SIAW Vol. 2 Chapter 4
Chapter 4 – Confirming Misha’s Intentions
In the kitchen, I made breakfast and lunch too.
Making ample use of the produce I had harvested during the training period, I cooked up a healthy and delicious menu.
Just as I was finished, Sil popped inside the kitchen, enticed by the smell.
It was still before six, but the timing was right, I thought.
“Let’s have breakfast. Sil. go wake Misha up, please.”
Sil promptly hopped out of the kitchen.
I went to the dining room and served the meal on the table.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
I had sent Sil to wake Misha up, but even after the clock passed six, no one was coming.
Just as I stood up to go check on them, Sil came back into the room.
He looked tired, for some reason. Maybe waking Misha up had been an ordeal. As a reward for his hard work, I gave him a larger portion of Horn Rabbit stew.
My breakfast was tomato and leafy greens salad, Horb Rabbit grilled with aromatic herbs, bread and orange juice.
The early bird catches the worm, as they say!
Sil and I decided to wait no further and started eating.
The rabbit stew had a particular smell, so I was worried Sil might not like it, but contrary to my expectations he started chomping vigorously.
～
Then, about thirty minutes later…
Sil and I were almost done with our meals, when Misha appeared in the dining room.
“Hey, why are you eating by yourselves!? It’s not fair!”
Misha was clearly in a foul mood.
I didn’t care for her tone, but I held back.
“We wouldn’t have if you got up earlier, though?”
Misha puffed up her cheeks.
I had to endure it! For the sake of my training plan!
“I’ll wait in the living room, so come after you finish eating.”
“….okay.”
I turned my back before Misha could reply and headed to the living room.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
While I was waiting for Misha, I gave Sil the things I had crafted overnight. I sat him down on the sofa next to me and took the collar out of the Item Box.
“This collar is proof that you and I are family. You don’t have to wear it no matter what, though. Want to try it on?”
“Woof!!”
Sil eagerly wagged his tail: he seemed to be okay with the proposal.
I put the collar around his neck.
“Does it hurt anywhere?”
“Woof!” (“No hurt!”)
Sil replied with a bark and a mental message at the same time.
I had attached a Mental Message enchantment to the collar, so I wanted to teach him how to do it, but it turned out to be unnecessary.
I had studied about the Mental Message skill and how to attach it to magic tools during training, but there was no one I could practice with on the island, so I wasn’t sure if I could attach and activate it correctly.
The activation seemed to work fine, so now I had to test how far it reached, how much magic power it required, and if it was possible to use it like a chat!
(“Sil, can you hear me?”)
I called Sil through Mental Message.
Sil looked around, puzzled.
(“It’s me, Tenma. I’m talking to you via Mental Message. Do you understand?”)
“Woof!” (“Yes I do!!”)
Sil looked at me and replied.
(“Don’t raise your voice. Try to reply to me, but in your head.”)
“Woof!” (“I’ll try!”)
I said don’t raise your voice…
“Woo…” (“Whoops…”)
(“You did it!”)
“Woof!” (“I did it!!”)
(“You’re talking out loud again!”)
“Whiiine…” (“It’s hard…”)
(“You just need to practice a bit.”)
(“Okay!”)
Looks like he was getting the hang of it!
Well, it was cute that he couldn’t keep completely quiet, so that was fine too…
Just then, I heard a voice from behind me.
“Tenma!”
I turned around and found Misha, calling my name from the living room entrance.
“Oh, finished eating already?”
I raised a hand and replied, but for some reason Misha had a sour look on her face.
“Yes, but…hey, Tenma, you know that Sil is a monster, right?”
Before I realized it, I had been holding Sil and talking to him, our noses almost touching. Was she talking about this?
“Of course I know. Anyway, since you finished eating, let’s talk in the dining room.”
Misha sighed at my words, for some reason, and turned around.
Perplexed, I followed her, with Sil in tow.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
Back in the dining room, I noticed that the dishes were clean: Misha had properly washed them, apparently.
I stored them away, used Clear on the table and sat across from Misha.
She still looked in a sour mood, but I paid that no mind and started talking.
“First of all, let’s go over our plans from now on.”
Misha, however, raised a hand, as if to stop me.
“Please wait Tenma, there’s something I want to talk about before that.”
“Eh? What?”
Hmm, I had an idea what it was going to be…well, it was important to speak our mind, after all…
“We are going to work as adventurers together, right?”
“Yes, that’s the plan.”
Well, raising…er, training you comes first, though.
“We should eat together, then. That’s how it normally is. I think the way you treated me this morning was horrible!”
I couldn’t say I didn’t understand where she was coming from, but…
I sighed and opened my mouth to reply.
“Plenty of time had passed since Sil went to wake you up. We had to wait till you finally decided to come?”
“That’s true, but…you could have waited for me!”
“I stayed up all night to make preparations, and made breakfast too. Despite that, I have to be accused by you? After you couldn’t even get up after we called you?”
“B-But…”
Misha didn’t object anymore, but she didn’t seem to be reflecting on her mistakes at all.
I used all the understanding granted by my forty-eight years old mental age and tried to appease her.
“It’s true that I told you to take a good rest, but I also said that we were going to start training seriously from today, didn’t I? If you’re going to start living as an adventurer, getting up early is part of training too, isn’t it? Moreover, adventurers take turns eating sometimes when camping out, so someone can stand watch at all times. It doesn’t seem to me it’s so “normal” to always eat together. It’s a lot more important to be able to act at any time, to be ready whenever something happens.”
Did I get too preachy, maybe? Before I could say anything else, though, Misha came up with a desperate retort.
“B-But the Room is safe!”
“Yes, maybe, but that doesn’t mean it will always be. Besides, I don’t agree with letting your guard down just because it is safe here. Room is my ability anyway, not yours.”
Misha looked down, and did not say another word.
I wasn’t being especially mean to her: but if she didn’t fully realize what it meant to become an adventurer, and the resolve it required, she was going to regret it down the line.
“As I told you before, I’m perfectly fine with adventuring solo. If you just plan to use me, and not put in any effort by yourself, we can’t go on together. I’m sorry to say that you’d have to go back to the village.”
I waited, but Misha didn’t say anything.
H-Had I been too harsh…? I tried waiting for a sign, and eventually Misha raised her head, slowly. On her face…a single tear traced her cheeks.
I guess I had said too much…
“Sniffle…I’m sorry.”
Misha apologized, between her tears.
I had barely ever interacted with women in my past life: naturally, I had never made one cry either.
I was pretty shaken inside, but kept telling myself that it was something we had to talk about, sooner or later.
I couldn’t just do nothing, while she cried like that in front of me, though.
I spoke up, trying my best to hide how insecure I felt.
“I was a bit too harsh, maybe…but if we are going to be adventurers together, I think it’s important to speak frankly like this too, so…”
Aah crap! That’s the best I can do!?
Misha, however, nodded fervently.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
When Misha calmed down a bit, we resumed the conversation.
“Let’s pick up where we left off, then. First, I’d like you to train the whole day in ALA today. To become an adventurer, it’s important to raise your base stats, after all. I’ll let you know the details about the training itself as we go along. I have to do maintenance on ALA today, but I’ll be around to help out. Tomorrow we’ll go to Ronda and stay the night there for two or three days. We’ll decide what to do during our stay once we get there, all right?”
Misha’s expression did not change much, as usual, but she listened and nodded.
Just to be sure, I asked her a question.
“I want to give top priority to training you, since I’m worried that at your current level you might have trouble once we start doing adventuring work. What do you think?”
“Got it!”
I nodded and pressed forward.
“So I want to ask, what kind of adventurer do you want to become?”
“A strong adventurer that can travel to all sorts of places!”
Misha answered immediately.
Okay…did she actually think about it, even for a moment…?
Mentally covering my eyes with my palms, I tried phrasing the question differently.
“…so, I’ll give you a few examples. Can you pick the one that you feel is the closest?”
Misha nodded and I raised my index finger.
“Number one: an adventurer about as strong as Ranga or Gust. You could get to this level just by training normally, without much difficulty”
I gave the example with the lowest hurdle first, to see how she’d react.
Ranga gave up being an adventurer and returned to the Pioneers’ Village to protect it, while Gust was a rank C adventurer. Picking this option would set a goal much lower than my training plan…so I was thinking, when —
“No way!!”
Ooh, she threw that out immediately!
Internally sighing in relief, I raised my middle finger next.
“Number two: an adventurer rank B or higher. This would mean intensive training for one month, then leveling up as we take actual quests. If you work hard enough, you might even get to rank A one day.”
Even without using “doping”, just by raising her base abilities she should be able to gain pretty decent stats.
Misha seemed to be listening with more interest this time,
I then raised my ring finger and gave her the third option — the one I wanted to aim for.
“Lastly, an adventurer rank A or higher. Choosing this path means undertaking pretty harsh training. You would not be able to level up or do any actual adventuring until I say so, and just raise your base stats. How strong you will get depends completely on you!”
I hope she picks the third one…
Trying to hide my expectations as much as possible, I continued.
“Which one are you going to choose, Misha?”
She seemed to be thinking about it seriously.
A little while later, she opened her mouth to speak.
“I want the third…but if we don’t start doing adventuring work soon, it will trouble you…”
She’s considering other people’s circumstances! What an improvement!
It’s a better response than I’d hoped. I needed to check other things, though.
“You don’t have to worry about troubling me. But if you pick the third option, you can’t change your mind later. If you say you want to stop before we finish, or sleep in late like today, you’ll have to give up on adventuring and go back to the village. Is your resolve strong enough?”
Show me what you’re made of!! Misha!!!
After thinking for a bit, Misha answered — with her usual blank expression.
“It is!! I’ll do my best!!!”
YES!! I can finally start my fox girl training project!!
I feared things were going south for a moment, but my ideal prospect finally became reality: I couldn’t be more satisfied with the outcome,
If I used my training style with Misha, who had natural talents and aptitudes different from mine, how was she going to grow up? I couldn’t wait to find out.
Hehehe…I’m going to enjoy testing this, and that, and that too…
The only issue is whether she can keep up or not.
“Okay then, let’s work at it together!”
“Yes, please!”
Relieved to hear Misha was motivated, I exchanged a high five with her.