Chapter 14
＊ The Adventurers ＊
"...Is he asleep?"
"Yeah, looks like it."
As Dantes added a branch to the campfire, Mimino, sitting beside the reclining Reiji, answered.
They took turns keeping watch over the fire. It was Dantes's turn now, but Mimino had apparently stayed by Reiji's side until he fell asleep.
"A slave child... If he's from around here, he might have been at the Heaven-Given Jewel Mine."
"It doesn't matter where he came from. Making such a little kid work as a slave... and he's so terribly skinny... He ate that cheap jerky, saying over and over how delicious it was..."
Mimino reached out and brushed Reiji's messy hair away from his eyes.
"Mimino. Helping the unfortunate is one of your virtues, but don't overdo it."
"...Is that conventional wisdom? Or wisdom from Dantes's own experience?"
"Both conventional wisdom and wisdom from my own experience."
"I won't abandon Dantes, who was petrified while protecting his comrades. ...Not like everyone else did."
"..."
"..."
The two stared into the campfire, lost in thought, but...
"Go to sleep soon. Don't blame me if you're sleepy tomorrow."
"...Yeah, I will."
Mimino spread a blanket beside Reiji, lay down, and closed her eyes.
"I won't abandon you either, Reiji-kun. I'll protect you..."
＊ ＊
Apparently, this adventurer party had taken me in as "a truly pitiful child." Well, if you look like a slave, wolf down cheap meat, and cry, I suppose that's what people would think.
Adventurers form teams of several people, call those teams "parties," and accept quests as parties. This party was apparently called "Silver Scales." Dantes-san and Mimino-san had originally worked together in the same party, but when the exceptionally capable Dantes-san was struck by Medusa's curse, that party fell apart.
After that, Dantes-san received treatment from his daughter, Non-san, but the petrification didn't go away, so they decided to head for the Kingdom of the Knights of Heavenly Light. As former party members, Mimino-san joined the two of them to form "Silver Scales," and along the way, they even picked up the beastman Raikira-san—that was how Dantes-san had put it.
"Raikira was just like you, Reiji. Mimino rescued him after he collapsed from hunger."
"Really?"
"Even after he was rescued, he said things like, 'I can't just stand by and watch some softhearted fool help a suspicious beastman like me,' and that's how he ended up following Silver Scales. You saw how Raikira moved, didn't you? His physical abilities are astonishingly high. He must have been a mercenary or adventurer of some renown."
Raikira-san, who apparently had once been a renowned mercenary or adventurer, often stared intently at me. He was probably wary that I was a jinx—thinking that, maybe he wasn't such a bad person after all. (I wasn't saying he was well-mannered.)
Apparently, he hadn't been by the campfire when the Gitsnake fell because he had been scouting the surroundings for monsters. Beastmen had especially sharp senses, so Raikira-san had volunteered for the scouting. If Raikira-san had been nearby, he would have noticed the Gitsnake at once; normally, Dantes-san and Mimino-san would have noticed it too, but their attention had apparently been diverted by preparing the meal.
"Raikira is a beastman, and Mimino is a halfling... The Keithgran Federation is a nation of the Human Race, after all. They're strongly prejudiced against demi-humans."
Dantes-san finished with an expression like he'd drunk bitter tea.
"Silver Scales" traveled through the forest. Not along the highway—the forest. Apparently, that was less troublesome. I hadn't known it, but the Human Race was that exclusionary.
"All done! Reiji-kun, come over here~"
The following night, Mimino-san called me over while we sat around a campfire in the forest.
"Here you go. I added scraps where material was lacking, so the colors don't quite match, but it's better than what you're wearing now."
Mimino-san had measured my body and altered the garment for me. It wrapped across the front and tied at the waist with a cord; the base was a dark crimson, while the sleeves from the elbows down were green—a remarkably bizarre color combination.
"I-is this really okay...?"
But in this world, no one had ever made clothes for me, or even mended them.
"Of course it is~"
"Ugh, what the heck is that? I'd be too embarrassed to wear it if I were you... Wait—"
Raikira-san, who happened to be passing by, was left speechless. I hugged the clothes she'd given me and started crying yet again. This wasn't good. I seemed to have become awfully prone to tears. I needed to pull myself together...
"Come on, come on, put it on already!"
"Ah, wait—"
Mimino-san undressed me. I pretended not to notice that her eyes were a little moist, too.
"Your body's covered in grime, too, so I'll wash you while I'm at it."
"Wha—what?!"
Just as I felt something cold touch the back of my bowed head, water came gushing out. Huh? Mimino-san hadn't been carrying any water, had she? Come to think of it, the water in today's stew didn't seem to have been drawn from anywhere, either.
"Um, excuse me, this water..."
As I asked while Mimino-san vigorously washed my hair,
"Oh, this is my 【Convenient★】. Haven't you seen it before?"
"No... I haven't."
"I can use it to produce drinking water, start fires, blow wind, make stoves, stretch clothes out, and so on... It's literally magic suited to everyday life, with all sorts of uses."
"Is it a Unique Trait Skill?"
"Yeah. If you're an adventurer, having one or two people in your party who have this makes things much easier—there, all done. Next is your back."
"Ahyah!"
A piece of cloth was draped over my wet hair, and while I wiped it dry, Mimino-san scrubbed my back. She really seemed determined to treat me like a child. But as someone who had already made it through high school, exposing my scrawny body in front of the other party members was embarrassing.
"Um, I can do it myself."
"Children aren't supposed to hold back."
"No, I mean, I'm already ten."
I'm sixteen inside, though.
"What?! Ten?! I took you for five or six!"
"I'm not that different from you, Mimino-san..."
"It makes a difference! I'm already twenty!"
When Mimino-san pouted and turned red,
"Bwahaha! Mimino looks thirteen or fourteen no matter how you look at her! Ahahahaha—ow!"
Raikira-san burst out laughing, only to get hit in the head by the stone Mimino-san threw at him.
Mimino-san was about a head taller than me. She was probably under 150 centimeters tall.
No, wait, Mimino-san was twenty...? In Japan, that would be old enough to drink alcohol, right? Amazing, fantasy worlds. If Mimino-san were drinking canned beer, it would look absurdly illegal. Dantes-san was thirty-five and the oldest; his daughter Non-san was sixteen. Raikira-san was eighteen. Non-san... if we'd lived in the same world, she might have been in my class. That's kind of amazing when you think about it. I couldn't tell because her clothes were so baggy, but she had a very large bust. The boys would be crazy about her...
Mimino-san, on the other hand, was flat as a board, but, well, yeah. No comment.
In order of height, Non-san was taller than Mimino-san, just a little tall for a woman. Maybe she would grow even more. Dantes-san and Raikira-san were in a completely different league.
From Mimino-san's perspective, she had always been the shortest, so she might have been happy that someone even smaller than her had appeared. But that was a separate matter from my embarrassment.
"Ooh~ It looks good on you! But you might outgrow it soon."
When I put on the clothes, Mimino-san beamed happily, and Non-san approached with a razor in hand, smiling sweetly...
"W-w-what are you doing...?"
"Let's cut your hair."
Oh, my hair... What a relief. This woman could be hard to read, so seeing her holding a blade always made me jump.
After she worked at it for a while,
"There. Good."
"Ooh~"
My hair felt much neater. When I was a slave, I had just let it grow and cut it roughly whenever it got in the way...
Judging by the way Mimino-san was clapping, I supposed it looked a little better?
"Um... Once again, I look forward to working with you."
"Yeah, nice to meet you, Reiji-kun~"
"Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you."
"...Tch."
Raikira-san, who had been lying down as though going to sleep in a huff, answered with a click of his tongue, so Mimino-san kicked him in the butt and shouted, "Raikira!"