Chapter 20:
The Return to the Capital
It was the second night of their journey home to the capital.
“Time for tonight’s folktale!
“One day, a suspicious-looking old woman, who was selling apples, came to the home of a young girl who had run away from her evil stepmother and was living with some dwarves. The old woman asked, ‘Do your gums bleed when you bite into apples?’ The young girl used the toothpaste that she bought from the old woman and perished…”
Given that Mile had never seen snow during her time alive—either in her home world or this land—she decided to switch the name of the heroine of this tale to that of the protagonist of another in order to suit the context.
Her heroine was called…
“Cindeadella.”
“And then, a perverted prince with necrophiliac tendencies showed up to kiss the young girl’s corpse…”
“What?! But the seven dwarves were there, too! They’d never let him lay a hand on that girl!”
“If the search functions of that magical bell were put to military use, they would have an overwhelming effect on the tides of battle…”
“But the girl has such a strong life force. Couldn’t she just use the prince’s energy to revive herself?! She’s a demon, isn’t she?”
The members of the Flaming Wolves interjected at their leisure until Reina roared, “Shut up! You aren’t supposed to question everything. This is just a nonsense tale to enjoy!”
It seemed that Reina understood the proper way to enjoy a story.
In other words, she had been well trained. By Mile.
The other two were exactly the same.
***
The third night:
“On the way to see her grandmother, a young girl traveled deep into the forest, a red cloth draped atop her head and pinned under her chin so as to hide her cheeks. Indeed, this was because she had a toothache.
“Little Red Riding Tooth.”
“What a big mouth you have! I bet you could swallow a person whole! And it’s not just your mouth! What happened to your throat and stomach?”
“If you devised a plan to sneak behind enemy lines in the belly of a wolf, it would have an overwhelming effect on the tides of battle…”
“That would spread some pretty damaging rumors about wolfmen…”
“Shut uuuuuuuuuup!”
***
And then, the fourth day:
Finally, they arrived back at the capital. Their job of eight nights and nine days was complete.
They’d only spent a short time as guards, but the Crimson Vow had gotten quite a lot out of it; it was the first time they had worked in conjunction with other parties and the first time they had battled against not only monsters, but other people as well.
However, while the four girls still looked as though they had quite a bit of energy left in them, in truth, they were exhausted, both in spirit and—thanks to the lengthy wagon journey—
in body.
As they stopped by the shops of each of the four merchants, the wagons and their owners departed one by one. And of course, with every stop, Mile withdrew the merchants’ excess goods from her storage and collected her handling fee.
At the final merchant’s shop, they handed over the goods, calculated the fee for transporting those goods held in storage, and filled in the job completion paperwork. Though the members of Dragonbreath were not with them, they forwarded the report of their completed duties as well. The job was now officially finished. Then, the merchant started in on a different topic entirely.
“Everyone, I’d like to extend my sincere thanks. Without all of your help, our caravan would have been wiped out, and it’s likely that we ourselves might not have made it back alive. We’ll never forget all that you’ve done for us. Should the chance ever arise, we would be grateful to have you take on our requests again in the future.”
The merchant bowed his head to all of them and quickly continued.
“And um, Miss Mile, if it should suit you, we would be happy to adopt—”
“No thank you!”
“No thank you!”
“No thank you!”
Before Mile could even speak, Reina, Pauline, and Mavis had replied in her stead.
The merchant slumped in disappointment.
“Who does he think he is?!”
“Honestly! What kind of nonsense was that?!”
Reina and Pauline ranted about the merchant’s impertinent invitation all the way to the guildhall.
Upon seeing the girls, their usual, favorite clerk shouted, “I heard all about it! You all were really amazing!”
Hearing this, everyone in the hall turned to look at them.
Forgive me… thought Mile, a mortified look on her face, but the other three were beaming. Naturally, the Flaming Wolves were as well.
“Honestly,” said Mile, “it was all thanks to the five members of Dragonbreath, as well as the Flaming Wolves here.”
Suddenly remembering their position, Reina and the others nodded as well.
However, the guild staff and other hunters had known the Flaming Wolves for some time, and were well aware of their abilities. Furthermore, while it was well established that Dragonbreath were powerful hunters, close to B-rank, they certainly were not the sort of party who could face over forty soldiers and make it out unscathed. So naturally, the Crimson Vow, the wild card in this situation, fell under suspicion. Nonetheless, questioning one’s fellow hunters was considered a taboo, so while a private inquiry was a different matter, no one dared to cross-examine them in front of such a crowd.
Just then, a shout came their way.
“Brett! Congratulations on your big win! We’re so proud to be part of your party! I bet you got a huge reward, didn’t you? We should celebrate tonight and discuss our party’s plans for the future!”
The Crimson Vow looked around in surprise and saw a pair of girls nearby. One got the impression that they had been waiting for the Flaming Wolves this whole time.
“A celebration for our party members, huh…? That might be good. We did earn a lot this time, and it’s helped our reputation. We should party with some cute girls to celebrate our bright future!”
“Oh, that’s a good idea!”
“Totally!”
Chuck and Daryl agreed with Brett’s proposal.
The two girls smiled in satisfaction. “We’ve been staking out some places. What do you think about the Wingtip?”
“Huh?”
Brett looked perplexed at the girl’s suggestion. “Why exactly are you proposing the place?” Chuck and Daryl looked equally confused.
“Huh? Well, it’s a party celebration… So, the five of us should…” the girls started.
Brett replied wearily, “A five-person party? No, the Flaming Wolves are a three-man band and have been for several months. You girls’ fellow party members are those four handsome fellows, aren’t they? You all cast us aside, saying we were nothing but pathetic country bumpkins. We’re nothing more than some guys who used to be your allies. You have no business with us now.
“If anyone should be celebrating with us tonight, it should be the people who fought alongside us. Those girls over there best fit that bill. Besides, isn’t alcohol bad for an unborn child?”
As Brett spoke, he, Chuck, and Daryl all stared at the girls coldly.
Ouch…
Mile and the girls, along with everyone else present, could all see the misery in the two girls’ eyes.
The pair was frozen for several moments, but as soon as they noticed the countless pitying and contemptuous stares directed their way, they hastily retreated.
“They won’t be coming back again, will they?”
“Who knows… Well, even if they do, I don’t intend to deal with them again, so it’s none of our concern.”
“Ah, guess you’re right.”
In truth, this could not be thought of as a betrayal. All the people involved had simply chosen what was best for them. It was as simple as that. The two girls had thought that those four handsome men were the best choice for them.
And naturally, the Flaming Wolves thought that caring for a pair of girls who had made that choice—and were now carrying other men’s children—was not.
Members of a party had to entrust one another with their lives, so it was out of the question to have people in your party whom you could not have total faith in. Furthermore, it was likely that those girls would not be able to work as hunters very soon. They were already showing.
The Crimson Vow handed over their job completion certificate, marked with an A-grade, along with the merchants’ report about Dragonbreath, asking the clerk to keep her voice down so as not to attract any more attention as they collected their pay. For the four of them, there was 96 half-gold in total.
So that it would be easy for the party to divide, the clerk handed them 8 gold and 16 half-gold pieces. She was very diligent when it came to matters like these.
Though it would be nice if she paid more attention to other things, Mile grumbled internally.
They had already received their payment for the bandits and soldiers back in Amroth, so this part was merely the promised pay from the merchants. With this, their assignment was now well and truly complete.
“Oh! There were some letters for you as well,” said the clerk.
Mavis grimaced, and Pauline’s shoulders slumped. The clerk handed them two letters apiece, which they immediately shoved into their pockets, unread.
And then, as they started to head back toward the inn…
“S-say, why don’t we celebrate the end of our job?” asked the Flaming Wolves.
“We’d better hold off,” the girls replied. “Little Lenny gets mad at us if we don’t eat our meals at the inn when we’re in town…”
“I can’t drink anyway…”
“And we really need to go count our money…”
“So then!” they all finished in unison, and promptly departed, leaving the three Flaming Wolves with blank stares.
“We’re back!”
“Welcome home!”
As always, Lenny greeted the girls from behind the counter.
Actually, now that they thought about it… they had never seen anyone besides Lenny behind that counter. Was she not just a helper, but actually a full-time employee?
While Mile puzzled over this, she retrieved the dried fish from the loot box.
“Here, a souvenir.”
“Whoa, these are fish, aren’t they?! Did you all go to the ocean? If I’d known, I would’ve asked you to buy some smoked fish, too…”
As Lenny started to pout, Mile pulled out some of the smoked fish from her loot box as well.
“O-ohhh…”
From the looks of it, Lenny was not interested in serving the fish as a meal at the inn, but rather, in eating it herself. In her usual loud voice, she called over the innkeeper and his wife, who graciously thanked the girls and accepted the goods.
That evening after dinner, when those patrons who had come only for the meal had returned home, and those guests staying overnight had retreated to their rooms, a scene of carnage unfolded on the inn’s main floor.
“No way!” Lenny screamed. “Have you forgotten all the favors we’ve done for you up until now?!”
“No,” Pauline replied coolly, “This is a perfectly fair transaction. As I recall, the agreement that we made was mutually beneficial.”
Indeed, under their agreement, they had helped attract customers in exchange for a discount. Now that they had stayed at the inn for a whole month, the time that they had paid for in advance was up. Lenny had hoped that they would renew their contract under the same terms, but the Crimson Vow’s initial timidity, which they had felt when their future was uncertain and they needed to pinch their pennies, was gone. Now, their pockets were full.
“Anyway,” said Pauline, “we’re tired of waiting on the other guests. We have more than enough funds now, so we’ll be relocating to an inn that has its own bath—”
“B-but…”
Lenny, the innkeeper, and the matron were speechless.
Sure enough, ever since the Crimson Vow had begun their stay, the inn’s profits had been steadily rising. There was an increase in the number of patrons as well—both those who stayed overnight and those who stopped by only for meals. In the nine days that the girls had been gone, the owners had received question after question about where they were, and sales had already fallen.
And now, just when they had finally returned, bringing with them a sense of hope, they suddenly declared they were leaving. It was as good as saying, “This place isn’t good enough, so we’re going elsewhere.” Naturally, the owners were dumbfounded.
“Just what exactly are you so dissatisfied with here?!”
“Well, I mean, we’ve already told you this plenty of times: we’re tired of being the entertainment, and there are no baths.”
“Well… what if we get rid of your duties and just offer you the room at the standard rate…?”
“Is that really supposed to be an incentive to stay at this place without a bath?”
“If we’re paying the standard rate, wouldn’t it just be better for us to pay a bit more and relocate to somewhere with a bath?”
At Reina and Pauline’s rebuttals, Lenny fell silent.
“Well then… what if we kept the rate what it is, but just decreased your job requirements a bit…?”
“I’m telling you, money is no longer an issue for us. We’re not doing it anymore!”
“Plus, the way we’ve done things until now is expensive, comparatively. We didn’t even stay at the inn for a third of this past month. Unlike other hunters, we don’t need to leave our things in our room while we’re traveling, so we’ve come to realize that actually making a room reservation is a frivolous expense…”
“Guh… Er…”
They’d figured it out. Lenny chewed her lip as she thought.
Previously, just after the Crimson Vow had left on their rock lizard hunting trip, Lenny had entered their room to clean it. Seeing that not a single item of the girls’ luggage remained in the room, she had come to the same realization Pauline and Reina had, thinking: Oh! There’s really no reason for them to have reserved their room in advance, is there…?
With that in mind, their discounted rate, which at a glance was an excellent deal, was not so great once you took into account the number of nights that they actually stayed in the room, plus the work they did waiting on other guests.
Furthermore, the souvenirs that Mile brought back now and then were nothing to sneeze at. The rock lizard tails she brought them before, for example—wholesale prices for them were one matter, but buying them at retail price was fairly expensive. Plus, it had been an entire tail. It was more than enough to make meals for the guests. It could also be preserved in various ways, such as smoking and drying, and what was left over could be resold to other inns. It was incredibly profitable. It was the same with the orc meat before that, and the fish this time.
She had no choice but to give up hope that the inn could profit from their lodging fees, but there had to be something else that she could squeeze out of them…
With that in mind, Lenny the negotiator came out in full force. (Incidentally, Lenny’s parents were complete non-entities in this conversation.)
“Okay. I’ll give you a four-person room—meals not included—for six silver a night! You only have to pay for the nights you stay, and you only have to interact with the other guests as much as you would with anyone else lodging in the same place you were, so…”
Lenny was grinding her teeth, looking as though she were about to vomit blood.
However, what she was offering was nothing more than a simple discount. All the other amenities were exactly the same as those they could get in any inn. Even if the discount was rather steep…
Yet seeing Reina and Pauline’s dispassionate reaction to her proposal, Lenny made a determined face.
If what they really cared about was the amenities, she could try offering them free lodging. But she could not possibly bring herself to make that decision.
This was still an inn, after all. They earned their profit from the guests who stayed there. Therefore, if guests stayed there without contributing any income, they would no longer be an inn. They could offer discounts now and then, and depending on the generosity of their guests, they might even earn some favors from time to time. Still, they could not violate the founding principles of an inn!
True, even if they were to let the Crimson Vow lodge for free, there would still be some profit to them in the situation. But even knowing this, she could not choose that route. She could not betray her pride as an innkeeper’s daughter. No matter how much her father, beside her, tried to convey an aura of, It doesn’t really matter, so just let them stay for free.
“Um…” The voice came as Lenny crumbled into despair.
It was Mile, who, up until now had merely been standing quietly beside Mavis.
“If we can make that agreement, then I think as long as two other requirements can be met, we should be able to keep lodging here…”
Though Reina and Pauline glared at her, with an air of, Just what are you trying to say? Mile continued to speak.
“The first requirement is: We need to abolish the expectation that we eat our meals here when we’re in the capital.”
Tacking on a reassurance to the innkeeper, who looked like he had taken a grave blow at the implication that his cooking was somehow lacking, Mile continued.
“I mean, it’s not that the food here isn’t great! It’s just that there are so many shops around—I’d love to try eating more things. Plus, sometimes we might get invitations from our friends and that sort of thing…”
“The second is: I’d like you to lend us part of the courtyard.”
“Huh???”
This time, it was not only the innkeeper, his wife, and Lenny who were flabbergasted, but also the three other members of the Crimson Vow.
“Just what are you planning…?” asked Reina, eyeing Mile with suspicion.
However, Mile being Mile, there was nothing she could do but shrug.
Most inns typically had wide-open backyards or courtyards. After all, they often housed hunters and soldiers, as well as many other travelers and merchants with an interest in physical pursuits, who liked to do their daily training early in the morning. Throughout the day, the same space was also used as a space for drying large amounts of laundry. This inn, like others, had a decently spacious courtyard, so it would be no issue for them to relinquish a small corner of it.
The Crimson Vow had just finished a big job, and so they decided to take several days’ break, with each of them free to do their own thing.
Mile spent this time flitting to and fro. To the blacksmith, to the lumber mill, and even to the dump…
And then, one day, the guests of the inn suddenly realized that something odd had appeared in a corner of the courtyard, as if out of nowhere.
“Oh my! Is it finished?” asked Reina, who had come to see.
“Yep!” Mile happily replied. “And tonight’s the grand opening!”
That evening, after dinner…
Lenny, her mother, the members of the Crimson Vow, and a number of female guests who had come to look on with interest gathered before a nine-meter-square structure that had been erected in the courtyard.
What stood before them was a modest-sized wooden shack, with a water tower beside it.
The water tower had four tanks placed upon a platform about two meters high. The tanks were made up of a random selection of items, gathered from whatever happened to be suitable. Two of them were large wooden tubs, and the other two were giant pots of the kind that might be used in the kitchen of a military base. Spouts ran from openings in the bottoms of each of these containers into the small room.
Mile climbed the stairs that were built into the tower, explaining her creation to everyone from above.
“This is a water-supplying apparatus. Cold water goes in the wooden buckets, and hot water in the iron pot. If either side becomes empty, it can be replenished while you’re using the other one. The hot water supply assumes you’ll be using magic—it can’t function to boil the water itself.”
As she spoke, she filled the respective tanks with hot and cold water.
“You can put the hot water in directly with magic, like this, or fill the pots with cold water and then use a fireball or whatever to heat the pot and prepare the water. Ah—but please be careful not to overdo it and destroy the tanks.”
She then climbed down from the tank and opened the door to the shack.
“When you first enter here, there’s the changing room. This is where you undress…”
She slid the second door to the side.
“And this is the bath. It has a soaking tub, a washing area, and a shower. You can use this part to regulate the temperature of the water by mixing hot and cold. Please take care not to scald yourself!”
“Woohoo!” The whole crowd cheered.
Indeed, the bathhouse was now complete. However, it was for ladies only.
What about the men? They could just draw water up from the well and douse themselves, couldn’t they?
At any rate, with this, the Crimson Vow no longer had any reason to move to another inn.
“Th-thank you so much, Miss Mile!” Little Lenny’s eyes were overflowing with tears of joy. “Now, we’ll get even more guests, and we can charge admission just for the baths!”
“And you’ll be paying us a usage, provision, and water-heating fee, won’t you?” Pauline asked with a smile.
“Er…”
Lenny’s face darkened a bit.
“Of course, when we aren’t here, you’ll need to recruit someone from among your guests, if there is anyone who can use magic—or figure out if there is someone nearby who you can pay to do it. Or, you could put in a request for magic-users at the hunters’ guild. I think you should be able to attract a few takers just by promising them snacks and ale.”
As she spoke, Mile provided an example for what to do when there was no one available to produce hot water directly, filling the bath with water and then producing a fireball, which she did not release, but rather, submerged gently into the water. There was a burbling sound, and the temperature of the water in the bath rose slightly. She did this a number of times until steam began to rise from the surface of the pot.
The hut had no windows except those situated up high to let in light, so it was designed to let steam out through gaps in the ceiling. Also, though it appeared to be wooden from the outside, there were stainless steel plates sandwiched between the boards.
Additionally, inside the washroom, there was an emergency lever which, if pulled, would bring down another stainless steel plate across the doorway, sealing off entry from the outside, while a chute would open in the wall of the washroom, and the bather’s clothing, weapons, and armor would come out for rapid dressing.
It was possible that people might plan to attack someone while they were in a place where they were unarmed, so Mile had installed these features as a precaution. Furthermore, there were escape hatches installed in the floor and ceiling, just in case. Naturally, there were traps for snaring any potential pursuers, as well.
Just what sort of battles was Mile intending to wage here…?
Had she been so inclined, Mile could have foregone the trouble of buying and gathering all her construction materials, and simply alchemized the whole thing using earth magic. However, that would have made her stand out far too much and attracted suspicion. Therefore, she had taken pains to make the bath appear, as much as possible, like something that had been haphazardly cobbled together from odds and ends. The kind of thing any normal, average C-rank hunter might produce.
Yet, once again, there was something Mile had neglected.
It was the fact that there wasn’t a single normal, average, C-rank hunter in the world who could build an entire bathhouse in just two or three days…
“Now then, Lenny! Why don’t you do us the honor of being our first-ever bather? Show us all how it’s done!” said Mile, already beginning to strip Lenny of her clothes. If she didn’t, she suspected that that “honor” would fall on her, so she thought it best to take the initiative.
“W-wait Miss Mile, what are you—?! No, d-don’t—!!”
In a quick move, Mile stripped the embarrassed Lenny of her smock and went to remove her… undershirt…
Mile suddenly found herself frozen, unable to move. Reina looked on in horror.
Apparently, Lenny was incredibly well developed for a girl of ten.
Yes, even more so than Mile. And Reina too…
After that, the other female guests joined the girls, and they all stepped into the bath together. Everyone fussed over Lenny, while Pauline relayed to them all the “Way of the Bath” and the “Bath as a Lady’s Etiquette” talks that Mile had shared with them previously. Mile and Reina, meanwhile, took to the corners of the tub, where they sank into the water up to their ears, staring. Consequently, the rest of the bathers left them very much alone…
“Time for another folktale…”
Mile did not seem pleased about it.
Apparently, she had yet to recover from her grave shock.
“‘The Wyvern Returns’…”
And so the story proceeded.
“And then the wyvern plucked out one of its feathers for each of them…”
“A wyvern’s wings don’t have any feathers!”
“Oh…”
“‘The Ugly Goblin Child’…”
“But every baby goblin is hideous!”
“………”
She was in a funk. Normally, Mile would have told the story “The Dragon Returns,” about a dragon peeling off its own scales to make armor.
“I’m going to sleep.”
“Me too.”
“Well, I guess I’ll sleep too, then…”
Mile snuggled into bed, followed by Reina and Mavis.
Only Pauline remained awake, engrossed in her nightly ritual of counting coins.
“Oh, g-good morning…”
The next morning, when they went down for breakfast, Lenny greeted the girls with a somewhat sheepish expression.
In fact, she was wearing the same baggy smock that she always did, but for the first time ever it occurred to Mile and Reina that this might have been out of consideration for them.
However, Lenny’s pity only stung more.
“G-good morning, Miss Lenny,” they both replied.
“Wh-why are you suddenly calling me ‘Miss’?”
It seemed they had both unintentionally acknowledged Lenny as the victor…
***
Several days later…
As the girls were calculating their pay after a successful day trip of hunting and harvesting (gathering orc meat and the like), the clerk whispered to them, “The guild master wants to see you in his office.”
The girls silently nodded, then slipped surreptitiously up to the guildhall’s upper floor.
“Oh, you’re here.”
Once they entered, the guild master began to explain.
“To tell you the truth, girls, there are some folks who have been asking questions about you lately. It seems like they’re strangers to this town. But no one knows what they’re after. I have some guesses, but I really couldn’t say more than that.”
It was a blunt way to break the news to them, but unfortunately, he told the truth.
Maybe it was someone who had seen them at the graduation exam, or some noble who had heard the rumors about it. Or perhaps it was someone who was keen on Mile’s storage magic, or an agent of one of those merchants, or a group of imperial soldiers…
Or perhaps it was even someone interested in their marriage prospects…
Certainly it’s not that last one , the girls assured themselves. Still, as the guild master had said, there were so many possibilities they couldn’t possibly guess which was most likely. They could only laugh awkwardly.
“I’ll be keeping an eye out for you, but do be careful. That is all.”
“Honestly though—who, exactly, would be investigating us?” asked Mile on the way back to the inn.
Yet just as they turned the final corner, they came upon a young man standing before the entrance. He was around twenty years old, determined-looking, and fairly handsome.
The moment he saw them, he ran toward them at full speed. Instinctively, the girls took on a defensive stance. However…
“Huh?”
He was tall, with golden hair, a taut and resolute face, and shining eyes…
He was most certainly no one that Reina, Pauline, and Mile had ever met before, and yet somehow he gave them the impression of being an old friend.
And then, Mavis screamed.
“Third Brother!”
Of course.
They had heard much of this fabled Third Brother. Perhaps more than anyone in the world, outside of Mavis’s own family. The number of times they’d heard the tales in their six months at school was so high they’d lost count…
This Third Brother came to a halt just in front of Mavis.
“Wha—? Mavis…? Y-your hair…”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. It was getting in the way, so I cut it.”
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
The girls tried their best to bring Third Brother out of his tizzy as they moved into the inn. Naturally, it would look suspicious for four young ladies to bring a man up to their room, so they picked a corner of the dining room to chat in. After some time, when it seemed that he had finally calmed down somewhat, Mavis began to speak.
“What are you doing here, Third Brother?”
“Isn’t it obvious?! I came here to get you. Father has sent you countless letters, but you never returned home—you never even replied! Now, we’re going back home. Pack your things!”
“Sorry, but I am no longer Mavis von Austien, eldest daughter of the Austien family. The girl you are looking at is plain old Mavis, rookie C-rank hunter and forward guard leader of the Crimson Vow, who aims to become a knight someday.”
“What are you saying?! You’re our family’s only…”
Pauline interrupted him. “Please wait, Third Brother.”
“It’s Ewan. You shouldn’t be calling me that.”
“Ah, right…” she replied earnestly.
She had only called him that because, whenever Mavis spoke of her brothers, she referred to them as First Brother, Second Brother, and Third Brother. So naturally, those were the names that Pauline had come to associate with them. And, of course, she hadn’t known Ewan’s actual name. It wasn’t as though she wanted to call him “Third Brother.”
“Well then, Mister Ewan,” she said. “Are you aware that Mavis ran away from home because your family ignored and even opposed her own dreams of becoming a knight? If she were to return home now, just what would happen to that?”
“Well, of course, we wouldn’t permit that! Our dear, precious Mavis’s place is with us! Mavis isn’t a knight to do the defending—she’s our fair princess, who we should defend! Why else do you think my brothers and I all became knights in the first place?”
“Err…”
The three third wheels shrank back, and Mavis sighed wearily. Lenny was all ears, listening wide-eyed, while the other guests looked flabbergasted.
It’s just like the Kellogg’s slogan! thought Mile.
She was only partly right—there weren’t any roosters around, but this sure had been a wake-up call.
“What are you so shocked for?! Here, take a look at this!”
“D-don’t! Third Brother, please don’t!”
As Mavis tried desperately to stop him, Ewan jerked away and pulled from his breast pocket some kind of small parcel, which he then began to unwrap.
“Now then—feast your eyes!” said Ewan, handing something over.
It was a palm-sized portrait of a cute young girl, around ten years old. She had golden hair all down her back, big round eyes, and a precious smile. She looked just like a princess from a fairy tale.
“Who is this?” the girls asked.
“It’s me…” Mavis replied ruefully, scratching the bridge of her nose.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!” they all screamed.
Just as they noticed that there was one voice too many among them, they realized that Lenny, who was supposed to be at the inn’s counter, was gazing at the portrait as well.
“W-well… I guess if Miss Mavis grew her hair, and put on a dress, and opened her eyes wide, and smiled… She would look something like this…” Lenny mused.
“Right?! You get it!” Ewan nodded emphatically.
“Ah, yes, it is just as you say, Mister Ewan…”
“ You can call me Third Brother—I don’t mind.”
“Uh…”
Lenny gaped at him.
“And, I don’t mind if you do, either,” he added, pointing to Mile.
“What?”
Mile gaped at him as well.
Snap!
A sound rang in everyone’s ears.
As everyone looked curiously around the room, as if to ask, “Did anyone else hear that?” they saw Reina and Pauline, their veins bursting in their foreheads.
Oh nooooooo!
Clang!
Clatter!
Everyone in the room moved their tables and chairs as far away from the Crimson Vow as possible.
He had made an enemy of Pauline and Reina. There was not a single soul among the staff and guests who was not well aware of what that meant…
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