Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 8 - Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Things Lost, Things Not Lost

I woke up to the sound of knocking. I’d apparently dozed off because of the fatigue from traveling.

“Takahiro!”

I let out a groan from my bed. The knocking continued as I opened my eyes. I sat up, holding my hand to my head. I could feel the soft fitted sheet beneath my other hand. A strange scent tickled my nose as an unfamiliar room came into focus. There was nobody else with me. I felt a sense of unease for no particular reason. In any case, someone was calling right now. I could leave such thoughts for later.

“Takahiro? You asleep?”

“Aah. Sorry. I’m coming,” I replied as I headed for the relatively old wooden door. It was locked, so I flipped the deadbolt and opened it.

“So slow.”

“Sorry.”

On the other side of the door was my pouting little brother.

◆ ◆ ◆

“I thought you went to take a bath. Where’s your key?” I asked.

“Mom has it. She hasn’t come out of the bath yet.”

“Aah, she does take a while.”

“Dad asked me to get his wallet.”

“His wallet? Where’d he put it again...?”

I walked back into the room as we talked. We were staying in a Western-style boarding house for an extended vacation. The ambiance was nice, and it even had a hot spring, so it was a relatively popular inn. Our room was in an area set aside for families.

Come April, I would be a third year middle school student, so before I got busy preparing for entrance exams, my travel-loving parents had brought me out here. It was a pretty good choice for a place to make memories as a family. I actually really liked visiting unknown lands, so I was enjoying myself quite a bit.

“Oh yeah, Takahiro, you wanna go take a bath?” my brother asked around the time we found the wallet.

“Sure.”

After we finished dinner, I’d gotten sleepy, so I’d been taking it easy in our room. At some point, I’d ended up dozing off, so I was far less sleepy now. I’d washed off my sweat before dinner, but at times like these, it was better to enjoy things as much as possible. Going in again with my little brother sounded like a good idea.

The two of us left the room. From the hallway windows, we could see the scenery surrounding this mountain boarding house. The building’s warm orange lighting reflected on the snow. The scene seemed to seep into my chest, filling me with mysterious emotions.

“There are three different baths here, right? Have you been to all of them?” I asked.

“Hmm, nope. I haven’t been to the open-air bath yet.”

“Want to go to that one?”

“It’s pretty cold... There’s another bath with a waterfall or something over it with hot water coming down.”

“Okay, then let’s go to that one.”

We chatted as we walked down the hallway. We talked about the middle school I was currently attending that my little brother would start going to next year. We talked about popular games and manga. We talked about souvenirs. Our conversation was frivolous, but there was so much to talk about that it seemed it would never be enough no matter how much we did so.

In truth, I couldn’t talk to him, so maybe it was only natural there’d be no shortage of topics. How long had we walked? Before I knew it, it had gotten dark. I couldn’t see the orange light from outside the window anymore. With that, time ran out...and I realized that this was the eternal farewell I’d dreamed over and over again, many times now.

◆ ◆ ◆

I woke up to the sound of knocking.

“Oh, are you awake now, my dear?” Salvia asked, sitting right by my side. She’d apparently stayed with me while I slept.

“Aah... Yeah,” I replied hoarsely.

I stirred slightly, rubbing against the coarse fabric beneath me. I must have been sleeping pretty heavily. It felt like there wasn’t enough blood in my head, and I had quite the headache.

“Huh? Takahiro? You asleep?”

I could hear Lobivia muttering on the other side of the door.

“Sorry, Salvia... Could you get the door?”

“Yup, sure thing.”

I didn’t feel like shouting, so I left it to Salvia.

“Hello, come on in.”

I listened to her voice as I put my hand to my throbbing forehead. I felt like this had happened before, but I couldn’t remember when. It was just déjà vu, nothing more. Something similar could have really happened before, but at the very least, I couldn’t remember it.

I was drawing a total blank. I couldn’t remember anything. This temporary, unidentifiable amnesia happened to me every now and then, and each time it did, I felt a peculiar unpleasantness. That said, thinking about it wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I got up from bed as I tried to hold back my headache.

“Why are you all here?” I asked.

Lily, Rose, Katou, and Lobivia had come together. They all had stern expressions. Lily took a step ahead of the group and stood in front of me as I remained seated on the bed. No...this wasn’t Lily.

“Majima.”

“Mizushima?”

I wasn’t all that surprised. I still had my memories from our stay at the Misty Lodge. My suspicions were instead focused on why she needed to come out. Considering that she’d gotten her feelings in order to the extent that she could come out, her expression was unnaturally tense.

“Do you remember the stargazing event when we just got into high school?” Mizushima asked, hiding her tension with an expressionless look.

“What are you talking about?” I answered, knitting my brows curiously.

Little did I know that my vague reply was as eloquent as it needed to be. They then informed me of the truth.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Memory defects...”

After listening to what they had to say, I nodded in agreement. Maybe they’d all hoped I would refute them. That was what it felt like. Unfortunately, I couldn’t live up to their expectations. Like Mizushima said, I didn’t remember this event I’d participated in when I was a first year student. That part of my memories was a gaping hole. It was so cleanly erased that I hadn’t even realized it was gone.

“You don’t look all that surprised,” Mizushima said, looking puzzled. “Did you notice it before?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s a bit of a shock...I think. But I’d already prepared myself for at least this much. It’s a good thing that Shiran told me back then about the abnormality within me.”

I wasn’t completely unaffected by this shocking reality, but at the same time, it wasn’t so bad that it would show on my face. The shock was small enough that I could organize my feelings on my own.

“Also...right. I don’t have a real sense for it,” I added, focusing my thoughts inward. “Besides, I don’t think it’ll get all that bad.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asked. “If you are losing your memories, then this is a grave matter. We must immediately implement a countermeasure. If we don’t, then one day...” She paused for a moment, finding it difficult to finish her sentence. “One day...you might even forget who you are.”

“Relax. That won’t happen,” I declared.

Rose was astonished.

In her stead, Mizushima asked, “How can you say that so confidently?”

“Because, fundamentally, our powers as visitors are based on our wishes.”

“Huh...?”

“Since these powers come from our wishes, we can assume that what we wish for will remain secure. For example, Malvina’s husband lost his human sensibilities and became a dragon, but he never had a problem living with dragons. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise. If it did end up being a problem, it’d be like putting the cart before the horse.”

“That...might be true, but...”

“In that case, I can make the same claim. My power comes from wanting to live with all of you, so nothing that can hinder that will manifest,” I said, shrugging. “Well, even without that logic, in the end, this concerns my own ability. I understand the crucial points behind it.”

There were presumably several reasons I could remain so calm. I most likely already had an unconscious understanding of my situation, so I wasn’t so much surprised as I was convinced.

“Like Shiran said, the shape of my soul is definitely changing. The human portion of it is significantly eroded. Losing some of my human faculties...like my memories, is probably related to that.”

I was no longer a genuine human. I could still be described as human, but how long would that last? Just as Shiran had told me, I was changing into something that was neither human nor monster.

I had no idea how far that had actually progressed, though. For example, if the human part of my soul maintained my human memories, then when that part eroded away, it would make sense that the memories went with it. My cracked figure I’d seen in that strange dark world when I went to save Shiran strongly hinted that this was the case.

“Therefore, the situation isn’t all that serious,” I said, trying to sound cheerful to brighten up the dark mood in the room. “The parts that have changed probably won’t change any more than this. I mean, the memories I have from after arriving in this world, after I changed and gained this ability, after I met all of you... None of them are likely to be affected.”

If so, then it wasn’t a problem. I could continue my life with everyone. No matter how much vanished, no matter how much I lost, I wouldn’t lose what was most important to me right now. In that case, it was fine. I was sure of it. I had to be sure.

I smiled to try and put everyone at ease, then said, “So really, I’m—”

“What are you saying?! You’ll lose all your fondest memories of the other world, Senpai!” Katou cried, cutting me off.

This was the first time I’d ever heard her scream like this. I froze in place.

Katou stomped across the room and pressed herself against my chest. She grabbed my clothes at my stomach.

“There’s no way you can be indifferent about that!” she yelled vehemently.

She looked up at me, her eyes wet and red. Her trembling voice couldn’t withstand the surge of emotions and cracked.

“Th-Those memories aren’t so insignificant that you can just treat them like nothing, right...?”

“Oh...right.” Seeing a beautiful tear trickle from her eye, I realized something. “I talked with you about memories of that world, didn’t I?”

I’d spoken with Katou the most about our world. We’d sought conversation from each other to deal with the fact that we could never return. I couldn’t talk about that with anyone but her.

We’d talked about our families, places we wanted to go, and even dreams of the future. We’d talked about all sorts of other things too. I remembered how happy and adorable Katou was when she listened to my stories. She knew just how important these things were to me.

“There must be some way...some way of getting your memories back...”

Her voice gradually grew quieter. She was a clever girl. She knew that such a miracle would be hard to find. Reality was cruel. It had been until now, and it was sure to be from now on.

Katou’s hands trembled, my shirt still in her grip. I lamented my own powerlessness, but I’d been mistaken. After all, her feelings were exactly what gave me the strength to rebel against such a cruel reality. I wanted to preserve them, along with everything else that was precious to me.

“Thank you, Katou.”

She was crying for my sake. I took her hands, so tightly clenched that it was as if she blamed herself, and unfastened them from my shirt as gently as I could. Then I lightly squeezed them.

“But it’s fine. This is the path I chose.”

It was time to announce my plans for what we were going to do after this, and this was a good opportunity to do so.

“Everyone, hear me out.”