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Translator: Nonon
If felans look like bipedal cats, tigrans look like cosplayers with tiger ears.
If he was a cute girl, this would be very moe, but the sight of an old man with a towering physique of 2 meters tall, short brown hair with silver mixed in and a hairy foreigner face with tiger ears and tail is nothing short of surreal.
“Sit wherever you want. I’ll make you some tea now.”
“Okay…”
Mr. Zeol seems to be living in this room detached from the village chief’s house.
In modern Japanese terms, this 1K room is tidy for a place where a middle-aged old man lives, but there are a lot of books.
In this world, letterpress printing has just become commonplace and the books are still expensive.
Those expensive books were casually placed at the bedside, on the table, on the chair, on the bay window, most likely everywhere where Mr. Zeol liked to relax.
“Do you like books?”
“Hm? Yeah, surprising, right?”
“Well, a bit…”
I picked up a book on the table, which turned out to be a travelog of a trip to a distant continent.
Because books are still expensive, most of the content was written for the sake of spreading knowledge, rather than for entertainment.
“When I was active at the front lines, I only trusted my own experience at first and then the words from my most trusted friends. I was sure that the old moldy knowledge that’s written in books was unnecessary.”
As he was talking, Mr. Zeol slowly took out tea leaves from several bottles on the cupboard and put them in the teapot.
The tea in this world is a so-called herbal tea and tea lovers enjoy tea by blending it themselves.
My family is poor, so I’ve never tried anything other than pain hot water or regular water, but the pharmacist grandma Karisa sometimes brews herbal tea that’s closer to a medical decoction.
Since I’ve been observing grandma Karisa whenever she brewed tea, I noticed that Mr. Zeol wasn’t used to what he was doing.
He filled the teapot containing tea leaves with water and put it on the magic tool stove.
Maybe simmering would be a more appropriate expression for what he was doing rather than brewing.
When water in the teapot started to boil, the scent began to drift in the room.
Mr. Zeol, who took a deep breath, tilted his head with a wry smile.
Looks like it was far from the scent he had envisioned.
The liquid that was poured in a large cup was a turbid brown color and didn’t look like anything but a medical decoction.
Well, it might have looked questionable, but the taste was unexpectedly… so bitter that it lingered on my tongue, solidifying my feelings that this was nothing but a medical decoction.
“Hmm, it didn’t quite come out the way I wanted it to.”
“Umm, what if you tried to ask grandma Karisa from the pharmacy for advice?”
“Granny from the pharmacy, huh…”
“I go there almost every day to sell medical herbs and grandma Karisa’s tea is very delicious.”
“Is that so? You told me something good. I’ll try asking her tomorrow.”
After nodding with a smile, Mr. Zeol took a sip from his tea and frowned.
“So, how may I help you?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. You seem to use an interesting magic.”
“Well, it is sky attribute magic so it’s a bit different from common attribute magic.”
“What was that thing you used? You were blocking stones thrown at you.”
“It was a shield made from solidified air and I’m training to be able to deploy it instantaneously.”
Sky attribute magic is magic that solidifies air and I’m practicing to be able to protect myself, is what I told him.
“Can you show it to me a little bit?”
“Fine by me.”
I complied with Mr. Zeol’s request and deployed the Shield.
But I decreased both its strength and thickness.
“You cannot see it, but it is here so you can try touching it.”
“Ooh, that’s surprising. There’s really some hard object here, but it’s invisible.”
“I can feel where the shield is.”
“Oh wow. By the way, you don’t mind if I try punching it?”
“That’s fine, but its strength is still very lacking so please don’t expect much.”
If my powers are recognized here, I might end up being dragged into the village troubles, so I decreased its strength even more and the shield easily shattered from Mr. Zeol’s punch.
It’s a secret that in my head he shouted ‘Tiger-ear cosplayer old man punch!’ as the name of the technique while doing it.
“Hmm, it’s definitely lacking strength, but I feel like it was sturdier when it was blocking the stones that time…”
“Ah… now that you mention it, it does feel that way. Perhaps its strength suddenly increased when I sensed danger?”
“It’s possible. In other words, there’s still latent power sleeping inside of you.”
“I see…”
I almost ended up bringing myself unnecessary suspicions by decreasing the strength of the shield, thinking that I’d end up in trouble if some things were discovered, but it looks like I somehow managed to weasel my way through.
“I didn’t mean to tell you this after asking you to show me, but if you’re going to live as an adventurer, you shouldn’t show your cards so easily.
“Adventurer, huh… can I really become one?”
“What are you talking about? You pick medical herbs, catch forest mice and get rewards and bounties. What you’re doing is exactly what adventurers are doing.”
“Eh… oh, I see, so it’s like what newbie adventurers are doing.”
“That’s right. Those who can catch 15 forest mice in a day will eventually be able to defeat goblins and orcs too.”
“But I’m a felan, so I won’t grow big like a Tigran like you, Mr. Zeol.”
“So what? Wyverns are several times bigger than me.”
Nono, that might be so but isn’t that comparison weird?
“But I can’t use body strengthening magic either.”
“I’ll teach you.”
“Eh… would even I be able to use it?”
“I can’t make any promises, but you can instantly create a shield with sky-attribute magic so it should be fine.”
“For real…?”
Mr. Zeol nodded after grinning.
“By the way, what’s your name?”
“Nyango, sir.”
“Nyango, what will you use the body strengthening magic for first?”
“Of course for running away faster.”
“Gahahaha, good, you pass. Most people blabber about how they want to make their punches stronger or make their swords faster, but adventurers are only worth anything if they can survive. Refining your escaping skills is a great answer.
Mr. Zeol stood up with a big smile on his face and complimented me while hitting my shoulders.
Rather, that hurts, ouch. Our physiques are way too different so hold back a little, old man.
From this day onwards, it was decided that Mr. Zeol would teach me the ropes of body strengthening magic.
At first he would teach me everyday in the evening and then once in 3 days once I got used to it.
“But why are you going to such lengths for me?”
“I’ve heard about you catching forest mice before and I found you lashing out at Miguel amusing.”
“Amusing… sir?”
“Yeah. This is a good village, but it’s boring. Everybody goes about their lives in silence, following the village traditions. It’s quiet and peaceful, but sometimes I feel bored because things rarely change here.”
“So I’m just a way for you to escape boredom, aren’t I?”
“Gahahaha, well, you’re right.”
Even though he withdrew from the frontlines as an adventurer and retired to a rural village, it seemed that he was still bored.
Well, as far as I’m concerned, I’m being taught the basics of body strengthening magic, so rather than feeling annoyed, I only feel grateful.
“Well then, let’s start. Put out your hands and lay them on mine.
“Like… this?”
We sat on chairs opposing each other and I laid my palms on Mr. Zeol’s palms.
Compared to Mr. Zeol’s glove-like hands, my hands are thin and small cat paws.
“Listen. Close your eyes and feel the flow of mana…”
As I nodded and closed my eyes, a change came instantaneously.
Something entered me through our overlapped palms.
“Don’t resist it, calm down and accept it…”
“Kuh…”
The sensation of a foreign object entering me made the hair on my whole body stand up.
I think it took about 30 minutes for something that started eroding me from my right hand to fill my body and leave from my left hand.
“Okay, that’s it for today.”
“Thank you… very much…”
As soon as everything ended, I felt like all energy had been drained from me and my whole body was drenched in sweat.
