Setting Out

"Come to think of it, haven't you eaten this kind of monster before?"

Lorenzo cut off a piece of meat and put it in his mouth as he asked Frieren, who sat across from him.

"I have, but the last time it tasted this good was when my teacher was still alive."

Flamme again. But that was to be expected. She had even developed celestial magic, so a little cooking was probably no problem for her.

"Where are you going next?"

Lorenzo asked with an air of casualness. From the looks of it, Frieren was traveling alone, and she had mentioned Himmel earlier, so it was most likely after the hero's party had defeated the Demon King.

"To the Holy City to see an old friend."

Frieren answered as she ate the steak on her plate.

The Holy City, an old friend...

That should be around the time she first met Fern. The original story only ever gave the year as so many years after Himmel's death. The lack of a clear calendar was a bit of a nuisance. After all, he couldn't just open by asking Frieren how long Himmel had been dead. That would be far too rude.

After they had eaten their fill, Frieren surprised Lorenzo by offering to help clean the dishes. Himmel had probably taught her that too. The hero's party must have stayed with plenty of "locals," and it would hardly have seemed right to do nothing after every meal.

"Where are you planning to sleep tonight?"

Lorenzo asked Frieren as she used magic to help rinse the dishes. She had spent so long collecting folk spells, yet she didn't have one that "made dirty dishes clean"? Everyone knew the most troublesome and annoying part of cooking was cleaning up afterward.

"I was thinking of sleeping on the floor by the fireplace."

Frieren answered almost without thinking. As expected, the warm fireplace appealed to her more than a bed.

"Then, as for a blanket and pillow..."

"I brought my own."

Once she had finished cleaning, Frieren pointed to the magical suitcase she had left on the table.

It looked very small from the outside, but the space inside was surprisingly large. She opened it and searched for quite a while, taking out all sorts of strange things before finally finding a blanket and pillow.

She walked over to the fireplace, spread the blanket on the floor and arranged the pillow with practiced ease, then sat down and edged closer to the fire.

"Oh, right. I might not be able to get up tomorrow morning, so if you're in a hurry to leave, remember to wake me."

Frieren seemed to remember something and reminded Lorenzo before going to sleep.

"It's fine. I'm not really in a hurry anyway, so sleep a little longer if you want."

Lorenzo didn't particularly mind. He really wasn't in a hurry, and he didn't have any goals at the moment, so he could just go with the flow.

The wood in the fireplace continued to crackle. With plenty of fuel, the fire still burned lively and bright.

The rain outside had stopped.

He didn't know when it had stopped. It had done so silently, and the wind had blown the clouds away too. Moonlight filtered through a crack in the window.

"Good night." Lorenzo closed his eyes.

There was silence from the other side of the room for a while.

"Mm."

The voice was soft, as though she were already half asleep.

The next day.

The morning sun climbed through the gaps around the window...

Thanks to his body clock, Lorenzo woke up early. He stretched and glanced sleepily down from the bed, only to discover that Frieren's sleeping posture was quite a sight.

Her blanket had slipped to one side, leaving only a corner draped over her. Her pillow had rolled off somewhere, and she lay sprawled across the floor, her head tilted toward the fireplace and her silver hair a tangled mess beneath her cheek. Her arms were stretched out at random, taking up a considerable stretch of floor around her. It was a good thing there was a railing around the fireplace, or she would definitely have rolled into it.

Charcoal-grilled elf was a little too ahead of its time for him.

Lorenzo got carefully out of bed and left Frieren, who was dead to the world, alone. Even if he covered her up again, she would surely kick the blanket off before long.

He walked out of the house on tiptoe, though judging by the state Frieren was in, she probably wouldn't wake easily no matter how much noise he made. Come to think of it, with ears that long, shouldn't elves have been more sensitive to sound?

The air outside had the chill and dampness particular to early morning, carrying the scent of earth after last night's rain and the lingering moisture on the leaves and grass in the forest.

Lorenzo stood in the doorway and took a deep breath.

Sunlight was already streaming through gaps in the canopy, its rays turning the rain-soaked forest golden. Puddles on the ground reflected the light, and the dew on the grass had yet to dry.

Now that he had decided to travel with Frieren, he naturally needed to pack first.

So he went behind his cottage, where he had cleared a small vegetable patch and set aside an area for "experimental breeding."

He called it a vegetable patch, but it wasn't very large, just three or four rows growing several vegetables common to the forest, along with various plants cultivated using Magecraft. They were mostly for eating, though there were exceptions, such as the perfectly ordinary-looking radishes in the innermost row. He had subjected that batch to an experiment involving the infusion of a certain kind of mana during cultivation, to test the upper limit of how much mana plants could absorb. So far, they were growing well. The only problem was that he didn't know whether they were edible, and he hadn't dared try them yet.

They probably weren't edible.

He used mana to pack the ripe vegetables, leaving out those radishes, into a backpack on which he had already cast expansion Magecraft. Come to think of it, could he fit the backpack into Frieren's little suitcase and achieve "a bag inside a bag" storage?

It seemed worth a try.

Once he had packed them, Lorenzo turned to the breeding area.

There were two demon wolves inside, both male. He had originally planned to keep one male and one female, but things hadn't gone his way. He couldn't find a living she-wolf, so he had had to make do with two males for the time being. Still, it wasn't entirely without benefits. They fought over territory every day, and all that exercise had made them both plump and strong. Their meat ought to be quite good.

Besides them, there were three birds that looked a lot like chickens. Lorenzo didn't know exactly what they were called, but they laid eggs, and although the eggs were colorful, they tasted pretty good. So, for the time being, he had kept them as chickens.

Obviously, he couldn't take them with him on a long journey. Lorenzo folded his arms and looked at them silently for a moment.

"I'm not the one who harmed you. These troubled times did."

A ripple of mana followed, and then every edible part of them was already in his backpack.

After all, reality was full of things that left one helpless and heartsore.

Once he had finished, Lorenzo took his bag back into the house.

Whether she had sensed the mana fluctuations or had simply slept enough, Frieren was awake now, sitting on a chair and reading a grimoire.

"Can we go?"

Frieren asked Lorenzo as he came through the door, without looking up.

"Wait a moment. Could I try putting my backpack in your suitcase to see if it fits?"

"It won't work. A container that's already had expansion magic cast on it can't hold another container of the same type."

"Let me try. It might work."

Lorenzo spoke to Frieren. His backpack had been expanded with Magecraft, whose underlying principles belonged to a different system altogether from the magic of this world. Perhaps there was no conflict between the two.

Frieren looked at him for a moment and said,

"Go ahead and try, then. Just don't mess up the things in my suitcase."

"Don't worry."

He opened the suitcase, lined the backpack up with the opening, and slowly pushed it in...

Half of it went in smoothly.

There's hope!

He pushed it farther in, then felt a very subtle resistance, like two magnets with the same poles facing each other. It was soft, but grew stronger the farther he pushed.

Lorenzo used a little more force, and the resistance increased with it.

He gave it another shove, and the backpack sprang out and smacked him squarely in the face.

Frieren sat in her chair without a word, but she lowered her head and went back to her book a little more slowly than usual.

"All right, looks like you were right."

Lorenzo pulled the backpack off his face and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He really couldn't understand it. By rights, Magecraft and magic should have been two different things. How could they be mutually incompatible here too?

"I told you it wouldn't work."

Frieren turned a page, her tone matter-of-fact.

His dream of "nesting dolls" shattered, Lorenzo could only get on with packing up the house. After putting his pots, bowls, utensils, and some seasonings into the backpack, there wasn't much else worth taking, so he got ready to leave.

"Let's go."

Frieren stood up and picked up her suitcase.

"Mm."

The two walked out of the cottage, one behind the other. Lorenzo didn't lock the door. He probably wouldn't be coming back after this, so he would leave the cottage as a place for passing travelers to rest, though he doubted there would be many travelers in this forest.

Come to think of it, he still hadn't dealt with those radishes. Surely no one would eat them by mistake, right?