“Are you okay, Misa?”
“Y-Yes……I-I will manage…..”
I took a seat on the bed, though it didn’t take long for me to succumb to the temptation of lying down.
Firana-onesama would usually reprimand me for doing so but instead this time she looked at me with concerned eyes.
“I apologize but unless we rushed, we wouldn’t have made it to the town before it got dark.”
“Do not mind it Firana-oneesama…..I am just glad we get to come here safe and sound…..”
“Indeed. Let us enjoy ourselves fully tomorrow.”
She sat next to me and brushed my hair gently again.
“Even though I planned this so you could relax, it ended up doing the opposite instead.”
“Like I said Firana-oneesama, please do not mind it! I have been enjoying myself thus far, even with all that happened.”
“You are too kind, Misa.”
Still, there was one thing I was quite curious about.
I did ask her a few hours ago when we were still at that cave but she ended up dodging the question.
I wonder if she would answer me if I ask her now.
“Hmmmm? Do you have something you wish to ask?”
Ahhhh, I ended up staring at her face.
Still, since she gave the opportunity…..
“Firana-oneesama, you dodged the question before but why did you let yourself get captured?”
She stopped brushing my hair and looked at me seriously.
The sudden change in expression startled me a bit and made me want to retract my question.
“I apologize, it is something I cannot speak with you yet Misa. Still, if possible I would like to talk to you about it after we get back.”
“I-If Firana-oneesama says so…..”
“Good.”
She returned back to her gentle expression and started brushing my hair again.
It’s really scary how she can take a sharp turn in her behaviour like that.
Even at the cave before when Gio and his party came, her behaviour took a really sharp turn.
“To tell you the truth, I really want to share what I have been doing behind the scene with you. Still, it is not that I do not trust you but rather because I do not want you to get dragged into this whole thing in case it does not go well.”
“Y-Yes…..”
A part of me did feel happy knowing that Firana-oneesama’s hiding it for my own good, but I wish she would see the reality.
She had already dragged me into the Selesia family, if what she’s hiding is so dangerous then would that mean she planned to leave me alone with El if thing go wrong?
“Misa, stay close to me. It would be bad if we were to get separated.”
Saying that, Firana-oneesama took a hold of my hand.
It was the next morning.
We went out after we had breakfast at the inn and here we are now.
I’m not sure where she got it from but we’re wearing a different dress than yesterday.
Did she buy it, or maybe she made it before she went to sleep? Or maybe she pulled it out from wherever she would usually pull out her giant pair of scissors from.
Eitherway, I was wearing a plain sleeveless white dress, while Firana-oneesama was wearing a purple blouse and a dark blue skirt.
It was my first time seeing her not in a dress, though it suited her quite well.
Honestly it was so unusual that I ended up staring at her when I first saw it, only to get reprimanded.
“So where are we going Firana-oneesama?”
“Hmmm, I suppose we should check out what’s unique about this town? For example, a lot of people visiting the capital went there to see the castle. Still, from my knowledge there is nothing that quite stand out in this town……”
“Firana-oneesama never came here?”
“The most I have ever done was passing by and visiting a few shops. It is not exactly a city you would pick as a tourist spot.”
Considering we have to go back to Ridona in 2 days, there’s not really any other city close enough we could visit to be able to get back on time.
After pondering for a bit more, we decided to ask the locals for some suggestions.
We visited a stall on the side of the street.
The stall was selling……some sort of a drink? There were wooden cups lined up on the stall.
The girl behind the stall gave us a smile and beckoned us to come closer with her hand as she saw us approaching.
She looked to be about our age, having long silver hair and a pair of silver-white eyes.
“Would you like something to drink?”
She picked up one of the cups and offered it to us.
Firana-oneesama took it unquestioningly and I also took one as she offered it to me.
After she took a sip, she showed a surprised face.
I was worried that the drink was poisoned or something but it didn’t seem like so.
I also took a sip to try it and maybe I was being a bit too sceptical but I prepared myself to summon a flower to nullify any potential effect of poison in case there’s any in it.
It immediately surprised me as I took a sip, though not in the way I expected.
“Cold…..?”
The cup didn’t feel cold at all, and yet the grape juice inside felt refreshingly cold.
There are also no ice cubes in the glass, I couldn’t make sense of how she did it.
Well, it was obvious enough after I gave it a bit of thought though.
“Did you use ice magic?”
Firana-oneesama was the one who questioned the girl first.
“Yes. I figured it would be nice for people to be able to have a nice cold refreshing drink on a hot day like this.”
She gave us a bright smile.
Firana-oneesama looked like she was still thinking about something though.
“U-Ummm, I-Is there something wrong with the juice?”
The girl asked Firana-oneesama nervously since Firana-oneesama was staring at her.
“No, it is nothing. May I ask about something unrelated?”
“What is it?”
“Do you have any recommendation on where to go in this town? We had come to sightsee but we are not sure on where to go.”
The girl went into deep in thought.
“Hmmm, aside from the locals who live here like me, people would usually only pass by and head to the capital. Other than that……adventurers who set their base of operation here I guess? I can tell you the various shops that’re in this town though!”
She started giving the general direction of various places we could visit, blacksmith, general store, clothing store, and various other stores that might piqued our interest.
“I see. Thank you for the information.”
“No no, I didn’t do much.”
After paying for the drinks, we went on our way.
The thing that attracted Firana-oneesama the most seemed to be the clothing store.
As a clothes-maker herself, I guess she would be pretty curious on how the state of fashion outside the capital is.
We’re not that far away from the capital so I doubt it’ll be much different than the capital but she was still curious nonetheless.
The clothing store in question was quite small compared to the ones at the capital.
Or rather, most of the buildings here are smaller in general.
I couldn’t really tell the difference much but Firana-oneesama was observing each clothes carefully, nodding and making a mental note to herself.
After she had her fill, we left the clothing store and continued our sightseeing.
We visited a bunch of different places recommended by the girl but nothing really caught our attention.
Well, she did suggest that I should get a weapon for myself but in the first place I’ve never trained to use one so I doubt it’ll be useful.
I did try picking up a sword but it was too heavy for me to swing around, and a bow is also impossible.
There’s no need to even mention the other types of weapons, I’m incapable of using any of them properly.
Our last visit for the day was towards the adventurer’s guild.
Rather than saying we have a goal in mind when visiting, it’s more like we have the free time to do so and thus why we came here.
It was right before noon when we visited the adventurer’s guild.
“HHAAHHHH!? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T ACCEPT IT?”
Even before entering, the loud shouting voice can clearly be heard from outside.
Did we visit at a troublesome time?
Firana-oneesama let out a sigh and held my hand.
“Stick close to me.”
“Y-Yes….”
I didn’t look around much and simply followed Firana-oneesama, since I didn’t want to offend or attract attention of anyone by staring at them.
I did notice that this place is more crowded than the guild at the capital though, which seemed strange quite strange.
Wouldn’t the capital one normally be more crowded?
She brought us to the request board and I took a brief glance at the requests.
“Hmmm, I expected as much. That is all I want to see here, do you want to look at anything else Misa?”
She finished her observation pretty quickly and looked at me.
“No, not really.”
“Then we can head back to our inn.”
We quickly made our way out and thankfully we didn’t get stopped by anyone.
Most of the people were distracted by the man who made that loud voice as he was still arguing with the guild receptionist.
“Did you notice anything from the list of requests on that board Misa? Or the guild itself for that matter.”
“What…..?”
I only had a brief glance so I wasn’t sure what Firana-oneesama meant.
“It is a good practice to keep in mind of your surroundings. You had visited the guild in the capital before right?”
“Yes…..”
“What is your thought on the guild here compared to the one in the capital?”
“There are more people in this guild than the one in the capital.”
She nodded and continued on.
“Exactly. Why do you think that is so?”
I tried to think about it but came up blank.
There are clearly way more people in the capital and yet there are less people there, what could be the reason?
I took so long that Firana-oneesama told me the answer before I figured it out.
“It is quite simple if you think about it a little. The reason is the towns surrounding the capital like this one.”
“Ehhh?”
I still didn’t understand what she meant.
“To put it simply, there is not much reason for common adventurers to stay in the capital. The living expense is higher, and since the capital is surrounded by 4 other towns that are all quite near, there are rarely any monster subjugation requests posted in the capital’s guild that are not posted to the nearby town too. Even just from that, it would already make a lot of the poorer adventurers rather stay in the nearby towns instead.”
“I see…..”
“In the first place, ever since Cayle Ridist was appointed as the head of the knights, not to discredit the previous one before him but the knights have become incomparably more capable than before. And with the addition of your non-sensical friend Cure a few months ago, that fact became even more so.”
I was surprised at the sudden mention of Cure, I did agree that Cure was quite non-sensical though.
Her inexplicable strength, even without any device she is already inhumanly strong so I don’t know where she got such power from.
Maybe earth was more occult than I thought?
Firana-oneesama continued on her lecture.
“Did you know that the capital was attacked by a dragon not too long ago?”
“Y-Yes, I was there to witness it, though not from directly inside the town.”
It didn’t bring a lot of good memories though…..
“I see, then that would make it easier to explain. If a dragon that big attack the capital, normally a lot of casualties would be born, in the thousands or even tens of thousands if we’re unlucky. And yet how many people did you think died when the dragon attacked?”
“In the hundreds…..?”
Frillia didn’t tell me the details after all, not that she had any reason to.
“Good guess but wrong. There was zero, completely absurd. Some were injured of course but no one lost their life.”
Even I understood how ridiculous that was.
“Our kingdom was fairly weak before Cayle Ridist became the head of the knights. If a war had broken out then we would’ve been wiped out pretty easily. Now though, not only do other kingdoms not dare to attack us, Cure’s existence means we could even send a disaster to another kingdom at the same time.”
So Cure is truly abnormal even by this world’s standard.
She then looked at me before continuing on her way.
“This kingdom’s fortune had been too good that it makes me worry for our future instead.”
Apart from Firana-oneesama’s lecture, the trip back to the inn was quite uneventful, nothing really happened.
In fact, this whole day has been really uneventful in general.
It’s a nice change of pace though, since everyday had felt quite hectic and eventful ever since I came here.
It’s the first time in a while that I got to just relax and enjoyed the scenery without much goals in mind.
I didn’t know what Firana-oneesama’s thoughts on today though, and I didn’t dare to ask.
Hopefully she enjoyed it as much as I did.
YAY
I kind of just reread the whole and I'm looking forward for what's to come but currently I'm wondering if our dear protagonist will ever finish Anna's training as I feel like it would help her considerably. (I also wonder the extent of her talent considering what Anna suggested)
Welcome back!
thank you~ we'll see for how long, hopefully for a long time. I don't intend to go poof again at least but sometimes the world doesn't care about your intention~ the next 9-10 chapters are already in my head at least but I've learned that actually writing them always seems to be the main problem with me~
@Gerazzza I've been extremely ill the last few years. I get that life can sideline you suddenly for long periods