*clack*

How many times I’ve seen this dream already…

*clack* *clack*

Lying in the middle of a dark dungeon, powerless in front of a monster with overwhelming might. Covered in sweat with no strength to get up, all I can do is to accept my death. Just a random sound of someone’s geta is breaking this atmosphere.

*clack* *clack* *clack*

With sounds coming closer and closer, monster is already preparing to finish me off. But suddenly I feel a cold mug pushed at my face and an annoying drunk voice moaned to me.

“Hey, Fra-a-an! Why doncha drink some beer? It…*hick* its go-o-od ya know? HA-HA-HA”

“Stop it...give me a break, Yuki…”

.

.

.

I woke up while murmuring my retorts.

Again.

For the past two months, all I see every night is this new stupid version of my dream and...I prefer the last one. Even if I was tired of it, it at list gave me some hope for the future.

I passed a glance to another part of the room where another bed was placed, and Yuki was sleeping in another unnatural pose. It seems like she is not going to wake up any time soon, so I just changed to my regular clothes and jumped out of the window to backyard to start my morning training. I can’t stand all these stares on me if I just walk out normally, so I’m dealing with it by jumping. Gladly backyard is empty most of the times. Just before the start I apprised my katana.

 

??? (?a?i?? ?e??i?e?)

 

ATK: 1500 (?)

STR +300

AGI +300

Deals extra ??? damage.

Deals extra ??? damage.

C???e?

?i?? c????e i?? ????? ???e? ???i??.

C?? ??? ?e ????ie??? ???i? ???e?.

C?? ??? ?e ??e??i??e? ???i? ???e?.

 

Still a mess. After another apprise failure, I started my regular training with practice swings.

 

“One, two, three…”

 

I can still see katana’s stats that can be compared with some high-quality weapons, but with still a lot of information unconfirmed and that I can not unsheath this katana makes it literal trash. Again I started thinking about how my life changed for the past two months while training.

 

It would be pretty normal if not for Yuki. This...woman is so much pain, and I feel unfortunate being stuck with her in this town. Still, I wouldn’t survive here without her, so I’m grateful for that. But anything else is just even more mess than my katana’s status.

And so as always my training goes with my recollection of all Yuki’s flaws.

First of all, she is too airhead. She loves to just stare into nothing while thinking and ignoring everything around. She can do it even while walking! How many times we had a monster encounter and she just continued walking while being bitten by some wild monster we were hunting. With this, she also loves to say her thoughts out loud for no reason suddenly.

 

“One hundred and one, one hundred and two…”

 

At first, I thought it could be something important when she suddenly said: “Oh, dats da thing!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hah? Wha? I said nothing.”

After a few times, I started ignoring her whenever she said anything until she calls explicitly for me. And she never really notice that even if one day she said that she likes to say her thoughts to herself.

And her way of talking is another problem. Sometimes I can’t even understand what she said! It sounds like she swallows half of her words while messing up with another half. I don’t know what kind of accent is this, but it is definitely not from somewhere where people lived.

But it’s not all of it. While thinking, she shows too much of her emotions with her tail and ears. Like she is almost never controlling them. As a result, her tail always lifts her nighty and shows her panties to everyone. That should be really embarrassing, but she pays absolutely no attention to it! I once tried to tell her about it, but she just shrugged. Just it!

This much of being an airhead is almost bound with stupidity. And with other stuff, I can clearly say.

She is stupid.

She never thinks ahead, even if thinking a lot and just doing things she wants all the time. She never counts her money while spending all of it for food and drinks. And with this, she always thinks that her thoughts are the absolute truth!

Whenever she thought something means she is already doing it or demands someone to do it for her. And she is always asking me not to be silent and ask her something, while all I’m doing is just trying not to lose my sight of her because she is always goes wherever she wants while I can’t even feel it with all my presence detection skills!

With this, she is also too strong. It is sure a good thing for an adventurer but combined with her stupidity - it’s just pain. She is never trying to ask for things if they not require money and just goes straight to brute force. One day after the first week of our partying, we had that dialog in the tavern.

“Heeey. Fraaaan. Why u calling me ‘san’? Were party, u know? Call me just Yuki.”

“Well, sorry, I prefer to be a bit more dis…”

“Heey! If u dont call me just Yuki - i gib u a flick!” and with this words, she gave the flick to a metal cup she was holding. It was utterly destroyed with this, so I just started to call her Yuki for the time being.

But still, she is too familiar! She is always trying to hug me or pat my head or something. At first, I thought it is not that bad because I almost never was prised in my life or had my head patted. It was even pleasant for the first time. But after that flick incident I always afraid that she’ll do something bad. And her hugs are too tight!

 

“...four hundred and six, four hundred and seven…”

 

And it’s still only part of all the problems.

She is smoking too much! I don’t know how and where she got that strange stuff she is calling ‘cigarettes’, but I feel that they’re infinite! Most of the time I see her or talk with her or doing request with her, she is smoking. In one way her tobacco is not that smelly as the others, but in another way even if our room has constantly opened window, it still smells a lot.

She is drinking too much! Almost every day she can find a reason to spend all her evening drinking and dragging me into it. And because of that, she has a hangover practically every day, so even if she actually someday is doing some request from the guild, it is some minor stuff with little reward because anything else is already taken in the morning. And for some reason, she remembers everything she did or said while drunk. I can’t believe it.

And even if I would like to go to the guild in the morning to pick up some good request, I can’t because of her yet again. Because of her behavior and various confrontations with other adventurers, she got a rather bad reputation. Yes, she is feared. Yes, nobody willing to pass her way. But me, who treated as a ‘White Beast’s party member’, got all the attention if walking solo. Still, with her reputation in some town shops, I treated business-like rather than beastmen-like, so it is not that bad. But the number of people in adventurers guild who want to do some bad things to her is so much so I can’t show myself there alone anymore.

 

“...eight hundred thirty, eight hundred thirty one…”

 

And she is always doing strange stuff while we go hunting. On one of the first day, she just asked me to wait a bit and fought an Iron Bear alone. I thought she would try to use some kind of technique instead of her usual brawl style for this kind of an advanced monster. But all she did is...well...she ripped his heart off and ate it raw. I couldn’t even think of anything rather than question her sanity at this point. Why? Just why? And she was keeping doing it for other monsters as well. And when I asked her why she just said “Why not?” with a goofy smile. More of it is that she is doing it bloody as hell. But no matter the blood or stuff - the moment I lost sight of her, she is already sparklingly clean! Like there was no trace of blood on her. And here I am trying to bear with wiping myself with warm water every day because I can't use a public bath in this damn town.

And she is always trying to give some bits of advice like what to do or how to behave. Like hell I wouldn’t know that when you hit a monster, he gets damage! She gave me exactly one slightly useful advice when I was bothered by this katana.

“Its still a weapon dat gib stats, no? Just use it as a blunt weapon, i dunno.” is what she said.

Still, for some reason, it was effective.

 

“...nine hundred ninety nine, one thousand. Fuuh.” I wiped some sweat from my forehead. “Morning practice is done.”

 

But instead of swift strikes and fast movement like samurai should be, all I do is beating up monsters to death like with a stick. Incredibly sturdy stick.

Still, it’s not that kind of samurai I was aiming to be! At first, I was inspired by stories about my grandmother, whose name I inherited, and who was one of the strongest samurai in pre-war times. Then I started to see that dream of mine when I just started training. Nobody in my family was glad that I was aiming to become a samurai and an adventurer, so all I could do is to work hard by myself. To see my dream almost crushed with this crazy demon encounter, crazy woman encounter, and crazy weapon encounter….

 

And the most hilarious out of this is that I actually become stronger. Katana’s bonuses and natural class growth made so I became powerful enough to overcome both ‘C’-rank promotion and even a ‘B’-rank promotion yesterday. Yuki made it a reason to drink as hell again though.

But still what it means is that I actually can travel solo now! I can leave this town and go back to the main guild’s brunch and get some decent jobs. So I decided to leave Braensburg while not saying anything to Yuki. Even if she said that I could go wherever I want when she is done with building a budget, I feel that I couldn’t run away from her if we leave together. I still have things to do until I find that man...

 

I washed my face after training and left to the town’s market to buy some supplies and swiftly leave. I saved enough money even with that little requests that we done for past two months and I got a good bonus after my promotion, so It wasn’t hard to buy a better bag and enough supplies for traveling for several months.

 

But then this happens.

 

I was walking on the street to the gate’s direction. I was passing near the guild that was almost empty because when I finished with supplying it was already past noon. Suddenly I heard some commotion behind me. I couldn’t even react and turn around to see what is happening, while I was suddenly grabbed into a princess carry.

 

“Hey, Fran, I was searching for u! Wat direction s demon stuff again?”

I couldn’t understand what was this all about but still pointed my finger to an exemplary direction while realizing that there is a crowd of guards was chasing. What the hell did happen?

“Okay. Hold on tight cuz i gonna try to fly, haha.”

Wait, what?

I couldn’t say anything while Yuki just jumped to the direction I pointed.

 

High!

 

Too high!

 

She is flying!

 

She is really flying!

 

“WHAT THE HELL, YUKI-I-I-I-I-I?!”