The main street area of the thirty-fifth floor was lined with houses with white walls and red roofs, giving the town a peaceful, rural charm. It was not a large town, but right now it served as the main hunting ground for mid-level players, so plenty of people came and went.
Silica's base was in Frieven Village on the eighth floor, but she had never bought a house of her own. In the end, there was not much difference between staying at one town inn or another. The most important thing was how good the inn's dinner tasted.
On that point, Silica was very fond of the cheesecake made by the NPC chef at this inn, so she had been staying here since two weeks before she started clearing the Forest of Wandering.
Silica led Yurnero through the main street. As soon as they reached the Teleport Gate plaza, players she knew immediately came over to talk to her. They had apparently already heard that Silica was free again, and had come to invite her into their parties.
"U-Um... thank you very much for inviting me, but..."
Trying her hardest not to make anyone feel offended, Silica kept her head lowered and desperately refused them. She glanced at Yurnero, who was standing idly nearby, and continued.
"I'll be partying with this person for a while, so..."
The players surrounding Silica let out complaints like, "Huh?" and "Come on!" while casting suspicious looks at the guy.
Although Silica had already seen part of Yurnero's strength, just looking at him standing there with nothing to do, he did not seem strong at all.
Especially since he was not wearing any armor that looked high-level. He looked ragged, as if he had no armor at all beneath that plain hooded coat from some shop. Forget a shield. She could not even see a main weapon on him. This was not a question of whether it looked cool or not. If a weapon was not equipped on his body, he should not have been able to fight at all.
"Hey! You."
The tall sword user, who had been the most eager to invite her, walked up to him and spoke while looking down at him.
"I've never seen you before, but could you not cut in line? We've been inviting that girl for ages!"
"Mm."
Yurnero answered simply, completely indifferent.
It wouldn't hurt to push back a little more...
Silica felt somewhat helpless, but she spoke to the sword user.
"Um, I'm the one who asked him to party with me. I'm sorry."
After giving a deep bow, she pulled Yurnero away. To get away from the group of male players who still refused to give up, waving and calling after them, Silica walked very quickly across the Teleport Gate plaza and into the main street stretching north.
Only after the players were finally out of sight did Silica let out a sigh of relief and look up at Yurnero's face.
"I-I'm sorry for causing you trouble."
"It's fine."
He looked completely unconcerned.
"You're pretty popular."
"Just call me Silica. It's not like that. They must have only invited me because they wanted to treat me like a mascot. It was clearly just that... but I got proud because of it, thought I could break through the forest by myself... and that's why that happened."
The moment she thought of Pina, tears naturally welled up in her eyes again.
"It's all right."
His calm voice spoke.
"Don't worry. She'll revive, if that mechanism really exists."
Soon, they saw a two-story building on the right side of the road, larger than the others. It was the inn where Silica was staying, the Weathercock Pavilion. Only then did Silica realize she had brought him here without asking him anything.
"Um, Yurnero-san, where is your base...?"
"I don't have anything like a base. Anywhere is fine."
"I see..."
This person... was he a little too withdrawn?
Still, she tried to brighten the mood.
"The cheesecake here is really good!"
Just as she said that and tugged his coat sleeve, about to enter the inn, a female player stepped out of the nearby item shop. Silica's eyes reflexively met hers.
"..."
She was the person Silica least wanted to see right now. The lance user who had caused the argument in the Forest of Wandering and made her leave the party. Silica had planned to lower her head and enter the inn without saying anything.
"Oh my, if it isn't Silica."
But the other woman greeted her first, so Silica had no choice but to stop.
"...Hello."
"Oh? You managed to get out of the forest. That's wonderful."
The female player named Rosalia had bright red wavy hair and heavy makeup. Her lips twisted into a smile.
"But you came back too late. We already finished dividing up the items just now."
"I told you I didn't need them! I have something else to do."
Silica tried to cut the conversation short, but the other woman had no intention of letting her go so easily. When Rosalia noticed that Silica's shoulder was empty, an unpleasant smile appeared on her face.
"Oh? What happened to that lizard?"
Silica bit her lip hard. A familiar could not be stored in the item inventory, nor could it be left somewhere else. In other words, there was only one reason a familiar would not be seen beside its Beast Tamer. Rosalia knew that perfectly well, yet she still smiled faintly.
"Oh my. Don't tell me...?"
"It died... but!"
Silica glared fiercely at the lance user.
"Pina will definitely revive!"
Rosalia, who had been smiling with satisfaction, widened her eyes slightly and whistled.
"Oh, so that means you're planning to go to the Hill of Memories. But can someone at your level really clear it?"
"You're blocking my way."
Before Silica could answer, Yurnero quietly spoke from beside her while searching through his pocket for something.
Rosalia openly looked him up and down, then her red lips curved into another mocking smile.
"Have you been charmed by that girl too? She isn't as strong as she looks, and you look weak yourself. I'm warning you out of kindness here. Your life matters more, you know? Besides, she's just a little girl. You probably couldn't even talk about anything a little more adult with her, right? Why not join my party instead?"
He did not answer her. After rummaging around for a while, Yurnero pulled out a cigarette case and lit one on his own.
Rosalia frowned, displeased.
"Hey, I'm talking to you..."
"Get lost."
The man inhaling nicotine suddenly spat out one word.
"Wha...?"
Rosalia's eyes widened.
Apparently, that much was still not enough to settle the exchange. Yurnero raised his head and looked at Rosalia, speaking as casually as ever.
"You're in my way, and I happen not to have a habit of making way for other people. So get lost."
Obvious anger surged across Rosalia's face, but before anything else could happen.
"Let's go."
Yurnero placed a hand on the shoulder of the bewildered Silica and led her, forcing his way past them into the inn.
"I'll remember you, bastard."
A voice unwilling to back down came from behind them, but neither of them looked back.
The first floor of the Weathercock Pavilion was a spacious dining hall. After having Silica sit at a table in the back, Yurnero walked to the counter where an NPC stood, completed the lodging registration, quickly selected items from the menu on the counter, and returned to the table.
Silica had been about to apologize to the person sitting across from her for making things unpleasant because of her, but just as she opened her mouth, Yurnero lifted his mug of dark beer and started drinking.
A server also brought over a steaming cup of milk and placed it in front of Silica.
Yurnero said, "This is fine for a kid," and Silica helplessly took a sip of the warm liquid.
An awkward silence fell between them. One side wanted to find a topic, while the other remained uninterested the whole time. The way he held onto the beer mug and refused to put it down really made him look like an office worker drinking away the frustration of a bad day.
Before long, even after the mug was empty, Yurnero still held it against his chest for quite a while, unwilling to part with the alcohol. Then he simply ordered another one.
Silica silently watched him and thought again of those people from earlier. Finally, she spoke as if talking to herself.
"Why... do people say such cruel things...?"
Yurnero glanced at her, showing the first faint smile she had seen from him since they met, though it held no warmth. He set the mug down.
"Are you talking about me?"
"No... not exactly. They count too, though."
"Did you forget? This is a massive role-playing game. There are plenty of players whose personalities change once they put on a character's appearance. Some become good people, some become bad. But in the end, the unforgettable ones are those who never changed at all. Instead, because that outer layer protects them, they let their instincts loose even more."
The man across from her seemed to be remembering something.
"Bad people who lie aren't worth fearing. They're just petty. The real enemies are the ones who dare to follow their own malice through to the end. That kind of obsession may even deserve admiration. Doing nothing and daring nothing is what's truly sad."
"There was once a man like that. He wielded an invincible halberd and drove those who did nothing into a corner, only to leisurely say farewell in the end."
"...That was strange of me to say."
He noticed Silica's expression, frightened by the force behind his words.
"You don't need to take it to heart."
Silica vaguely sensed that the person before her was carrying some deep emotion. Her instincts told her to comfort him somehow, but she was so lost for words that she could not express what she wanted to say.
"Yurnero-san is a good person... I mean, you saved me."
In the end, that was all she could say.
The man chuckled and shook his head, then started drinking his dark beer again.
"U-Um, it won't always feel this painful, you know?"
Silica hurriedly added.
"You're still young. How did you come to think that?"
"Then how old are you, Yurnero-san?"
"I can't remember... twenty-one, maybe?"
He frowned.
"As long as I don't celebrate birthdays, I don't really feel myself getting older."
"Then you should act more mature. Don't let childish things bother you."
"Every age comes with its own worries. That's why people never have it all that easy in life."
He let out a long sigh.
"Mm..."
Silica held her forehead in distress.