[Interspecies Review Guide: Catgirls]

[Personal Rating: Three stars.]

[Pros: Inherits the unique flexibility of felines, silky-smooth like water, unlocking extreme spellcasting poses you'd never have imagined. A pair of fluffy cat ears that bring an almost inexplicable sense of peace just by touching them.]

[Cons: Also inherits feline instincts in full. At the most intense moment, her underlying programming might give you a firsthand taste of what true wildness actually means.]

...

...

Over the next few days, Banxia spent his time getting used to the body that had suddenly bulked up on him.

He also found the time to update a new entry in the Interspecies Review Guide.

With prior experience as a foundation, he'd mostly adapted in a single night. Everything after that was spent testing just how far this body could actually go.

"My clothes seem to have gotten smaller."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Banxia looked down at the black short-sleeved shirt he'd brought over from his original world.

The fabric pulled taut across a frame noticeably broader than before, barely holding itself together.

He'd always stood at 185 centimeters, but he'd never done any real training, so his overall build had been on the lean side. After being enhanced by Basic Sword Technique, he had reached, at best, "looks somewhat formidable."

Now, just standing there, he gave off the unmistakable impression of someone you really shouldn't pick a fight with.

The reassuring part, at least, was that he was still just a human a notch above average. Not a full meathead.

"Total assets: one gold coin and fifty silver coins. Before I head out on any quests, I should buy some clothes."

Banxia climbed off the bed and packed up everything that belonged to him. Today was checkout day.

There wasn't much to pack, some toiletries, a few tools he'd bought on the commercial street. Everything Marl and the others had left behind, he had no intention of touching.

Besides, his ambitions lay elsewhere.

Banxia's goal was to accumulate enough strength and then head north toward the forests, to find the elf rumored to know every last spell in the world.

For now, taking care of the basic necessities was enough.

...

The inner city. A shop operating under the Star Moon Chamber of Commerce.

"Sir, may I help you?" A woman in the chamber's uniform stepped forward the moment a customer walked through the door.

"Do you have anything that would fit me?"

Banxia stood by the entrance, sweeping his gaze across the display racks.

This world had seen enough upheaval over the years, with otherworlders being dropped in every so often, and over time the fashion sensibilities had drifted far from anything genuinely medieval. Nobody was running through the streets in bikinis, but clothing that showed a bit of skin had long since stopped being treated as heresy worth dragging someone before a tribunal.

The conveniences otherworlders had introduced went further than that. Originally, getting a garment made meant having your measurements taken, placing an order, and waiting several days for pickup. These days, ready-made sizes hung straight off the rack, see something you liked, and you took it.

"We do. This way, please." The saleswoman's eyes lit up. She guided Banxia deeper into the shop, glancing sideways at his shoulder width and build as they walked.

"Customers as tall and broad as yourself are quite rare. As it happens, a new batch of ready-made men's garments just came in — suited for a sturdier build, solid materials, good cut. Let me pull a few for you to try."

She worked the shelves with practiced ease, pulling out several neatly folded pieces and cradling them in her arms, then led Banxia over to a fitting room in the corner.

"This one is double-layered linen — breathable and wear-resistant. Very popular with adventurers."

She handed over the top piece, a grey-brown long-sleeved shirt, then patted the dark blue one beneath it.

"This one is blended with monster fur. Much sturdier than ordinary cotton, and it's been selling particularly well lately. And then this one—"

She pulled out the bottom piece: a black fitted undershirt. The fabric looked decent enough.

"Made by the chamber's own tailor. Good stretch, easy to move in, and very comfortable worn against the skin."

"Is that so..."

Banxia took the garments and stepped into the fitting room.

A moment later, he walked back out with the pile still in his arms, a mildly pained look on his face. "Do you have anything with... better fabric? Something a bit more comfortable to wear?"

It wasn't that he was being picky.

After years of modern clothing, his skin knew the moment this era's fabrics went on whether they were comfortable or not. That was only part of it.

He thought back to when he'd first been summoned. The free linen garments handed out by the Church had been rough enough to scrape the "pampered" skin of a modern person raw. He'd watched plenty of fellow otherworlders train in those things, develop tiny abrasions that turned into secondary infections, and end up bedridden. Whether they ever made it back to the training grounds after that, he had no idea.

He no longer had those concerns himself, but uncomfortable was still uncomfortable.

Humans were creatures of sensation in the end. Go into a life-or-death fight against monsters while wearing something that made you want to squirm, and your effectiveness would suffer for it.

He looked at the saleswoman, whose expression was growing increasingly troubled, and added:

"Price isn't a concern."

He'd glanced at the tags around the shop, most items ran three to five silver coins. Fair enough. A little more than the street stalls, but at least the quality was consistent.

"Of course we do!" The saleswoman's expression brightened immediately.

"If you're not satisfied with the ready-made pieces, sir, we can do a full custom order right here. Style, materials, all chosen to your preference."

"Then let's do that."

"This way, please." She led Banxia up to the second floor.

"Our chamber recently brought on a new tailor. Craftsmanship and eye for detail, both exceptional. I guarantee you'll be satisfied."

"Oh." Banxia responded offhandedly. Polite, but not particularly warm.

The saleswoman didn't take it personally. She'd seen far too many noble lords and ladies walk in wearing that exact same aloof expression, only to look utterly stunned the moment the finished piece was in their hands. She could picture it with her eyes closed.

The two of them stopped before a wooden door.

She raised her hand and knocked. "Mr. Hashaka, there's a customer here for a custom order."

"Hm?" Banxia had the faint feeling he'd heard that name somewhere before.

"Come in." The voice from behind the door, and the way it swung open in answer, made him more certain of it.

"This is the gentleman." The saleswoman guided Banxia inside.

"Mr. Banxia?" The blonde youth behind the desk looked up, a note of surprise in the voice.

"...Long time no see." Banxia replied.

"Mr. Hashaka, you know this customer?" The saleswoman's gaze moved between the two of them.

"Yes, a friend of mine." Hashaka nodded. "I'll take it from here. You can go back to the floor."

There was still a flicker of hesitation on the saleswoman's face. Hashaka added, "Don't worry, your commission gets calculated under the usual arrangement."

The door clicked quietly shut behind her.

Banxia brought his gaze back to the blonde youth, who had already risen from the chair. "Gave up on being a traveling merchant?"

"Not quite." Hashaka produced a measuring tape and wound it around one finger.

"Winter's coming, and the local specialties here in Alterna take time to stock. We were planning to stay the season before moving on anyway, then we stumbled into this decent enough job in the meantime."

Banxia glanced automatically toward the other side of the room.

The woman who had always accompanied Hashaka before wasn't there. Banxia didn't ask.

At the end of the day, they were acquaintances brought together by circumstance. Banxia had helped Hashaka once; Hashaka had repaid the favor with a generous dinner. That was the full accounting.

"I want a full set of everyday clothes," Banxia said, bringing focus back to the point of the visit. "Preferably something close to what people wear in modern society."

Hashaka did not object to the phrase "modern society."

Having failed to deny it the last time they ate together, Hashaka had since been comfortably filed away in Banxia's mind as a fellow countryman from another world.

Hashaka let out a quiet sigh, stepped around to Banxia's side, and stood on tiptoe.

The measuring tape touched the shoulder, and Hashaka's hands paused.

"Mr. Banxia... are you sturdier than before?" It took several seconds to land on that phrasing.

"I've been putting in the work, after all."

Hashaka said nothing, looking back down to continue with the tape.

Internally: No. No, no, no. In just a few days, no normal person could train their way to looking visibly a full size larger. That's not how bodies work.

In the end, those words stayed right where they were, swallowed back down in silence as Hashaka bent over the notebook and quietly recorded the numbers.

➤ Next: There Really Are More Good People in This World After All

Chapter 20 - There Really Are More Good People in This World After All

Banxia paid his deposit and left the shop.

The clothes would be ready for pickup that afternoon.

Producing reliable quality on that kind of turnaround was apparently all down to magical assistance.

He didn't look into it any further, just muttered a quiet note of wonder to himself: magic really was something else.

Once he had more time on his hands, he'd definitely have to look into learning it.

"..."

With nothing pressing to do and his pocket money nearly gone, Banxia headed toward the Adventurers Guild in the outer city to see if any decent commissions were up for grabs.

Several days had passed since his last trip outside the walls. The rest had done him well, his strength had surged again, in a way that could only be called unreasonable.

The level on his adventurer card now sat at 32.

According to the receptionist from before, the guild master, a Platinum-rank adventurer, hadn't even cleared 30. That meant his raw numbers already put him above the head of the Adventurers Guild.

He felt no particular pride about it.

If this world ran purely on Battle Aura clashes between warriors, with none of the flashy magic layered on top, then maybe he'd let himself feel a little smug about it.

Even if he hadn't so much as grazed the edge of Battle Aura himself...

But this world had never been short on unreasonable magic.

There was a story that had circulated in Alterna for as long as anyone could remember, a single Great Demon casually casting a massive forbidden spell, powerful enough to overturn the boundary between life and death and force the dead to "rise." And that was said to be nothing more than the aftershock of the tip of the iceberg.

Standing at the guild entrance now, Banxia looked up again at the enormous snake-headed monster mounted above the door.

It no longer intimidated him. Not even a little. But he still couldn't quite picture what level of individual power it would take to go head-to-head against something on the scale of a legendary Great Demon.

"Hey. Kid. You're in my way."

The voice came from directly in front of him, and it was ridiculous.

Banxia looked down, and only then noticed the goblin standing there at roughly half his height.

In this world, all intelligent races capable of speech, humans, goblins, dwarves, elves, were lumped together under the single umbrella of "humanity." This one was just genuinely, remarkably short. He really hadn't seen it.

He was about to step aside,

"Oh — actually, perhaps you should go first, sir..." The goblin caught the young man's idle, sweeping glance, took one look at the build and bearing behind it, and quietly decided that the joke hadn't landed the way he'd intended.

"Is that right? Much appreciated."

Banxia watched the goblin shuffle respectfully to one side and thought: this one's got manners.

If anyone ever tried to tell him that medieval folk were all uncouth brutes, he'd be citing this exact moment as a counterexample.

"By the way, is something going on today?" There were noticeably more people inside the hall than usual. He turned back toward the goblin, who was already trying to ease away. "Any particular reason?"

"...You haven't heard, sir?"

"Do I look like I've heard?" Banxia was in a decent mood today. He almost never made jokes.

"I, forgive my foolishness, I should have —"

"Relax. I'm just asking what's going on."

"...Right. So, recently, a dangerous monster appeared in the outskirts of Alterna. It's already injured people, and even the guild master, a Platinum-rank adventurer, was wounded and has been ordered to rest for a while. Until it's dealt with, the guild is drastically cutting the number of commissions posted publicly. For our safety, they say..."

Banxia frowned and got the picture quickly enough.

Money came fast in this profession. It left faster. Very few adventurers had the discipline to save any of it. Cutting the commission board in half wasn't a safety measure as far as most of them were concerned, it was cutting off their income.

The guild's "goodwill," landing in a hall full of people waiting on their next meal, was about as welcome as someone smashing their rice bowls.

All these people crowding in right now? Most of them were here to snatch whatever commissions they could before the reduction kicked in.

By the time Banxia came back to himself, the goblin who'd explained all of this was already long gone.

He'd meant to say thanks.

"There really are more decent people in this world than you'd think."

He murmured it, then turned toward the commission board, and caught a flash of familiar blue not far ahead.

"I heard your party's short a mage..."

"Where'd you come from, little girl? This isn't a game of house."

"No, I, I'm already an adult, and I'm a qualified mage —"

"Sorry. We don't have time to babysit anyone out in the field."

Roxy watched their backs disappear into the crowd and let out a quiet breath.

Turned away again. She'd lost count of how many times that made it today.

It was a race issue. Her people's appearance froze permanently at the equivalent of a human thirteen or fourteen-year-old, and there was nothing to be done about it. For someone newly arrived in a strange city, finding a party willing to take her seriously was proving harder than she'd expected.

She tightened her grip on the white staff she'd only just bought, still barely warm in her hands.

She hadn't been able to find a Twilight Tree branch, so she'd gone to the Star Moon Chamber of Commerce and paid full price. Under the salesperson's relentless whisper campaign, she'd drained her entire savings and walked out with a year's worth of loan payments on top of it.

The plan had made sense at the time. Her skills combined with the staff's boost meant she could knock out the debt in a few months, easy.

Then this had to happen.

For Roxy, who needed money now, it was about as bad as things could get.

She was already weighing whether to go back to the chamber and beg them to take the staff back at cost.

And then,

"Miss Roxy. It's been a while."

"Mr. Banxia?" She turned toward the voice.

A large pocket of open space had formed in the middle of the crowded hall, and one person stood in it alone.

The silhouette was familiar. Sort of. The presence behind it was much harder to place.

He'd changed. A lot.

"Why the hesitation?"

That offhand mutter settled it. No one else would say that. It was definitely him, her temporary partner from last time.

"It's only been a few days, Mr. Banxia. How are you this different..."

"I get it. A day apart, three autumns of longing." Banxia's mouth curved. "Told you not to fall for me. Look at you now,"

"No! No, no, I mean the change in you yourself is genuinely too drastic!" Roxy's face went slightly pink and she waved her hands in fast denial.

"Fine, fine. Did you find anything worth taking?"

"...Not yet." Never mind commissions. She hadn't even found a party to join.

"Want to team up then? I haven't found anyone either."

He could always pull out his adventurer card, set his level and class on the table, and half the hall would be elbowing each other to get to him first.

But he wasn't ready to show that hand.

Anyone paying attention could dig up the fact that a month ago he'd been a helpless rookie who couldn't so much as tie up a chicken. The jump was too steep. Too fast. That kind of gap drew the wrong kind of attention.

Especially now, before he had reliable tools to deal with magic and curses, quiet was better.

"Really?! That's actually okay?!"

Roxy's blue eyes lit up all at once.

➤ Next: Prophetic Dream — Words Unspoken