Chapter 9
"Ahahaha, I'm kidding, just kidding."
For a moment, that wavering look didn't seem like a joke, though?
Ahem.
Schutz cleared his throat, apparently embarrassed himself.
"I only just made the offer to you, but our party plans to set out at two. Finish getting ready, and meet us at the main gate."
We said we understood and sent Schutz off, then finished the meal we'd left unfinished.
When we headed to the guild's main gate on time, Schutz was there talking to two girls we'd never seen before.
Come to think of it, that was unexpected. I'd assumed they'd be around our age, but the girls with him looked quite young just from their faces.
"Oh, there you are."
Schutz spotted us approaching and greeted us.
The two girls stared at us curiously.
"Grandpa said he'd found people around our age, so I was worried, but you two are both young!"
We hadn't worn our cloaks earlier because there hadn't been many people around, but now quite a few people were out on the streets, so we'd put them on. They couldn't see our ears and must have thought we were human, too.
But hadn't Grandpa asked our ages because he said he had to explain things? They don't seem to know we're elves.
"Ah, that's..."
As Chris started to answer the girl, Schutz cut in.
"Now, now. Let's get out of the city first and talk. We need to hurry if we're going to finish the job by tomorrow."
The girl had been looking at Chris as he was about to answer, but followed Schutz when he urged us along.
Schutz hurried ahead and sent us a playful smile.
Ah, he must be planning to surprise them.
"Wow! You're so pretty, big sis!"
"Ahaha... Thank you."
After we left the city and had gone some distance, we took off our cloaks and put them in our inventory.
We didn't particularly want to hide our identities from the first people we'd be forming a party with, and Schutz already knew, so there was no need to conceal them.
The two girls, surprised to learn we were elves, began treating us warmly.
But aren't they trusting us a little too much? We barely know each other.
"Oh, that's because Grandpa strongly vouched for you. He said you were trustworthy."
Schutz doesn't really know our abilities or whether we're good people, though, does he?
"Oh, Lady Aria recommended you, and anyone she recommends as an adventurer can't be lacking in skill. Besides, you two are those mild-mannered elves, after all."
Elves are only gentle toward other elves. Maybe he didn't know that. It'd take a long explanation to clear that up now, so let's keep quiet.
"I happened to overhear you asking Ren about it, and just then a goblin extermination request came up that we couldn't handle on our own. We were about to give up, but then I thought of you two. Haha."
Was that when we registered as adventurers yesterday?
He'd been eavesdropping on us the whole time and called it a coincidence...
"Let's let the little things slide and take a moment to introduce ourselves. We'll need to know a bit about each other to plan our strategy."
"What, Grandpa! You were talking so confidently, and you don't even know things like that about them?"
"Both of them are at least stronger than this old man. I can sense their mana, but I can't read it."
Those who wield mana can gauge one another's strength to some extent.
One way is to read the flow of the other person's mana or see how much mana flows through their body. To be honest, I'm rather insensitive to mana.
If you ask how I managed to become a Master despite that... it just happened?
It seemed Schutz hadn't recruited us without thinking it through.
"At the very least, you seem to be at Expert level."
"Wow! Expert level? Then won't we just get in your way?"
After answering the girl's question, Schutz suddenly looked at us.
"There's something I need to say about that. First, let's introduce ourselves. Let's start with Eah."
"Hello! I'm Eah, Schutz's granddaughter. I take the front line."
After briefly introducing herself, Eah looked at the other girl.
"H-hello. I'm Maria, Eah's friend. I serve the God Morphe. Pleased to meet you."
So that was why she was dressed like a religious person. Was she something like a nun?
"As I said earlier, I'm Schutz, a mage. Pleased to meet you. And I'm sorry. You must have been looking forward to your first quest..."
Schutz was taking care of his granddaughter Eah, who dreamed of becoming an adventurer, and Maria, the granddaughter of a friend, and teaching them all sorts of things.
He'd been teaching them since they were quite young, and apparently they were Silver-rank adventurers at the age of twenty.
From what I'd learned talking to Ren earlier, that was an incredibly fast rise through the ranks.
They could now handle goblins with ease and were about to move on to the next step: orcs. Then they saw a request to exterminate a goblin settlement and took it, thinking of it as something like a graduation exam.
"The reason I asked you to join our party this time was so you'd help us if we got into danger."
Ah, honestly, when Schutz said he thought we were Experts, I assumed he'd invited us so we could carry them through the quest.
With an Expert-level fighter in the party, exterminating a couple of truckloads of goblins would be easy.
He didn't seem to have any bad intentions, and for some reason, I felt sure that Eah, Schutz's granddaughter, would never hurt us.
"Oh, I see. Understood. As you said, Lord Schutz, we're both Sword Experts. We'll just provide support from time to time."
Maybe Chris figured there was no need to be completely honest and introduced us as Experts.
"I appreciate it, even though it must be a bother. I can't exactly call this compensation, but if you have any questions, I'll answer them sincerely as an adventurer who's been at it longer."
"Haha, thank you. Then we'll be sure to bother you a little."
"Anytime."
"Then should we introduce ourselves too?"
Come to think of it, we hadn't introduced ourselves. There wasn't much to say, though.
"I'm Chris. As you can see, I'm an elf. I'm traveling through the human world at my mother's suggestion."
"I'm Katrina. Um... pleased to meet you."
Even though I'd managed fine in elven society, meeting someone new was still difficult for me, since I'd always avoided socializing.
After making up my mind, I was much less afraid, but introducing myself to someone I was meeting for the first time was still embarrassing.
I lowered my head and blushed with embarrassment, and Schutz let out a hearty laugh.
"I thought you were shy around people, but it turns out you're just a bashful young lady."
"Hehe, big sis is cute."
"Pleased to meet you."
Their different reactions made me blush even more, and perhaps Eah found my reaction amusing, because she even linked arms with me and teased me.
"Let's camp here for tonight. I'll prepare the meal, so Eah and Maria, get the fire ready."
"Okay~ Come on, Maria."
"Okay."
Maybe they thought we were asking them to help? They told us to rest, but...
"This is my first time being in a party with people, too. I want to help."
Since these were the first people I'd met after making up my mind, I wanted to do something together.
Chris nodded at me, looking proud.
And patted my head for good measure.
Damn, before I became an elf, we were about the same height, but now there's a 20-centimeter difference, so Chris often pats my head because it's easy to reach.
I told you so many times not to touch me!
"I told you not to touch me!"
"Sorry, sorry."
"Then, big sis, come gather firewood with me!"
While we were bickering, Eah came over and invited me along.
Her lively manner put me at ease, and I followed Eah as she took the lead.
We lit a fire with the wood we'd gathered, ate the dinner Schutz and Aria had made, and got ready for bed.
"You don't really need to take watch, you know."
Schutz chuckled awkwardly at my firm insistence.
"Then, big sis, keep watch with me."
I'd felt it for a while now, but there was something about Eah's requests that made them strangely hard to refuse.
"Shall we?"
"Yay~!"
Was she really that happy? Eah and I agreed to take the first watch, while everyone else got into their sleeping bags.
As I drank water while looking at the campfire in front of me, Eah spoke to me.
"Big sis."
"Yes?"
"When did you and Chris get married?"
Pfft!
I spat out the water I was drinking at Eah's question.
"Huh? You aren't?"
"Cough, cough! Pfft—ah... No! We're sworn siblings!"
"Really~? I thought Grandpa said you were married."
Ah, she must have gotten that idea from yesterday's incident.
I briefly told Eah how we'd originally been childhood friends, but had become siblings after meeting Mom.
"Oh... So that happened to you. Because of us humans... I'm sorry."
I was flustered by how genuinely sorry Eah looked.
"No, Eah, you don't need to apologize. Mom always told me that not all humans are bad."
"Even so..."
"Actually, I'm grateful to you, Eah. I was a little afraid of humans, but you were kind to me even though you barely knew me. When I look at you, those thoughts disappear."
Eah, who'd been listening to me, widened her eyes, then looked at me with a beaming expression.
"We've only just met, but somehow I feel like you're my real big sister."
If I'd really had a little sister, would she have been this cute?
Eah was such a lively girl that she made me smile without even trying.
"Then! Would you be my big sister?"
"Huh?"
"I've always been so jealous of Maria for having a big sister. Would that be okay?"
I hesitated at the sudden offer, but when I saw Eah's puppy-like expression, all my doubts disappeared.
"Would you like that? Will you really be my little sister?"
"Really?! No taking it back, okay? Then you can talk casually to me."
Suddenly switching to casual speech felt a little odd, but so what? I wanted to see her happy.
"Sure. Then you can talk casually to me too, Eah."
"Yeah! Hehe, I have a big sister now, too. I'll brag to Maria tomorrow~"
Hehe.
Maria looked so sweet and innocent, untouched by the ways of the world, that I couldn't help smiling.
"By the way, big sis, what size are you?"
Grab!
Flinch!
As I smiled at how happy Eah looked, she suddenly grabbed my chest.
"W-what are you doing?!"
"It's really big and soft."
"S-stop!"
Horrified by Eah's hands despite thinking she was an innocent girl, I ran off with her chasing after me. Once the incident was over and our promised watch shift had ended, I woke Chris.
"Big sis! Let's sleep together!"
Eah lay in her sleeping bag, held one side open to make room for me, and beckoned with a pose like some middle-aged man.
Horrified by the sight, I quickly slipped into the sleeping bag assigned to me.
Eah pouted at me, then fell asleep dejectedly.
"Huh? When did you two get so close?"
"Ah... while we were on watch, we agreed I'd be her big sister."
"You... did?"
Chris looked deeply moved and patted my head again as I lay down.
"I told you not to do that... It's such a pain to fix my hair afterward."
"Because I'm proud of you. And you're going to sleep now, so you don't need to fix your hair."
"Whatever. I'm going to sleep."
As I closed my eyes to sleep, I remembered what Eah had done earlier.
Sometimes I'd been surprised by the kind of physical affection you only see in manga from that island country. Do girls really touch each other like that?
Or... maybe my new little sister isn't some kind of pervert, is she?
With all sorts of thoughts running through my mind, I gave in to the drowsiness gradually washing over me.
When I woke up in the morning and was about to stretch, I felt something against my side. Puzzled, I looked in my arms and found Eah asleep, cuddled against me. When had she gotten in here?
... ...
As I looked at Eah sleeping soundly, I heard a chuckle from beside me. I turned and saw Chris, who'd woken up before me, watching us.
"She got up right after you fell asleep and crawled in there."
I'm a Master too, you know...
How did she sneak in?
Heh.
Giving up on getting up at the sight of Eah sleeping peacefully, I pulled her close and hugged her.
"Hehe~"
Maybe she felt good even in her sleep, because Eah wore her characteristic smile, and I fell asleep again.
Right, there was no way such a cute girl could be a pervert.