The incident happened as I was eating breakfast.
“Knave.”
“What?”
“Do you have any idea where my back scratcher is?”
“No.”
“Hmm, I see.” Rila tilted her head and returned to the living room.
She still hadn’t put on the collar yet. I couldn’t tell if it was because she’d listened to my advice or merely one of her whims.
I guess it did take some courage to put it on, considering it would never break and couldn’t be removed.
“I am sure I set it down here.” Rila had come back and was pointing at the table.
“You think the back scratcher grew legs and ran off, then?”
“That seems like a possibility…”
“I was joking—that’s definitely not what happened.”
“The scratcher is your right arm, though.”
“Even my arm wouldn’t grow legs.”
After having her fill of fun toying with my right arm, Rila grew bored and relegated it to a back scratcher. She wanted to fix it at some point, but as I told Wawok, a single arm didn’t hinder my work, so I didn’t need my missing one reattached.
“What’s it matter if it’s lost?” I asked. “If you didn’t preserve it with magic, it would’ve rotted down to the bone by now anyway.”
“That’s true,” Rila replied, although she continued to search.
I told her I was leaving, yet she didn’t come to the door to see me off. Evidently, she was too distracted. She must have really cared for that back scratcher.
Work proceeded as normal. While I handled some miscellaneous tasks, someone called to me from the front entrance.
“Master Roland!”
It was Lyan, the beastwoman, hopping and waving at me. Behind her were the other three members of the pretty girl squad.
“Oh, you’re back,” I said.
I’d asked them to guard Maylee in Bardenhawk. I relieved them of that duty when the broadscale quest ended, but they took a liking to the young princess and remained at the castle for a while longer.
The members of the pretty girl squad hurried over to me. I didn’t know whether it was because of their presence specifically, but the atmosphere in the office lightened upon their arrival.
“You’re always so quick to shout, Lyan,” Su, the elf, chided after a sigh.
“I’m just happy to see Master Roland after so long.” Lyan’s hands, ears, and tail wouldn’t stop moving; they were as uncontrollable as her excitement.
“Master Roland’s so calm and cool, like he always is…,” whispered Sanz, the dwarf, from beside Lyan.
Eelu, the only human in the group, grinned. “I’m just happy to see you’re doing well.”
“And I you,” I responded.
I offered my hand to shake in commemoration of our reunion, but all four girls went for it at once.
“Hey! I was talking to Master Roland just now, so—”
“But he was looking at me.”
“…At the very least, he wasn’t trying to shake your hand, Lyan.”
“Or yours, either, Sanz.”
The four quickly descended into an argument, so I gave each of them a handshake in turn.
“Thank you for your work. You did a great job.” I praised them all while trying to keep each remark impartial. If I didn’t treat them equally, they’d try to outdo each other and wind up arguing.
I had them take seats, which began another quarrel about who would sit in front. Once it was settled, I took their report on what had happened while they were away.
“So are you here for a quest today?”
“No. Not for that.” Eelu gave me a slow shake of her head and signaled something to Sanz with her eyes.
“Master Roland… Does your arm hurt?” The dwarf spoke in her typical monotone way, like she wasn’t truly interested.
“No, not at all.”
“…Not that one. The right arm.”
That one did hurt sometimes. Apparently, it was a phenomenon called phantom limb pain, but it wasn’t so terrible that I couldn’t stand it.
“Sanz insists that it must hurt and won’t listen to us,” Su added.
“It does. Not horribly, or anything. It’s not worth worrying over.”
“Okay, then.”
I ruffled Sanz’s hair, which set the other three on edge.
“Master Roland is completely fine. I’m sure he’ll grow a new one.”
“Come on, Eelu, I can’t do that.”
“Huh? You really can’t?” Eelu looked absolutely shocked, which left me shocked as well.
“I don’t have any healing abilities like that.”
The girls wanted to convert all the money they’d earned in Bardenhawk, so I figured it was a good time to pay their reward for participating in the broadscale quest, too.
I handed a bag stuffed with a wad of banknotes to Eelu.
“What? Whaaat?! Th-that’s so much money!”
The others gathered to look and reacted in much the same way.
“I’m gonna use this to buy Master Roland a new arm.”
“Don’t talk like my limb’s an accessory.”
“Lyan… We won’t need to work for a few months with this much…”
“Not having to go on adventures is kind of a downer. We won’t see Master Roland.”
“That…would be a problem…”
While Lyan and Sanz discussed this, Eelu and Su communicated something with their eyes.
“Is something wrong?” I questioned.
“Oh… Well, actually—”
Before Eelu could explain, Su cut in, “It’s okay, Master Roland, it’s nothing. I’m sure it must be a mistake.” That was all she offered before going quiet.
Some adventurers arrived looking for quests, so I had to send the pretty girl squad off.
I was curious about that odd exchange with Eelu and Su, but didn’t think much of it.
Nothing special happened that day other than the pretty girl squad’s return.
As I was headed home that night, I spotted a rather good-looking horse hitched out front of the house.
“Who do you belong to?”
I patted the animal’s muzzle gently, and it whinnied. Roje had likely ridden it here.
It wasn’t until I heard voices inside that I started to doubt that.
“I do not know what reason brought you to us, but you are a good person.”
“I’m only doing this because you asked me to help you find it.”
I heard Rila talking with someone, and I recognized the other speaker. I opened the door to a room we normally left empty.
“I’m home,” I said.
Rila’s face lit up. “Oh, you have returned at the perfect time.”
“Oh, Roland. Took you long enough,” said Elvie, hand on her hip and a rather peeved look on her face.
“What’re you here for?” I inquired.
“That’s no way to greet someone.”
Almelia must’ve told her where I lived.
Elvie cleared her throat to set the conversation in a new direction. “I apologize for the terribly uncouth circumstances surrounding the engagement meeting between Almelia and the prince of my homeland. Thanks to you, His Majesty avoided corrupt temptation.”
“So stuffy… You are much too stuffy in the way you thank him…” Rila shook her head. Evidently, she found this whole affair tedious.
“Don’t tell me you came just to look for my arm?”
“Elvie, the knight, arrived conveniently when I was in need of assistance,” Rila said. “That foolish elf is nowhere to be found… It was the perfect timing.”
Elvie was quick to clarify.
“I only happened to visit while Madam Rileyla, your lodger, was having a bit of trouble…”
“I realize that strict discipline is in your nature, but please relax. Even as a bystander, I feel so uptight that I can hardly breathe,” I commented.