Chapter 5 – Or A Day When He Isn’t There
“Mrm…ooh…hha…”
Just after dawn, cool air prickled her skin; she tossed and turned in her blankets with little noises.
Normally she would have expected to hear them by now—but today there was no sign of any footsteps drawing near.
“…Oooh…?”
She was not the kind to have trouble getting out of bed, but without the sounds she was accustomed to, she found it hard to open her eyes.
When she had finally crawled out of her straw bed, she rubbed her heavy, sleepy eyelids and gave a big yawn.
Midday was still warm, but night and morning had taken on a chill.
With many a shake and shimmy, she pulled her undergarments over her healthily plump body, just like always.
“M-mm…just a bit…too tight, maybe?”
Had she put on some weight? Or just grown a bit? Whichever it was, she did not welcome it. It was unfair to her uncle to constantly be buying new clothes and undergarments.
But then, it’s no good to use stuff that doesn’t fit, either.
Maybe she would make some alterations to the clothes.
With those thoughts in her mind, she opened the window, and the fresh morning breeze gusted into her room.
Smiling in pleasure, she leaned out, resting her voluptuous chest on the windowsill.
It was a scene she knew and liked.
The spreading farm fields. The lowing of cows in the distance. The clucking of chickens. Smoke rising from the far-off town. The world.
“…Oh, that’s right,” Cow Girl murmured absently, as she basked in the golden sunlight. “He isn’t here today.”
§
“How about you go into town?”
“Say what?”
Cow Girl turned only her head to look at her uncle. Breakfast was over, and she was piling the dishes by the sink.
There wasn’t much to wash when he wasn’t there. That made things easier, and that was good, in its way.
“I said, how about you go into town?”
She looked at him again. His expression was simple and frank, and he was gazing somberly at her.
“Hm?” she said questioningly, glancing back at him as she took up the plates and dried them. “Doesn’t really matter to me. But I wouldn’t have much to do there.”
“Now, that can’t be true.” Her uncle was always so serious. He went on without a pause, “Your friends are there, aren’t they?”
“Friends, right…”
Cow Girl smiled vaguely. She took some sand from a bucket next to her and rubbed it into the surface of one of the dishes, scritch-scratch .
“I guess you could call that person a friend, if you wanted. But I think she’s really more like a companion who shares the same values, maybe.”
“You should get out and have fun sometimes.”
“Hmm…”
Cow Girl made a sound that was neither agreement nor denial.
Checking that the sand had scrubbed all the stains off the plate, she washed it again with water.
Finally she wiped the dish gently to dry it and returned it to the tableware shelf.
“But there’s the livestock to look after, the harvest, the stone wall and fence to check on, deliveries to make, and then we have to get ready for tomorrow…”
She counted off the tasks on her fingers—there really was a lot of work. So many things had to get done. Things that had to be done today. Things that ought to be done today. All kinds of things that could be taken care of rather than put off.
Right , Cow Girl nodded, causing her chest to jiggle. “I don’t have time to play around. It’s a good thing that we have work to do!”
“I am telling you to go have fun.” His voice brooked no argument.
She looked at him, taken aback by his sharp tone.
Her uncle was unmoving. When he got like this, his opinion was no more likely to change than a mountain stone. He had spent ten years raising her, and she understood this without his saying anything.
“Huh? But… Um…”
“You’re still a tender age. How old are you? I want to hear you say it.”
“Um, I’m…eighteen…” She nodded assiduously. “Almost nineteen.”
“Then it’s not your duty to work from dawn till dusk every day.”
Cow Girl racked her brain for some response.
…Huh? Why am I so against going out?
The thought flashed across her mind and vanished. This wasn’t the time.
“B-but, what about the money…”
“Fortunately, we’re no serfs. Our lives aren’t dictated by a lack of resources.”
“Well, true, but…”
It was no use. Her feeble resistance summarily subdued, Cow Girl was at a loss for words.
Well, now what? The dishes were cleaned, and she had no other cards to play.
She puttered about the kitchen for a while before finally slumping into a seat across from her uncle.
“You don’t have to worry about me.” He was kind as ever, as though he were speaking to a small child.
Cow Girl pursed her lips—he didn’t have to talk to her that way—but she didn’t say anything. Maybe that was itself childish. In that case…
“Go and have some fun.” As he watched her, his craggy face suddenly softened and relaxed. “A young girl working every waking minute on the farm? Surely there’s some girlish thing or other you want to do.”
“I wonder…”
Cow Girl didn’t really know.
Girlish things?
What would that be? Getting dressed up? Eating sweets? All of her ideas seemed airy and vague.
Compared to this, tomorrow’s weather seemed concrete…
“…All right,” she said after a moment, still not sure whether she understood anything or not. “I’ll go out for a bit, then.”
“Yes, you do that.”
“…Right.”
Seeing her uncle’s relief, all she could do was nod.
§
She had no cart, and he wasn’t there—it was just her by herself.
She found her pace unsteady even though she was only going to town on a road she knew well.
How did she normally walk on this road? She ended up feeling awfully puzzled.
And then, weaving her way between adventurers and merchants as they came and went, she passed through the great gate and into town.
Cow Girl smiled wryly as her feet began carrying her toward the Adventurers Guild, normally the first place she would go. Consciously overriding her subconscious, she went straight instead, into town, toward the plaza.
There was chatter in the air, merchants’ voices, children playing, mothers calling, adventurers chatting with one another. Burying herself in the sounds, Cow Girl sat vacantly on a random curb. She watched a boy and a girl, perhaps about ten years old, run by. She followed them with her eyes and exhaled.
Now that I think about it… “Do I have any friends…?”
There was no one left whom she’d known since she was young. She had moved ten years ago, and for five of those years she had been absorbed in only what was before her eyes.
It’s a little late to go down memory lane now.
The way she’d been back then, she was lucky he had called out to her as he shuffled along.
There had still been horns on his steel helmet then, and her hair had been considerably longer.
For the five years after that, her head had been full of him. She had been altogether unable to just have fun.
“Oh, but…”
She shook her head, thinking of the receptionist and the waitress she saw nearly every day. They might count as friends—but there were only two of them. Well, two friends could be enough.
Plenty of people couldn’t make any friends.
“…I’m pretty well off.”
A fat lot of good that thought did her. She smiled feebly and continued to gaze out at the people who came and went across the square.
They wore an infinite variety of expressions. Some seemed to be enjoying themselves, others looked sad. Some seemed lonely, others happy. But all of them walked without hesitation, with some kind of goal in mind. Work, or a meal, or a place to go home to, or a place to have fun , or, or…
Not like her.
Cow Girl sat on the curb, pulling her knees in against her chest.
This is a serious problem.
In the end, I don’t have a single connection to anything except the farm…
“—? Is something wrong?”
She thought she recognized the voice above her.
She looked up and saw a golden-haired girl gazing at her with a hint of confusion. She had an elegant, slim frame, and was wearing modest hempen clothes, plain and unassuming.
Cow Girl blinked, trying to remember who this was, and then clapped her hands.
“H-hey, you’re that priestess…”
“Oh, yes. And you’re from the farm, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Cow Girl nodded and stood, dusting off her round backside. “What’s with your clothes?”
Rather than her usual vestments, Priestess was dressed in street clothes; in fact, her garments could have belonged to a girl in a farming village.
“I stayed behind this time, so I thought…I might as well go out.” She scratched her cheek with a slim finger in a gesture of awkward embarrassment. “But I don’t have any idea what to do.”
“Yeah, me too. I know exactly what you mean. Normally I just have to do whatever needs doing on the farm.”
Huh. They were the same.
She knew her sense of solidarity might be a little one-sided, but Cow Girl still breathed a sigh and relaxed a little. She had always been outgoing, after all; she didn’t feel nervous. And anyway, this was one of his party members.
It would be wrong to say that there was no shadow of a doubt in her mind—but Cow Girl determined to make herself keep an easygoing attitude.
“You said you stayed behind this time? Why’s that?”
“Oh, umm, it’s…” Suddenly, Priestess couldn’t quite finish her sentence; her eyes darted this way and that. Her cheeks flushed red—had her temperature gone up a little?—and her eyes turned to the ground with a downcast look.
Hm? Cow Girl thought suspiciously, but an explanation was soon forthcoming.
“Today is…a bit of a rough day for it…”
“Sure.” Cow Girl gave a strained smile and nodded. It was something every woman had to deal with.
It must have been hard on the abashed younger girl to have the information pried out of her like that.
“What do you usually do, you know, when you’re not on an adventure?”
“I pray.”
Cow Girl knew it was a clumsy attempt to change topics, but the girl’s answer was brief and guileless. She more or less fit the image Cow Girl had come up with after seeing her from afar a few times.
“Really!” Cow Girl said admiringly, and Priestess put a slim, white finger to her lips and thought a moment.
“I also read the scriptures, and the Monster Manual, and I train…”
“Gosh, you’re the serious type, huh?”
“I just haven’t learned enough yet.”
Perhaps Priestess wasn’t used to being praised, because Cow Girl’s expression of surprise caused her to blush in embarrassment.
Hmm…
She decided not to say that she planned to praise Priestess to him later.
Despite how he looked, he did care for people in his own way, so perhaps it would be overreaching herself a bit, but…
“…Hey.”
“Yes?”
“How about we take a walk?” Cow Girl smiled. “Since we ran into each other and all.”
“…You’re right.” Priestess smiled again, like a small flower coming into bloom. “Yes, let’s wander a bit.”
§
“Come to think of it, it’s still a ways off, but when summer’s over, it’ll be time for the harvest festival, won’t it?”
“Oh, yes. The Temple will be starting preparations for the offering dance soon.”
“I wonder who the dancer will be. Thought about becoming a candidate?”
“No, hardly. It carries a lot of responsibility. I’m not ready yet.”
“You think? Maybe our farm should set up a stall… We could do something besides just food.”
“It’s gotten pretty hot already, but fall will be here before you know it, won’t it?”
As the two of them walked side by side, with no particular destination, they conversed idly.
The frontier town was one of the farthest pioneer settlements. Naturally, it had many visitors, and plenty of people walking about. But not, of course, as many as the water town or the Capital, so as they went they saw faces they knew here and there.
“Oh, good to see you!”
“Hello!”
Cow Girl bowed, and Priestess gave a respectful nod as they passed an adventurer they recognized. Her circle of acquaintances had certainly grown since the goblin lord’s assault on the town.
It’s an odd feeling.
Cow Girl giggled involuntarily, prompting a mystified glance from Priestess.
“Nothing, nothing,” Cow Girl said, waving her hand, but the smile didn’t vanish from her face.
Whatever he might say, he was clearly connected to a large number of people.
Not like me, huh?
“…Hey. What’s he like? I mean, usually.”
“What’s he like? How do you mean?”
“I just wondered if he, you know, was a pain in the neck or anything…”
Cow Girl laced her hands behind her and spun around, but Priestess waved her hands and said, “Oh, hardly! He’s always helping me and everything. I’m afraid I’m the one who causes all the trouble…”
There didn’t appear to be any falsehood in Priestess’s words or expression.
Cow Girl smoothed down her ample chest with relief. Relief that he wasn’t causing trouble? Or that he wasn’t disliked? She didn’t know which.
“But…” Priestess lowered her voice and winked one eye teasingly. “…Maybe he’s just a tiny pain.”
“Oh yeah?”
The two of them looked at each other and giggled.
It was questionable, in some ways, that he was the topic they shared, but at the same time, he was easy to talk about. How he could be strange and serious and dense and you couldn’t leave him to his own devices. It gave them plenty of fodder for conversation.
“But it’s true that I owe him a lot.”
Priestess described a side of him Cow Girl had never seen.
How when she had first seen him, she’d thought he was some kind of monster. How he was, apparently, trying to act like a Silver-ranked adventurer. How quickly he was under the table when the party got together to drink. How he was always willing to take guard duty given the large number of spell casters in his party.
That sounds so like him , Cow Girl thought. But she also thought, He’s gone drinking with everybody?
“And he’s taught me a lot about adventuring.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” Priestess tapped her lip with a finger. “Chain mail, for example.”
“Chain mail…?”
In the back of her mind, Cow Girl tried to picture all the items he kept in his shed. Chain mail was one of his favorite pieces of gear. She remembered him polishing it carefully with oil. He had even shown her how to make emergency repairs to damaged sections using wire.
“But—” She suddenly remembered a question she had had for a long time. “Isn’t that stuff heavy?”
“If you tie a belt around your hips or abdomen, it spreads the weight out over your entire body, so it’s not so bad.” Then she added, “But your shoulders do get stiff.”
Cow Girl nodded. That made sense. “It’s tough being an adventurer, huh…”
“I wear just chain mail, but I gather that many magic users don’t like to wear it at all.” The dwarf, for example, seemed to ignore it.
Cow Girl nodded noncommittally at Priestess’s words. There was an old tradition that metal interfered with magic—but she didn’t know how true it was. She was half convinced it must be superstition, but once in a while there were people who wanted horseshoes to keep away magic.
Magic, witchcraft, and divine miracles were things Cow Girl knew nothing about.
What she was more interested in was…
“Chain mail, huh?”
“Sorry?”
“…Hey, the Guild deals in chain mail and armor and helmets and stuff, right?”
“What? Oh, yes,” Priestess said, nodding hurriedly. “I buy mine there, myself.”
“In that case…” Cow Girl grinned like a child sneaking away from her parents to play. “How about a little window-shopping?”
§
“Y-yikes…”
And there, in front of Cow Girl’s eyes, was underwear.
Or more accurately, armor that was practically underwear.
It was a set that included just a chest covering and a little something for the lower body. Categorically speaking, it might be called light armor.
In terms of mobility, it easily outdid a full set of metal armor.
The armor itself was beautifully curved, elaborate, and solid. From that perspective, it was unimpeachable.
The problem was, it just didn’t cover enough surface area.
It was just chest armor—really, breast armor—and panties.
There were shoulder pads, true, but that wasn’t really the issue.
“Huh? D-do you wear something else with this?”
“No, that’s the whole thing.” The apprentice boy working a sword along a round whetstone behind the counter spared them a glance. He had been glancing for some time now, in fact, perhaps concerned about the girls holding the merchandise.
“Has… Has anyone actually bought this?” Priestess asked disbelievingly. It wasn’t clear whether she noticed the flush in his cheeks.
“Well, it is easy to move in. And it provides a modicum of protection… At least, that’s the sales pitch.” Then the boy muttered something that sounded like an excuse—“I’m not sure I should really say this, but”—and added, “Some people, you know. They want to, uh, appeal to guys…”
“Appeal? Yeah, you’d probably get some attention in this.” Cow Girl picked up the bikini armor, blushing and muttering, “Yikes.”
She examined it from the front, turned it around and observed it from the back, ran her finger along the severe angles of the hips, laid it out, and examined it again.
“Isn’t this a little too revealing?”
“…We get enough orders to make it worth having here,” the apprentice boy mumbled, discreetly averting his eyes.
“Hmm,” Cow Girl breathed. “I guess you’d have to have courage to wear something this dangerous. It’s basically a swimsuit.”
“That’s true…” Priestess nodded with an unreadable expression. She went on studying the items on the shelves with great curiosity. As someone who stood in the back row, maybe she hadn’t had much exposure to weapons and armor. Cow Girl was as curious as Priestess.
“Oh, this…” Suddenly, Priestess stopped in front of a display of armor. She had picked something up with a smile. It was a helmet.
“Hey, I recognize that.”
It was the natural reply for Cow Girl, who was smiling, too. Priestess had picked up a gleaming, but cheap-looking, steel helmet. Except for the horns growing out of either side and the fact that it was brand-new, it was just like his.
Cow Girl peered down into the helmet through its empty visor, then she clapped her hands.
“Hey, what if we put it on?”
“Huh? Can we do that?” Priestess tilted her head in confusion at the unexpected idea.
“The sign says you can try things on.”
“Umm, okay then, here goes nothing…”
Holding the helmet with a hint of reluctance, Priestess first took a cotton balaclava with “For Fitting” written on it. She pulled it on, paying careful attention to her long hair, then slid the steel helmet on over it.
“Y-yikes…”
Her delicate body listed to one side; the helmet must have been as heavy as it looked. Cow Girl reached out frantically to support her. The girl’s willowy form was strikingly light.
“Whoa, you okay there?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little off balance…”
Inside the visor Priestess’s eyes could be seen, still appearing innocent despite the gear. From the slight flush on her cheeks, she seemed oddly embarrassed.
“Heh-heh… I…I guess it is pretty heavy. And it makes it kind of hard to breathe…”
“That’s because it’s a full-head helmet. It’s only natural—the visor’s a pretty tight fit.”
At the apprentice boy’s remark, Priestess scrambled to release the clasps, and the visor popped up.
“Phew!”
Cow Girl chuckled at the seemingly involuntary sigh of relief, and Priestess’s face turned even redder.
“Th-this is no laughing matter…!”
“Ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sorry, sorry. Okay, me next.”
Priestess took off the helmet and then the balaclava. When Cow Girl took them and put the head covering on, she caught a faintly sweet aroma of sweat.
Hm?
Was that—not perfume, but how she naturally smelled? Jealous! With that thought, she pulled the helmet on.
“Y-yipes… Pretty tight in here.”
“Yeah, right?”
Through the fine lattice of the visor, the world was dark, narrow, and foreboding. She sucked in a breath and let it out, her vision wobbling as she did so.
Is this the world he sees?
What did she, and Priestess, and his other companions look like to him? How did their faces appear?
“I can more or less picture it, but…”
“What’s that?”
“Mm. Isn’t it kind of unfair that he can see our faces, but we can’t see his?”
“Ahh,” Priestess said in agreement, giggling. “That’s true.”
“Not that I think he’s deliberately trying to hide… Hup!”
She nodded as the apprentice boy said, “Put it back where you found it, okay?” She returned the helmet and balaclava to the shelf.
She let out a breath, her chest bouncing as she stretched her neck this way and that. She didn’t think of herself as in poor physical shape, but all the same, armor definitely left your shoulders stiff.
Hmmm… “Say…”
“Yes?”
“Since we’re here…” Cow Girl smiled like a child with a prank in mind. “Why don’t we try that armor on?”
Priestess looked where she was pointing and then quickly lowered her head, bright red.
§
“Aww, man! My country’s toast!”
“Too bad… Well, it’s not very funny.”
“That dragon is way too strong! I don’t have the equipment or the skills to handle it.”
“But you’ll find a way. Isn’t that what makes you Platinum-ranked?”
After perusing the wares at the workshop, the two of them turned to the tavern and saw a strange sight.
It was past noon but not yet twilight, and there weren’t many customers at the Guild tavern. If anything, they seemed to be just getting ready. The chairs were set on the tables, and the waitress was sweeping a corner of the floor.
Inspector, Guild Girl, and High Elf Archer were seated at a table with cards spread out in front of them. They made strange company, but a company they made.
“What are you all doing…?” Priestess asked hesitantly, blinking as she peeked at the tabletop.
She still seemed a bit agitated and had been unable to calm down yet; she straightened her slightly disheveled clothing.
“Oh, it’s a tabletop game,” Guild Girl answered, looking back over her shoulder at Priestess. She wasn’t wearing her uniform, either, but personal clothes. She made a tidy and fashionable picture.
Thinking to herself, She looks good , Cow Girl directed her eyes to the table. There was, indeed, a game board with several pieces, cards, and dice.
“I found it when I was organizing some old papers yesterday, so we thought we’d try it…”
“That dragon, though! It’s so strong!” High Elf Archer whined, her little chest pressed against the table.
“If it weren’t strong, it wouldn’t be a dragon. I understand what you’re saying, but take it easy,” Inspector—also in personal clothes—said with a strained smile. Presumably, the red-colored dragon piece sitting smack in the middle of the table was the wyrm in question. And the pieces lying on their sides around it were all the adventurers who had died challenging it.
“So how y’feeling?” High Elf Archer asked, swiveling her head toward Priestess.
“Oh, okay,” Priestess nodded in embarrassment. “It’s about over now.”
“Cool,” High Elf Archer said, waving her over. “In that case, help me out, here. I don’t have enough adventurers anymore.”
“There are…adventurers…in this tabletop game?” Cow Girl tilted her head in perplexity. It almost made sense, but she couldn’t quite put the pieces together.
“To put it simply,” Guild Girl said, “you pretend to be an adventurer. There are plenty of rules and stuff, though.”
“Pretend to be an adventurer?” Cow Girl murmured, ruminating on the idea. “So you, like, slay goblins and stuff?”
“Sure. Some more basic ones exist, where you’re like a real adventurer searching through a cave.” Guild Girl poked one of the metal pieces, perhaps a shabby-looking light warrior or thief, and smiled. As far as Cow Girl could tell, the piece wasn’t wearing a helmet. She was mildly disappointed.
“This is from a higher-level perspective, where the question is how you protect the world from danger.”
“You have to collect the legendary weapons and armor and make sure your skills are up to snuff before the dragon wakes up,” High Elf Archer grumbled, abruptly raising her head and letting her ears droop. “But we don’t have enough hands or enough time.”
“You can also take quests from the village, and collect gear, and fight the dragon…” Inspector counted off the tasks on her fingers, nodding to herself. She seemed full of confidence despite having lost the battle, which made her appear silly yet reliable. “It can give you a taste of running an Adventurers Guild, where you have to do everything.”
“I didn’t know there were games like this,” Cow Girl said, reaching out with great interest and picking up a piece that looked like a knight in armor and helmet.
He looked a little more ragged, or at least, his equipment looked cheaper—but what a fine knight. Not bad.
“This is completely new to me…”
In her mind, “games” were mostly limited to those where you scored points with combinations of cards. Similar entertainments might include listening to songs, playing dice, and maybe competitions if there was a festival.
Guild Girl chuckled, watching her stare at the pieces and board.
“Want to try it?”
“Huh? Can I?”
“Sure,” Guild Girl said, crinkling her eyes and nodding at the way Cow Girl’s face lit up. “It’s not easy to just wait there doing nothing, is it?”
“Hrm.” Cow Girl let out a small sound. There was no besting this girl. I guess this is what they call an adult woman.
Whether or not she was aware of Cow Girl’s thoughts, Guild Girl never stopped smiling.
“Come on, we’d love to have more adventurers. Don’t be shy!”
“Uh, sure, don’t mind if I do, then… How about you join me? Since you’re here…”
“Oh, okay!”
Cow Girl gave Priestess a tug on the sleeve, practically pulling her into a seat. Now there were five women forming a complete circle around the round table. No doubt many adventurers, had they known about this, would have complained that they wanted to go to the tavern.
“So start by picking your piece, please,” Guild Girl said, her voice and smile softer than they usually were at the front desk.
“Hmm…” Cow Girl put her hands together in front of her chest, staring intently at the various adventurers lined up on the board.
Yeah… I think this is the one I want.
Unsure though she was, she took the knight she had picked up earlier. The steel helmet made it impossible to see its face, but it had its shield and sword raised and looked straight ahead.
“For me…I think this one.”
“Oh, um, I’ll take…” Priestess put a pale finger to her lips and thought, a bit lost as she gazed at the pawns. Then, with an “ah!” she glanced around and chose a particular figure.
“Th-this one, please!”
The character she had selected was an elf spell caster, her voluptuous body draped in a robe.
“Good choice,” High Elf Archer said with a knowing laugh, and Priestess squirmed a bit.
“Okay, for me…” High Elf Archer flicked her ears with an expression like a hunter stalking her prey. “Right! I’ll take this one this time! A dwarf warrior!”
“Gosh, are you sure?” Guild Girl asked, but High Elf Archer replied, “Of course!” and stuck out her little chest. “I’ll show that dwarf I’m better at…dwarf-ing…than he ever was!”
“I’ll continue as the scout, then.”
“Heh-heh-heh! That means you have no monk. Well, I’ll handle that.”
Guild Girl smilingly set a light warrior with shabby-looking equipment on the board, while Inspector picked an old man holding a holy seal.
And so their adventurers were assembled. A knight in armor and helm, an elf sorceress, a dwarf warrior, a light scout, and a veteran monk. This was the party that set out to face the humongous dragon and save the world. Guild Girl briefly explained the rules to Cow Girl, who then took the dice firmly in hand.
Here goes.
“My adventurer is the hero who’s gonna protect the village, rescue the princess, and defeat the dragon!”
With this resolute declaration, Cow Girl let the first roll of the dice fall upon the board.
§
“Ahh, we lost.”
The town and the sky were tinged with the ultramarine of twilight. Cow Girl spoke indifferently, looking up at the stars that twinkled in the distance. As she walked along, hands clasped behind her, Priestess scuttled alongside like a small bird.
“We weren’t able to get the Sword of Dragon Slaying, were we?”
“Couldn’t get through its scales.”
In the end, they had had their hands full with goblin slaying. The dragon had destroyed the girls, and they hadn’t been able to save the world, but…
“But it sure was fun, wasn’t it?” Priestess said.
“Sure was,” Cow Girl agreed.
Autumn still seemed some time away, but the breeze that blew cooler and cooler hinted at it.
The world he saw.
The world he lived in—
She had caught the slightest glimpse of it.
“Hey…” Cow Girl laughed as the breeze caressed her skin, flushed from the game. “Window-shopping at the weapon shop, playing at the tavern… Not very girlish, is it?”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha…”
Priestess gave a dry laugh and avoided the question. She was three or four years younger than Cow Girl, and she seemed like a little sister.
I wonder how he thinks of her.
“Hm.” Priestess might or might not have noticed the small breath Cow Girl let out. But she gazed up at her with a guileless smile.
“I’d like to play again sometime.”
“…Yeah. Me too.”
“In that case…” Priestess ran several steps ahead, tap-tap-tap , and spun around to face Cow Girl. Her golden hair flowed behind her head, catching the last light of the sinking sun and sparkling. “…Let’s do it!”
Huh. Cow Girl exhaled without realizing it. I guess I do have some connections here.
She had thought she had only him, and the farm. But because he was connected to this girl, now she was, too.
“…Sure.” Cow Girl dusted off her behind and smiled. “Let’s do this again sometime.”
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