Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume SS - Chapter 25

Short Story:

Roxy Shows Her Gratitude

ROXY MIGURDIA HAD A DILEMMA. Just the other day, she had received a thank-you gift from Rudeus and Sylphie after their wedding. But was it okay to just accept such a thing? When you received a present, wasn’t it common courtesy to give something in return? Having come to this conclusion, she’d gone out to look for something, but she wasn’t sure what they would like. Sylphie’s present was giving her particular trouble. They had lived together in the past, so Roxy knew her tastes: she preferred simple to showy, and practical to stylish. That made a household item or clothing, something a little on the expensive side, her prime candidates. And yet as Roxy spent three hours wandering in circles around the market, nothing seemed quite right. 

But the longer you searched, the more opportunities would present themselves.

“Oh!” As soon as she saw the street stall, Roxy knew she’d found what she was looking for. It was a pair of white leather boots lined with fur. They looked incredibly warm. Boots like those would be perfect for the cold Sharia winters. And the white leather would look wonderful on Sylphie, with her pale skin and white hair. Also, Sylphie had been saying lately that her feet got cold. These really were perfect. 

Roxy hurried over to the stall…

“One pair of these, Mister.”

“Well, well. You’ve got good taste. Water bounces right off ’em, and they won’t slip. And they’re toasty warm to boot. Only, they’re made of a special material, so they’ll cost you five silver.”

“I’ll take them!”

This was the conversation that unfolded right before Roxy’s eyes. The female adventurer who had bought the boots out from under her nose disappeared into the crowd exclaiming, “Man, what a great find!”

“Oh…”

Missing out on an item by a hair—it happens all the time. But Roxy picked herself up and went up to the stall keeper.

“Ahem. Those boots just now, do you have any more in stock?”

“Eh? No, those were the only ones, I’m afraid.”

A one-of-a-kind item—that happened all the time too.

“Grr… A-all right, then who supplied them to you?”

“Ah, well, I made ’em myself. I collect materials wherever my travels take me, then make ’em into goods as fit those places and sell ’em… It’s a kind of apprenticeship, see.”

Roxy looked at his wares and saw they were indeed inspired creations that looked ready to be the next big thing.

“Is that right…” she said. “I’d never have pegged you as an ­apprentice. You’re very skilled.”

“I’m happy to hear that. What d’you say, little miss? If there’s anything that takes your fancy, you’re welcome to try it on.”

“I’m much too old to be getting called ‘little miss’… But leaving that aside, today I’m looking for a gift.”

“Know their size?”

“Of course. Now please, I have faith in your skills, so won’t you make another pair of boots like those ones?!”

She could have just shrugged and bought something else instead of going to any more trouble, but the biggest fish is always the one you fail to catch. Roxy was convinced beyond a doubt that the boots from before were better than any of the other items in front of her.

“I’d be happy to make ’em…only, I’m all out of the material.”

“What material is that?”

“Yeti leather.”

Yetis. Roxy knew those monsters well. They were D-rank monsters that lived in the great glacial valley of northern Sharia. If you went to the Great Glacier, you could find a good number of them shuffling about. You did not, however, often find their hides for sale. This was because the Great Glacier valley had nothing that people needed, and as such, people didn’t tend to go there. You only saw yeti leather when a lone yeti showed up after being driven away by the others, or when the types who accompanied foreign kings to the Great Glacier on sightseeing trips brought some back to add to their stocks. If people knew that leather could transform into such beautiful boots, they would surely value it differently, but as things were…

Roxy tried to work out what to do. There, in front of the shop stall, she worried, then worried some more, until…

***

It was early the next morning, and Rudeus was wandering around the entranceway to the house. The previous day, Roxy had gone out and not come back. Rudeus’s mind was full of worst-case scenarios. What if she’d been abducted? What if she’d been in an accident? Or perhaps she’d gotten sick of him and wanted a divorce?

With such thoughts whirling around in his head, in the end he hadn’t slept a wink.

“I really am worried, though,” Sylphie said. “She’s not the sort to stay out at night without telling anyone…”

She was concerned about Roxy too. She stood with Rudeus at the front door, staring out the window.

“Oh!” As they did so, they heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves approaching. Rudeus and Sylphie strained their eyes to see what was going on and saw a beautiful horse—the one Rudeus had named Matsukaze—coming toward the front door. Mounted on its back was a girl with shining blue hair… It was Roxy. For some reason, she was all beat up.

She jumped down from the horse, then bobbed her head to Rudeus and Sylphie, who had come out the front door. “I have returned,” she said.

“Um…are you all right? Did you run into trouble?”

“I meant to get this done yesterday, but it ended up taking a really long time. Here. These are for you.” From the bag on her back, Roxy produced a box which she held out to Sylphie. Sylphie opened it with an air of trepidation, then cried out in delight.

“Oh, what gorgeous boots. Thank you! But what’s the occasion?”

“A thank-you for the present you gave me the other day. These took a bit of getting hold of.”

In one day, she had galloped to the Great Glacier, hunted down an unlucky yeti, then rushed back as fast as she could and had the stallkeeper stay up all night to finish them. The grueling pace had been enough to leave even the well-traveled Roxy unsteady on her feet. 

“Huh. Well, I’d like to know what happened, and I was worried…but thank you. I love them.” Sylphie gave her a shy smile.

“I’m truly sorry if I made you worry,” Roxy said, but when she saw how happy Sylphie was with her present, her face split into a satisfied grin.

Then, Rudeus said, “What about me?”

Roxy looked at him. For a few seconds, she didn’t move. Then, she said, “Oh.”

After that, Rudeus fell into a crushing depression, and so Roxy tried all sorts of things to cheer him up, but that’s a story for another time.