“You could never beat it with that wooden sword!”
“Gah, what are you doing?!”
“Hey, don’t fight, okay?”
Toss. Clatter, clatter.
Ah... looks like his favorite sword ended up on the roof.
Pitiful hero, you are now unarmed.
...What am I thinking? I should go break up that fight.
“Hey!!!!!”
“Gah!!!” all three of them yelled out at once.
“Hmph, you need to stop fighting. Ana has been telling you to cut it out, too, right?”
“B-but this loser’s saying he can beat the bergbear.”
“Don’t call your friend a loser. Yuuta is—”
“How dare you do that to a hero’s blade, you jerk?!”
Slap!
“Owww!”
“Not ‘you jerk.’ Logg.”
This trio of runts — Ana, Logg, and Yuuta — were famous around the neighborhood. I guess technically I’m still kind of a runt myself, but it’s especially fitting for these three. Ana was a meek red-haired girl. Logg was plump and looked like a bit of a rich kid. And then there was Yuuta, who was never without his “hero’s blade.”
“Logg! You didn’t have to go and throw it up on the roof, did you? Don’t you feel sorry for him?”
“Hmph! That weapon would just be a toy against a bergbear! He might as well not have a weapon at all!”
“You bastard!”
“Don’t call me a ‘bastard,’ you idiot!”
Slap!
“Ow!”
“Are you alright?”
Ana, you’re spoiling these brats by being so nice to them. You need to find some better friends than this little hero wannabe.
“T-this is nothing for a hero!”
“Hmmm, so should I give you another, then?”
“Gah!”
“Haha, see! You can’t even beat flashy ol’ Anti, so how do you expect to beat a bergbear?!”
“Don’t call me ‘flashy ol’ Anti,’ fatty.”
“Fatty?! Ugh...”
Logg put his hands on his stomach, looking depressed.
“Haaah... Anyway, you’d better go borrow a ladder from the old guy across the street.”
“Ugh...”
“What is it?”
“Um, you see, Logg and Yuuta were playing before, and Logg knocked his sword up on the roof with a plank. So then...”
“Ana, don’t say— grmph!”
I put my hand over Yuuta’s mouth.
“And then?”
“We had the old man from across the street get it for us, and he was super mad!”
I see... So they had a previous offense, huh...?
Yuuta, I’m pretty sure you’re already disqualified as a hero.
“I-I wasn’t scared of that old guy!”
“Yuuta was seriously about to break down sobbing!”
“U-ugh...”
You should probably give him a break, Ana...
The old man with the ladder must’ve seriously chewed them out, judging by the look on Yuuta’s face. They should be playing someplace more open, then... If they keep flailing toy swords around back here, then of course they’ll end up ripping up flower beds and flinging them up onto roofs...
I glanced up at the roof, but I couldn’t see the wooden toy sword at all. It must have gotten pretty far up there.
Hmm, if I could at least see it, I could use a pole or something to knock it down... And I’ve had my own bad experiences with the old man with the ladder, so I didn’t want to go talk to him. A way to climb up without a ladder... that’s it!
“Hey, I’ll use a little magic trick to go get it.”
“A magic trick?” Ana repeated, tilting her head.
“Since when can you do magic tricks?”
“Hey, show me some respect!”
Hmph, I’m Anti the Great, the world’s top Gearcraft user!
...Ugh, well, technically I’m the world’s only Gearcraft user...
“C-can you really get the sword back?”
“...Well, just watch.”
Since I already know I can make lots of small gears and fix them in place...
Crown, summon gears in the form of a staircase.
[—Ready.
—Deploying in correspondence with the situation.]
Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh fwoosh.
“Wow!” all three of the runts exclaimed.
A multitude of metal discs appeared before my eyes. The teeth soon grew into them, finishing off my pretty orange-gold gears.
They spun around steadily.
“What’s that?!”
“So cute!”
Cute? I don’t quite get that from them...
My gears steadily rose up. One stopped at a certain height, while the next rose up a little higher before stopping...
“Alright, it’s done!”
“A-amazing!”
I made a gear staircase!
Thankfully, we were right behind the building, so we were probably well out of sight.
...Hey, wait, the gears are spinning. How am I supposed to climb that?!
“Stop.”
All of the gears stopped moving.
“Wow!”
“Miss Ann, you can do stuff like this...?”
“What a shock...”
Right, it is shocking, isn’t it? I never imagined I’d be able to do something like this just a few days prior.
I had more fantastical dreams about magic back then, sniffle...
“Hup!”
Wobble.
I-it seemed to have some give. Did I fix them in place properly...? I wasn’t in for a sudden fall, was I? It would be no joke, plunging to my death in a place like this.
“Alright!”
O-ooh, I got on top of it! But it really did seem to be reacting strangely.
The gears themselves were rigid, but it felt like the air beneath them had some give. It was like they were on top of a cushion, making for a bit of a tricky climb.
I ended up having to climb step by step, slowly and steadily.
Sproing-oing-oing-oing.
Gah, that was a surprise!
As I lifted my foot from the “step” behind me, the gear quaked up and down. It looked like it was connected to the ground by an invisible spring.
Wait, ah, that’s scary! I shouldn’t be looking down! S-scary! My footholds are so small, it’s frightening!
I climbed up until I was level with the roof, panicking and trembling internally all the while
Ah, there it is, the hero’s blade... stupid little pointy stick... If you could’ve jutted out just a little...
Now to go down and... Ooh, that’s scary...
Huff, puff...
I came down real, reeeeeeal slowly, seriously wearing myself out in the process. Muscles that I normally never used were aching. In my heart, I swore to myself that I’d never do this again.
“Here. Try to take better care of it from now on.”
“T-thanks!”
“You’re amazing, Miss Ann!!”
“What are all those things...?”
Fwoosh!
Logg tried to touch one of the hovering gears, so I swept them away hurriedly.
“Wow, they disappeared!”
“A-alright, that’s the end of my magic trick!”
“Huh? Come on, do more!”
“No can do. Oh, yeah, you all probably already know, but you can’t go outside tonight, alright? If you do, the bergbear will eat you.”
“I won’t get eaten! I’m gonna beat it!”
“I’m telling you, there’s no way...”
After reminding the three runts not to wander outside, I headed home.
There weren’t as many customers in the restaurant as usual, and the ones we did have were all discussing the bergbear. I asked my parents what would happen if this went on long enough to affect our stock. They just said they’d deal with that when it happened. I guess that made sense.
I looked out beyond the borders of our uneasy town. The sun would set soon.
Nobody realized that in the midst of that sunset, there were children having a secret conversation.
“With this... as long as I have this, I can defeat the bergbear...”
“What are you doing, Yuuta?”
“Gah, Ana! Why are you here?”
“Because you left your house, even though it’ll be dark out soon.”
“Hmph, what, do you think you can beat the bergbear or something?”
“Logg! You’re here, too?!”
“Is there a problem with that, you fake hero?!”
“I’m not a fake!”
“Cut it out! Miss Ann told us not to fight, remember?!”
“Look at this!”
“...? What is it?”
“A Fire magic stone!”
“I’ve seen one of those before!” Ana said. “It’s that thing from the kitchen, right?!”
“Right! That old-timer, the gatekeeper, said the monsters from the forest won’t come near flames!”
“Y-you dummy, you won’t beat it like that.”
“Shut up! As long as I have this and my hero’s blade, I’m invincible!”
“But the gate’s already closed, right?”
“It’ll be fine. They close the irrigation gate last! We’re small enough to get out that way!”
“H-hey, are you actually going? Cut it out! Our moms and everyone will get angry with us!”
“Shut up! I’m not a wimp like you!”
“W-what’d you say?!”
“I’m a hero! Just watch! I’m going!”
“Yuuta, wait! I’m coming, too! Me, too!”
“Hey, hold on, you two!”
.....
“I-I’ve got nothing to do with this. I tried to stop them, so it’s not my fault...”
Night fell fast, and waited for no one.
Bang! Bang, bang! ...Bang!
“...?!”
I woke up to some sort of banging sound.
Bang! Ba-bang!
“Huh...? My door...?”
What do you want at this time of night?! Our restaurant doesn’t even serve dinner! Is this the first customer we’ve had in a while who doesn’t know that...?