Loli Loli stood tall on her tiptoes and patted Filia lightly on the shoulder. “Love yourself as you are. You hear me?”
“That’s…a lot to hear from you,” said Filia. “I-I feel tears coming on…”
Fair, yeah. It was hard to imagine those words coming from the mouth of someone who looked like such a kid.
“Sorry to keep y’all waiting, they’re done,” said Moichi, coming back from the kitchen. He carefully held a tray in each arm, each with a number of circular baked goods on top of them. “They’re called ‘Donuts Sans Holes’! We’ve been makin’ them like this for generations now.” He held a tray out in front of us.
Sure enough, the pastries were all made of usual donut-type batter, but they didn’t have holes in their centers. Interesting…Donuts Sans Holes seemed like a weird way to put it, though.
“Whoa! We can really eat these?” asked Filia the minute the pastries were in front of her. And just like that, she’d recovered. Well, Filia was a foodie, so that wasn’t too surprising, especially with that delicious scent wafting right up to her nose.
“Yep, go ahead and eat up.”
“Well then, time to dig in…aaaaah, it’s so yummy!” Filia pressed her hands to her cheeks happily after just one bite.
Looked like it was tasty after all, huh? I decided to try it myself. I brought the donut up to my mouth, and a rich, full-bodied aroma gently tickled my nose. When I took a bite, the springy mouthfeel left me feeling utterly satisfied. Soft and springy.
“That’s good!”
“Yeah, it’s delicious like always! Moichi is really talented, after all.”
“I really am, aren’t I?” Moichi bowed happily, chef hat in hand.
“They’re wonderfully chewy. Super airy,” I said.
“They’re as soft as my marvelous elfy cheeks!” said Filia, beaming.
“Cheeks?” Ashley repeated. “I-I want to touch your cheeks, Big Sis!”
“Okay. Here.” Filia filled her cheeks with air, puffing them out. Ashley poked Filia’s cheek, her finger trembling with delight. At the touch, Ashley’s cheeks turned scarlet too, as she became even more delighted. Filia looked even happier at Ashley’s happiness, and—look, it was basically a perpetual motion machine of positivity.
“Hey, Yuri, I don’t get it,” said Loli Loli. “What’s so fun about this?”
“Beats me. Go ask the grown-ups.”
Loli Loli and I continued to munch on our Donuts Sans Holes while marveling at how easily those two entertained themselves.
“Okay!” said Ashley suddenly. “Now that we’ve finished, I think it’s about time we have a serious talk.”
Yeah, we couldn’t just hang around forever. It was about time that we started putting our information in order.
“Can I see that letter again?” asked Filia.
“Sure.”
Taking the letter from Moichi, Filia read the contents once again. Her eyes moved smoothly as she read, but they stopped suddenly as she focused on a specific part.
“This part right here, it troubles me,” Filia said. “‘This shop shouldn’t exist.’ What does that mean? Moichi, do you have any idea what you might have done to warrant such resentment?”
“No, not a clue. I mean, this village is pretty isolated from other villages, so our villagers have relatively strong bonds. Around here, everybody just works together, you know?”
He was right about that. The strength of those bonds were evident to me even as an outsider. Did that mean the culprit wasn’t a villager?
“Could it be someone from outside the village?” I asked.
Moichi shifted his gaze up as he racked his brain. Then he clapped his hands together with a slap. “Oh! Yeah, just yesterday, an unfamiliar man came to my shop!”
“Care to tell me about him?”
“Yeah, he was this unhealthy-looking fella in a black coat. He shoved the donuts he bought into his coat pocket after he bought ’em, so he left a pretty big impression, you know?”
An unhealthy-looking man with a black coat? Was that who I thought it was? I looked over at Filia, and Filia was looking over at me.
Javagiir. The S-Ranked adventurer we’d met back in the donut shop in Jeepupp. Could he have been the guy behind it?
No, it was hard to imagine that he would do something like this. He really seemed to love donuts, after all. If anything, he would probably go out of his way to help a donut shop. I glanced at Filia, and she nodded.
“Filia and I might have an idea who that coat guy is,” I said.
“Huh? Really?!” said Ashley, surprised.
“Yeah. We’ve only met him once, but he was quite the donut fan. He probably came here because he specifically heard tell of the donut shop in this village.”
“And you’re saying that he’s not the culprit?” asked Ashley.
“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think he’s our guy. Still, he’s an S-Rank adventurer. If we tell him what’s going on, he might be able to help us guard the town.”
“Fortunately, we have money to cover that if we must,” said Filia, lifting up the bag of holding at her hip.
If Javagiir wasn’t willing to help us purely out of goodwill, he might sign on as part of a request. Getting an S-Rank adventurer to fulfill a request was pretty pricey, but the amount of cash we had saved meant it wouldn’t be a problem.
“No, I couldn’t ask you to do so much…” said Moichi.
Filia shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, all right? Ashley has always been good to us. This is our way of saying thank you.”
“Big Sis…”
I shook my head too. “If that’s not enough to convince you, then build a small household shrine and dangle from it to train your muscles while you worship muscle itself. If you do that, Moichi, you will be granted the divine protection of muscle.”
“Moichi, please just ignore whatever Yuri says,” said Filia.
Why?! I was just trying to be friendly and give him some advice. Jeez, young people these days.
“Wait, wouldn’t something like doing muscle training on a household altar normally be considered taboo?” asked Filia.
“Don’t be ridiculous! Muscle training is the purest act in the world. The altar would be pleased.”
“Are you serious?” asked Filia.
“Abso-positively.”
“I am completely unable to hide my bewilderment. You just responded in the affirmative with absolutely no hesitation …”
“A-anyway,” said Moichi with a slight grimace, “I’m really glad that you all are going to such lengths to protect my shop.”
Suddenly, Loli Loli shouted, a huffy expression on her face. “What about me? I don’t want to be left out!”
Oh, right—we’d put off explaining the situation to Loli Loli. We needed to give her a rundown of what was going on too.
“Moichi’s shop might get attacked,” said Ashley. “And we’re going to stop that from happening. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand! That means that you’re all great, right?” Loli Loli looked at us with sparkling eyes after hearing our story. She looked at us like we were heroes or something… “It’s not good to do bad things!” she added. “If you do bad things, then you need to be punished! I’ll help you! You should be honored!”
And, just like that, Loli Loli decided to throw in with us.