Chapter 8
“…What kind of situation is this now?”
“Oh, you're here?”
While I watched Lucy's face melt as she lay beneath my wings,
Huey approached, looking as though the swelling had gone down a little, and asked in an incredulous voice.
“As you can see. You were taking so long, so I was killing time.”
“Heehee….”
“Huh, she's completely melted already.”
Even as he said that, judging by the way his gaze kept stealing glances at my wings, he seemed quite envious.
Still, I'm not doing it for you.
“Lucy. We have to go.”
“Just a little longer….”
Despite Huey's calling her, Lucy did nothing but shake her head back and forth instead of moving.
“She won't move at all.”
With a baffled look, Huey even tugged at her cheek and poked her forehead with a finger.
But Lucy's expression remained melted, so she apparently had no intention of moving.
In the end, Huey sighed and turned to me.
“Ren. Aren't you getting hungry?”
His intention was obvious, but
I was hungry, so I decided to let it pass.
“Come to think of it, I am.”
“It's almost lunchtime, so shouldn't we go before it gets any later?”
“True. Lucy, that's enough. Let's go.”
Just as I tried to pull my wings away from Lucy, intending to get moving, I felt resistance.
And then….
“…Ah. It came out.”
“Aaaagh!!”
I felt excruciating pain at the spots on both wings corresponding to a human's elbows.
As I screamed while clutching both wings, I saw Lucy holding two large feathers, one in each hand.
“My feathers! My featherrrs!!”
After rolling around on the ground for a while from pain that couldn't even be compared to forcibly plucking hair from a human body,
“Ugh, it stings….”
I'd honestly rather be cut by a sword or burned by magic.
A strange sensation like having my feathers plucked was seriously too much.
“…Are you all right?”
“I-I'm sorry….”
As I stroked the spots where the feathers had been plucked, the two of them spoke in worried voices.
“No, no. It's just an unfamiliar kind of pain.”
If I'd known this would happen, I should've just waited until Lucy moved.
Who would have thought she was holding on to my feathers?
“Um… Ren?”
“Huh?”
Just as I hurried to leave, afraid we'd really miss lunchtime,
Lucy called out to me, clutching one red feather in each hand.
“What should I do with these feathers?”
“Who knows? Just throw them away or something.”
Seeing them only made my wings sting more, so I wanted her to get rid of them somehow.
“If you don't mind, can I have them? Since I have the chance, I thought I'd try making a quill.”
“Do as you please.”
“Okay. Lucy, give them to me.”
“Here.”
A quill… I remembered my master using one quite often.
If my master saw me as I was now, what would they say?
“Ren?”
…There was a very high chance they'd enthusiastically pummel me, saying I'd ended up like this because my mind was weak.
Though that would be a repeat of what happened right after I met my master, when I managed to survive.
“Ren!”
“Whoa, you startled me. What?”
Thinking of my master after mentioning the quill, I broke out in a cold sweat, and Huey called out to me loudly.
“You're finally back with us. We're here.”
“Oh, we're here already.”
As Huey said, when I looked ahead, we had somehow already arrived in front of the gate.
“There are a lot of people….”
“I suppose that's to be expected for a city this large.”
“Looks like we won't be eating lunch for quite a while.”
I marveled as I watched merchants, adventurers, and all sorts of other people traveling in and out of the city line up and follow the guards' directions.
I'd been to Dublin a few times, but I didn't remember it ever being this crowded… There are way too many people, seriously.
“Stop. First, please prove your identity.”
After waiting for quite some time like that.
“Here it is.”
“Here.”
“I've confirmed it. Welcome to Dublin.”
As Huey and Lucy presented their respective adventurer registration cards and passed through,
I too presented the adventurer registration card hanging from my chest and was just about to enter the city.
“Stop.”
“Huh?”
A guard's spear shaft suddenly blocked my path.
“What is it all of a sudden?”
“Um, is there a problem?”
“It seems there may be an issue.”
When I stared at the guard in disbelief, I saw that he seemed wary of something.
There definitely seemed to be something going on.
“We need to verify the authenticity of your adventurer registration card.”
Unlike the forceful tone he'd used with the other people, Huey, and Lucy just moments earlier,
Normally, I would've smashed him without bothering with the circumstances, but this time I wasn't alone.
“…Fine.”
I obediently gripped the case containing my adventurer registration card with both wings and let mana flow through it.
Adventurer registration cards had a mechanism that reacted to the adventurer's mana, which had been added during their creation.
“Hmm….”
The emblem of the Adventurer's Guild—an eagle symbolizing freedom—appeared in red on the card. As the guard watched it emerge, his expression soon relaxed, and he bowed to me.
“I'm sorry. There have been some incidents recently, so please forgive the discourtesy.”
From what I heard, several unidentified beastkin had apparently been committing robberies in the area recently.
So the higher-ups had ordered the guards to tighten inspections of beastkin.
“Ugh, I'm hungry.”
Perhaps the pointless altercation had drained me, because when I entered the street clutching my growling stomach,
“Oh, it's a proper city for once.”
“It is.”
The line outside evidently hadn't been for show.
Huey and Lucy marveled at the streets teeming with people.
“Tasty skewers here!”
“Hey, come look at this! I told you this trading trip was a huge success!”
“Wow, how many gold coins is that?”
“Come see the Ubaur bear that just arrived from the north this morning!”
It was definitely a lively place.
I considered getting a skewer, but it was pretty hard to eat one with these arms.
“It's quieter over here.”
“There are a lot of people coming and going near the gate.”
After leaving the outskirts of the city, packed with hawkers, the city proper came into view.
In the distance stood a huge lord's castle, and over there was the Adventurer's Guild building… Ah, the restaurants are this way.
“Let's eat something first.”
“Sure. I'm starting to feel peckish, too.”
“Let's do that.”
We set off, already smelling the various foods whetting my appetite.
“Ren, how about that place?”
As I turned at Huey's voice while wondering what to eat,
“Oh….”
I saw a large tavern wafting the rich aroma of savory butter.
Judging by how tall the building was, it seemed to double as an inn….
“Let's go!”
Anyway, the food smelled good, so I decided we'd eat first and think afterward.
“Welcome!”
When we opened the door and went inside, a pungent smell burst through the air.
I moved around looking for a table while surveying what the other people were eating.
…All right. I've decided.
“What do you want to eat?”
“I'll have the corn soup.”
“I'll have this.”
I carefully raised a wing and pointed to the dish listed at the very top of the menu.
The dish called Frank's Special Sausage & Pastry.
After ordering the dishes we'd each chosen,
“Here are the dishes you ordered.”
“Wow.”
After a short while, the food was set on the table.
I swallowed at the sight of the pastry, which looked freshly baked, wrapped around a huge sausage.
“So that's what the others were eating. No wonder it smelled so strongly of butter.”
“It smells good.”
“You're supposed to see what other people are eating when you go to a restaurant you don't know.”
That's what one of our members used to say.
Before my body changed like this, I only ate bread and salad, so I never paid attention.
“Let's eat!”
I gripped the sausage on its long plate with both wings and brought it to my mouth.
“Hawp.”
Maybe my mouth had gotten smaller, or maybe the sausage was just big.
Though I took only a small bite, the sausage filled my mouth as I bit into it together with the pastry around it.
-Crunch.
The first thing to greet me was the crumbling texture of the pastry's slightly cooled outer layer.
Then the rich buttery flavor spreading from the chewy inner layer, still full of heat, filled my mouth.
Only then did I reach the sausage.
The moment I bit into it, hot meat juices burst out like an explosion.
And, following a beat later, came the pungent aroma of all sorts of spices.
“Eat slowly. You'll make yourself sick.”
“No one's going to take it from you.”
It was truly lamentable that I had lived until now without knowing this kind of happiness.
“I've missed out on half my liiife….”
“Pfft!”
“Master?”
“Cough! Gack!”
Why had Huey suddenly started acting like that?
“Hey, are you all right?”
“Ahem, I-I'm fine. It just went down the wrong pipe….”
He clearly didn't look fine, but if he said he was all right, then whatever.
Since it would be a shame to let it get cold, I decided to finish my meal first.
“Hawp.”
I didn't need any special utensils, and the crispy pastry provided the extra fullness the sausage alone would have lacked.
I thought it was a truly perfect choice of dish.
“Whew, that was good.”
It was a little disappointing that my smaller mouth kept me from taking a big bite all at once.
Still, that meant I could enjoy a more satisfying fullness from the same amount, so I decided to consider that a good thing.
“If someone saw you, they'd think you'd been starving for days.”
“…Is that captain really all right?”
I must have been far too absorbed in eating.
Lucy looked at me with a baffled expression, while Huey looked as though he was seriously beginning to doubt the captain.
It would be amusing to let him keep doubting the captain like that, but even so, that would be a little cruel to the captain.
“It's not like that.”
I said while wiping the corner of my mouth with the handkerchief Lucy handed me.
“The thing is, I never used to touch meat at all.”
Well, now that my stomach was full….
Dessert was, naturally, some gossip.