I slipped into Shidoru-tei a little off-peak, and the place was quiet — like the calm after a storm.
Still, there were a handful of scattered customers, though both the counter and the tables were wide open.
"Huh."
I spotted a familiar face. A stocky build. A square jaw.
A bulbous nose. Shaggy hair. Clothes that looked like they were made of fur.
It was Hoss. Sitting alone at a table. I walked over.
"Hey there."
"Oh. Hey."
"Mind if I sit?"
"Go ahead. It's free."
I took the seat across from him.
I ordered my usual butter rice and lemonade.
"Just you? Where are Axe and Rel?"
Hoss is a dwarven Rank IV delver.
The three of them — Hoss, Axe, and Rel — form a party called Thunder Fang.
He took a swig of ale before speaking.
"Axe went back home. Family stuff."
"He went back?"
Being with that family again... Well, they weren't bad people, but...
"Rel's going back to her family home too. Got called out of the blue and went with her sisters, apparently."
"Rel too, huh."
She hates going home, so that's unusual.
I wonder if Juicy went back as well.
"So that's why Thunder Fang's shut down for the time being."
"...I see... Oh, speaking of which, Hoss. You free right now?"
"Well, now that you mention it, I guess I am."
Hoss smiled, a touch wry.
"Actually, I'm heading to the trading city of Heizen soon."
"Oh, Heizen. That's quite the trip, that is."
"If you're interested, would you want to come along, Hoss?"
"Wait, me?"
He looked genuinely taken aback.
Did I say something weird?
"Yeah. Only if you're up for it."
"What're you going out there for, then? Job?"
I told him about the letter from my uncle.
"—So that's the situation."
"Your uncle's got a whole separate hideout? Who the heck is this guy?"
"Beats me. I've been wondering the same thing."
All I could do was smile wryly. What kind of person was he, really?
Back in the day, I'd thought he was a renowned delver.
Hoss asked for a refill on his ale.
Then the butter rice and lemonade I'd ordered arrived.
I picked up my spoon and dug in.
"—Those guys are gonna take quite a while to get back."
"Is that so?"
"Rel aside, Axe especially. Her hometown's pretty far."
"Come to think of it, I think I heard something about that."
I was pretty sure there wasn't even a guild out there.
"And even with Rel, there's that Tassan business. She'll be stuck there for at least a month, easy. That's why I was figuring I'd go solo for a while. I mean, I can get by, sure… but something about it just doesn't sit right with me, so lately I've been killing time at the bottle like this."
"Drinking yourself into a stupor isn't good, you know."
"Yeah, I know that much."
Hoss. Could it be that he was lonely?
I ate about half the butter rice. The broccoli in it today was really good.
"Hoss, why don't you come along after all?"
"Why me?"
"We've been together for ages, and besides, I want to drink your odds-and-ends soup again."
"That stuff? I can make you a mountain of it."
"Hoss, your odds-and-ends soup. I love it. I've been trying all sorts of things myself, but I just can't get it to turn out like yours."
"Anyone can make it if they just follow the recipe."
"There are things like that, sure, but there are things that aren't, too."
In my past life, I'd been a chef at a famous hotel — but then my father collapsed.
He passed away not long after, and I ended up taking over the family ramen shop on short notice.
But people kept telling me it didn't taste like Dad's.
That was infuriating, but I could feel it myself, too.
Even when I followed the leftover recipes to the letter, something was different.
It took me a good while to figure out what that something was.
"...Is that so, now."
"Yeah. The butter rice here at the Cider Pavilion is the same way."
To be honest, it's not the exact same taste as that coffee shop.
That flavor probably felt the way it did because the master made it there, in that place.
And — because she was there.
I was done eating. Yep. The broccoli was good today.
Hoss looked at me and drained his ale.
"Heisen, huh. I've lived there before, actually."
"You have?"
"Mm, well, it's not some unfamiliar land. Sure enough, it'd make for a decent way to kill time."
Hoss grinned wide.
"Hoss!"
"So who else is coming? It's not just you alone, is it?"
"Mineha, probably. And Bidd."
"Bidd — that rabbit girl?"
"Yeah. She's reliable."
"I know her party broke up and she's been solo ever since. Good thing she's not someone I've never met."
We'd ended up in the same group once before, during that dungeon incident.
"So we set out in four days."
"Got it. I'll get my preparations done too. But with four of us, renting a carriage might be the way to go."
"We'd rent one?"
"The public coach with all its transfers is pretty brutal. To get to Haizen, you'd have to switch three or four times."
"That many...?"
I hadn't known that. I'd been planning to look into the details later.
Huh. This was unexpected. Was it really that bad?
"That's why a rented carriage would be easier. We can do things at our own pace, and there's no risk of trouble with other passengers. Especially with Mineha and Bidd being so easy on the eyes — you'd better assume trouble's coming if other people are around."
"I see..."
In fact, they already ran into trouble just walking around town on a regular basis.
Though they solved it all themselves every time.
"You ought to ask the witch about it."
"Understood. I'll ask her."
"Four days from now, right."
"Yes. I was thinking we could meet up once before then."
"Got it. Let me know when it's getting close."
"Will do!"
And just like that, we finished eating and went our separate ways.
A carriage, huh. That was a blind spot.
Maybe I should look into borrowing one.
The way Hoss put it, meeting spots were crawling with danger.
Their looks alone were guaranteed to draw eyes. Especially Mineha's.
It hadn't even been a year since we first met, and she'd become almost unrecognizably beautiful.
People say women change, but at ten years old? Something didn't quite add up.
Speaking of carriages — the ones trotting through town right now were the kind I knew.
Even now, one was passing by on the carriage road beside me. Just an ordinary carriage, the same kind that existed in my memories from my past life.
But this world had something called a "giant carriage."
To put it in terms I could easily grasp — think train cars.
Picture four of those linked side by side, then four rows deep. That was the kind of freight wagon we were talking about.
That was roughly the scale of the thing.
They were so massive that even the horses pulling them had to be monster horses.
Link several of those together, and you had a caravan.
A dozen or more giant carriages linked up, with several hundred people including guards, all on the move.
It was practically a mobile village.
I'd once received hospitality from Hydrangea, on my way there.
I stayed for about a week. I hope everyone's doing well.
"If I'm going to borrow a carriage, I'd love to get a giant one."
That's probably too much to hope for. I smile wryly.
"Even so, it's gotten quiet."
I can feel the atmosphere around the city has calmed down too.
That was a kind of fever. A pleasant one, though.
"Oh my, isn't that Sir Wof over there?"
I turn toward the voice, and a soft, wistfully familiar scent drifts by.
Jet-black hair, gathered into a single bundle with a white cloth.
Her eyes are covered by a white cloth with a thin red line drawn straight across it.
Long, pointed ears. A fierce yet beautiful face.
She wears a white hakama with light armor over it, and a large black hat sits atop her head.
Two blades hang at her waist — a First-Class delver, same as the witches.
Her epithet, if I recall, was "The Halving Blade."
And "Impregnable."
Kaede Akima.
"Hello."
"Indeed. It has been a hundred years since we last met."
"Isn't that some kind of fate?"
"Oh, so it is."
Kaede laughed with a dry cackle and gave a small cough to clear his throat.
"Well then, let's start over. Meeting here must be some kind of fate. Won't you humor me for a little while?"
"Sure."
Well, I had nothing better to do, so why not.