Ch.13Ellem Lu Seti

Jessica lit the campfire and began setting up a barrier spell using the black panther’s mana stone, while the beastfolk girl stood quietly in her original position, watching.

She wore short pants about the length of hot pants, a tight sleeveless top that revealed her midriff, and something like a large cape draped over her shoulders. Besides her clothing and weapon, her only possessions were a wooden ornament necklace around her neck and a small pouch hanging at her waist.

“It’s ready now. So, would you come over and tell us your story? I don’t think you came to complain about seeing Will bathing.”

“Yeah. That was just an accidental encounter. I understand that.”

The beastfolk girl put down her spear and plopped down in the spot Jessica offered. Looking at her again, she had a small frame and a youthful face, but her ruby-red eyes exuded an indescribably alluring aura.

“I’m Ellem Lu Seti. As I mentioned earlier, I’m from the Wild Cat tribe.”

“I’m William J. Kim. You can call me Will.”

“I’m Jessica Walter. Call me Jessica. Should we call you Ellem?”

“Ellem is my father’s name, Lu is my mother’s. My name is Seti.”

It seems the Wild Cat tribe’s naming convention involves placing the child’s name after the parents’ names instead of using a typical surname. Perhaps the concept of family lineage isn’t particularly important to them?

“So, Seti, what brings you to us? I heard the Wild Cat tribe dislikes pioneers.”

“Yes. The Wild Cat tribe dislikes pioneers. They don’t try to kill them, but they drive them out of their territory and avoid getting involved. But I don’t like that.”

Seti’s speech was somewhat stiff, perhaps because she wasn’t familiar with the pioneers’ language, but she calmly explained her purpose.

“This land is vast with many unknown places. But the tribe people… no, the beastfolk basically live only within their tribal territories and don’t try to venture far outside. I didn’t like that, so I left my tribe’s territory.”

“You mean you didn’t like the tribe’s closed-minded and conservative policies.”

“That’s right. I want to travel the wide world like pioneers… adventurers. But I don’t know how to become an adventurer.”

In short, unlike her tribe’s hostility toward pioneers, Seti herself thinks well of them and wants to become an adventurer like them. So she ran away without a plan, but not knowing what to do, she had been wandering aimlessly until she met us and wanted to hear more details… that’s roughly her story.

If she simply asked “how to become an adventurer,” the conclusion would be that she could just freely wander around and have adventures. But what Seti probably wants to know is “how to be legally recognized as an adventurer,” meaning how to obtain a Frontier License.

“Becoming an adventurer… Jessica, the Frontier License isn’t exclusively issued to humans, is it?”

“Elves and dwarves have license agreements with the Pioneer Administration, so they can get licenses immediately upon application, but I’m not sure about other natives. I don’t know the Pioneer Administration’s rules in detail.”

“Hmm~ Sorry, but it seems we can’t be of much help right now.”

When I apologized for not being able to help, Seti shook her head.

“I wasn’t going to ask how to become an adventurer. It would be nice to know, but I have a more urgent matter.”

“An urgent matter?”

“Two days ago, I was attacked by a group of monsters and lost almost all my belongings except for my weapons and clothes. I can hunt animals for food, but that alone isn’t enough to continue traveling.”

“I can see that…”

So that was why she had no other luggage besides her weapon and the small pouch at her waist.

While I thought that as a native she might be accustomed to nature-friendly survival skills, continuing a journey without even a water canteen would be difficult for anyone, native or not.

“I heard adventurers travel along cities. But I don’t know where the pioneer cities are. If you take me to the next city and buy me the necessary items, you can have all of these.”

With those words, Seti took out six mana stones about the size of a first knuckle from the small pouch at her waist. I don’t know how much mana stones are worth, but trying to trade with adventurers using them isn’t a bad idea.

“So it’s a request to purchase travel supplies on your behalf… If we’re going to the western city together anyway, couldn’t you just come in with us and buy them yourself?”

“Wouldn’t it be difficult for a hostile tribe native to enter the city? Even if I could get in, I probably wouldn’t be able to trade at fair prices.”

Hearing Jessica’s words, I realized the possibility of a native from a pioneer-rejecting tribe safely purchasing travel supplies in a city seemed extremely low.

It would be fortunate if she merely got overcharged due to not knowing the market prices of mana stones or goods, but there’s no guarantee that she wouldn’t face a situation like a Native American entering a white settlement and immediately being shot at.

“Hmm… what should we do, Jessica?”

“What would you like to do, Will?”

“I’d like to help if possible. Maybe I’m saying this because I don’t know what kind of relationship exists between the Wild Cat tribe natives and pioneers, but she rebelled against her closed-minded tribe’s policies and ran away to fulfill her dream of becoming an adventurer. It’s a story full of romance, isn’t it?”

Thinking about Seti’s existence in terms of Native Americans, I feel even more strongly that I want her to have a good outcome as she tries to approach the pioneers’ way of life.

I hope that the atrocities that occurred in our world—where people became hostile to each other simply for being native or white, and where technological superiority was used to steal all the natives’ homelands and drive them into harsh corners under the pretext of “reservations”—don’t happen here in Grantis.

“We’ll reach Oxville tomorrow anyway, so why don’t we take Seti with us, have her wait nearby, and then ask about how Wild Cat tribe members can obtain adventurer qualifications? Or at the very least, we could purchase the necessary travel supplies for her if that doesn’t work out.”

“Let’s do that then.”

“You’re agreeing surprisingly easily. I thought you might have various opinions about natives since you’re a local.”

“It might have been different if she were from the Water King tribe who attack and try to kill pioneers on sight… but I sympathize with her desire to see the wider world as an adventurer. I don’t want to reject her out of distrust just because she’s a native.”

“Thank you, Will, Jessica.”

“It’ll be a short journey, but I look forward to traveling with you, Seti.”

After the three of us shook hands lightly, I thought about having dinner and suddenly remembered that I had lost both my water and blanket in the fight with the Strike Falcon. I looked toward Jessica.

“Speaking of which, what about my blanket? Didn’t you say you’d figure something out?”

“Hehe, that’s right… I originally had a different plan in mind, but since Seti needs a place to sleep too, this works out perfectly.”

“?”

“Seti, you can use that cape as a blanket, right? Then Seti can sleep in Will’s tent, and Will can sleep in my tent with me.”

…WHAT!?

A young man and woman sleeping in the same tent under one blanket? Does she have no sense of caution at all? Or are all women in Grantis this open-minded?

From my perspective, having fallen for Jessica at first sight, I’d welcome this with open arms, but the development is so sudden that my mind can’t keep up.

Logically thinking, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to borrow Seti’s cape as a blanket, and for Jessica to share a tent with Seti?

“…Will?”

“Oh! Yeah, uh, tent, blanket, right. Young woman, healthy man, when morning comes…”

“Pfft… Ahahahaha! Why are you so flustered~”

“Well, you know. Even if Jessica doesn’t have that intention, from a man’s perspective, it’s kind of… I might misunderstand it as seduction.”

“If my presence bothers you, I can sleep somewhere far away. Wild Cat tribe members can sleep in trees too.”

“What are you, a matchmaker setting up a honeymoon suite?!”

In the midst of this sitcom-like situation, Jessica suppressed her laughter and patted my shoulder as she spoke.

“To be honest? No matter how impressive Will’s skills as a gunslinger are, I wouldn’t suggest forming a party and traveling together with a man I absolutely didn’t want to have ‘that kind of relationship’ with.”

“Eh? That means…”

“However, I’m not suggesting that we should have that kind of relationship starting tonight. When living as an adventurer, unexpected mishaps often cause you to lose your belongings or fail to meet the essential conditions for safe travel. That’s exactly the situation you’re in now, right?”

“Well… my blanket is torn, my water is gone. I’m being carefree because I thought Jessica would take care of it somehow.”

“There are times when your clothes get soaked and you need to strip naked to dry off, or when you need to rely on each other’s body heat to survive in a cold mountainside, or when you need to carry an unconscious companion suffering from the aftereffects of dark magic. If you hesitate because you’re too conscious of each other as man and woman, or conversely, if you can only think about physical relationships and ignore the best methods for survival, that would be problematic.”

Jessica’s face wore a gentle smile but also carried a serious atmosphere as she spoke, causing not only me but also Seti, who was listening nearby, to straighten our postures and listen attentively to her words.

“Let me be clear: I trust Will as a teammate and I’m also attracted to him as a woman. That’s precisely why I want us to be comfortable companions who can rely on each other—neither shying away out of embarrassment nor becoming fixated on my body—who can share a blanket and spend a warm, safe night together as male and female comrades.”

“Jessica…”

That’s absolutely correct.

From the moment I first met Jessica, I thought she was an extraordinary beauty, and when she proposed traveling together—and just now when she suggested sharing a tent—I only saw her as a ‘woman,’ with all other thoughts wiped from my mind.

But does that mean I should completely ignore her feminine aspect and think of her as merely an adventure companion? That wouldn’t be right either. There might be situations where you could coldly turn away from someone who’s just a colleague or team member, but you might trust them more because you’re attracted to each other, or vice versa.

As teammates, and as a man and woman. A relationship that doesn’t deny either aspect but accepts both. Jessica is saying she wants that kind of relationship with me.

“…This is embarrassing, but I’ve definitely been too fixated on Jessica’s beauty and only seeing her as a woman until now.”

“Will just casually throws out compliments about beauty and competence…”

“Hahaha, but thanks to that, I feel like I’ve realized something. We’re not going to spend one passionate night together and then part ways. As Jessica said, becoming comfortable with each other both as adventurers and as man and woman is probably best.”

“So you have no objection to sleeping in my tent?”

“Right. I’ll be in your care until we reach Oxville and I can buy a new blanket.”

While the conversation seemed to be wrapping up in a warm atmosphere, the expression of the beastfolk native girl who had been watching the entire scene from beginning to end was not entirely satisfied.

“…There are people like my lovey-dovey parents right in front of me here too.”

“Ahaha, sorry, sorry…”

“But I’m happy.”

“Huh?”

“You like each other, so you look at each other and laugh together. Natives and pioneers are not so different.”

The cat beastfolk girl Seti said this with a smile that seemed lost in memories.

Her parents must have been the type to honestly express their affection for each other. And Seti must have grown up receiving plenty of that affection.

I sincerely hoped that Seti’s dream of becoming an adventurer, for which she left such a warm home, would come true as soon as possible so she could return to her parents with a bright smile and share her accomplishments with them.