“...Fine. I don’t want your money. Just give us back the antler.” The long-haired girl said that and took a step forward. Disproportionately large gauntlets appeared on her arms as she advanced toward them.
“Oh, afraid we can’t be having that. This was a fair trade, y’know? I never agreed to give it back—”
“Ah, excuse me. Do you have a moment?” I spoke up, and everyone’s eyes fell upon me. The girls seemed confused, but the men looked almost ready to jump me.
“Huh? Whaddya want, kid?” one of the men said with a snarl.
“Ah, not you. I meant the girl over there,” I replied calmly.
“Eh? Me?” was the only response I got from her as I ignored the scowling man and called out to the girl behind him.
“I was just wondering if you might sell me that antler for one gold.” For a moment she stood flabbergasted. Then my words finally seemed to click with her, and she answered me with a smile.
“It’s a deal!”
“The hell it is! Don’t go selling things that belong to other people—” Suddenly, the crystal antler shattered to pieces in the man’s hands. The stone I had thrown met its mark.
“Wha...?! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
“Whatever do you mean? I’m free to treat my belongings however I’d like to. Oh, though I guess I haven’t paid for it yet. I’ll do that now.”
“I’ll kill you!” One of the men bellowed as he pulled a knife and charged right at me. I managed to dodge him easily by paying attention to his movements. For some reason I just knew that I’d be able to dodge his attack. I could see everything, from the man’s movements to the knife’s trajectory.
That had to be the result of one of those gifts that God had given me to bolster my body and my senses. I bent down and swept the man’s legs from under him. He collapsed to the ground face-up, and I drove my fist into his body in one swift motion.
“Gah...!” He passed out right on the spot I had knocked him down with that one final grunt. It seemed that the move I’d learned from my grandpa had come in handy.
When I turned around, I noticed that the other man was fighting the long-haired girl. He swung around a hatchet, but he couldn’t seem to get a good hit on her and his blows kept bouncing off her gauntlets. When she saw her chance, the girl stepped forward, quick as lightning, and swung a tremendous right hook straight into the man’s face.
He collapsed to the ground with his eyes rolling back in his head. Amazing.
Well... if I had known it’d be that easy, then maybe I wouldn’t have shattered that crystal antler... I actually regretted doing so. There was no point regretting past decisions. I’d thought to calm the situation peacefully by removing the source of the argument, but it seemed that had been a poor plan. I took one gold coin from my wallet and went to hand it to the long-haired girl.
“Here, one gold coin.”
“...Are you sure? I mean, it’d really help us out, but...”
“It’s fine. I’m the one who smashed the antler to pieces. Wouldn’t be fair to go back on my word now.”
“In that case... thank you.” With that, she accepted the coin with her gauntlet-clad hand.
“Oh, and thanks for helping us out there. I’m Elze Silhoueska, and this is my younger twin sister, Linze Silhoueska.”
“...Thank you very much!” The short-haired girl spat out those words, bowed, and gave me a little smile.
Seemed they were twins, just as I had thought. The long-haired one was Elze, and the short-haired one was Linze. Easy enough to remember. Though I still couldn’t tell them apart except by hairstyle and clothes.
“My name’s Mochizuki Touya. Oh, uh, Touya’s my given name.”
“Hmm... Your given name and family name are backward? Are you from Eashen?”
“Ah... er, yeah. Somewhere around those parts.” Met with the same reaction as Micah from the inn, I just left it at that again. All those reactions did, however, move thoughts of Eashen to the forefront of my mind. I wanted to know what kind of a country it was.
“Oh, I see. So you only just arrived in town too, huh, Touya.” I chatted with Elze over fruit juice. In my case, though, it was less having just arrived in this town and more having just arrived in the world.
After the events in the alleyway, we returned to the Silver Moon Inn. The girls had told me they were looking for an inn, so I took them back with me. Micah was overjoyed when I brought back more customers. So much that it showed clearly on her face.
Since we were all together anyway, we decided to share a meal. We talked a lot while eating the dinner Micah had made, and after dinner, we all had some tea to drink.
“See, we came here to deliver a Crystal Deer’s antler after those guys put out a request, but that went about as well as you saw. I mean, their request was plenty suspicious, so I did figure something was up, but still...”
“...That’s why I said we shouldn’t accept their request... But Sis, you wouldn’t listen to me...” Linze spoke up to reprimand her older sister. She seemed to be the one with a good head on her shoulders. Meanwhile, Elze seemed to have more of a wild personality. Elze the fearless older sister and Linze the shy little sister. At least, that was how they seemed to me.
“So why would you accept their request if you knew it sounded suspicious?” I voiced my doubts for the girls to hear. I couldn’t help but wonder why they’d bother to try and strike up any kind of deal with dubious characters like those guys.
“Funny story, actually... See, we’d just beaten a Crystal Deer and gotten one of its antlers when we heard that there was someone looking to buy one. Sounded almost too good to be true. Well, I guess it was, considering we got duped and all... Suppose we’ll only be accepting requests like that through the guild from now on. Hopefully that way we’ll get wrapped up in a lot less trouble.” Elze lowered her gaze and let out a big sigh.
“Wanna take this opportunity to get registered with the guild, Linze?”
“...That sounds like a good idea. Better safe than sorry, after all. Let’s go some time tomorrow.”
The guild... As I remembered from games, it was something like an employment service center that would mediate jobs for prospective adventurers. They’d have lots of quests posted and completing them would net you some money. Hmm...
“If it’s alright with you, can I tag along tomorrow? I need to get registered with the guild, too.”
“Sure! I don’t see why not.”
“Yeah... We can all go together...” The two of them kindly agreed.
Alright. I’d get registered with this guild and see if I could make some money working through them. That might well have been my ticket to earning a stable income that would allow me to live comfortably.
With all of that decided, the three of us split up, so I went back to my room. My long first day in this world had finally come to an end. It sure was a busy day, too...
I was transported to another world, made to sell my clothes, searched for an inn to stay at, helped a couple of girls, and gotten myself into a brawl. What the heck was with all that...
For the time being, I decided to note everything that had happened that day down in my smartphone in place of an actual diary. After that, I opened up a few news sites and checked in on how things were going down in my old world.
Oh, the Giants are winning. Aww, that band’s gonna break up... What a shame.
I turned my phone off once I’d found a good place to stop reading, then crawled my way into bed. I would be registering with the guild the next day, so I wondered what it’d be like... Thoughts like that ran through my mind until drowsiness finally overtook me.
“Zzz...”