The Interview
As I waited in the owner’s room, I heard a knock at the door.
It looks like the two part-timers arrived.
“Come in.”
When I gave permission for them to enter…
“Excuse me~!”
“Excuse me.”
The door swung open rather vigorously, and a dog entered with a… rabbit? I don’t know for sure, but an olive brown-eared, big boobed, animal-eared adventurer in a gym uniform entered alongside a blonde dog-eared girl with glasses who wore a white doctor’s robe. Both of their ears were tipped with white fur.
They’d changed out of the maid cosplay outfit that was the inn’s uniform, but what was with their current outfits? Their characters are deep from the start, oi.
“… Amazing looks you two have going there.”
“Nkyuu! These clothes are super easy to move in! Found them in the dungeon!” [1]
“Yeah, it’s the same for me. These feel considerably functional. They might have cost several gold coins if I bought them in the Imperial Capital.”
Ah, come to think of it, I put those as dungeon treasures huh. Gym clothes, doctor robes, glasses, that sort of stuff. I didn’t think that anyone would actually wear them though, but it is a fact that the Imperial Capital does sell stuff weird stuff like these… eh? Wait. Why did I suddenly feel a chill down my back?
Eh, well, alright. It’s our first meeting, so I’ll start with a self introduction.
“I’m Kehma, this village’s Village Chief and working as a secretary to the inn’s owner. Sorry for not being able to participate in the interview from a few days ago, but I had some business to take care of at the time. Umm, sorry, what are your names?”
“I’m Setsuna—a grappler. You look tired?” [2]
“I’m Nayuta, an alchemist. Pleased to meet you, Village Chief-san. Do you want medicine that would allow you to work for twenty-three hours a day?”
… What sort of demonic medicine is that? Heck no! Also, isn’t stuff like that addictive?
“It’s just some nutritious drinks, there aren’t any side effects. An energy drink for concentration and a stamina drink for endurance. Its effects are weaker than a potion’s though, so the amount it recovers isn’t quite as visible, but its cost performance is great. Anyone can make use of an alchemist with some skill to them.”
Sounds wicked. In various meanings.
“Let’s see, you two were adventurers right? Why are you here?”
“We walked here!”
Not that.
As I held back my retort to Setsuna’s immediate response, Nayuta answered.
It’ll probably be better to listen to her explanation.
“Umm, I’m in a party with my sister, but our original plan was to pass through here and head to Sia. Then when we got to the village, it was way bigger than the info we had about it said. The dungeon was unexpectedly great, so we decided to earn a bit from it. As you see, we got something good.”
Looks like suddenly changing your plans like that is common for adventurers. Not many of them plan things out too thoroughly. When it looks like they can earn money somewhere, they do. When it looks like they can’t, they pass on by.
A very undecided schedule, huh.
“… Hmm. So, you’re sisters? You look fairly different though?”
“My sister and I have different fathers. We’re half-sisters… I’d be happy if you didn’t ask about our family matters too much.”
Sisters with a different father huh… Looks like they have a complicated background, probably shouldn’t touch on that subject.
By the way, contrasting Nayuta’s golden retriever-like blonde hair, Setsuna has some seriously beast-like brown hair.
“By the way, although I’m a dog beastkin, my sister is half dog half rabbit. Most often, beastkin will become one of their parents’ kind, but although rarely, mixes can be born too.”
“Dograbbit. I’m a rare mixed breed!”
With that, Setsuna turned around and showed me her tail. It really did look like it was averaged out between a rabbit’s an a dog’s.
Beastkin mixed breeds. So those exist? Now that she mentions it, I can see Nayuta’s bushy dog tail even from her front, but I couldn’t see Setsuna’s tiny fluff until she turned around.
I wonder if a cat and dog would make a catdog, or a lion and tiger a liger…
Now I kind of want to know, would a horse and deer make an idiot? [3]
“Is it alright if I ask why you two became adventurers?”
“Nkyuu, Nayuta, you explain.”
“It’s not much of a story. Our village was extinguished by monsters. Common enough right? Ah, you should be careful about that black wolf.”
“A-ah, the black wolf? It came last winter. I don’t know if it’ll come again.”
“… Is that so.”
Nayuta furrowed her brows, fixing the position of her glasses as though to conceal it.
If Rin were here, it could help out with making a setting where they get their revenge in the dungeon.
I don’t know what would happen after that though.
“So, what do you think about working at our inn?”
“It’s great! There’s lots of tasty stuff and we even have time to go into the dungeon.”
“We’d be thankful if you decide to continue employing us for a while. There are various rare magic tools you can get from the dungeon that I’m super interested in as an alchemist. You even got the register and massage chair from it right?”
“Yeah. I’ll hire you to continue working, but if you want, would you like to be employed here permanently and settle down here? There aren’t many young female adventurers, the village would welcome you.”
Currently, the ratio between men and women in Golen Village is around seven-to-three. That’s including our inn.
Most adventurers are men to start with. There are people who migrated from Sia with their wives, but I should be making it possible for the villagers to be able to look for marriage partners as the Village Chief yeah?
“That sounds good too, the food here is amazing. What do you think, Nayuta?”
“Right, I’ll think about it. This place could be our base we settle down in.”
I didn’t expect much, but it looks like they’ll mostly willing.
“Other than that, do you have any requests or questions? Like a wage raise, things like that.”
“Free meals and inn fees are enough for wages… My sister eats a lot, so it’s really helpful.”
“Nkyuu, I’m ashamed. Sorry for being a no-good sisteeeeer…”
“Yeah yeah. I do have a question, though… who is Kuro-senpai? A brilliant assassin? Ahh, umm, you don’t have to answer if it’s something that would risk our lives if you did. I was just a little curious since we have the same ears. It’s really strange that she’s able to fight us head on at that age.”
“Kuro-chan’s super strong! She’s still growing, she’ll almost definitely be an A-Rank adventurer in the future!”
“Ahh, yep. Well, even I don’t really know.”
Kuro, that is, Meat Kuroinu’s origin is unknown even to me, her master. I just know that she’s a dog eared beastkin. Judging by her hair and eye color, I do think she has some hero blood in her though.
At any rate, she’s currently giving 160 DP a day right now. She’s even worth way more than the 85 DP Gozoh, who’s our village’s adventurer representative, is giving. I could get just how abnormal she is from that alone. How’d she get like this? Is she talent personified?
“Right, I haven’t asked about your ranks have I? What are they?”
“We’re both C-Rank. I think we’re as strong as B-Ranks though. We just haven’t taken the promotion exam.”
“Aristocrats are people with tons of troublesome things. You get a lot of taxes when you become B-Rank, so it’s easier to just stay at C-Rank and not be tied down by that stuff. Especially as a beastkin, there’s lots of countries that are annoying about it.”
So it’s like that huh. It feels like I’ve understood the reason why there are so many C-Rank adventurers.
After that, the interview turned into an idle chat for a while before we finished.
The idiotic—… the carefree Setsuna, and the firm Nayuta.
They’re irregular in various ways, but they appear to be balanced as sisters. I can’t help but say that they’re good sisters.
However, I strengthened my vigilance towards the two from this interview.
“That Setsuna… her elder sister dodged my question.”
When I asked why they came, she answered saying they walked. It’s a common enough misunderstanding in Japanese. But in English, ‘why’ is a very different word compared to ‘how’.
Is it like that in this world?
I asked Rokuko.
“—Come to think of it, that was a strange answer, wasn’t it?”
Now then, just who are these sisters?
Footnotes:
Nkyuu = rabbit sound. Return
Setsuna introduces herself as ‘Boku (masculine-ish I)’. She also ends most sentences in ‘nano’. Unlike how I see quite a few JP translators handle this, I won’t be tacking on a ‘-nano’ to the end of her sentences. Return
Horse + Deer (kanji) = Idiot (Baka) For an explanation on its etymology, check this out. Return
Author Note:
* [Japanese -> Translation into other world’s language by the skill -> Re-translate into Japanese with the skill] is SUPER accurate, so even in extreme cases, “Uooooh—!” wouldn’t turn into something like “Fish—!”.