To Orsis (1)
"W-wait! Hwia. What's this all of a sudden?"
"You're going to Orsis? With Tiable?"
Looking thoroughly flustered, Hugo waved his hands as he spoke.
"Yep! With Tiable!"
"You don't have to decide so fast, Hwia."
"First—"
Hwia cut him off and barreled right in.
"Oppa comes home late because of work—no, wait, sometimes you don't even come back until the next day!"
"And Tiable's been leaving early in the morning and getting back late at night, too!"
"Do you have any idea how lonely I am by myself?"
"Tiable. You're not going to Orsis to fight, right?"
"So nothing dangerous is going to happen, right?"
"Then I can go with her!"
Hwia spat the words out without so much as a breath, same as last time. Just how large were her lungs supposed to be?
"Orsis is the n-nation of the Beastmen."
"I just heard that. So what?"
Hwia shrugged as if that couldn't possibly be a problem.
"Beastmen… you don't mind them?"
"Look. Even when I found out Tiable was a demon, I was fine with it. Being a different race doesn't really matter to me."
"If anything, it makes her special, which is great!"
"I want to meet them at least once!"
Hwia's eyes sparkled.
"Hwia, you've never done anything like this before…"
"Can we talk for a moment…"
"So if I've never done it before, that means I'm not allowed to do it later either?"
"Why do you always say I can't, Oppa?"
"…"
Even I had to admit that what Hwia had just said was painfully sharp. I hoped Hugo wasn't hurt.
Looking a little angry, Hugo set down the spoon he'd been holding and stood up from the table.
The air around him was so unlike his usual self that I couldn't bring myself to speak to him.
All I could do was quietly watch him go into his room.
Hwia must have felt the atmosphere settling over the house, too; she meekly ate what was left of her stew.
I ladled up the remaining soup and ate with her.
That leftover stretch of the meal felt longer than usual.
Even after the table was cleared, Hugo showed no sign of coming out of his room.
I'd never seen him like this, and I had no idea how I was supposed to act.
I sat down on the living-room sofa next to Hwia, and together we stared at the darkened dining table.
"Tiable… was I in the wrong just now…?"
Hwia spoke to me in a completely different mood from before, all the energy drained out of her. Tears had gathered in her light green eyes, making them sparkle in a way that meant something else entirely.
I did think she was in the wrong, but saying so outright would only hurt her too.
Without a word, I rested my hand on the back of hers. It was trembling a little.
As if she'd made up her mind about something, Hwia stood up from the sofa and strode straight over to Hugo's door.
For all the vigor in her steps, the moment she reached it she hesitated, unsure whether to knock.
Sibling fights were better settled between siblings.
I quietly slipped into Hwia's room and lay down on the bed.
As I stared up at the ceiling, I heard a knock on Hugo's door.
Then the sound of a door opening. Then the sound of it closing.
I hoped the two of them would talk it out and clear up the misunderstanding…
It was such a quiet night that I could hear Hugo and Hwia speaking, though I couldn't make out the words.
Time kept slipping by, and before I knew it drowsiness was washing over me. Listening faintly to the sound of Hugo and Hwia crying, I fell asleep.
When I woke for a moment in the small hours, Hwia was sleeping soundly beside me, her eyes swollen.
"Tiable, you're up?"
Hugo and Hwia were making breakfast together like nothing had ever been wrong.
Hwia turned around with a bright smile, as if the tears from last night had never happened.
"I can go to Orsis!"
I had no idea what they'd talked about, but it seemed things had been properly sorted out overnight. Good.
"We m-might be gone a long time. Is that okay?"
"Oppa said it's fine too! Right?"
Hwia turned her head to look at Hugo, seeking his agreement.
"Y-yeah. Go together. I'd like to come along myself, but with work, it might be a little hard."
Hugo agreed, and going to Orsis with Hwia was as good as decided.
Going alone would have been boring, so this was a relief. The journey was a long one either way, so we'd have to prepare thoroughly before setting out.
Since I was going to be away from Sepia for a while, I figured I should at least see Redrago's face once.
Before heading to the guild, I made my way to the guard post where Redrago was.
"Oh— if it isn't Tiable? Come to see Redrago again?"
"What is it this time?"
"Don't tell me you're here because of the war. Wahaha."
Every time I walked through the guard post, the soldiers who saw me always said the same things. And every time I came here, I noticed the same thing—why were there never any soldiers around Hugo's age?
Lately I'd been walking instead of teleporting, and I had my reasons.
Teleporting every day to places I already knew had shrunk my range of movement, and most commissions ended with a single blast of magic, so…
I'd put on weight.
Hugo and Hwia's cooking being so delicious was partly to blame, too.
Anyway, that was why I was trying to walk as much as possible.
I knocked a few times and opened the door.
"Redrago!"
He gently set the paper he'd been holding down on the desk and greeted me.
Redrago's desk was always a mess whenever I came by, but today it was neatly organized.
"Oh, Tiable. What brings you here?"
"I, I decided to go to Orsis to see Lena. I might be gone a little while…!"
"Lena? Ah, that Beastman mage. I thought you two hadn't been going around together lately—so she went back to Orsis."
"Orsis is much farther than Orun, so it'll be quite the long journey."
"Is it okay if I go?"
"Of course. But won't you be bored going alone?"
"Sepia's been settled for a while now, so if you don't mind—"
"Not alone! Hwia's coming with me, so it's fine!"
"Hugo's little sister, is it? Two young ladies traveling together is a bit… if you don't mind—"
"I, I'm an adventurer! I can protect Hwia."
I proudly showed him the adventurer's token hanging around my neck.
For some reason, Redrago looked a little dejected.
"I-I see… Safe travels, then, Tiable. Don't get hurt."
I was pretty sure this was the first time I'd ever heard Redrago stumble over his words.
"Ah, wait a moment."
As if something had occurred to him, Redrago rummaged around under the desk and pulled out a single coin.
It glittered with a golden light.
I'd never seen a coin like it, so I had no idea how much it was worth, but it was gold—so it had to be fairly valuable.
"Use this to prepare properly. It's your first real journey, after all."
I took the gold coin and answered with a smile.
"Okay! I'll come back without getting hurt!"
"Good."
Redrago smiled too and gave a faint little wave goodbye. So he was someone who could smile like that.
"What is thaaat! Tiable, where did you get this?"
When I got home and showed Hwia the gold coin, that was the reaction I got.
"Redrago gave it to me. Said to use it for travel prep."
"R-Redrago did? He must be really rich… With this, Oppa wouldn't have to work for three months and we could still eat…"
Just how much money had Redrago given us? Three months of living expenses was a considerable sum.
"Tiable, he said to use this for travel prep, right?"
Hwia's eyes lit up. I'd seen that look somewhere before. Right—the day we'd gone out to wander the streets of Sepia.
"First things first, for a journey we need clothes! To protect our bodies! Right?"
"U-uh-huh?"
Contrary to my uneasy expectations, Hwia was more serious than I'd thought. We didn't go to just any clothing shop—we went straight to a real armor store.
Hwia couldn't have known much about armor, yet with a face more serious than I'd ever seen on her, she picked up the pieces on display, set them back down, and studied them for a long time.
In the end, still looking lost, she called the shopkeeper over.
"Excuse me! Where do you keep the armor mages usually wear?"
"For a mage? Who's going to wear it?"
"This one—this kid right here!"
Hwia pointed at me with both hands, and the shopkeeper glanced my way.
"Nothing here that fits a child. Not many kids that small who are mages, you know."
"Ah—it's not mage gear, but I do have clothes meant to protect a child. Let me go look."
The shopkeeper disappeared into what looked like a storeroom. While he searched for something, he called out in a loud voice.
"Nobles mostly buy these, so I don't put them on display. I'll show you as soon as I find it."
"Not in here. Been a while since anyone bought one of these."
He went into another storeroom and this time came back quickly with the clothes in hand.
What he'd brought looked like a dress. A sky-blue dress with a rather large ribbon on the back.
"It was made to protect noble children, so it looks like this—but the performance is solid. It's enchanted, even."
Enchanted? Did that mean magic had been imbued into the item? Weren't only ancient artifacts enchanted?
Something like that should have been incredibly rare—so how did an enchanted dress end up in an armor shop?
"E-enchanted?"
"Don't know what an enchantment is? Ah, well, you're still young—you might not. I went through a lot of trouble to get this piece myself from Breioff."
Breioff. I'd seen that place name on the guild map before.
"The land of those short—ahem, the Dwarves. Only Dwarves can perform enchantments, you see. I personally went and buttered them up until I managed to bring this back."
The shopkeeper puffed out his shoulders proudly.
Apparently the habit of looking down on other races was still alive and well. I couldn't understand it myself, but most people seemed to be the same.
Maybe Hugo and Hwia were the unusual ones. Even while still believing I was a demon, they hadn't changed how they treated me at all—if anything, they'd only grown closer.
"H-how much is it?"
Hwia went pale when she heard the price.
But we had a gold coin!
I handed the gold coin to the shopkeeper and got a bundle of silver coins back in change.
Hwia's armor only cost one or two silver pieces.
Just how expensive was that enchanted dress? Nobles, honestly.
We bought this and that for the journey, and before we knew it the day was gone. We decided to set out for Orsis first thing the next morning.