Dancing with Goblins
Had the branch master just unzipped Doraemon's pocket?
He would not stop trying to give me things. Not that I minded. Hand me anything and the answer was thank you.
"A letter of recommendation?"
"It isn't a reward. Think of it as my gift to a talented junior."
Letter of Recommendation
A recommendation for what, exactly? I still wasn't really following, so Axel explained a little further.
"You have awakened mana."
"I have, haven't I?"
"After awakening mana, you will not be able to fight as you once did."
And you must not.
Axel added that, then went on.
"It is a letter of recommendation, to help you learn the way of fighting as a mana user."
"I see."
The branch master said I was to give the letter to a man named Wilson, in the territory of Gent, three days' journey from Baikal. After retiring, Wilson had settled in Gent and opened a training school, where he taught his skill and his experience.
"Of all the men I saw in my days as an adventurer, he was the finest with a shield. He will teach you well. Of that I am certain."
And at a low price, naturally. Or for nothing at all. A man acknowledged by Axel, a former Gold Plate adventurer—then this Wilson had surely been Gold Plate himself. A slip of paper that let you learn from someone that strong was no different from a heaven-sent chance. Anyone with ambition could not kick a gift like that aside.
"I'll accept it, with thanks."
At that, he smiled, warm and easy.
"Think nothing of it. If I had my way, I would give you more. How could I not do even this much for a junior whose future I look forward to?"
Some of it was probably apology, too. He hadn't been able to help much while we fought. I knew the branch master was a former Gold Plate who could use mana, but that had already been some ten years ago. Neither the depth of his mana nor his control would be what they once were. And he had retired from injury. Even if he could offer no direct help in the subjugation, no one would have had a word to say about it. Finest man in Baikal, sure enough.
I thanked him once more and left the receiving room. The rest of the reward, he said, Sonya would explain in detail.
On the way down to the first floor, everything came over me at once. I was glad to be recognized. I was also about to leave a territory I'd grown fond of, and that left me restless. All of that sentiment, of course, vanished clean the moment Sonya showed me the reward.
"Hieeeeeek—!!"
"Are you that pleased?"
A pointless question. You might as well throw jajangmyeon—noodles drowned in black bean sauce—to a beggar who had starved for a month, then ask if it tasted good. The reward was that outrageous. Nine gold and fifty silver, and a full set of whatever equipment I wanted. Decline the equipment, and it was ten gold instead.
Sonya asked me, soul already halfway out of my body.
"What will you do?"
The shield I'd be replacing with a dwarf-made one, and the rest of the gear I could settle with money I already had.
"I'll take the ten gold."
Gold.
The enormous ring of that word ran straight through me. In this moment, I was filthy rich. And before the newly fattened rich man, a hyena came running.
"Goat. Dinner's on you today."
I didn't mind in the slightest. A beauty asks you to buy her a meal—what man says no? Any bastard who would is a hundred percent impotent, or gay.
"Hell yes, obviously!! Just say what you want to eat. I'll buy all of it!!!"
I'd just earned a fortune some people would never lay a hand on in their whole lives. This much was nothing. I could even buy sagol-guk, that long-simmered beef-bone soup, made from a cow that had spent its entire life locked in a barn, classical music in its ears and a massage going twenty-four hours a day.
Raccoon cut in as well.
"Since it came up, we can eat at the night market tonight."
A night market? Did Baikal even have one of those? Think as I might, no. A night market, in a town without streetlights?
Eline answered the question for me.
"A festival started yesterday."
"What festival?"
From Raccoon's explanation, the lord had proclaimed a festival to commemorate the subjugation of the Goblin Lord. Plenty of adventurers and soldiers had died, but in the end they had also escaped an enormous threat. It was to celebrate that, he said.
"Figures. Then let's go take a look at the night market."
"Yes!! The three of us are conquering the night market!!!!"
"No. You, Raccoon. You're out."
At that one line from Eline, Raccoon wilted on the spot.
"W-why... only me..."
She gave him no answer at all. She only stared, steady. That was answer enough.
"Okay..."
I tossed the sulking Raccoon fifty copper. He brightened at once, delighted, and went outside.
"Let's go."
"All right."
Somehow, before I knew it, this had turned into something vaguely like a date. Eline would not be thinking of it that way. Neither was I. Mm. Not laying groundwork. For real.
Outside, it had already grown dark. The square, though, was bright as day. They must have hired a mage from somewhere; magic had the place lit clear. I'd heard the lord was a miser. He'd put in a fair amount of money. The merchants were out for the seasonal trade as well, selling every kind of food there was.
"Goat, that. That one."
"Hm? Skewers? Sure, let's eat."
"That too."
"Grilled eggs? Got it."
Eline ate a truly terrifying amount, enough to make me wonder whether it could all fit in that slender body. Snacks in both hands, looking around as she went, she was unmistakably excited.
"You there, handsome hero! How about a round of the game?"
I played along with the merchant's hawking, which was only announcing an extremely obvious fact. It was a game I'd seen plenty of times: throw a stone and knock down a stack of wooden blocks. Iron rods were set inside the blocks, of course, so they were not about to fall easily. But that only applied to ordinary people.
And who was I? A mana user.
Fwoosh—
The stone flew at a vicious speed and smashed the wood to pieces outright. I'd only meant to hit them clean. Seemed I'd sold my own strength short. This... was me?
The merchant's face brightened all at once.
"H-huhk... As expected of the hero who saved Baikal!!!! What tremendous power!!!!"
"Uh, the prize?"
"Please, take this!!"
He looked happy just to be able to give me a prize. Well. If he was happy, that was enough. The hairpin I'd received for first place was quite pretty—a silver ornament, a moon worked into it with real care. I had no use for a hairpin, so Eline could have it.
"Eline, you take this."
"Hm? You're giving it to me?"
"Yeah. It's a gift."
She gazed at the hairpin for a long moment, then took it from me and set it in her hair. Her face was beautiful, so it suited her perfectly.
"Well... not bad, for a goat."
When she said it, I think she was smiling.
We spent a pleasant while. We watched something painfully earnest, almost a play, on the subject of the Goblin Lord subjugation, and we cleaned out every stall there was to clean. We had been looking around for a good long time when, before we knew it, a campfire was ready.
Around the flames burning in the center of the square, people talked in low murmurs. We found a reasonable spot and sat. Eline, lost in the fire, asked me.
"But why isn't this a funeral?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
At my question, her lips moved. Maybe the words would not come. For someone who had only recently learned human speech, it might have been a little too much.
"A lot of people died."
"They did."
"Then everyone ought to be sad, and gloomy... but they aren't."
Just as she said, all of them were smiling. Soldiers who had lost their seniors. Adventurers who had lost their comrades. Arms around one another's shoulders, laughing as if they were happy—clapping till their hands rang, thumping each other, calling back how brave the ones who had gone first had been. How great.
"Because that's the way people live in this world."
"This is?"
"Yeah. This is what a life looks like, for people who live beside dangerous monsters. Even when someone close to them dies, they've grown too tough to do nothing but grieve."
Eline gave no answer.
"So rather than ache, rather than be sad... they laugh, and they remember the ones who left."
"I still don't really understand."
"Well. Do you have to? You'll feel it, living alongside them."
She nodded, small. Then she spoke again.
"Thank you for saving me, when we killed the Lord. Goat."
That, was it. Well, it was true I'd saved her. But looked at that way, hadn't Eline saved me too? I answered so she'd know not to dwell on it.
"Don't mention it."
Maybe her heart had grown light. She rose, smiling bright as anything. Golden hair, taking a light as fierce as the sun, shone like starlight. A fairy more beautiful than anyone in this world was smiling in front of me—a sight I would swear not to trade, no matter what I was offered.
The flush burning red on her face. The strong fire, or else...
"And from now on, I'm counting on you."
The fire, I decided. It was the fire.
A few days after the festival ended, I stood before the gates of Baikal. From here on I would be living in the territory of Gent, so there was a great deal to prepare—the request to change my branch, the sorting of everything I owned. The days left no time to breathe. Good thing the others helped. If I had prepared alone, it would have taken months.
"Sniff..."
Sonya was crying like a child. She had nagged me every day, but somewhere along the way, whether she'd meant to or not, she had grown attached.
"Aigoo, what are you crying for, Sonya."
"Shut up, Joat.Hic..."
To think she was this sentimental. The branch master looked at the two of us and smiled, kind.
"Go well. Baikal will always receive you as a hero."
"I've been in your care, all this time."
I traded goodbyes, one by one, with the adventurers I'd grown close to. Raccoon offered his hand with a serious face, nothing like his usual.
"Take care."
"You little shit. What's with the stiff face."
A heavy farewell like this didn't suit us. When I said so, Raccoon let out a short laugh.
"Yeah. You're right. We'll have reason to see each other again."
"Hm? You coming to Gent too?"
"Not that... I've come to realize a few things. I'm going to see my family soon."
Complicated family business, maybe. I thumped his shoulder and turned my back. Now it really was time to leave.
"I'm in your damn debt!! Be happy!!!"
"Bye, everyooone."
"Huh?"
At some point, Eline was beside me.
"Eline, why are you—??"
She had been waving hard at everyone. Now she came right up and whispered in my ear, and a rush of herb scent came with her.
"That... later."
She left it hanging and dragged me over to where the wagons were gathered. The caravan escort had begun.
We had killed an absurd number of goblins over the past few weeks, and the road had been safe to begin with, so the way passed without trouble. Eline had been going along quiet, looking at the flowers, but she must have grown bored, because she started to talk.
"You know. The truth is, I knew that Goblin Lord."
I'd more or less expected it, so I wasn't especially surprised. Still, admitting I knew would spoil the moment, so I played dumb.
"You were friends with the Goblin Lord??"
"Goat. When you speak, might you use a little something called thought?"
Her face, as she said it, was cold. Packed full of contempt, you might say.
"You were curious, were you not. Why I do not remain in the fairy village, and go about the human world instead."
"Yeah. Way I knew it, fairies avoid contact with outsiders."
Eline nodded, readily.
"Right. We usually live without ever leaving the place we were born. Aside from a very few fairies."
"In a way, that makes me an illegal emigrant."
She smiled, playful, and went on.
"I thought I would be like that my whole life, too."
I was waiting quietly for whatever she would say next, when a pale cloud of dust began to rise in the direction we were headed, and a merchant screamed as if he would tear his throat.
"Bandits have appeared!!!!! Help!!!!!"
Bandits on horseback came charging hard toward us. Once they had closed to where we could hear one another's shouts, the man who looked to be their leader bellowed.
"Kill the women and rape the men!!!!"
"Fuck!!! It's a fairy!!! That bitch is mine!!!"
These fuckers??
Seemed we were going to need a very serious conversation. The kind you hold with your body.