She was still clinging to him as if she were hiding from something, but the sight of the bathtub set her eyes aflame.
“Really? You don’t want to catch a glimpse of Rona in the bath? Just so you know, they’re an eyeful normally, but they’re even more of an eyeful when they’re wet.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m pretty sure I value my life and sanity more.”
While he was fairly certain that she wouldn’t make much of a fuss even if he did engage in acts of voyeurism, he was also fairly certain that she would use that fact to her advantage in other ways.
“Wh-What about mine? I’m actually pretty proud of them, personally…”
“Okay, one of these days, we’re going to have to sit you down, and we’re going to have to talk about expectations,” he said, exasperated but not oblivious to the fact that her neatly-tied hair afforded him a generous and not-entirely-unprovocative view of her rose-hued skin. Her lips curved into a sly grin. He sighed; the thought must have shown on his face.
The two of them circled through the remaining rooms: the study, the living room, and the children’s room. These, however, had nothing of note. None of the remaining furnishings were in a state suitable for continued use, and the study was in such bad shape that most of its contents — books, for example — were entirely gone.
After making the rounds through the inside of the house, Renya went to the garden and began to cut away weeds. Eventually, he cleared out enough space to make dinner. He could have used the equipment in the kitchen, but it technically didn’t belong to him yet. Also, neither he nor Shion had the necessary manastones on them. Naturally, preparing dinner would then require them to start a fire themselves, and that had to be done outside.
After producing some firewood from his inventory and putting it in a pile, Shion lit them with a spell. Once the embers grew large enough, he placed a shallow fry pan on top. Then, he took wheat flour and a powder made by crushing some sort of dried corn-like crop, mixed them in water, and poured it onto the pan. As he cooked it, it became something that resembled a thin flatbread. He repeated the process a few more times, producing a couple more pieces, before dripping some oil onto the same pan and throwing in a bundle of vegetables and bite-sized meat. As he stir-fried these, he sprinkled in salt, alcohol, and a dab of honey. Had he some sesame oil and soy sauce and mirin cooking wine, it would have really brought out the yakiniku flavor, but alas, it was an empty hope. He consoled himself with the thought that he would eventually figure out a way to make his own. Once the contents of the pan had been thoroughly fried, he split it into two large plates, which already held some leafy greens that he had washed with water in advance. Finally, he put the greens on the flatbread, added his stir-fried meat dish on top, and rolled it all into a wrap. Complementing this was a plate of mustard — to be added as one saw fit — and some light wine. Most of the flavor would come from the stuffing, which was heavier in seasoning than usual to offset the fact that it would be wrapped with greens in flatbread.
Shion mimicked his steps and was soon holding her own stuffing-filled wrap. As she leaned in to take a bite, she gave a heartfelt comment.
“You really don’t skimp out when it comes to food, do you Renya?”
In general, adventurers did not cook while they were on the move. It was true that they preferred carrying less luggage. It was also true that few of them knew how to cook in the first place. A bag of salt and a spit was what passed for cooking in most parties, and most would never even think of attempting to boil, fry, or steam their food. Shion, like all the other adventurers, was clueless when it came to cooking and had naturally gotten used to foods that were simple to prepare and quick to eat. That, however, had changed.
“After being around you for a while, I don’t think I can go back to living like before,” she said as she held the wrap in both hands and politely nibbled at it. In the light of the fire, faint shadows dancing across tender cheeks, her smile seemed a touch forlorn.
Renya opened his mouth to respond, but no words came. He gaped awkwardly for a second before remembering the wrap in his hand. He turned to it and took a bite; it gave his mouth something to do. The sight amused Shion and the shadow vanished from her smile. She began to laugh, thinking her comment had embarrassed him, but suddenly flinched. Her smile stiffened. Then, her face rapidly paled.
“What’s the matter?” Renya asked, quickly realizing that something was wrong.
“Did someone… just laugh?”
He had cooked outside, so they ate outside as well. Seeing that neither of them wanted to sit on the ground, he had brought out some chairs, which they were sitting in right now. All was quiet. No one seemed to be near. Other than the house itself, their only company were the rampant weeds scattered throughout the garden.
“Are you sure you weren’t just hearing things?”
“I don’t know… but it really did sound like someone la—”
A laugh. They both heard it this time. It was the voice of a young girl, thin but sinister.
All the color drained from Shion’s face. Renya cautiously scanned the surroundings. There was no wind, no fluttering of leaves or grasses, no sound at all, save for the slow, rolling laughter of a young girl’s voice that echoed in the otherwise silent garden.
“Re-Renya…”
“Geez, don’t start whimpering.”
The laugh grew louder and louder as it turned into a maniacal cackle. Shion, who looked like she was mere moments away from breaking into a wailing sob, leapt toward Renya and clung to his left arm. Despite her frantic scramble, however, she did not drop the wrap in her hand. Surprised that she managed such a feat, he gave her a pat of approval, then wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her in to reassure her.
“It’s here, Renya! The ghost! The ghost is here!”
She had a death grip on his shoulder and was shaking his arm with all her strength, but there was too much difference in either their strength or their body weight; despite her furious shaking, he stood perfectly still, not budging an inch. It was like a kitten thrashing against a giant tree.
“Hmmm? I guess it does sound like one…” he murmured in a perfectly level voice amidst a violent cacophony of sound and motion. There was hysterical laughter in his ears and a flailing Shion in his arm. “But all it’s doing is laughing. At this rate, it’ll just be a really noisy nuisance.”
His words entered Shion’s ears and did a couple of laps inside her head before she finally parsed what they meant.
“Huh?”
Shion stopped desperately pressing her face against his shoulder and, with an expression of disbelief, looked up at him. He stared back at her. With his right hand, he threw the last little bit of his wrap into his mouth and munched on it ever so slowly. He kept staring at her for a little longer, wondering what it was he said that baffled her so much, before continuing.
“I mean, to be fair, it is going to be hell trying to sleep through this at night, so we probably need to do something about it, but it’s basically harmless otherwise, right?”
Once he declared the ghost to be the equivalent of a particularly noisy neighbor, the laughing stopped. Maybe it heard what he said. At the same time, swishing sounds came from all around the garden. Soon after, they were assaulted by a barrage of debris that hurtled through the air. He drew his katana with his right hand — his left was still holding Shion, and she had her eyes firmly shut — and slapped down the flying objects with the back of his blade.
“So, first it laughs up a storm. Then, it starts chucking stones? What did they call these again? Poltergeists or something?”
The objects he knocked down rolled along the ground a few times before coming to a stop and revealing themselves to be the same small stones that were scattered here and there in the garden. They were neither special nor particularly threatening.
“All right. What’s next?” he said as he shot a questioning glance at a patch of tall weeds.
A number of pale white figures appeared, ghostly forms wavering as they rose up through the grass. Their shifting faces were hazy and indistinct. One of them emitted a moaning wail that dripped with malice for the living.
Then, its head promptly burst into a cloud of ethereal fragments and disintegrated. In its place was the cusp of a silver blade that glinted in the darkness. Beyond its hilt was Renya’s outstretched right arm. In his left was Shion, whose eyes remained stubbornly closed. Even with her body in tow, however, the speed of his dash was unhampered. This was especially impressive, considering he was walking on the garden’s untended earth. Normally, a person’s legs would almost certainly have gotten tangled in the swirling tendrils of weeds.
“Well. So much for ‘you can’t stab a ghost with a sword,’” he uttered in a somewhat disappointed tone, showing absolutely no interest in the glowing white form that was melting into the air. If anything, he was more interested in what he held in his arm. After taking a moment to appreciate the soft aroma that drifted from Shion’s body along with the sensation of her rubbing against his left side, he turned to the countless ghostly forms that had appeared and brandished his katana at them.