“Hiya, travelers.”
The girl, who had suddenly come into view, came briskly walking over to us. She walked with sure and steady footsteps despite it being night. I wondered if she had Night Vision too.
The ears on top of her head looked like dog ears, so I surmised she was a dog-human hybrid. Unlike the NPCs that lived in the towns, she was mainly dressed in fur pelts, which gave her a very wild appearance. She sort of looked like an old-world hunter.
“Good evening,” she said, as if we were meeting under normal circumstances.
“G-Good evening,” I stuttered in response. She looked totally at ease and not like she had lost her way at all.
“Um, what are you doing out here?” I asked. “It’s already night.”
“I can see just fine in the dark. This is actually my favorite time of day.”
“O-Oh, really?”
She wasn’t an enemy, was she? I had never encountered an NPC smack-dab in the middle of an area like this, so I had no idea how I should interact with her.
The girl, unconcerned with how bewildered I was, stepped forward boldly. “I’m Weris, a wolf. I’m a hunter from a tribe of hybrids.”
Weris raised the bow she held up high and howled a small “Awooo!” She seemed like a girl who definitely marched to the beat of her own drum.
“Deadeye Weris, the wolf hunter, is out looking for prey!” she exclaimed. Apparently, she was in the middle of hunting. And she wasn’t a dog but a wolf. I was glad I found out before saying something wrong. It was the norm for wolf-hybrids in media to get upset when they were mistaken for being a dog, and vice versa.
“I’m Yuto.”
“And I’m Akari.”
“Yuto and Akari, huh? Whatcha doing around here?”
“We’re looking for yokai,” Akari explained.
“Yo-kye? Never heard of ’em.”
“Really? That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, sorry I can’t help.”
Akari’s communication skills were impressive. She had no problem talking to the girl. Seeing how well she was handling things, I figured I could leave the talking to her, but then I realized Weris had been staring at me the whole time.
“Hey, are you the Yuto guy people have been talking about lately?” she asked.
“Wha? People are talking about me?”
What could she mean...?
“Yeah. An old man in the village was. He said you were some amazing traveler.”
“Seriously? You must have the wrong guy.”
“But your name is Yuto, right, Yuto?”
“W-Well, yeah... But why me?”
Akari was by far stronger and had accomplished more things than me. Why were people talking about me?
In any case, based on what Weris said, it sounded like this was part of some event that I had somehow triggered.
I dropped my voice low so only Akari could hear me and asked, “Do you know anything about an event like this?”
“No. But it’s definitely your event.”
“What do you think they’re saying about me? What could I have done that’s so amazing?”
“I don’t think it’s that weird for NPCs to have heard about you considering all that you’ve done.”
“Uh-huh, I heard you’re a real decent, reliable guy,” Weris cut in.
Akari and I had been speaking quietly, but she overheard us anyway. Those wolf ears of hers weren’t just for show.
I had a feeling that the reason the NPCs knew about me wasn’t because of anything I had done, but because of their favorability towards me. Though I had no memory of befriending any beast-hybrid NPCs, so I wasn’t too sure about that either.
As I was mulling things over, Akari turned to Weris and asked, “You mentioned a village?”
“Yup, sure did.”
“Is the village near here?”
“Yup, sure is.”
Oh yeah! That was right, Weris had mentioned she’d heard about me from an old man at a village! I’d never heard of there being a village of beast-human hybrids! Maybe this was an even more significant event than I thought.
“C-Can we visit that village?” I asked her.
“Yup.”
That was quick! Her response was so nonchalant, could we actually take her word for it?
“Can I come as well?” Akari asked.
“Yup.”
Thus, with the laid-back Weris leisurely guiding the way, we arrived at the village in almost no time at all.
“I can’t believe there was a path there,” I muttered to Akari.
“No one could have noticed that,” she replied.
The path itself was smooth and uncomplicated, but we came across something exciting. At one point, Weris passed through a rock that seemingly swallowed her up. The rock was an illusion that hid the entrance to a cave. Once we passed through that illusion and made it to the end of the short cave behind it, we came to the village.
There were houses in a hall-like space inside the cave made of wood and stone, creating an atmosphere that suggested this place was a hidden village. Was it really okay for Weris to bring us here like it was no big deal? It felt like the kind of place that we’d have to clear some trial before getting access to. Both Akari and I kept a cautious eye on our surroundings. It didn’t seem unlikely that someone would swoop down on us for breaking some law.
Weris, on the other hand, was wagging her curled wolf tail and mumbling a tune as she walked. “I am Weris the wolf hunteeerrr. Not a wandering one, but still a hunteeerrr,” she sang.
“Aye.”
“Fau, no. We have to behave ourselves.”
Fau was itching to play an accompaniment to Weris’s humming, but I really didn’t want to make a lot of noise here. She’d have to stay quiet for a little longer.
“Weris, is that you?” someone called out.
The first villager we ran into was a short elderly woman with cat ears. They actually fit her appearance really well. In fact, she looked cute. It turned out tabby cat ears on a wrinkled old woman wasn’t a bad combination.
“I thought you were out hunting?” the old woman asked.
“Hi, granny. We have visitors.”
“And who are they? They look like travelers,” the old woman said, casting a stern glare our way.
I knew Weris was too carefree about leading us here. We probably did have to clear some sort of trial first.
“That’s Yuto, and that’s Akari,” Weris said.
“Oho?”
Despite the old woman’s wariness of us, once Weris told her our names, she immediately relaxed her guard.
“I see! So you’re Yuto the traveler!”
“Y-Yes. You know who I am?”
“We’ve never met, of course, but I’ve heard tales of your feats. Even we in this remote village have heard of your name.”
“M-My feats?”
I had no idea what feats she could be referring to, so her praise made me feel a little uncomfortable. Well, at least now I knew that these beast-human hybrids knew my name and liked me well enough, even if I didn’t know exactly why.
“Is it okay for us to be in this village, ma’am?” I asked.
“By all means. It’s not as though this is a hidden village.”
“Huh? It’s not? Even with that rock illusion?”
“Ah, that’s just to protect our village from monsters.”
So this wasn’t a hidden village after all, just a regular village that was hard to find. I wished I could spend some time looking around and browsing their shops, but there was something more important I had to do right now.
“Weris, does this village have an inn?”
I needed to log out soon, so exploring would have to wait for next time.