“Good health to you, scaled priest.”

“Mm. And may you find fine battlefields, yourself.”

The one-eyed woman who was the commander here said her final farewells to the adventurers, and then their carriage went racing over the border and into the Mid-world.

It had been just over a week since they set out from the frontier town. The sky was blue, the wind carried the smell of the fields, and the journey was quite pleasant overall. And best, the horses and carriages Female Merchant had acquired were of the highest quality.

When Priestess pictured a carriage, a luggage rack and curtain were the extent of the accoutrements she imagined, so she was taken aback by her current conveyance. It had silk cushions lining benches on which one could recline at ease, and it was wide enough to stretch out one’s legs. And the way it hardly shook at all! There were springs under the floor, explained Female Merchant, who held the reins. Priestess’s reaction to this was:

“Springs?”

That was all.

Her discomfort at having no idea what sort of mechanism was involved did not last very long. After all, to go from riding almost amid the luggage to this most luxurious of carriages made her feel like a princess.

There was that carriage the archbishop rode in, but that was made to be discreet…

This— This was different. It was the very best carriage the head of the Merchants Association could requisition. Priestess was enjoying this very rare opportunity.

“Hrrrm…” By contrast, High Elf Archer was puffing out her cheeks. “She seemed awfully friendly with you,” she teased Lizard Priest, her long ears twitching. “Awfully friendly. You know her from someplace?”

“Oh, an acquaintance from long ago,” Lizard Priest said with a slow shake of his head, evidently unmoved by High Elf Archer’s tone. “Ahem—though when I say long ago, I do not mean a century or two.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get what you mean,” High Elf Archer replied, sticking out her modest chest. “You short-lived people think of fifty years as a long time, right?”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Lizard Priest laughed openly in earnest acknowledgment of this truth. Or perhaps he had taken High Elf Archer to be making a joke. “I might call her a former comrade in arms…or perhaps a former employer.”

“So a friend of yours?”

“Indeed.”

“Huh, really,” High Elf Archer murmured, then lay back on her seat. That might sound somewhat uncouth, but the elf made it look downright elegant. She appeared to be quite at home, virtually of a piece, with the resplendent carriage.

And so it was not her behavior that caused Dwarf Shaman to snort but her clothing. “Yeh weren’t able to do anything about that outfit, lass?”

“Huh? There’s nothing wrong with my outfit,” she retorted. She kicked her feet and was upright again in an instant. The clothes she had on were altogether different from those she normally wore.

They were going to a foreign nation and adventuring in a desert at that. They had each prepared their gear. Goblin Slayer wore a mantle over his usual armor to help block the sun, as well as he might. The light would heat the metal, and the best he might hope for would be to end up a little cooked; but if he wasn’t careful, he could die inside that armor.

High Elf Archer, however, had really gone whole hog, as it were. She was wearing a long-sleeved, long-hemmed shirt made of a thin cloth and leg coverings of the same. There was even a cloth wrapped around her head. A belt tied around her waist kept it all together. It looked easy to move in, but…

“I knew yeh were busy buying something at the capital. And you wonder why you don’t have any money.”

“Coins are like seeds, my dear dwarf. If you just hold on to them, they’ll rot. Getting them out there, that’s what makes them useful.”

“…I hate to admit it, but once in a while you actually say something sensible.”

“It’d be weird not to let them grow,” High Elf Archer muttered under her breath, and Dwarf Shaman finally threw in the towel. He shrugged, a gesture High Elf Archer took as an admission of defeat. She flicked her ears happily and poked her head out toward the driver’s bench. “Thanks for getting this together,” she said, holding out her arms to show off her outfit. “I figured if we were going to another country, I wanted to look like I belonged. I love it!”

“Oh, er, of course…,” Female Merchant said, taken off guard by this burst of approbation. “Think nothing of it. I don’t know much more about this place than you do… If you like the clothes, that’s what matters.” The slight flushing of her ears indicated that she wasn’t entirely unhappy with High Elf Archer’s compliments. Priestess smiled a little more, then decided to lend her dear friend a helping hand. She herself was very unused to praise, after all.

“I don’t know much about commerce, but don’t you handle a lot of things from foreign countries?”

“I handle many and see even more. But I rarely try on the wares…” Female Merchant was visibly relieved to return to a subject she had some experience in. “Even less do I…ahem…” She took a moment to find the words. “…go to a shop and have something made for a friend.”

“It’s not the same thing?”

“Not at all. I was nervous.”