The Larks Take Flight

by Mamare Touno

  “Don’t worry about it. You can just ride in the cart.”

  “No, I cannot.”

  “Then I guess we’ll go for a walk together.”

  “Why are you in such high spirits, Mademoiselle Isuzu?”

  “Because it’s a walk?”

  Minori, who was listening to the exchange taking place behind the cart, was riding inside.

  Since Roe2 was exhausted, she’d decided that she needed to treat her.

  “No, don’t trouble yourself. I’m not good with recovery spells.”

  “Not…good with them?”

  “Because I’m a Vampanella, you see.”

  Roe2, who was wearing an extremely lethargic expression, poked her index fingers into the corners of her mouth and pulled outward, showing her teeth. Sharp canines peeked out.

  On seeing this, Minori remembered the Vampanella subclass.

  It was something she’d heard about from Shiroe while he was making small talk. It was one of a vast number of subclasses that had been added during a previous fair of some sort, and apparently it had been a rather badly balanced one. Its performance wasn’t at all suited to party play: In exchange for heightened abilities at night and the ability to absorb HP during close combat, abilities were greatly reduced during the day, and recovery spells not only failed to recover HP; they actually did additional damage.

  Yet Roe2 had said she was a Summoner. She was about as tall as Minori, but she had a womanly figure, and her chest, which was encased in a thin knitted garment, was rather prominent. She was also quite beautiful.

  In this other world, everyone was beautiful or cute. This was a relic from Elder Tales’ game days, and while Adventurers kept the appearances they’d had on Earth, they’d been made more attractive.

  However, strangely, even now that things were like this, there were clear “beauties” and “lovely girls.” It was simply the power to attract people, something like an aura, and it came through in gestures and atmosphere.

  Her guildmate Akatsuki had that quality, for example. She radiated a delicate charm that went beyond her fair appearance. In terms of Minori’s acquaintances, others included Henrietta and Marielle, Misa Takayama, and Nazuna of the West Wind Brigade, who’d recently begun to teach Minori.

  To elaborate even further, Princess Raynesia was far and away the best of them. Even though Minori had only exchanged greetings with her a few times, she thought she’d never known anyone who was so memorable.

  These beauties (or lovely girls) had a definite presence, and even if all they did was smile, even though Minori was a girl as well, it was enough to set her heart beating faster.

  Roe2 seemed to be that sort of person, too.

  Her disheveled, casual hair didn’t look as if she really took care of it, but it was glossy and somehow stylish. Even though she wasn’t doing anything in particular, the lazy-looking expression behind her glasses had a pensive charm to it.

  Her white coat and angular bag were the rough Adventurer sort, and in combination with the rather masculine way she spoke, they gave her a boyish air. However, even then, it was likely that no one could have mistaken Roe2 for a man. She looked like a charming woman through and through.

  It gave Minori a rather sizable inferiority complex.

  After all, awakening to love had made her more melancholy overall.

  Because it had made her realize that she was ordinary.

  Of course she was trying as hard as she could, and she wanted to wear cute clothes as much as possible… Particularly when she went anywhere with Shiroe. She was talking it over with Isuzu and trying to choose clothes that were subtly mature: not childish, but nothing that would fail her by making her seem as if she was trying too hard.

  (According to Isuzu, this was “Minori’s Trim, Upper-Class Young Lady Strategy.”)

  Even so, when she walked beside Shiroe, she sometimes felt ashamed and ridiculous. It was as if she was an embarrassing little kid who knew nothing, someone who wasn’t suitable for him.

  When that happened, she lost sight of the words she’d been about to say, and even just walking with him made her feel bad. Apparently she was more of a coward than she’d thought. The moment Shiroe turned around and waited for her to catch up, the feeling—which resembled dejection—was blown clean away, and she felt as if she’d burst with happiness.

  Minori had been startled to discover herself to be so calculating.

  Yet she had been the one to tell Touya, “I haven’t done a thing.” That was the night she’d resolved to do everything she could to be allowed to stay with Shiroe.

  However, the fact that there was so little she could do confounded her. Shiroe was an adult, but even in this world, where school didn’t exist, Minori was still only a middle schooler.

  She felt she was a wretched, puny, insignificant human being, and it made her chest ache.

  Even so, although the pain hurt, she didn’t want to let it go.

  “You seem pretty down.”

  Roe2 spoke, and Minori responded: “Yes… Wait. Is that the Sacred Robe of the Stars?”

  “Hm? Oh. That’s right. I’m impressed you knew.”

  “Yes. My, umm… My teacher, Shiroe, he wears one.”

  “Huh? Ah, I see. Is he a Magic class, too, then?”

  “Yes. He’s an Enchanter.”

  “Well, this robe is pretty high-performance. It’s resistant to wear and tear, too, which makes it handy for everyday use. Besides, it’s comfortable. Even after a long journey, it’s still nice and clean, no?”

  She was right. The robe didn’t seem to have any tears or dirt on it.

  She’d been traveling over mountains and fields, but she was a level-90 Adventurer. Even moving alone, if she chose her route well, it would probably be possible to travel without causing too much wear. That said, being a Vampanella really did sound inconvenient. Having your movements restricted during the day was a pretty big handicap.

  “Where did you come from? Where are you going?”

  “‘Whence do we come, and where do we go?’ That’s a very philosophical question.”

  “No, um, that isn’t what I…”

  Roe2 grinned, as if to say, I know that. She’d been teasing. Minori had been about to protest, but that expression killed her momentum.

  Apparently this woman had a much better sense of humor than her appearance suggested.

  “I started my journey in Ouu. I think it’s been about three months now. It’s brutal. Even I didn’t think it would be this rough.”

  “From…Ouu?”

  Minori searched her memories. If she remembered right, that was in what would have been Japan’s Tohoku region. Shiroe had gone to that area near the end of last year. A raid quest called the Coronation of the Goblin King was still underway there, and an emergency in Ouu had been the indirect cause of the desperate struggle that Minori and the others had encountered in Choushi. When she thought of it that way, it felt like a familiar area.

  “Before that, I was somewhere farther away, though. I jumped there by Castling.”

  “Oh. Yes, you are a Summoner, aren’t you. That’s a special spell that lets you switch places with a servant, isn’t it?”

  Castling was a spell unique to Summoners that let them trade places with a creature they’d summoned or a being with which they’d made a contract. Apparently Roe2 had switched places with a servant in Ouu.

  In Elder Tales, summoned servants hadn’t been able to go very far from their magicians. However, in this other world, they’d discovered that, depending on the method, they could go quite far, even to other servers. This knowledge was so common that Honesty, one of the guilds on the Round Table Council, was using it to investigate the Fairy Rings.

  “Yes, my servant, or my older brother… Yes, my brother. Let’s call him that. I switched places with my brother.”

  Roe2 blushed, speaking as if trying to cover up the fact that she was a bit uncomfortable, then went on rapidly.

  “Since then, I�
�ve spent my days walking through the mountains to avoid sunlight. For now, I’m headed to Ikoma. If I go there, I can quit being a Vampanella.”

  “So it’s a departure quest, then?”

  When she heard that, everything made sense to Minori.

  Ordinarily, it was possible to overwrite your subclass by acquiring another subclass. When you did, you lost the subclass you’d used up until that point. Minori herself had changed to Apprentice by overwriting Tailor.

  However, there were some subclasses that couldn’t be overwritten. It was a feature seen in subclasses acquired on highly difficult quests and at limited-time-only events. If you wanted to change those subclasses, you had to complete a “departure quest” and reset your subclass entirely.

  Vampanella was a subclass with a lot of disadvantages. Furthermore, Shiroe had told her it was a rather embarrassing subclass and that, at this point, it was rare to find someone who had it.

  The fact that Roe2 was having such a hard time on her journey was probably due in large part to the effects of being a Vampanella. If it was possible to leave the subclass, she’d certainly want to. Apparently that departure quest was in Ikoma.

  “Excellent guess. I’d love to ask the responsible party why I even have this subclass. My older brother–type… Maybe? Well, anyway, the person in charge. I mean, really, this is just for show. True, it was handy on the moon, but I wish he’d given a little thought to what would happen after I came down to Earth.”

  Something about Roe2’s musings raised a question for Minori, and she was about to ask about it.

  However, just then, they felt a bouncing sort of vibration, the cart stopped, and their conversation broke off.

  “Heeeey, Adventurer in there, and our little Adventurer benefactors. This is the edge of our town, Koyurugi. We do have an inn, so please relax and take it easy. We’ll come by to thank you properly in a bit!”

  When Minori poked her head out from under the canopy, she saw that the river had forked, forming a delta. On the delta, which was created by the protection of the currents and fertile soil brought in by the river, there was a town surrounded by a patchwork of beautiful fields.

  In the light of the slowly sinking sun, with smoke rising from its cook fires, the town seemed to be welcoming them.

  5

  It was easy for them to get a room.

  February was still early for trading. Traders who’d been affected by the feverish atmosphere in Akiba were the exception, and they often worked hard at their jobs even in winter, but the trade in farm produce wouldn’t really begin until spring.

  Isuzu and the others left their belongings in their inn room, which stood independently, like a cottage. Then, taking only their valuables and equipment, they returned to the dining hall. The room was intended for traders, and while it was a separate room, with the five of them in there, there wouldn’t be much space for anything except beds. That wouldn’t be a problem when they slept, but the sun wasn’t completely down yet.

  The woodcutters had said they’d be paying them a visit, and there was dinner to think about, too.

  That being the case, the five of them went back to the dining hall, where the innkeeper waited.

  The hall was made of wood and had a low ceiling.

  The framework seemed to have been made with pillars and beams that used fallen trees and other natural materials in their original state, and the whitewashed walls were striking. Instead of oil, the lamps used Light-Storing Stones. These were magic items created in Akiba; they sat in the sunlight all day, then released that light slowly over four or five hours, and they were much cheaper than Firefly Lamps, which used mana to shine.

  In the dining hall, there were several low sofas tinted green with plant dyes, set around equally low tables. Ornamental plants decorated the areas around pillars, and the hall seemed more like a living room than a dining area.

  Roe2, who’d traveled to the village with them, sat on one of those sofas with her legs stretched out casually in front of her.

  They didn’t know any of the other guests, and it would have been awkward to go to a different table, so Isuzu’s group approached the woman’s sofa. Roe2 smiled faintly, beckoning to them, and Touya relaxed on a seat across from her with no hesitation. Isuzu and Rundelhaus sat at the edges of the table, and Minori and Serara ended up next to the woman.

  She was drinking a reddish-purple juice. When Serara asked, she told them, “I hear it’s plum juice.”

  “Did you take lodgings here, too, Roe2?”

  “Yes. I wanted a bath; it’s been a long time. From what they tell me, this inn has one.”

  “We heard!”

  Isuzu’s voice was so cheerful that even she noticed it.

  A good percentage of Adventurer equipment repaired and cleaned itself. The function automatically got rid of mud stains and dust from grass and trees, until the items looked brand-new. Even if they got sweaty, with their current bodies, the sweat dried before they knew it, and in that sense, as long as Adventurers paid attention to damage, baths weren’t as necessary for them as they had been in the old world.

  However, mentally, things were different: Even if they weren’t sticky, they felt like they were, and they wanted to bathe. As a teenage girl in high school, Isuzu felt this twice as strongly as the average person. She thought Serara and Minori probably felt the same way.

  Food they hadn’t ordered was carried over to their table.

  According to the man who served it to them, they were being treated by the woodcutters they’d rescued. Apparently the town mayor had sent a message of thanks as well. For some reason, the menu consisted of deluxe rice bowls with fried egg, with sausages and tomatoes poking out over the rim of the bowls. There was white rice at the very bottom, and two fried eggs on the very top.

  Maybe it was the inn’s specialty: The same thing was being served at every table.

  With a big smile on his face, Rundelhaus began looking around the table restlessly. Taking the initiative, Serara took several seasonings from the pouch at her waist and set them on the tabletop.

  “Soy sauce for me!”

  “Oh, Touya, honestly.”

  —The twins apparently belonged to the soy sauce camp.

  Without saying a word, Isuzu handed the similar bottle that sat next to it to Rundelhaus.

  “My thanks, Mademoiselle Isuzu.”

  “Once you’re done, pass it back.”

  Isuzu and Rundelhaus were members of the Worcestershire sauce camp. At Isuzu’s house, her mother used soy sauce, while her father and Isuzu preferred regular sauce. If she’d been in Akiba, and if it had been just her and Rundelhaus, she could have splurged and used teriyaki sauce, but she wouldn’t ask for such a luxury now. On the contrary, lately, everything she ate tasted so good that it was almost a problem. Compared to her days in Hamelin just after the Catastrophe, the things she ate now were heavenly.

  The dish currently sitting in front of her was a (rather eccentric) rice bowl with fried egg, but this wasn’t bad news. Isuzu thought that the most delicious things in this world were B-grade gourmet items. This was because they were guaranteed to belong to the food culture that the Adventurers had brought in.

  An Adventurer somewhere had probably dreamed up this fried-egg rice bowl, too. When sumptuous-looking full course meals were brought out, if they were incredibly lucky, there was a possibility that they might be good, but if not, such food was generally tasteless.

  Compared to menu-created items that were all show, handmade cooking that couldn’t be made at the touch of a button tended not to look very fancy. In other words, if the food that was brought out looked like B-grade gourmet fare, it was almost certain to have flavor, and to have originated with the Adventurers.

  In that sense, while it didn’t quite measure up to a teriyaki Crescent Burger, this fried-egg rice bowl looked promising.

  Rundelhaus was almost certainly thinking the same thing. He’d closed his eyes and was waiting for the formal “Thanks for
the food” to be said, but she felt as if she could see a transparent tail wagging from side to side, sweeping the floor.

  “Yes, yes, there we go.”

  Serara was using a spoon to take mayonnaise out of a lidded bottle, and there was a languid smile on her face. As an ordinary high school girl, the feeling of looking forward to meals while on a long journey was something Isuzu could highly relate to.

  Yet Roe2 seemed puzzled, so Minori offered:

  “This is soy sauce, and this is salt. This is semisweet Worcestershire sauce, and the red one is ketchup. Which would you like, Roe2?”

  “Hm. Hmmm…”

  Looking mystified, Roe2 picked them up, then put them all on, in order.

  Personally, Isuzu thought that using both soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce was an awful idea, but to each her own. Humans were liable to start wars when delicate subjects were brought up, and fried eggs were high on that list. It was the same way at Isuzu’s house. Isuzu wanted to tell her father that ponzu sauce was simply not okay.

  “Thanks for the food!”

  And so the group ate dinner. Spoons had been provided, but both Isuzu and Rundelhaus had brought their own chopsticks. Rundelhaus had gotten quite skilled with his.

  About half the seats in the dining hall were filled.

  Most of the people around them were artisans and merchants, and they seemed to be exchanging information about the area. Isuzu had learned this only after beginning this journey, but in towns and villages that were on the small side, inns and taverns were more than just commercial buildings. They were a sort of public facility. Naturally, it was possible to eat and drink there, but apparently people also visited them to collect information on the town, to talk to other people, and sometimes to create rules.

  In this dining hall at dusk, Isuzu and the others had a pleasant meal.

  Meals eaten while camping had a charm all their own, and (provided Serara didn’t mess up) they were delicious, but it was nice to be able to settle down and look at each other while they ate.

  Isuzu tweaked a grain of rice off Rundelhaus’s cheek, then poured chilled tea into everyone’s cups from a pitcher.