Chapter 9
Leaning back in my chair, I recalled something from long ago.
The days when I lived secluded in the mountains with my master.
“I had a master, you see.”
A truly brutal master.
“That master was an extremely strict vegetarian, and even forced their dietary habits on their disciple.”
…Apparently, they couldn’t stand hearing people say that humans had to eat meat to become strong.
They were someone who tested the limits of the human species in all sorts of ways.
“What an interesting person.”
“They certainly are.”
Ahaha. It seems interesting from the listener’s perspective.
Let’s see whether the next part is interesting, too.
“Do you want to die?”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“That’s what my master said to me on the day I complained that I was sick of living on nothing but grass every day and wanted to eat meat.”
I really can’t forget that day.
“They twirled a sword in front of a tiny seven-year-old.”
I will never forget the look on my master’s face as they stared at me with a menacing smile, spinning a treasured sword in one hand that could split even a boulder in two.
“From that day on, the word meat disappeared from my life for twenty years.”
“…Oof.”
“Good heavens.”
“I did eventually run away because I thought I couldn’t endure it any longer. That was ten years ago, I think.”
Back then, I was still inexperienced, so I really fled for my life.
The angry voice of my master shouting from behind me is still vivid in my memory.
I’m pretty sure they said they were going to kill me.
Still, since they didn’t chase me to the very end, perhaps they simply let me go.
‘Aaargh!! My back!!’
…Or maybe not?
“You ran away from your master ten years ago, but you’ve been eating only vegetables for twenty?”
“That means you’d already been thoroughly conditioned.”
Just hearing the word meat was enough to make my body convulse.
“Then what about now?”
“Ah, well.”
I recalled the first day I ate meat after my body changed.
“When I thought about it, if I met my master in this state, I might really die, and I figured, what’s the big deal about a little meat?”
Maybe it was because of my changed body, but I also desperately craved meat.
“Anyway, that’s why my sense of taste is at the peak of my life.”
Everything else, however, is scraping the bottom.
After wrapping up the story, I asked Huey,
“What are you planning to do about lodging?”
Personally, since this tavern seemed to double as an inn, I thought staying here would be fine.
Lucy seemed to think the same thing, as she looked at Huey.
“Let’s go to the Adventurer’s Guild first. If we don’t find anything worthwhile, let’s use this place as our base.”
“Then the Adventurer’s Guild is next.”
“Yeah.”
So, after leaving the tavern, we headed toward the Adventurer’s Guild visible in the distance.
“It’s not a way to get to another world, but as it happens, there’s a retired adventurer from another world living nearby.”
“Really?”
We got an unexpected lead.
“Yes. Would you like to meet them?”
With a smile in their eyes, the guild receptionist said they could share that much with a Gold-rank adventurer like Huey, though not with just anyone.
Judging by Huey’s reaction, staying at the inn was probably out of the question.
“By the way, Ren.”
“Hm?”
As I stood a little way away from Huey and listened to the conversation, Lucy suddenly called out to me.
“Aren’t you embarrassed with everyone staring at you like this?”
It was true that, just as Lucy said, the eyes of the adventurers nearby were all focused on me.
Still, being stared at was something I was used to in the first place….
“I don’t have a hobby of squealing like a little girl just because my body changed.”
They could look all they wanted.
It was hardly embarrassing just because they could see a couple of lumps of fat gathered on my chest.
They were soft, though.
“Tch. Thinking about it just makes me more annoyed.”
I can’t hold my urine for very long, either.
My breasts jiggle every time I run, which is annoying.
And what can I say about talons that scrape the floor or shred my clothes whenever I let my guard down?
On top of that, I have these pathetic hands that can’t even hold a sword.
“This body has no advantages except when I use my wings as a blanket.”
“But isn’t being able to fly a good thing?”
As I sighed and grumbled, Lucy asked me that.
“Fly? In the sky? Who?”
Lucy quietly pointed at me with one finger in response to my question.
“I can’t fly.”
“What?”
“I said I can’t.”
Just because you have wings doesn’t mean you can fly.
They say bird beastkin can usually fly, but apparently it isn’t as simple as flapping your wings.
“The most I can do is slow myself down a little when jumping from somewhere high.”
I tried it once, thinking I might be able to fly if I jumped from somewhere high while flapping my wings, but after crashing headfirst, I hadn’t tried flying again.
“…You’re even less useful than I thought.”
“You’re pretty amazing to say that to my face.”
I had been thinking of myself as useless, too.
But hearing it said so bluntly honestly made me a little indignant.
“What are you two talking about so happily?”
“Oh, Master.”
I was so dumbfounded by Lucy’s remark that I fell silent for a moment, and by then Huey had apparently finished gathering information and returned to ask us.
“Nothing important.”
“We were talking about Ren.”
“Really? Let’s get out of here for now. There are quite a lot of people watching.”
Huey chuckled quietly, apparently deciding that this wasn’t a conversation to have in a crowded place.
Following Huey as he led the way, we arrived at—
“…You want to leave the city already?”
“Master. Are you leaving right away?”
“Yeah.”
It was Dublin’s northern gate, a different exit from the one we had entered through earlier.
Since we’d come all the way to the city, I had wanted to stay for at least a day.
“They said that if we leave now, we can meet the person who came from another world before sunset.”
Huey added that, with the guild’s letter of introduction, we should be able to stay the night.
Judging by the way Lucy followed beside us with a sigh, this seemed to be something she was used to.
“Giving up is easier, Ren.”
“Yeah. Let’s go, then.”
Well, maybe this sort of thing was fine once in a while.
Anyway, not long after leaving the city, we came upon a large forest.
“Looks like they’re in there.”
Huey stood at the entrance to the dense forest and unfolded the map.
But somehow, something about it felt strange.
As we approached the forest, I began to sense a strange energy I had never felt anywhere before.
It was an unpleasant sensation, like a swarm of insects slowly crawling up from beneath my feet.
“Do you feel something strange, too?”
“All of a sudden?”
“Not at all.”
“…Really?”
I asked just in case, but apparently I was the only one who could feel it.
Then, with a sudden prickling sensation, the energy vanished in an instant.
“Are you okay?”
“Ah, yeah.”
“You seem tired. Let’s hurry and get you somewhere to rest.”
As I followed behind Huey and Lucy, I tried to think about that earlier sensation, but I still couldn’t come up with anything.
The only thing I knew for certain was that the unpleasant presence had not been my imagination.
My instincts were warning me not to forget that sensation.
…I’d better stay cautious for a while, ready to move no matter what happens.
We continued on our way, remaining on high alert.
“Ren. Look over there.”
“What a beautiful lake.”
“Oh….”
I turned my head at Huey’s call and saw a huge lake.
A lake in the forest… As Lucy said, it really was beautiful.
“The breeze is nice, too.”
As I stood there for a moment, taking in the clear blue lake, a refreshing breeze blew past us.
“Master, Ren. Over there.”
While savoring the refreshing breeze, seemingly full of spirit energy, we resumed walking, and Lucy pointed toward something she had spotted.
“The house looks surprisingly cozy.”
“It does.”
Since we’d heard that the person lived in the forest, I had expected them to have built a shack at best.
But a fairly respectable log house stood ahead of us.
-Knock. Knock.
“Mr. Osmun, are you home?”
Huey approached the house and knocked on the door.
From inside came a tap, tap, as if someone were walking with a cane.
-Creak.
“Who is it?”
The door opened, and a middle-aged man appeared with bandages wrapped around his eyes.
He stood around 180 centimeters tall and had a sturdy physique that was hard to imagine on a blind man.
It seemed he didn’t neglect his training even though he couldn’t see.
“Nice to meet you. My name is Huey. While looking for information at the Adventurer’s Guild, I heard about you, Mr. Osmun, and came because there was something I wanted to ask you.”
“Ah, I see. Are the people behind you companions?”
Immediately afterward, I felt a refreshing breeze, brimming with spirit energy, blow from the man’s direction and sweep around us as if searching the surroundings.
…A spirit mage.
“Yes. We’re Luciela and Ren.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Just call me Ren.”
“Please come in for now.”
Whether he was simply good-natured or confident in his abilities.
Without even a hint of suspicion, the man invited us into his home.
“Haha, it’s been so long since I’ve had guests.”
Osmun sat down on the living-room sofa, invited us to take a seat, and spoke in a cheerful voice.
“So, you said there was something you wanted to ask me?”