After feeding Fina a hearty breakfast,
I had Aris check the wounds on her body again.
We had administered first aid,
but they had been serious injuries, so we needed to make sure they weren’t festering.
I could have checked myself, but I deliberately had Aris do it.
Even if she was a beastfolk, she was still a girl.
When she had been unconscious, it hadn’t mattered,
but as a man, it would have been difficult for me to examine every corner of her body now.
“Fortunately, it doesn’t look like they’re festering.”
Aris told me after checking Fina’s wounds.
“Hmm. She’s recovering quickly.”
Even at a glance, Fina’s condition looked all right.
Was it because she was a beastfolk that her recovery was faster than a human’s?
To be honest, I didn’t know much about beastfolk.
I had run into them a few times back when I worked as an adventurer,
and the only other knowledge I had came from rumors and a few things I’d read in books.
At least according to what I knew,
unlike humans, beastfolk did not build cities or establish countries.
Wolves, cats, bears, rabbits, cows……
Even among the same beastfolk, their animal species were diverse.
Most of them lived apart from human society,
forming groups of their own and living in tribes.
What was interesting was that they did not gather only with others of the same animal species.
In many cases, beastfolk of several animal species lived together within one tribe.
Even though their appearances differed so much depending on their base animal species that they could be called entirely different races.
Perhaps that was because of the abilities each animal species possessed.
Beastfolk of animal species such as bears, wolves, and lions had powerful bodies.
Those of animal species such as owls and dogs were more intelligent than other beastfolk.
There were also types like rabbits and deer, gentle in temperament and highly patient, who were good at things like farming.
In a way, they were no different from humans.
Just as humans occupy various positions in society according to their individual talents,
beastfolk, too, might simply be taking on various roles within their tribes according to the animal species they possessed.
However.
Just as humans sometimes wage war and fight over power,
I had heard similar things often occurred in beastfolk tribes as well.
A species with great strength would expand its influence within the tribe,
and at some point, drive out the other species.
I had never looked closely into their society,
so I did not know exactly why such things happened.
But when I saw the wounds carved into Fina’s body,
I could not help but consider the possibility of such tribal conflict.
Beyond the monster forest, almost no humans lived,
and on Fina’s body, there were not only claw marks but also traces left by blades.
“Aris.”
I quietly called Aris.
“Yes, Manager!”
“Take Fina to the bedroom, change her bandages, and apply fresh medicine.”
I was curious about what had happened to Fina,
but I decided not to ask rashly.
She had only just begun to lower her guard and calm her mind.
At the very least, it couldn’t have been anything good,
so for now, I decided to focus on helping her recover.
* * *
Had about an hour passed?
I heard the sound of two sets of footsteps from the stairs.
Aris came down first,
and Fina followed behind her.
Fina and Aris were talking about something.
It seemed the two of them had grown a little closer while changing the bandages.
To think that freeloading clump of seaweed had a talent like that.
If it had been just me, it might have been difficult to make Fina lower her guard.
Fina, who came down to the first floor with her tail gently swaying, sat in front of the table.
Aris also naturally took a seat beside her.
The distance between the two of them was close,
but Fina did not seem particularly uncomfortable.
“……So this really is a restaurant.”
“Yeah, yeah~! That’s right. Ah! Do you know the Early Bird Newspaper?”
“The Early Bird Newspaper……?”
“Uh… well, it’s a newspaper that a lot of really famous people read, and our restaurant was featured in it. Isn’t that amazing?”
The two of them had now completely begun chatting in earnest.
There was hardly any timing for me to cut in.
No, more importantly, that Aris.
At some point, she had started speaking casually to Fina.
Just what was with that sociability?
“But… is it really okay for me to keep staying here? If it’s a restaurant, other customers will come……”
“Ah! You don’t have to worry about that! Our restaurant almost never has customers! Make yourself comfortable!”
“B-but earlier, you said it was a famous restaurant because it was in the newspaper……”
“Ah, that’s because……”
Just as Aris was about to say something excitedly,
I approached from behind and placed my hand on the top of Aris’s head.
“Stop.”
“Ah, Manager……!”
“It’s fine that you’re chatting and getting along, but could you not talk about my restaurant in such a strange way? If you leave out all the context like that, she’ll misunderstand and think it’s some weird restaurant.”
“But it is a weird restaurant……”
“Aris.”
The hand gripping Aris’s head tightened slightly.
Watching that, the corners of Fina’s mouth rose ever so slightly.
“Ahaha…… R-right! Fina, where did you come from? Why did you arrive hurt that badly? Did something happen?”
Aris laughed awkwardly and forcibly changed the subject.
But of all things, that subject seemed to touch on Fina’s sore spot.
Fina, whose expression had been relaxed until just now, lowered her head deeply.
Aris seemed to sense it too and closed her mouth for a moment.
Fina’s ears flattened.
Aris tilted her head back to gauge my reaction.
Then she turned her gaze back toward Fina,
her eyes darting about as if she had no idea what to do.
For a while, the hall was quiet.
After a moment, within that silence, Fina opened her mouth first.
“They all died.”
Aris raised her head.
Fina continued speaking.
“My parents, my younger brother, my older brother, all the same animal folk as me died.”
Fina spoke while looking down at the floor.
“I ran away to survive somehow. I just ran blindly into the forest. I knew dangerous monsters appeared there, but the ones chasing me were even scarier than that.”
I stood silently and listened to Fina’s story.
As expected…… was it a tribal fight?
I could not think of any other reason.
Aris seemed about to open her mouth,
so I stopped her by firmly gripping the top of her head.
For now, I thought it would be better to simply let Fina say whatever she wanted to say.
“Why on earth…… why…… hic……”
Fina suddenly began to cry.
What started as quiet sobbing
gradually grew louder, until eventually she was wailing loudly like a child.
“Waaaaaaaah! Hwaaaaaaaaaaah—!”
In front of Fina, who was crying at the top of her lungs, Aris half rose awkwardly and began floundering about.
“M-Manager! Did I… did I do something wrong? Fina? A-are you okay?”
“Hwaaaaaaaaaaah—!!!!!”
Fina’s loud crying filled the restaurant.
I merely watched the scene quietly with my arms crossed.
* * *
After Fina calmed down,
I brought out some simple snacks and tea.
Dragon’s blood herb tea with a calming effect,
and pudding made dizzyingly sweet.
Crying, in a sense, was also something that consumed energy.
If someone cried that hard,
both body and mind would be exhausted and drained.
So I brought out a menu that could replenish energy all at once and calm the mind.
With one table between us, Fina, Aris, and I sat around it.
Fina had her ears folded flat and looked sorrowful.
“So, what happened? If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to. But if you’re in a situation where you need help, feel free to tell me.”
I said while looking at Fina.
She had cried enough,
so I thought she was now in a state where she could speak to some extent.
Fina hesitated,
watched my expression for a long while, then opened her mouth.
“Bears…… bear beastfolk.”
“Bears?”
“Yes… our tribe was a place where cat, bear, and rabbit beastfolk gathered.”
So it was a tribal fight after all.
“Then your tribe was taken over by the bear beastfolk……?”
“……At first, it began with something trivial.”
Fina lowered her head deeply and continued speaking with a pained expression.
“There’s a quota everyone has to meet each day so that we can all live well. At some point, the bear beastfolk stopped meeting that quota and began pushing their share onto others. Since they had strength, if they played the role of protecting the tribe, that alone was enough…… I think that was their logic.”
“……A tribal conflict, then.”
“But that dissatisfaction piled up and piled up, and eventually the problem grew larger. In the end, the issue was brought all the way to the tribal council…… and the bear beastfolk received heavy punishment.”
I did not know well how beastfolk society worked.
But as I listened to Fina,
I could roughly guess what had happened.
“The bear beastfolk, unable to accept the result of the tribal council, began attacking us. The village chief died, and while I was sleeping at dawn, I woke up in shock at the sound of screams. It was truly like hell…… They said they would kill all beastfolk except the bears and create a single tribe made up only of bear beastfolk……”
Fina clutched her head.
“I saw a neighbor I had been close with being torn apart and killed right before my eyes. There was no one who could stop the bear beastfolk. Mom, Dad…… my younger brother, my older brother…… the neighbors too, all of them fell to them. It was a hellish dawn. I wondered if I was having a nightmare. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t understand why my family and I had to go through something like that.”
Tears welled up in Fina’s eyes once again.
Aris listened to Fina with both hands clasped together, looking as if she might cry along with her.
But I listened to the story coldly.
Beastfolk society was different from human society.
Fights within a tribe might be common for them.
It was true that Fina was pitiful,
but I thought that as a human, I could not carelessly pass judgment on something that had happened within a tribe.
“So the tribe was completely swallowed up by the bear beastfolk, and you somehow survived and fled here.”
When I summarized it,
Fina quietly nodded.
It was then.
I sensed a presence outside the restaurant.
“Hmm? Those guys are……”
When I looked outside through the window,
there were enormous bear men almost three meters tall.
“H-hi… hiiiik……!”
Fina saw them, went into a fit, sprang to her feet,
and dashed into the kitchen to hide.
The ones who had come were bear beastfolk.
* * *