Bonus Story – A Day Off for Three
About ten days had gone by since I formed a party with Freinil and Rani.
In that time we had cleared dungeons six times and taken two requests. Even I could see that was overworking it, so I called two days off.
That said, the undead castle had been found and the mass subjugation mission was close. The morning training, at least, we would not be skipping.
On the first day off, when we had finished the day’s training at the Adventurer’s Guild training ground, Rani came over wiping her sweat.
“Hey, Soshi, isn’t it about time we got new weapons and armor? This sword of mine isn’t enough for me anymore. Same for you, right?”
“It is, at that. There’s a big job coming, so we ought to move up to better equipment. What about you, Freinil?”
Freinil, wiping her own sweat, came over and looked up at me.
“Yes, Soshi-sama. The staff I have now is an excellent one, so I think it can stay as it is. And there is nothing particularly wrong with my armor, but…”
“You should still replace it while there’s room to. You’re not good at dodging, are you, Freinil?”
Freinil thought about Rani’s question for a moment and then nodded.
“That is true. I do not think I can avoid things the way Rani-san can.”
“Honestly, I keep telling you to drop the -san. Anyway, you can heal, which makes you important, so you should get new armor.”
“Rani’s right. What about your own armor, Rani?”
“I’m built around evasion, so I’d rather have armor I’m used to. I’ll think about it after the next subjugation mission.”
“Understood. We’ll eat breakfast and then go and look at the weapon shop and the armorer.”
It occurred to me somewhere in there that a day off was turning into a day of running work errands.
Then again, told to rest, I have very little to do beyond sitting blankly in the inn. A book would help, but books in this world are expensive, and mostly they simply don’t exist.
Seen that way, going shopping with two girls may be more good fortune than a leader my age has any right to.
After breakfast we went out to Euron’s shopping street. The weapon shop first.
“Ho, it’s you. Don’t tell me the mace I sold you already isn’t enough.”
A bearded dwarf came out from the back as we stepped inside. The master of the shop, who has done well by me before.
Squat build, muscle developed all over it. He is a fairly overwhelming sight, and while Rani took him in stride, Freinil’s eyes went round. It may have been her first dwarf.
“No, hardly. Today we’ve come to buy a weapon for a member.”
Rani stepped forward, unhooked the longsword at her hip, scabbard and all, and showed it to him.
“I want a longsword. Same feel as this one, but with a blade about twice the width, and sturdy.”
“The young lady’s the one using it? Let’s see…”
The dwarf took Rani’s sword, checked the length and the weight and how the grip sat, and went off into the back of the shop. When he came out he put two longswords on the counter.
“These two are the nearest to what the young lady’s after. If neither suits, it means having one forged new.”
Made to order is the ideal, but naturally it costs money and time. Among adventurers, apparently, caring about your weapon to that degree starts at D-rank and up.
Rani tried both longswords and picked one of the two.
“This one. It feels like it sits in my hand.”
“Fair enough. That’ll be three hundred eighty thousand. Three hundred thirty if you put the old sword in against it.”
“Come on, you can come down further than that…”
And so, after negotiation, they appear to have settled at three hundred fifteen thousand. I am not a haggler myself, though that is each person’s own business.
“Maybe I can do something about the hard monsters with this.”
Rani was pleased with it, and Freinil still looked as though the dwarf had startled her, and I took the two of them on to the armorer.
“Welcome.”
The armorer’s master is a human man of middle age and middling build. His hair is set neatly, and he has more the air of an office worker than an armorer. The work clothes he wears are what tell you he is a craftsman.
There is a woman of about the same age in the back; I heard some time ago that the two of them are married.
“Thank you for having us. What we want is a shield for me and armor for her. For the shield, a size larger than the one I use now, and as sturdy as you can manage. Up to three times the weight of my current one is fine.”
“I see. Then please put the shield you use now on this scale.”
The scale is a considerably large one. Some of the arms the higher adventurers use are too heavy for an ordinary person to lift, so weighing them is apparently necessary. Not that mine is anywhere near that.
“Three times this weight, then… let me see.”
The master went to the corner where the shields were lined up and pointed at one propped against the wall.
A tall rectangular shield, its face covered by a thick metal plate. The sort of thing called a tower shield.
“How about this one? Try lifting it.”
I went over and picked the shield up.
Far heavier than the one I had been using, certainly: close to fifty kilos, at a guess. But thanks to ‘Brute Strength’ and ‘Stability’ there was no difficulty at all in handling it.
“This seems fine. Heavier would still be all right.”
“Of what I have, this is the best. There are better ones, but I have nothing of that grade in the shop just now.”
“Understood. Then I’ll take this.”
“Thank you. And after that it was armor for your companion.”
With the master’s face turned toward her, Freinil answered hesitantly.
“Ah, um, about twice the weight of what I wear now would be no trouble. I would like the same sort of shape, only around the chest…”
She got that far, went red, and dropped to a near-whisper.
Having caught what she was trying to say, perhaps, the master called through to his wife in the back.
“Meina, would you look after this customer? It appears it has to be a woman.”
“Of course. This way, please.”
Freinil was called through to the back. Rani went with her, so that side of it would be fine.
I learned this when we bought her armor before: for a girl of thirteen, one part of Freinil appears to be unusually well grown. Which makes adjustment essential when buying armor, and I should have thought of it first. I had forgotten entirely, and had done her a disservice by it.
Freinil talked it over among the women for a while and appears to have chosen one of the several pieces she was shown. There were belts to adjust, so we waited about thirty minutes, and out came a piece of armor built on monster leather, something on the order of a protector.
We took the armor, thanked them and left the shop.
By the time the buying was done and we were back at the inn, it was exactly the hour for lunch.
In this world the farming villages sometimes manage on two meals a day, but for an adventurer, who burns through energy, three is compulsory.
Since it was a day off after all, we went into a slightly upmarket place some way from the inn. A stylish Western-style restaurant, at a guess. When we came in there was only one table for four still free. The three of us sat down at it, looked at the menu and ordered.
Once the waitress had gone, Rani let a rather wicked little smile show at Freinil, who was sitting beside me.
“I really never thought Freinil was carrying a weapon like that, though.”
“A weapon, is it?”
“That’s right. Hard to tell in those clothes you always wear, but you’re quite big, aren’t you, Freinil. You’re younger than me and you’re about the same as I am.”
Rani’s teasing eyes were aimed somewhere around Freinil’s chest. Freinil noticed it, went scarlet and looked down.
“U-Um… that is…”
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. For a girl, that’s a powerful weapon. And Soshi’s bound to prefer it that way, so you’re fine.”
“I-Is that so?”
Freinil glanced sideways and up at me, searching. Answering that question was more than I could decently do from any angle, so:
“Spare me having to answer that…”
I put on a sour face and tried to dodge it, and Freinil, made anxious by that perhaps, turned a pleading sort of look on me.
“B-But you do not dislike it… do you?”
“Ah… well. That may be so. Though you matter to me regardless of any of that, Freinil.”
“Y-Yes. Thank you very much, Soshi-sama.”
Freinil’s face seemed to go redder still, but the expression on it was relieved, so it should be all right.
“Rani. Don’t tease Freinil so much.”
“Ehh? But it matters, doesn’t it. We’re in a party together, so we ought to know about each other.”
“And that can turn the mood bad instead, can’t it? How was it in your last parties?”
I said it because of two new hires in my workplace in my former life, who fell out over something personal. Bringing your private life into the workplace is taboo, and people cannot separate the two out that cleanly. Less so when they are young.
Something must have come to mind for Rani, because she tilted her head and allowed, “Well, that does happen.”
“Still, you’re a man too, Soshi, so you must have a type. Isn’t knowing that sort of thing necessary?”
“I can’t see that it’s necessary… All right, what’s your type, Rani?”
“A strong man, obviously. Not that strength on its own is enough, mind!”
“Obviously?”
“It’s basically how beastfolk work. Strength first: without it you can’t bring any game home.”
“I see. So that’s the thinking.”
In my former life there was talk along the lines of a man’s income coming first, and thought about properly, the root of it may be the same. If what a man is asked for first is the power to keep a family fed, I can hardly argue.
“Then Freinil’s next!”
“Eh!? I—that is… um…”
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Rani’s half teasing you.”
I meant it as a rescue, but Freinil, thoroughly embarrassed as she was, glanced at me and opened her mouth.
“…Someone… of Soshi-sama’s sort.”
“Ahh, Freinil, so close. You were supposed to just say his name, not dodge into ‘someone of his sort.’”
“That’s enough of that. Freinil, you don’t have to answer this sort of thing seriously.”
“But Freinil is answering seriously.”
Rani turned a grin on me, but Freinil is depending on me at present, and that’s probably all the answer was. What she needs now is somebody to shelter her, not romance.
“Fine, fine. Anyway, what about you, Soshi? Actually, were you never married or anything?”
Rani turned the point at me, and for some reason Freinil jumped too. The question had come out of nowhere, I suppose.
“That’s a leap. I was married. My partner and I split up, though.”
“Why?”
“Simply put, she found a new man she liked. Though the cause of it, apparently, was that I worked too much.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Her man was off hunting the whole time, so she got herself another man? That’s the worst.”
Hearing Rani say it, I burst out laughing before I could stop myself. Change the values and that is how it comes out. Freinil was nodding hard beside me, though in her case that is presumably only taking my side.
“But then, if you were working in the same party there’d be no problem, would there. Hunting together, nothing to it.”
“No, I’m not thinking about marriage anymore, so it’s fine. Which is why I haven’t got a type either.”
Being dragged along much further by this sort of talk would only cause me trouble, so I cut it off somewhat forcibly.
Rani made a face and grumbled at me, but the food arrived just then and took her attention.
Freinil, though, spent a while looking at me with sad eyes… Was my type really that much on her mind?
Rani and Freinil are both girls of that age, so an interest in talk about romance is natural enough, I guess. For a man my age, though, getting pulled into that sort of talk is something I’d rather avoid.
Which argues for taking on younger members after all, and letting them enjoy that conversation among themselves.
Although in that case there is the chance that I am the one who gets retired…?
A leader’s worries never do run out.
