Yari no Yuusha no Yarinaoshi (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter 2

Chapter Two: A Lazy Pig 

Just as the Siltvelt emissary had promised, he got us a peddling permit. We finally embarked on our peddling journey. 

To start, we prepared to sell the medicine that Father had made, with Keel standing out front to try to attract customers. At first Keel was too shy to do much of anything and constantly asked Father for help, but soon enough she got used to it and started selling medicine without any hesitation. 

It was gradual, sure, but we slowly started to make some money. We used that money as capital to buy more ingredients for Father’s medicine, and Father got better at remembering all the different combinations. 

Since the filolials were such an unusual sight, word spread and we started to attract more customers. It was just like they were pulling the carriage of the holy saint of the bird god! 

“Yuki, can you pull just a little slower?” Father asked. “The carriage is shaking.” 

“At once!” 

Yuki slowed down according to Father’s wishes, and we continued on. 

We had established a solid rotation for the filolials: Yuki, Kou, and then Sakura pulled the carriage. When Sakura pulled the carriage, it shook the least. She must’ve been especially looking out for Father. 

I also finished making Sakura’s clothes on the day after we set out. It was a plain, unembellished tunic, like the one I saw Big Sis wearing when we first met. Of course, I couldn’t make Sakura magic armor myself, so it wasn’t the exact same outfit as what Big Sis had, but it still looked cool, like it was made for a dashing swordsman. 

I could vaguely remember the sort of outfit that Father had always liked on Big Sis. Was it a shrine priestess outfit? I didn’t think that would particularly suit Sakura. 

Father called out to me. “Motoyasu, by the way, it seems like you’ve mastered reading the language here. Should I try to learn it too?” 

I thought about it. “I suppose so. You had learned it in the previous go-around.” 

I made a chart of the Melromarc alphabet and handed it to Father. 

“If you memorize this chart whenever you have some spare time, you’ll be reading in no time, I say! As a matter of fact, you were the one who taught me how to read the Melromarc language. I’m sure it’ll be no trouble for you.” 

“So there’s no skill or something that lets you understand the language?” Father asked. 

“I don’t believe so,” I answered. “I figured there might be something like that, but I haven’t seen it in any of the weapons I’ve encountered in this world.” 

Learning the language was no easy task. Actually, it was very hard, but when I thought about how I could teach it back to Father, it felt like it was all worth it, I say! 

“Got it. I’ll just practice a bit at a time.” 

Then I heard Keel oink loudly. 

We had arrived at the village and Keel was starting to sell medicine. 

Father looked outside to confirm and started mixing some ingredients. While he was doing that, we collected some more herbs. We always need more ingredients, I say. 

Father had stuck to recording all of our transactions for acquiring herbs from other pharmacies, so we could pay fixed rates. Then, with my spear’s ability, we could make the best medicine out there! 

I continued to teach new recipes that were recorded in my spear to Father, and I could tell that he had improved his skill at mixing as we went along. I knew Father would be a natural! 

Soon enough, we had a respectable assortment of products. Since we were selling below the market price, we had plenty of demand. Almost too much for us to keep up with ingredient-wise. 

For herbs and ingredients, we could always get more by defeating monsters, but we thought that a method like that might result in suspicious eyes cast our way. That made it tough to keep up with our demand. 

When I got back to the carriage from harvesting herbs, Father beckoned me over. 

“Whatever may it be, Father?” 

“So . . .” Father trailed off, a troubled expression on his face. “Well, this girl says she wants to join us.” 

Join us? She was probably a spy for some church or other, so I assumed that Father would simply reject her. Needless to say, it was hard to imagine someone in Melromarc wanting to become allies with the Shield Hero. I may need to eliminate her in secret at some point. 

“Oink.” 

It was an exhausted-looking pig sitting on a stump, waiting. 

What was up with that pig, I say? 

I examined it with dubious eyes. The pig kept grumbling in a bored voice. It was acting as if it had seen me before, I say. 

“Her name’s Elena,” Father said. “She’s a Melromarc noble, and her father told her to help one of the heroes, so she came here.” 

Elena? The name sounded familiar, somehow. 

Who was Elena? It was oh-so vaguely familiar. I had the sense that she was a close friend of the Crimson Swine. 

Which means I had to exterminate her as swiftly as possible! 

“Oink oink oink oink,” it said. 

“Well, even if you say so, we can’t just believe you,” Father said. 

“What is the pig saying, Father?” I inquired. 

“She’s saying that she really doesn’t want to, but her father commanded her, so she doesn’t have any choice.” 

“Shall I simply exterminate all traces of her from this world, then? I’ll make sure it won’t hurt at all!” 

I gripped my spear and pointed it firmly at the pig, but Father pulled my arm. 

“Motoyasu, calm down! There’s no need to do anything extreme!” 

The pig continued to grumble. 

“Now she’s saying that she thought that out of the four heroes, we looked like the easiest to help out, so she came here,” Father said. 

I must say, this pig appeared to be completely bored out of her mind. 

If I couldn’t kill her, she should return home at once, I say. 

I heard more vile, bored oinking fill my eardrums. 

“She says that she can be useful to us because her mother was a merchant. She says she can help out.” Father looked at the pig. “But I think Keel is doing just fine for us,” he said. 

Keel squealed and oinked furiously in response to that, I say. It sounded like she maybe wanted a companion. 

“Huh? Well, you’re right, it could be hard to expand our sales with only Keel,” Father replied. “But still . . . Why did you think it would be easy to join up with us? I mean, as a Melromarc noble, I figured you’d assume that joining us would be the hardest,” he asked her. 

Squealing and oinking, oinking and squealing. It went on for some time. Father did me the favor of interpreting. 

There seemed to be other reasons that the pig had come to us, besides just the command from her father. According to the pig, there had been a lot of discord within Trash’s faction, and if they continued to support him, then there was a good chance that they would lose their standing. Of course, Trash had a bad relationship with the Spear Hero in addition to the Shield Hero. And furthermore, according to the so-called Elena, the Sword Hero, Ren, had also turned against Melromarc. Since Elena’s family were powerful, well-established merchants, they didn’t have to be too afraid of Trash. It seems he wasn’t powerful enough to be able to confiscate their fortune or bring their family to complete ruin. 

Then, besides the fact that it was strategic to her family, she wanted to join us out of personal preference. She said that the most important thing of all was simply that she thought we would get along. The Bow Hero was busy subjugating corrupt nobles across the land, and the Sword Hero was focused on exterminating monsters. Then she heard that the Spear and Shield Hero had started to sell medicine together. 

Apparently, the pig had watched all the heroes for some time. She thought Itsuki was too self-righteous. She thought that Ren wanted to work alone for the most part, but even when he did cooperate with others, he often made them do annoying work in the course of monster-killing. Meanwhile, we were just traveling around in a carriage. It looked by far the easiest. 

So this pig really did just want to take the easiest way out. 

From this day forward, I shall refer to her as Lazy Pig, I say. 

According to Lazy Pig, it was important that not just the Shield Hero, but also the Spear Hero, was involved. She chose us because we were working together, so it seemed. 

I supposed if it had been just Father, then it was possible she’d get more criticism for working with the Shield Hero. 

If I’m not mistaken, in the first go-around, it had taken Father a little bit longer to start really boosting his reputation with his peddling. 

“And Elena also says that when the Queen got back to Melromarc, she said that the Shield and Spear Hero would eventually have the best social status. Well, that’s pretty much it. She seems like a good person. What do you think?” 

“I think it would be best to immediately exterminate her,” I advised. 

“What? Motoyasu, were you even listening? Please be reasonable. Aren’t we trying to make sure that there’s no war?” 

“You’re right,” I agreed. “For that reason, I shall exterminate her in a coolheaded and reasonable manner, I say.” 

“W-what! Wait!” Father groaned. 

Lazy Pig oinked in confusion. 

“Listen, we’ve got a lot to do, and we can’t afford to be spied on,” Father said to her. 

“Oink.” 

“Huh? You’ll become a slave if it helps us trust you? Since a slave wouldn’t be able to spy?” Father glanced at me. “In return, she just wants us to put in a good word for her family when the Queen eventually comes out on top. Well, if that’s really what you want . . .” 

Hmmm. As a slave, she wouldn’t be able to betray us, so it reduced the risk on that end. A slave wouldn’t be able to reveal any of our secrets, true. But why would she want to join us that badly? 

“Oink oink oink.” 

“Well, we have a lot of plans, and it’s definitely true that we’ll need more help to accomplish them all. If you become a slave, you won’t be able to betray us so . . . All right. I still don’t really trust you, but if you really want to, you can join us. If we can talk more, from merchant to merchant, I’m sure we’ll start to trust you.” 

She oinked in agreement. So Lazy Pig joined us as a slave. 

The biggest problem was that now the inside of the carriage was really starting to turn noxious with the heinous stank of pig. 

“Oiiiiiink!” 

Lazy Pig—Elena—when we weren’t selling anything, spent all of her time on the hammock inside the carriage, dozing off. But in that sublime trembling of the carriage that my noble filolials’ rapid pace on the road caused, a bit of dozing off could mean certain death. And yet, somehow, she slept. 

Even I couldn’t fall asleep while we were on the road. I, Motoyasu Kitamura, admit that I felt envy, I say! 

Lazy Pig was taking advantage of Father’s kindness! Even though she was supposed to be a slave, she was acting as if we hadn’t even activated the slave seal. She was mocking us! 

Well, even though we did register Keel as a slave with a seal, I’d never seen the seal itself. 

If I were in charge of registering Lazy Pig, I’d kill her as quickly as I could instead. 

As I stared angrily at Lazy Pig resting, Father called over to me. 

“Oh, Motoyasu, by the way, I heard that you have a secret plan, but what are you thinking?” 

“Yes, I do.” I thought about it. “It’s almost time.” 

It had been about five days since we started peddling. We were going around Melromarc, selling our wares in different villages and cities. I opened my map of Melromarc and thought about our potential route. I needed to select an area that we could get through in one day. 

“I propose that we go about in this area at a distance that we can do a full loop back in a single day,” I said to Father, pointing at the map. 

“That’s fine with me, but why?” 

“That’s my secret plan, I say!” I declared. “It’s a plan to go off and level up while pretending like we’re still in the carriage the whole time!” 

This was my infallible method! Since the trip would require Portal Spear, we needed to devise some sort of scheme. I supposed that even if there was someone watching us, they simply wouldn’t realize that the hero that they were supposed to be watching was no longer there. 

“Sounds like that will take a lot of work. So what’s the plan?” 

“Since we’re usually shut up in the carriage for days at a time anyways, I think that will make for the perfect smokescreen,” I explained. 

“Pretty much all the time.” Father sighed. “Well, we do stop at inns from time to time.” 

In our five days on the road, we had killed a few monsters that showed up, but besides that, our leveling up had really slowed to a halt. If Father didn’t start leveling up more soon, it would be a cause for concern. 

“We can just leave it to our sales team and the filolials while we’re out, I say!” 

“So let Keel handle things? Or Elena?” 

I shook my head. “We can’t trust Lazy Pig. But we need Keel to level up too.” 

I heard an oink from the other side of the carriage. Lazy Pig had woken up and was now looking over at me. Yes, you heard me right, Lazy Pig! I’ll never trust you! 

“We never asked the likes of you to join us! Beat it, swine!” I quipped. 

Lazy Pig had but a meager oink in response. 

“Well, let’s not get all riled up,” Father said. “I applied the slave seal and everything, so there’s nothing to be worried about, Motoyasu. Let’s just make sure Yuki keeps a watch on everything. That’ll be enough, won’t it?” 

I nodded. “So for now, Kou will pull the carriage, Lazy Pig will handle the peddling, and Yuki will keep a close eye on her.” 

“Whatever you command, Motoyasu!” said Yuki. 

“Woohoo! More pulling!” shouted Kou. 

I didn’t know what level Lazy Pig was, but I figured she was strong enough to fight. The only real situation to be worried about would be if thieves attacked and realized that there was no one actually inside the carriage. Actually, since Yuki was keeping an eye on things, even if Lazy Pig tried to poke a hole in her slave seal or something, Yuki would dispose of her swiftly. 

“Let’s get on our way then, I say! First, I’ll use Liberation Fire Mirage to keep us hidden, and then as soon as we create some distance, we’ll use Portal Spear.” 

Yes, our objective here was to keep all enemy eyes on our carriage and our peddling. Filolials have great instincts for sensing hidden enemies, and I can pretty much sense the presence of anyone hiding with magic too. I double-checked that there was no one hiding inside the carriage. That meant that from now on, it should be enough for Yuki to keep an eye on the outside of the carriage. Plus, our carriage was moving so fast that it would be hard for anyone to even get a grasp on what we were doing. Ultimately, I decided that even if there was no one left inside the carriage, outsiders likely wouldn’t realize that we had left. 

With that, Father and I embarked on our leveling-up mission. 

“Wow! That was crazy,” Father said. 

“Oink,” agreed Keel. 

We had just arrived in Siltvelt. I supposed that this was Father’s first time in the portal in this go-around. 

“What would you like to do, Father? Should we head toward the castle?” 

Father scratched his head. “If you don’t mind, let’s focus on leveling up first. I’m also getting a bit worried that I haven’t leveled up at all.” 

“Agreed. So why don’t you go do that with Sakura?” 

“Sounds good. Keel, you can come too!” 

Father leapt up onto Sakura’s back and helped Keel up. He looked like he was enjoying himself mightily, I say. 

“In the meantime, I’m going to go pick up a few things that I wanted to give to you before,” I said. “Be careful!” 

“Thanks,” Father said. “We’ll go level up a ton and see you later.” 

“Leeeeet’s gooooo!” Sakura sang, taking off into a sprint with Father and Keel on her back. 

While they were out, I went to get the drop items that I had collected and hidden the last time I had gone to level up with the filolials. I wondered if Father would come back with some good drop items. I figured whatever they were, we could always use them to make more medicine. 

That evening, Father came back with a big smile on his face. I had stuffed the ingredients that I had collected that day in a bag. 

“Man, that was great,” he said. “I leveled up so much I could hardly believe it.” 

“So what level are you now?” I inquired. 

“I’m level 18, Keel’s level 19, and Sakura’s level 35.” 

That’s all? Maybe it was because Sakura was a relatively low level, but that wouldn’t be nearly good enough. 

“I’m going out with Sakura tomorrow to level her up, posthaste,” I announced. “We need to get her higher.” 

“Really?” 

“I should’ve leveled her up more before.” 

I should’ve recognized that this was the more pressing issue. In order to level up Father faster, Sakura needed to be a higher level. But I had been more concerned with Yuki, so I focused on leveling her up first. I explained what I was thinking to Father. 

“You can’t take Naofumi away from me,” Sakura protested. “I need to protect him.” 

I burst into tears at the sight of Sakura’s heavenly display of devotion. How incomparably noble! 

“Sakura, I have no words for your devotion. Only admiration.” 

“So what are you saying?” Father asked. 

“Make Yuki and Kou come with us!” Sakura said. 

“It’s a good idea,” Father said, “but since only Motoyasu can level up Yuki and Kou . . .” He trailed off. 

Sakura’s devotion was so noble that it was causing us all sorts of problems, I say. 

“Well, in that case, I’ll go back to the carriage tomorrow,” Father said. “We can’t be gone two days in a row or it’ll be suspicious, and I can keep an eye on Elena instead of Yuki.” 

Keel nodded with an oink. 

“And I’ll pull the carriage!” Sakura chirped. 

“Exactly,” Father said. “Then the carriage won’t shake and I’ll have no problem learning new compounds for medicine.” 

“Yeah!” 

“That settles things,” I said. Leveling up Sakura could happen later. “In that case, Father, I present to you these drop items.” I bowed my head. 

“Uh . . . okay, thanks. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff.” 

“Not nearly enough to make your shield stronger, dear Father,” I said regretfully. 

“Yeah, we thought we were making progress today, but I guess it wasn’t good enough.” Father scratched the back of his head with a grimace. 

My current objective was to secretly level up Father as fast as I could. 

“It might be an obvious point, but I noticed that the medicine that they have around here is different from Melromarc,” Father said. “The monsters are different, so the item drops vary too. There are recipes for making medicine, which helps, but I’m not sure they’ll work when I actually try to make it.” 

“You’ll just need to learn by trial and error, I say.” 

Of course, since I was just making everything with my spear, I had no clue what I was doing. There might be a lot of small differences in the herbs and recipes, but there was no reason we couldn’t sell the medicine from Siltvelt. Only a hero with a holy weapon could tell the difference, after all! 

As I thought about such important matters, Father put the ingredients that I had given him into his shield. Then Father asked me, as he had done before, about how to go about making his shield stronger. I advised him to use the items we had collected on his shield now, since we could always replenish our item supply later. I also explained to him what types of minerals he needed to strengthen his shield. Regardless, the most important thing was for Father personally to level up. 

“I believe it’s about time to head back,” I said. 

“Got it. Thanks, Motoyasu.” 

“Of course, Father! Portal Spear!” 

I prepared to send us flying to the place where we had planned to meet up with Yuki and the rest. As always, before we left there, I was able to vaguely see what was going on. The carriage was waiting for us, just as planned. 

The timing was tricky. If I activated a concealment spell before we went, it might be misleading for Yuki and the others. And then there was Father’s order to not kill anyone if I didn’t have to, which, while being incredibly annoying, was an order from Father. 

Things would be so much easier if we could just go and I could kill anyone who spotted us. Alas. 

So I had no choice but to activate the concealment spell, use Portal Spear, and remove the concealment spell after we boarded the carriage. 

Lazy Pig started oinking and squealing in mild surprise as we appeared, as listless and lazy as ever. The pig didn’t even stand up to greet us. 

I nearly cooked a feast of lazy pig roast right then and there. 

“We’re back,” Father called. “Did anything happen when we were gone?” 

“There was no incident,” Yuki responded. “She didn’t do anything peculiar either.” Yuki nodded at Lazy Pig. “However . . . I did not feel the slightest hint of energy or enthusiasm from her either.” 

Lazy Pig oinked some bored retort. 

Father chuckled. “That’s all for the best. So there were no thieves?” 

“None.” 

“So maybe we didn’t need to be so concerned about security? Motoyasu, your plan really worked.” 

“Thank you, Father, from the very bottom of my heart!” 

“So let’s keep on secretly leveling up while we do our peddling,” Father said. “Then we’ll have no problem getting stronger. Of course, we can’t be too careful either.” 

Father was as right as ever. So the next day I decided I would level up Yuki and Kou. Our first objective would be to class up. The problem was that Yuki and Kou were already quite strong. They needed to get special assistance from Fitoria-tan, the filolial queen, to class up again. It was going to be difficult for us to meet up with any other filolials in our current circumstances. 

The first time I met Fitoria-tan was when I was peak-racing with Crim. So if we went running in that same area, would we run into her again? I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be quite so simple. The other place where it seemed possible to find her was on the way to Siltvelt. 

It was all well and good to try to find her, but since we had to return via Portal Spear within a set period of time, it would be quite the endeavor. 

Now that I thought about it, I remembered Father telling me in a previous go-around about the time that he met Fitoria-tan. Fitoria-tan was ridiculously strong . . . I think it was back when Father had been a wanted criminal and he was hiding in Melromarc. 

But that whole series of events was in another time loop altogether. 

So I thought that maybe I should just make our priority getting the class-up bonus . . . Oho? 

“I remembered, I say. I remembered!” 

Father leapt up in surprise. “Jeez! What are you talking about, Motoyasu?” 

“I had completely forgotten, but in the seven star weapons’ power-up method, by trading away levels, you can get a weapon core power-up! With that, it’s possible to increase your weapon’s base status growth, I say!” 

I explained the power-up method to Father. That was definitely how it worked with the seven star whip. By trading off levels, you could increase your overall growth rate. As a result, even at an identical level, you could end up much stronger than you would’ve been otherwise. With this method it wouldn’t be impossible to get by with a little smoke and mirrors. 

I figured we could rely on this power-up method without having to find Fitoria-tan. Since this kind of core power-up makes you stronger even at a lower level, with our current cap at level 40, we would easily be able to dispose of powerful monsters. It was a strategy well within the realm of possibility. 

In the end, our plan to focus on core power-ups advanced smoothly. Father took care of the money we made off of peddling and made sure to only spend it in Melromarc, and in Siltvelt we made money to spend off of drop items from monsters. 

Still, we wouldn’t be able to use the core power-up method for Keel and Sakura’s weapons. Their strength would depend on raw leveling up. We also didn’t want to start waving around weapons right here in Melromarc, so we could only use them in Siltvelt. 

We spent about a week continuing our medicine peddling and working on Father’s shield core power-ups. 

For people with grave sicknesses or deep wounds, we covered them up with a robe so they couldn’t see how we healed them. Since we could increase the efficacy of the medicine with our heroes’ weapons, if we didn’t cover the wound, it would look like their injury had miraculously vanished. I also assisted with those procedures, naturally! 

It sounded like nowadays we had started to develop a reputation as the miracle-makers from the bird god’s carriage. Whenever we arrived at a village, people would come flooding out and bow down to us, begging us to heal their illnesses. Father would smile gently and go about healing as many of them as he could. 

Since we had only been traveling for two weeks, it’s not like we had covered a massive region yet. We wouldn’t have nearly enough time to go all across Melromarc. We had about two months, so I supposed we’d just go as far as we could in that time. 

“It’s been almost three weeks since we were summoned here, hasn’t it?” Father asked me. 

“You’re right,” I said. “That means we have just one week until the first wave of destruction.” 

“We’ve already made a decent amount of money, but I think we should consider selling stuff besides medicine too,” Father said. “We’re not exactly making a big profit.” 

That’s because Father had such a generous heart! We were selling the medicine for cheap, and Father always took the time to heal the patients fully. We had started to see more desperate patients come to us, begging us to save their lives. Father was spending a lot of effort on those patients that couldn’t afford to pay, always saying that he had the time. 

“I get that in our situation we need to be cutting corners and squeezing cash every chance we have,” Father said, sighing. “But I think knowing that we can always get more money in Siltvelt made me take this less seriously. Sorry, Motoyasu.” 

“Do not worry about it in the slightest!” I insisted. 

In the first go-around, Father became known as the saint of the bird god. I felt good that this time we were on a similar track. 

When we started chasing after Father in the first go-around, lots of villagers helped him escape, which I could tell now was because of how he had helped so many people in his travels. Running short on money seemed like a cheap price to pay for that sort of reputation. 

“Our real problem is classing up, I say.” 

“Good point.” Father scratched his head. “The trade-off method is working so far, but I think we should try to actually class up if we can.” 

Keel oinked in agreement. 

“Exactly! Keel should be able to transform into a therianthrope soon. I think we should try to class her up.” 

“Oink!” Keel looked genuinely excited and jolly, I say. So she wanted to class up that badly? 

“I’ve also been thinking that I want to go talk to some people in Siltvelt, so why don’t we head there?” Father suggested. “Elena, what will you do?” 

“Oiiiiiink.” 

“Huh? It sounds annoying, so you’ll just wait in the carriage.” 

Lazy Pig’s head suddenly dropped as she dozed off. Her laziness was truly unlike anything I had ever seen before. 

Whatever, I thought. But either way, we still needed to get to Siltvelt without anyone realizing. 

I wondered if the disguised thieves sent by the Church of the Three Heroes had given up on surprise attacks now that Father had developed a good reputation. Instead, they seemed to have been spreading rumors about the appearance of a criminal known as the Shield Hero. 

I remembered hearing those rumors in the first go-around shortly before the first wave of destruction. But their lies didn’t matter, not this time. Father wasn’t famous as the Shield Hero, but as the legendary saint of the bird god. 

Even if the Church of the Three Heroes disguised themselves to attack us, that wouldn’t change the fact that we have the filolials to stop them. If they tried to get Itsuki and Ren to help them, even they would be suspicious about attacking a saint of the bird god. And if everyone found out that the saint of the bird god was the Shield Hero, then that would just turn the people against the Church of the Three Heroes instead. If they told everyone we were only pretending to be good, people would hardly believe it. People tend to draw simple conclusions based on what they see, after all. 

In the first go-around, just before the first wave of destruction hit, I went with the Crimson Swine over to Zeltoble to strengthen their defenses. 

Before that, Filo-tan kicked me so, so many times. If only I could see her again. 

Filo-tan . . . 

Nowadays, during our breaks, I was passing time by drawing pictures of Filo-tan. We had a lot of spare time while waiting for the carriage to move from place to place. 

“Are you drawing another picture, Motoyasu?” Father asked me. 

“I am, I say! Did you finish preparing?” 

Father nodded, glancing at the picture I drew of Filo-tan. 

“Not bad,” Father said. “Is that the girl you like?” 

“It most certainly is.” 

“She looks a lot like Sakura. Her coloring is just different.” 

“That is precisely correct. She isn’t too different from Sakura, I say.” 

Sakura came over and looked at the drawing as well. 

“Huh? What’s wrong, Sakura?” 

“Motoyasu says the girl he likes looks similar to you,” Father explained. 

“Really?” 

“This is her angel form,” I said. 

“She looks like a video game character,” Father said. “She looks like a cute, honest girl.” 

Oh, my Filo-tan . . . my beloved, wherever could you possibly be? 

Sakura tilted her head as she took a closer look. 

“Motoyasu says that I was this girl’s master,” Father said to Sakura. 

“Do you wish I looked more like this?” Sakura asked Father. 

Watching them interact was always a treat for the eyes. 

“No, not at all,” Father said. “You’re just as beautiful, Sakura.” 

“Do you like girls, Naofumi?” 

“Well, sure, just as much as any other guy. But right now I’m more focused on other things.” 

“Do you think I’m cute?” Sakura asked. 

“Of course you are!” 

Keel oinked something in response. 

“Yeah, Sakura is beautiful,” Father responded. “But you’re a close match, Keel.” 

Keel snorted and squealed. 

“Yes, sorry, I know you’re a boy.” 

As Father and the others engaged in such trifling chitchat, Yuki was looking at my drawing as well. It was only natural. Filo-tan makes for a striking figure! 

“Is this your future sweetheart, Motoyasu?” Yuki asked. 

“That’s right,” Father said, and with a coy smile, “You aren’t jealous, are you, Yuki?” 

“I am not jealous!” Yuki said, shaking her head vigorously. 

Father watched her, grinning. “You sure?” 

“I simply want to do all that I can to help Motoyasu,” Yuki said firmly. 

“Really? I really thought that you had feelings for Motoyasu,” Father said and glanced over at me for some reason or other. 

His gaze reminded me of my middle school friends back in the day. They were guys who knew everything there was to know about pigs. For some reason we got along and used to hang out a lot. I had almost no guy friends, other than those few. They often tried to push pigs in my direction, I recall. They knew about the pigs’ hobbies, behavior, and even carried around photos of pigs. 

But then I went to a different high school and never saw them again. Thinking back, they were such mysterious boys. If you wanted pigs that badly, would you really try to talk to them using all of that information? I don’t get them anymore, even though I didn’t think anything of it back when I used to know them. They were the very definition of fastidious. They knew so much about pigs, but it felt like they were gathering so much information not to go after the pigs themselves but to try to push pigs in my direction. 

“I respect Motoyasu very much, but we don’t have that sort of relationship!” said Yuki firmly. She seemed a bit stiff. 

I laughed. What an adorable response, I say! I rubbed her head. 

“I believe I mentioned this before, but Father is amazing at telling jokes,” I explained. I turned to Father. “Filolials are like my children, you see.” 

“Your children?” 

“Yes—and all children are adorable, I say! Obviously, you would never even think about romance or marriage with your children! The only one I desire is Filo-tan!” 

“Uhhh, right,” Father said, nodding. “Well, do your best, Yuki.” 

“I told you I don’t feel that way about him!” 

Yuki kept yelling at Father, who tried his best to calm her down.