Big Sister

“Phew, it’s just as hot here as always.”

A woman in a cloak looked up at the sky.

She narrowed her eyes against the sun’s blazing rays.

A sudden gust of wind blew, knocking back her hood.

“Oh dear.”

In this desert land, sunlight was not a blessing but a poison.

She quickly pulled the hood back over her head.

Her briefly revealed red hair gleamed with moisture, and the glimpse of her face showed features of striking beauty.

What she rode was not a horse… but a camel.

A camel, once it ate a full meal, could keep moving for over a month without food. It had superb cost performance.

Compared to a horse, it was inferior in terms of instantaneous acceleration, but in emergencies, camel blood could be used for both hydration and nourishment, so nothing went to waste.

That was why in the desert, camels were often valued more than horses.

“Big Sis, we need to get moving before sundown.”

“Val, I told you—stop calling me Big Sis. I’ve already retired from being an adventurer.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry about that… Ran-san. The trauma from when you used to rough me up still hasn’t left my body.”

Thanks to correcting himself midway, he escaped another scolding.

With a sigh of relief, the man—Val—was a young man clad in bright red leather armor.

He was quite tall, and even through the cloak, his silhouette revealed a muscular frame.

He carried a shield in his left hand, and at his waist hung a strongly curved blade.

It was a kukri, a weapon notorious for its quirks that made it suitable only for certain users.

“Val-san, please be more proper with your speech.”

“Yeah, yeah, with that kind of talk, forget about becoming a personal bodyguard, that’s just a pipe dream.”

“Garda-san, would you please drop the dialect already! Think of me—I’m the one who has to translate when no one understands what you’re saying!”

“Teto, don’t say such cruel things!”

Behind the woman trailed three others: two men and one woman.

They looked like guards… in fact, they were.

They were an adventurer party called White Silver Wings.

Their rank was C, meaning they were veterans who had already surpassed one hurdle in the adventurer world.

The woman they called Big Sis was named Ran.

By circumstance, she was now a merchant, though once she had been an adventurer.

She—Ran—had once been an A-rank adventurer.

Excluding the S-rank granted only to those who served the kingdom, she had stood at the very peak of adventurers.

In these turbulent times, an A-rank adventurer was sought after by every domain.

But disgusted by the kingdom, where everyone only wanted to use her for their own convenience, she rejected all offers of service.

She had retired from adventuring without regrets… and now, whittling down her own fortune, she traveled as a pseudo-merchant across the desert and its surrounding regions.

“I once aimed to reach the summit of adventuring, but in the end it was empty. That’s why I’ll never devote myself seriously to anything again. I have savings enough to never spend in this lifetime, so I’d rather dedicate my life not to the kingdom or to power, but to those who truly need help.”

The White Silver Wings, sympathetic to Ran’s ideals, chose to travel with her under the title of her guards. Now, they walked the desert, delivering goods they had procured from frontier lands to the villages scattered across the sands.

“I’ve heard that lately sand bandits have been showing up too. Let’s hurry a little.”

“Yes, ma’am!!”

Even the desert, once untouched by strife, had grown dangerous lately.

Refugees from the kingdom and desperate criminals had increasingly fled into the desert to carve out lives.

Desert living was harsh and brutal, but even so, life under the kingdom’s unending wars and crushing taxes was worse.

‘Maybe if sand bandits show up… it might not be so bad to fight again, for the first time in a while.’

Ran thought this as she traveled down a pathless road.

And then—

“What… what is this…?”

The village she had visited many times before had transformed, lush and green, leaving her utterly speechless.