Extra-Extra Story:
Electra’s Diary
Entry 2
APEGUT VILLAGE is even more desolate than I expected.
The village chief Alexandricia, governor of the area, is a woman who clearly came up through the ranks of the military. She looks like a noble. And, well…that’s it. The village is nothing but potato fields as far as the eye can see, dotted with villagers out working them. Scatter in herders caring for pigs or sheep and some goblin woodcutters. They told me the settlements in Apegut got attacked by wyverns all the time, but I was starting to find that hard to believe.
“I know that look. You’re surprised at how gutted the village appears,” the village chief said, looking me up and down, taking the measure of me.
Apparently she’d overheard me discussing my read of the place: that the village was more of an undeveloped backwater than I could’ve even imagined.
“Ah, I thought the village seemed like a nice place to live.”
“I was just thinking how lucky I am to be able to help out here, too,” Dyson chimed in.
We scrambled to snap to attention, but it was too late. We shouldn’t have said anything.
The village chief lowered herself leisurely into her chair and gazed imperiously at us. The look on her face was terrifying. “I commend you on your keen observations. This village is indeed a backwater at the outer reaches of the kingdom. Our land bears potatoes, lumber, furs, wyverns, and nothing more. You were invited here with the intention of hunting the last.”
The village chief punctuated this by rising to her feet and gazing up at the stuffed wyvern head that adorned the back wall of her office and, at last, she told us that story.
The way Gimul described it, six hunters lost their lives to a wyvern who launched an assault on the village back in the spring, and the adventurers who came from town had been less than useless. In the end, that buck-naked guy Shooter and long-eared Nishka put a stop to it, but the village must have taken heavy losses before it was all over.
“Y-you can rely on us,” Dyson butted in. “If there’s one thing I’m confident in, it’s my strength. I’ll cleave right through a wyvern’s neck with my trusty broadax! You with me, Electra?”
“Y-yeah! I am but a lowly adventurer. I owe you a great debt for taking me on. I will gladly be your shield and sword to protect you at all costs!”
Dyson fumbled his lines in his rush to sell himself to the village chief. Then he glanced at me, begging me to say something too, and I totally flubbed it too. If I let it slip that I’d only come to the village looking for a steady job and a nice guy to marry, I wouldn’t blame the village chief for striking me down right then and there. She was a noble lady who had served in the military, after all.
“Ah ha ha! After such glorious introductions, I’m sorry to say that for the time being, the only work I can offer you is to serve as my bodyguard.”
“Your bodyguard…?”
“That’s right.” The village chief grinned and took a step toward us. She clapped her hands on our shoulders. “There are quite a few in the village who know how to handle a weapon. I want you to go where I go and just act like you’re watching my back.”
We were bewildered. Here I was, worried that she expected me to be a meat shield for her against a wyvern. Deep down, I’d been scolding myself for naïve my dreams of marriage.
After offering that glimpse of her trust in us, the village chief started talking about Shooter, and bubbled over with a girlish laugh. “You can leave the wyvern to our naked warrior. I have other plans for you two.”
Dyson and I looked at each other and whispered, “What does that mean?”