Magic Eyes & Bullets – Chapter 11

「Caro, don’t tell anyone else about my rifle, okay?」

Caro nodded meekly to Athal as he spoke to her in a hushed voice to avoid being overheard. He had a serious face, much like the one he wore when he had healed her. She swore in her heart to not tell a soul.

「As for how I knew you were suited for a one-handed sword, that’s another of my abilities. It’s… well, I’ll tell you about things bit by bit. In any case, what kind of weapon are you interested in using Caro?」

 

Caro stared at him blankly for a moment in thought, the soft tone Athal switched to as he asked her knocking her off guard.

「……Although I used to use a one-handed sword back when both my hands worked, it wasn’t something that came naturally to me. As you can see, I’m not very big so a one-handed sword is a bit too big for me.」

 

Caro held her arms out as she spoke about her experience with a one-handed sword, and they were certainly as short as her height would indicate. The one-handed swords sold on the market were typically designed to be used by an adult male, so it made sense that she wouldn’t be able to find one to match her size. 

 

「In that case, you might be better off using something like twin daggers or a short sword.」

Athal figured that using a weapon with a short reach to attack in rapid blows might suit her better. To live as an adventurer it was necessary to carry at least the minimum amount of gear to protect yourself after all.

「Yes, I think that would be better. However, I’m not particularly well versed in using either of those weapons so I may end up causing you trouble, Athal-sama…….」

Caro didn’t seem to know how well she could adapt to a new weapon, but by the way she hung her head, it seemed she wasn’t very confident. As she had yet to be helpful in any way, the thought of causing more problems made her all gloomy.

 

「Don’t worry about it too much, Caro. Even if you do mess up a bit, you can just learn from it and improve.」

Athal patted Caro’s head as he gently persuaded her. Based on his experience so far, patting her head was usually enough to lighten her mood right up.

「A- Athal-sama」

His large hand patting her head made Caro’s dark expression disappear right away.

 

「Well let’s look for a weapon for you with that as the guideline…… But before that, I better do something about all this money.」

When he noticed Caro had calmed down already, Athal removed his hand from her head before dumping most of the gold from his bag into his subspace storage. As the metal coins clanked together as they were poured from the bag, a hole suddenly opened in space and sucked them all in.

「Wa- wawawa- wh- what is happening?」

Caro was surprised by the magical sight of the likes she had never seen.

 

「Ah, well I can do this sort of thing too. Don’t tell anyone else about this either, okay?」

Caro nodded her head, eyes round with surprise for the umpteenth time. How many secrets does my master hold I wonder? Thought Caro as she stared at him, her eyes filling with respect. Knowing that he was sharing this information only with her, only trusting his secrets with her, she truly felt that he was treating her as a companion rather than a slave. ¹

「Now the bag’s nice and light. Only a little bit of gold left in it.」

Athal placed the now lightened bag on top of the bed.

 

「Well, let’s go Caro. I’ll give you some change to get yourself at least something to protect yourself with.」

「！？」

Hearing she would be getting pocket money, Caro’s eyes turned round and her ears shot up in surprise. She didn’t expect to be getting any of her own pocket money.

「Since we’re always together, for now, I’ll pay for everything, but that would make it hard for you to buy anything that you want, right? Therefore, you can use that pocket money as you wish, as well as your earnings as an adventurer once we register.」

 

「A- ano, slaves can’t register as adventurers, so everything we earn will be yours Athal-sama……??」

There were a lot of things that Athal didn’t know about, so Caro quickly pointed that out to him.

「Ah, is that right. Then I will accept the requests, we can take care of them together, and then split the reward evenly.」

「Ah, no, but well…… I’m a slave so…」

The very idea of giving a slave their own money was foreign to the people of this world, so Caro didn’t know how to react. Athal really seemed to have a different way of thinking than everyone else.

 

「Ah, I get it. That kind of thing is unusual huh…. Well, don’t worry about it. Since I said it’s a good idea, it’s fine. But it does help to have you explain things like that to me. If there’s anything else that stands out, don’t hesitate to tell me.」

Seeing Caro was a bit troubled, Athal patted her head as he spoke to her with a bit of a wry smile on his face.

 

「Y- yes! Please leave it to me!」

Filled with a strange sense of responsibility at her chance to be useful, her hand and ears shot straight up and she deeply nodded her head.

「Ah, that’s right. Just checking, but was taking my weapon out from nowhere like before something considered impossible?」

Caro brooded over every angle of Athal’s question.

 

「……I may have seen something like that before, but I can’t recall it. I certainly didn’t see any of the other slaves at the shop pulling their weapons out of nowhere like you can Athal-sama.」

Caro nodded her head in affirmation as she determined that to mean it was likely considered impossible.

 

「I see, in that case I should probably keep it out in case I need it. Then, are there bags that can fit more inside then they appear to?」

Since this was a world with magic, he wanted to check if that kind of magic item existed.

 

「Ah, I believe that’s the case. I’ve never seen any in person, but I’ve heard about the, If I remember correctly, they embued them with expansion magic or space magic. But they do cost a considerable amount.」

 

「In that case I guess I’ll just use it where no one is watching. It might be hard, but for now, we should try to earn roughly enough money to be able to afford one of those.」

It would be possible to buy a magic bag using the money he had gotten from the lord. However, having something like that immediately after registering was essentially just flaunting his wealth to the other adventurers. It would likely get them mixed up with the unsavoury sort of people. Although Athal would probably be fine, it was better to avoid exposing Caro to that kind of danger.

 

「I’ll do my best!」

Caro cutely got all fired up, and balled her hands up as she shouted.

「Yeah, it’s fine if you just follow at first, and just leave the fighting to me. I expect you to get stronger gradually.」

「Yes!」

Caro gave a vigorous reply with sparkling eyes to his words of expectation. 

 

「Alright, I guess we should go out to buy some equipment. We’ll probably get looked down on if we register as adventurers while under-equipped.」

Athal took a quick glance at his outfit, but he was just wearing a regular everyday normal style of clothing that didn’t particularity match well with the image of fighting monsters.

「Good idea.」

Caro looked down at her clothing too, and she was just wearing the dress that the slave dealer had prepared for her, but it definitely wasn’t anything suited for combat.

 

「I don’t really know where the stores are though…」

Athal muttered to himself, pretending he was troubled as he peeked over at Caro. However, upon noticing his gaze, she feebly shook her head.

「I’m sorry, since I’ve been in the store for so long, I’m not very familiar with the layout of the town……」

Her face turned weak and apologetic, but Athal shook his head to tell her not to mind it.

 

「It’s fine. Don’t feel so bad about that much. It’s far more helpful for me that you obediently tell me when you don’t know, rather than lying about knowing more than you do. If you understand, then let’s go ask someone else about it who knows.」

After saying so, Athal, along with Caro, went to the inn’s reception desk to ask the proprietress where they could find a weapon shop and an armour shop, before heading to that location.

︻デ═一

If you are reading this on a pirate or aggregator site, please consider reading on the translator’s site: “yado-inn{dot}com”. I have to put the link like that or the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁

1. Even though the reason he bought a slave was so they couldn’t share his secrets…