At the sound of that unfamiliar voice, I turned my head and saw a group of three girls who seemed to have been waiting for us. They appeared to be adventurers, like us, and all three were of different races. The first was a tall elf, the second a short beastgirl with fox ears, and the third a human. Multiracial groups like this were rare in Laffan, where most of the citizens were humans.
The girl that had fox ears was pointing at me, but I couldn’t imagine why. I was certain that I would never have forgotten a party of adventurers who stood out as much as these three girls did. Oh, wait, actually, I think I have an idea...
“Um, would you happen to be the Jade Wings party?” I asked, using a name I’d learned back at the guild.
The three nodded, looking very relieved.
“Yes. You’re Kamiya-kun, right? Nice to meet you. My name is Yoshino Kitamura.”
“My name is Saeko Yamamura, but you can just call me Sae.”
“Greetings! Friend and foe alike know me as Kaho Kawabuchi!”
So Kitamura-san is a human, Yamamura-san is an elf, and Kawabuchi-san is a beastwoman... I can’t really bring to mind what they looked like back on Earth, with the obvious exception of Kitamura-san, who looks kind of familiar. Honestly, I have trouble recalling the classmates I didn’t interact with routinely, and it’s even tougher when their appearances have changed after reincarnation, although I can generally remember their names when they introduce themselves that way.
“Nice to meet you too. My name is— Actually, we probably shouldn’t talk out in the open like this,” I said. I looked to Haruka for her opinion. “Where should we go?”
Haruka gave a grudging shake of her head and shrugged at me. “It wouldn’t be right to tell them to drop by some other time. Oh well—let’s postpone our expedition for now.”
Kitamura-san looked a bit apologetic after she saw Haruka’s reaction. “I’m very sorry about this sudden visit. We would have preferred to contact you ahead of time, but...”
“Yeah, we get that it isn’t easy to contact people here compared to where we came from,” said Yuki. “And we’re away from home all the time too, so it’s not easy to catch us.”
“In fact, we were planning to leave town for an extended period starting today,” said Natsuki.
A look of relief appeared on Yamamura-san’s face. “Oh, I see. Well, I’m terribly sorry about that. This is convenient for us, though.”
Based on what Diola-san had told us, it sounded like Jade Wings had first arrived in Laffan quite a while ago, but what with our party adventuring so often, we’d seldom been in town at the same time. With our plans having been disrupted, it felt like we’d been dashed with cold water, but Yamamura-san was right that this was convenient for them.
“Anyway, let’s continue this conversation inside our house,” I said.
Metea seemed peeved that we’d canceled our original plans, so I patted her on the head as we turned back. It hadn’t been long since we closed our gates, but now I opened them again to invite the Jade Wings girls in. They seemed surprised by what they saw.
“What a magnificent home you have,” said Kaho.
“The grounds are pretty impressive,” said Touya, “but our actual house isn’t that massive.”
“Yeah, all we wanted was a house that’s big enough for all of us to live in,” said Yuki. “Anyhow, follow us inside.”
We guided Jade Wings into our dining room. Given that we probably wouldn’t have enough time to set out for the dungeon today, we asked them to wait for us while we went to take off our adventuring equipment. Once we’d changed into casual clothes, we reconvened in the dining room.
“Before we discuss anything else, let’s properly introduce ourselves,” said Haruka. “I’m fairly sure you know who we are, but my name is Haruka Azuma. You’re welcome to call me Haruka.”
“I’m Tomoya Nagai, but I go by Touya in this world.”
“My name is Naofumi Kamiya, but you can just call me Nao.”
“I’m Yuki Shidou. Feel free to call me Yuki here.”
“My name is Natsuki Furumiya,” said Natsuki. “You’re welcome to refer to me as Natsuki.”
Kitamura-san nodded. “Okay, so we correctly guessed who the members of your party were. We introduced ourselves earlier, but please feel free to call us by our first names too—that’s what we used to register as adventurers. By the way, may I ask about the other two members of your party?”
Yoshino sounded concerned about how much she could say around Mary and Metea, so I nodded and reassured her that she had nothing to worry about.
“We happen to be taking care of the sisters. We’ve told them about where we came from, so you don’t need to avoid any topics related to our past.”
“My name is Mary. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m Metea! Are you all friends of big sis Haruka’s party?”
“Friends”? Not really... Our group and Yoshino’s group barely interacted. Even if you classify classmates as friends, it’s been over a year and a half since we last met. We might as well be strangers at this point. All of us exchanged glances. It was Haruka who finally spoke up on everyone’s behalf.
“No, we’re just acquainta—”
But Kaho suddenly leaned forward to interrupt Haruka. “Correct! We are the best of friends, linked by a bond eternal!”
Haruka fell silent, then sighed to herself before speaking up again. “We’re not best friends, but I suppose we technically are friends.”
Haruka had promoted the Jade Wings girls from acquaintances to friends, probably because she thought it would be awkward to contradict something Kaho had said so confidently in front of the sisters. Admittedly, Haruka and Kaho were both girls, and female classmates always seemed to know each other better than any two given male acquaintances.