"Why are you suddenly getting so stingy, Sen? Come on, give me that 'chicken' thing again."
The Siberian Husky continued to harass the rider as they rode the bike again.
"No. You already ate more than enough."
Finding the chicken thigh delicious, the dog pleaded for him to give him another one. Then another one after that. Lastly, it also asked for a slice of the pizza due to curiosity.
"But it's so tasty… I don't want to stop eating."
He could sympathize with it. Indulging in junk food could indeed easily lead to an addiction.
"I'll give you more later if you can bring me those rabbits you said you can hunt."
Simply saying it could provide him with meat wouldn't prove that the dog was capable of doing it. No one could say for certain if the canine wasn't just boasting.
"Hmm… Calling you 'dog' and 'Doggy' from here on seems a bit wrong… Don't you have a name?"
"Name? Me a Mystic Wolf. Mystic Wolf is Mystic Wolf."
Apparently, it didn't have one. Senna guessed that term was its species name.
"You a boy or a—" He stopped. Remembering the weird misty spectacle from before and the mysterious woman inside it, Senna speculated that she must have something to do with the Husky.
He was sure of it, even though the dog kept denying the existence of any woman when he asked.
Without breaking his concentration on the path ahead, Senna craned his head down. He narrowed his eyes toward the rear extremities of the Siberian Husky.
"Sen? Something wrong?" Confused by the sudden silence, the dog questioned. "What are you looking at?"
"Hm? Nothing." Shrugging off the inquiry, Senna pretended he wasn't doing anything sketchy. The fact that 'she' was sentient and capable of speaking made the act seem far more lecherous than it had any right to be.
"I need to give you a name. Got any suggestions you want?"
"Name? I don't know. Mystic Wolf has always been Mystic Wolf."
It looked like she wouldn't provide much creativity for the naming procedure. "Let's see… You do look like a Siberian Husky, though."
Senna contemplated for a long while, ignoring the numerous begging for crispy chicken as he did so. "Siberia… Sai… Cybele. Right, that. How does that sound?"
"Hmm? Sound what?"
"The name Cybele for you. It's the name of a goddess."
Though in reality Senna was simply inspired by what she looked like. There was no godly majesty to be found in her doggy visage, as much as she insisted otherwise.
"I got the name Cybele? Sounds cool! Yes, I like it." The dog, Cybele, accepted her new moniker.
"Good. Nice to meet you, Cybele."
"Why? We already acquainted well."
The tedious niceties and formality of mankind were lost on the canine.
*Srrrttt*
Without any warning, Senna braked. The bike's wheel slid on the dirt part. "Whoa, I almost flew away!" Cybele exclaimed.
"…Finally."
Up ahead, through the gap in trees, Senna saw a sight that ignited the slumbering joy inside him.
Though it still looked quite far away, there wasn't any doubt or mistake about it. Man-made structure. From their position, it looked like a high wall encompassing a city.
"Ohh… Yeah! Just a bit more! Here we go!"
Cybele wondered just what got the human so excited. "Sen, what is that faraway thing?"
Readying the pedals again, and with a grin, Senna replied, "A place where lots of humans live."
He burst forth with renewed energy, dodging trees and boulders like a professional downhill biker.
Soon the sun would set. Senna wasn't a fan of outdoor camping, not just because of environmental inconveniences like cold and mosquitos, but also because of the dangerous beasts roaming the forest.
He had been riding all day, covering dozens of kilometers of rough terrain and being assaulted by ferocious creatures. Getting a comfortable rest in a safe, closed shelter had become his current aspiration.
"Really? I wanna see where human lives, take me there!"
"Count on it."
«Quest Accepted: Deliver the Mystic Wolf, Cybele, to a human settlement.»
The system voice rang inside Senna's head after a spell of silence. "Whatever, Sis. I'm gonna get there even without you or Cybele telling me."
All the while Senna sped through the wildland in vigor. After he gained yet another meaningful distance…
*Sweep*
Bursting through a mess of tangled vines, Senna landed on a clear patch of ground where no vegetation was growing. It spanned far to his left and right, continuing past the distant horizons.
It was a dirt road, unmistakably created by the dextrous hands of intelligent creatures.
"Civilization, at last…"
"Woof! The trees disappeared over here, and there!"
And as they celebrated in both tearful relief and excited curiosity, a voice called their attention.
"What?! Bandits?!"
*****
What seemed like a medieval-era horse-drawn wagon slowly plodded along the dirt road until it stopped a bit distance away from Senna and Cybele.
"Where did you come from? What is that under you?" the middle-aged man sitting in the driver seat, a coachman, addressed Senna with suspicion.
It was his first time meeting another human in this world, and the bewilderment kept him from answering immediately.
"Hey, you deaf or something?"
"…Ah! Sir, I'm—"
What was he, in actual terms? Was it alright to tell him he came from another world? That he was a taxi driver summoned to save this one from a crisis?
Would he even be believed? If some random psycho came out of the bushes as Senna drove his evening ride home and told him he arrived from another dimension, Senna would immediately call the police.
"…I'm… I'm lost!" he said the only thing that appeared in his mind. Lost and confused, to be precise.
"Lost in the forest? Gah, what are you, a kid?" The coachman climbed down his wagon and approached the hapless rider. "You better not make this a trap, you hear me? I'll tell you, I got ways to ensure you regret it."
He grasped the hilt of the glinting blade hung beside his hip. The gesture was truly indicative of his intent to self-defense. "Oh, I'm not dangerous at all!" said Senna, fully forgetting the massive object strapped to his back.
"I'm gonna see to that. What's that thing under you and your dog?"
"It's a bicycle, human!" Cybele answered for him. Senna panicked for a moment wondering how to explain about a talking dog. However, there were no reactions from the man.
'Huh?'
"You actually have hearing problems or what? I said what is it?"
It seemed what Cybele said didn't register with him. "M-My bike, yeah. It's my uh, transport."
"It's for riding? I see it got wheels…" The man curiously inspected the mountain bike from various angles. "How do you ride it?"
"Well, you just pedal and steer…" It only came to him that he didn't really know how to explain the mechanism behind the working of bicycles.
"Pedal? I don't get it. Hey, you said you're lost, correct?" Senna nodded to the question. "I'm about to go to Kyllian over there, you want to come with me?"
He indicated the walled city Senna saw earlier, up ahead at the end of the road. "Can I? I'm also looking to go to… uh, this Kyllian as well." Realizing it was the city's name, Senna responded in a way to hide his oblivious nature.
"Sure. I want to see how you ride that thing. Wait up." The man returned to his wagon and climbed it on again. Spurring the horse, it slowly resumed its stroll.
Senna correctly deduced that the man intended for them to proceed together, with him observing on the way.
It wasn't something for him to mind. After all, it was just about pedaling a bicycle.