The next day.
We were flying along in the direction of Port City, dazzlingly beautiful sunlight lighting the way, when the vast expanse of the ocean peeked over the horizon and came into view. The sight of its deep blue surface spreading into the distance as far as the eye could see caused Oltea and Frieze to yelp with glee.
“Oh, look, look! Is that the ocean?!” said Frieze.
“I’d always heard it was big, but it’s huge!” added Oltea.
“I hear the ocean’s water tastes salty too!”
“Ooh, I wanna try drinking it at least once!”
It must have been their first time seeing the sea. I had, in the past, seen the ocean out of the window of an airplane while traveling on business, but never before had I seen it while feeling the sea breeze on my skin. I was aware, of course, that ocean water was salty—that much was common knowledge—but, having never played in the ocean water myself, I had never held any in my mouth. The idea hadn’t interested me in the slightest back in Japan, but now the thought of swimming in the water with my friends sounded like a lot of fun.
Just like that, I had discovered one more joy in life. I broke out into an involuntary grin. Couldn’t be too hasty, though: while I would, of course, love to swim with Oltea and Frieze, for safety’s sake, it would probably be better for us first to find a gently flowing river or something where we could accustom ourselves to being in water.
“If that’s the ocean, then that must be the town Tigaro lived in, right?” Oltea said.
“Wow, it looks incredible!” Frieze said.
“That place could even hold its own against the royal capital!”
“Mm-hmm! And if it’s that huge, it’s bound to have some great restaurants too!”
“Maybe they’ve even got some rare wine!”
“I can’t wait to explore it!”
The level ground along the shore had been built up into quite the metropolis. Perhaps in response to the increased flow of immigrants running up against the limited space, houses and buildings had been erected along the slope of an adjacent mountain, giving the skyline a kind of L shape. The city’s western side was marked by a steep hill, on top of which was perched a mansion with a clear, sweeping view of the entire townscape.
“Is that Monstro’s mansion?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one. By boat, it would have taken us a few days to get here, but I feel like that was hardly any time at all...” Tigaro said.
For her, the speed of flight was an impressive novelty, but for me it hadn’t felt like “no time at all” by any metric. In fact, I’d flown a good deal slower than our usual pace in order to avoid scaring Tigaro and Chestnut, who were not used to flying.
Our seating arrangement was also different this time. Because having four people seated behind me would have offset the center of gravity, I had placed myself in the middle and propelled us with Jet Beam from that position. Having five people onboard as opposed to just three made balancing on Stick Beam a fair bit more difficult, but one way or another, I was able to keep us upright and smoothly flying.
From front to back, our order was Oltea, Frieze, myself, Tigaro, and then, lastly, Chestnut. With two of the girls in front of me, there had been animal ears fluttering in the wind within my field of vision for the entire duration of the trip. The sight had me itching to touch some. If possible, I wanted one of them to let me pet her ears once we were finished.
“By the way, Tiga, which way is the Great Forest from here?” Frieze asked.
“It’s in the direction of the hill with the mansion on it,” Tigaro replied.
“I see... So somewhere beyond that horizon there are devil flies, huh?” she wondered aloud.
“Well, you can’t actually see the forest from here,” Tigaro said.
You couldn’t tell it from their faces, but the tension in their voices was revealing. It was as plain as day that they were frightened. For that reason, I planned to carry out the survey of the Great Forest tomorrow on my own. Up against just one monster, I could end a fight in no more than a single attack even if it struck first, but if it came down to facing off against more than ten thousand monsters at once, my usual tactics wouldn’t do much good. In a situation like that, I’d have no choice but to make a fighting retreat. For the sake of being able to focus on combat, I was better off alone.
I knew that the girls wouldn’t approve of me putting myself into danger all alone. In order to prevent them from trying to tag along, I planned to rise early in the morning and leave the inn before they woke up. Because Oltea and Frieze would be worried about me when they realized my absence, I had decided to share my plan with Tigaro in advance.
Anyhow—
“We’ve arrived in Port City,” I said.
“Mm-hmm. With so many buildings, there’s probably plenty of inns to choose from, huh?” Frieze said.
Tigaro suddenly raised her voice as if in a panic. “Oh, damn it!”
The two girls sitting to my fore were shaken by the outburst.
“H-Huh? Why ‘damn it’? What is it?” Oltea asked.
“Did you see devil flies already?!” said Frieze.
“No, no. Nothing like that. I just forgot to bring my money! I’m sorry to ask, Kaito, but could you spot me the fee for lodging?”
“Spot you? I’ll just cover it.”
“But...are you sure?”
“Of course. You’re my friend, Tigaro. There’s no need to be modest about asking for help.”
“I’m happy to hear you say so, but...I’m your friend too, so it wouldn’t be fair for you to be the only one paying everybody else’s way all the time,” Tigaro said.
At those words, Frieze and Oltea both dropped their shoulders a bit.
“Now that she mentions it... I’m sorry about that too, Kaito,” said Frieze.
“I guess I’ve always just been on the receiving end, huh?” said Oltea.
“You aren’t doing anything wrong, Oltea,” said Frieze. “I’m the one who’s getting ten percent of our rewards.”
“There’s no need to worry about that. If it weren’t for you two, I wouldn’t even be able to accept those requests. That’s worthy enough of compensation. Besides, your incredible ears bring a lot to the table too!” I said.
“You think that stuff is worth compensating us for?” Tigaro asked.
“Absolutely. All of your ears—including you, Tigaro—have a value that money can’t replace.”
“I-I see. If you really feel that way, then after this, I’ll let you touch them all you want,” Tigaro said in a slightly embarrassed voice. I’d been allowed to feel them for a bit at the welcome party, but she had never let me touch them in the presence of other people before. It made me happy to be given the opportunity to pet her ears openly, like I did with Oltea’s and Frieze’s.
“And my ears too, of course!” said Frieze.
“You can touch mine a bunch too!” added Oltea.
“Thanks! I look forward to it!” I said excitedly. My list of things to look forward to after all this had just grown by one. As we continued to enjoy our conversation, I lowered our altitude until we touched down in front of the mansion.