“Thank you for everything,” I said.
“Yup. It might be tough, but you two hang in there!”
The innkeeper’s warm words, spoken with what seemed like a persistent misunderstanding, gave me a push as we left the inn.
While it was a lodging facility, it was, in the end, just a stable.
There were no keys, no place to store items, and no specific checkout procedures, but we decided to say goodbye to the innkeeper as a courtesy.
The innkeeper had spoken to me normally, so I thought for sure the influence of the Hisame event had vanished. However, a few words of dialogue weren’t enough to confirm it completely.
Since I had this opportunity, I decided to go to the most talkative person in this town to find out.
The most talkative person in this town, of course, was…
“Auntie, two Ringo!”
“Here you go, 100 E! Hmm? Oh, it’s you, from yesterday…”
It was the town’s informant, the greengrocer auntie.
“Yes. I apologize for the trouble the other day.”
As I said that, I took the two Ringo and threw one of them to Ringo. It was confusing, as both were Ringo.
After watching Ringo catch it and stare at it with intense eyes, I turned back to the auntie.
So far, the auntie hadn’t shown any signs of mentioning Hisame’s house. However, I couldn’t completely rule out that suspicion, and it wouldn’t hurt to gather some information anyway. I decided to initiate the conversation again.
“Speaking of which, have you heard any new rumors about the Princess since then?”
The auntie gave me a wry smile at my question.
“What are you talking about? It’s only been a day; there’s no way new rumors would circulate that quickly. …Or, that’s what I’d like to say.”
“Is there something?”
At my words, the auntie prefaced her statement with a completely unnecessary “This is just between us,” and then began to speak in a hushed voice.
“Lately, it seems the Princess has been a bit mischievous. I’ve been hearing whispers that even the castle staff are having a hard time with her.”
“Ahaha, I see.”
After all, Maki, at the tender age of seven, had already mastered the path of a troublemaker, famously drawing “Maki Mikami” in crayon on a neighbor’s wall and being severely scolded by her parents. If she had truly switched places with the Princess, I never expected her to be quiet.
Incidentally, “Mikami” was a misspelling of “Sanjo,” and my parents and I had teased her about it ever since. But considering her age at the time, the fact that she could use kanji at all might indicate she was rather bright. She was surprisingly decent at her studies, you know.
At any rate, this increased the possibility that the Princess was indeed Maki.
*I wonder if you’ve really come to this world…*
I vaguely turned my gaze in the direction of the royal castle. Princess Shelmia’s room, if memory served, was on the top floor of the west tower in Licht Castle, located in the heart of the Capital City. Living on the top floor of a tower seemed incredibly inconvenient, but it was probably for the sake of the event’s presentation.
*If it’s her, there’s no way she’d be confined to a place like that and stay put.*
I wished there was a way to contact Maki. But just as I was thinking that, I realized there was a simpler way to find out if Princess Maki was truly Maki. I blurted it out with a surge of enthusiasm.
“Um, by the way, what kind of person is this Princess Maki? I mean, her appearance, I just suddenly realized I never asked.”
At my question, which was in many ways too late, the auntie looked at me with an exasperated expression and replied.
“You truly don’t know the Princess, do you? Princess Maki is a petite and lovely person with beautiful black hair.”
Black hair and petite – these matched Maki’s characteristics. However, calling her hair black wouldn’t distinguish her from Hisame, and being petite wasn’t a definitive trait.
“Anything else? Anything else at all?”
I pressed on. The auntie paused as if thinking.
“Let me see. Hmm. Anything else, anything else… Ah! How could I forget such a striking feature?”
“A striking feature?”
*Did she have a memorable feature?* As I mused, the auntie leaned closer to me and began to whisper, as if sharing a great secret.
“I said the Princess’s hair was black, but you see… on that black hair…”
The auntie paused, teasing me, and then dramatically declared.
“She has the most beautiful ‘split ends’!!”
“…What?”
Did I mishear? I felt like I heard an incredibly out-of-place word.
“Uh, what did you say?”
“Split ends! Split ends! The Princess has split ends!”
The auntie looked at me as if expecting me to be impressed. It made absolutely no sense.
“Ah. You don’t know what split ends are? Split ends are when your hair strands, like… they branch out like tree branches…”
“No, I know what they are! Split ends can happen to anyone…”
As I said that, I realized. Come to think of it, in the game, there were characters with white hair or bald heads, but I didn’t recall split ends being replicated. And if it was considered a character trait, it was possible that people in this world didn’t have split ends.
Meanwhile, if the game was anything to go by, my appearance was scanned from the real world by a special machine. I rarely took care of my hair, so it wasn’t strange for me to have split ends, which might not exist in this world. And if split ends were that rare, it was conceivable that they might be cherished, like a four-leaf clover.
*Could it be that Ringo was so concerned about my split ends for that reason?*
No, it was also possible that Ringo simply liked split ends, regardless of their rarity in this world. But if split ends being rare in this world was true, the possibility that the Princess was Maki became even greater.
I was ecstatic with this unexpected clue, but I was actually in greater danger than I realized. The fear that struck me was…
“Oh my! Now that I look closely, you have split ends too! Wow. That’s rare. Let me see.”
It was a giant woman.
“Wh-what…”
The greengrocer auntie was staring intently at the area around my eyes. I remembered Hisame had pressed me similarly this morning, but the auntie’s approach had a different kind of intensity.
“What are you being shy for? It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m not going to eat you or anything!”
As she spoke, the auntie approached, her massive body swaying. Her lips twisted into a grin, and her eyes gleamed like a predatory bird’s. Despite her words, I felt…
*I’m going to be eaten…!*
Just as I felt my life was in danger…
“…Oh? What’s this?”
Something white appeared, blocking the auntie and me. At the same time, a voice with little inflection reached our ears.
“No. …That’s, mine.”
Ringo extended a hand, blocking the auntie’s gaze.
“Now that you mention it, you did this the other day too…”
Even the formidable auntie was caught off guard by Ringo’s sudden intervention and her attention shifted from me. I couldn’t miss this chance. I quickly put some distance between myself and the auntie.
“Th-thank you very much. We’re leaving now!”
Pulling Ringo’s outstretched hand, I hastily left the greengrocer’s.
I finally breathed a sigh of relief after turning the corner and losing sight of the auntie.
“Sorry about that, Ringo. Honestly, you saved me.”
When I thanked Ringo, she shook her head.
“…It’s okay.”
“R-right.”
Even if they were rare, Ringo was probably the only one who saw any value in my split ends. Ultimately, split ends just meant damaged hair. However, I decided to set a boundary.
“But my hair is mine.”
“I understand.”
She replied immediately, as if she had never considered otherwise. I had suspected her motives, but it seemed she had simply intervened to help me when I was in trouble. I truly thought Ringo was too good to be following me.
“Ah, right.”
I still hadn’t given Ringo any money, and more importantly, I hadn’t prepared any Crystals for money or an Adventurer’s Bag. She had helped me a lot during the Golden Subjugation Tournament, so I wondered if I could give her those items at the item shop as a way to repay her.
“I want to go to the item shop next, is that okay with you?”
I asked, and Ringo nodded silently.
With her response, I gave myself a mental fist pump. If I could get her a Crystal and a bag, I could repay some of my debt to Ringo. Also, now that I had some financial leeway, there was something I wanted to try.
I had always thought: *When I delve deep into a Dungeon, oh, if only I had bought that Herb at the time, or bought that Antidote Herb, or bought that Rope to get out of the hole, or bought that Ice Sword…* How many regrets I had! But by then, it was usually too late. When I regretted it, those items were already out of reach.
Therefore, I sometimes wished for a Skill or tool that would allow me to shop at any time, but there were very few games with such convenient features. Unfortunately, even in ‘Nekoneko,’ such Skills or items did not exist.
But I thought: *Perhaps, with a very simple method, it might be possible to achieve the same, or at least something similar.* That is to say—
“Excuse me! I’ll take everything in this store!!”
—From that moment on, our uninhibited shopping spree began.
