DAY 23: NOON

DAY 23

NOON

No one had known that a night could feel like an eternity.

INTERLUDE:
THE LADY FINGER BOUDOIR

 

IN THE END, we didn’t fully agree on what to do, but as a compromise, we did some reconnaissance in the woods near town. Our goals were to hunt some monsters, level up, and investigate. It was a thinly veiled justification to try to find Haruka-kun. We split into five adventuring parties but all stuck close together as we advanced.

“There aren’t any monsters here!” someone cried. “How are we supposed to level up?”

She was right. Even the forest had no living monsters. They were all completely annihilated. There was only one possible culprit.

“Should we try going a little farther?” I asked.

Without anyone answering, we all pushed deeper. I kept asking if we should stop, but no one did.

“We’ve gone too far to stop now.” Shimazaki-san said. “I don’t plan on going back without, like, finding out what happened.”

It was pointless. If Haruka-kun didn’t want us to go after him, he must have had his reasons. We shouldn’t be doing this, I thought.

Everyone wanted to go one step farther, to get one step closer to him. They thought that maybe we would catch up to him, and if we didn’t, we could at least find clues about what had happened to him.

We wanted to level up, but there were no monsters to fight.

A few hours passed. We’d entered the forest three hours ago, and we still kept going. This wasn’t what we’d planned to do, but no one wanted to turn back. No one even suggested it.

I knew it came down to me—I had to insist that we turn around, no matter how much I wanted to keep going. I had to be the one to say it, because no one else would. Haruka-kun had said that I was a natural leader. I wanted to believe that, so I had to take command.

But I didn’t say anything. We continued, one step after another, toward the cave. I remembered coming to this world. Everyone was lost, uncertain, miserable…until we came to that cave. It was the first place we could all relax. Before we knew it, we were all laughing and having fun together. We lectured Haruka-kun over and over, but we still appreciated everything he did. Our tomorrows were brighter because of him. And Haruka-kun was somewhere out there, totally alone.

No matter how far we went, we didn’t see a single monster.

After we finally turned back, everyone was silent. There weren’t any monsters to slow us down, but we still didn’t reach Omui until nightfall. We just couldn’t muster the energy. Today was an utter failure; we walked all day, but didn’t accomplish anything.

When I finally said, “Let’s turn around,” disappointment surfaced on everyone’s faces. They couldn’t disguise the hurt and sadness that they felt. They nodded, their heads drooping. I’m sure my face looked just the same.

Oda-kun and his friends booked rooms at the same inn. To prevent anyone from sneaking away in the night, I changed room assignments and set up a watch rotation. That was the only way to stop people from going after him.

It was the only way I could stop myself.

The flyers girl brought us our meal, bewildered by our visible distress. Our first objective was successful: we had reconnected with Oda-kun and his friends. Even so, we ate our dinners in silence. No one wanted to talk, nor did they know what to say when they tried. Somehow, the absence of just Haruka-kun had made everyone—even the nerds, who usually didn’t care about anyone else—slip into a pensive, distressed mode.

I’d never realized how long a night could be.

At some point, that ecstatic, riotous atmosphere quietly slipped away.

Those days moved too fast; we didn’t have enough time…

No one had known that a night could feel like an eternity.