Adventure (3)
Lou rose above Ariel's head and spun. Glittering powder spilled from his body and settled over her, and soon Ariel, too, began to shimmer.
Scattering that powder was no easy thing for a fairy. It was much like a mage casting a spell—a few uses, and he was spent.
"Huff... huff..."
Even so, Lou felt it had been worth the effort. Ariel's body was drifting gently upward.
A faint smile spread across her usually unchanging face. The ground fell away, and the tall trees sank beneath her feet. She kept rising, until the whole of the forest lay open before her.
A vast, dense forest. Seeing it from the sky stirred something in her, just a little.
Warm sunlight lay soft against her face, and a fresh wind passed through, lightly tossing her hair.
As she looked out over the woods, Ariel fixed her gaze on a single point: a village set in the middle of the forest. Smoke rose from the chimneys of buildings that looked like houses, and people moved about with lively steps.
She made that village her destination. The sight of smoke from the chimneys had made her hungry, and hunger meant buying food, which meant she needed money. Ariel had none. She did, however, have a troll's corpse. She had been told the things fetched a decent price, so she could simply haul it to the village and sell it.
A fairy's flight powder did not last long. The shimmer across her body thinned, and she began to sink slowly toward the ground. A short while later she touched down and started walking toward the village.
"Let's go together, Big Sis!"
Lou trailed after her, sticking close.
Ariel and Lou arrived at the shore of a lake. The village could wait; first she needed to wash. She was drenched in troll blood, and if she walked in looking like that, people would find her suspicious. Next time she fought a monster, she would have to be careful not to get blood on herself. With that thought, she splashed straight into the lake.
Unlike Ariel, who had plunged in without hesitation, Lou washed himself cautiously near the edge. A lake was dangerous for a fairy. One wrong moment, and a fish might leap up and swallow him whole. Countless fairies had been eaten that way. Plenty had been snatched by birds, too.
Once he was clean, Lou flew to a nearby rock and settled there, drying himself in the warm sun while he quietly watched her. Ariel stood where the water reached her thighs, scrubbing the troll blood from her face. Her wet silver hair glittered in the sunlight.
A gentle smile touched Lou's lips. He called her Big Sis, but to his eyes she was still a young elf. Strength aside, she was an innocent thing who knew nothing of the world. That was surely why she had been ready to abandon a valuable troll corpse and simply walk away.
Something like a protective instinct stirred in him. No matter how strong Ariel was, ignorance of the world could still land her in danger. Keeping that from happening—guiding her—was his role. So Lou decided.
"Big Sis! Don't go out where it's deep! It's dangerous!"
Having shouted that, he cleared his throat. Ahem. It felt a little awkward. Somehow he already felt like her guardian.
Ariel, of course, was not listening. She was too busy washing off the blood.
A little later, cleaned of every trace of it, she walked out of the lake with water dripping from her. Lou flew over at once and wiped the moisture from her face with his sleeve.
"Big Sis, let's dry off before we go. Head out like this and you might catch a cold."
Ariel nodded. With her defense, she rather doubted a cold could touch her—but wandering around soaked through did not appeal to her either. She sat on the rock where Lou had been and let herself dry. The sunlight was warm enough to do the job quickly.
"Mmm. Once we reach the village, I'm drinking myself silly. I haven't had a drop in days. I think I'm getting dizzy."
Ariel quietly studied him as he said it. On the outside he was no different from a boy—a face that had nothing at all to do with liquor. Of course, fairies never grew beyond the appearance of a boy or a girl, so Lou was a full-fledged adult.
By that measure, Ariel too was a complete adult, appearances aside. Old enough to drink, certainly. Not that she particularly wanted to. She wanted something sweet more than she wanted alcohol. Cake, or bread, enjoyed with milk—that sounded like happiness.
Rustle.
From behind them came a sound like footsteps on fallen leaves. Ariel and Lou turned at the same time.
"Ah..."
A girl stood there, brown hair braided to either side, her face covered in freckles.
"An... elf...?"
Eyes round, she stared at Ariel's pointed ears, then shifted her gaze to Lou, perched on Ariel's shoulder.
"A fairy...?"
Disbelief rose across her face.
Elves and fairies were not races one saw easily. Neither often left its own domain, because what waited beyond was nothing but danger—monsters like the troll from earlier, capture by greedy humans, and countless other threats besides. For that reason, elves and fairies rarely strayed from their territories, and meetings with humans were few. The girl's surprise was only natural.
In truth, she was seeing an elf and a fairy for the first time. She had heard that such races existed, and she had seen them in picture books, but she had always assumed she would never meet one in person.
Beautiful faces, pointed ears—elves were a race beloved by the goddess of beauty. They grew, but they did not age. Their growth simply stopped at the age when they were most beautiful, and from then on they never changed. Fairies were much the same. They reached the age of a boy, or sometimes a little younger, and then grew no older.
The girl could not tell much about the fairy, but the elf still looked young—a few years younger than she was, if she had to guess. Even so, the beauty was unmistakably elven. To the girl's eyes, Ariel looked like a doll. The eyes were somewhat lifeless, but there was the straight nose, the small, full lips, the plump cheeks, the snow-white skin, the glittering silver hair...
Before she knew it, the girl had drawn closer. In a trembling voice, she offered a greeting.
"H-hello...?"
The girl's name was Canna.
Thanks to her cheerful nature, she managed to grow close to Ariel in no time. Of course, the closeness existed only in Canna's mind. Ariel had little interest in her. She registered the girl as nothing more than a freckled child.
"I see. So you two are out adventuring. That sounds fun. Hey, Ariel—could I touch your ear? Just once?"
Canna asked it while staring at the pointed ear. In truth, the ear was not all she wanted to touch. The glittering silver hair and those cheeks still soft with baby fat tempted her just as much. They had not known each other long, but Canna was already thoroughly smitten.
Just then Lou shot over and fixed her with a stern glare.
"No! The likes of you don't get to lay hands on Big Sis whenever you please!"
He looked every bit the guardian.
Lou did not care for Canna. She was human, for one thing, and this sudden friendliness struck him as suspicious.
"O-oh... really?"
Canna scratched her cheek, awkward. Seeing him protect Ariel like that, she decided the two of them must be very close. They had surely spent a long time together.
"Sorry."
Canna apologized. Ariel offered no particular reaction. Lou, looking faintly smug, asked a question.
"You said your name was Canna?"
"Yeah."
"You came from that village up ahead?"
"That's right. Harrington Village. I live there."
Harrington Village was the same settlement Ariel and Lou had seen from the sky.
"Is there anyone in that village who'd buy a troll corpse?"
"A troll corpse?"
"Yes!"
"Hmm... Mr. Lloyd might..."
"Who's Mr. Lloyd?"
"A merchant who comes and goes through Harrington Village. He mostly deals in spices, but if there's money in it, he'd handle a troll corpse too."
As it happened, the merchant called Lloyd was in Harrington Village at that very moment.
"Big Sis, that's what she says. Shall I have this girl guide us to Harrington Village?"
At Lou's question, Ariel nodded, lifted herself from the rock, and stood. Lou climbed onto her shoulder and shouted at Canna.
"Hey, human! Guide us to Harrington Village!"
And so Canna was put in charge of leading them there.
The moment they followed Canna into Harrington Village, every eye turned toward Ariel and Lou. Like Canna, the villagers were seeing an elf and a fairy for the first time. Under that attention, the two of them followed her to Lloyd.
Lloyd was in the village square, in the middle of a conversation. Being a merchant, he at least had some experience with elves and fairies. Those, however, had been slaves for sale in the cities. He had never seen any wandering free, the way Ariel and Lou were.
"You want to sell a troll corpse?"
At the abrupt offer, Lloyd looked dumbfounded. A troll corpse was an exceedingly difficult thing to obtain. Getting one meant spending a fortune to hire professional hunters. For a young elf and a fairy to claim they were selling one—of course it sounded absurd.
"That's right! A troll corpse!"
Lou shouted it with his arms folded. This was his first time out of the fairy village, and he was still clumsy at speaking with humans. He kept raising his voice to hide it.
"Hmm..."
Lloyd stroked his chin, looking from Ariel to Lou and back. His face said he did not much trust them.
"Then where is this troll corpse?"
At the question, Canna looked at Ariel. She had been wondering the same thing. They had said they wanted to sell a troll corpse, so she had brought them to Lloyd—but from the lake onward, the two of them had been empty-handed. Where in the world was the corpse supposed to be?
Her curiosity was answered at once. Ariel reached a hand forward, and a troll corpse appeared in empty air.
"Eek!"
"Wh-whoa!"
People nearby cried out and stumbled back. Lloyd, too, stared at the corpse with widened eyes.
A troll corpse materializing out of thin air was astonishing, but not entirely impossible. With the right magic item, one could probably make a corpse appear just like this. That, of course, was Lloyd's mistake. No magic item in the world could store something as massive as a troll corpse.
"Hmm..."
Regardless, he examined the corpse in earnest. He had never dealt in troll corpses before, but if he traded this one, the odds of turning a profit were high. There was a problem, though: it had no head. Eyes, teeth, skull—all of those could sell for a high price, and all of them were missing. Even so, the rest was in fine condition.
Trolls were vicious, so a hide was bound to be ruined in the course of a hunt. This corpse was missing only its head; everything else was pristine, as if the head alone had been taken off in a single blow.
Even professional troll hunters would have a hard time managing something like this...
Lloyd lifted his gaze to Ariel and Lou. Ariel's face was blank. Lou stared back at him, one leg jiggling in a cocky little shake.
In the end, Lloyd decided to buy it. Something about the whole affair nagged at him, but if he could turn a profit, there was no reason to hesitate. He named a reasonable price. Ariel and Lou did not know the going rate and would have taken whatever he offered, but fortunately Lloyd was a conscientious merchant.
Ariel accepted the gold coins and turned away without a word. Canna and Lou followed.
It had been a fair, clean transaction.