Would twenty-four years generally be considered a long time or a short time? Surely anything that lasted for twenty-four years would be considered long. So in that case, wouldn’t a life that lasted twenty-four years be long? After all, you’d carried on living during that whole time.
I remembered the term average life span, a nagging thought in the back of my mind arguing that it was not, in fact, a long time at all.
I continued searching for a reason I could accept, even though the answer was already inside me. Because I had no choice but to accept it. I had been sick ever since I was a child, and my life that had lasted for twenty-four years would end today.
I never made any friends. I never fell in love. I never got married or had any children. I’d just lived, slowly drifting toward death. It was fairly difficult to say my life had been blessed in many ways. But I was blessed with the environment and family in which I’d grown up. My parents were both doctors who ran a prestigious hospital. I’d lived my entire life in one of those patient rooms. They had prepared it especially for me.
Since it was a hospital, the walls were painted white, but it had been decorated appropriately for my age. I thought it probably wasn’t much different from the rooms of other boys my age. Of course, I’d never seen anyone else’s room, so I couldn’t be sure, but I just had a feeling it was similar. If I had to name one difference, though, it was that I was not allowed to leave my room, for my own safety.
There were times when I’d wondered why I’d ever been born to begin with, or why my life had to be like this. But once I discovered my parents had been deeply hurt by the fact that they hadn’t been able to cure my illness, I resolved to just accept the reality of my situation.
I had so many places I wanted to go and things I wanted to see. I never gave up hope for a possible cure, so I read many books and even studied to become a doctor one day. I wanted to follow in my parents’ footsteps. I held on to that hope deep in my heart, right up until the end. My parents never gave up on curing my illness, so I truly believed I would be rid of it one day. The only thing I could do was trust them and work hard.
I’d lived my life to the fullest, the best that I could, for twenty-four whole years.
So that’s why… That’s why…
Mom. Dad. Kyoka. I was happy.
So I don’t want you to cry.
I was more than happy.
… … … … … … …
……………………… … … … … …
………………………………………… … … … … … … …
“You are the sixty-eighth hero.” I heard a slightly high-pitched, feminine voice.
I woke up abruptly, immediately overcome by vertigo, nausea, and a pain so sharp it felt like I’d been punched in the head. It was so intense that it took my breath away for a moment. I turned my body in an attempt to escape it, frantically trying to remember what had happened to me.
Who’s talking to me? What had I been doing? What is this searing pain?!
“You are the sixty-eighth hero.” In the midst of my confusion, I heard the woman’s voice again. But I couldn’t comprehend the words she was saying, and the voice vanished. For a moment, I thought maybe one of the nurses was talking to me.
But most of all, a pressing question overflowed out of me.
“…Why…am…I…still…a…live?” The words tumbled from my mouth in a voiceless rasp.
Then I opened my eyes here for the first time. I saw my right arm. There was a gleaming, bluish-silver bracelet around my wrist. I moved my head around, trying to grasp my situation while I bore the pain and the nausea.
This was not the room where I had spent my whole life. I had no memory of this place at all.
“Yes, that’s right. Shall I explain?” the woman asked calmly; she didn’t seem surprised by my reaction.
“……”
As she spoke, the nausea and the pain gradually subsided, and my pulsing heartbeat began to return to normal. I didn’t wonder why the pain had stopped or why my confusion had dissipated.
“Brave hero, are you listening?”
I assumed she was addressing me, but I didn’t understand why she was calling me that.
“I…I’m not really sure I understand what you’re talking about.”
“Well, I’d like to explain it to you now. You’re feeling fine, yes?”
“Yes. I don’t feel nauseous or in pain anymore.”
She nodded in response, then calmly explained my situation, the position I was in, and about this country. I detected a hint of contempt in her attitude. With every word she spoke, new questions arose inside me, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to ask them. I just quietly listened to her speak.
“Very well, then. I shall show you to your room. I can explain things in more detail there.”
I nodded to show that I agreed and unsteadily rose to my feet. She began to slowly walk away, and I tried to follow after her, but my legs would not move. I’d intended to take a step forward, but when my legs didn’t cooperate, I lost my balance and collapsed. I felt pain; I must have struck my head on something, because I slowly began to lose consciousness.
The only things I saw as my consciousness slipped away were the woman’s cold eyes as she glared at me and the pale blue circle embroidered upon her black robe. For some reason, I noticed that it looked just like a moon hanging in the sky at midnight, then lost consciousness.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed after that, but at some point, I woke up. While taking into consideration my physical condition, she once again explained this world to me.
This was not the world in which I had been born and raised. A different world from the one I’d lived in before…? We called that an isekai in my previous life. And in this other world, I appeared just as I had in Japan: I had black hair and black eyes.
The woman told me I had the qualities of a hero and had been summoned here by a certain kind of magic that could summon a soul that had ended its natural life span. These heroes from another world were brought here in order to protect mankind from monsters. Honestly, I wondered why I had been chosen.
Perhaps the concept of a hero was different here, but my younger sister, Kyoka, and I had enjoyed adventure novels like that, so we’d read them often. We should all try to protect our world, but of course, I never expected that role would ever come to me. All those thoughts were running through my head as I listened, and perhaps that was why I wondered why they had to summon heroes to this world.