Chapter 16:
Setting Off on a Journey
AFTER “CRAZY FACE” MISERY MOSERY’S attack and the death of the village chief, Elfeit Mistral, little by little, life in the elf village returned to normal. Elfeit was given a funeral service the day after his death—cremation. It was customary for elves to burn the corpse with fire magic and let the wind carry the ashes away. I guess everybody mourns different.
Elgis, who’d already had important responsibilities in the village, was chosen as Elfeit’s successor and inherited the position of chief. Since Elfeit didn’t have any blood relatives, the bloodline of the village chief—after seemingly endless generations—had come to an end. Even though it sounded like they’d still be following the teachings of their Almighty Wind God, they were also cooking up plans to actively interact with outsiders.
✦ ✦ ✦
And so there I was, a week after all the drama, sitting in Filia’s room. It was the first time I’d been in it since we’d come to the village, actually.
“We’re going to be leaving soon,” Filia had told me, “so I don’t want to forget anything important. Yuri, can you help me look for something?”
But we’d already finished everything important, and we were just kind of lazing around now.
“Ah!” Suddenly Filia let out a little shout.
“What’s wrong?!”
“You simply must take a look at this, Yuri. Isn’t it adorable?” said Filia, holding a cat-ear headband. “Yuuuuuri?”
“Filiaaaa?”
Filia put it on her head. “Does it look good on me?” she asked, curling her hands like cat claws and holding them in front of her chest. “Meow, meow? What do you think, meow?”
“Your calculating nature knows no bounds.”
“Meow!”
Filia got closer and closer to me, until she was finally close enough to start poking my feet. Jeez, Filia. She didn’t show any sign of stopping.
“C’mon, Filia, you’re real close. Back off.”
“Aww, are mew all empurrassed meow, Yuri?”
“I have no idea how you can say that kind of thing out loud, But shut up and lemme do my muscle training!”
She’d hit the nail on the head, so I decided I would focus on training. I was in splendid form, too, doing two consecutive backflips with just one pinky finger and a thrusting motion. Who knew? Maybe this technique would be useful in combat one day! This training method killed two birds with one stone. Granted, I hadn’t found it useful yet, but just one time would be enough. Could you imagine how humiliating it would be if I ever needed to do two consecutive back flips with my pinky and then thrust, and couldn’t pull it off?
I’d never forgive myself.
“Yuurii? Meow, meow?”
Must…ignore…Filia. Ignore…ignore. She wanted a reaction, because she always did, and then she’d tease me again.
After a few minutes of me giving her the cold shoulder, Filia puffed out her cheeks in a huff. “Mmph… Well, since Yuri doesn’t think I’m a cool cat anymore, I’ll check myself out in the mirror and see how cute I am.”
“Meow, meow meow? Meo—”
Filia suddenly stopped moving. Uh. Had something happened?
“What’s the matter?” It probably wasn’t worth it, but I figured I’d react just this once.
“Th-there’s…” Filia stammered, “…a catgirl angel in the mirror! Sh-she’s way too cute…”
Wow. I’d expected it to be bad, but I hadn’t expect it to be that bad. The worst part was that it worked, and she had my attention. I had been thoroughly, completely owned.
“Oh no, Yuri, what is a poor catgirl to do? I’m quite simply too cute. I’ve become a victim to my own meow-velous charms!”
“Why don’t you take it off then?”
“I-I suppose I shall…” Her face beet-red, Filia took off the headband.
I don’t even know if Filia knows what she’s trying to do half the time.
After Filia took off the cat-ear headband, she handed it over to me for some reason. “Okay, Yuri.”
What? What in the world was this about?
As my mind raced, Filia said. “I’ve worn the legendary cat ears, Yuri, and now it’s your turn.”
“What kind of reasoning is that?”
Was this, uh, a thing? With who? And why?
“Come on, you can’t tell me that you’re not a little curious about how you’d look, Yuri. A cat-ear headband and a muscley Yuri? It’s like fire and ice: polar opposites.”
Well, if she was gonna go hard on this, I supposed I might as well.
I put it on my head and unleashed my muscles.
“HOOOAAAHH!!”
“Oh my goodness, you killed it. You killed the cuteness. That shout… Gosh, there isn’t a shred left.” Filia looked pretty taken aback at the sight of muscley, cat-eared Yuri.
That didn’t seem fair! Wasn’t she the one who’d wanted me to do this?
“Do I look strong?”
“Well, ah, that isn’t precisely the word I would use, no. I’ll certainly say that you don’t look like the sort I’d want to come near me. At all. Especially at night.”
“Hmm. In that case, good.” So it was like weighted training clothing but for intimidation. I could still terrify opponents, even with cat ears. But I wasn’t really in a catboy sorta mood, so I took ’em off.
“If you like them, I’ll give them to you, okay?” said Filia.
“Nah, it’s not quite clicking with me…” I graciously declined Filia’s offer and then, with a couple last backsprings for my workout, we left Filia’s room.
“He he he he. I’m shuddering at my own cuteness again,” said Filia as we headed downstairs to the living room.
“Ah, I see. Well, congratulations?”
“Heh. No need to congratulate me; my cuteness is its own reward!”
We found Elgis and Fira waiting for us. “I heard a tremendous shout from upstairs,” said Elgis. “Did something happen?”
“Oh, you mean the shout from Yuri earlier?”
Oh, right, I guess I could get pretty loud. Had I disturbed the neighbors? “Oh, I was just being a cat. Sorry if it was a bother.”
Fira blinked. “Is that…is that a cat sound…?”
Filia and I took a seat across from her parents at the other end of the table, catching up one last time. Filia and I were leaving the village that afternoon after all, so it was going to be a while before she’d see her parents again. I hoped they were having a nice goodbye.
For their part, Elgis and Fira were reminiscing passionately about Filia’s first words.
“I’ll never forget the first time Lia spoke. ‘Dada! Hungy!’ Sorry, Fira, but she spoke to me first—I’m clearly Lia’s favorite parent.”
Fira chuckled. “Oh, is that what you thought? You were out hunting at the time and didn’t know this, but Lia’s actual first words were ‘Mama! Hungy!’ I’m her favorite parent, Elgis.”
“N-no way…” Elgis went pale with shock.
I didn’t think it made much difference who a literal baby talked to first, but I supposed it was a different story from a parent’s point of view. Filia also liked it and was blushing slightly.
“You were kinda a glutton, huh?” I said.