In that case, wouldn’t it be all right if I had one last conversation? I really hadn’t talked to anyone these past few months.
“Who are you?”
“First, answer my question. Are you a hero?”
“Technically, I am the sixty-eighth hero.”
“Wait, the sixty-eighth? You’re not the sixty-ninth?”
“I was summoned here a year ago.”
“Hmm…” The man pondered this silently.
I gave him a curious look. “Now it’s your turn to answer my question. Who are you?”
“Ah, right. I was the twenty-third hero. Before coming here, I lived in Japan. I was summoned in…2015, I believe.”
His answer was so completely unexpected that I was rendered speechless. I was not only surprised that another hero had suddenly appeared before me but that he was also Japanese. I couldn’t even reply.
It wasn’t that I never considered there could be heroes who were Japanese. But the fact that one had appeared before me in this exact moment was nothing short of a miracle to me.
“What about you?”
“I was summoned in 2020…” My heart was pounding so fast that I could barely speak.
“Hmm. Stay still for a second,” the self-proclaimed 23rd hero said, placing his hand on my chest. I tensed up for a moment, wondering what he was going to do to me. I felt a brief pulse run through my body, but there was no pain. I understood at once that he had used some kind of magic spell on me.
“I see. So that’s why,” he muttered, a bitter look of understanding on his face.
I silently gazed at him. He noticed and said without a hint of apology, “Oh. I looked through your memories.”
I didn’t have any memories I would be particularly embarrassed to have someone see, but shouldn’t he have at least asked first? I snorted a bit to express my dismay, and he gave me a serious look. “You know they’re gonna kill you, right?”
“Yeah, I know. But it’s not like I can do anything about it. Nor am I planning to,” I answered calmly.
He stared at me, as if he was peering into the depths of my heart. “If your illness was cured, what would you want to do?”
“Die like the camellias,” I answered without hesitation.
He gave a wry smile at my abstract response. Since he had read my memories, I knew he understood what I meant. The slow crawl toward death here in this place, in this white room, was unbearable.
“That’s what you want to happen, yes. But I’m asking what you want to do.”
What do I want to do? There was only one thing that came to mind.
“There’s nothing? There must be something, right?”
“If my illness was cured, I’d want to travel around the whole world. I don’t want to die here…but in a place that I’ve chosen.” I quietly told him my wish.
As I spoke, he stared at me impassively. “If you want to travel around the world, then I’ll give you something you need to be able to do that. I no longer have a reason to continue living in this world anyway… So I’ll give you my life.” He said it without a hint of sorrow, as if he were talking about giving me his favorite snack or something.
He’d just told me he would give me his life so that I could travel around this world. For a moment, I doubted my ears, but I could tell by his expression that he was serious, and without meaning to, I raised my voice. “I don’t want to travel that bad! Not so much that I’d want someone to sacrifice their own life for it!” My body couldn’t keep up with my agitated emotions, and I began coughing violently, pain growing in my chest. I clutched my chest and turned away to try to ease the pain. He placed a hand on my back and slowly, sympathetically, rubbed it.
I tilted my head slightly to look up at him, and he had on a conflicted smile. “I worded that wrong, sorry. I’ll tell you the whole story, so please just listen. Then you can decide after you’ve heard everything I have to say. Is that all right with you?”
“If all I have to do is listen.”
“Yeah, that’s all you have to do for now.”
After watching me catch my breath, he pulled his hand away. I panicked slightly as his soothing warmth left my body, but I pushed those feelings deep inside me. I turned my gaze toward him so I could listen. He sat down in a chair and looked at me.
“Where’d you get that chair?” It wasn’t in the room before. He hadn’t carried it in here, and he had nowhere to hide it, either.
“First, I’ll introduce myself.” Apparently, he had no intention of answering my question. “I am the twenty-third hero summoned to this kingdom. My name back in Japan was Kanade Tokito. In this world, my name is Kyle. I threw away my Japanese name. So you can call me Kyle.” He gave me a pointed look as if to say, “Now it’s time for you to introduce yourself.”
I didn’t feel like it was necessary, though, since he had looked through my memories. “I’m Setsuna Sugimoto…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, it’s just…I feel like that’s the first time I’ve said my name since I came to this world.”
“I guess that makes sense…” Kyle glanced down to the bracelet encircling my right wrist.
“I collapsed before they could tell me many details. They probably decided it wasn’t even worth asking my name.”
“……” He fell silent, as if he was deep in thought. He didn’t tell me why, so I had no idea what was going through his mind.
After our introductions were finished, Kyle began telling me about himself. About when he was summoned, what happened afterward, and what he’d seen during his time here in this Kingdom of Gardir.
People summoned were given the title of hero, but really, they were little more than slaves to the kingdom. Only the royal families and a small group of people in Gardir, and another kingdom named Ellana, knew the truth about the summoned heroes. The value of a human life was very low in this world. Kyle’s face was filled with bitterness as he told me about his experiences and knowledge.
We had been called here to be used as tools to fight monsters. I had a sense that the outside world was filled with danger. Kyle had lived in it, so I figured he had gone through tougher times than I could even imagine.