Call Me Astella
The walk back to camp was quiet.
More precisely, neither of us had any energy left to talk. I limped the whole way, while the woman kept glancing this way and that, as if she were catching a scent on the air.
"Are we there yet?"
"We're almost there."
"That's the third time you've said that."
In the shade of a boulder lay a mat of roughly woven grass. That was a week's worth of everything I owned.
The woman stared at it for a long time.
"...You slept here?"
"Yeees...."
"Are you a beast?"
"Well..."
I had nothing to say to that. I really had been living like an animal.
I started a fire. I cracked open a round, shook the powder out over a pile of dry grass, and had a flame going in a matter of seconds. Compared to that first day — rubbing sticks together until my palms were raw — this was a massive improvement.
"Hoh... You can work fire magic as well?"
"Um... well... let's just go with yes? It's a long story."
"Hmph. A dull one, aren't you."
The problem was we had nothing to roast. I'd recovered a basket from those monkeys, but I'd dropped it somewhere in the middle of running for our lives, and I couldn't even remember where.
There goes a week's worth of rations... and all I got in return was one weird woman.
"Eat."
She pulled something from her pocket.
"What... is this?"
"Food from my homeland. It got soaked when I went in the water, but it'll fill your belly well enough."
It was something like bread, heavy with moisture. Dry, it might have looked halfway appetizing — but swollen from the creek water, the sight of it did not make me hungry.
Not like I can afford to be picky...
I took it and bit in. A grain aroma spread through my mouth, followed by a faint sweetness and a rich, toasted scent — and, right alongside it, the soggy, pasty texture of waterlogged flour.
It's a little weird... but damn, it's good...
This was the first human food I'd eaten in a week. A small swell of feeling caught in my throat.
"By the way, aren't you going to eat?"
"You expect me to eat that soggy mess? Forget it. You eat it."
Not kindness. I was just the garbage disposal...
"More to the point — that leg. Leave it and it'll rot."
She jerked her chin at my calf. That was why I'd had to be carried in her arms earlier. The blood that had run over the wound had darkened as it dried, and mud was caked all around it. Hygienically speaking, it was a disaster. I opened the Gun Shop. After dealing with those monkeys, I had well into four digits in points.
I would have rather spent the points on better gear, but anything beat a rotting leg.
Purchase. Blue particles shimmered into view, and the handle of a small box settled into my palm. Inside were a tourniquet, bandages, ointment — a full spread of medical supplies.
I tore open the packaging and cleaned the wound. It was nothing more than rinsing off the blood and dirt with water I'd boiled in a leather waterskin, smearing on ointment, and wrapping it in a bandage — but even that was enough to make the cold ache in my leg ease.
"You."
"Yes?"
"Something just came out of thin air."
"Ah..."
"Magic, is it?"
"Yes. Well... y-yes..."
"Hmph... Quite the curious one, aren't you. Though I've no idea what you actually are."
As far as the guns went, just calling it magic seemed like the safest play.
"Incidentally — are you an exhibitionist?"
"Huh?"
Only then did I look down at the state of my clothes. They'd already been rags that barely covered anything, but they'd been torn in so many places that my chest had been on full display this entire time.
"Eek!! Don't look!!"
I hurriedly covered my chest with my arms. I'd only been a woman for a week, but the reaction came out on reflex.
"It's not like that, okay? Exhibitionist, my foot... I just don't have anything else to wear."
"Hmph... Well, I understand either way. Plenty of folk showed skin in the pleasure houses back home."
I turned my back, burning with embarrassment. I rummaged through the Gun Shop on the off chance it had clothes, but while there were accessories like pouches, I couldn't find any actual clothing.
"Tch..."
"Come to think of it, I don't even know your name. What should I call you?"
"This one, you mean? I am Ryonen Reika, strongest swordsman of Sardorim. Call me Reika."
"Reika... I see."
I had no idea what Sardorim was, but I filed it away as a place name for now.
"Then what of your name, wench? You're no nameless beast, I trust?"
"Me? I'm..."
My words died in my throat. I'd never actually thought about a name. I was just me, and after a week of talking to nobody but myself, I'd never once pictured a situation where I'd have to introduce myself.
Using my original name... wouldn't really fit this world. And it was a man's name besides — it wouldn't suit me now that I was a woman.
I needed a new name. But how? I had zero naming sense. Then something flashed through my mind.
Whenever I opened the Gun Shop, there was always a line off to one side:
User Authentication Complete
Entity — Astella
What was Astella? Was it me, or the owner of this system? I didn't know. But it didn't seem like a bad name to use.
"Ah... Ste..."
"Hm?"
"It's... Astella."
"Astella?"
She tilted her head.
"I see. Very well."
Thankfully, it didn't seem like a strange name. Her reaction was completely unbothered.
"So... where's Sardorim?"
"You don't know? An island across the sea, east of this continent. A place of splendor and beauty and refinement — nothing like this backwater."
Beneath her Eastern-style clothes, a fox tail swayed lazily.
She's got a tail, too. Well, yeah — she's a beastkin.
"Then... why did you come here?"
"I was bored."
"...Excuse me? That's it?"
"This landmass is vast, so there's bound to be plenty to enjoy. That's why I came."
She crossed an ocean because she was bored. I got dragged here on a convenience store run, and this woman had walked in of her own free will.
"Then... do you know where we are?"
"West of Silstimore. Urg Forest. The beasts and monsters here aren't many, but they're dangerous enough that adventurers don't come often. The numbers don't add up, you see."
"Adventurers?"
"Folk who kill monsters and get paid for it. Bring materials to the guild or complete a commission, and they'll cut you a price."
The hand poking at the coals went still.
They'd cut you a price.
I'd been doing that for free for a week. Or rather, I'd been converting it into bullets. Kill monsters, get points, trade points for ammo, kill more...
Out there, that apparently translated to money.
"Could I... do that too?"
"Hmph? Possible enough, I suppose. Any mongrel can be an adventurer. You've got some useful magic, so you might even make decent coin."
"Are there ranks or anything?"
"There are. Platinum, gold, silver, copper, wood. I'm Copper Rank."
"Didn't you say you were the strongest swordsman of Sardorim? Why Copper Rank, then? That seems a little low."
"I didn't bother raising it. Too much trouble."
The conversation went on.
"About those monkeys, though."
"The Simius, you mean?"
"Uh... yeah. Why were there so many? I hadn't seen any all week... and then suddenly a huge pack just appeared. Where could that many of them even have been hiding?"
"Ah, that."
Reika lifted her chin slightly, gazing into the empty air.
"They live in caves. They hole up inside at night and only come out during the day."
"And?"
"They come out during the day looking for something to eat, but there was nothing left, was there? Why, you ask? Because some mage was setting off thunderclaps that shook the entire forest. Every animal worth eating had already fled. So wouldn't they expand their hunting range to find food?"
So that was it. Over the past week, I'd seen fewer monsters and beasts than I'd expected. And it was all because they'd run from the gunfire...
"While we're on the subject — that magic of yours. It's so loud it nearly splits my ears. I endured it during the fight, but I cannot bear it any longer. You're a long-ear yourself. Do you not care?"
"Ah... about that..."
I pulled the earplugs out of my ears.
"I've been wearing these. They cut the noise down, so it doesn't hurt."
"What good is it if only you can't hear it? Everyone else still can. Do something about it."
It was a real problem. Guns hit hard, but they were deafening. The first shot could be a surprise attack, but from the second onward, my position was completely exposed.
I stared at the Gun Shop interface, turning it over in my head.
"What are you staring into space for?"
"Huh? Ah... well... d-do you... not see this...?"
"Hmph? What are you on about? Is something there?"
"N-no... never mind. I was just zoning out..."
Apparently the Gun Shop interface was only visible to me. That aside, I went ahead and bought the suppressor.
After the medical kit, I had about 2,000P left. Even after the suppressor, that left 500P.
I bought a backpack as well.
Honestly, the nights were so dark I wanted to grab the 900P flashlight first — but that would have left me with only 50P.
The backpack mattered more, though. I needed to carry the cleaning kit and the medical kit, and more than anything, I needed to be able to haul my gear around.
The more I thought about it, the more I resented the Gun Shop for locking something this useful behind a wall until now. It had probably unlocked when I killed those monkeys. Whether items unlocked based on point totals or some other condition, I still wasn't sure.
New firearms, though, were still nowhere to be seen.
At any rate, the suppressor and the backpack materialized in a shimmer of blue light.
"What is that?"
"This? One moment...."
A flicker of worry crossed my mind — what if the suppressor wasn't compatible with the pistol? — but luckily that wasn't the case. I threaded it onto the muzzle's screw mount and locked it in place.
"It should be a little quieter now."
I fired a round into the air.
Tak!
Still not quiet, exactly — but it wasn't a thunderclap that shook the whole forest, either. That was more than enough bang for the buck.
"Hoh... Yes. At that volume, it won't grate on the ears."
Keeping the earplugs in all the time had been a pain for me, too. Buying the suppressor had been the right call.
"Pretty good, right?"
I looked at her, feeling rather pleased with myself.
We spent the rest of the evening in front of the brightly burning fire, working through the rest of my questions.
"What kind of people live in the village?"
"Plenty of humans. And the humans around here don't much care for the likes of us."
"The likes of... us?"
Reika flicked her own ears.
"Demihumans. Things that aren't human. A few days back, three human bastards picked a fight, so I taught them a lesson."
"Ah..."
I touched my own ears without thinking. They were pointed. Of course they were — I was an elf.
For a week I'd thought of them as nothing more than convenient sensors. They picked up sound well. They helped me find running water. I'd never once considered how they looked to other people.
"Then... will I get treated poorly too?"
"Around the Empire, probably. Elsewhere, it's not so bad."
That was a relief. Getting hunted for being an elf would have been a little depressing.
"Anyway — what do you even know? You're as clueless as a chick that's just cracked out of its egg."
"Ah... ahaha... well..."
"Hmph. Long-ears live forever, so I suppose you've gone senile."
The hell...?
The sudden age attack hit me like a truck. I had no idea how old this elf body actually was, but my mental age was still in its twenties.
"Ahem... So, what are you going to do tomorrow?"
"What else? I've figured out what those thunderclaps in the forest were, and I've no more business here. I'll gather up the ones I killed earlier and head back to the village."
"The... village... Could you take me with you?"
This was the perfect chance to get out of the forest. I was still a person, and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life trapped in these woods. I'd wandered around looking for a way out, but I'd never found one.
Now, though, I had someone who could show me the way.
"I don't mind. But if you go looking like that, the humans will take you for a whore."
"Ah..."