“I’m sorry, but I can’t comment about this,” I said.
“Uh, that just makes me feel more curious, so—”
“Be not hasty, Yoshino! Heh, I know exactly what this is—I’ve seen it many a time in games. I’m confident that this is the kind of scenario in which we can’t gain something if we learn the details ahead of time.”
Kaho grinned and looked to us for confirmation. She was completely correct, but we couldn’t directly tell her that, so all of us answered with silence. If these had been hostile classmates, it would have been perfectly fine to sabotage things for them, but they seemed friendly so far, so there was no reason for us to purposely antagonize them. I gotta say, though, I’m impressed by Kaho’s ability to think about everything in terms of gaming. Sure, it’s a completely useless skill most of the time, but I guess it can be very useful in situations where Advastlis-sama is involved.
“...It seems like it would be best for us to refrain from inquiring further,” said Sae.
“Yeah. Well, anyway, I guess we’ll continue visiting the temple too,” said Yoshino. “It’s convenient to be able to check our own levels.”
The Jade Wings girls nodded to each other and promptly dropped the subject. They must have been able to guess the real reason for our silence from the looks on our faces.
“Well, we should get back to the main topic,” I said. “I assume there’s some reason all of you came to visit us?”
Back when we’d first come up with the name Meikyo Shisui, we had debated among ourselves and came to the conclusion that we would help any classmates in need who sought us out, but only if they were trying to lead honest lives. However, considering the quality and condition of their equipment, Jade Wings didn’t seem to be struggling at all. In fact, based on what Diola-san had told us, they were actually a fairly successful adventuring party, so I wanted to know why they’d left the area where they’d been working originally and traveled all the way to Laffan. But the three glanced at one another and seemed hesitant to give me more than a vague answer.
“Oh, um, no real reason,” said Yoshino. “We just heard some rumors about a bunch of adventurers who sounded like they might be classmates of ours, so we wanted to check it out. We also heard rumors about a dungeon near Laffan...”
“Mm. We don’t have any family to rely on in this world, so we figured it would be nice if we could find people whom we could get along with,” said Sae.
“Moreover, we were confident that, having made names for ourselves, we wouldn’t be mistaken for would-be leeches.”
So they basically traveled here because they could afford to, huh? Our party’s Japanese name served as effective advertising, just as we’d hoped, but I feel like no one who really needed our help would be able to make it all the way out here. Of course, that’s not such a big problem. In this world, most of the former classmates we’ve run into have been walking land mines—it’s not like we really want to go out of our way to help them.
“Gotcha. That makes perfect sense,” said Yuki. “Oh, also, have you interacted with any of our other classmates?”
“Well, we began our adventures in a place called Kiura, far to the east,” said Kaho. “We slew innumerable orcs, so the rumor of our deeds no doubt spread throughout the land, and yet no one approached us...”
“Mm, that’s right,” said Sae. “That’s how we ended up with the alias of Orc Ea—”
Yoshino suddenly clapped a hand over Sae’s mouth and gave us an immaculate smile.
“What about you, Yuki? Have you met any of our classmates?” Yoshino asked.
Okay, she’s obviously trying to dodge the question, but they didn’t inquire too deeply into our business, so I’m just going to let this slide. Yuki must not have thought it was a big deal either, because she responded like everything was perfectly normal.
“Oh yeah, we’ve met a whole bunch of different classmates,” said Yuki. “More than we would have liked to, actually.”
Yuki stared into the distance as if lost in a traumatic flashback, and the rest of us nodded. The two guys who had instantly screwed themselves over with land mine skills weren’t really relevant to us, but there were also the three who’d tried to make a move on the girls and ended up turning to banditry. Then there was the vampire who’d been the true mastermind behind the chaos in Kelg. We had managed to forge a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with Tomi and even, in time, with Yasue, though we’d started off on the wrong foot. If we brushed aside the unintended consequences of her actions, Satomi was just an airhead. Still, most of the classmates we’d encountered so far had become bad people.
“We’ve been able to confirm that six of our classmates have died as a result of their own poor decisions,” said Haruka.
“Really? May I ask why you’re so confident?” Sae asked.
Haruka responded with a perfect smile, and the Jade Wings girls all swallowed nervously. Natsuki laughed and jumped in to relieve the tension.
“We know some classmates who are still alive, of course,” she said. “There are three in total. One of them works at a weapons shop here in Laffan.”
“O-Oh, good to know,” said Kaho. “As it so happens, we were planning to purchase new arms and armor soon...”
“Y-Yeah. If it’s somebody your party knows, I guess we don’t have to worry about poor quality,” said Yoshino. “When we tried to order some back in Kiura, the final estimate was pre-tty expensive, so our plan was to earn and save here until we could afford it, but...”
“...as far as we can tell, there’s no really efficient way to earn money here,” Sae finished.