Chapter 21.21 - Prologue Part 3

Prologue Part 3

I’d better cut my hair soon～」

「Same. Maybe I’ll get a trim.」

Makoto and Haruna chatted while they enjoyed the outdoor bath. What with Hiroshi’s personality and all, they didn’t have any concern of being peeked at, so they were quite languid.

Furthermore, this large, portable bath had actually been madly requested by the girls from Hiroshi, and it came complete with a space to change as long as there was enough room to pitch a tent. The existence of this bath was probably the greatest reason as to why the Japanese people were adapting to life in this forest.

「Upon closer inspection, haven’t you gotten a bit bigger, Mio?」

「Mako, when say “big”, what area in specific do you mean?」

「In addition to your height increasing a bit, I also feel like your physique is different from when your body was even all around.」

「If that’s the case, then that does make me a bit happy.」

Mio indeed looked happy at Makoto’s assessment. In actuality, while it could not be denied that in terms of physical growth she was half Aearis’s circumference, it was doubtful that anyone who saw Mio would still think her to have a child’s physique. Having finally been freed from her bedridden hemiplegia, the initial frail physique had been done away with, and it was now clear to anyone that she had the body of a normal, healthy person.

Albeit slowly, Mio had finally grown to a level that was no longer frail or childlike, exuding some eroticism for once. However, there was still much to be desired from her physique in comparison to Haruna’s more glamorous body type. Indeed, in total, most people would flock to Haruna’s side.

「But I don’t pop out like you do, Haru……」

「Well not even Elle has gotten to that point, and even Mora is on the large side but still not quite there. I don’t think you need to fret about that. I mean, look at me.」

「Well even you aren’t too bad yourself, Makoto-san……」

「It’s okay, you don’t need to comfort me. In the end, I’m just a meager-chested girl who loses magnificently to even the elves……」

Ignoring Haruna’s heartfelt thoughts, Makoto had sunk into a spiral of self-depreciation. In actuality, the elves in question did not happen to have much interest in appearance or physique in their value system. Furthermore, it was not actually a proven fact that elves had meager breasts. It was just that the elves in Wulls or Kalsus they had met tended to be in said category. They hadn’t met all the elves in the city, so who could say for sure that was all they had?

「Ah, right, I forgot.」

「Hm？」

「I can’t exactly talk about something like this in front of Hiroshi, but it’s about that time.」

「……Ah～. Did you have it pretty bad？」

「No, not exactly.」

The three of them spoke in low voices to discuss something a little too graphic for men to hear.

「What about you, Makoto-san？」

「It ended before I even came into the forest.」

「I couldn’t tell at all.」

「Well yeah, because it’s not a big issue in my case. Just a little bit and that was that.」

Everyone had agreed on not going into detail about private affairs, especially since Hiroshi was concerned. As a result, there hadn’t been much of an opportunity to share said information, quite possibly because they had never had big problems when living in the workshop.

「And you, Mio?」

「My cycle is fairly uncertain. Same with the severity.」

「So…?」

「I never know when it’ll arrive.」

「But it does in fact come around?」

This was a fairly important thing, so Haruna and Makoto looked at her with serious expressions. After Makoto had asked that question, Mio silently nodded. This physical phenomenon unique to woman created a variety of effects during any given cycle. Besides, this also related to potentially bearing children in the future, so even if it was impossible to discuss in front of males, they couldn’t simply avoid the subject out of embarrassment.

「At any rate, I’m so glad you made those for us.」

「Yeah, we can’t after all rely on Hiroshi too much for things like this.」

「If we pushed the job onto Sensei, that would truly be the end of him.」

「Yeah, cause Hiroshi-kun already had quite the handful with undergarments.」

After meeting up, Mio had been in charge of producing menstruation-related items. Unlike Hiroshi, who did not notice the small details, Tatsuya seemed to somewhat have an idea of what was going on, as he already had a wife, but she figured it was a good manner at times like these to not mention anything.

Still, Tatsuya was truly a good man, being attentive at times like these in more ways than one. It was no surprise at all to hear that he had a wife.

「So everything seems to be fine for now, although I’m not sure how well we can deal with it.」

「Got it. Well, I’ll look out for you, so don’t worry. Nothing major has occurred so far.」

「Please do.」

「So, Mako. Who do you think comes first in terms of attributes- Sensei, or Tatsuya?」

「Attributes?」

「Mio, I don’t recall you being interested in this sort of thing. Why ask this all of a sudden? And hey, you’re not even out of middle school yet!」

Finishing their more personal conversation, it was now time for girls’ talk. Mio had originally brought up this topic in order to mess with Makoto, and the conversation eventually went all over the place, making Haruna feel dizzy as she struggled to keep up. Much as always, the girls were taking their time in the bath.

「So Hiro. What’s it like recently？」

「Whaddya mean?」

As the girls were bathing, Hiroshi and Tatsuya were chatting while working on things like tool maintenance and medicine preparation, trying their best to ignore how uncomfortable and bored they were.

「Are you used to women now? That’s what I mean.」

「A little mixed, I’d say. As long as I have ’nuff room ’round the house like the workshop, it ain’t really an issue. I don’t have no issue with lettin’ our current members ride in the passenger seat or rear seat of carriages, minivans, etc.」

If you flipped that around, it also meant that any other people were a no-go. On their last mission of being escorts, Makoto and Haruna had been riding on horses outside, while Mio had been on standby in another carriage. Most importantly, there was the tension accompanied by their mission, so even inside the carriage it was doubtful that it would have been an issue.

But this time around, it was more of a carefree drive. He wasn’t being particularly careful as they were moving. Tatsuya and Makoto were the only ones with licenses, switching places every two hours in the backseat, whereas Hiroshi had remained in the back, maintaining his distance. They were close to what you would refer to as bosom buddies, and the frequent, low-tension act of changing seats did a great job at ensuring that no one felt stressed out.

「Then how okay are you with coming into contact with women?」

「Mmm. If it’s when we do things like shake hands or exchange money, it’s fine.」

「I’d say that sounds a lot better than before, wouldn’t you?」

「Well, I never had too much of an issue with that even when I got here, but I guess ya can say that it’s a start for me to be able to not flinch when directly facin’ people. I still don’t like them crowds, but a normal day in Wulls ain’t nothin’.」

Tatsuya meant what he said, even if Hiroshi himself wasn’t as certain. If you were to compare this to the time in which he would have a panic attack every time he saw a female (regardless of family or age) and had to get the special privilege of accelerating time in the VR world to the limit his brain could handle, using the remaining time for counseling, it was phenomenal to hear that he no longer had to put himself on guard for every social encounter.

He had not yet reached the point where there were no more hindrances in everyday life. In fact, this little change was nearly meaningless in the fabric of daily life. However, the fact that some progress had finally manifested itself in this two year long phobia was without a doubt a groundbreaking event.

「But wow, this forest is already crazy enough, but that large southern road is something else. How many days would that normally take?」

「I dunno, but if yer usin’ a coach ‘n the like, yer lookin’ at maybe more than a month, I’d say.」

「And if it were a golem version then maybe it’d take slightly less longer, eh?」

The contents of the casual conversation shifted to the southern road they had plowed along three days ago. You would usually expect a conversation relating to their type of women, but Tatsuya already had a wife and was not looking for anyone, and Hiroshi swore by 2-D women as long as they did not attack men, so no matter what, there was no way to start a conversation on that matter. Sure, maybe a conversation about sexual desires, but none of those ones lasted more than a short answer, so there was no sense in discussing anything regarding the opposite sex.

「Yeah, that there golem car has quite the speed.」

「About 60km/h?」

「Yup, sounds about right.」

Transportation in this world was a lot quicker than the typical fantasy world. Maybe not for people riding in carriages, but wagons with luggage had plenty of suspension that they used, so caravans actually moved at a fairly high speed. The only people who moved slowly by foot were poor adventurers who could not raise horses or find sufficient funds for stagecoaches.

Maybe not in the city, but when they were on the road, everyone would always move at merciless speeds. With such speed, the value of the southern road was probably very high.

「But ya definitely can’t git faster ‘n 80 km/h with current human tech.」

「Well yeah. Golem carriages are what everyone wants after all.」

「Plus that minivan of ours is mighty tasty to everyone who saw it.」

「Aren’t golem carriages practically inexpensive to maintain?」

「I dunno, I think it depends. Cause what we’re usin’ are dynamic crystals ‘n good auto magic refills, plus it also has auto repair, collision avoidance and an inertia regulation barrier, so we’re doin’ fine, but I bet them cheap golems require frequent maintenance on their axles ‘n whatnot.」

With that being said, just by having the perk of not having to take care of the golem like you would a horse made everything much better. If a skilled craftsman made golems that could last decades and still not break, it was very understandable why someone would want a golem at some point.

You could even say that golem riders were the champions of all land riders.

「So what was all this talk about current human tech? Are you referring to monsters?」

「Sure am. Welp, there’re hardly any around, but I’ve heard of monsters that can carry people at speeds up to 200 km/h, or people that control dragons that can soar over this road in just a day.」

「Wow, that’s crazy……」

It was true that if you rode on a wyvern, they could probably reach the other side of the road from anywhere between 8 and 10 hours with time to spare. With that being said, unfortunately, not a single member of their team had any skills for taming. Maybe something could be done for airplanes or helicopters, but if not, then they would likely not be moving through the sky anytime soon. There was a great risk in using flight magic.

「You think we could see the elven settlement from the sky?」

「Not like they’re hidin’ nothin’, so I betcha could depending on the scale.」

「I wonder what the elf villages over here are like.」

「After seein’ Teres, I don’t really feel like the image we have in our heads or our expectations are gonna be met. Might be real disappointing.」

As they gazed up at the stars peeking out from the silhouettes of the trees, they waited for the girls to finish with their bath. Despite saying that they would probably be disappointed, that did not change the fact that everyone’s expectations were in fact increasing at the prospect of finally being able to see an elven village.