Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 3 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Majima Takahiro’s Story

Lily quickly rose to her feet. “I’ll get it.”

Ayame leaped into the air and crawled into Lily’s cleavage while Asarina coiled around my left arm, which I then covered with the bandage. After verifying that the two of them were hidden, Lily undid the lock on the door and opened it slightly.

“Yes? Who is it?”

Her careful behavior was that of a guard. Lily was being cautious so that the visitor couldn’t see me, just in case. But by doing so, I couldn’t see them either. I figured the preparations for that banquet they mentioned were done and the man who’d brought us here had come back.

“Hwuuh?”

I heard a somewhat hysterical voice. My visitor was a man, or rather, a boy. Meaning it was more likely one of the students who came to this fortress with me.

Wait, no, this is...

“I heard this was Takahiro’s room? Why are you here, Mizushima?”

“That’s... Huh? Aren’t you...”

Something was strange. I stood up and hurried over to the door. Lily turned around with a surprised expression, but she stepped aside as I opened the door. The schoolboy in the hallway turned to face me. He was a little shorter than me, but he had a sturdier physique to contrast that. His unkempt hair gave him an unpolished look. Our eyes met across his glasses.

“You’re...Mikihiko?” It was someone I knew. A former classmate and friend.

“Yo, Takahiro. Long time no see.”

He raised his hand with a flippant smile. I wasn’t mistaken.

“Looks like you’re okay too, Takahiro. I thought I wouldn’t meet anyone I knew anymore. Hahaha. Don’t you think the difficulty for clearing this world is way too high? Or maybe we got the difficulty setting wrong? Haha, there should be a limit to life’s hard mode.”

“What is this, a game now?”

Even as I quipped back, a smile came to my face. This really was just like him. This guy, Kaneki Mikihiko, was none other than my friend who had talked about otherworldly fantasy stories so passionately when we first got here. He had been a member of the home team back at the Colony, much like me. I was completely under the impression that he’d died on the day the Colony was destroyed.

“Oh man, it’s really been a long time, huh?” he said.

“Yeah, it really has...”

His optimistic tone was exactly the same as the Mikihiko I knew. It proved to me better than anything else that this wasn’t a ghost or impersonator. His survival suddenly had a sense of reality to it.

“Well, setting that aside,” Mikihiko said before that sense of reality could turn into any sort of emotion, “there’s one thing I gotta ask. Why’s Mizushima here?”

“Why...?”

“Isn’t this your room? I dropped by ’cause that’s what I heard?”

It was in fact an impolite and inconsequential question, but Mikihiko’s expression was dead serious. I exchanged looks with Lily, sighed deeply, looked up at the ceiling, and then shrugged.

“Could it be...exactly what I think it is? Is it? That’s kinda shocking, man.”

“Ahaha. You’re the same as ever, Kaneki,” Lily said with a strained smile. She was clearly using Mizushima Miho’s memories as a reference.

“Huh? Mizushima, you know who I am? We’ve never actually talked, right?”

“It’s not all that hard to remember you when you’re always so loud.”

“Oof! You’re way harsher than you look,” Mikihiko replied as he smacked his forehead.

“You really haven’t changed...” I said, smiling awkwardly.

Yup. He really, really hasn’t changed. For a single instant, I felt like I could forget we were in another world, forget we were in a fortress in the middle of a dangerous forest rampant with monsters. I was happy my friend, who I thought I’d never see again, was alive. I was happy to speak with him like this. It was even more heartening to see this side of him hadn’t changed at all.

“Hm? Really? On that note, the air about you has kinda changed, Takahiro.”

“Has it? I can’t really tell.”

“How to put it? Intensity? Manliness? Something like that,” he said as he watched me touch my own cheek. Then he cackled. “I see you’ve become even more of a beauty than before, Mizushima. You two are like adults now... Oh man, the implications!”

“...What are you going on about?”

Lily and I did indeed have that kind of relationship, so he was right on the mark. If you swapped out Mizushima Miho for Lily, that is.

“Don’t be stupid. Well, come on in.”

He came out of his way to visit, so talking in the hallway was a little weird. But Mikihiko waved his hands in front of him.

“Oh, no. I came here to get you. Looks like they’re done preparing the banquet for their oh-so-great visitors from afar. I heard you were here, so I volunteered to guide you.”

“Oh, that so?”

“Come on, I’ll show you the way.”

I didn’t have a reason to refuse, so I obediently followed along. I left my room behind and went down the stone corridor. Mikihiko was half a step ahead while I followed at his side. Lily walked between us.

Mikihiko had four swords at his waist—two on the left and another two on the right—which looked to be the same as the shortswords the knights were using. His sheaths clanked against each other behind him. But with the exception of the addition of weapons, my friend looked the same as he always did.

“Walking along shoulder to shoulder like that... What, are you dating dammit? Aren’t you kinda close? Actually, I just got a glimpse of it earlier, but it looked like you two were sharing a bed. What’s going on?”

“You sure are paying attention to the small details...” I said with an astonished sigh before changing the topic. “So, you’re the survivor they mentioned who reached this fortress before us?”

“I’m surprised you can tell.”

“It’s just by process of elimination.”

Mikihiko wasn’t among the students I came here with, and he wasn’t a member of the exploration team. Meaning there was one possibility left. But that one possibility was somewhat unbelievable.

“How’d you even survive and get this far?”

Before I knew it, my voice had a hint of admiration to it. Surviving the chaos at the Colony and making it through this monster-filled forest was no small feat. It did of course require a certain degree of luck, but just having the guts to keep walking without giving up was worthy of praise. This guy wasn’t just fooling around.

“Well. I almost died a few times. But that goes the same for you, doesn’t it?”

“...I guess.”

Fortunately, Mikihiko didn’t notice the unnatural delay in my response.

“Besides, I wasn’t all on my own the entire time. You see, after I scurried away from the Colony, when I seriously thought I was a goner, the commander of the Alliance Knights here picked me up.”

“That’s not all that different from us. It was the lieutenant in our case, though.”

“Ooh, Lieutenant Shiran? I see. She said she wanted to talk with you later. Said she promised to explain a bunch of stuff to you.”

“Oh yeah, I guess she did.”

I thought she would just leave it to a subordinate, but apparently Shiran’s personality was as honest as the impression she gave.

“She’s in the middle of talking over some stuff with the exploration team, right?” I asked.

“Yup. There might still be some survivors in the Woodlands, so they’re having a meeting about a rescue mission, I think. There’s too many students, so they can’t really protect them all. Being in the Woodlands for too long is dangerous too, so Shiran’s unit only went through a few listening posts. That’s why they’re having another team head out. That said, seeing that the exploration team is here, it’ll probably be the Imperial Knights who head—”

“H-Hang on, Mikihiko,” I said, stopping his rambling. This part hadn’t changed either...or rather, he’d yet to fix it. “Sorry, I can’t keep up. Can you explain things in order from the beginning?”

“Oh yeah, you two don’t know anything about this fortress yet, huh? Okay. I’ll have to keep things a bit short, but if you don’t mind that, then—”

Mikihiko had a fairly good grasp of the situation in this fortress, despite arriving here just a little before us. And although it was just for a short while, as we made our way to the banquet, I listened to everything he had to say.

◆ ◆ ◆

According to Mikihiko, the first expeditionary force reached another fortress to the east, Fort Ebenus. This was two weeks ago. Around the same time, they heard the news of the Colony’s destruction. Mikihiko, though quite familiar with the situation, didn’t know this, but we knew Mizushima Miho’s childhood friend, Takaya Jun, had headed east to get help from the expeditionary force. Perhaps others who also headed east, or Takaya Jun himself, had told them of the tragic news.

Immediately following that, Fort Ebenus sent a message to Fort Tilia. There was quite the distance between the two fortresses, but they had some means of long-distance communication in place for exactly such situations. It used magic, but Mikihiko didn’t know much about it.

The message from Fort Ebenus was a rescue request for the students who had escaped the Colony. In response, Shiran led a force of knights into the forest immediately. Meanwhile, the expeditionary force formed a team focused on speed and dispatched them to Fort Tilia. This team was made up of three people centered around the Skanda Iino Yuna. They arrived at the fortress two days ago. That was why Shiran didn’t know about their arrival.

“That’s the long-short of things. So, about their plans from now. The second rescue team was waiting for Shiran’s unit of Alliance Knights to return before dispatching. The guys from the exploration team also seem intent on joining the rescue operations. And the ones accompanying them will be from the Imperial Knights. Well, that’s just my prediction, though.”

There were currently three military organizations stationed within Fort Tilia: the Southern Imperial Army, the Second Company of the Imperial Knights, and the Third Company of the Alliance Knights. There must have been a good reason for military bodies from different affiliations to all be stationed in one fortress.

“Don’t you find it strange there’s a fortress in the middle of a forest like this, Takahiro? When you think of fortresses, you think of something to repel foreign invaders, right? But there’s no human settlements deeper into the forest.”

“...Meaning the ‘foreign invaders’ in this case aren’t human?”

“Exactly. Fort Tilia was constructed as a stronghold to protect the human world from the monsters in the Woodlands. As such, the Empire and the countries which form the Alliance, basically their vassal states, each dispatch forces to the fortress.”

The threat of monsters was apparently large enough to force multiple countries to unite together against it. These circumstances convinced me as to why the knights answered the exploration team’s rescue request. In short, it was a matter of profit.

I didn’t know how well the knights and soldiers of this world could fight. But thinking back on their response to the bull wrigglers, they couldn’t fight independently against monsters the way cheaters could.

As students nonsensically teleported to another world, we were all extremely irregular beings. We had nothing to do with this world, so normally, no organization out there would have any reason to brave danger and save us. However, the cheaters, who could easily scatter the monsters of the Woodlands, were an extremely valuable force here. If they had discovered the cheaters’ value, it would make sense they’d bend over backward so they didn’t miss out on this stroke of good fortune.

“So... Oh, we’re here,” Mikihiko muttered. There was still more he had to say, but we had arrived at our destination.

Our destination turned out to be a room about the size of a classroom. I could sense multiple people already inside.

“Thanks, Mikihiko. That was enlightening.”

We had managed to get quite a lot of information in a short period of time. There was still more I wanted to ask about, but it could wait until next time. We brought our conversation to an end and stepped into the room. Gathered inside were mostly students, including the members of the exploration team. It seemed we had taken a little longer coming here.

The warm reception they prepared for us was a buffet-style party. A line of food stretched down a long table. From what I could see, their eating habits here didn’t differ much from our world. There was bread, soup, and hearty-looking meat dishes. There wasn’t any fish, though, probably because of the locale. Root vegetables compensated for the lack of green ones.

With their first proper meal in ages before them, the students looked to be ravenous. I wasn’t any different in this regard. I unintentionally gulped at the delicious-looking food, which caused Lily to giggle.

Aside from the students and the serving staff, there were several elderly men in the room. They weren’t by the table of food but were instead having some sort of meeting further in the back. Despite not wearing armor or helmets, the men had a peculiarly imposing air about them. They were surely some higher-ups from the army or knights or the like. They wore colorful uniforms, and even in their advanced age, they had sturdy-looking bodies.

Just then, my eyes coincidentally met one of theirs.

“...?”

Feeling the pressure from his gaze, I reflexively stared right back. We weren’t glaring at each other or anything like that. But even so, we weren’t just appraising each other either. His gaze had a mysterious fervor to it. It definitely wasn’t anything like malice. However, it felt heavier than simple goodwill. His eyes contained emotions I’d never had directed at me before in my life.

It felt uncomfortable, so I averted my gaze. Taking another look around the room, I realized the other men were the same. They looked at the students, including myself, with strangely intense gazes. They were like... They were like pious believers gazing upon a religious painting.

But what I found even more mysterious was how the students other than me didn’t think anything of these gazes. They were acting perfectly natural while chatting amongst themselves. Did they fail to notice the occasional looks directed at them...? No, that was impossible. They simply showed no signs of caring. That “inconsistency,” which I had forgotten about while speaking with Mikihiko, once more began encroaching on my mind.

“It seems everyone has gathered now.” With our arrival, one of the elderly men decided it was time to start the party and began addressing the room. “I am pleased to meet you all. I am the general responsible for this fortress, Jairus Greene.”

This man was apparently the most important person in the entire fortress. I stared in shock as he placed his hand to his chest and bowed deeply at the waist. This man, who was several times our age and held tremendously high social status, was showing an excessive amount of respect to a bunch of teenagers.

It was clear from the slight trembling in his expression that this wasn’t merely a diplomatic courtesy. His voice was full of tension and intoxication, accompanied by an indisputable sense of reverence. I continued to stand there watching in astonishment as Jairus raised his head once more.

“Welcome, hallowed saviors descended from another world. It is an honor to make your acquaintance.”

What the hell’s with that? That was my honest opinion. My mind came to a complete stop. I couldn’t even process any other proper thoughts.

“It would normally be customary to invite you to the capital and have His Imperial Majesty personally welcome you, but this fortress lies deep within the Woodlands. Please forgive us for only being able to receive you in such a humble manner.”

“Please, there’s no need for that, General Jairus,” said the schoolboy with a large build from the exploration team, Juumonji. “We came here to see our request fulfilled, after all. Allow me to offer my gratitude once more. Thank you very much for saving my fellow schoolmates. I must also thank you for lending a hand in the upcoming rescue operation. I’m sure that with your help, we will safely reunite with the others.”

Juumonji’s attitude was grandiose. He showed no fear of the attention he was gathering. A smile formed on his virile face. The way he accepted the respect of this old man before him, as if it were perfectly natural, almost made his body seem larger than it was. He was like the protagonist out of a story, like a hero extolled in legends...or like the savior of the world.

What a farce... We weren’t anything like heroes. We were just commonplace teenagers one could find anywhere in Japan. We just happened to be teleported to another world, as extraordinary as that was. Didn’t everything we went through teach us that? Did they forget about all that chaos and disgraceful behavior on the day the Colony fell? If they remembered their powerlessness, their own pitiful states, then there was no way they could dream about being heroes.

At least, that was supposed to be the case. I was evidently the only one who felt that way. The students who had needed the knights’ protection to get here didn’t really show any signs of doubt. On the contrary, they gazed longingly toward Juumonji. There was even admiration in their eyes.

A powerful sense of discomfort shook my brain. I didn’t get it. It felt like I was standing among aliens. Lily was the only one who felt the same discomfort as me...

“What a load of bullshit.”

Or not.

“...Mikihiko?”

His muttering was truly quiet. Nobody heard him aside from me. He coldy observed the room from behind his glasses. Then he looked at me standing there in confusion.

“Great, looks like you’re normal, Takahiro,” he suddenly said. “The party’s starting and all, so let’s have a chat. Come on.”

◆ ◆ ◆

I was under the impression that teleportation from another world was a rare phenomenon, but that apparently wasn’t the case here. On the contrary, the existence of these “visitors from afar” was a well-known fact.

“Even if you only count us, that’s still about a thousand people teleported here. It wouldn’t be all that strange if there were others, yeah?”

That’s what Mikihiko said. He did have a point. But our case was still an exception. It seemed so many people appearing at once had never happened before. On average, visitors appeared in this world once a century. Normally, it was just one at a time. Even when several people appeared at once, there were only ever a handful of them.

Besides that, everything else was the same as our case. For example, everyone who was teleported here, without exception, possessed outlandish power. I was under the impression that the locals had just discovered how valuable the cheaters of the exploration team were. But in fact, they knew how useful they were from the very beginning.

Or maybe “useful” wasn’t the right word. Their respect toward visitors verged on reverence. That was precisely why they spoke so formally and greeted us as “hallowed saviors descended from another world.” Thinking back on it now, it wasn’t all that odd.

The people here had to deal with the threat of monsters at all times. So, say people with preposterous powers appeared and handily obliterated these atrocious monsters. And upon speaking with them, they found out these powerful people came from another world. They would be treated as saviors. It would be strange if they weren’t.

From what Mikihiko told me, the legends stated that the very first savior came to this world when humanity was on the verge of extermination by monsters. Furthermore, when left at large, the threat from monsters constantly escalated every year. Humans constantly had to take up arms to fight them. The advent of saviors every century had kept the monsters at bay for thousands of years. It was directly connected to the survival of the human race.

From another perspective, the existence of what these people called “saviors” was like a system built into the very world itself to maintain human society. As such, society here made sure they could properly receive any visitors. Having a means of communicating with them was an easy-to-understand example of this.

“Don’t you find it weird, Takahiro? There are thousands of languages in our world. Even here, they have multiple languages based on different origins. Normally, it’d be impossible to communicate.”

“Oh yeah...”

I recalled the letter I retrieved from the ghoul who attacked us. It was written in a language I had never seen before. And yet, all of the students, including myself, could speak with the people here without any difficulty. I had also found this rather strange.

“This world’s languages are different from ours. But going out of their way to teach the oh-so-great saviors how to speak from scratch is way too roundabout. Having said that, they have no idea where their wonderful heroes are going to come from, so it’s difficult for them to learn our language... Well, you can sympathize with that last part, right, Takahiro?” Mikihiko jokingly said with a laugh.

“...Sorry for having crap grades in English. I have the grammar down at least,” I replied with a scowl.

“But you suck at listening.”

“...”

“Haha. It’s a relief to see you like that. Anyway, they managed problems like these with magic.”

They apparently had the means to solve this. They developed magic technology that used a special mineral to create runestones. These exhibited a multitude of effects. The lighting fixture installed in my room here, as well as the stone that formed a barrier around that hut, were examples of runestones. In short, there were also translation runestones that worked like auto-translation devices.

“But...runestones? Isn’t that kind of cliché?”

“Nope. That’s kinda the point.”

According to Mikihiko, the translation runestone allowed people to converse with each other in proximity to its user. However, the words one heard depended on the target’s cognition; it chose words from the target’s language that most closely matched what was being said. That was why multiple people could listen to the same thing but hear different words.

In a world with mana and magic, it only made sense for them to focus on something that could be used by everyone instead of being dependent on an individual. The reason I heard the tool they created as “runestones” was purely because the word was convenient for me to understand. It felt cliché, but that was because it was such a widespread concept in fiction already.

It really was convenient, but I wasn’t one to talk. My cheat, the magical connection I had with monsters, could be said to be a kind of translation magic.

This translation runestone certainly was useful, but it required specialist training to use. Shiran was one such person who was trained and entrusted with one. That was how I was able to converse with her on the way to the fortress.

“Here in Fort Tilia, there are several people like Lieutenant Shiran with translation runestones. I don’t think we’ll have any problem communicating while we’re here.”

That’s what Mikihiko said, but conversely, it also meant we would slam into a language barrier if we were to leave this area for some reason. Depending on how things developed, I needed to prepare some sort of countermeasure.

Anyways, that was why visitors from afar were treated like saviors. However, whether we wanted to be treated like that was another matter altogether. We were children thrown into this world without knowing left from right. In a sense, we were victims. We couldn’t possibly be some sort of heroes.

After what happened the day the Colony fell, nobody would dream of being a hero. That was my opinion, but... Say I didn’t know of that day. What then? The Colony’s collapse and the disaster which followed flipped my sense of values. Things would be completely different if I didn’t go through that change, though. This was the source of the “inconsistency” I felt.

“You listening, Takahiro? Those three from the exploration team were part of the first expeditionary force. They know about the Colony’s destruction, but that’s all. They only heard about it. They never saw it. They never felt what happened there.”

They did say, “seeing is believing,” but the phrase wasn’t even necessary here. In the truest sense, those three had no idea what happened in the Colony. That was why Juumonji dared to say such naïve words like, “I am sure that with your help, we will safely reunite with the others.”

“Just think of how those guys got here in the first place. After coming to a new world, they woke up to the strongest possible powers, effortlessly beat up monsters, protected a bunch of powerless students, and went off on a grand adventure to cross the forest. From their view, they faced off against countless trash mobs and pushed through untrodden lands with their unlimited stamina. And once they found the human world, they get praised as hallowed saviors this and exalted heroes that.”

Mikihiko’s words were filled with cynicism, but he wasn’t wrong. The pain, suffering, and fear, the despair and frustration—all the hardships I’d experienced since arriving here didn’t exist in any way whatsoever for them.

“I’m sure they had their own worries. But theirs were nothing more than something they could overcome by cheering each other on. It’s nothing compared to the helplessness and misery of having to wander that forest on your own.”

Their anxieties were nothing more than spice to liven up their heroic tale. Their spectacular activities were enough to make such worries shine...

“Even though we’re all in the same otherworldly fantasy, the genres of our stories are different.”

This statement was very like Mikihiko. Myself and the thirteen students I accompanied to the fortress were in one genre, while the exploration team members were in another.

“Despite only being there for a short while, we had a community of over a thousand people living there. We referred to it simply as the Colony, but it was quite large. It wasn’t like every single person experienced hell that day. The guys you came here with all left with exploration team members who’d stayed behind. They managed to avoid the chaos and took refuge in those huts.”

I knew a similar story—Katou. She escaped the destruction of the Colony, and Mizushima Miho’s childhood friend, Takaya Jun, protected her and brought her to that hut. Meaning there were others who had such luck. But unlike Katou, and unlike myself, they didn’t see any of that hell before someone protected them and took them away.

“So, that’s why...”

I recalled my walk toward this fortress. The harmonious atmosphere. Those warm words. The students cheering each other on. The student who acted like a peacemaker. The delinquent. The bullied kid. I had viewed the scenery, just like one could see in any modern Japanese classroom, as if it were merely transported into a forest. It was really unnatural. There had to be some reason they remained exactly as they were even after being thrown into this world.

Someone was always protecting them. From beginning to end. From the moment they were teleported here to the moment the Colony fell. Even on their journey to this fortress. They were protected the entire time.

Thinking back on it now, the way they fell into a panic when the bull wrigglers attacked was perfectly natural. That was the first time they had been truly confronted with danger. And once again, they were saved. Saved by the exploration team.

From their perspective, the exploration team had been protecting them this entire time. They didn’t even think to question how the people here treated them as saviors. They were simply acknowledging their heroes. But that wasn’t all...

“The great power we call cheats, they refer to them as blessings here. Supposedly, all the visitors who appeared up until now wielded these mysterious powers. That means even the students of the home team like you and me are no exception.”

I knew this since I’d already awakened to my own ability, but now even the students of the home team knew they possessed some kind of hidden power. So, to them, the heroes of the exploration team were the pioneers they had to catch up to. One day, they would become like that. It was natural they’d believe so.

“It’s seriously a load of bullshit! Saviors my ass!”

Mikihiko’s emotions began flaring as he talked about all this. He clenched his fist. There was righteous indignation in his anger. He remembered the tragic events of the Colony, felt the weight of all those lives crushing down on him, so the thoughtless students getting all merry over being treated like oh-so-great heroes got on his nerves. I understood how he felt. I understood so well it hurt. But on the other hand, I couldn’t express it outwardly like he could.

“Great, looks like you’re normal, Takahiro.”

That was what he had said when I stood there full of doubt over the abnormal atmosphere in the room. But who exactly was the normal one here? Who was the abnormal one? Once I began thinking of this, I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Oh.”

And just as we hit a good stopping point, Mikihiko noticed something and raised his voice. The party was in full swing now, and the three members of the exploration team were taking center stage. But two people had just entered the venue.

“Commander!” Mikihiko yelled, and the two women began walking over to us.

The one to the front was a tall woman with a muscular build and short, silver hair. Mikihiko ran over to meet her. Seeing his happy reaction, I figured this was the commander of the Third Company of the Alliance Knights who had saved him in the Woodlands. The sight of the short Mikihiko running over to the tall woman somehow resembled a dog running to its owner. He looked quite emotionally attached. Lily saved me in much the same way, so even if our relationships were different, his happiness was pretty easy to understand.

As I watched Mikihiko run off, the blonde elf with blue eyes, who had been walking behind the silver-haired woman, came over to me. This was the knight who’d brought me to this fortress, Shiran. She wasn’t wearing her armor, perhaps because this was a party.

“Sir, my apologies for being late even though this is your long-awaited reception banquet,” she said in an overly formal manner as she tapped her heels together and bowed her head.

I looked down at her blonde hair with extremely complex feelings.

“Please raise your head. There’s no need to apologize. Besides, I’m not that important a person.”

“What are you saying, sir? You are one of the exalted saviors descended from another world. Moreover, are you not one who managed to travel through the Woodlands on foot?”

I didn’t pay much attention to this grandiose phrasing before, but now I knew the source of this behavior. It was completely misdirected respect. Not only that, the way she humbled herself made me feel uncomfortable. But no matter what I could say, Shiran didn’t seem like she would allow her respect for the saviors of the world to waver. Her direct gaze and sincere expression spoke volumes of the expectations she had in the very existence of these saviors.

It was verging on religious zeal.

And just then, I realized this was religious zeal.

We were like living gods to them. Here, where magic existed and legendary heroes regularly appeared and saved the people from monsters, the advent of saviors was an absolute faith that existed within the hearts of every human living in these lands.

I didn’t know whether this applied to absolutely everyone, but at the very least, the ones before my eyes naïvely believed in this. They believed that if they fought for their lives, if they endured, one day a savior would appear and fight alongside them. And right here, right now, we descended upon them.

They believed we were their saviors, come to save them from their plight. They didn’t doubt it for a moment. If they saw us in trouble, they would lend a hand without hesitation. They paid the utmost respect possible and wouldn’t back down. They surely couldn’t even imagine the armor I had hidden beneath my clothes, or the way I was suspicious of their every move.

What ignorant stupidity... But I guess I can’t really think that way myself.

Trust thy neighbor. Don’t suspect others of malice.

Even I lived that way once upon a time. They possessed something magnificent, something I lost after coming to this world. That also applied to the students here. Those exploration team members were probably going to contribute greatly as saviors. With their dreadful powers, expelling the threat of monsters from human lands was easier than exterminating pests. It was somewhat paradoxical, but these “brave heroes” possessed such grand powers that they required no bravery to accomplish such feats.

Even the home team students they protected would one day awaken to their own powers and live on as heroes. Their stories were a different genre than mine. Tragedy didn’t exist for them. They were going to live wonderfully as heroes without even knowing such horrors.

This wasn’t a bad thing. They were trying to use their powers for good, after all. But I did in fact know things they didn’t. I knew of the filthiness of humans. I knew of despair. I was soaked in agony. I experienced misery.

However, using that as a pretense to dismiss people who naïvely believed in others was a little wrong.

I didn’t become someone who suspected others of malice. I lost my ability to trust them.

I didn’t gain anything from my experience. I lost something important as a person.

They could trust their neighbors. I doubted mine.

It was easy to see which was the more proper path.

“Takahiro?”

At Shiran’s call, I came back to my senses. She was looking at me with an anxious expression.

“O-Oh. What is it?”

“I promised I would offer an explanation for anything you do not yet understand... But I must apologize, sir. Could you wait for a little while longer?”

“I don’t really mind,” I replied with a nod. “Now that you mention it, is this related to the reason you’re late to the party?”

“No, that was a different matter. I just couldn’t get the bull wriggler attack this afternoon off my mind. I was observing the forest from the walls for a little while.”

“...”

She didn’t discover Gerbera, did she? My thoughts drifted in that direction precisely because I knew how careless that girl could be. If she ended up unable to bear it any longer, got too close to the fortress, and was spotted by the soldiers, it would cause a huge ruckus. It wouldn’t be funny in the least. There were three cheaters here. I really wanted her to quietly wait for me.

Shiran seemed to interpret my delicate expression as anxiety toward the defense of the fortress. Her pretty face was now accented with a smile.

“Please be at ease, sir. Embarrassing as it is, it was naught but needless anxiety on my part.”

“Is that so? That’s good then... Really.”

“I must go and greet everyone who accompanied me on the way here. If possible, could we speak after that?”

“Oh. About that... Sorry, but I’d like to call it a night. Could you spare me some time another day?”

“Very well, sir. I shall contact you on another occasion.”

“Huh? Takahiro, you turning in?” Mikihiko asked, having overheard our conversation.

“Yeah,” I replied with a nod. “I just got here, so I’m a little tired. Sorry, Mikihiko. I still don’t know my way around here. Could you show me the way back to my room?”

“Sure. What’ll you do, Mizushima?”

“I’ll go back too. I can’t just leave Majima on his own.”

“Roger that. Man, it’s getting hot in here. Well then, Commander, I’ll be back later.”

After saying goodbye to the commander and Shiran, we left the party behind.

◆ ◆ ◆

I spent the time walking back to my room chatting frivolously with Mikihiko. I had gotten most of the information I wanted from our earlier conversation already, so I had nothing more to ask him. But it was a different matter for Mikihiko himself.

“Hey, Takahiro,” he said just as we reached my room, “you probably don’t want to remember, so you don’t need to answer me if you don’t want to. But can I ask you one thing about the day the Colony ended?”

“What?”

“You were working in the same group as Masaki and Soushi, right? Do you know what happened to them?”

Those were the names of friends we had in common.

“They died,” I replied immediately. I predicted he would ask about this. That was probably why my words came out so calmly. “They died that day, right before my eyes.”

I didn’t plan on saying more.

One of them died in misery while being tormented. The other was swallowed by flames and turned to ash.

Nothing would come from him knowing this. It was better to remain silent. That was what I believed.

“I see,” Mikihiko muttered.

I tried to keep it as brief as I could, but that might’ve touched a nerve. Mikihiko didn’t ask anything else. Instead, he said, “I’m glad you survived, Takahiro. You too, of course, Mizushima.”

“Yeah. I’m also glad I got to see you again,” I replied.

Mikihiko flashed a grin and left. I watched his back as he went down the corridor and let out a sigh. I was happy to see him again; I was telling the truth. However, I still kept secrets from him until the very end. What was lost would never return. Not the lives lost, not the simple relationships without a hidden facet to them, and perhaps not even our past selves.

“Master,” Lily whispered in my ear as she hugged my arm. Her voice trembled with anxiety. She was worried about me.

I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her in toward me. “Thanks. But I’m okay.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m not bluffing.”

It’d be a lie to say I’m not jealous. I did in fact feel a sense of inconsistency. I was shocked by the unconditional trust both the students and the knights showed. I was no longer able to live like that. I couldn’t join their group. That which I required to do so would never return to me, after all. Nevertheless, it was inconsequential.

“I have all of you with me.”

I chose to protect the warmth in my arms rather than grieve over what I had lost. I would keep secrets for their sake. I would be as careful as I needed to be. That was who the human known as Majima Takahiro was now.

I didn’t feel any shame regarding this. It wasn’t like I refused to acknowledge the boys and girls who were going to live like heroes, let alone make fun of them. But that didn’t mean I would needlessly abase myself. Just maybe, being able to so strongly feel the difference between us was my greatest harvest from the day.

“Let’s get inside,” I said as I let go of Lily. “We should talk. I’ve got a grasp of the situation. There’s a bunch of things I need to ask Shiran tomorrow. Like whether there are other monster tamers aside from me in this world, and how we can get provisions after we get out of here. Also, we need to do something about being able to communicate...”

“You are pretty bad at language studies.”

“You’re going there too...? Guess I’ll have to put my hope in runestones, huh?”

I entered the room with Lily in tow, the door clacking shut behind us.