Vermillion

A little before noon, the main street was already crowded with people.

A guard pulled on his horse"s reins, looking for the post station.

A well-dressed merchant, carrying a leather bag.

A vagrant, dirty child.

A slave, all of their body was covered in black clothing save for their face.

Lily slipped her way through the crowd merrily as she went to cram school.

It was the day after she guided Kei and Aileen around.

Just like before, she had her hair up in the same ponytail that Aileen did. With every step she took, the blue ribbon in her hair swayed.

"He-y, Lily, how are you?" came a deep voice from behind her.

She spun around to see an awkwardly smiling Borris.

"Oji-chan…" Her expression darkened slightly as she slowly made eye contact with him. His voice carried a hint of caution and discomfort.

She recalled when Montand looked sad and told her not to speak too much with Borris.

"Hey… It"s been a while since we"ve met, huh." He scratched his cheek bashfully and looked away.

Just like he said, it had been a long time since they met. If her memory served her correctly, the last time she spoke with him like this was about a year ago. Borris would come to their house to ask for money sometimes, but during the day time Lily went to cram school. The chances for them to meet were reduced to almost nothing.
"What"s wrong, oji-chan…?"

Her father warned her, but she couldn"t just ignore him when he was right in front of her. She turned toward him with upturned eyes and grabbed the hem of her skirt.

Honestly, Lily didn"t dislike Borris.

Perhaps it was because she couldn"t bring herself to not like him. Of course, she knew that his recent visits to ask for money had been troubling her father. Even so, from the bottom of her heart, she held the strong image of the old Borris, the kind Borris.

When she was younger, her parents both worked themselves hard and couldn"t look after her. It was none other than Borris that took care of her. That was when he was a brighter, more diligent Borris. He used to go along with her antics, like playing house or pretending he was her horse. He even got mad in place of her when the neighborhood kids made her cry. They went for walks through the promenade along the riverside and he would let her ride on his shoulders. In the sunset lit road, they would secretly eat honey candies that he bought for her.

She remembered all of it.

His appearance now was dirty, his hair messy, and even his eyes had a bad look to them. However, because she knew what he used to be like, she held faint sympathy even in her young heart.

"Ah, well. The truth is—” said Borris in a hushed voice as he squatted down to her eye level. As if cautious of other"s stares, he pulled out a leather bag from his shirt.

The sound of metal rubbing against metal came from the bag.

"The truth is, I thought it was about time that I pay Montand back."

"Eh? Really!?" Her expression suddenly brightened.

"Yep. Work is finally looking up."

"Wow, that"s great, that"s great! Good for you, oji-chan!"

"Thank you. I"ve been relying on Montand all this time… It"s time that I pay it back." He smiled and put the bag away.

"I"m sure dad will be happy too! Oji-chan, what kind of work are you doing?"

"Haha… That"s a secret." He winked and said, "By the way, where are you going?"

"Cram school!"

"Cram school, huh. You"re studying hard, aren"t you? Where was your cram school again…?"

"It"s at Cornwell-san"s mansion in the high-cla.s.s area!"

"Oh, I see. Are you going to be there until it gets dark out?"

"Yep! Usually we end around four or so."

"Oh! That"s amazing, I wouldn"t be able to sit still at a desk that long… Do you always go alone?"

"Yep. At first mom or dad would take me, but I"m grown up now so I can go by myself!"

"Haha, that"s right. You"ve grown big, haven"t you?" He smiled fondly at her proud expression. "So, for Lily who is trying so hard…" he fished around in his right pocket and presented something to her, "Here! A candy for you."
"Yay, thanks oji-chan!" Lily took the ball shaped candy and bounced up and down.

"Now then, it"s time for me to go. Good luck with your studies."

"Okay! You too, good luck with your work!"

"Yeah, I"ll do my best. Bye then!" Borris turned back to her with a smile.

"See you!!"

She watched him disappear into the crowd before she headed off to cram school in high spirits.

As she walked, she unwrapped the candy. It was an amber ball. The mellow honey flavor filled her mouth. "Hehe…" She smiled as she rolled it around on top of her tongue. Her light steps turned into skips.

She was happy.

Borris could be like he was in the old days.

Dad can see him in a better light with this, too.

She felt proud for him.

Borris and dad would get along again. She believed that.

Everything was heading in a better direction.

At that time, she believed it.

"That"s too much! Thirty silvers is a rip off!"

"Not at all, you can"t get me any lower than this!"

Kei argued with a man just outside of northern Satyna at the harbor.
"It"s just downstream until Yuulia! It"s different if it"s to Urvan, but why is it so expensive when you just need to ride the current?!"

"Dumba.s.s! You"ve got four horses, just how much s.p.a.ce do you think that"ll take up!? I"ve got a ton of goods to move, you"ve gotta match it at least or I"m not making a profit!"

"That"s why you overcharge it as thirty silvers? What, are you guys carrying gold and silver treasure!?"

"Even if I wanted to, there"s no way I"d be carrying something so profitable!! It"s just normal materials or furniture or something, a quick thirty silvers!"

They were screaming in each other"s faces. The others that were boarding the goods cast Kei a suspicious look. Aileen watched nervously.

"Agh, fine! Enough is enough! Sorry, but we"ll just go ask someone else!"

"We don"t want someone like you anyway! Get outta here already, shoo! Scram!"

After a while, the negotiations failed, or rather, it ended in an argument. Kei turned his back on the man who was shooing him away and walked away heavy-footed.

"d.a.m.n this sucks, everyone charges way too much!"

"They"re doing it because they can, I guess. This was the third one…" Next to Kei, Aileen perked her shoulders up and sighed lightly.

This all started because they heard that you could get to Urvan by boat.

Yesterday, after they sold their armor in the old town they decided to search for an escort job for caravans going to Urvan.

They decided to do it for safety. On the way from Tahfu they were attacked by plains people so travelling as just two was dangerous. If they traveled with a caravan or other escorts then the probability of being attacked would drastically decrease.

However.

Needless to say, they couldn"t get work as escorts, not even if they paid a little bit. The reason was that they had no credibility.

In this world where such a convenient form of identification such as an adventurer"s guild card didn"t exist, the only way would be for someone to be introduced to the requester. In the game, after a few simple jobs from NPCs your credibility would increase and you would unlock more difficult jobs such as escorting.

On their fourth day since coming to this world, it went without saying that étranger[1] such as themselves had no one to back them up. The best that they had was Montand, an arrow maker, but their relationship was no more than a customer and a shop owner. He probably wouldn"t vouch for them.

They didn"t clearly look like any nationality and there wasn"t anyone who could speak for them. Kei looked a bit like the plains people, and Aileen"s unfriendly att.i.tude like that of the tundra people made it unlikely that they"d be accepted by others. Half-heartedly judging based off Kei"s strong appearance didn"t serve as good credibility either. For example, if Kei was a ruffian then he could stab them in the back.

Even so, one merchant that was heading to Urvan proposed to accept them as long as Aileen was loaned to him. Naturally, they refused. Without being able to find any caravans to join up with, they were at a loss. That was when they heard that you could get to Urvan by boat, too.

Satyna often transported goods downstream to other northern rivers via the Morla River next to them. Compared to going over land, this was much faster and safer.

However, it was only fast down the river until halfway between Satyna and Urvan, at Lake Bled. If you wanted to go any farther north, you"d need to go upstream along the river that runs near Urvan: the River Aria.

This was because, similar to Satyna, Urvan was placed on high plateaus. Typically, you could go upstream by combining manpower and the wind, but it was by no means fast. Kei thought that it would be better than nothing even if they had to change over to land after reaching the town of Yuulia, at Lake Bled.

That"s what he thought, but—

The thing standing in his way were none other than the fare expenses.

"We may have a lot with us, but thirty silvers is crazy…" Aileen interlaced her fingers behind her head as she complained.

"You"re telling me…" Kei"s irritation leaked out through his tone while he walked next to her.

They"d been negotiating with ship owners at the harbor for a while, but everyone gave them outrageous prices. They had all sorts of offers. The thirty silver one that they got was still on the low end; another was for fifty, and another was close to a gold.

Kei didn"t believe that the market price was around thirty silvers. It wasn"t that Kei and Aileen couldn"t pay the fee, it was that thirty silvers was enough for a grown man to eat for a year. The ship owner from earlier said that he was carrying normal furniture, materials, and the like, but there was no way that it would net him thirty silvers.

Maybe it was stubbornness, maybe they bullied outsiders, or maybe it was simply too much of a pain to let them ride—at any rate, it was a tough world.

They continued to indiscriminately ask around, but they weren"t able to get anyone for less than thirty silvers. Feeling like it was all in vain they returned to the inn.

"Ah… I feel like we tired ourselves out for nothing," said Kei.

"Yep…"

They laid down on their beds. Both of them felt incredibly tired, probably from stuffing themselves before they left.

Silently, they stared up at the ceiling for a while. They became more and more lethargic.

"Hey, Kei," Aileen muttered.

"Hm?"

"Once we get to Urvan… What do you plan on doing?"

Kei glanced over at Aileen, who was turned over and looking at him. "Hm…" He went back to looking at the ceiling and mulled things over in his head.

The fortified city Urvan. Elsewise, the government capital.

Feudal lord Arial Krause Urvan Auckland served as the ruler over the northern Ri"leir people. A few cities such as the port city Kitene and the fortified city Satyna joined the Auckland Dukedom—

They gathered this information yesterday.

"To start…I"d like to go to the munic.i.p.al library I heard about in Urvan. It might be expensive, but it"s open to the public. I want to learn about this world"s history and writing. We might even find a clue as to why we came to this world."

Even though it was fine that here was a parallel world, the cause of their arrival was still a mystery. Neither Kei nor Aileen could remember anything that happened after they entered the fog in the game.

It felt wrong to just keep knowing nothing about it.

Did someone summon them?

Was it some sort of supernatural phenomenon?

Kei at least wanted to have a guess at what the cause was.

"And then… What about after your research?"

"Hmm…" Kei grumbled with her continuous questions, flopping over and meeting her blue eyes. "Honestly, I haven"t decided what to do after that… You might think, "What is he saying," at this point, but I"m still confused, too." He watched her expression for a moment. Her earnestness hadn"t changed and he continued, "Originally, I thought that even if it was a little bit, even one second longer, I wanted to live and enjoy the game…"

To Kei, Demondal was essentially his only goal in life.

You could say that the past three years of his life had been video games.

When the game suddenly became reality, he didn"t know what to do with himself.

"And so, I have no idea. I can"t even imagine what to do about my future…"

"Yeah… It"s the same for me. I don"t know what to do. I don"t know what I want to do…" Aileen said with a dazed expression.

"It"s tough, isn"t it…?" Kei sat up and leaned against the window, casting his gaze down onto the congested shopping district.

The weather was nice today.

A traveler argued about the price of a decorative fabric as the shopkeeper carefully appraised it. Farmers carried baskets of fruit and children ran around, slipping through the crowd.

A small boy tripped over the paving stones and cried loudly after he sc.r.a.ped his knee. The children gathered around him in the bustle, and a pa.s.sing adult comforted him. Even though he grumbled, his friend led him away by the hand.

"Hey, Kei. You don"t want to… go back, right?" Aileen asked from behind him in a reserved voice.

"No… Even if I could go back, I can live in this world."

"I see… I suppose so…"

Kei turned around, but Aileen was laying on her belly with her face buried in the pillow

"What about you…?"

"Me? I wonder…"

TRANSLATOR"S NOTES

étranger[1]: French for foreigner in this case