Ann didn’t even have time to be excited about her first Hunter’s Guild visit before she was dragged outside in confusion and anxiety.
“Umm,” she said, but the boy holding her hand didn’t stop.
It was Kuntz who had brought her to the Hunter’s Guild, but she knew Sara, Haruto, and Allen were following behind them. She was only getting more and more anxious now the farther she got from them.
The boy dragging her by the hand seemed to be Kuntz’s brother, based on the conversation they’d had earlier. She’d only caught a glimpse of his face, but he’d certainly looked like Kuntz. From the back, the shape of his head seemed identical to the older boy’s.
The shape of his head? What am I talking about? With that inane thought, her worries vanished entirely. It was a bit strange, but she figured she should still keep her guard up. After all, this was her first time being alone in a crowd of strangers since she’d come to this world. No, maybe her second, she thought, shaking her head.
She’d met the goddess and received an explanation of her circumstances that was hardly an explanation at all, reincarnating with the determination that if she had to be parted from her family either way, living in a different world would be better than dying.
She then lived in a house that clearly belonged to rich people under the guardianship of Ed and Lati, who were both as sweet as sugar. The servants had respected her as one of the Invited but kept their distance. Until Sara came, she’d been bound by unseen threads that threatened to suffocate her. She felt guilty toward the kindhearted Ed and Lati, but she’d learned from living with them what it was like to be lonely even with a bunch of people around.
She was treasured as an Invited, but she didn’t know how to use her mana and she was basically just surviving until Sara came. That slightly tanned girl, bursting with vitality, wasn’t the well-mannered lady that Lati wanted her to be, but she was the picture of an energetic sixteen-year-old, just what Ann wanted to be.
There were some misunderstandings, and hurt feelings, but Sara taught her what Trilgaia was like from the perspective of an Invited, and how to live her life here.
Then there was Lati’s sister Nelly. Meeting her had taught Ann that there was a way she could live making full use of her body just like she wanted to.
Right after that, the green grass locust outbreak had occurred, and though she knew she caused everyone a lot of trouble, she really felt fortunate to be able to see the monsters that existed in this world, the Hunters who stood against them, and the extraordinary abilities of the Invited up close. Strictly speaking, green grass locusts were not monsters, apparently, but to Ann, an insect you could hold in both arms could be nothing but a monster.
Sara had seemed passive at first, but put her all into helping people when it really counted. That had touched Ann deeply, even if she couldn’t wrap her head around the magic Sara used at all.
She’d learned the importance of Hunters in that incident, but she couldn’t picture herself hunting monsters to make a living. She knew from the start that the life Lati wanted for her, as the wife of some noble, wasn’t what she wanted. When she’d thought about how she did want to live in this world, she found that the knights had left a strong impression on her.
Sara said the knights that protected the kingdom weren’t like the Japanese police. That they may claim to protect the kingdom’s subjects, but they were more focused on the nobility and sometimes neglected the commoners.
Sara was really funny when she got steaming mad talking about her experiences in Rosa, but as someone who had been in a sports club, Ann was used to grade-based hierarchies and didn’t dislike being part of a group. When she thought of it like being a civil servant, she figured the knights might be the place for her.
Sara and Nelly had taught her not just how to use magic but how to use physical strengthening too. She missed them immediately when they left, but Sara had cut those invisible threads for her.
Those threads were living in Trilgaia, a place she never tried to learn about of her own volition, the powers of the Invited, her regrets from her life in Japan, and her anxiety about her future. Sara had gently unraveled each and every one of them, and Ann had only gratitude for that.
Once those threads were severed, she was able to perceive Lati’s sweetness as real love and Ed’s distance as the sternness a parent felt knowing their child would leave the nest one day.
With those realizations, she was able to accept their affection for her, make use of the things Sara and Nelly had taught her, learn more about Trilgaia, and train herself using the unlimited mana of the Invited.
After spending a year and a half like that, now that she was twelve, Ann had headed for the capital.
And now, she was being pulled by the hand by a boy she didn’t know.
The boy stopped and spun around. “We shouldn’t stand out anymore here.”
She could still see the guild, but there was a plaza in between, and they were far enough away that she’d have to squint if she wanted to identify anyone over there.
“I grabbed you ’cause it looked like my brother was trying to hide you, but what’s your deal?”
“I don’t know what to say to that...”
Ann didn’t know what was going on herself. But since he’d brought her here, she figured she’d explain the situation to him.
“I turned twelve, so I want to get my Hunter’s license, and I want to earn at least a little of the money myself, so we went to the guild to see if there was any work I could do.”
“Makes sense. It looked like you didn’t want to draw attention to yourself. I thought it was maybe ’cause you were a noble out in secret, but it doesn’t seem like that anymore.”
“A noble...”
Ann pinched the hem of her clothes and then looked around at what the townspeople were wearing. She didn’t think their clothes were that different, but when she paid attention, she realized that her clothes were expensive imitations of regular clothes.
“Veteran Hunters make a ton of money, so it’s not like it’s bad to wear expensive clothes or equipment. But if a kid who looks like she just became a Hunter yesterday is wearing that stuff, you’re gonna stand out.”
“Right...”
Still, it felt kind of wrong to her to spend money buying cheap clothes when she was trying to earn money.
“Be honest. You don’t have to make the money. Your parents will pay for you, right?”
“Yeah.”
They weren’t her parents, but they certainly had the money.
“The guild will provide work for kids who want to be Hunters, but that work’s for kids who really need the money. Ones who don’t have parents or relatives who will pay for them.”
“That makes sense... I shouldn’t take it, then, should I?”
She sort of had a feeling this job thing wouldn’t work out.
“But kids who are from here are different.” The boy crossed his arms and puffed out his chest. “Our parents work here and our neighbors do too. There’s plenty of work for kids who can’t do everything an adult can but will work for cheap. Long as you can prove your identity.”
“Then...!”
The Wolveriés could verify her identity. But was it okay to tell him that?
“What’s your name?”
“Ann. Ann Greif.”
“Greif. You’re from Gardenia, then.”
She was shocked when he knew where she was from just from her surname.
“I’m Rod. Kuntz is my brother.”
“I knew it! You look exactly alike.”