"Mh, some of the cannons got damaged, so if possible I'd like you to add them."
"Cannons? How many? And how much do cannons even cost?"
"No idea, isn't that your job to know?"
"..."
"Oh right, don't forget to add cannonballs and boomstick powder as well."
"What the heck is boomstick powder?"
"Ah, sorry, it's our nickname for it. What was the correct name again... Ah, right. Coal powder! It was coal powder. The stuff that makes the cannon go boom."

This guy did everything he could to make my life harder. And he put in some real effort for that.

"And if you're already on it, you can add some good food. Our provisions are slowly running out and eating those stale rations is horrible. You understand that, right?"
"Your food. Aren't. Damages. Buy it yourself."
"Come on, you can join us in that feast."
"No thanks."
"You sure? I'm sure it'll be awesome, the feast, and the night."

The man closed in a little with a grin.

"No, thank you. Could you please keep your distance?"
"Now, don't be such a killjoy. It'll be an unforgettable evening, I promise. I'm really good at it."
"I do not care whether you are good at anything. If that's all I'll take my leave."
"Now, now, you're a cute girl, wouldn't it be a shame to stay with those old mercenaries? I'll take good care of you."
"I already have someone important to me. Bye."

I quickly turned around and attempted to leave. Unfortunately, this guy didn't know when to give up.

"Hey, hey, why not ditch that guy and instead come with me. I'm sure I'm a lot better than that one."
First of all, Sis isn't some guy. Second, holy shit, are you narcissistic.

My already bad mood only turned worse the longer I had to deal with this guy. Who even put this moron in charge? My first impression hadn't been that bad, actually. It took me pretty long to finish up those documents so I only wanted to confirm everything was in order. And it was mostly in order, this idiot here confirmed it.
Somehow, though, in the middle of our discussion, his tune changed completely. And now he was very clearly trying to hit on me.

"Wait, wait, don't be shy now!"
"..."

The guy was still running after me. What should one do in such a situation? Scream? Kick him? Honestly, kicking him would probably feel very satisfying right now. Maybe I should. No, I would just take out at my anger at this idiot. Then again, maybe that was fine too...
To my luck, the situation quickly resolved itself though. He suddenly clicked his tongue, having spotted something behind me, and left. I took a fleeting glance behind me, but he was already gone from sight.

The heck was that about?
"Oh? Miss... Yu... mi?"
"Nn?"

A voice called out to me from nearby. A familiar voice.

"Oh? Ah. Uhm... Hi... Fenna."
"Hello, Miss Yumi..."

Today was really not my day. It had been my own fault and everything but still. What should I do now? Wanda had told me that Fenna was really down afterwards.

"..."
"..."

Awkward silence ensued as we just faced each other. It took some time before one of us broke the silence. And it wasn't me who did.

"I heard from the Captain. That you're back."
"Nn..."
"..."
"..."

Fenna walked up to, me standing right in front of me. What was she going to do now? Scold me as well? Or maybe something else? Please do—

"... Fenna?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you hugging me?"
"I wonder why."

She had come up to me and, without a word, simply hugged me.

"Aren't you... going to say something?"
"Do you want me to?"
"..."

She gently stroked the back of my head. She said nothing, simply continuing. Not scolding me, not reprimanding me, nothing. No, instead she was comforting me.

"Uhh... Fenna, this is—
"Shh, just keep quiet for a bit."

She pressed my face into her chest, effectively silencing me. Letting me go was clearly not an option she was going to consider. Helpless as I was I could only wait she would let me go.

Be that as it may, this is... a little comforting...

I thought for sure, she'd scold me, the same as Korwen did. But she didn't. Instead, my body slowly relaxed in her comforting embrace.

"Better now?"
"... I wasn't feeling unwell."
"Are you seriously telling me that with such a miserable expression?"
"..."
"Come, at least wipe your nose."

She produced a small piece of cloth from somewhere and wiped my face with it. I hadn't cried or anything, really. Really...
No, in reality I had, a little.

"And all better. Really, you're such a piece of work."
"... Sorry."
"It's fine."

She ruffled my hair with a large grin.

"As long as you feel better now."
"Nn. Thank you, Fenna. And... sorry."
"Don't apologise. There's no reason for you to do so."
"But..."
"Don't. I know that the captain scolded you, and that's enough, isn't it? You're blowing this out of proportion, Yumi. Nobody died."

Did I blow it out of proportion? But...

"Instead of apologising, you should keep it in mind for the future, shouldn't you?"
"Nn..."
"That's a better look already. Come, smile, smile."

I gave her the best smile I could muster, though I was sure it was still looking forced.

"Mhm, good. Good."

She returned a gentle smile of her own.

"Welcome back, Yumi."
"Nn. I'm back."
"Really, you girls surprised me. I was quite shocked to hear that you were back here."
"Ahaha..."
"Still... If I'm honest, I'm a little glad."
"Nn?"

She was... glad? That wasn't the reaction I had expected, at all.

"There aren't many women around, after all. I'll always be happy about some more company."
"Ahh..."
"... For real though, I'm sure it'd feel a little lonely, without those children, and without you, Miss Karen and Miss Lily."
"Lonely?"

Her smile turned wry.

"A little, yes. You're all good people, it's a little... refreshing."
"Aren't you just calling us naive?"
"I am. But, I don't dislike that, you know. In its own way, it is something precious."

She turned around, looking in the direction that the unpleasant man had disappeared to.

"You shouldn't worry too much about it, the Captain is just worried about you all in his own ways. As long as you take it to heart, you'll be fine."
"... Nn."
"Speaking of which, I saw Miss Lily earlier. It was her turn with the captain."

So she failed to escape him. Not that I was surprised about it.

"The three girls were put under house arrest for now, as punishment."
"House arrest?"
"Yes... For the captain, those three girls are like his own children. He tends to be quite soft on them. Well, I think it was also his own fault for spoiling them... Maybe he learnt a little from it as well."
"Ahaha..."

So I probably wasn't going to see the three for a while, if they were under house arrest... Speaking of which, that reminded me of my own punishment.

"Fenna... How strong is Merim? The vice-captain?"
"Pretty strong, why do you ask?"
"... I have to work as the captain's secretary until I can win against him."
"... Yeah, that's probably going to take a while."
"..."

Great. Well, I had to work hard then.

I'll come for you, Merim. Just wait!
"But secretary, huh. Well... That might actually suit you."
"Nn?"
"Are those paper stacks about your work?"
"Nn... The damage reports."

I had to make some corrections for the cannons and some other minor things, but that probably wouldn't take long.

"Nn, Fenna. You wouldn't happen to know how expensive a cannon is, right?"
"Expensive. But how much exactly, no idea."
"How unfortunate."
"Didn't you ask the man in charge?"
"I did. He couldn't tell me."

Or rather, he didn't care enough to think about it. So I had to look for someone who actually knew how much those would cost...

"Mh... If it's only the cannons, you could probably omit them for now. The captain probably won't expect a perfect report anyway. And it's better you get it to him earlier."
"Nn... I see..."

I would've liked to at least finish this up without any problems, but... If it would take me forever to figure out the expected costs, it'd completely defeat the purpose.

"With that said, I don't want to keep you any longer. I still have some things to do as well."
"Nn. Okay. And... thank you, Fenna."
"You're welcome. Ah, right, before I forget. The other women from my squad and I usually drink together in the evening. You're welcome to join us."
"... I'll try to come."
"Awesome. Then, see you later!"

She walked away, waving her hand a few times and then disappeared around the corner.

"... Time to get these finished."

In a slightly better mood, I made my way back to the mercenary camp. Despite the whole incident, not much had changed. In the end, there had been no real clash between either side. The disappointment showed in the faces of the mercenaries, but for the soldiers, their faces were mostly painted in relief.

Not too surprising. They had some really hard weeks behind them.

First, their comrades fell ill one after another and then there had been a traitor among their own. In the end, they even had to fear an assault on the fort.

And then we got these guys...

The mercenaries had all been so excited at the prospect of fighting and now their excitement had nowhere to go... None of them complained though. In fact, I even overheard some of them laughing at the Akkians for wasting all their effort and things like that. Regardless, it must have been a complicated feeling for them...

I can relate a little, though. We got ourselves so worked up and now? It had all gone to waste, and we only got scolded. Life's cruel sometimes.

But like Fenna said, I should take this as a lesson. I had acted quite immature, in various ways. I should properly think it through the next time. And maybe I should actually listen to Karen next time.
Smiling wryly to myself, I entered the camp and searched for a free spot to sit down at. But not before I found something quite unexpected.

Nn? Those people over there. They look familiar...

A group of adults, clearly neither soldiers nor mercenaries, was talking with Korwen. Lily was nowhere near so the lecture probably finished already.

I'm a little curious... Ah, but it'd be bad to show up without having finished my work...

Reluctant as I was, he'd probably only scold me again if I didn't finish this task... Although, as luck would have it, there was a nearby free table. They were still quite a bit away, so I couldn't eavesdrop, but I could still observe them a little while doing my own work. Two birds with one stone.

Getting too distracted would be bad, though. Let's make the corrections quickly and see what is going on for myself.

The corrections were mostly rather simple anyway. The annoying man had nothing to say in regards to the calculations, in fact, I had the suspicion that he wasn't able to calculate quickly enough to check anyway. He only corrected a few of the initial amounts and added some things to the list.
Putting the cheat sheet that Lily made for me right next to the stack, I began the last part of my work.

"Aaaand... Done."

The work was done and over with. Screw this measurement system. I wanted a reasonable one, any reasonable system would have been fine. Not one that had a dozen different units for everything. And the worst? The way some units were used made no sense. If you got a three steps long piece of lumber that's great and all... but what about the width and height? For all I knew, it could be a ten-metre width piece...

Well, I can only hope there are standards to these... Like the piece of lumber being ten centimetre wide and high or so...

Didn't change the fact that I had no idea how much it was in reality. Then again, I didn't really have any idea how to imagine the weigths and lengths anyway... Steps and feet were easy, so it helped a little with length, but for weight... I gave up understanding it after a while.
So I calculated everything and done... Nobody had asked me to explain this to them anyway. The Captain, or whoever was going to deal with this afterwards, would surely figure it out themselves...

Now, since I'm done here...

It was time to take a look at those unknown, yet slightly familiar group of people. The Captain was still talking with them. There seemed to be some kind of problem. Honestly, from the looks of it, Korwen's mood had worsened even more.

Please don't pop a vein, Captain. I don't know what is going on, but you can do it.

I grabbed the stack of papers and made my way to them. It didn't take long until I could finally make out their words.

"—t's not possible, good sir. We don't have any people to spare and the trek through the forest is dangerous."
"I don't care about your little problems! They're our future! Who cares if some measly humans die!"
"... I already told you, they are safe and sound at the capital. Once we have finished our business here, we will escort you there."
"Who would believe the words of some human! Bring us there! That's an order!"
"You are not my superior or anything, good sir."
"You're just a lowly human! Don't you dare defy us!"

Wow. No wonder his mood worsened. Seeing him argue with the pretty old man in front of him, I finally remembered why they were so familiar. They were the former refugees slash brigands that we had met on our way to the Hollow Bridge. I had completely forgotten they existed...

"Good sir, we cannot comply with your... request. Please understand. If there's nothing else, I would appreciate it if we could wrap this up."
"It wasn't a request! It was an order! Pah! A human like you can never get things done right. I'll just get the men myself then!"
"Please don't let me stop you. Good luck."

The old man walked simply past Korwen, without even giving him a single glance anymore. Instead, that glance was directed at me.

"Filthy humans, even their children only know how to fight. Stay away from me!"

He shoved me to the side. I nearly fell onto my butt from the force, yet he only regarded me with an unpleasant glance and walked, or rather stomped, away.

At least apologise, you old fart...
"Haa... Yumi... You're... done?"
"Ah, Captain... Yes, I'm finished with these."

With a complicated expression, he walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. He looked veritably miserable with dark bags below his eyes.

"Yumi."
"Y, Y, Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
"... Eh?"
"If I had known how unreasonable it was on you... I'm sorry..."

Suddenly he aplogised! Why?!

"The little ones made a huge ruckus and bawled their eyes out. Lily escaped and Karen, who I thought was the only reasonable one..."

He shook his head in exasperation.

Sis. The heck did you do to him?! And Lily did escape in the end... Wait, one of them is missing...
"What about Rina?"
"... She cried without saying a word. My wife saw that and I got hit."
"..."

Just... What the heck had even happened? It had barely been two earth hours since then? How did his day turn that bad in such a short time? I really felt sorry for him now.

He... actually has a way worse day than I do... doesn't he? Oh man, now I feel bad...

What should one say in such a situation? Ehh...

"Nevermind that, it'll work out. Surely. Surely. Yes, it will..."

He tried to convince himself...

"... More importantly, those documents. You are done with them?"
"Ah, yes... I talked with the soldier from the fort who was in charge... A few things had to be corrected, especially regarding the damage to the wall. Also... they wanted me to add cannons to the list but I have no idea how much one of those even cost..."
"Cannons... They are pretty expensive... A cheap one goes for two gold coins but those bring more harm than good. Worst case they explode on the spot and kill everyone around them. But a good one is at least five. Probably more towards seven or eight."
"That's... really expensive."

How many months would I have to work for even one of those? Quite a few...

"That's not even the worst. Cannonballs cost easily ten to twenty silver per piece. The glowpowder also costs around six gold per bag."
"Six? That's... a lot... Uhm, is this glowpowder the powder used to... ignite the cannon?"
"Yes. Surprised you know how it works."
"Ahaha..."

Cannons existed in my old world as well, after all. And the stupid man from earlier didn't even get the name right for the powder...

"But, wouldn't it be easier to use magic to launch the cannonballs?"
"No. The amount of mana needed would by far exceed the capabilities of any normal person. You'd need a mage for that. And if you have a mage, it's easier to have them actually cast spells instead of wasting mana on the cannon."
"Ohhh..."

That made sense. Even with magic, there was a use for weapons that didn't rely on it. But with this much of a cost, no wonder that only a country could afford them.

"How many cannons did he request?"
"Four."
"That's going to be expensive... With that said, we have no connections to any cannon builders, so we can't help either way. Strike it from the list and write it on a separate piece for now."
"Okay."
"... You know, you dropped the 'Captain' pretty quickly."
"Ah."

Right. I forgot. I just wasn't used to this at all but to think I had already forgotten this quickly.

"It's fine. As I said, I'm sorry about it too. I let out my own anger out at you..."
"No, Captain. You were right about it. It was my fault. I should have thought things through."
"Hoo? That's probably the most mature thing I've heard you say so far."
"Captain. I know I'm pretty immature, but I'm still an adult."
"You don't act like one, most of the time."
"..."

Couldn't argue with that. I did feel pretty bad about it. I was trying my best, of course. Well, emphasis on trying.

"Yumi. Do you know the most important difference between an adult and a child?"
"The most important difference? One is mature and the other isn't?"
"No, not like that. More like, why is one mature and the other isn't?"
"That's... I don't know."

The difference between an adult and child... was it... And their level of maturity... I couldn't really think of an answer on the spot...
A child was someone who wasn't yet an adult going through puberty and learning things about the world and such things.

"It's the number of life experiences they have."
"Life... experiences?"
"Yes. A child who had a hard, horrible life might act as cunning and mature as an adult does. And an adult who never had to worry for a thing in life might act like a little naive child."
"So... you are saying I lack in life experiences?"
"You do. The other girls do, many of my men do, most of us lack in them, even I do."

A lack of life experience. True, compared to the average inhabitant of this world, I had probably lived a rather worry-free life. Before I came here. That was, assuming that dream from back then was just a dream...

"Mistakes happen. When you are still a child, people will usually forgive you. But once you become an adult, they expect perfection incarnate. Failure is not tolerated. But mistakes will happen. Even adults are unable to be as perfect as they believe to be. That's why it's important to learn from mistakes. This time your mistake was small, and nothing truly bad resulted from it. That was your luck. And that is why you should learn from it."
"But... if it weren't for this mistake, we might have ended up living in the capital..."
"No... After talking with the other girls, I'm fairly sure you would've ended up with us anyway..."
"Eh?"

But... Karen was likely against it... Lily... probably would've wanted to stay so she can be with Greyward and Yumias. Emily, Maya and Sele very clearly wanted to stay as well. And Rina? Well, if the talk about revenge was to be believed, then staying with the mercenaries was her best bet as well.

Eh? Seriously? Karen would've been the only one against it?
"By the way, your dear sister Karen most likely would've been the one to take charge of staying here with us."
"... Excuse me?"
"That girl... the moment I told her about the average wages from a normal job in the capital she immediately changed her tune. The Academy pays pretty well but apparently, she got some bad impression of it... And there aren't many other jobs that pay that well... Even more so if you lack connections."
"..."

Ah. Money. It was money. Right... Money... I knew money was important to her but... Really? Really, Karen? You had been so against it yesterday, and now you accepted it because of our wages?

"Maybe I should've paid you girls less. That reminds me, if you do the accounting job properly I'll raise your wage."
"And now you added another reason for us staying."
"It's not like I want to chase you girls out, you know? There just are plenty of safer jobs around. Well, it was my mistake that I thought I could shove Maya, Emily and Sele away with you all. I underestimated them a little."
"... Maya was crying quite a lot."

She really had been crying a lot. Well, that was to be expected from a ten-year-old little girl. They are children, in the end. Reason wasn't always going to work with children. In fact, thinking about it, I actually felt a little relieved about it. They acted too mature in these kinds of matters. Just like Korwen told me, they too had... quite the amount of life experiences already... Alas, that hadn't changed the fact that I had acted like an idiot in response...

"Haa... They're really a piece of work."

So he said, but there was a small smile on his face. He didn't dislike it at all, that they cried out of worry for him and the others, did he? He wasn't really true to himself either, huh...
Or, maybe he was just relieved that they still had that bit of unreasonable childishness with them as well.

"Well, be that as it may, it was still wrong of them to throw a tantrum like that. They'll stay under house arrest as punishment for now."
"Ahaha..."
"I still have to think of what to do with the other three..."
"Don't be too hard on them..."
"That's impossible. It's not punishment otherwise."

That was true. But punishment could be too hard as well.

"In any case, I'll think about that later. I really don't want to hear anything about that anymore for today! Seriously! First I had to deal with those Akkians, then Yumias made a mess, Ruben shoved his work on me, you girls made another mess and now those refugees we picked up think they are our superiors. I can't deal with this shit anymore."
"... Yumias made a mess?"
"Don't. Ask. Seriously. Don't. Ask."
"Nn... Understood..."

That was some intense glare he directed at me.  Just what had she done this time...
But at least now I finally had confirmation who those people were he had been talking with. They really were the refugees who had become footpads. We brought their children to the capital but it was good to see that the others were fine as well. They somehow made it through, huh.
And then proceeded to make Korwen's life harder...

"Let's talk about something more comfortable."
"Uhm... Captain... Isn't there still work left?"
"I'm on break. Starting now. And you're going to join me. That's an order."
"..."
"Your answer?"
"Yes, Captain..."

He turned on his heels and walked away. With a wry smile, I followed after him. It didn't take long until he sat down at the very same table where he had scolded me earlier. The mug with the Forest Fire was still there as well. And the contents hadn't dwindled even the slightest bit. The fact that he shoved that abomination in my direction wasn't making it any better.

"Drink up, it's yours."
"... It surely has gone stale already, so I'll refrain."
"It won't go stale just because you let it stand for an hour. Either way, this stuff won't go stale even after a week."

That wasn't how a beverage should behave. I'd be seriously worried if it was still fine after an entire week.
Reluctantly, I sat down, the terrifying mug right in front of me. The stuff had a slight green colour, similar to leaves. Nothing you'd expect to burn your throat into cinders.

"That armour..."
"Nn?"
"Wasn't that the armour that Lily used to wear?"
"Ah, yes. Kohno from the Black Guards adjusted it for me."
"Huh."

He filled his mug with the greenish abomination.

"I did talk with Greyward about the whole thing, but to think he'd already managed something to this level."
"We were in a little bit of a hurry, so this still is only makeshift."
"A hurry?"

Korwen furrowed his brows.

"A hurry? Why were you in a hurry?"
"Well, Greyward said you told them to come back. And when they heard the rumbling, he hurried the preparations."
"The rumbling? Did you hear the collapsing cliff in the capital?"
"We did. It caused a little bit of a commotion in the city."

He rubbed his temples.

"I will pretend I haven't heard that. I will have heard it tomorrow but I sure haven't heard it now."
"... Nn."

The great escape from reality.

"Haaa... Speaking of which... When we get back we'll have to look for the magic craftsman."
"Nn? The magic craftsman?"
"Did you already forget? Your hair."
"... Oh."
"You completely forgot, didn't you?"

I actually hadn't really forgotten. But I had been so preoccupied with the current situation, that it took me a moment to remember it.

"How quickly does your hair regrow?"
"Nn, nearly instantly."
"Hmm..."

He lifted his mug and stared at it for a while.

"Maybe we could sell some of it."
"Selling it?"
"Yeah. It should be pretty popular as a material. As long as we keep the quantity low we can claim that we got it from a monster or somewhere. It should earn us some pretty coins."
"Huh..."

Selling my hair. I had some slight reluctance towards that. I mean, it was part of my body. Who would just say 'Yes, go ahead.'  to selling a part of your body. Well, it was better than selling my organs or so.

"But we'll discuss that when we're back in the capital. Haa... Today is going to be a long night..."
"... Today?"
"Today. We'll return to the capital overnight."
"..."

I stared at the alcohol in my mug. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the inevitable.
With all the enthusiasm I could muster, I brought the mug to my lips and downed the alcohol.

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Haaaa! Water! I need water!"
"... Are you a retard? You are, aren't you?"

He handed me his waterskin. I didn't even have time to thank him for it as I quickly cleaned my throat with that water.

"Haaa... Haa... Thank... you..."
"... You're welcome."

I returned the waterskin to the bewildered Korwen.
Still breathing heavily, I turned my gaze to the sky.

What! Was! The! Purpose! Of! Coming! Here!
Ahhhhhh!

We had literally come... for nothing.

Rinne

Who doesn't know that moment when you put in so much effort, get into trouble for something and then... only to find out... it was all pointless.
The thought makes me depressed too...

The new month is here and with that: I wish everyone a happy first Advent. Christmas is now slowly closing in.

And like usual with the new month:
If you enjoy the story, I'd be glad if you could take a look at my Patreon! I'd be really happy if you were to support me!
This month is still a little short for the extra chapter too.

Thank you all for reading! Have a nice week!