Chapter 60: CH 60

In this world, where people lived alongside the forests and where many found work through the Adventurer’s Guild, there was no shortage of athletic people. I don’t know if it was the difference in living environment or genetic differences resulting in greater inherent ability, but it wasn’t uncommon for people to be able to climb a tree with ease, even as an adult.

I wouldn’t call myself athletically challenged, but neither could I boast about what I could do. As you might guess from my 3’s and 4’s out of 5 in physical education, I had no problem with minor exercises, but when it came to anything remotely acrobatic, I was useless.

I was an average girl in Japan, but here, I was “kinda clumsy,” so Cecile-san and Ludo-san had some doubts about whether I would be able to do a backflip midair — the highlight of the performance. Consulting with Fikar, we decided that he would catch me instead of having me land on my feet (or face).

“No, I don’t think everything’s fine just because the landing is okay…”

As it was, the performance could be altered slightly according to the performer’s capabilities. Some even did two full rotations. At that point, just go to the Olympics or whatever, ‘kay?

“I could do it, so you’ll be fine.”

Cecile-san was calm and gentle, but she was one of the few 4-star female adventurers in Tortea. Actually, she was rather fierce, and there was a story that she’d once unsheathed a sword from out of nowhere and was the first to slash at a magic beast when it was spotted going on a rampage. Unfortunately, Cecile-san’s encouragements, saying things along the lines of “looks can be deceiving,” did not inspire confidence in me.

Still, she gave me a few tricks, like pulling my knees towards my chest in midair, she assured me that the Hero would boost me up, and we did a few practice runs where I jumped onto Fikar’s crossed hands. After all that, the mood was set for me to finally try it for real. Well then– or not. Scary.

“He’ll catch you, go ahead.”

“Knees in.”

I prepared to get a running start, hoping that if I managed to injure myself here, I wouldn’t have to do the real thing. For now, run towards Fikar, who’s cupping his hands a foot or so above the ground with his usual expressionless face, jump up, and flip backwards. As I finished saying that to myself, my foot landed on Fikar’s hands. 

“UWaAaa–”

My body was suddenly flung upwards and the sky felt much closer. Time flowed strangely slowly, until I felt a jolt. With a thud, my elbow hit something, and I came back to my senses.

All of a sudden, it felt like my body had begun to float, ceasing its descent while my stomach threatened to bore a hole through me and escape on its own.

“Ma–! Na– Ha–?”1

“Sumire, calm down.”

“You flew quite high, huh?”

According to Ludo-san, rather than jumping on my own, it was evidently Fikar doing most of the work, throwing me into the air. I’d forgotten to pull in my knees, but thanks to how high I’d been, I’d still somehow rotated enough to have my back to the ground when Fikar caught me.

“I heard a dull thud just now. Did you hit something?”

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“Ah– yeah, my elbow hit Fikar, didn’t it? Where did you get hit?”

Fikar pointed to his left shoulder. It was showing signs of redness, and maybe a bruise in the making. Ludo-san laughed bitterly as Fikar showed that his shoulder was able to move and rotate just fine. 

“Well, it looks like his joint’s alright, but let’s call it a day, just in case.”

“Agreed.”

I mean, hitting his shoulder after being tossed so high, that kind of soreness was nothing to scoff at.

Cecile-san and Ludo-san talked us through the rest of the choreography that Fikar and I would be doing together, then we went our separate ways. For the most part, it was pretty similar to what we’d been practicing before, so there were no difficulties aside from taking care not to crash into each other.

My most pressing task was to learn to tuck in my knees after entering the air, then land without hurting Fikar. Since I apparently looked like a stone being thrown that first, the challenge was to make a clean flip by myself.

“Ha~h, I was so scared. I wouldn’t have signed up for this role if I’d known it was going to be like this…”

Back home, with Fikar sticking to my back, I pestled dried herbs. Mixing the powdered medicinal herbs, anti-inflammatory magic herbs in this case, with water, I made a poultice. I could’ve bought a specialized medicine, but this method was something the guild taught during its first aid lecture series, so there should be no need.

As I cut a sheet of cloth to a suitable length, Fikar sat down and took off his shirt. Looking at him, his body was adorned with steel-like muscles. For someone that usually felt like a big friendly dog to me, the impact of seeing him as a member of the opposite sex was remarkable.

“Okay, don’t move! If you hug me now, I’ll get angry.”

I didn’t have the guts to be hugged by a half-naked man and think nothing of it. That aside, the redness on his shoulder had subsided a little, shrinking in size and losing some of its brightness.

“Hm? Was it just a light bump…? But it felt like my elbow was hit pretty hard?”

I applied the poultice to his shoulder, then rolled up my sleeve, where my elbow was turning purple. This… This will definitely turn brown soon…

And this time, it was Fikar applying the remaining medicine to my elbow, although he wrapped the cloth around my arm way too many times. “Hey, it’s just a bruise,” I tried to tell him, but my words couldn’t get through to him.

“For now, let’s practice hard so we can nail the landing without getting hurt.”

Fikar nodded.

And, now more than ever, I was determined to lose some weight.

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