Stories About the Villagers
On the day Kathe graduated, when we finished martial arts class and went back down to the first floor, I was very surprised to see a burly dad and an absolutely beefed-up big brother standing there, arms crossed in a heroic pose.
“Ah! Dad, Brother!”
“I’m home! Kathe, your dad’s back!”
“So you made Copper Rank, Kathe? I thought it’d take a bit longer, but comin’ back early was the right call. Congrats!”
The moment Kathe appeared, the two intimidating men completely melted, welcoming her with big hugs. Ohoh, so those were Kathe’s dad and brother.
Kathe had sharp eyes and a sleek, cool beauty to her, so it really didn’t feel like she belonged to the same family as those two hulking muscleheads. Maybe she took after her mom?
Looking closer, her dad didn’t have a tail, and her brother’s tail was a slightly deeper shade of blue than Kathe’s.
I was the only one shocked as the family left the Guild together in such a warm, cozy mood. Everyone else seemed to know already and acted like it was normal.
“When you first came here, they were out workin’ on dungeon clears, y’see. That family dotes way too much on their long-awaited daughter, so the missus told ’em not to come home till they ranked up.”
… Huh?
Apparently, the age gap between Kathe and her brother was six years, which was pretty rare in this village where most siblings were only one or two years apart.
With an older brother close to his baptism and a dad who’d finally gotten the daughter he’d always wanted, the two of them absolutely spoiled her, treating her like a princess.
Around age six, Kathe hit what you might call her first growth phase, and by going to the learning hall, she realized her family wasn’t exactly normal and entered a rebellious phase.
With her mom’s help, proper lady education started from there, and that’s how Kathe became the cool, dependable big-sister type she is now.
If it’d just been her dad and brother, she might’ve turned into a full-on villainess noble lady. Hard to imagine, though, looking at her now.
The one who finally put her foot down on the two of them slacking off their adventurer work out of doting love was Kathe’s mom.
When Kathe reached her baptism, she ordered them, “Don’t come home until your brother reaches Silver Rank!”
Back then, her brother was already Copper Rank, but he hadn’t taken a single monster subjugation request, so he and their dad buckled down and trained hard.
Her mom told them, “If the two of you get strong enough that we can all enter a dungeon together once Kathe becomes Copper Rank, she’ll feel safe,” and so they went off to train for about a year and a half.
“… Th-that’s amazing. But Kathe said she’s looking forward to the dungeon, so having the two of them with her is reassuring.”
“Aye. Now that their daughter’s graduated, I reckon Thea’ll be getting back into adventurin’ proper.
Both o’ them are Gold Rank, after all.
Well, Thea’s probably gone a bit rusty stickin’ to subjugations ’round the village durin’ child-rearin’, so she’ll likely start with the permanent forest requests nearby.”
Gold Rank. That’s incredible. Kathe really was adventurer thoroughbred stock.
While mulling over that shocking info, I headed home.
Apparently, the Vice-Guildmaster and Guildmaster were mid-tier Gold Rank adventurers, and there were quite a few lower-tier Gold Rank adventurers and even former adventurers in this village.
Maybe that’s because this place was extra remote, even among frontier villages.
Teacher Muscle-Squirrel used to be an adventurer too, after all. Yeah. Even the butcher uncle’s ripped. Everyone here’s probably strong.
◆◇◆◇◆◇
Oh right, this was from a little before Kathe graduated.
She said that once she became Copper Rank, she’d start expanding her range outside the village and would be hunting monsters too.
“Vio, you said you want to become an adventurer and aim for dungeons, right? You should learn how to dismantle monsters.
You’ve seen Makor post requests sometimes, haven’t you? They’re for beginners to practice dismantling and gain experience, so you should take them when they’re available.”
Given that kind of valuable info, of course I had to go.
After the learning hall, I asked Dad too, and we requested that if that dismantling job came up, we’d really like to take it.
They said only two or three people could take it at once, but since hardly anyone applied, it’d be fine.
A few days later, right after the learning hall ended, I heard from Taki that the request was up, so I accepted it immediately and headed to the shop.
“Hello, I’m Vio. I took the dismantling request from the Guild.”
“Oh? Oh? Alke? What’s this about?”
“It ain’t me today. It’s my girl.”
“Huh?”
When I greeted them at the entrance, a massively built man came out from the back. Only after Dad spoke did he finally lower his gaze enough to meet my eyes.
“Hello, I’m Vio. I took the dismantling request from the Guild.”
When I greeted him again, he froze with a flat “Huh?”
Yeah. This happens a lot.
"Ah~ Vio's already Bronze Rank and's earned over half the points she needs. I reckon she'll hit Copper Rank by Fire's second month, so she wants to build up her dismantlin' experience."
“Huh? This little thing’s gonna be Copper Rank?
You goin’ full spartan on kids that small too, not just your boys?”
The shocked man, Makor, went on to tell me just how intense the elite adventurer training Dad put his sons through had been.
Just like with me, he’d built an athletic course in the back forest and trained them hard while letting them have fun.
Makor was a burly tiger beastman and a former mid-tier Gold Rank adventurer himself.
This butcher shop worked like this: Makor went out to procure meat, well, hunt it, then dismantled it, and his eldest son Kirito and his wife sold skewers at a stall. Kirito was a Silver Rank adventurer too.
Since his two sons were close in age to Dad’s boys, they often trained together on the athletic course—“playtime,” in name only.
By the way, Dad’s eldest son Tonga, second son Ronga, and Makor’s second son Kurto were currently traveling the continent together as a party.
Apparently, Makor had given Kurto orders to “eat lots of good food and study food stalls in other towns,” and he wasn’t allowed to come home until he reached upper Silver Rank.
Kathe’s brother, too, aren’t there a lot of strict families around here?
“Um, you know, I want to visit every dungeon on this continent. And I want to meet a dragon someday. So I want to raise my adventurer rank properly.
That’s why I want to learn dismantling properly too. Please teach me!”
“Aren’t you even more obsessed with adventurin’ than Tonga and the others?”
"She was like that from the get-go. She admired them adventurers even before I taught her. Wantin' to learn the basics before doin' somethin' reckless, that drive and how fast she picks things up? My boys never had that kind of spark."
He sounded a bit exasperated, but seemed convinced, and I got properly taught how to dismantle monsters.
That said, a boar was about the size of a mama-chari bicycle, and a Big Pig was as big as a large motorcycle, so you had to climb on them to skin them.
On dismantling days, I got absolutely covered in blood.
They told me it was better for the meat’s flavor if you bled it out on site, and if you had a Magic Bag that slowed time like dungeon drops did, you should put the meat in there if you couldn’t dismantle it right away.
They said it as future advice, but I already had a time-stopping bag.
Still, turning in meat stored that way to the Guild would expose the bag’s performance, so I figured that was a no-go until I ranked up and became an adult.
◆◇◆◇◆◇
Through the children’s gathering experiences, I’d started interacting with the villagers a lot more.
At first, they were worried that since I was a young human girl, I might get overwhelmed by beastman kids with higher stamina.
But after seeing me train regularly and hearing Hachi and Ren talk about me, they decided I’d be fine.
“Our kids still go beastmode when they get excited, you know. Kittens or baby rabbits aren’t a problem, but ours are strong even when they’re small, so I was worried.”
The bear and tiger beastman moms said that was why they’d kept their distance.
One tiger beastman mom was the wife of Makor’s eldest son. We’d gotten close during the dismantling job, and after realizing my stamina wasn’t normal for a five-year-old human, she’d brought friends over to talk to me today.
There was even a snake kid who suddenly curled up and fell asleep mid-play. And the bear cubs were like stuffed animals, ridiculously cute. Just putting that out there.
Apparently, the village held regular meetings so adults could share village matters like card-making and children’s gathering experiences.
At those meetings, it’d been explained that my parents had passed away, that I’d nearly been kidnapped by nobles from the Lucidania Empire, and that there was a chance kidnappers might come again if they noticed my hair color, so I was using color-changing magic.
(So that’s officially my backstory, huh.)
Because of that, even adults I’d met several times didn’t comment on my changing hair or eye color, or on me wearing glasses despite being a kid.
I was really grateful for that.
What do you think about this chapter?
