Volume 2, Extra 3.1
Volume 2, Extra 3.1
Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes
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Side Story 3
“Let’s get up an’ at ‘em in the field!”
“Yeah!”
As Hiroshi called out with a hoe in one hand, Haruna and Mio followed with strange enthusiasm. The gardens that used to be the slums of Wulls were now getting to the point where Hiroshi’s party could delegate the management.
“The soil’s just about done. Once we plant the seeds, we’ll pass it along to Artiem, I reckon.”
“Yes, sir! You can leave it to me!”
Artiem answered with more strange ernesty. The three workers who had been carrying seeds, bulbs, and fertilizer with them watched with distant amusement.
“It’s a little early for plantin’ just yet, but we’re almost done with the vegetables we’d be harvestin’ in summer and fall.”
With that, Hiroshi turned to the seeds of Corn and Reve Beans. They were both plant monsters that tormented farmers, but since they served as good materials for training new soldiers and knights, they had been requested by the government to plant them on the farthest plot.
The Gardens of Wulls were more experimental than not, so it wasn’t like they were going to sow the entirety of their considerably large farmland. The rice farms, which they would start sowing later, for instance, along with the good number of crops that need to be planted around June and harvested during fall and winter.
“We’re almost done with sowin’, people! Keep at it!”
Everyone responded to Hiroshi’s call, starting another day of farmwork.
“The Boss Man’s got a few admirers, huh?”
“Quite a few.”
“Yep. Despite his usual demeanor, girls love him.”
Teres’ group, having finished carrying the bulbs and left with nothing else to do, were grinding down crops and chit-chatting about the familiar sight since Hiroshi had returned, now that they had enough experience in the process not to mess up even if they talked through it.
“To be honest, I was surprised that Artiem came over here, but I was more surprised that Artiem is looking like a schoolgirl with a crush.”
Recalling her sister, who had been toyed by the old ones in the village only because she hadn’t matured as a woman, Teres explained. Despite her body being developed much more than the average elf, Artiem was literally a child when she left the village. She certainly hadn’t expected her to pulvolt up the steps to adulthood within the three years since she had left the village.
“I’m astonished that Haruna-san is clearly self-aware of her feelings.”
“Right, that was surprising.”
“I wonder what happened.”
Nora mentioned another shocking matter. Even before they came to the village of Ortem, Haruna had spent a long time chasing Hiroshi in the time they spent together. Albeit subtle enough that it couldn’t be noticed without careful observation, she had left some impression that she had slightly lost her cool when seeing Hiroshi speaking to other women. The right pair of eyes could not have mistaken Haruna’s feeling for Hiroshi. In fact, it was bizarre how Haruna was so obvious to her own feelings.
Under ordinary circumstances, Hiroshi and Haruna were unbalanced a pair as could be. On one hand, she was an indisputable beautiful woman, despite her few lapse in judgement or awareness. On the other hand, he was a sheepish-by-day, female-phobic and sloppy-looking man with no interest in anything but crafting and cooking. Just as they themselves had said, they would have never come in contact with each other without this extraordinary circumstance.
While this metaphor would go over the heads of Teres and the others, Hiroshi was a typical Nobita, his grades notwithstanding, in both his failures in ordinary life, and his strangely manly demeanor and decisiveness during major incidents, like in the theatrical releases. The only difference, per se, was that he didn’t feel pain in continuing to put in efforts to anything he can’t do, rather than give up on it like Nobita. Of course, the flipside was that Hiroshi couldn’t find the right time to give up on something that he couldn’t do.
That was the couple they were talking about. Ordinarily, they would have had nothing in common. With some inescapable situation where they were struck into a cohabitation, however, it wasn’t impossible for them to, after growing close through their predicament, for the woman to have her protective nature evoked. In fact, Haruna had done exactly that, and had fallen from Hiroshi’s transformation into the reliable man in the time of crisis.
“Elle-sama, I can get.”
“That’s just powerful conditioning.”
“Having her life saved, and then having her stomach controlled? What can a girl do?”
“From what I’ve heard, just about the same thing happened with Artiem.”
“Yep, yep.”
Both Aearis and Artiem have had their lives directly saved by Hiroshi. Aearis, especially had lived under Hiroshi and Haruna’s protection as a normal child of her age; she had grown closer to the two of them more than any conditioning could explain. Even after she regained her status as royalty, she was way deep into Hiroshi, who treated her like anyone else in private without giving any other man a second look.
“Now that I think about it, I’m not too sure about Mio-san.”
“Apparently they were master and apprentice before coming here. A product of time, maybe?”
“Master and apprentice… I think I get it.”
While crafting something, Hirohi exuded a specific kind of powerful allure. His appearance may still be that of an unattractive man, but the air about him and his eyes took care in demolishing that first impression. Witnessing him like that on a daily basis could easily explain how Mio had fallen for Hiroshi.
Teres and the other girls might have been in the same boat, if it weren’t for his ordinary sheepishness and his female-phobia, along with all-too-powerful rivals in the race like Haruna and Aearis. Of course, it wasn’t like they didn’t have positive feelings for Hiroshi, but only in the form of respect. Fum, Lime, and Lila saw him as the person who saved them out of their horrible lives, and the two younger ones kind of saw him as a brother they were proud of, but from their difference in age and status, there was no chance that any of their feelings would lead to romantic feelings.
This was how Hiroshi and Mio’s relationship had been evaluated, but what Mio actually found attractive was the fact that Hiroshi was the first one to be nice to her (other than Tatsuya), despite her macho-y male avatar. They had met mostly out of happenstance, but he had taught her a perfect spot after some other players harassed her while she was grinding, and gave her some essential skills for a safe and efficient Craftsman lifestyle. These events had met an extraordinary amount for Mio, who had hardly had any experience with other people.
Of course, for people in this world who don’t even have recorded videos or television, let alone VR MMOs, none of that was understandable. It was no wonder that the girls didn’t understand how Mio developed her (albeit miniscule) romantic feelings for Hiroshi.
“It’s all fun and games to us, but poor Artiem.”
“She’s after a female-phobic guy, even though he’s improving. With three powerful rivals, too.”
“Poor Boss Man, who keeps getting advances from women.”
“Oh…”
Fum and Teres couldn’t help but realize at Nora’s insight. In fact, much of the admiration directed toward Hiroshi was developed through him acting sheepishly and for the other person even in situations where no one would blame him for not doing so, all because of his phobia. Even without his phobia, he had tried his best to help people when his empathy or sense of responsibility dictated, resulting in improving the impression of women around him and creating a worse hellscape for him.
His act of self-defence for his phobia, in turn, attracted and more and more of that he feared. Because of his phobia, he observed women so closely to the point of understanding them beyond status or title or appearance. Women who find those aspects cumbersome take to that kindly. All he wanted was just enough friendliness to keep from making enemies, but now he was sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksand. It was quite pitiful to the observers of his situation.
“In any case, I guess I’m rooting for Artiem, my hometown girl.”
“Haruna-san, for me. I think that’s the best outcome for Boss Man.”
“Elle-sama, hands down. She’s my friend, after all.”
“Then no one’s rooting for Mio-san?”
“Well, neither are you, Nora.”
“With her eagerness right now, I couldn’t. She has to mature enough to understand Boss Man’s situation at least as much as we do. Otherwise, I feel too bad for the Boss Man to root for her.”
This bunny-eared girl was harsh even to her close friend. The other two couldn’t really counter this argument, as they were practically thinking the same thing.
“I mean, we can root for them but we can’t really do anything.”
Fum said with some sense of understanding as she took away debris from the grounded materials they were working on. At the end of the day, they were just the audience. Even if they wanted to root for someone with their actions, who knew how they could do that for Hiroshi’s extremely complicated love life. In the first place, even with her emotional growth that stemmed through her hard life, Fum was still a child. What could she do when she had no romantic experience herself?
“We’re not in a place to talk about other people’s love life, to begin with…”
“We have to find our own match before we bicker about anyone else’s.”
Teres and Nora, who were both approaching marital age, couldn’t help but mutter, teary-eyed, at their horribly dry love life. They were more attractive than average, and had a good amount of admirers, but now that they were enveloped in the fulfilment of their jobs, they couldn’t help but compare any of their potential suitors to Hiroshi and Tatsuya. Hiroshi aside, most anyone would be a reject in comparison to Tatsuya.
“I wonder if there’s some great, available guy around some corner…”
“If they’re great, they won’t be available.”
“Right…”
“But as long as we work here, we can’t date just anybody.”
“The bar’s set high, for sure…”
“Rough seas ahead…”
Teres and Nora, still tearful, looked to the distance at the harsh predicament they were put in.