by Yuu Tanaka
“More importantly, tell us how she’s doing.”
“Hm. Got it.”
Amanda came to hug Fran next. Forlund, Phelms, and Colbert stood behind her.
“Frannie, I can’t believe we have to say goodbye again! It’s too soon!”
She was crying, too. Amanda’s beautiful face was ruined with tears and snot just like Elza’s, but thanks to Elza’s Aesthetics skill, she was…hm. Let’s stop that train of thought here. Elza was a special case.
“Farewell.”
Forlund wasn’t a man of words. I always thought he was a little like Fran. That said, I didn’t think he’d come to send her off.
“Come on, boss, you can do better than that,” Colbert sighed jokingly.
“Don’t mind him, Fran. Forlund’s always like this. He doesn’t mean anything bad by it.”
“It’s fine.”
“Ha ha ha. Yeah, you two are alike, after all. The boss likes strong adventurers. This is his way of acknowledging you.”
“Yes,” Forlund said.
“Hm.”
“Until next time.”
“Sure.”
“Oh gods, there’s two of them now…” Colbert whispered with mock horror.
A conversation between Fran and Forlund would be scarier than a ghost story. But they connected well enough, for some odd reason.
“Will you head to Bulbola, Fran?”
“Hm.”
When she agreed, Phelms gave her a ticket with “Dragonhead” written on it. “For you. A meal ticket. Do come visit us.”
“Thanks.”
That was nice of him. Fran had found the Dragonhead to be particularly delicious the last time we were in town.
“I’m gonna go back to training,” Fran told Amanda. “I won’t lose next time.”
“Good.” Amanda finally let go of her. “I’m going to the Beast Nation, too,” she said.
I think she’d said something similar when we parted ways in Alessa. But going to a different continent was not in the cards for her.
“No.”
“You may not.”
“Not happening.”
The other adventurers present immediately shot her down. Amanda begged and pleaded with them, but she was already needed in Alessa. Forlund and the rest had to drag her away.
“See you again soon, Frannie!” Amanda was Amanda, even to the end.
Now it was the Beastmen’s turn.
“Make friends with my daughter if you happen to run into her, won’t you?” said Rigdith. “She’s a bit of a tomboy, but she’s a good girl, really.”
We didn’t mind…but she had to be one hell of a tomboy if Rigdith was describing her that way. Royce, Gaudartha, and Rosch took turns to say their goodbyes. Finally, the Blue Cat Zehmet stuck his hand out.
“I caused you a lot of trouble.”
“Hm.”
“I will serve the Beast King and train under him. I’ll fight your evolved form the next time we meet.”
Zehmet still had a way to go, but Rigdith might just be able to bring his potential to reality.
“Both me and the Blue Cats have a lot of learning to do. I’ll work with the Beast King to change things,” Zehmet said with a look of slight reservation.
He still remembered his dead friends. They were bad people, but his sensitivities prevented him from forgetting them.
“I’m counting on it,” she said.
“We’ll make it happen.”
Zehmet was an influential Blue Cat. If he could get his tribe to fall in line, we would certainly see fewer slavers. Fran gripped his hand and shook it.
“I’ll be going now,” she said.
“We’ll meet again.”
“Hm.” She let go of his hand and hopped onto Jet. “Jet.”
“Woof!”
She waved goodbye to everyone. “See you.”
“Bye, Frannie!”
“I’ll see you soon, Fran!”
Elza and Amanda shouted as Jet kicked off into the distance. With the blessings of everyone present, we departed from Ulmutt.
Epilogue
I FEEL LIKE I SAY THIS every time we leave somewhere, but Ulmutt’s a good town.
“Hm.”
“Woof.”
We met Lumina, which led to Fran evolving. Our whole trip here was a miracle, really. If one of the cogs were out of place by even a millimeter, none of it would’ve happened.
Fran finally knew members of her own tribe after meeting Lumina and Inina. It was a tribal bond, different from the relationship she shared with her parents. She fulfilled her mission of raising peoples’ opinions of Black Cats throughout the world. Old Lumina even pampered her a little, showing me a cute side of Fran I never thought possible.
The tournament taught us a lot. Hit and run, compatibility, distractions. Stat superiority wasn’t the only way to win a fight. The tournament even taught us our strengths. Most of all, we understood that there were still people much stronger than us. We couldn’t beat Forlund or Amanda if they decided to go all-out. Winning was impossible. But that only meant that we had to get stronger.
“We’ll be back next year.”
Yeah, we’ll win for sure by then.
“Hm.”
And then there was the Beast King and his crew. Despite the animosity between Black and Blue Cats, there was a strand of hope, although it mostly depended on the Blue Cats’ cooperation. Even so, there was at least the beginning of a dialogue. The Beast King and Zehmet would do their part, but that didn’t mean we could slack off.
Next stop, the Beastman Nation. It’s gonna be a whole new continent.
“What do you think it’s going to be like?” Fran asked.
Beats me. I’ve never been there.
We could probably look for information, but going in blind was exciting.
Black Cat Kiara…
Kiara was the Beast King’s master and an old friend of Dias, Aurel, and Lumina. Rumor had it that when she was younger, she was a lot like Fran, right down to her personality and her love for battle. As much as I loved Fran, I couldn’t help but worry about meeting an older version of her.
I wonder what she’s like.
“I can’t wait to see her,” said Fran.
I hope you like each other. Seriously.
“Hm!”
What hellos and farewells awaited us next? I only hoped that our next stop would help Fran grow and bring her joy.
Afterword
HELLO, EVERYONE. This is Yuu Tanaka, kemomimist. This probably isn’t our first time meeting in this column, but if it turns out that some of you are reading the sixth volume first, well…I hope you’ll read the first five volumes before you finish. It’s a lot more fun that way, I promise.
The time has come again for the afterword…something I’m exceptionally bad at writing. I don’t really have anything else to say, so I end up writing some pointless thing. I tried to convince The Powers That Be that not having an afterword would save them money, but it was not to be.
Now I have to drag this out for three pages…
What should I write?!
Okay, that should’ve knocked off a couple lines, at least. Thanks for entertaining my bad joke.
This really is difficult. You know how some writers have fun in their afterword? They converse along with the characters and fill up the afterword that way.
Maybe I should try that meta style, writing with Teacher and Fran, but I’m not too sure about it. Won’t it ruin the setting of the story? I don’t think it’ll satisfy the readers either, so I can’t help but worry. I have a lot of respect for writers who can write an entertaining afterword. You’re great, all of you. For me, writing one takes ten times longer than writing a short story. I’m serious. These few pages have taken an entire day.
Well, I might as well give it a try.
“In an effort to wasting a few more pages, the author will now have an exclusive interview with the one and only Fran! Yaaay!”
“Hm.”
“…”
“Uhh…Fran?”
“I’m getting a nasty aura from you… stay back. Don’t talk to me.”
“N-nasty aura…?”
“You feel like Teacher when he’s eating crystals.”
“No, I’m not acting anywhere near as trippy as that. Wait! Did I just get found out as a kemomimist…? Seeing cat ears is getting me excited…”
“Shut up. Get back.”
“Come on, there’s no need to put your guard up. See? I’m perfectly harmless!”
“Hmph.”
“Gyaaa!”
Sorry you had to read that. I won’t do it again, even if I am running out of material.
And finally, acknowledgments.
Thank you to my editor, I-san, for all the advice during the writing process.
Thanks to Llo for providing wonderful illustrations, as usual. The Beast King looks so cool.
Thank you to Maruyama for providing the cute extra comic at the end of the novel. The way you took my dumb suggestions and turned them into interesting situations is amazing.
Special thanks to my dad for reading his son’s work despite not reading contemporary fiction, and my friends and acquaintances for hanging out with me when I got sick of it all.
Finally, thanks to everyone involved in the publishing process and of course you, dear reader.
Thanks for reading all the way to the end. See you in Volume Seven.
Thank you for reading!
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