Idle talk ???’s dream

— a~ again this dream, huh ..

This worst of all, and best of all dreams ..

Gatogoto, gatogoto.

The carriage was running towards the royal capital.

Me, my Big Sister and our mother – the three of us were riding along in this stagecoach.

From the territory of a certain count that governed this remote region we were heading towards the royal capital.

We were trying to head towards the royal capital from a region that had recently seen an uprise in vigorous monster activity.

Two guards were riding along inside the stagecoach as well.

In order to deal with the monsters that had recently been rising up, it seemed.

Just how often have I seen this dream ..
I know what is going to happen after this.
But for the Me inside the dream there was nothing that could be done about it.

“Saa, soon we’ll come out of the region where monsters appear.”
Is what our mother said.
Me and my sister both nodded delightfully.

It was at that time.
The carriage abruptly stopped.
Me and sister were both clinging to our mother.

All the other people in the carriage were bewildered as well.
The two guards left for the outside.
Doing that they quickly yelled with a big voice.

“It’s a monster attack!!”

The inside of the carriage got uproarious.
Our mother held me and sister tightly and ensured us ‘it’s going to be fine’ any number of times.
The sounds of battle could be heard from outside.

People appeared that decided to leave the inside of the carriage.
A number of grown men took upon self-defense arms such as knifes and swords and went outside.

While all that was happening a single monster entered the inside of the carriage.
The panicking us were hurrying outside.
There, the two guards and others were still fighting.
However, it seemed they were losing ground.

As we left the carriage the single monster that was inside also jumped outside and took us into it’s sights as we were close.

I tightly closed my eyes out of the fear of getting attacked.

“U-!!”

My mother who had embraced me as if to protect me let out a painfilled voice.

“M, mum!”
“Mum!”

Both me and my sister became flustered as we called out to our mother.
Our mother’s back had been injured by the sharp fangs and blood was streaming down from it.
The monster seemed to ready itself to once again swoop down at us.

The monster tried to attack mother a second time.
I threw my quaking/trembling body forcibly in front of her as if to cover her as I was closing my eyes.

–?
Starting to doubt the never coming impact I opened my eyes, and as I did there was a young girl standing there.
That girl was wielding a disproportional sword as she parried all of the monsters advances.
As I was looking around there were also other people now participating in the fight that hadn’t been here before.

As I was once again returning my gaze to the young girl she was fighting the monster as if dancing.
That figure didn’t fit into this situation at all, but it was a very beautiful thing.
Except that the young girl’s blade accurately targeted the monsters’ vital spots, and without even receiving a single counterattack she defeated one after the other.
And like that the monsters got annihilated before one could notice.
The young girl walked over to us.

“I’m sorry for being so late to save you. This person here is your Mother, yes? Now, hurry and put on this salve. It is very effective so your Mother will be alright.” ^[1]

The young girl said so as she handed over the salve to me.
Then she swiftly left to hand out the medicine to all the others as well.
Miraculously us who had all been saved by the girl and her group were all right.
The wound on our mother’s back also wasn’t as bad as it first appeared, and the salve even reduced her pain as we put it on (in addition to the healing effect).

After the girl had confirmed that everyone was safe she lead us to the carriage.
The carriage, as well, fortunately had not received significant damage and it seemed like we would be able to depart with it.

We all said our thanks to the girl and her groups many times over.
The girl got a bit embarassed ‘you don’t have to mind it so much’.
As that was happening a voice called out to her from some removed location.

“Oo—i, Ririina! It’s about time to go—!”

The girl who reacted to that voice bowed to us once and left that place.

After the girl had left the carriage the inside of said carriage welled up in talks about said girl.
From those talks it seemed that girl was the daughter of the count of these remote regions, and her name was Ririina-sama.
For the sake of maintaining public order within the territory she appeared on the front of battle herself in order to slay monsters.
Even though her age wasn’t too far from mine.
Ever since before, I couldn’t get Ririina-sama’s fighting figure out of my head.

This was the only time I had met her but in me was budding the feeling that for Ririina-sama’s sake I would try to do anything.

— This was the feeling that the Me inside the dream would always arrive at towards her at the end.

And that was the very same feeling that the present me still felt.

I wish for Ririina-sama to be able to live freely.

Each time I saw this dream I would think so again.

 

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Translator’s notes

Alright, the first time I read this chapter I had no idea who our narrator was. I could come up with reasonable explanations for most guys in question, none totally unreasonable.
Reading this again I wonder how I didn’t notice ..
On another note, initially I just wanted to read ahead in the raws up to the point that Ririina would be able to finally go monster hunting .. didn’t think it would take so long back then, as this chapter clearly doesn’t count being the past and all.

[1] Worth mentioning that even back then our heroine was using proper formal speech, though by far not as extreme as during the present, in contrast to whoever is narrating this dream who uses more regular speech.

(0) I like how with most other stories of similar worldbuilding the crowd in the carriage would have tried to flee and thereby cause some tragedy somehow – in this story they instead take up arms and join the fray like real people. I am happy about that.