Chapter 3 (2/2)
After a while he reached the meeting place and saw a group of three boys and girls waving at him.
“Luru! You’re finally here!? You’re late!”
It was a red-haired boy who gave off a lively atmosphere, Rusty.
He was the same age as Luru, and a little while after being born they met each other, and since then they had always played together. In this village, he was Luru’s longest friend, and one of his childhood friends.
His lightly freckled face was twisted in a little displeasure.
It was probably because Luru had come late.
Luru obediently apologised, and tried to appease him.
“Ah, my bad. Once I start reading books I completely forget about the time.”
Luru’s family had a library befitting of a lower cla.s.s n.o.ble family.
Books were expensive and not something you could buy that easily, but even so they were necessary to education, and so his father dedicated a portion of his salary to increasing their book collection.
Luru’s parents had taught him letters, so he could read.
That’s why he had permission to read some of the books in his home.
“Books? What’s fun about that? If you’re a man then you need adventure! Let’s go to the forest! The forest!”
Said Rusty, whose mood had bettered right after Luru apologised.
Rusty’s dream was to one day leave the village and become an adventurer.
It was an occupation that didn’t exist in Luru’s time as the demon king, but these days it existed as a special job.
As for why it was a necessary occupation, to Luru’s shock, it seems that unlike Luru’s time, maps were uncertain, and there were a considerable number of regions that were yet unexplored.
Even places that people had once walked in the past were now regions whose layout and geography were now unknown, and the occupation ‘adventurer’ arose for the sake of searching them.
“‘Adventure, adventure’. Rusty, you haven’t pa.s.sed Patrick-san’s swordsmans.h.i.+p lessons even now, right? Just when on earth will Rusty be able to leave this village, I wonder?”[‘ittai itsu ni naru koto kas.h.i.+ra’]
The one who spoke the words that made Rusty grimace again was one of the childhood friends he had promised to meet today; a pretty girl with dull blonde hair and was known for her bright expression, Mii.
She was 7 just like Luru and Rusty, but perhaps because she was a girl, she had a more realistic outlook than Rusty did.
Having said that though, it was undeniable that she was still a little childish.
You could feel from her voice her fear of Rusty leaving the village.
It was clear as day that feelings of love for Rusty dwelt in her eyes, and because of that, she wanted Rusty to stay in the village forever.
Those feelings were understandable.
But those words had the opposite effect.
Rusty was learning swordsmans.h.i.+p from Luru’s father, Patrick, in order to gain the skill required to leave village, but Patrick was not soft.
Patrick gave Rusty a number of conditions regarding leaving the village.
They were that he needed to master the sword to a certain extent, and use his skill to hunt the low level monsters that lived in the forest at fixed intervals.
To a normal villager like Rusty who didn’t possess any talent, it was a relatively strict task, and because of that Rusty continued to train the sword each day.
Regardless, Patrick rarely praised people, so Rusty was steadily growing impatient.
He occasionally grumbled that he would never, ever receive a pa.s.s.
Mii had pointed this out to him just now.
Though a slightly threatening atmosphere began to surface,
“Now, now, isn’t it fine? It’s important to have a dream. I don’t think that he intends on holding you back, and if it does come to that, you can just think about it then, you know?”
The one who advised Mii and Rusty was the final person they had promised to meet up with today; a girl two years older than Luru, Yuuri.
Her silky, grey hair was beautiful, and with azure eyes, she was a fairly good looking girl.
You could imagine that in 10 years she would be quite a beautiful woman, but she loved Rusty.
It made you want to wonder, ‘just why is Rusty this popular?’ but it was because Rusty gave off this feeling that made you want to worry about him.
It was probably this that drew the two girls in.
While thinking that it was a pleasant[/cute/charming] situation, Luru often hung out with these three in the village.
“Well, it’d be nice that happened one day… More importantly, we’re meeting here because something is happening today, right? You still haven’t told me why we’re meeting here…”[Note: Luru uses ‘ore’]
Right.
Yesterday, Rusty told Luru to meet them here today, but when he had asked about why, Rusty replied “It’ll happen tomorrow, so look forward to it” and wouldn’t tell him.
It didn’t seem that they were just meeting here to play and he could tell this from the fact that when it came to today’s promise, Rusty seemed quite excited, but he didn’t know why.
In the end he couldn’t find out even if he asked Rusty, so he still didn’t know why they were gathered here today, but when Luru asked again just now, Rusty grinned and spoke.
“Yeah… Actually, the old man at the inn said that today, adventurers would be coming to the village! Real adventurers!”
At Rusty’s words, Luru, Mii and Yuuri all widened their eyes.
Adventurers were essentially a profession that searched unexplored lands and ruins.
There were also those who did miscellaneous jobs like acting as the guards for merchants or travellers, but they rarely visited this village in the remote rural areas.
However, it wasn’t as though they had never visited at all, and there were cases of low rank adventurers coming here as guards for travelling merchants.
However, those were different to the adventurers that Rusty spoke of.
“Real” he had said.
They were adventurers who were high ranked even amongst adventurers, and lived a lifestyle that you could truly call adventures.
Of course it wasn’t as though to say that low rank adventurers were fake, but what they meant was that the low cla.s.s adventurers were a little different from those you could call adventurers, so many referred to these as “real” adventurers.
Hearing this, Luru understood why Rusty was a little stimulated.
He was a boy that was aiming to become a real adventurer.
To him, it was the same as heroes visiting the village.
That’s why he had gone out of his way to gather them.
He had probably planned to head with them to the gate where the adventurers would be coming from, and speak to the adventurers about lots of different things.
“If they’re real adventurers, then wouldn’t getting too close to them be dangerous? Lots of people say adventurers are a rowdy lot, you know.” warned Luru, just in case.
Those who would be called real adventurers were, no matter what they were like, strong.
Because of that, there weren’t a few among them who had slightly arrogant demeanours, and he had heard that it wasn’t as though they had never acted violently before.
Of course if they went too out of hand then the organisation known as the Adventurers Guild would expel them and take away their rights as adventurers, meaning that it would be impossible to make a living.
Because of that, there was a certain limit, but if it was just at the level of badly treating some children who got too close, then they tended to overlook it.
That’s why Luru had warned him, but…
“It’s fine, I said! Adventurers are strong, and n.o.ble! They’re not gunna do something like act violently!”
Said Rusty, without taking heed.
Mii and Yuuri made slightly anxious expressions, but it seemed that Rusty didn’t see that.
Well, I guess boys with dreams are like this, sighed Luru.
Seeing Rusty behave like this, Luru gave up and decided that if anything happened, it’d be fine if he saved them himself.
Though Luru didn’t know how far his strength went, if it was just at the level where they’d hold back because they were children, then it would probably be fine.
Thinking this, he followed behind Rusty, and the two girls that he dragged along with him.
/Chapter 3 END
<script>