Our Adventure Is Only Just Beginning
An adventurer's badge must be carried at all times.
Yona turned in her Evian-exclusive badge and received the standard guild-issue one in its place.
One for Yona, one for Alec, one for Kayak.
Alec had been handed his and Yona's together, and passed hers back to her.
"Are you sure it's okay with just the three of you?"
At Mary's worried question, Alec — who had been watching Yona loop her badge around her neck — turned to look at her.
Kayak, who had wrapped his own around his thick wrist since it was far too tight for his neck, turned as well.
"What, is that supposed to be a joke?"
His wide maw curved at a strange angle.
That maw made the nearly two-meter-tall Kayak look even more fearsome than usual, but Mary saw the expression on his face and recognized at once that this was, in fact, him smiling.
"Me as warrior, Kayak. Alec as Guard, Yona as Healer. You're not seriously asking whether a party with these three is in danger, are you?"
Even as he said it, Kayak kept chuckling in strange, rumbling bursts.
Yona scrunched up her face at the sound and kicked him square in the rear with a satisfying thwack.
"What's so funny, you lizard? You don't like it when Mary worries about us?"
"It's not that. It's just funny, that's all. What danger could there possibly be in a party with these three in it?"
"Kayak, go easy on her. She's asking because she's worried about Yona. Right, Mary?"
Ah, aha, ahaha.
Mary laughed awkwardly.
And no wonder — Alec had said exactly the right thing.
Whatever else she was, Yona was a girl.
Moreover, apart from her foul mouth, she was flawless — a beauty so striking you had to wonder why someone like her had been buried in a backwater like Evian at all. And a skilled Healer on top of it.
Which was exactly what made her such a problem.
A hand wrapped in the Holy Shroud couldn't grip a weapon — and it happened to be her right hand, to boot. Since most Healers were right-handed, they either swung weapons awkwardly with their left or simply strapped on a small shield to eke out a slightly better survival rate.
Yona was no different.
A Healer who carried a little round buckler strapped to her left arm.
And a stunning beauty, besides.
And right next to her, Alec and Kayak.
Both of them men, no?
"I told you not to look at me like a woman, Mary."
Yona's brow furrowed.
Normally, when she growled like that, Mary would just smirk and say, Whatever you say, unnie~ — but this time, Mary's stiff expression wouldn't thaw.
"Don't take it so lightly, unnie. I know Alec and Kayak are good men — of course I do. But you can never really know with people."
"Don't worry, Mary. This guy's a lot more shy than he looks."
Yona waved a hand and laughed as if it were nothing.
"That's exactly what I mean, unnie — you're taking it too lightly."
"Oh, come on, you won't even believe me to the end? Want to know how hopeless he is?"
Yona reached out and stroked Alec's smooth, gleaming head.
Soft as silk against her palm.
"I offered to let him fondle my chest and he wouldn't even do that. I'm telling you, his brains fell out with his hair."
"Th-that's not true!"
Alec barked the denial, face blazing scarlet — while Mary just stared at them both with a look of pure, unadulterated disbelief.
"Ugh, let's GO already! What are you all doing!"
Only after Kayak finally shouted did they manage to get moving.
"Now then — this here's the expensive kind."
As they walked toward Henson's general store near Evian's western gate, Kayak pulled out a tightly rolled sheet of parchment.
It was clearly well-tanned and thoroughly dried, and even at a glance, unmistakably pricey. He unrolled it with care, and a map revealed itself.
"There, see? This here's Evian."
"How am I supposed to see anything on that tiny scrap?"
THWACK!
Yona reeled.
Kayak, scowling, stretched out his flattened hand and pointed at the map all the same.
"Owww, you strong-arm lizard, honestly…"
Rubbing the back of her head hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, Yona leaned in to look where his finger pointed.
Above a tiny drawn village, in even tinier lettering, read the word Evian.
"A bit further north of here lies the Marea Republic. Now, Marea technically falls under Carpatian rule as well, but there's still a border, so if you want to avoid the hassle, you'd do better to take the long way around."
Their first destination, of course, was the Wizard Community.
To get there, they would have to skirt the edge of the Lucassia Mountain Range and then cross the Insturia Mountains.
Easy enough to say — but the Insturia Mountains were known by another name: the Spine of the Continent.
That was how long, how vast, and how treacherous they were.
The simple fact that no complete map of the range had ever been made said everything about how brutal the crossing would be.
"In any case, it's certain you can't go straight through. To think the two of you were planning to walk this route alone — I can't decide whether you're fools or brave men."
Kayak clicked his tongue, looking back and forth between Alec and Yona.
Yona claimed, in her own words, that she'd only been in this world for three years — and she lacked so much basic common sense that he was inclined to believe her.
And Alec, the man who was supposed to rein her in, was so hopelessly besotted with her that he'd no doubt agreed without a second thought, determined they could travel as a pair.
"Honestly. Fools, the both of you."
Kayak swatted Alec upside the head for no particular reason.
With a loud crack, Alec yelped, and Kayak clicked his tongue once more for good measure before pushing open the door of Henson's store.
"Well, well. Going quite a distance, aren't we."
The moment Kayak's enormous frame stepped inside, the cramped little shop felt utterly full.
They bought three new bedrolls stuffed with down that still had some life left in it, and a couple of flint kits in case they needed to build campfires.
For provisions, they stocked up mostly on hardtack and other simple fare, and Kayak bought several more lumps of rock salt — the single most important supply of all.
"What are those rocks?"
Kayak glanced sidelong at Yona as she butted into the transaction, then shook his head as if it were nothing.
Thank the gods.
It was pure luck that they'd come to see him off, those two thundering idiots. If they hadn't, the pair would have simply waltzed off on their own, and before long Evian would have welcomed two fresh corpses.
"It's nothing. Let's go. Better to keep the packs as light as we can."
"Yes! We're finally off!"
Yona stretched her arms toward the sky as they stepped out of Henson's store.
The motion sent a noticeable jiggle through her chest, though she paid it no mind.
Three years. She'd waited three whole years.
Of those three years, she'd spent six months muddling through her days at the church, and after leaving it, she'd made her living as an adventurer.
When she heard there was a place called the Wizard Community where every mage in the world gathered, she'd decided that if she could just get there, she'd surely find a way home — or at the very least, a way back into a man's body.
So she'd worked and saved with that place as her goal.
And now, at long last, it was bearing fruit.
Yona felt wonderful.
"It's really time to go, right?"
"Yeah. Time to go."
Yona, delighted, hooked a headlock around Alec's neck.
And Alec, with the soft press of her chest against the top of his head, had no idea where to look or what to do with himself.
Watching the two of them, Kayak found his mood lifting, somehow.
That was simply the kind of person Yona was.
Spirited, vibrant, and light on her feet.
A woman who stood in constant danger of dying — that was the Healer's lot — and yet somehow always pulled through.
Before he knew it, Kayak thought, he'd been influenced by her too, by that boundless energy of hers.
He'd decided to join a journey he normally wouldn't have given a second glance, inventing excuses to tag along. That said everything, he figured.
"I decline."
"My, my."
Ludwik's brow creased into a scowl.
This was the second person to refuse an invitation to the Hero's party — the outcome he'd considered least likely of all.
The first, of course, had been Yona. The second was this elven mage, Alevian.
Everyone in Evian knew Alevian was a mage of considerable renown — but his eccentric temperament was equally famous, if for entirely different reasons.
He had come seeking to recruit the man into the Hero's party, only to be flatly refused the moment the words left his mouth.
"May I at least ask why?"
"There is someone I must watch."
Alevian left nothing behind but an incomprehensible answer, stroking his crystal orb all the while.
Whatever stirred within the orb could not be seen from where Ludwik sat, so there was no telling who might be inside it.
"How surprising. First the Healer, and now a mage — I hadn't expected my offer to be turned down twice."
In truth, it hardly mattered.
He didn't know just how accomplished a mage Alevian was, but surely there was no shortage of mages at that level. If he went from the Infula Holy See to the Wizard Community, finding mages eager to join the Hero's party would be no trouble at all.
Still, an elven mage had seemed the more elegant choice, which was why he'd made the offer in the first place — only to be turned down so icily.
"Refused by Yona, I take it?"
"You know already?"
"Say 'Healer' and you say Yona. There's no Healer in all of Evian more famous than she is. If I had to name another, it would be Aize, perhaps."
"You do have a discerning eye, all of you. That young woman, Yona — she struck me as a remarkably capable Healer."
"She is. Truly capable. Capable, and then some. Remarkable in a great many other ways, too."
"Her looks, certainly, are remarkable."
Alevian pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and studied Ludwik with a long, level gaze.
With his dark brown hair neatly combed, there was something faintly incongruous about the man — something that didn't quite fit the image of an adventurer who brushed shoulders with death for a living.
A sense that somewhere within him, a darkness lingered — that he was somehow ill-suited to the name of Hero.
"Why ever are you looking at me with those eyes?"
Ludwik broke into his usual refreshing smile.
"I welcome a beautiful woman's gaze, of course, but when you stare at me like this without saying a word, it does become rather embarrassing."
Haha~ Ludwik laughed.
Watching him, Alevian allowed himself the faintest of smiles.
"Just make do with what you have and head for Infula. Go there and get yourself officially recognized as the Hero first. Lingering here, fumbling about with party-building — surely you understand it doesn't look good?"
"I intend to depart sometime tomorrow. The cathedral carriage isn't quite ready yet, you see."
"Mm. Mm-hmm…"
"And the current Saintess — Lady Vigrind — will need time to prepare for so long a journey as well, won't she?"
Alevian glanced down at the crystal orb.
Yona's footsteps, captured mid-stride as she left the city's western gate behind and headed off toward somewhere new, looked brighter and lighter than anything.
"…Take good care of Vigrind. She's a good child. See to it that you look closely at what lies beneath her surface."
"Well, of course. Isn't that a Hero's duty?"
Alevian quietly studied the Hero, Ludwik.
His eyes said, unmistakably, that he did not trust the man one bit.