Chapter 27
My body was in shock. Maybe it was because I had absorbed too many Talents.
My body was twitching, and although my mind felt strangely clear, my head also felt feverish. Could this be... that? Maybe I had learned some brain-enhancing Talents, like 【Calculation Enhancement】 or 【Memory Enhancement】—the kind classified as "Intelligence Traits" among Talent Jewel categories.
I replayed the battles I had watched in the training ground.
...Yeah, that's it. Somehow, my memories weren't fading at all. No, now that I thought about it, I could even remember my night spent in the tree with perfect clarity. Could this be perfect memory...?
(This has to be the power of 【All Creation】, right...)
I was once again awed by how absurdly overpowered a ten-star Talent Jewel was. I was already at the point where I couldn't live without this guy... I mean, what am I even saying? I'm confused!
So, while people worriedly asked things like, "You okay?" and "Got a cold?" I ate dinner and went to bed early, feeling unnerved once again by the fact that I couldn't really recall what I'd eaten, yet somehow knew it was stored in my memory.
"Josef-san called for me, so I'm going to go have a drink."
"...With Josef-san?"
"Yeah. Apparently Josef has retired from adventuring and is now employed by the guild to train newcomers. But it seems he gets lonely, too. A stable life isn't always easy to maintain."
With that, Dantes-san left. He was practically skipping. So he really did like his alcohol.
"...Go to sleep already, Reiji. You're obviously exhausted."
"Yes, I'll do that..."
I had barely finished saying that when my consciousness abruptly cut out. Apparently, my body had been demanding rest——.
——Creeeak.
By the time I woke up, the room was pitch-black. The door was just closing.
...?
Oh, right—I was asleep.
Dantes-san's snores came from the bed beside mine. Ugh, the smell of alcohol was intense. So much for "one drink."
So that meant Rikila-san was the one who had just left?
I looked around, but Rikila-san's bed appeared to be empty. Moonlight faintly filtered in through the gap in the poorly fitted window, telling me it was still night.
(...He went out in the middle of the night? To use the bathroom?)
I waited, but Rikila-san never came back.
(Come to think of it, he had seemed a little strange at lunch...)
Rikila-san was always difficult to approach, but he had seemed absent-minded, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. He had said he was sleeping in the room, yet he had been in the training ground...
I felt uneasy, so I left the room, trying to make as little noise as possible as practice for 【Sprint】—oh, I can actually do it! 【Sprint】 uses up a lot of stamina, but it can silence your footsteps or temporarily increase your dashing speed. How convenient.
There was no one in the hallway. No one in the entrance lobby, either.
The door leading outside was slightly ajar.
...Did he go outside?
Just as I put my hand on the door, I heard a voice.
...Will this be enough?"
...Heh-heh, boss. Thank you. Call on me again sometime."
...Dammit, give it a rest already."
...Don't be like that. What if I reported that you're here?"
...Huh?"
...S-sorry, I was just joking, just joking. I'll be going now..."
I peeked outside and saw Rikila-san talking with someone in a black hood. He was handing that person a leather pouch—and after hearing a hard metallic clink (【Hearing Enhancement】 was amazing), I knew for certain it contained money.
(W-who was that? Was Rikila-san being threatened, or was he the one doing the threatening...? Wait, why would he give money to someone he was threatening?)
As the man in the black hood was leaving, he turned toward me, and my 【Visual Enhancement】 caught sight of his face, which was covered in fur. A beastman...
(Ah! Rikila-san is coming this way!)
I used 【Sprint】 to move silently and hid behind a small table beside the counter.
Rikila-san opened the door with a creak and came in——then sighed.
"...Reiji, come out."
I'd been found outtttt!?
"I have 【Smell Enhancement】, you know."
"...Oh, Rikila-san? What are you doing out so late at night? I just had to pee. It's terrible—when you get older, you have to use the bathroom more often..."
"Hold it."
I poked my head out, then tried to make a quick getaway, but he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck.
"What do you mean, getting old? You're ten."
"Heh-heh..."
"...Were you watching?"
...
When I didn't answer, Rikila-san clicked his tongue and let go of me.
"...Come along for a bit."
And so he took me out into the nighttime streets.
The city wasn't exactly silent——the inn where we were staying was in what was essentially a hotel district, with inns packed together, so there were izakaya open until morning, places where you could giggle and flirt with the ladies, and even establishments where, if I went in, I could use 【Sprint】 to race up the stairs to adulthood.
Noise spilled out from the lit establishments and flowed into the main street. That one seemed to be an izakaya.
At the places lit by pink lamps, women in revealing clothes stood outside, luring male passersby.
"See that woman standing over there? She's half Human and half beastman."
"Oh... really?"
"You can tell just by looking."
"No?"
"She's got a lot of hair on her head, and though her clothes hide it, she has a lot of body hair, too."
"I really can't tell at all."
I couldn't tell. She looked like an ordinary woman to me. Oh, she's noticed us and is waving. Ehehehe.
"What are you so happy about, kid?"
"I-it's fine, isn't it...?"
"Damn, I thought you liked completely smooth girls like Mimino-san, but you can go for a beastman half-breed, too? You have no standards."
"What!? I-I thought you were the one who liked Mimino-san more, Rikila-san!"
"Huh!? How did you come to that conclusion!?"
I mean, he'd said Mimino-san had "picked him up," and he was always weirdly hostile toward her... He acted like a boy going through puberty, didn't he? If I said that, he'd get angry, right? So I wasn't going to.
"Mimino's a no-go. Non too. They're out of the question."
"Huhhh? How high are your standards?"
Mimino-san was short, but incredibly cute, and Non-san was cute + demure + dynamite, you know? Dynamite is an explosive made using nitroglycerin and so on. I don't mean anything deeper by that. Also, Non-san was scary.
"I can't do it unless she's much hairier."
"Whaaat!?"
What kind of declaration was that!?
"That completely hairless one just makes me think, 'She's from another species,' that's all. You know Mimino's arms are smooth, right?"
...
I know. I saw them in the bath...
Ah! Is the reason I remember that scene so vividly because of 【All Creation】!? Damn you, 【All Creation】! Now I can't forget it! (deadpan)
"...You sometimes stomp the ground while looking frustrated all by yourself. What is that? Do you have a grudge against the ground? Is that some kind of faith?"
"No need to worry about that.——So, how hairy do you like them?"
"Well, you know, when you touch her back, it should be fluffy and smooth, with your hand slipping right through the fur... Wait, why are you making me say this? This is embarrassing!"
"Uh, okay..."
People have different tastes, I guess. I learned something new today.
"That guy you were watching while hiding from me? In this city, he can't even earn any money. That's why I gave him some."
The conversation had finally come back around.