyes had gone round as saucers.
"In this world — you are very famous. You might be the most famous hunter there is. The legendary treasure hunter who visits every café and pâtisserie in the land and abroad! They say that any shop he visits will prosper and find happiness for years to come!... The epithet given to you, named after how you'd order item after item until you'd conquered the entire menu — 'Thousand Transformations'!"
"! Impressive, Mastaa... indeed."
"!?"
This was information I was hearing for the first time, and I couldn't help but take a second look at the shop owner.
I'd been hiding my identity all this time, so how was it so obvious? And I couldn't make heads or tails of being treated like a fairy of good fortune. This was anything but hardboiled.
...So I had that kind of reputation... I could never casually go outside again. I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. There was nothing impressive about it at all. What kind of epithet was 'conquering the menu'?
"Your black hair and black eyes, and the young lady by your side — those are proof enough. I had been eagerly anticipating the day you'd visit my shop, but I never imagined you'd come at such a difficult time..."
"...No problem. The orc matter has already been handled by Mastaa. You may rest easy. ...The chocolate parfait was truly excellent."
"I didn't do anything?!"
I butted into the conversation that Tinno and the shop owner were carrying along on their own.
I could accept being welcomed for my visit in a pinch, but being praised for something I hadn't actually done was a problem. It would create obligations.
"The ones actually fighting the orcs are other hunters, not me. Don't forget that. The orcs leaving the fortress was also... probably just coincidence. Right, Tinno? I didn't do anything."
"Mastaa says it was a coincidence, so it was a coincidence. I'm sorry, shop owner, please forget what was said earlier."
"Ah... I see. If that's how it is..."
The shop owner nodded with a knowing look as Tinno, for some reason puffing out his chest with supreme confidence, retracted his previous words.
§ "Welcome back! I've been waiting forever! Big sis wanted to tail you, but I stopped her!"
"Seriously!? I was thinking the same thing, y'know! Klye, you're back! What's that — a souvenir?"
It had gotten noisy all at once the moment I opened the front door.
I caught Liliz as she lunged at me, then handed the box the shop owner had given me as a parting gift to Citry.
Inside was apparently an assortment of chocolates from Gra, the local specialty. If I was going to get souvenirs out of the deal, maybe I should accept the seat of chocolate spiritgrace gracefully.
Just moments ago, Tinno had been walking beside me with a constant smile, but now that smile had vanished, replaced by a composed expression.
I had a long history with Liliz and the others, but Tinno had known them for several years too by now. Tinno seemed to have a good grasp of how to deal with them.
Liliz took my arm, rubbing her cheek against it, and said: "It was so boring I almost considered storming the fortress myself! Looks like there's been quite a bit of damage — there's probably a ton of pent-up frustration, right?"
"Yeah, the fortress is apparently empty now."
"Huh!? What do you mean?"
After leaving the café, I'd gone around town with Tinno to check on the situation, just to be safe.
I didn't want the shop owner acting on some bad information and ending up with buyer's remorse.
In short, the intel Tinno had gathered from passing hunters — that the orcs had abandoned the fortress — appeared to be true.
The orc horde that left the fortress hadn't attacked Gra and was instead rampaging across the plains as if out of control.
The cause was unknown, but for Gra, it was an extraordinary stroke of luck. If an orc horde were running wild on the main highway, it would become a problem that needed to be resolved at a national level immediately.
The money and manpower involved would be on a completely different scale. Attacking a fortress near a forest was a pain, but on the plains, wide-area offensive magic could be used. The number of hunters gathering would also increase.
If there was a single concern, it was that the orcs' behavior seemed to have changed.
They were apparently running without even caring about self-harm, and in the wake of the horde's passage, orc corpses were strewn everywhere. For intelligent demi-human-type monsters to lose themselves to that degree was unnatural. And irregularities like these were exactly what we, the Mourning Specter, had been struggling with for so long.
Would they be all right? I was a little worried, but then again, all I could do was worry.
Citry, who had been listening with a beaming smile, suddenly clapped her hands as though remembering something, but said nothing and simply turned toward Tinno.
She pointed to a potion bottle sitting on the living room table.
"Here you go, Tee-chan. I brewed a Sleep Potion so you can get a good night's rest."
A Sleep Potion as preparation for a good night's rest... The potions Citry used as a hunter were primarily designed to be effective against monsters and phantoms. They were specially formulated with potency high enough to work on beings that possessed natural resistance to drugs — far too dangerous for a human to consume.
I doubted she'd actually slip it to a junior, of course, but there was an even simpler solution.
"Oh, it's fine. I'll let Tinno use the bed next to mine instead of the sofa."
"...Huh?"
Citry froze with her smile still plastered on her face, and Tinno's eyes went wide.
The cause of the insomnia seemed to be anxiety, and Tinno had shown me a genuinely nice smile during our date today. Surely, from Tinno's perspective, having the strongest person ever lying right beside them would be enough to relax and fall asleep.