“Kiri, Kiri, Kiri. It sounds kind of unusual. Your name is a little rare, isn’t it?” Liluetta said as we approached the northwestern town gate.
No one had ever told me that before, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I didn’t know anyone else with my name, but I’d never really thought about whether it was rare.
“Uh, are there even names that aren’t rare?” I asked.
“What? Of course there are,” she replied. “Take my name, for example. Liluetta’s not all that uncommon. Yune isn’t rare either. But I’ve never heard of a Kiri before.”
So Liluetta and Yune are normal, common names, huh.
As we walked, I glanced up at the sky. There were a few clouds, but I didn’t think it would rain. The weather was calm but not entirely clear.
What Liluetta had said was still on my mind. “Is Kiri really that strange of a name?”
“Not at all,” she replied. “But it’s not exactly cool, and it doesn’t feel familiar, so it throws me off. Maybe you should change it? You could add a syllable or two.”
“Huh?”
This girl was ridiculous. We had just met, and she was already suggesting I rename myself? Kiri wasn’t a hard name to say, so I figured she would get used to it eventually. Well, Old Badger hadn’t used his real name, so maybe coming up with an adventurer name would be fun.
But still. Rare, huh?
“I guess in towns, there are so many people that you’re bound to run into others with the same name. But back in my village, everyone had different names,” I explained.
“Oh? So you weren’t born in a town?” Liluetta asked.
I shook my head. “Nope. I came from a village about a three-day walk from here.”
“Hmph. A country boy,” she concluded.
We continued walking while chatting about nothing in particular. When we reached the town gate, I greeted the stationed guard.
“Got company today, huh?” he remarked.
I responded with a vague smile. I wasn’t sure if I could call these two companions just yet.
Liluetta spoke up again as soon as we stepped outside the town gates. “Hey, Kiri. That gate guard seemed to recognize you. Do you know him?”
I had expected her to be more standoffish, given how she’d acted in the adventurer’s guild, but she seemed to enjoy talking more than I thought.
“I just say hello whenever I pass through the gates. I guess I stand out, so they remember me.”
“Well, you are small. I thought so when I first saw you at the guild, and now that I look again, you really are short.”
Okay, yeah, she was taller than me. Not by much, though. And the smug way she said it was pretty annoying. Besides, if she was registered as an adventurer, that meant she was at least twelve. But she was on the shorter side herself for that age.
“You’re not exactly tall either, Liluetta,” I told her.
“I’m still growing,” she insisted. “Unlike you. Hey, are you even eating properly?”
“Of course I am,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Yune chimed in with a worried tone. “You’re not just picking at your food like the young lady here, are you? You need to eat your vegetables and your meat if you want to grow big and strong!”
Well, she wasn’t wrong. Skipping food because of personal preferences was a bad habit. You had to eat everything, or you would just end up hungry again later. That said, I did have things I didn’t like. I had a tough time with spicy foods and extremely bitter things. And then there was that one spiky wild plant and fish innards. Adults said those were delicious, but I couldn’t imagine ever finding those things tasty. I’d always given both to my brothers.
“Yune, keep quiet,” said Liluetta.
Yune kept going. “But Kiri-o, you’re even shorter than the young lady here. Are you sure you’re actually twelve?”
“Of course I am. I wouldn’t have been able to register with the guild otherwise, right?” I told her. I was actually nine. But if the guild found out, I’d be kicked out just like that. So I had to keep saying I was twelve, even though I knew it wasn’t right. Lately, I’d started feeling like I was getting a little too comfortable with this lie.
“What about you two? How old are you?” I quickly turned the question around. Same topic, different targets. If I controlled the direction of the conversation, I wouldn’t have to risk slipping up and exposing myself. Based on their heights, I guessed Liluetta had just turned twelve, and Yune was around fifteen.
“I turned twelve just the other day,” Liluetta confirmed.
“I’m fourteen,” said Yune. “So I’m a little bit older than you and the young lady here.”
I had guessed right for Liluetta, but I had overestimated Yune by a year. Still, they were young—especially for the adventurer’s guild. And it was rare to see girls this age in the guild at all. That made it even more odd.
Plus, both of them wore fine clothes, and they had enough money to buy gathering baskets right away. Yune had even prepared proper gear. She wore leather bracers on her arms and a leather breastplate beneath her baggy clothes. Apparently, that was standard for clerics trained in healing magic. Having money and good equipment was great, but I didn’t understand why they had chosen to become adventurers. Yune called Liluetta “young lady,” which made me wonder...
Is she from a noble family or something?
I considered asking. But for some reason, I didn’t want to know. Their reasons for becoming adventurers were probably completely different from mine. Actually, that was obvious. And that left a strange, heavy feeling in my chest. I kept walking, unable to shake the vague sense of frustration.
“By the way, Kiri-o, where exactly are we heading? Do we still have a ways to go?”
Yune’s questions were reasonable. I suddenly realized I had never told them where we were going. I made a mental note to communicate better as I turned to answer.
“Ah, we’re almost there. See that over— Wait...”
Liluetta was gone.
Did she seriously get lost? Here? We hadn’t even left the main road yet. Panic surged as I spun around and scanned the area—and then I spotted her. She was hunched over on the ground a little ways behind us.
“Liluetta! What’s wrong?!”
“Ah, my lady?!”
Yune and I both rushed over. Liluetta was clutching her foot, her face twisted in pain. We were outside the town now, beyond the walls and beyond the gate. This was dangerous territory. Had she been shot? I’d heard that goblins sometimes used crude bows and arrows. Or was it a trap? I wasn’t sure if monsters set them, but it wasn’t impossible. If something smart had placed one here...
Or maybe it wasn’t an arrow or a trap. Maybe it was a venomous snake or a poisonous insect. Some of those could be really bad.
“Ah...” Liluetta let out a pained breath, her voice trembling. “My foot... It hurts...”
Her foot.
I looked at it again. She had slipped her fingers between her heel and her shoe to create a small gap. Her shoe... She was wearing fancy wooden clogs carved with intricate designs, dyed beautifully, and decorated with colorful ribbons. Even I could tell they were stylish.
“Wow. They’re really cute.” That was all I could say. Because there was only one possible conclusion here: Those shoes were absolutely not meant for long-distance walking.
I dropped to my knees. Then onto my hands. And let the crushing weight of pure despair sink in.