“Hey, mister. The horses are so cute! Slurp.”
“Y-yes, they are,” the young merchant replied, his face still twitching with strain.
Miti-chan was all smiles as she chatted him up. While watching the two of them, the rest of us were killing time with a card game Penpen had handmade—leaving aside any potential trademark issues for the moment.
“Ah, Uno, uo!” Alto chirped.
“Draw 2.”
“Draw 2 combo, ssu!”
“You guys really did it! You totally went and did it, didn’t you, uooooo!?”
Honestly, Penpen was incredible to be able to craft items like this. She’d apparently brought other famous board games like chess, Reversi, and Geister, but since those would fall apart the moment the wagon hit a bump, we decided to save them for later. For a wagon trip, card games you could hold in your hand were the most reliable choice.
Of course, we had regular playing cards too.
“When we get back Home today, I’m going to set magnets into the pieces and a steel plate into the board, ssu! Still, being able to make all sorts of things in this game is really fun. Though, no matter how many games I make, they’re useless if I don’t have anyone to play with, ssu.”
“Playing a game within a game is pretty impressive,” I noted.
“I’m starting to lose track of what the actual game is, uo. It’s a total Gestalt Collapse of games, dao.”
“Making other games inside a game happens pretty often in crafting titles, ssu,” Penpen added.
People often used game systems to build whatever they wanted on their own.
Wait... here we go.
“Ah! Watch out, mister!”
“Eh?”
An arrow whistled toward the young merchant, and Miti-chan threw herself in its path. The arrow pierced Miti-chan’s arm, the tip sinking through and stopping just a few centimeters from the merchant’s face.
“Hie...!? T-thank—are you okay!?”
“It’s battle time, uooooo!!! I won’t let a single one of you get away, dao!!”
Alto leapt from the wagon with manic enthusiasm. She had been fully prepared since before the arrow even flew. After all, the red dots were clearly visible on the field map.
Miti-chan definitely waited until the last possible second to stop it on purpose.
“I’ll go scout for anyone trying to flee, ssu. A bandit’s only value is their dropped items, ssu!”
“I’ll stay and guard the wagon. Though I doubt I’ll have a turn in this fight.”
Alto was likely already shooting the fleeing bandits in the back without a hint of mercy. As a High-Rank Adventurer, her strength was guaranteed by the guild. Could ordinary bandits really hope to defeat a player who had been grinding levels like a madwoman?
Well, I suppose that depended on the bandits’ levels. In games, you sometimes ran into pointlessly high-level bandits, so you couldn’t be too careful. You occasionally found powerhouses who chose to be outlaws even though they could clearly make more money as adventurers.
Still, judging by their reactions, these guys didn’t seem like much of a threat. Looking at the red dots on the map, they were already scrambling in terror the moment Alto made her entrance.
“Hey! If there are any cute girls, take them alive!” I called out.
“Hah! That’s right, uo! ...Wait, there aren’t any, so it’s a massacre, dao!!”
Well, if there weren’t any, it couldn’t be helped. It was their fault for attacking us when they weren’t even cute; they deserved to die. If they wanted to survive, they should have been reborn as beautiful girls and tried again.
What, that’s unreasonable? Trying to kill us out of the blue is the unreasonable part here!
After a while, Alto and the others returned.
“So, we didn’t get any good loot, uo—”
“That’s a shame. What about materials?”
“They didn’t have anything worth mentioning, ssu. I guess I’ll just take their bows and arrows for now, ssu.”
“Lord Spirit, can I go eat the leftovers?” Miti-chan asked.
“Well, it’s not like we’re in a hurry... and you might learn some Thief Skills, so sure.”
“Alright! Miti-chan, you got permission from Tria, so go for it! Go have your munching time, dao!”
“Yay! It’s munching time!”
With the arrow still protruding from her arm, Miti-chan scampered off.
“Ah, Mr. Peddler. Come here for a second, ssu. Are you hurt? I need to examine you, ssu.”
“E-eh? Um, shouldn’t you check on that girl? She has an arrow in her arm...”
“She’s fine, ssu. We’ve undergone special training, ssu. Now, look over here—”
Gin-chan—who was currently being operated by Penpen—physically diverted the merchant’s gaze to ensure Miti-chan’s Affection Level wouldn’t drop. She had bet on Miti-chan winning him over, after all.
She gripped his face firmly, preventing him from seeing the predation scene while smoothing things over with a bright smile.
“Don’t move, ssu. Let’s see now...”
“Y-yes...”
Wait, was he going to fall for Gin-chan like this? They say nurses and medics are popular tropes for romance.
“Hmm, it’s not worth using recovery magic, ssu. You seem totally uninjured, ssu.”
“U-um. I can’t move my head... ow-ow-ow-ow!”
“I told you not to move, ssu.”
“Please, loosen your grip a bit! You’re going to crush my skull! It’s going to pop!?”
“Crushing it would be bad, ssu.”
Yeah, he definitely wasn’t falling for her. It looked like we were safe on that front.
Eventually, Miti-chan returned after finishing her “meal,” and the merchant’s head was finally released. The arrow that had been stuck in her arm was gone now—she’d likely eaten that too.
“Are you okay, mister?”
“A-ah, yeah. Thank you, you really saved me. ...Is your arm okay?”
“It’s fine! Because I’m cute!”
“???”
Usually, even if you were cute, being shot with an arrow would be a problem. Oh well, it looked like her Affection Level had successfully gone up.