Once back in the carriage, Luna paused. “I’m . . . Luna.”
“Uh, okay, well, no need to pull the carriage right now,” Father said.
“Okay.”
She had the same youthful appearance as Yuki and Kou, I say, and was completely different from how Sakura had turned out.
I took a closer look. First, I noticed that her eyes were a deep navy-blue, like the color of the sea at night. The same eye color she had in her filolial form. Next, I observed her hair, which was a glistening silver, sparkling as it caught rays of sunshine. It was a combination of colors unlike anything I had ever seen.
Haircut styles also depended on the filolial. Father listened to Luna’s preference and gave her a haircut to her liking. Luna ran a hand through her hair and nodded.
“She’s definitely a little different from the other filolials,” Father commented.
“I don’t disagree.”
“It’s her hair, right? Her hair color doesn’t match her feathers or eyes.”
“Did we do anything different with her?” I inquired.
“I mean, we have been feeding her the chimera meat, but we’ve all been eating it.”
That shouldn’t change anything. However, I couldn’t help but recall that Filo-tan also had the same sort of difference in her filolial and angel forms. What could the cause be?
“Am I weird?” Luna asked.
“No, you’re not weird,” Father said. “You’re just different.”
Luna didn’t seem like the conversational type. She never used sentences of more than a few words. Sakura also tended to be pretty short-winded, but she always responded to exactly what you asked her, and she liked to sing. No matter what you said to Luna, her responses were short. I figured that was just her personality.
“Different . . .” Luna muttered.
“Oink oink,” Lazy Pig said.
“Are you copying Elena?” Father asked. “No need to do that.”
“I’m not,” Luna said.
So Luna was the cool, reserved type. She seemed to want to avoid attention. She had an atmosphere about her that almost reminded me of Fitoria-tan. Whenever we met monsters, Fitoria-tan always liked launching a single, powerful surprise attack.
“But still, why does she have a different hair color in her angel form?” Father asked. “I suppose Sakura’s eye color is different from the other filolials in a similar way though.”
Now that he mentioned it, Filo-tan really had a number of differences from other filolials too.
That night, Luna turned back into her filolial form and sat down. She patted her tummy and beckoned to Keel.
“Tweet . . . Keel, come sleep on me.”
“On your stomach? Wow, looks warm!”
Keel went up to Luna and lay against her stomach. Luna looked down at Keel with gentle eyes.
“Man, this is crazy soft! Feels great!”
“You can come to me too!” Kou said and opened his mouth hungrily.
“I’m not going to go inside!” Keel barked. “Leave me alone!” Keel bared her teeth and growled.
“Luna, do you like being petted?” Father asked.
Luna nodded. “Keel’s cute.” And she gave Keel a tight hug with her feathers.
Kou liked Keel just as much, but for a different reason, I say. Luna was more like a little girl who loved her puppy.
“I ain’t cute! I’m cool!” Keel growled.
“I . . . I wanna be like Keel,” Luna said. “I wanna be small and say tweet tweet.”
“Luna, you’re plenty cute the way you are,” Father said.
But Luna was just being sensitive. All filolials are positively adorable, I say!
“In your angel form, you’re just as cute as Keel is,” Father said.
“But I want to be . . . cuter,” Luna said. “I wanna say tweet tweet.”
Father sighed and turned to me. “They really all do have such different personalities. I feel like she’d get along with Lars.”
Father was right. That panda also loved cute things, even though she didn’t want to be dressed up. I think they would get along.
“I’m happy right here with Keel, tweet tweet,” Luna said.
Father nodded. “Okay then. That’s fine with me.”
And Keel and Luna continued to snuggle, I say. I could tell that Luna really loved Keel.
“Okay, your feathers feel amazing, but man, I’m starting to get hot,” Keel said, panting with her tongue out.
How could you possibly be too hot when wrapped in the loving feathers of a filolial?
“Luna, don’t cuddle Keel for too long,” Father said. “Sakura, same with you. You guys are so warm that we can’t fall asleep like that.”
“Okay,” Luna said. “Then I’ll cuddle Keel after he falls asleep.”
“After I fall asleep?” Keel barked. “Just what do you want to do to me?”
All of a sudden, Luna’s feathers sparkled and she started to shrink all the way down to a size that could fit into Keel’s hands. She was turning into her chick form.
“Tweet!”
Father nodded. “Well, at that size, you can certainly sleep together without getting too hot.”
“Tweet tweet!”
“I dunno what you’re saying, Luna!” Keel said, holding Luna in her paws.
“Keel, I don’t think she can speak in that form,” Sakura said.
“She can’t talk like this?”
“Oh, really?” Father asked.
“She can’t. Naofumi, you didn’t know?”
“I’ve never seen you or the other filolials go back into chick form,” Father said.
Sakura tilted her head and thought about it. “Yeah, I guess so.”
As quiet and calm as always, I say. And with that, we eventually went to sleep.
The filolials continued to pull our carriage full of bioplant fruit around Melromarc. We also stopped to sell medicine to the sick and elderly and heal them and continued to help the people of Melromarc in any way we could. We made several trips around Melromarc, but the food situation wasn’t getting better in the southwest villages, so we did several rounds of donations.
Since our levels were already fairly high, we didn’t need to go to Siltvelt to hunt monsters. And now that Father had actually learned the portal skill, I didn’t need to bring everyone there by myself anymore.
Father figured that the peddling was more important, so we gave it our undivided attention. And in his free time, Father studied magic and reading. He had already made it to first-class spells.
We did all that in the span of about a week after the wave of destruction.
We were in the middle of transporting the carriage between villages. Father was staring at his account book, groaning.
“Is something wrong, Father?”
He glanced up at me. “Oh, Motoyasu. Well, we’re managing to sell, but . . .” He trailed off.
Father showed something or other to me in his account book. The day’s sales, perhaps? We had done well yesterday, but only relative to the day before. It seemed like we were still meeting Father’s sales objectives though.