落とし穴番外：ある女性の自由時間 (Part2)
"There are some injuries I don't want to heal, after all. Now, if you're done with the idle chatter, please head off somewhere else. I'm going to have some quality time with my man."
...Hmm, I'm starting to lose confidence in my theory that she's doing it on purpose.
I mean, no matter how I look at it, Ratz looks happy from the bottom of her heart.
Well, I suppose that's fine.
I get all mushy myself when I'm with Ovik and the others.
"Alright. Well then, I'm heading out."
"Take care."
"Please give my regards to Milly and the others."
With that, I left the toy shop in Ratz's hands and headed out into the night market with Kishua and Nina.
As usual, the streets were bustling with people even at this hour.
I suddenly found myself laughing at the thought.
"Hm? What's with the sudden laugh?"
"Oh, sorry, sorry. It’s just, I found it funny how I’ve come to accept people being out at this hour as a matter of course. I mean, anywhere other than Weed, wouldn't everything be closed by now except for the taverns?"
I pointed at the sky as I said this.
The sky I pointed to was already wrapped in the veil of night, pitch black.
Weed is the only place where business can be conducted so calmly in such conditions, thanks to the permanent streetlights.
"That's true. Even elsewhere, that's usually limited to the royal capitals of great nations that can either craft their own magical streetlights or import them from Weed."
"Even where they do have them, there's nowhere else that keeps the streetlights lit so thoroughly, even down to the back alleys like this. Thanks to that, look..."
Where Kishua directed her gaze, young children were walking along, smiling and eating ice cream, despite it being night.
"Children like that can shop in the middle of the night without a single worry."
"In other places, even in a royal capital, it wouldn't be strange for them to be stripped of their belongings or even killed."
"True. It just goes to show how peaceful Weed really is."
"Yeah, this place is truly peaceful... wait, what!?"
Kishua shouted, and I thought something terrible had happened, but it seemed one of the children we were watching had tripped and dropped their ice cream.
"Waaaaah!"
"Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
"Yeah. I'm not hurt. But, my ice cream..."
"No, you can't. If you eat something that fell, you'll get sick. And we don't have money to buy another one..."
"Waaaaah!"
Oh dear.
It didn't look like they were hurt, but they did lose their ice cream.
The people around them noticed, but they just gave bitter smiles and walked on by.
That’s just another life lesson, I suppose.
I could buy them more ice cream, but I doubted whether that would have a positive effect.
It would be a problem if they started expecting strangers to help them out.
We shared a look, thinking the same thing, and were about to walk away, but...
"Here, I'll give you half of mine, so don't cry."
"Eh, but this is..."
"Let's eat together. It tastes better when you share it."
"Yeah! Thank you!"
Sharing the ice cream like that, the children smiled and walked away holding hands.
"Yeah, that was a nice thing to see."
"Yeah. It really was."
"We've got a good topic for dinner."
With that little incident behind us, we joined the others at the shop and told them what had happened.
"Ah, I remember that. I had the same experience. My younger brother and sister dropped theirs at the same time and wailed their eyes out. Well, it wasn't anything as fancy as ice cream, though."
"I remember eating grilled fish with Tori like that, too."
"Yeah. That happened, didn't it?"
"We had that happen too, didn't we, Difes?"
"That's right, Alfin. ...Kishua and Nina used to wail when they dropped the bread that Comet-san and Hifie-san brought as a snack."
"Wait, what!?"
"We're not talking about that."
"Ahaha. What's the harm? Those cute little girls have grown up to be such fine beauties. It makes me happy just to see it."
"Then, Comet-san, won't you tell us more funny stories about Kishua and Nina?"
When I asked Comet-san that, she gave me a bright smile.
"Oh, you bet."
"I told you to wait, didn't I!? What are you doing, Difes!!"
"Alfin, what is the meaning of this?"
"Don't put a stop to such a fun meal."
"That's right, Nina. It's not like it's a bad story."
And so, our fun dinner party continued late into the night, eventually evolving into a drinking session.
That was the story of Weed from Lari's perspective.
The fact that I'm hitting a string of pitfalls just means I'm struggling a bit with the main plot!
Well, please don't worry about it.
I'll keep doing my best without breaking my usual pace!