“Where did you two come from?” he asked us.
“We traveled from Ischea to Gald, and now that we’ve completed our business, we’ve decided to head farther south,” I said.
“We stopped in a bunch of towns along the way,” Teto added.
The soldier nodded. He didn’t ask what kind of business we had in Ischea and Gald; he probably assumed that our adventures had taken us here.
“Have you been to Gragana? That’s my hometown,” he said.
“We did. It’s become a really nice town, hasn’t it?”
“It’s a lot livelier than before!” Teto added.
Gragana was a little town in the south of Gald. About fifty years ago, a huge landslide had devastated a considerable portion of the town, burying it in earth and stones and destroying the fields; Teto and I had been sent there on a quest to help rebuild the town. We’d popped by a few days ago to see how things had evolved since then, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the town had completely recovered.
“Oh, you’ve been there before? I don’t think it has changed that much in recent years, though...” the soldier said, his head tilted in confusion.
Had our conversation continued, I would’ve certainly exposed our identities. Thankfully, the older soldier came back before we had time to incriminate ourselves further.
“Nothing to report on my end. We hope to see you two again in Gald soon.”
“Thanks. And thank you for your hard work.”
“Thank you!”
Teto and I climbed back onto the driver’s seat and gave one last bow to the soldiers. With Teto taking hold of the reins, we crossed the border from Gald into the Sunfield Empire.
After they had left, the youngest beastman soldier turned to his colleague.
“Hey, gramps? Are they some sort of important folks?” he asked, seeing as the older man still hadn’t raised his head from when he bowed to the two adventurers.
He had initially assumed that the girl with black hair was a noble lady from another nation and that the other one was her escort, but perhaps there was more to them. The older soldier slowly straightened up, his gaze fixed on the spot where the two girls had vanished into the distance. “You’re from Gragana too, right?” he asked.
The younger soldier hadn’t expected his companion to reply to his question with another question. He paused for a moment, caught off guard, before nodding awkwardly. “Yeah... Why?” he asked, puzzled.
“You already know about the landslide that happened fifty years ago. I was still a kid back then, but I clearly remember two adventurers who came to help us. It was them,” the older soldier muttered.
“Huh? Gramps, have you gone senile?!” the young soldier exclaimed, eliciting a chuckle from his colleague.
To this day, tales of the two adventurers who came to save the town of Gragana after the landslide were still recounted by the townsfolk.
“I remember the mage had been a lot younger, but the swordswoman hasn’t changed a lick since then.”
The old adventurer was positive these two girls were the ones who’d come to save them from the landslide fifty years ago. Besides, he’d overheard them mentioning how much the town had changed when they were chatting with the younger soldier, which only strengthened his conviction.
“No way...”
“You told me that your grandpa and grandma almost died during the landslide, right? If it weren’t for those two, you probably wouldn’t have been born,” the older soldier said before returning to his post.
Utterly dumbfounded, the young soldier gave one last bow in the direction in which Chise and Teto had left and followed his colleague back to the gate.