Chapter 1 — Ruby Red, Hidden in the Bag

1

“Amazing, huh?”

“It really is.”

Our exchange was somewhat lacking in terms of vocabulary, but only because the sight before us had robbed us of the ability to say anything more articulate.

We were standing in a rural village looking up at a structure with listing, hand-built stone walls. Putting it nicely, I might have called it a pastoral tableau, while being more merciless would have meant describing it as a massive building out in the boonies. It was more majestic than a church and more peaceful than a castle, so the best word I could think of for it was “temple.”

Gray stains from weathering streaked the walls, and the glass windows on the second floor had some broken panels. The villagers might have gathered here and crowded into the building during its past, but now there was no sign of that and the place felt more like a ruin than anything. Even so, it still had an air of holiness to it like a temple would, and it held our gazes, refusing to let go.

At some point, Nito’s shoulders had started to shake. Her silver hair shone in the sunlight and also seemed to tremble, while her pointed ears, poking through the curtain of her hair, started to twitch. I could easily guess what she would do next.

Sure enough, she turned on her heel and raced back to the Kettle to open the back door. She swung her bag of art materials onto her back and fetched out the easel lying in the footwell. She tottered her way around with her arms wrapped around the easel, and once she’d picked a good spot she put it down and opened it up, her eyes sparkling as she looked up at the temple.

At this point, there’d be no stopping her no matter what I said. She was going to be fixated on her painting. She’d frequently had me stop and set up her easel when she saw some view that caught her eye.

“I’m heading in,” I called to her, just in case, but she didn’t reply, just kept holding her pencil while looking between her sketchbook and the temple.

Shrugging, I made my way up the temple’s stone stairs. A pair of tall doors shut off the entrance, but they weren’t locked. I looked inside as I pushed them open, the hinges squealing. Rows of pews lined the huge room inside. A statue of a woman holding a staff stood at the far end where you could easily look up at it, with colorful glass decorating the walls around it. It occurred to me that Nito would probably be pretty happy about this room as well.

Outside, it felt like summer was on its way, but the interior of the temple was almost unpleasantly cold. It was like the silent stillness had frozen the very air itself.

A red carpet led from the entrance straight to the statue. Many people must have walked that path before, as the carpet was dirtied from heavy foot traffic. I followed it up to the statue, which was probably of the saint I’d heard about before. She must have been part of this world’s faith and religion, but I didn’t know the details. Everyone seemed to venerate her existence though.

Once I got closer, I saw there were three steps up to the statue, with a multitude of candles lining them. I doubted anyone was around to light them anymore.

Suddenly, something caught my attention. I held my breath and strained my ears.

I hadn’t misheard—there was the sound again. Faint noises were coming from behind the door on the left. Someone must be here.

I wasn’t entirely sure whether to investigate. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have needed to worry, but hearing strange noises in some remote village in this ruined world put me on edge. It wasn’t specifically fear, but more an awareness of not being able to make assumptions about what the noises might be. I’d decided not to bother, and I was idly scratching my cheek when the door opened behind me.

A shaft of vivid light slipped its way inside and I turned around. I’d first thought it was Nito coming in, but the person standing there was actually a slightly stooped old woman. She looked steadily at me from the entrance before eventually walking forward without a word, a wooden bucket dangling from her hand. She was heading straight for me.

“Um, hello there,” I greeted hesitantly.

The woman came to a stop in front of me and simply said one word.

“Move.”

“Ah, sorry,” I said, stepping aside.

She put the bucket in the space I’d vacated. The water filling it to the brim sloshed around inside it. She knelt and took a cloth from its rim, dunking it in the water and then wringing it out.

“Is the half-elf girl who’s painting out front with you?” she asked.

“Ah, yes, she is.”

“She didn’t respond to anything I said. What are you doing all the way out here?”

“We’re traveling. We followed the road through the forest and saw the temple once we’d cleared it.”

She didn’t spare me a glance as she set about using the cloth to wipe the candlesticks. I stood there at a loss, watching. I didn’t know what to do about the unnatural silence that had fallen over us. I might have been getting in the way of her cleaning as it was, and not everyone needed conversation or contact with people.

“Do you have time?” she asked suddenly, and when I quickly answered that I did, she flicked her eyes toward me. “Go get that stepladder, then.”

She’d indicated a corridor off to the right. Resting in the corner was a wooden stepladder. I picked it up and came back, setting it up next to the statue where she’d gestured. She dunked and wrung another cloth, offering it to me.

“I can’t climb it anymore, so I can’t reach,” she told me.

“Right...”

I took it, and she returned to the candlesticks. I opened up the damp cloth and looked up at the statue, then at the stepladder that was about my height. I’d never thought I’d end up cleaning in a temple in an entirely separate world. I laughed, stepping up onto the ladder.

The statue was polished stone, shockingly smooth to the touch. Even the wrinkles in the saint’s clothes were carved with exquisite detail, though, so a simple once-over with my wet cloth wasn’t enough to get it clean. It was probably my personality that had me working carefully at it despite how much effort it seemed it would take. I’d always been a bit of a fastidious one.

Once I’d spent the time to wipe all the dust off, the statue seemed even shinier than it had before. I descended the ladder, satisfied at my accomplishment. When I turned around, I could see the woman was wiping down the pews. I thought for a few moments, the cloth still in hand, before washing it out in the bucket and starting on the opposite set of pews. She must have come here regularly, as there wasn’t a very thick layer of dust on them. A quick wipe with the damp cloth was enough to get them clean.

By the time I finished the last of them and headed back, the woman was sitting on the front pew. She patted the seat next to her when she noticed me, and I hesitantly sat as she’d asked.

“You were a real help, thanks. The saint is happy too.”

“Really?” I asked. “She looks pretty expressionless to me.”

“I’m just looking at her and thinking that to myself. She’s a statue, so she’s never going to look any different.”

I nodded in understanding, looking up at her statue. I couldn’t say that it didn’t feel somewhat like she was smiling.

“You’re not from this world, are you?” the woman asked suddenly.

I practically leaped up in shock; my expression must have been pretty dumbstruck as I looked at her. She didn’t laugh, though, instead looking at me with an expression that was just as unreadable as the saint’s.

“How can you tell?” I asked eventually. “Is there a sign on my back?”

She gave a soft snort at my joke and just pointed at my shoes.

“Those aren’t from this world. The materials and manufacturing are both obviously different from the ones here.”

I looked down. The shoes were indeed from my world. They were light and sturdy, suitable for mountain climbing, so they’d been pretty expensive.

“You know your shoes, huh?”

“Of course. It’s my job. I don’t know exactly what kind of place your world was, but your shoes tell me it was affluent.”

I nodded vaguely. Compared to this world, it certainly was. More advanced too. Also, it wasn’t in ruins.

“Do you come here often, ma’am?”

“Every day. There’s nowhere else I have to go, and I would feel bad leaving the saint to languish.”

I didn’t know whether it was piety or just her wanting to continue a familiar routine. The woman bent forward and the sun lit her face up in profile as she looked up at the statue. Eventually, she brought her hands together in front of her chest and softly cast her eyes down.

I wasn’t really familiar with religion or prayer. I knew that it wasn’t something I should interfere with, though, and I could assume that this time was important to the woman, so I left her to it.

“Are you staying the night?” she asked bluntly once she’d finished her prayers.

I checked my watch. It would be evening in no time. I was still tired from driving and didn’t feel like heading off anywhere else.

“I think so, yes.”

“You can sleep here then,” she replied calmly.

It almost seemed like a joke to me, but she wasn’t laughing, and she didn’t seem like the type to joke around either.

“In the temple?” I asked after a minute.

“Did you see some other hut out there?”

“Well, I didn’t see an inn at least.”

“The only people that come here are coming for the temple. There are rooms inside for them.”

“Oh, I see. Then I’ll accept your...”

As I spoke, I looked up at the statue and trailed off. The whole place felt mysterious. The entirety of the high-ceilinged temple had an air to it which I still wasn’t used to. An obvious worry came to mind.

“There’s nothing to be scared of at night here, right?” I asked.

She looked at me, bemused.

“What would there be in a place like this?”

I couldn’t do anything but offer a vague agreement when asked in such a straightforward way. This vague, ominous fear was obviously lacking any real cause. I’d never seen any ghosts or anything in this world either.

“We’ll be stopping here, then, yeah.”

I considered setting the tent up in the village, but I slept in the tent every night and wouldn’t have minded a solid roof over my head and some calm sleep from time to time, and I certainly wasn’t going to say no to a soft bed. If I could crawl into a bed, it didn’t matter whether it was in an inn or just an uninhabited temple.

“Be careful with your fire,” she told me, picking up the bucket and leaving.

To me, encounters between survivors in this ruined world were things to be treasured, but this woman seemed completely at ease with it all. It felt like I’d just chatted with someone while waiting for a bus on a Saturday, I reflected, as the woman left the temple.

2

I waited with Nito until she finished painting, then we headed into the temple together. By then, the sun was starting to set. We headed through the main hall into the corridor at the side. Four doors led off of it, and a quick check of the closest two revealed bedrooms behind each.

Since night was beginning to fall, we wouldn’t be able to rely on light from the windows to see our way around, either in the corridor or in the rooms. I was long since used to sleeping in clearings out in the mountains or even on wide-open plains, but I didn’t think I’d ever get used to sleeping in abandoned buildings. The remnants of people’s lives had seeped into spaces like this, even if they weren’t visible, and it always made me vaguely uneasy. Even using the flashlight on my phone, I could still see shadows lurking farther down the corridor and in the corners of the room we were currently looking into.

“What do you want to do?”

I directed the question over my shoulder to Nito. She gave me a conflicted look in return.

“What do you mean?”

“Why does your face look so stiff?” I asked.

“It’s not stiff in the slightest,” she answered, and if she hadn’t been gripping her easel so tightly, it might have been more convincing.

“There’s a few rooms to choose from. I was asking which you liked the look of.”

“Like?” she muttered, looking around and peeking into the room in front of us, then looking up at me and repeating, louder, “Like?”

“You can give me disbelieving looks all you want, but there are beds here, see?”

I shined the light into the room to reveal a full (albeit fairly plain) set of furniture. There were two beds, a writing desk under the window, and a two-seater sofa with a round coffee table.

“So,” I continued, “you can have this room, and I’ll take the one next door.”

She glared into the room, still clutching her easel.

“You’re telling me to sleep in here?” she asked pointedly.

“Yeah?”

“Alone? In this dark room?”

Despite her grumbling, she refused to use the word “scary.”

“I’ll leave the lamp with you.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then maybe I should sleep in here with you?”

“But, um, t-they’re next to each other,” she stuttered, pointing at the beds and the fairly small space separating the two of them.

“Well, there’s one each, then.”

“Obviously! What do you think you’re talking about?!”

Considering her age, I didn’t feel like sharing a room would be much of an issue, but with her being a girl, maybe I was wrong. Even if it didn’t bother me, as long as it bothered her, it was still a problem.

“Yeah, I guess I didn’t think things through enough. I’ll be next door, then.”

“Ah, no,” she said, shaking her head.

The faint light from my phone fell onto the wall behind her, and the pale shadow of her hair shook in time with the movement of her head.

“It’s not like I’m against it! And, um, it’d be better if we’re in the same room. There’s no helping it.”

“There’s no helping it?”

“D-Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked, glancing up at me.

“I’m just fine with it...?” I said, trailing off questioningly.

She grumbled and hunched her shoulders.

“Then I’m completely fine with it too. Completely, utterly fine.”

She pointedly refused to meet my gaze as she walked past me and dumped her things on the bed closest to the door. She put her easel between the beds and even set up her sketchbook on it.

“The other side of this border is your territory. This side is mine. We’ll have a non-aggression pact. Okay?”

“Well, that was a quick territorial dispute.”

“I may be a small nation, but I will protect my lands with my life. My soldiers are strong.”

“I don’t think I’d like what’d happen if I invaded thoughtlessly. I’ll take care.”

“A wise decision,” she stated, looking at me like a stray cat on its guard.

Under her wary gaze, I put my things on my own bed. Either because the room had been shut up or because it hadn’t been left empty for very long, there wasn’t any dust on the bed. I sat down and sank into the mattress. Even the bedding was smooth under my hands. Clean, safe, and soft. Beds are such wonderful things, I thought, letting myself fall back.

All the familiar sensations of tent sleeping—the rough rocks digging into my back, the damp, the chill—were completely absent. The bed gently enveloped me in softness. Was it stuffed with down, maybe? I closed my eyes to savor the feeling and my body suddenly remembered how tired I was. My eyelids were so heavy that I couldn’t open them again. As I lay there, I vaguely heard Nito speak.

“Keisuke?”

“Let’s have the negotiations later,” I managed. “My soldiers are on vacation.”

“So you’re sleepy?”

“Hardly... We’re open all hours here.”

“You’re already sleep talking. Go to sleep.”

“What a kind neighboring country I have... Here’s the light.”

I held out my phone without opening my eyes and felt a small hand take it from me.

3

When I next opened my eyes, Nito was just in sight. She was crouched like a sneaking cat and holding the lit-up phone in one hand. Her other hand was reaching toward my shoulder. Her eyes were wide in fear.

“What’s up?” I asked once I’d grasped the situation.

“Keisuke...there’s a gh-gh-gh...”

“A ‘gh’?”

She opened and closed her mouth several times, swallowing her words as if she was afraid to even say them.

“There’s a ghost, it looks like.”

“Oh... Right. Say hi for me. I’m still sleepy.”

I rolled over and put my arm under my head, intending to go back to sleep, but the blows soon raining down on my back meant that that was never going to happen.

“What do you mean, ‘say hi’?! I-It’s a ghost! Now’s not the time to sleep!”

“Fine, fine. I give in. I’m getting up.”

The drowsiness was still muffling my mind as I sat up and stretched. Eventually, I woke up properly. Nito’s face was lit from beneath by the phone, which she’d abandoned on the bed, and she looked close to tears. I got myself properly seated, facing her.

“What happened, then?” I asked.

“I-I heard something. A slam and then a creeeaaak...”

“Are you sure you weren’t imagining things?”

She shook her head wildly from side to side.

“It happened several times. That’s why I woke you up... It sounds like it’s stopped now, though.”

“Maybe one of the windows is open and it’s the wind... Oh.”

In the middle of trotting out the usual suspects, I remembered something.

“What’s that look supposed to mean...?”

“I heard something too.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”

“Well, the old woman showed up while I was thinking about it, and then I forgot.”

“The old woman?! There’s a ghost of an old woman here?!”

“Nah, she was a real woman... It’s too much of a pain to explain it all.”

Nito must have been so focused on her painting that she hadn’t noticed when the woman went past, or even when she spoke to her.

“Anyway,” I said decisively, “I heard something, and you heard something...so maybe there is something here.”

Nito’s expression shifted to one of abject terror, and she went utterly still.

“We need to get out of here. Now,” she said.

“It’s not necessarily a ghost...”

“I...don’t want to meet that ghost lady.”

“Seriously, she was still alive.”

Nito didn’t want to hear it, though, and just started shaking her head. I couldn’t exactly leave her like that and go back to sleep.

“Want me to go look?” I asked eventually.

Her expression morphed into one of shock, like she wanted to say, “I can’t believe you! Don’t you know what could happen?!”

“I didn’t think your brain was that empty...”

“Well, that was five times worse than what I thought you’d say.”

I was scared too, obviously. Fortunately, I was still half-asleep, so I wasn’t really feeling it. Sleepiness was stronger than fear. I picked up my backpack from the floor and took out a windup lamp. The room was suddenly much brighter once I’d switched it on.

“You going to wait here?” I asked.

“You want to leave me on my own?!”

“You may as well come with me, then,” I said, standing up.

Though she pouted and frowned as she did so, Nito followed suit.

“What do we do if there is something?” she asked.

“I’ll keep it busy, and you’ll run away.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” she insisted.

Her voice was stronger than I’d expected, and I turned to look at her properly. She still had a look of fear on her face, but her lips were drawn into a firm, determined line.

“W-We’ll die together!”

“That’s not really funny,” I said, laughing all the same; I didn’t think we’d need to worry that much.

I opened the door and peered out into the corridor. A shaft of moonlight from one of the windows cut a line across the wall and floor. I strained my ears, but there was nothing to hear.

“S-So?” Nito asked.

“Well, I can’t hear anything...” I answered, before turning to look at her. “You’re bringing that with you?”

“It’s for self-defense,” she insisted, clutching her easel in both hands.

I just nodded wordlessly. As long as it makes her more comfortable.

We moved through the door and into the corridor. To the left was the path to the temple hall, and to the right, the path to the unknown. The sound we’d heard had probably come from the latter direction.

“A-Are we really going?”

“Well, there’s that saying about how ghosts are actually silver grass.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know when you think you see a ghost at night, then you go up and look and it turns out to be just withered, silvery grass?”

“Oh, so it means you can’t make out the details and your imagination fills them in, making you see something impossible...”

“There you go, just casually showing off how clever you are.”

“And what is that supp—”

Suddenly, she stopped. I held my breath as well. We met each other’s gazes and then both slowly turned our heads to the right.

Slam.

“I heard that.”

“So did I,” she replied.

The sound didn’t repeat, though. I decided that waiting in that spot trying to breathe as quietly as possible wouldn’t be any help, so I started walking. A moment later, Nito followed after me at a trot. We found a single door at the end of the corridor. I stopped outside it and waited, but there was nothing to hear.

I reached for the doorknob. Nito grabbed onto the hem of my shirt. The door opened with a soft creak, and a dim, yellow light that felt like it came from a retro-style lamp shone through from the other side. Behind the door was a library. Shelves of books lined the walls and a large table and chairs stood in the center of the room.

Someone was sitting in one of those chairs.

My eyes widened. This was no ghost, but she was a familiar face.

The girl in the chair looked up and met my gaze. The lantern beside her lit up her cheeks and the characteristic cat-eared hat she wore. When I’d first met her, she’d seemed like the type who usually wore a pretty blank expression, but even she had wide eyes at this sudden intrusion.

“Good evening,” I ventured.

Nito, behind me, pulled at the back of my shirt.

“T-There’s someone there?! Or is it something?!”

She sounded rather interested considering how scared she’d been before.

“What a coincidence,” the girl replied, her expression having already evened out.

“Well, she’s not a ghost,” I said over my shoulder.

“So...it’s a person? If she’s here so late at night...is it that old woman?!”

I leaned to the side and Nito poked her head timidly around me, still using me to shield herself.

“Ah, g-good evening...” Nito mumbled.

“Good evening, indeed,” the girl answered.

Nito took a few steps back and then looked up at me in utter relief.

“It was just a girl! Thank goodness!” she added.

“You’re fine with it as long as it’s a girl?”

She just looked blankly back at me. I mean, all right, then.

Now that we knew the noises weren’t from a ghost, we’d be able to go back to sleep easily enough. Just poking our heads in, saying hi, and then closing the door would have made us look like the suspicious ones, though, and we couldn’t have that. I hesitated for a moment longer, then stepped into the room.

The air inside had the slight mustiness of old paper. It reminded me of the smell of the old dictionaries and history books in the school library. The girl didn’t make any move to stop me, just went back to looking down at the book lying open on the table. A pile of other books sat next to it.

“You’re here to read books?” I asked.

“That’s right. Small villages like this always gather their books in the church.”

“You’re looking for a story, right?” I asked, remembering our conversation in the rain.

She closed the book and added it to the top of her pile.

“There’re only history books and scriptures here, though.”

She stood up and went over to one of the bookshelves, pulling out several books and setting them down on the table. She must have been working her way through them in order.

“You can’t have read them all?”

“I’ve just glanced through them,” she answered, flipping through the pages of one of the books.

Well, that certainly wasn’t reading, but she did sometimes stop and cast her eyes across a page. Doing that for all the books in the room would definitely be more than a little effort.

Nito had hesitantly entered the room as we spoke and now she poked me in the side.

“Do you know her?”

“Oh yeah, you were asleep. I met her on the road, after we got out of the mountains.”

Nito nodded in understanding. She looked at the bookshelves, then at the girl flipping through the books on the table, seeming almost jealous. Nito had spent her entire childhood bedridden. Her only pastimes had been reading and painting. While painting could be done anywhere as long as you had the right materials, carrying lots of books with you everywhere was difficult. Her bookworm blood was probably stirring now that she was surrounded by so many books again.

“Nito, why do you think we’re here?”

She looked back at me in puzzlement.

“That’s right. We’re here to look for a map,” I continued. “We’ll definitely need a map for our journey, so I want to check for one in this library.”

Her face quickly brightened, and she nodded eagerly.

“You’ve got the right girl for the job! I’ll check them all!”

She dithered for a moment, looking for somewhere to put her easel. I held out my hand and she immediately passed it over. The lantern was the only thing left in her hands as she headed over to the bookshelves on the wall and inspected the spines. She seemed happy enough that I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear her start to hum.

A faint laugh reached my ears. The girl was looking at Nito with a soft expression. She soon averted her gaze, but I felt a kindred spirit in her all the same. Nito carried the book she’d chosen with both hands and went for the seat opposite the other girl. There was only one table in the room, and only four chairs around it.

“Um, do you mind if I sit here?” she asked.

“Go ahead. You’re more than welcome.”

Her voice was much softer than it had been when she’d spoken to me. Nito seemed to notice that as well; she wasn’t nervous as she sat down and opened her book. She would probably be engrossed in its pages for a while.

A glance at my watch showed the hands approaching our usual dinnertime. I must have been napping for longer than I’d thought. Even my stomach had been sleepy, so I hadn’t realized before, but as I rubbed it absently, I noticed that I was pretty hungry. I went back to our room and put the easel down, exchanging it for my backpack, then headed back down the corridor. I opened the library door and sat down a ways out of the room. This way I wouldn’t be using any fire near the books, but I could still keep an eye on Nito.

Out came the utensils and cans. I used my phone’s flashlight to check the cans’ labels. Though I couldn’t actually read the words, I could recognize the symbols well enough to distinguish between the cans—sort of an “Oh, yeah, I’ve had that one before” type of thing. I picked out what I’d be using and stacked those ones to the side, putting the rest back into my bag.

I lit the burner on the Svea and listened to its intermittent popping. The flame stabilized once the tank of mana stones that fueled it had warmed up. It sputtered slightly but I ignored that and put the frying pan atop the burner, drizzling in some oil.

I emptied two cans of beans into the pan. They were red in color, but pretty similar in taste and size to edamame, so they were easy for me to work with. The bubbling sound of the oil and the fragrance of the beans frying filled the corridor outside the quiet library. Next, I opened a cylindrical can containing something along the lines of tomato sauce. I dolloped that into the pan and mixed the beans through it. Once I’d added in some seasoning and let it stew, it would be ready to go.

The last can was stuffed full of bread. Canned bread had no water content, so it was extremely dense. I was still glad to be able to keep this staple food in my diet, though. I wouldn’t have been able to make it myself, after all. I cut up the log-like loaf on a wooden chopping board. Taking the pan off the heat, I dished it out into bowls and got spoons ready. It was a simple meal, the kind of thing we had every day. I got up and walked over to the table in the library.

“Nito, dinner’s ready,” I said, once I was standing next to her.

I got no response. She was the same way when she was painting: once she got into something, she was really into it. I did what I always did, shaking her shoulder. She looked up at me in surprise.

“W-What is it?”

“Dinner’s ready. You’re probably hungry.”

She stretched to look around me and saw the meal I’d prepared. Her face brightened.

“I am, actually,” she said as if just realizing it. “Thank you.”

She gently closed the book she’d been looking at and stood up, then stopped as if a thought had suddenly occurred to her. She had her left index finger in her right hand and she was tugging at it. I’d realized lately that this was a habit of hers when she was feeling unsure or was struggling to say something. She glanced up at me and then flicked her eyes toward the girl before looking back up at me. I wanted to laugh at her obvious hesitance, but I just nodded back to her instead. Her long, pointed ears twitched with conviction as she turned to face the girl again. After taking a moment to prepare herself, she spoke.

“Excuse me.”

The girl looked up and seemed almost taken aback at the enthusiasm written clearly on Nito’s face.

“W-Would you like to eat with us?” Nito asked.

The other girl soon realized what was going on, and her lips curved into a smile.

“Oh, you’re inviting me?” she asked.

“Um, if it’s not a bother, then yes.”

“It’s not a bother at all. Thank you.”

Nito breathed a “thank goodness” as all the tension unwound from her body, and then she smiled happily.

“Then, um, come this way,” she said, walking over to the makeshift dining area on the floor outside the door.

The other girl stood and gave me a questioning look as she passed. Somehow, I could tell she was asking if she’d be in the way.

“Well, I made extra just for this.”

“You’re both far too kind,” she told me with a smile before sitting down next to Nito.

I sat down across from them and we tucked into our modest meal. It was the same flavors we’d had a thousand times, but Nito still smiled and declared the food delicious. It was also nice to watch her eat her fill. She was still a growing girl, after all.

The bread was so dry that just folding over one of the thin slices I’d cut would have been enough to snap it in half. If you tried to eat it plain, it would suck up all the saliva in your mouth and dry it out, so instead we spread a thin layer of the bean and tomato stew over each slice. That increased the moisture content, softening the bread enough to bend it into a bowl shape that could hold another spoonful. Once we’d done that, we could fold it over and bite into the resulting sandwich.

As we ate, I noted the bread’s strong wheat-flour aroma and its firm texture under my teeth. The surface was still parched, but the center had absorbed the moisture from the stew and become chewy. It reminded me of pizza dough, and it went perfectly with the saltiness of the beans and the bittersweet taste of the tomatoes.

The bread had vanished in moments and then all we had left was a thin soup. It was actually a broth made of the same powdered stock I used for stews, but Nito and I often dissolved the stock in hot water and ate it on its own. You couldn’t really say it was tasty, though. I called it soup for the sake of convenience, but it was more like the water left over after boiling some meat and vegetables. The best thing about it was that it was warm and relaxing.

Nito and the girl sipped at the soup once they’d finished their food. The girl opened the bag at her waist and reached inside. Despite the bright light from the lantern, the interior looked pitch-black. She pulled out a bright-red apple.

“As thanks for the meal,” she said, offering it to me.

A wordless conversation passed between us, and then she nodded, turning to offer it to Nito instead.

“Really?!” Nito asked with a gasp, her eyes sparkling.

She loved fruit and other sweet things. We rarely saw anything like that, though, especially not fruit that looked freshly picked and hadn’t been treated for preservation. Most fruit trees we came across didn’t actually have fruit on them anymore. Nito was a clever girl, and so she knew just how valuable such a thing was in this world.

The other girl just told her to go ahead, though, holding out the apple toward her, so she couldn’t refuse it. She took the apple with shaking hands and looked at it reverently. The tips of her ears, visible through the silvery curtain of her hair, were practically vibrating. It looked like the girl found Nito’s happiness just as charming as I did. I mouthed my thanks to her and she simply offered me a shrug.

“Um, please tell me your name!” Nito blurted.

Apparently, she was trying to make a new friend. The other girl seemed a bit self-conscious about the unfamiliar experience, pulling her cap down slightly before answering.

“I’m Charolles.”

“Thank you for giving me such a wonderful thing, Charolles. I’m so happy! Oh, I’m Nito, and this is Keisuke.”

Aha, she’s finally given the introductions herself! Until now, that had been my line: “I’m Keisuke, and this is Nito.” I was happy about her growth, but somewhat saddened at the same time.

“Are you a traveler, Charolles?” Nito asked with an innocent look, clutching the apple to her chest.

“I am indeed. I was a courier first, though.”

“A courier!” Nito exclaimed.

“A courier?” I murmured.

Nito immediately launched into an explanation.

“They transport things for people. They’ll take anything anywhere, quickly and with guaranteed delivery. They were regulated by the country, so there aren’t many of them.”

“Regulated? Whoa.”

Although, from what she’d said, it didn’t sound much different than a mailman or delivery driver.

“Couriers have giantics, and using those requires permission from the country,” Nito added.

“Sorry, what’s a giantic?”

Nito let out a short gasp of realization. It must have been fairly common knowledge.

“It’s a common name for magical artifacts—masterpieces crafted back when magic was flourishing. Couriers’ bags are the main type of magic that still exists.”

“So, what, they can fit anything inside them?” I asked with a laugh.

“That’s right,” Charolles interjected with a nod. “Courier bags have space-compression magic cast upon them. There’s more space inside my bag than in this whole room, and anything that I put inside it won’t degrade.”

“Huh, so it’s a 4D Pocket.”

“Fourdee...?”

Nito looked blankly at me. I couldn’t spare the attention to explain, though, as my mind was full of ideas. I finally understood why Charolles had been so lightly equipped when we’d met. That fresh apple must have been in her bag since long before the world ended up like it was. What a convenient thing to have. But, wait, that makes her...

“Charoemon...”

“I don’t exactly like that name. Could you not use it?” she asked, her voice much sharper than before.

Well, apparently that wasn’t going to fly, but I’d really thought it was the best name for her.

“You don’t know about giantics, and you used that weird nickname. Are you an otherworlder, by any chance?”

“Ten out of ten,” I said with a smattering of applause.

“What a surprise,” she said, her expression as far from surprise as could be. “So you really do exist, just like my ancestor said.”

“Your ancestor?”

“It was almost a family legend. Around two hundred years ago, perhaps, a member of my family worked as a courier, and they knew an otherworlder.”

I nodded with an acknowledging hum. If that was true, the otherworlder would have landed here when magic was at its peak. It must have been far more thrilling than this dead world.

“Did they learn magic and advance the world with their knowledge, then?” I asked.

“Who knows? There wasn’t that much detail to the story. I just know they ran a restaurant or something.”

“A restaurant?”

They came to this world and ran a store? Who’d do something like that? I thought that surely they’d have done something more exciting like using magic or whatever.

“Was it a café, by any chance?” Nito murmured.

“A café? Like a place that sells coffees, cakes, and stuff?” I checked.

“Yes. There’s a theory that cafés originated with that restaurant. Coffee is seen as an everyday thing now, but people didn’t used to import it to this continent very much in the past,” she told me.

I scratched at my temple. I couldn’t really imagine that.

“So...they wound up in another world, where magic was the norm, and they opened up a café and normalized coffee drinking? I don’t get it. Why coffee?”

“Who knows? There aren’t many records from that time. I only know what was in Forrozes’ novel.”

It seemed that otherworlders all had their own paths to tread. Some of them ran cafés, others traveled the world with an elf woman and painted the scenery in a notebook, and still others followed their predecessor’s tracks through a dead world.

“Why are you here, Charolles?” Nito asked, as if suddenly realizing that she’d been excluded from the conversation.

“I wanted to stop here,” she answered.

“In the temple?”

“In the library, specifically. I’m looking for a book.”

“What kind of book? I read a lot, so I might be able to help,” Nito offered eagerly, her already-wide eyes opening even further.

Of course, Charolles could only smile ruefully.

“I don’t know the title, and the pages were damaged last time I saw it, so I don’t know whether it even really exists anymore.”

“Oh... What kind of story was it?”

“It was a story about a mouse-knight rescuing a princess.”

Nito hummed, thinking deeply. She was still holding the apple in both hands, so it looked almost like she was examining it. She must have been racking her brain, but apparently nothing came to mind, and she suddenly deflated. Even her ears drooped.

“I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything...” She apologized.

“I’ve been searching for ages, and I haven’t found it either, so don’t worry about it.”

Nito nodded in quiet agreement. I was actually worried about how down she seemed over it. She must have wanted to offer her own thanks for the apple.

“Why not help her look?” I suggested. “You can search for the map at the same time.”

“That’s a great idea!” she exclaimed, her energy suddenly returning. “I’ll help you look!”

Nito made to stand, but then abruptly grew much more timid and looked at Charolles with upturned eyes.

“Um...if I won’t be in the way, that is,” she added.

Charolles covered her mouth with her fingertips and smiled slightly, then nodded.

“That’d be a real help. I’ll let you know if I find a map too.”

“Right!”

Nito’s smile was just as innocent as the smile of a girl her age ought to be. Now that I think about it, all the people we’ve met so far have been adults. Maybe Nito can relate to Charolles better, as an older sister figure.

We’d only ended up stopping here by chance, but it wasn’t like we had a packed itinerary for our journey, and we didn’t have to pay to stay here either. A truly free journey meant being able to go wherever you liked and just stop when you felt like it.

Nito helped with the tidying up and then set about searching the library. I did my usual routine—I sat down on the floor and took out my phone. There was no signal in this world, obviously, or power for that matter. The reason I could still use my phone for music and as a flashlight in such a world was the hand-cranked lantern in my bag. Night after night, I’d connect my phone to the lantern and convert man power into electrical power. It was horribly inefficient, obviously, so the process took a long time. While Charolles and Nito deftly looked through their books, I focused on winding the crank.

4

I opened my eyes to blinding light pouring into the room. I couldn’t help but roll over and bury my head in the feather pillow. I’d thought I might be able to enjoy a good night’s sleep in a bed after so long without one, but I had been naive. The unfamiliarity of the too-soft bed had left me unable to fall asleep. I was too used to sleeping on the hard ground in a sleeping bag.

I lifted my head from the pillow reluctantly, refusing to get up any further, and checked my watch. It was earlier than when I’d usually get up, so I sighed and let my head fall back down.

The easel stood between the two beds with Nito’s coat hung over it. It was supposed to be some kind of partition, though it was largely ineffective. Past it, I could see a round mound of blanket resting in the middle of the other bed, with shining silver hair spilling from the gaps in the fabric. The mound gently rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Nito must have been happily off in dreamland.

The light from the windows shone down on me mercilessly. Blearily thinking that it was even more effective than my alarm, I gave up on sleeping in and pushed myself up. I combed my bedhead into some semblance of tidiness with my fingers as I walked over to the window. The temple building was atop a small hill, so the view was fairly uninterrupted. The curved road lined with gradually denser rows of houses had to be the one we’d traveled down yesterday, but in the morning sunlight, it looked utterly alien.

In the distance, I could see the feet of the mountains, as well as the overrun fields we’d passed and their relatively little greenery. That glow of brilliant white light off to the right of the fields was the reflection of the morning sun hitting water. It must have been a lake—there were our water supplies, and a place to wash, and maybe we’d even manage to get fish.

I couldn’t help but smile when I realized how natural such thoughts had become. My first thoughts upon seeing the lake weren’t that it was pretty, or that we should go sightseeing, but about its potential utility for our life. I really had become an out-and-out traveler. It was hard to tell whether that was a good or bad thing.

I picked up my toothbrush and tin mug from the bag on the bedside table and left the room. The corridor that had been so dark the night before was now full of light, and the grain of each of the wooden doors was clearly visible.

I opened the door into the temple proper and found it completely silent. The towering windows let the light pool in around the lines of pews, and the dust floating through the air seemed to sparkle in the light. The saint’s statue was wreathed in dark shadows with only its outline visible. I almost forgot to breathe as I stepped through the door. This was a place of prayer, and the silent air was almost palpably thick in the room.

Suddenly, I noticed a figure sitting in the exact center of one of the pews. It was Charolles, and she was looking vacantly up at the statue. She didn’t show any sign of noticing my approach.

“Morning,” I greeted, finally prompting her to glance toward me.

“Right, morning.”

“You’re up early.”

“I like mornings. They put me in a good mood.”

I nodded in agreement before gesturing toward the space next to her. She told me to go ahead and I sat down next to her, letting out a breath.

“Thanks for yesterday,” I told her. “You made Nito’s day.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Think you’ll find your story?”

“Who knows. I’m not holding out much hope at least.”

“You’re looking even when you don’t think you’ll find it?”

“I’ve been looking for this story for a long time now and I still haven’t found it, so I can’t have baseless hope. It’d just make me feel depressed,” she explained evenly.

She may have been really blunt about it, but she did answer my question. I guess she keeps communication to the bare essentials.

At the very least, she definitely wasn’t the type to start a conversation because she found the silence unbearable, and our discussion came to a standstill. We were sitting with a person’s worth of space between us, looking up at the statue as the sun slowly lit the saint’s profile. As the sun steadily rose, the angle of the light changed in turn, making the shadows on her face form phantom expressions.

“...look sad,” I heard, catching the very tail end of the sentence.

“What?” I asked.

Charolles didn’t repeat herself. I definitely hadn’t misheard, yet I couldn’t guess what she’d meant. I found it difficult to see any real sadness in the saint’s expression. Just as I was about to ask what made her think that, the door behind us opened.

The old woman from the day before came through it, her bucket dangling from her hand. She looked at us sitting there and raised her eyebrows, before walking slowly over to us.

“Good morning. You’re here early,” I said.

She waved me off.

“That’s what happens when you get old. You’ve got someone else with you besides the half-elf girl?”

“We met here last night, by chance,” I explained.

“Meeting new people out in the sticks like this is pretty rare. You’d be better off on Mercian Street.”

“Mercian Street?”

The woman walked up to the statue and put down her bucket. I stood up as well and went over to join her.

“It’s a leisure area for the rich on the way to the lake from here. No one lives there normally, but it’s packed during the summer and winter holidays, full of people with too much time and money on their hands.”

So it’s a town that only has residents twice a year? Sounds like a weird place.

The woman stooped and wrung out her cloth before offering it to me. I took it right away, already knowing my role for the day. Still, I couldn’t help but give a rueful smile.

“Where am I cleaning today?”

“The upstairs windows.”

I followed her pointing finger to see a steep, narrow set of stairs up to a second floor. Only a narrow walkway ran along the wall up there.

I guess treating yourself to a bit of cleaning before breakfast ain’t bad once in a while. Healthier than sleeping in at least.

“You come over here too,” the woman said, beckoning Charolles, who came over from her seat without complaint and took the cloth she was offered.

“You do the windows on the first floor.”

“Very well,” she answered.

“You’re way too adaptable,” I muttered.

Charolles wasn’t showing any confusion. This had already happened to me yesterday so I was fine, but despite the bizarre situation of meeting a woman for the first time and being set to cleaning for her, Charolles didn’t bat an eyelash. She just met my gaze, gave a slight shrug, and then wordlessly headed for the windows.

I guess that’s what you call an adult’s composure. Maybe she’s older than me, I thought, watching her leave.

“Enraptured, lad?” the old woman asked.

“Not at all,” I answered, trotting over to the stairs.

5

Nito showed up just as I was finishing my cleaning, having woken up at some point. She watched wide-eyed as I wrung the cloth out in the bucket.

“Morning, Nito,” I greeted.

“Good...morning. What are you doing?”

“Cleaning.”

“I can see that. Why are...” she began asking, but then trailed off as she looked around the temple hall.

Charolles was sitting down and the old woman was getting up from where she’d been scrubbing the floor. Nito’s eyes shot open and she stared at the woman. Her ears started to vibrate, showing her distress.

“K-Keisuke! Th-The ghost! The old woman’s ghost!” she babbled.

She’s still hung up on that? She was acting so scared that it just made me want to laugh. To be fair, though, I hadn’t actually explained to her about the woman yet. Maybe I could have a little more fun with this.

I looked where she was pointing and tilted my head.

“Huh? Where...? I don’t see any old woman.”

A stifled yelp made its way out of Nito’s throat. Her lips tightened and her face paled. Timidly, she gave the woman a closer look. The woman in question unfolded her cloth and started walking toward us. Nito let out another cry and hid behind me.

“Keisuke! She’s coming! The ghost! She’s coming!”

Nito’s panicking had gotten the woman’s attention. She was looking doubtfully at us.

“What’s that racket about?” she asked.

“Sh-She spoke?!”

“Well, yeah,” I answered with a laugh, finally unable to contain myself. “She’s not a ghost.”

Nito looked up at me with an almost exhausted expression, before hesitantly looking past me again toward the woman as if peeking her head out from behind a corner.

“She... She’s alive?”

“She’d hardly be cleaning if she weren’t.”

My words, along with the fact that the old woman was clearly a physical being, had gotten it through to Nito that she wasn’t a ghost. Nito tugged and twisted at the back of my shirt while angrily mumbling to herself.

“Um, Miss Nito, you’re stretching out my clothes,” I said, trying some exaggerated politeness to smooth things over.

“You were teasing me?” she asked after a moment.

“Made your heart pound, huh?”

“It made me worry it’d stop beating!”

She smacked me in the back a couple more times before moving away. I knew she’d be all prickly and sarcastic with me even if I apologized. That was part of her charm, though.

Sighing at our antics, the old woman picked up her bucket.

“You three haven’t eaten this morning, have you?” she asked, turning to Charolles.

“Ah, no, we haven’t,” Charolles answered.

“Come with me, then. It’s nothing fancy, but call it my thanks for helping with the cleaning,” the woman said.

She started to walk off without waiting to hear our answer. I glanced over at Nito to see what she wanted to do about the sudden invitation, only to find her doing exactly the same. Even our questions came out at the same time.

“What’ll we do?” “What shall we do?”

Then Nito seemed to abruptly remember she wasn’t happy with me. Her expression stiffened before she turned away with a hmph and trotted over to Charolles.

“Shall we go, Charolles?”

“Right,” Charolles answered after a moment. “Let’s.”

She stood up and Nito immediately tugged at her hand to encourage her forward. She was really sulking, huh? Charolles looked toward me with a tilt of her head, giving me a look that seemed to be saying, “How sad.” I felt like I’d failed somehow. Hrmgh, I grumbled internally.

I ended up following the two of them out of the temple. The old woman wasn’t loading her things onto any vehicle. She was just walking down the hill. The slope was significant enough that it probably took a fair bit of effort to climb. The three of us had no trouble making our way down it, though, following the old woman.

Our path swung back and forth, passing between houses again and again. I got a sudden feeling that I’d seen someone off to the side, but when I stood still and looked around, all I could see were houses with shut-up windows and doors, no people. I tilted my head thoughtfully and turned to face forward again. Nito and Charolles had stopped as well and were looking back at me; they must have been waiting for me. I waved at them, and Nito—of course—turned away again and started walking, holding Charolles’s hand. She must have just dropped her guard for a moment. I smiled at the sight of them walking together, then jogged after them.

About halfway down, we reached the old woman’s home. It was situated midway up the slope, made of bricks like the other houses, and had some kind of sign above the door.

“What’s it say?” I asked.

“It says ‘no ghosts allowed.’”

“Seriously, I’m sorry,” I apologized with a contrite smile, spreading my hands out in a placating gesture.

Unfortunately, she just pouted at me.

“It says ‘Fago’s Shoe Workshop,’” Charolles said from off to the side.

I thanked her, and Nito let out a sharp, betrayed gasp before looking up at the taller girl.

“What are you doing? Hurry up and come in,” came a sharp voice from inside the house.

Flustered, Nito opened the door in a rush. The area directly inside was a small display room. Shelves lined the walls, holding countless shoes with thick, bulky heels. The slightly sweet scent of leather and shoe polish drifted through the dim space.

Two doors led farther in, and the right-hand one was open. I followed Charolles through it to find a living space on the other side. A low table and a sofa covered with a large quilt stood in the center of the room, with shelves and cabinets arrayed around them. The room wasn’t huge, but it was set up with everything you’d need for an easy lifestyle, so it felt warm and comfortable.

Nito plonked herself down at the end of the three-seater sofa and Charolles sat next to her. After a moment of hesitation, I sat down in the remaining spot on Charolles’s other side. There was also an empty armchair, but that was probably where the old woman would sit.

We could see the kitchen from the sofa. The woman had put a steaming kettle on the stove, and was now walking toward us with a tray holding a pot and teacups.

“We drink green tea ’round these parts. You might not enjoy it, but give it a try anyway,” she said.

“Green tea?” I blurted, leaning forward eagerly.

Nito and Charolles both seemed completely unfazed, though, which made things a little embarrassing for me, so I sat back gently. The old woman glanced at me as she set the tray down on the table.

“Oh, they have this drink where you’re from?”

“They do, though I don’t know if it’s exactly the same thing...”

The pot and cups sitting on the low table looked like what we’d use for black tea back home, but the liquid she poured from the pot definitely had the same color as green tea.

“People generally mix in these spices when they drink it. Some people add sugar too.”

She put out two jars. Nito and Charolles added the spices, but I took a sip of it as it was.

“Hmm?”

“So, is it the same?”

“It’s...slightly different. Maybe a bit sweeter...?” I mused.

It didn’t stir up any sense of nostalgia. While this drink had the same name and appearance as one I knew, it was still a beverage from this world, not my own.

“Ah, it’s good,” Nito said, light-brown flecks of spice floating on the surface of her tea as she sipped it.

I took the jar of spices and used a teaspoon to add some to my own cup before taking a sip. The spices had a cool taste, almost like mint. It made each sip more refreshing than the last, and it kept the distinctive taste of the tea under control. It was definitely a better way to drink it.

“Finish your drinks while you wait. I’ll be done soon,” the old woman informed us, before returning to the kitchen.

A soft breeze blew through the half-open window, fluttering the thin curtain that hung across it and letting more light into the room. We all just stared absently out of the window, not really talking. Every so often, one of us would take a sip of tea as if we’d just remembered our drink. It felt like that time of morning that just carried you away with it.

Each of us had refilled our emptied cups by the time the woman returned with a plate in each hand. She placed them in front of Nito and Charolles before doubling back to bring over mine and her own. The plates were round, with a ring of yellow along their rims. On top of each one sat two slices of semicircular toast, what looked like boiled dark-red beans and onions, a serving of something that looked like yellow mashed potato, and an orange-colored jelly that held its shape.

I glanced at Nito and Charolles to see their reactions. Neither of them seemed particularly taken aback, so it must have been a common breakfast.

“It’s not much, but go ahead and eat,” the old woman told us, picking up a fork.

“It looks wonderful,” Nito said politely, dipping her head.

Charolles gave a slight bow of her own and I followed suit.

I started off with a forkful of the mashed potato thing and broke into a smile at the taste. The word “rustic” might usually have been used in a more mocking way, but I meant it as praise here. While the mash was only lightly seasoned, that just let its own flavor show through even better. It was light and refreshing, the perfect sort of taste for mornings.

The biggest thing was getting to eat warm, home-cooked food around a real table. That alone elevated the meal to the best cooking you could get. Considering it all again, I realized this was a pretty strange experience. Someone we’d only met yesterday had invited us to share her breakfast table. Such a thing never would have happened back in my world; it was only because I’d come here that I was able to experience it.

I finished eating first, Charolles next, and Nito last. The old woman started brewing a fresh pot of tea, and in that slight lull, Nito hesitantly spoke to her.

“Um, is this a shoe shop?”

“Since my grandparents’ time, yes.”

Nito looked down at her own feet and rubbed her toes together. After a long moment of struggling with herself, she looked back up at the woman and spoke again.

“Um... C-Could you tell me your name?”

The corners of the woman’s lips lifted in amusement.

“It feels like a long time since I’ve been asked that. I’m Fago.”

“Miss Fago, can you make shoes smaller?”

“There’s a lot of ways, yes. Are you asking about the shoes you’re wearing now?” she asked, leaning forward to look at Nito’s feet over the table.

I looked over as well. I didn’t actually remember ever having taken a proper look at them before, but the boots she was wearing did seem somewhat too large for her frame. The toes were scuffed too, and there were deep creases in the material. They were well worn.

“They are a little big for you,” Fago agreed.

“I’ve stuffed them with cloth for the time being...”

“Let’s have a look-see. Come this way,” Fago said, standing up and opening the door into the display room.

I decided to follow along as well. She led us through the other door I’d seen earlier. Past it was a small room, practically emblematic of a craftsman’s workshop. The largest fixtures were two desks—one by the wall, the other in the center of the room—both blatantly well used. Tools, sheets of leather, partially finished shoes, wooden molds, hammers, chisels, and all the other accoutrements for making shoes littered their surfaces.

Fago pulled out a high-seated chair from a corner of the room.

“Sit down here.”

Nito climbed up into the chair as she’d been instructed, and then Fago pulled out a footrest and told Nito to put her feet on it. She untied Nito’s laces and took the boots off with practiced movements. When she was done, Nito’s tiny bare feet rested next to them, making the difference in size even clearer.

Fago picked up a pair of glasses from the nearest desk and perched it on her pointed nose, scrupulously inspecting Nito’s boots.

“These aren’t elven,” she said. “This is how they make them in Mid.”

“Mom said she had them made while she was traveling, and that they’d last thirty years.”

Fago snorted.

“Thirty? These are Bragosca’s. They’ll last fifty if you take care of them.”

“Fif—” Nito spluttered.

Her eyes widened so much that Fago laughed.

“Your mom had a discerning eye. These are rare shoes. They use the best materials you can find, which makes them so expensive that people who aren’t clued in about these things would never buy them. If you treat them well, they’ll last longer than a human does. They wouldn’t outlast an elf, though.”

She pulled out the small bits of cloth that had been stuffed inside each boot.

“Right then. I can make them smaller, but...you won’t be small forever.”

“Oh...maybe not,” Nito agreed.

Fago was inspecting one boot—checking the sole, brushing a finger over the seams, and constantly turning it this way and that, making sure she saw each and every inch.

“These are well made. We’d be better off using insoles and stuffing the toes rather than opening them up to make alterations.”

Nito nodded.

“Will that...take a long time?”

“You still have quite small feet, so the pieces of stuffing will be larger, and you’ll need to wear them several times while we fine-tune the fit, so it will take a day or two.”

Fago looked at me.

“Is the car by the temple yours?”

“It is...” I confirmed hesitantly.

“Perfect. There’s something I want you to do to pay for the shoes.”

Work required payment. We’d heard the same thing from Vandyke when he was repairing the Kettle for us. The sentiment went double for expertly done work. Nito was looking at me apologetically, though, so I smiled and nodded to show her that I didn’t mind.

“I want you to check if an old friend of mine is still kicking around. If he is, there’s something I want you to deliver to him.”

“Understood. Where does he live?”

“In one of the villas just past Mercian Street—that place I mentioned before.”

“That’s pretty close. You haven’t gone to check yourself?”

“I could if I were as young as you, or if I had a car, but it’s too much for my old bones. A round trip takes a whole day.”

She put Nito’s boots on the nearby desk and opened the door to a cabinet set within it. From inside, she pulled out a package covered in oiled paper.

“There’s a building with a blue roof right in the middle of the villas. Give this to the stubborn old man that lives there. He’ll know why you’ve come if you give him my name. Just leave it in the house if he’s kicked the bucket.”

“You sure don’t pull any punches...” I said with a strained smile as I took the package, shocked to hear someone talking about death so bluntly.

“I’ll come too!” Nito exclaimed.

She made to stand, then seemed to realize she still had no shoes on. My own gaze dropped to her tiny feet, taking in the light-pink color of her toenails.

“You shouldn’t stare at a girl’s feet like that,” Fago told me.

Her admonishment made me feel like I was doing something dirty. I looked away, clearing my throat.

“I’ll be back in a bit. You just get your shoes sorted,” I told Nito.

Nito used her hands to lift herself a bit and turned to look up at me. She reminded me of a cute little hamster. I could hear her grumbling to herself, trying to decide whether she should put off getting her shoes fixed and come with me.

“Bring me a souvenir,” she decided eventually.

“I’ll definitely keep an eye out for one.”

Before I left, I went back to the other room and found Charolles sitting with her eyes closed. I called out to her and she opened them, giving me a completely blank look.

“I’m heading out for a bit, so would you mind looking after Nito?”

She gave a slight inclination of her head, a strand of hair slipping loose and brushing across her cheek.

“I don’t think she needs it,” she answered.

“Just, y’know... Just in case. I worry.”

“Okay, sure,” she nodded, standing.

That short affirmative was all the reply she offered, and I was lost for words for a moment.

“Are you sure? You don’t want to know how long I’ll be gone or how far I’m going?”

“It’s fine. I more or less know,” she answered.

I watched her pass through the door into the workshop and couldn’t help but let out a mumble at her behavior.

“Cool as a cucumber...”

It occurred to me how strange it was that I felt so at ease leaving things in Charolles’s hands. We’d only barely met, but something about her just made me feel like I could trust her. Nito seemed to feel the same.

I left the shop and started climbing the hill. It had been a while since I’d done such things on my own, I realized. Going off by myself like this made me feel lonely and happy all at once, which I found amusing. I’d reached a point where I could actually look back fondly on my time traveling alone.

It took longer to get back up to the temple than it had taken to get down to the shoe shop. I stopped by our room to collect my backpack and then climbed aboard the Kettle, putting the bag and Fago’s package on the passenger seat.

I’d be driving alone, so I pulled out my phone to put something upbeat on. As the pop music I’d picked blasted forth from the phone, I lit the boiler. Steam-powered vehicles used the heat from the boiler to evaporate water into steam and convert that into a driving force, so I couldn’t start moving until it came to temperature. I looked out the window while I waited, humming along to the familiar lyrics.