Chapter 9

Chapter 9. "The Thing Bought from Them with Money."(3)

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD~~!

I ran forward, pounding the ground beneath my feet. The backpack on my back bothered me a little, but I did not care.

About five meters to my side, Rene was running with two longswords in her hands, spread wide like wings.

Then our eyes met, so I flashed her a grin and sped up. Rene smiled back and accelerated as well, and so I increased my speed again.

While we were in the middle of that little race, a deafening explosion rang out ahead of us.

"BOOOOOOM!!"

"SKREEEECH!!"

I could not see through the trees, but it was the sound of Exel’s gun blade.

He must have dropped a monster that had mistaken him for prey and chased after him. Just then, an obstacle appeared up ahead.

A tree, at least three meters thick, had fallen across our path, perhaps brought down by a storm. At that moment, something brushed past me from the side, and I heard Rene’s voice.

"Go on ahead."

She kept running, and then, about six meters before the fallen tree, she suddenly seemed to drop low before shooting upward into the air. She spun beautifully once and cleared the tree in one elegant motion.

Beautiful. You have not changed at all.

While that thought was passing through my head, the tree Rene had just leapt over was now lying right in front of me, staring me in the face.

What should I do?

Should I try it the old way?

I charged straight at the tree, and when it came within arm’s reach, I pulled my fist back while still running and drove it forward again.

"BOOOOOM!!"

KRAAAK!!

The tree shattered cleanly into two pieces and flew apart, sending splinters spraying in every direction.

I shot through the gap between the broken halves, nearly losing my footing several times, but somehow managed to regain my balance and continue chasing after Rene and Exel, who were already far ahead.

According to Exel, the three of us had burst out of the forest and run to Wolf Rock almost at the same time. If one had to be precise, apparently Rene had been a little faster.

Either way, I braced a hand against the rock and gulped air as I said,

"Huff, huff... am I out of shape?! Haaah!"

"...So there is another fool here trying to outrun an elf in the forest."

Exel said that from the top of Wolf Rock, but I was too busy catching my breath to even get angry.

Beside me, Rene was dabbing the sweat from my face with a handkerchief as she smiled and said,

"It is not because you are out of shape. I was simply faster because we were in the forest."

"I, see. You are... haaah... exactly... the same as ever."

"That is because I am an elf. And now you have a living body again, do you not? Of course you get tired."

I gave her a crooked grin at that.

Just then, Exel stood straight atop Wolf Rock and gazed out at the city in the distance as he said,

"Alcantria. It has been a long time."

Rene and I turned our heads and looked toward the city Exel was watching.

Alcantria was a trade city built near the Forsaken Land, a place that had grown as adventurers and merchants came and went.

Around these parts, it counted as a fairly large city. It was also a city my wife and I used often to buy necessities. Exel did as well.

The city was round in shape overall, enclosed by an outer wall. I had heard the reason was simple: from time to time, monsters launched large-scale attacks from the forest, and the wall existed to keep them out. The Great River, which flowed out from the Forsaken Forest on this side, also ran right beside Alcantria and served as the city’s lifeline.

The ridiculous name Great River had apparently been given to it because, from the Forsaken Forest where no one ever returned, only that river flowed out serenely on its own.

In any case, the city peeking through the forest looked bright enough.

When I first came here, I had planned to settle down in Alcantria. But I quickly gave up. My wife was an elf, and wherever she went, people followed her.

But because of her naturally gentle temperament, she could never openly show that she disliked it.

In the end, I could not bear to watch it any longer and took her to live in the Forsaken Forest, where no one entered. Rene liked it too. She had always disliked noise, so living quietly in the forest was, according to her, the most ideal life possible for an elf.

Twilight had already spread across the sky, which only made the city look brighter. That was the way of humans. When they gathered together, they lit the light they possessed for others.

Then Exel’s voice came down again from the top of Wolf Rock, and I slightly raised my head to look up at him.

Standing atop the rock shaped like a wolf frozen in the act of howling at the sky, Exel looked like a black silhouette cut from the autumn night, and it gave me a rather strange feeling.

A werewolf standing on Wolf Rock.

"We made fairly good time. Usually, if we leave in the morning, we arrive late at night. More importantly, it is about dinner time. Where should we go first?"

"Let us go to a nearby pub first and put our things down."

"All right."

I nodded, and Rene rummaged through the backpack she had set down on the ground before pulling out a black scarf. She adjusted her hair a little, then slowly began wrapping it around her head.

She was hiding her ears.

Elves were proud by nature and did not hide the fact that they were elves. But humans had forced them to conceal their existence from them.

These days, unlike a hundred years ago, elves almost never showed themselves, so if she did not at least do this much, all sorts of humans would come flocking to her.

"THUD!"

"I suppose even if you polymorph, your weight does not change?"

"Ah. Apparently not."

Exel said that as he slowly rose from where he had landed, and the ground where he had jumped down had sunk inward in a deep dent. Impressive. I felt as though I could roughly estimate Exel’s original weight now.

When I lifted up my backpack and turned my head, there was a lovely young woman standing beside me with a black hood wrapped around her head.

Because the scarf was black, her golden hair and pale face stood out all the more, but only the lower parts of her ears were visible, while the upper portions were hidden beneath the cloth.

An elf hiding her ears. Even to me, it looked a little pitiful...

"Do not make such a gloomy face. It is not your fault, is it?"

"Ah, right..."

With a rather awkward look on my face, I slowly nodded, and Rene gave me a small smile. At that moment, Exel, whose silver hair and the hem of his long coat were fluttering in the autumn wind in a way that did not suit the scene at all, said,

"Shall we?"

"Yes."

"Yeah."

And so the three of us stood side by side, looking out at the crimson-burning sunset as we headed down the mountain path toward town.

At the town entrance, the guards conducted a brief inspection, but it was only a formality, and we were able to enter without any trouble.

Alcantria’s main roads, as was the case in most towns, were very simple. A giant cross-shaped avenue cut through the town from north to south and east to west.

Shops stood along those roads, while most of the houses were clustered in the safer parts of town. If monsters attacked, the women and children had to hide, after all.

And where we were now was not far from the entrance to the main avenue, in the area where street vendors were packed together doing business. It was still only early evening, but there were a great many people. Housewives returning from the market with supper ingredients, fathers heading home after finishing the day’s work, little children running wildly along the avenue with the sunset at their backs, utterly unaware of the world...

And...

Some thoughtless young ladies who could not tear their eyes away from us...

"Oh my, hey, hey, look over there. Is that silver-haired man not incredibly handsome? Hm? That long coat suits him so well. He is gorgeous."

"Wooow, you are right. But I think the black-haired man walking beside him looks even better. Look at him. That lean face, those sharp eyes, and that long black hair. He looks intelligent, does he not? The silver-haired one is handsome too, but I like that one more."

Who in the world would feel bad after hearing someone call him handsome? But since I already belonged to someone else, it was only natural that my gaze turned in that direction. With voices like that drifting around us, I cautiously turned my head to see what Rene was doing.

Rene was...

Staring straight at me....

And on top of that, I stupidly made the mistake of meeting her eyes, which left me feeling as though my breath had stopped. After staring blankly at my face for a moment, Rene nodded and said,

"He certainly does look intelligent. Those women have good taste."

A hollow sigh slipped out of me. Haaah...

She was an elf. And when an elf decided something was hers, she did not feel much jealousy over what others thought of it.

Perhaps it was more accurate to say that her possessiveness was extraordinary. Of all the things Rene owned, there was still not a single one she had ever thrown away.

Even if she shoved them deep into storage, she never discarded them. I had once been horrified speechless when she showed me a doll she said she had played with as a child. A doll more than a hundred and fifty years old.

Beside us, Exel stopped near the roadside and glanced over at the young women who were still chattering as they looked at us.

The moment he did, they let out shrieks as if they were about to faint and hurried off to hide somewhere. Watching them, Exel gave a short laugh and turned his head before saying,

"Dogs that bark do not bite."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. But you have already been bitten, so you would do well not to take an interest in things like that."

I stole a glance at Rene. She was gazing steadily at me, so I had no choice but to nod in wholehearted agreement with Exel’s advice.

"...Thanks for the advice."

"It is nothing. Are we not friends?"

Rene, who had been silently listening to our conversation from beside us, quickened her pace and moved ahead of us before saying,

"Han and Exel."

"Hm?"

"What is it?"

Slowly, she lifted her hand and pointed in turn toward an alley and various places along the avenue before saying,

"Quite a lot of women are talking about the two of you."

Rene was an elf.

And elves had very good ears.

"................"

After walking for a while longer, we reached a pub around dinnertime.

The name of the pub was 'My Love, Alcantria.' It was a rather ridiculous name, but it was also the place where Rene and I had stayed for several days when we first came here. The owner knew us too.

"'My Love, Alcantria.' Is it a decent place?"

"Yes. It is a good place."

"If Miss Tarsis says so."

With that, Exel opened the door first and went inside, and Rene and I followed after him. The inn was a cozy little place, about the same size as the inn we ourselves currently ran, and it had a warm atmosphere. But that small and homely feeling was ruthlessly carved away by the murderous-looking weapons covering the walls.

There were not many customers in the hall. Just a few men were gathered around one table. When we entered, they turned to look us over, then stared at Rene for a moment, exchanged a few words among themselves, and shouted toward the kitchen.

"Master! Two men and one pretty lady just walked in!"

The man who said it gave us one more quick glance, then sank right back into his conversation. From the kitchen, a burly middle-aged man with muscles that looked as though they might burst, a pipe clenched in his mouth, strode out and said,

"Welcome. What can I get you?"

"Dinner first. And two rooms for two nights."

"Got it. Dinner first. Now then, sit wherever you like, and as for your order... no, wait!

Well, if it is not you! Han! Rene!"

This place’s owner, Graham, had been so swept up in Exel’s flat way of speaking that he had momentarily forgotten it was actually us who had arrived, but now he greeted us with a bright expression that did not seem at all suited to his rough features. Off to the side, I saw Exel shrug and sit down at a convenient table.

Graham placed a hand on both my shoulder and Rene’s and laughed heartily as he said,

"Has it been half a year? I am glad to see you both looking healthy! Puhuhuhuhuh!"

"Yes. You look healthy too, Mister Graham."

At that, Graham flexed his thick arm until the biceps bulged to nearly the size of his head as he said,

"Of course! Who do you think I am? I am still full of life! So, did you just get here?"

"Yes. Oh, and this friend here is called Exel. He is our companion."

"I see. Good to meet you, silver-haired young man."

When Graham said that with a grin, Exel smiled back and replied,

"The feeling is mutual, aside from the fact that I am extremely hungry."

"Hoh! Though you look like some noble young lord, you are quite the glutton. Fine, then. But no saying you cannot finish it! A full course for five, was it? That aside, what about you two?"

Graham pointed at Rene and me, and Rene said,

"We will eat a little later. More importantly, would you show us to our rooms?"

"Ah, wait a moment. Hey! Jonathan! My beloved son! Please show these guests to their rooms!"

"Yeees~!"

A moment later, a boy in his mid-teens with short-cropped red hair came running out in an apron. The red-haired boy looked at Rene and me, then smiled brightly and said,

"Ah! Mister Han! Big Sis Rene!"