Girl Meets Boy (4)
The village we arrived at was a surprisingly respectable place. I'd been expecting something small and rustic for a first town, but a proper palisade and a working gate? This was a settlement of some size.
"Hans! We're back!"
Luon's father called out to the man standing watch at the gate.
"Uncle? You tore out of here in such a hurry earlier. Work already done?"
"I wasn't going to work. This idiot here wandered into the forest without a word and ran into goblins."
Even as he said it, the anger flared up again, and he smacked Luon across the back once more.
"Goblins? Those things show up all the time, don't they?"
"This time there were nine of them, apparently. Kiven came sprinting back here gasping for air, saying they were in danger. You should've seen how badly I jumped."
"Nine? That's nest-territory numbers... Ah. So that's why you've been telling everyone to stay out of the forest lately."
"That's right. We don't know what's going on out there, so I told everyone to be careful. Never thought my own son would be the first one to ignore me. And he dragged Sophie along with him, no less."
"Haha. Go easy on him. The other uncles inside are wondering what all the fuss is about, so go in and fill them in, would you? But... who's the young lady?"
The conversation had finally wound down enough for him to turn his attention to me.
"Ah, right. I haven't introduced her. This is the person who saved Luon and Sophie. She said she was looking for a village, so I brought her along. So, uh..."
He trailed off mid-introduction and glanced my way. Come to think of it, I hadn't told him my name.
"Soira. It's Soira. Nice to meet you."
Soira. I'd thrown the name together without thinking, but it actually sounded pretty nice. I liked it. This would do.
"That's a pretty name. I'm Hans. Thank you for saving those two. Sophie, of course — and Luon too. He makes my blood boil just looking at him, but he's not a bad kid. Not worth dying over, anyway."
"Hans! What kind of thing is that to say?"
"Shut it. You take a girl into a dangerous place and nearly get yourselves killed, you deserve a little grief. And goblins, of all things? I wouldn't even be able to cry at your funeral."
"Hey, I wasn't the only one who went..."
Kiven had been there too. Luon muttered it like he was being deeply wronged, but nobody was buying it. What he'd done was embarrassing, that much was true. He didn't have a leg to stand on.
"Anyway. Welcome to our village! As you just heard, the forest's been a bit restless lately, but peace is usually our specialty around here. Stay as long as you like."
That's just another way of saying there's nothing here and you'll be bored out of your mind, isn't it?
We said our goodbyes to Hans and headed into the village.
Just as the palisade had suggested, it was a fairly sizable place. The roads weren't paved, but they were clean and well-kept, and there was even a proper shopping district nearby. That said it all.
"Well, I need to get back to work, so I'll take my leave here. As for Miss Soira... hmm. Kiven! You show her around. Luon, you take Sophie home. Childhood friend or not, if you get a girl hurt, you take responsibility."
"Huh? Me? Show her around?"
"What, you don't want to? Want me to chew you out for not stopping Luon when he said they should go into the forest, too?"
"Hahaha! I was just so happy I didn't know what to do with myself. It's an honor to escort such a lovely lady. Shall we, miss?"
Kiven said it in a theatrical, teasing way, but it wasn't actually unpleasant, so I let out a small laugh. He was the type who knew how to joke around without crossing the line. Solid social skills, I'd give him that.
"Just call me Soira. We can't be that far apart in age."
"Oh, I can? Formal speech was feeling pretty awkward on my end too, honestly. All right then, Soira — where should I take you first? Our village is a little on the small side, but we've got everything you need."
A tour, huh. There were a few places you were supposed to hit when you first arrived in a starter village.
"The blacksmith, the general store, and the Adventurer's Guild if you've got one. But let's hit the inn first. I should get a room before I start wandering around."
"A room? Ah... right. Yeah, you'll need a place to stay."
Kiven's expression went a little sour. No — not sour, exactly. More like an oh crap look. Like he'd just remembered something.
I wondered why he was reacting that way, but the moment we arrived at the inn, I understood.
"This is our village inn. The owner's Luon's dad."
The first thing I saw when we walked in was Luon applying medicine to Sophie's sprained ankle. If they were just going to end up here anyway, why split us up? Ah. Right. I wasn't the one who split us up.
Sophie, having her bare foot handled by Luon, was blushing in a peculiar way. It wasn't quite the kind of flush you'd get from just having a guy of the opposite sex touch your skin. Something a little different.
Huh. Wait. Was this...?
Come to think of it, they were childhood friends. And when things got dangerous, the one who'd stayed behind with Sophie was Luon.
There was a pretty convincing smell in the air, but I couldn't be sure yet. Kiven was a childhood friend too, and the reason those two had been left behind was because Kiven had the fastest legs.
And Luon's hands, as he applied the medicine, were being awfully careful. That feeling — like he was hyper-aware of every point of contact. If they were already dating, he'd be touching her more comfortably. Or more suggestively. Which meant they weren't a couple yet — they were in that fuzzy, maybe-maybe-not stage. The talking stage. The are-we-or-aren't-we zone.
Soira. Twenty-something. Of the holy trinity of mind, technique, and body, a virgin in body alone. My radar just pinged.
This wasn't some childhood-friends-to-lovers bit. This was the real thing.
Part of me wanted to stick around this village for a long time and munch popcorn from the sidelines, but I didn't really want to linger in a starter town. I was dying to throw myself into somewhere dangerous — sexually speaking — the moment the opportunity presented itself.
Starter villages only ever have tutorial missions. That's the rule. There probably wouldn't be any particularly dangerous quests here.
I swallowed my tears and put the popcorn away.
"What are you doing? You've got a customer."
"Huh? Oh. Right. A customer."
Maybe we'd startled him in the middle of a nice moment. Luon snapped out of his daze and hurried off to check the lodging list. Sophie pulled her skirt back down — she'd hiked it up to her knees to show him her ankle.
"......"
And Kiven was watching the whole thing in silence. What did it feel like, watching two of your childhood friends dance around each other like that? Or maybe his feelings ran deeper than that. Either way, I was planning to leave this village soon, so it wasn't my business. I decided not to dwell on it.
"We've got plenty of rooms open. Our inn has nice rooms and cheaper ones that aren't quite as nice. Which would you prefer?"
"What's the difference between the two?"
I was about to hear the explanation and make my choice when Luon's father appeared.
"Luon! Show the guest to their room and then come help— wait. Miss Soira?"
"You can just call me Soira. It's more comfortable that way. You too, Luon, Sophie."
"Is that so? Then I'll take you up on that. Ahem. Planning to stay the night?"
"Yes. I'm not sure how long I'll be around, but I figured I'd get a room first and then look around the village."
"Ah, damn. I didn't even think of that. Some innkeeper I am. Anyway, if that's the case, we've got a spare room at our house. How about it? The inn furniture is all quality stuff, but the house has even better."
"Are you sure? I do have a weapon, you know."
I pulled the dagger from my belt and showed it to him. The man laughed.
"If that counts as a dangerous weapon, then our kitchen's an armory. I'm the one who should be asking if you're okay with this. We've got my wife, of course, but I'd still be inviting you into a house with two men. You all right with that?"
Even better. Wait, no, that's not—
"Of course. I may not look it, but I'm stronger than I appear. I can take care of myself."
"Come to think of it, you were wandering the forest alone, weren't you. So even if my idiot son loses his mind, you'll be fine."
"I won't!"
"Quiet, you. Anyway, you heard me, right? Take Soira, get the room ready, bring the bedding, then get yourself to the kitchen. Your mother was asking for you."
With that, Luon's father headed off somewhere else. Even if it wasn't mealtime, he was the owner of an inn. Busy enough, I supposed.
"Dad just says whatever he wants... Soira, this way. Sophie, how about you? Can you walk? Want to come along?"
"I'll come too. It's been a while since I've been to Luon's house."
"Now that you mention it, yeah. Hey, Luon. How long has it been? Feels like a few months, at least?"
"Kiven, I didn't say you were invited."
"Don't be like that. And hey — showing Soira around is my job today. Once we check out the room, we're supposed to tour the village together. Where else would I go?"
That was a fair point, so Luon didn't have a comeback. Truth be told, he'd said it as a joke between close friends, not because he actually didn't want Kiven in his house.
"Anyway, you've got a mouth on you. Let's go."
Luon's house was on the first floor of the inn. More precisely, it was a separate building on the inn's grounds.
"It's cleaner inside than I expected."
"Soira, what exactly did you think our house would look like?"
It's called good manners. You're supposed to say that.
We all decided to tidy up the room I'd be staying in together. It wasn't a room they normally used, so it was packed with assorted junk like a storage closet. Luon insisted he'd handle it himself, but I wasn't about to just stand around waiting while they cleaned.
While we were cleaning, Kiven found something and raised his voice.
"Ooh, look at this. You guys remember this?"
What Kiven was holding was a single scroll. I knew what it was. A Simple Status Scroll.
WM was a game, after all. Of course players could check their status windows. You could spend points to expand the number of displayed fields, but even without spending anything, the basic function came standard.
For NPCs who weren't players, though, checking a status window required either a specially enchanted crystal orb or one of these Simple Status Scrolls. Unlike the orbs, the scrolls were single-use and displayed less information than a player's status window or a crystal orb. But they were cheap and easy to use, which was why most households kept a couple on hand.
To a player, it was just another game feature. To an NPC living in this world, being able to objectively assess your own condition was a huge advantage. A simple example: if someone in the family got sick, knowing whether they were just exhausted, actually ill, or under the effects of poison or a curse made treatment a whole lot easier.
"We all tried that once, remember? We used it behind the adults' backs and got in so much trouble. Hehe."
Sophie smiled like she'd just seen something dear to her.
"Getting in trouble was one thing. But Sophie, your numbers came out insane, didn't they?"