Volume 2, Snippet 1.2
Volume 2, Snippet 1.2
Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes
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「Whas an outsider like ye want here?」
A man with a height of 60 cm and fairy tale-like butterfly wings asked in a clearly cautious manner (along with a thick accent). Makoto couldn’t make heads or tails of this spectacle. Tatsuya, on the other hand, had seemingly prepared himself for this, showing no signs of being affected. In addition, he had also noticed lots of fairies hiding where neither him nor his group could see.
「Dese two be guests from Ortem.」
「Dey saved Artiem, ya see.」
「Can dey be trusted?」
Tatsuya couldn’t help agree with the scrutinizing eyes of the fairies. They were outsiders after all. Fairies differed depending on the work or legend, but it wasn’t rare at all for them to be cautious. In fact, that pretty much defined the majority of elves……
「Artiem herself says dis.」
「Ye sure they ain’t threatenin’ her to act dat way?」
「Dat’s rude, yer talkin’ about da elf village chief.」
Ignoring the conversation between Goivejon and the fairies, Makoto casually searched the perimeter with her eyes. There wasn’t any particular reason for this; it was just on a whim. She was low on the sensory scale, but she still had a decent intuition from all the times she had fought on the front lines in the game.
「Hey, Tatsuya.」
「What’s up?」
「Doesn’t that look like a monster to you?」
What Makoto had sneakily pointed at was some greenery that was snaking up a tree, pretending to be vines. Not only was the position weird; there weren’t nearly enough of them. If it were Hiroshi or Mio they probably would have immediately found it out to be a monster, but with Makoto’s perception, she was too doubtful of her own ability to see through tricky monsters like that without giving things a test.
「What to do? Just go ahead and defeat it?」
「Yeah. Dunno what breed of monster it is, but taking care of it right now is probably for the best.」
Leaving behind Goivejon and the fairies arguing, they decided to go and check out the suspicious set of vines, which seemed to have moved even closer without them noticing. As planned, Makoto got closer to the outstretched vines, cutting them down with a scythe. As soon as she got closer to the main body……
「Whaddya doin’!?」
A female fairy who had been secretly spying on them jumped out.
「Ah! You idiot!」
Makoto instinctively screamed out at the fairy. The moment she had paused her attack, the vine switched its target and pounced on the fairy to consume her. The minute it ensared the fairy, Makoto lopped it off with her scythe.
「It’s dangerous, get back!」
Scolding the fairy for recklessly jumping in front of the monster, Makoto lopped off what seemed to be the main body of the monster. Carefully observing the vined greenery that had quickly withered in one hit, she breathed a sigh of relief when she concluded that it didn’t appear to be propagating.
「This thing isn’t your idea of a gatekeeper, is it?」
The fairy male shook his head in response. Meanwhile, the female’s face had gone well beyond pale to a pure white color from the shock of having nearly been eaten.
「This all seems really shady. Think we should go around cutting some more grass?」
「No, I’d say it wouldn’t be very smart to continue acting on our own like this.」
「Right. Not like we’re being welcomed too much as it is. I’d hate for them to get any strange ideas about us.」
The fairies had indescribable expressions on their faces as they watched this exchange. Right at that moment
「Whatcha fussin’ about over dere?」
A fairly well-to-do male fairy appeared from within the village. Judging from his atmosphere, he seemed to be one of the leaders in their fairy society.
「I was tryna chase off dese outsiders that Goivejon brought here.」
「But dey’re Artiem’s rescuers. What’s wrong wid dem comin’ along?」
「I’m sayin’ dey aren’t ta be trusted.」
「Forto, stop it!」
Forto, with whom this new fairy had been speaking with, was scolded.
「Sorry about that, kind guests. See, we’re a weak race in comparison to goblins, except for when it comes to magic. Not too many of us either, so there ain’t never enough caution.」
「Well yeah, normally you’d act that way…」
「If anything, those elves are way too lax.」
「So there you have it. It’s perfectly normal to be on your guard, so we’re not offended in the slightest.」
Smiling wryly at the male’s apology, the two of them made it clear that they didn’t mind. The fairy soon looked relieved as he heard that and saw how they were acting.
「Zeon, why ye apologizin’ to dese suspicious outsiders!?」
「Forto, I already told you that’s being rude!」
「Still!」
「If ye doubt everytin’ an everybody an push away any ol’ outsider who could be a potential ally, we’ll be da ones sufferin’ for it in da end!」
Zeon and Forto were conversing in the typical kind of conversation you would expect from a fantasy race, albeit with a thick accent. Put onto paper, it would be relatively easy to read what they were saying, but in actuality, not only was their intonation strange, but some of their phrases became muddy in the weirdest places, so it was surprising difficult to make out what they were saying.
「Can’t say I’m surprised at the kind of conversations they have, though.」
「Do they always act this way?」
「Ya see?」
「Forto, yer so stubborn despite bein’ so young.」
「But ye ain’t much differn, Zeon.」
The aforementioned “outsiders” just gazed exasperatedly at the escalating argument. Forto was the same as before, but even Zeon was beginning to have a similar tone. To differentiate between the two of them, it seemed that Zeon’s claim was that regardless of whether he trusted or did not trust these new people, he ought to at least show his gratitude for the deed they had accomplished. So he was a bit more outwardly focused. Still, his stance of thoroughly doubting outsiders and not initially accepting them was essentially the same, plus he also seemed to concur that a little favor was not enough to accept someone.
Judging from the looks of this fight, it would appear that Zeon and Forto were not above or below each other in rank. Clearly, if there had been a slight difference, even Forto would not have been able to simply lash out like that.
「Sayin’ stuff like dat in front o’the guests is meaningless.」
「Yup yup.」
You could say that Goivejon and Foeldan’s conversation was also pointless and idiotic.
「Okay, things seem to be heading in a bad direction, so how about we put down the liquor from the goblin chief and get the heck out of here?」
「Right. Not like us being here makes much of a difference anyway.」
As they were discussing these things, the pale-faced fairy girl from earlier was staring heatedly at Zeon and Forto out of nowhere.
Both males were the top of their class when it came to being attractive fairies. Females from the same species would no doubt find it hard to control themselves. Be as it may, Makoto could sense that this wasn’t quite the case this time around.
「Hey, can I ask you something?」
「Whacha want?」
「Just something I’m a bit curious about……」
「Ye askin’ about why I haven’t thanked ye yet? It’s true ye saved us, ‘n I’m thankful fer dat, but dat doesn’t mean I gotta recognize ye.」
Her face reddening, the fairy girl awkwardly searched for a pretext. To properly translate this, it would be something like「I never said you had to save me, okay? But thanks.」Normally you would wonder why she was on such a high horse, but her mannerisms and tone completely betrayed her true feelings. The supplemental sound channel was clearly「Thanks, sorry.」, so for otakus like Tatsuya and Makoto, this was truly a sight to behold.
Makoto nearly stopped moving when she heard that amazingly tsundere string of words, but decided to get back on track.
「No, I could care less about being thanked. It’s just that the way you were looking at those two was a bit curious to me.」
「Ye got a problem wit dat?」
「No no no.」
Makoto frantically waved her hands with a wide smile on her face in response to the fairy’s sudden aggressive demeanor. She then approached her and whispered at a volume that wouldn’t be overheard.
「Zeon-san and Forto-san, was it? If you had to choose between the two of them, which one do you think would look good on top?」
「……!?」
「At least in my case, it looks a lot like Zeon-san is strong on the dom whereas Forto-san is strong on the sub.」
「Dom? Sub?」
「Ah～、right, this is probably too much jargon for her to understand……」
Slightly remorseful when she saw the fairy’s reaction, Makoto began to spew out some more unnecessary things. Her face reddening at Makoto’s explanation, the girl fairy did her best to listen intently. Before they knew it, there were three more female fairies listening in. Quite pleased by this, Makoto slipped out a paper and began drawing on it with incredible detail, hard to even tell it was free-hand. And of course, the drawing depicted a naked Zeon and Forto.
「Makoto after we give a quick greeting to the chief, we’re outta here.」
「Ah, okay, got it.」
By this point, a huge throng of female fairies had developed around Makoto, who had become rather engrossed in her conversation. Tatsuya, who had kept his distance from this overwhelming fujoshi aura, had apparently decided it was time to head out. After her proselytizing and last-minute work had all but ended, Makoto was getting ready to begin an exciting discussion when she was brought back to reality.
「Hey, Makoto……」
「What?」
「I don’t know what you were discussing over there, but you’re not trying to give them any weird ideas, right?」
「Relax, relax. I was just trying to strengthen our bonds.」
Tatsuya wanted to ask “what bonds?” but was too fearful to ask. Later that night, he would come to the realization that fairies had an affinity for “that” kind of thing and become rather dejected, but he had no way of knowing this at the moment.