DAY 18: NIGHT — LADY FINGER BOUDOIR

DAY 18

NIGHT

He spent so much time developing his destructive talents that he never learned any social skills.

LADY FINGER BOUDOIR

INTERLUDE:
GIRLS’ SUITE

 

WE GOT FIVE four-person suites and one single room. That last one was for Haruka-kun.

We saved some money by booking rooms of four, but the main reason was safety. Once we were more familiar with this town, rooms of two would be fine. Everyone made it their goal to learn Presence Detection and Enemy Tracking. Right now only about half of us knew one of those skills, and only four of us knew both.

Honestly, we were doing great! We only started training in earnest one week ago. When we started, even the people who knew those skills didn’t know how to use them, but now we could stand guard in shifts.

Haruka-kun, on the other hand, casually picked up skills left and right. He showed more enthusiasm when he first caught a fish. Anyone who sounded so bored while talking about learning how to magically fly was definitely not normal. Everyone else had to work so hard just to learn a few measly skills.

We only needed to spend half a day splitting up and gathering gossip. People readily opened up to us since we were normal-looking girls who knew how to talk to them.

Haruka-kun, in comparison, terrified everyone in the guildhall with a few words and practically had to be put in solitary confinement. I guess he spent so much time developing his destructive talents that he never learned any social skills. I had to smooth things over myself. Afterwards, he was given special permission to exchange his spellstones, but he ended up causing a desperate panic at the trade-in counter. He caused trouble everywhere he went, but he was totally oblivious to it. In any case, we got all the information we needed from asking around. There was good and bad news.

The good news was that this town was relatively safe. Apparently, Oda-kun and his friends had something to do with that. They visited town every once in a while. No one wanted to cause any trouble with them around.

That meant that they either traveled between Omui and other towns or had a campsite nearby. Shimazaki-san should finally be able to find them soon. I could hardly believe how much Shimazaki-san and her friends had changed.

From talking to them I knew that this was who they really were, deep down.

Their lives couldn’t have been easy. They used to be so aggressive, exclusionary, and conceited, but that was all a defense mechanism for how scared and unsure they really were. But no one would help them if they acted like that in this world. Even so, they hid any signs of weakness.

Then they found themselves alone in a monster-ridden forest and were attacked by those delinquents. We had kept them at arm’s length, showing them no trust or kindness. We treated them like outcasts.

They really thought they were going to die. In that moment of despair, they must have realized how awful they had been. They wanted to apologize to Oda-kun before they died. They needed to make amends.

At first, we didn’t believe them. How could we?

Nonetheless, they apologized to us and vanished into the forest in search of Oda-kun and his friends.

The five of them were level one, having never fought a single monster, but they still went off into the woods. We weren’t going to help them. Our hearts had closed off to them.

Honestly, we should’ve died in those woods, too. We should have been annihilated by all those monsters. That was the only future left for us. Yet, we were saved. Our attitude was totally wrong.

Facing certain doom, with hearts full of despair, we had all given up. Then a ray of hope penetrated our gloom in the form of Haruka-kun just being himself.

Of course, I was overjoyed that we triumphed against death and kicked despair to the curb. We thought that all other alternatives were impossible. No one wanted to die, but we had given up on life. Haruka-kun showed us that things didn’t have to be that way. He did it in an easy, carefree manner, like life was fun.

He taught us that giving up hope was just an excuse. Because of him, our despair faded away completely.

Soon, we were all smiles again. We felt like we could imagine a tomorrow. Life became joyful.

Haruka-kun slayed our doubts.

If I could live forever…even if I could, I wouldn’t want to do it without him. We didn’t have him before, and it was a complete disaster. At last, I felt untroubled.

But I hadn’t even gotten to the bad news. For Haruka-kun, it was worse than anything we could’ve imagined.