Is Traveling with Company Smooth Sailing? (3)
"Ah, now I get it."
"Hm?"
They were lying atop a cargo wagon that offered little in the way of a ceiling, heads turned skyward, each of them using a thin pile of luggage as a makeshift bedroll.
At that moment, Luirin finally seemed to have her epiphany, and she thrust her self-assured face toward Cariel.
"You lost because you had no killing intent."
"Killing intent?"
"That's right. That's why I got taken down so helplessly like that."
"...Wouldn't 'helpless' be a better word than 'irresponsible' there? Or 'incapable'?"
"The Imperial tongue is hard. Let's just start using Badasran soon."
"Suit yourself."
"Huh? Wait—you already know it?"
"Circumstances."
One of my few talents.
Probably because I'd been dragged here and there as a child, and the language had worn a groove into my ears.
A foreign tongue. In that one field, I'd ranked among the very top of the academy—by student standards, at least.
...Only because it wasn't an official subject, mind you.
And even then, having an ear for a language and actually being able to speak it were two very different problems.
"......"
Whatever. So be it.
"When someone commits a hostile act, they instinctively let slip their killing intent or malice. But you didn't have any of that, customer."
"Is that so."
He could roughly guess why.
What he had been taught from the start was never a method for killing, subduing, or crushing an opponent.
Its very premise was to react to the hostility and murderous intent of the other side.
In other words, it was less about inflicting harm and more about self-preservation.
Leaning toward defense rather than attack, counter rather than strike.
That didn't mean he couldn't take the initiative, not exactly—but then, when had a tree ever stood quietly and clubbed a passing creature for sport?
And a boulder? What about water, or the wind?
"......"
Come to think of it, it was less about imitating nature and more about dissolving into it, becoming one with it.
Pouring himself into that practice had, naturally enough, shaped his consciousness to flow the same way.
Though if there was a difference from before—he felt like his emotional expression and reactions had grown richer than when he'd simply considered himself a tree or a rock.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Up to a point."
"Ugh, honestly. You hate talking so much that you tune out mid-conversation."
...No, that's contradictory. You rattle off dozens of words for every one of mine.
"Oh, over here! We'll ride along only this far! Excuse us!"
Then Luirin glanced at something and, as though she'd spotted a marker, urgently asked the driver to stop the wagon.
"From here on, it's this way."
Despite there being no road to speak of, she announced they would cut straight into the forest. He lifted his gaze slightly and saw the woods gave onto a mountain path—once they entered, he suspected it would be a long while before they saw a paved road or anything resembling one again.
"Fine."
"Aren't you curious? About what I'm trusting when I say we go this way?"
"A competent guide would make that judgment call on her own, wouldn't she?"
"That's true, I suppose. Still, accepting things this readily is its own problem. Someday you could get knifed in the back by someone other than me, you know."
With that, she deliberately rummaged through her things and pulled out a small leather map.
"A large map has its uses, but in places like this, what really matters is a sketch map—one that charts a specific region in careful detail."
"Especially somewhere you've never been?"
"Depends on the person. People with a good eye for terrain and a knack for that sort of thing can wander around just fine after one or two trips without any map at all. I'm not quite at that level."
"Instead, you're never lost as long as you have a map or a sketch?"
"Exactly right. You're sharp, customer—no need to explain things twice or three times. It's a relief."
"......"
He knew it was a compliment, but somehow it left him a little sour.
"On foot, it'll take a while."
"Then we run."
He immediately stepped up onto a nearby tree.
"Eh?"
And with that, he began threading his way between the trunks, leaping from branch to branch, covering ground in great bounds.
"What ARE you, customer?! Are you an elf?!"
Her cry of disbelief faded quickly into the distance—
"No, wait! Slow down! It's not like we're racing!"
—yet she kept pace just fine.
From everything he'd observed, Luirin's physical abilities were on an entirely different tier from an ordinary human's.
Was it because she was half-demi-human?
Or was her constitution simply exceptional, regardless of bloodline?
"How's this speed for you?"
When he dropped down from the trees, he found Luirin taking a moment to steady her slightly ragged breathing.
"You're not human, are you, customer?"
"Pure human."
"Then did you grow up in a forest? Because no human should be able to move like that."
"In exchange, my mana utilization is garbage."
"Is that even related?"
Good question.
Truthfully, Cariel had wondered about that point himself.
"If you could move like that while properly channeling mana, I wouldn't have a word to say."
"You're keeping up just fine yourself, though?"
"I'm chasing you as hard as I can."
She threw a look back over her shoulder.
"Look! Our starting point is already long out of sight—I could scrub my eyes raw and not find it!"
"That's only because the trees are blocking it."
"Don't stretch the truth!"
It wasn't really a stretch.
With a clear line of sight, he could certainly have seen that far.
Climb a tree right now, and it might even be roughly visible?
"At this speed, we'll leave the coast days ahead of schedule. I understand now—no wonder the one who talked you into the mountain crossing was so at ease!"
"Yeah, sure."
"By the way—can I learn that too?"
"...I honestly don't know."
He had never once thought about teaching it to anyone, after all.
Given enough mana, high-speed movement wasn't really a problem in itself.
He moved fast, yes—but examined closely, this was a technique specialized for long-distance travel.
Which meant that in raw instantaneous speed, it fell considerably short of movement or maneuvering methods built on mana.
And what if someone had honed each of those arts as their own secret discipline, polishing them to perfection?
His simple means of travel would be all but useless in actual combat.
Besides, this method leaned heavily on the terrain—on space, on environment.
Even in the same forest or the same mountains, if no paths or gaps revealed themselves... then it was neither one thing nor the other.
"So it really is an elf trait. But maybe being human is why it's so constrained—which would make it a half-finished ability, wouldn't it?"
"You think so?"
"You never learned to analyze it? It's your own ability?"
...It had hardly been a talent worth showing off.
All he'd ever gotten was scoldings—don't wreck roofs when you climb buildings, don't leave shoe prints on walls for no reason.
So he'd only used it in the dead of night, or when clambering over walls. He'd rarely ever flaunted it in the open.
Come to think of it, the time he'd actually put it to use was recent—very recent.
He'd developed a knack hopping walls, and from doing it over and over, he'd stumbled onto the trick of moving over them smoothly.
Figuring things out along the way had been a side benefit—back then, he'd never dreamed he'd become this adept at it.
"Good. Having a customer with at least one thing to teach me works out nicely for my circumstances, too."
From that point on, she peppered him with questions the entire way.
"Even if I can't learn it, just tell me."
So he did—explaining things as simply as he could, within the bounds of what didn't annoy him.
"It really is a racial trait, isn't it? Gaps and paths made by the wind? You can SEE them? Do you hear yourself? The wind isn't something you can see with your eyes. You know that, right?"
"Well..."
"Wind magic that 'shapes' the wind is pure pageantry—display-piece work. If you actually wanted to harm someone with wind, you'd do the opposite: kill the sound, kill even the faint currents your technique produces, push stealth to the absolute maximum..."
There she went again—a torrent of words.
She herself didn't seem the least bit aware of it, though.
Still, what she said was worth half an ear; he'd hardly lose anything by listening.
...Even if more than half of it was stuff to let slide right past him.
Before long, less than a few hours had passed when they entered the mountain path proper. The incline gentled, and valleys—yes, even sheer cliffs—began to come into view.
"Can you climb that too?"
"...It'd be rough. But I can try."
"What a relief. If I had to ride on your back up there, that would've been quite the ordeal."
Huh?
With that, she proceeded to scale the cliff face barehanded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Oh..."
She gripped and stepped with real skill.
"Can I manage it?"
A path did faintly reveal itself to him, clumsy as his read was—but watching how quickly it blurred apart...
If he missed his window, he might plummet straight down.
"......"
Well. If it came to it, he'd die. So be it.
Only after he'd hauled himself to the top did he realize he'd had the wrong idea entirely.
During the climb itself, he'd had no clue what was off—just climbed, brute and simple, until it was done.
"Perfect. Let's camp here. You only just got off the boat, so your land sickness hasn't fully worn off yet."
"Land sickness?"
What an amusing expression.
"There are no temples or apothecaries out here, you see. If your condition suddenly goes downhill and you don't even notice, there's no remedy for it. So we take care of your body before that can happen."
It hadn't looked like she was carrying all that much, yet she gave her thick robe a few good shakes—and then came the sound of something pouring out onto the ground.
"...That's a magic tool too, isn't it?"
"Unlike yours, it only extends capacity—volume, nothing more. The weight stays the same."
WHUMP!
With nothing but the hem of her robe touching down, the surface of the earth looked as if part of it had been carved away.
"That's how it works."
"...Right."
She seemed to deliberately avoid making a show of it around other people, which was why he hadn't asked before—but back when she'd boldly stuffed her purchases and supplies straight into her robe, he'd gathered she had no intention of hiding it from him, at least.
So when the chance came and he asked, the answer came readily.
His own load was minimal, yes, but he was still lugging around an awkward backpack of his own.
"No wonder you can move like that despite carrying all that."
So there had been a perfectly good reason those bodies went flying when she barreled into them.
...Which meant her being neutralized by his intervention had really never made sense to her, had it?
"It's part of my training. If I want to keep eating, I have to diligently build my skills, right? And if I slack off training for work, who's supposed to guarantee me the time to train and grow stronger? The sky? The earth? The sea? The shore? A lake? A swamp? An open field?"
"......"
Every word was a hundred times correct. The digressions were just far too long.
"Well, since that's how it is—teach me how to harm someone or take them down without any killing intent."
"......?"
She asked as if it had been arranged all along.
"Can I say no?"
"Is that included in the commission fee?"
At his question, Luirin smacked her forehead.
"Oh, come ON! Would it kill you to teach someone nicely for once instead of acting like a pushover?"
"......"
It was nice that she showed no sign of deceiving him—but what was with boldly calling him a pushover to his face, over and over?
Something like childish whim, maybe. Ask and demand enough, and who knows—the other party might just give in?
Asking out loud costs nothing, after all.
But once you start conceding the small things, conceding the big ones is only a matter of time.
Likewise—once you start permitting the small things, permitting the large ones can happen at any moment.
...A very expensive lesson he'd earned, being gleefully trampled and scorned by others all his life.
Anyway.
Perhaps it was the sight of his indifferent expression.
Luirin began weaving her sophistries.
"Then I'll put that much more care into my role as your guide, won't I? And beyond that—who knows? We might build a relationship that goes past a simple guide-and-customer arrangement into something deeper. It could even turn into something truly, deeply intimate~?"
Her faintly flushed face and those upturned eyes were honestly adorable—
—but Cariel gave no particular reaction, just blinked twice.
"And how exactly is that a benefit to me?"
"Oh, come on! Getting to know a guide as competent as me over the long term is a massive advantage! You're supposed to be sharp—how do you not even get that?"
Absurd.
And shameless, too.
Cariel shook his head as if admitting defeat.
"Fine. It's not like teaching you is difficult."
"Yay!"
Watching her clench her fist with all her might,
Cariel let out a dry little laugh.