In the First Village (2)
Underwear is uncomfortable.
Panties I can live with. Bras are another story entirely. They're designed to lock your chest in place so nothing moves — of course they're a pain. That said, because a bra keeps your breasts from bouncing, there are a few activities — exercise, for one — where wearing one actually feels better. But for most of everyday life, going without is simply more comfortable than going with. So whenever I don't have anyone to see, I skip the bra.
Whenever I don't have anyone to see, that is.
"......!"
The instant I registered the gaze, I threw both arms across my chest.
Had he seen? Judging by his reaction, he absolutely had. My breasts were more than large enough to shove the fabric upward, and the thin cloth of my clothes was far too light to keep my nipples from standing out. My face burned crimson. My thoughts scattered in every direction.
Why is Luon here?
No — thinking about it, it wasn't that strange. I'd been the one who assumed the inn would be just as busy as the restaurant. Nobody had actually said that. Sophie had come to help at the restaurant, so someone could just as easily have come to help at the inn. Or maybe the inn side hadn't been busy to begin with. I'd just jumped to conclusions and let my guard down.
Okay. I get that.
So why am I this embarrassed?
This is just a game. The goblin I killed this afternoon, Luon standing here right now — they're all illusions a machine cooked up. Hell, even this body isn't really mine. And this isn't the first time I've stumbled into a sudden dirty situation while playing WM. If anything, running into people while completely naked has happened plenty of times.
And yet this is somehow worse than being naked. Is it because I got caught completely off guard, dead certain nothing would happen?
After a long, agonizing stretch of silence, I awkwardly fled the scene. Even after I made it back to my room and put on proper clothes, not a sound came from outside. In the end, Luon didn't move from that spot until Sophie came in after him, smacked him on the back, and demanded to know why he was standing there like an idiot when she'd asked him to grab something.
And that night, sharing a room with Sophie, having to answer when she asked what had happened... that was its own special kind of torture.
The next morning, I woke to the sound of bustling movement outside. The world beyond the window was still dim. Dawn was just beginning to break. Working at an inn really does mean early mornings, huh? I got myself ready with that idle thought in mind. "Getting ready," in the morning, just meant a quick Clean Magic spell — but even that felt like too much effort. I was still half-asleep.
"Oh my. Did we wake you? I'm so sorry."
Having learned my lesson from yesterday, I stepped out fully dressed — and found the innkeeper bustling about, preparing breakfast.
"I was so busy yesterday I never even got to thank you properly. Thank you for saving Luon. I'd told him not to go into the forest — the atmosphere out there has been all wrong lately — but would he listen? We pay him for the work he does around the shop, you know. I'm so worried I don't know what to do with myself. I even asked him what he's hoarding all that money for, and he won't give me a straight answer. And on his days off he just vanishes somewhere. Oh my, you don't suppose he's gotten himself a girlfriend? How many reasons could a boy possibly have for needing money he can't even tell his parents about? Come to think of it, he and Sophie have been acting a little off lately. They've been going around together more, too. Childhood friends or not, they're old enough that they shouldn't be stuck to each other like that. Say, Soira, what do you think—"
"I'm going out for a morning run! An adventurer's body is her livelihood!!"
I made a desperate escape.
I'm alive. I almost got sucked into auntie-talk with no way out.
Whatever Luon's situation is, what does it have to do with me? It might make for some light gossip, sure, but I don't want to get tangled up in a headache first thing in the morning.
I left the inn grounds and jogged lightly through the village. It wasn't really exercise in any meaningful sense. The Agility I'd assigned at character creation was 12 — roughly the level of a professional athlete. The scale isn't precise, but as a rule of thumb, 10 is what you get from someone who keeps themselves in ordinary shape. Eleven is amateur-athlete territory. Twelve is professional. Thirteen is world-class. From fourteen on, you've left human limits behind.
The higher the number, the wider the range each point covers, and the harder it is to climb. Hitting 12 through ordinary training is brutally difficult. This world has magic, so the ceiling on what a human body can do sits higher than back home. And since this is a game, grinding running proficiency to raise Agility isn't technically impossible. But—
"It's inefficient."
Really, truly inefficient. The distance you'd have to run to raise a stat would almost certainly be longer than the distance you'd travel just looking for an item that raises it for you.
"Ohhh, Soira! You work out too?"
I'd been jogging at a leisurely pace — more sightseeing than training — when I ran into Kiven.
"Yeah, something like that. You too, Kiven?"
"Of course! You can't become a soldier without a solid foundation!"
Kiven answered cheerfully, even though he was running hard enough that his breathing had picked up. Yesterday, today — he really did seem to be training in earnest.
Alright. Let's see just how hard he's been working. I peeked at Kiven's stats using the Status function — a player's privilege.
Let's see... Oh. Not bad at all. His physical stats — Strength and Stamina — were both 12, and his Agility was 11. Intelligence was a perfectly average 10, and Magic was actually 9, but they wouldn't expect a Magic stat from a regular soldier anyway. He wasn't aiming to be a knight. All in all, a solid prospect.
When I first met him, the blond hair and tanned skin had given me a bit of a bias, and I'd tried to keep a little distance. After spending yesterday and today with him, though, he turned out to be a perfectly decent, hardworking guy.
"Kiven, do you run at this hour every day? It's pretty early."
"Sure do. You're out here at this hour too, aren't you? This is pretty normal, right?"
"No, I don't usually run like this... I just woke up early today because it was a little noisy."
"Noisy? Ahh, so you almost got caught by the missus too? I used to get snagged all the time when I stayed over at Luon's place as a kid."
"I didn't say noisy."
"Close enough. Close enough."
We bantered as we ran together, until after a while Kiven gradually slowed and came to a stop.
"This is Luon's inn, isn't it? You got business with him?"
The place he'd stopped was where I'd started. In other words, the inn.
"Nah. This is just my morning route. I loop around the village, stop here for breakfast, then head back."
"Huh."
Was this one of those eat-protein-right-after-working-out things? Or maybe he just got hungry from running. The timing worked out anyway, so I decided to eat with him.
Three days passed like that, hanging around with Luon, Kiven, and Sophie.
I'd wanted to leave the village as fast as possible, but there was no getting around this stretch of time. Raising an adventurer rank from F to E took three days even if you completed quests as efficiently as possible. That timer doesn't shrink no matter which village or city you're in. If anything, three days is on the short side. So I figured if I had to spend the time anyway, I might as well knock it out in a village where I already knew people. That's why I spent the three days here.
As I mentioned before, an F-rank adventurer is an adventurer in name only — they're closer to a village errand-runner. Once they demonstrate combat ability and a basic capacity to complete quests, they get promoted to E-rank. Which means that from E-rank on, you can take monster-hunting quests and low-risk escort jobs.
When you're heading to another village early on, nothing beats an escort quest. You have to stand night watch, listen to the client, deal with a bunch of annoying extras — but you get to hitch a ride on a wagon. And they pay you when it's over. More money than you'd make from several hunting quests. How could I not take them?
This time, though, leaving the village the moment I hit E-rank got put on hold.
"Please, just do one quest with me!"
All because of that idiot Luon.
"Hold on, Luon. You're putting Soira on the spot..."
"Yeah. You think a hunting quest is as easy as you imagine? You don't even know how to hold a sword properly."
"That's not true. I've been practicing in secret. I'm better than you guys think."
Kiven shrugged, the gesture of a man who'd heard enough.
"You didn't even learn from anyone — you just practiced by yourself? You sure about that? If you mess up on a monster hunt, you die."
"I can at least protect myself."
"Ha. Unbelievable... Anyone can talk a big game. If you're that confident, let's see it. Get out to the yard."
Seeing that Luon wasn't going to back down, Kiven decided to shut him up with skill.
This feels like a cliché...
Not that my thoughts reached anyone. In the end, Kiven and Luon faced off in the yard with wooden swords.
And the result, against every expectation —
Luon lasted five whole minutes.
Kiven's body was well-trained, but he'd never properly learned the sword — and he was a soldier-in-training, not an actual soldier. Still, the Luon he was facing hadn't trained at all. He was just an innkeeper's son. I'd been counting how many hits it would take before he went down — a few exchanges, not five minutes. And yet he lasted five whole minutes.
That doesn't happen under ordinary circumstances. Which means something out of the ordinary is going on.
Let's read Luon's Status.
Strength 10. Inn work isn't exactly easy, so average makes sense. Stamina 10. Guess inn work takes more stamina than you'd think. Agility 9. I'd never seen him run or train, so that tracked. Intelligence 9. Intelligence works a little differently from the other stats — mine is 10, and it measures how smart someone is relative to me, so 9 meant he was a bit dimmer than I am. Magic 8. Fine for everyday household spells, but nothing beyond that.
What? There's nothing special about his stats. If anything, he's a completely untrained ordinary person.
I was still puzzling over it when the line below caught my eye.
Sword Talent
Huh. Why do you have this?
Sword Talent. Exactly what it sounds like — an ability that grants talent with the sword. I think I mentioned this before, but in WM, players can spend points to give their characters special abilities. Some of those abilities are also things the residents of this world are occasionally born with.
Sword Talent boosts sword proficiency growth and applies a bonus to most sword-related actions. Among the special abilities, it's a relatively common one. The people who have it are usually found at the knight level or above, though.
Well, talent and occupation don't always line up, so it's not incomprehensible. Just... really out of left field. Or maybe not? Even for the leading man in a prologue-grade girl-meets-boy story, maybe this much is par for the course?
I was still wondering about it when I realized the Status window wasn't finished.
There's more? Let's scroll down.
NTR Constitution
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