“Just to be sure, let me ask you this.”
When Renya finally spoke, his tone was calm. It was an unexpected calmness that Shion instead found unsettling, and she wilted a little in fear. Her eyes unwittingly drifted toward the katana that hung from his waist. Noticing the direction of her gaze, Renya followed it to its target. He sighed.
“We haven’t known each other for long, but you know what kind of person I am and how I think, right?”
His voice bore no emotion, as though he were simply confirming facts. Shion nodded.
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I do.”
“So, you know… and you still want to make that request?”
His gaze turned the slightest bit harsh. It was a very small gesture — a simple narrowing of the eyes — but it was enough for Shion to feel like a bucket of freezing water had been poured down through her body, chilling her from head to toe. A part of Shion screamed at her to apologize and take back everything she said. In that moment, she desperately wanted say sorry. To claim it was a joke. To say “No.”
But she didn’t.
“Yes, I do. I want you to help me, Renya.”
Never had her own voice sounded so powerless to her. Her words rang hollow; they were the preachings of a fanciful idealist. She was not only flaunting virtuousness, but she was also keeping Renya and Rona from moving. She was putting all of them in grave danger. Still, she couldn’t relent. There were reasons for her insistence, but she couldn’t decide if she should tell them to Renya. A glance of appeal for help at Rona earned her little more than a troubled frown.
Rona was conflicted. Her status and position required her to stand with Shion, but her prudence pushed her to avoid putting Shion in danger. She couldn’t even go with her heart, because her heart was split evenly between the two choices. In a way, she hoped that Renya would reject the idea outright. For him, that should seem like the surest method to bring Shion in line.
Shion knew this, too. In fact, it was all the more vexing, because she could see Renya’s thought process and still had no way of arguing back. She could, of course, reveal her identity, but even she knew that would have almost no effect on Renya’s decision. Currently, nothing she could say would change the fact that what she was proposing seemed like utter nonsense — the blind wish of a fool. Frustration and discouragement bubbled up to her throat, choking her to the point of tears. She angrily chided herself in her mind. Shedding tears made her a fool, but to use tears against a man was even worse. If nothing else, she wanted him to know that she was being earnest. She looked Renya in the eyes, hoping to convey at least the sincerity of her plea.
Were Shion able to read Renya’s thoughts at this moment, though, she would find them utterly disconnected from her own. The truth was that Renya saw Shion as nothing more than a babe in the woods, her head filled with rainbows and butterflies. He deemed her incapable of correctly analyzing a situation, and for whatever reason, she was reluctant to abandon people in need. It might be idealism, but in all honesty, he didn’t mind. If anything, he far preferred the active idealist to the passive cynic. Whatever their true intentions, at least the former tried to do some objective good. Compared to the armchair experts who spent all day extolling the virtues of things they’ve never done, he’d take the idealist every time.
He thought of the young girl who sent him to this world. In that sense, that damn loli-god could stand to learn a thing or two from Shion. Due to these factors, nothing about their current situation was unexpected for Renya. It was, however, a little disappointing that Shion had caught on to the need for investigation and the possibility of rescue. He tsked. So much for taking advantage of all the confusion to keep everyone running.
Now that the topic had been brought up, he had two options.
One, he could turn her down flat. Even with Rona’s help, there was very little that their three-person makeshift rescue party could do. Chances were, they’d simply have the privilege of experiencing the process of being ripped apart from the inside out for themselves.
Two, he could agree to her request. He didn’t consider himself to be all that amazing, but so long as he was with the two girls, he did feel confident in his ability to keep them safe. For some reason, though, it felt very unlike him to be doing that.
He could do it, but he didn’t need to do it.
With a sigh, he conceded that he wasn’t suited to deal with these kinds of situations. This wasn’t a fairy tale, and he wasn’t the knight in shining armor here to swear fealty to his beloved princess. It simply wasn’t him. The thought made him a little depressed. Nevertheless, he knew he wasn’t the protagonist type, so he wasn’t going to be doing cool, protagonist-y things. Instead, he focused his thoughts on what he — regular old Renya — should be doing.
In actuality, he had long given up on saying no to Shion’s request. There were various reasons, but the most important one was that he knew they were mutually dependent. Just as Shion relied on him, so did he on her.
A stranger in strange lands, he was utterly alone in this new world. This fact troubled him on a daily basis. Being reborn in an alternate world might sound fun on paper, but in practice, it was nothing more than an exercise in loneliness. He had no family, no kin, not even the eighteen years of life his bodily age suggested. He was ninety-four on the inside, but he had left his ninety-four years worth of memories and bonds in a distant grave of a faraway world. In other words, he was a spectre; an empty soul. No matter where he went, the being known as Renya Kunugi would remain alien to this world.
When he wallowed in such thoughts, only the presence of Shion and Rona offered him some relief. He had, of course, slowly gained more ties in the form of friends and a maid. The first people to extend their hands and ask for his friendship, however, were these two girls. Undoubtedly, they had their motives for doing so; they were human, after all. Asking strangers for their unconditional charity was mere greed.
Besides, he thought wryly, if I laugh at Shion for being a fool who has far more compassion than competence, what does that make me?
He was the one who had listened while the young girl mourned the impending destruction of a world and the deaths of its countless inhabitants. He was the one who had been talked into crossing its boundary to save the strangers of this strange new world. It was true that refusal meant certain death, and it was true that the promise of delicious food was appealing, but in the end, there was a simple truth: the girl had asked for his help, and he couldn’t say no. Knowing the reason why he had become a Wanderer, he couldn’t mock Shion for refusing to turn a blind eye. If Shion was a fool, he was one thrice over.
“Renya…”
He heard the soft whisper of Shion’s voice. Pulling himself out of his thoughts, he found her peeking gingerly up at him. With a frustrated sigh, he crossed his arms and looked up at the night sky.
I could sure use a smoke right now…
He didn’t know if he used to smoke. He also didn’t know if he was old enough here to smoke. He didn’t even know if this world had cigarettes for him to smoke. But he did know one thing: he’d much rather puff out a thick wisp of tobacco than the dull forest air. It was often said that smoking did nothing but harm, but Renya begged to disagree. Smoking calmed the mind. Surely, that meant it did something that wasn’t harm. And that not-harm it did sounded really good to him at this moment in time.
“Let’s assume I say yes…”
Renya kept his eyes on the sky. He wasn’t sure if he could look at Shion and still keep his composure. Even so, he could imagine the expressions of the two girls. Rona probably looked like she just saw a ghost, and Shion probably looked like a puppy who was just given food. If Shion had a tail, she’d be wagging it as hard as she could.
“In that case, I’m calling all the shots, and you follow orders. Agreed?”
“But… That’s…” Shion frowned, her enthusiasm waning dramatically.
Renya had some sympathy for her. She probably realized that he was going to propose a compromise. She simply had to accept that, though. He had his limits, and one of them was risking the lives of people he knew for people he didn’t.
“We’re not going to start combing through this forest. That might have been a possibility if either of you could move and fight at night like me, but you can’t. You’d just be two deadweights. Our lives are on the line here, so I’m going to be very blunt about this.”
“Nnngh…”
Shion had no comeback, and he didn’t intend to give her any time to think of one.
“It’s hard to even walk properly in a forest, never mind swinging weapons around. Meanwhile, our opponent’s mobility is apparently unaffected. The terrain is not on our side. Fighting in disadvantageous terrain is equal to suicide.”
“Mmm…”
“And even if we ignore all that, there’s still the fact that you’re just plain weak. With the whole getup you’ve got going, you look like you can swing a sword, but let’s face it. You’re a wimp. You can’t think, and you can’t fight, and honestly I’m not even sure what you can do. Sexiness? Rona’s miles ahead of you there. Cuteness? Don’t bother. Frau’s got that covered. Seriously. You’re not even cut out for party mascot.”
“H-Huh?”
“On top of that, you have poor situational awareness and you’re terrible at planning. Do you even understand what we’re about to do? An investigation. Even a kid knows you need skills to do that. Do you see any professionals here? Because I sure don’t. You think a bunch of amateurs can handle a search and rescue operation? Are the three of us going to protect a bunch of injured people while escorting them to safety? You don’t even have the brains to realize what an impossible task this is, so the least you can do is to shut up, listen, and take orders. If I say turn right, you damned well better turn right.”
“U-Um… Renya?”
“Now, of course, that’s my personal opinion. But I think it’s a very good opinion,” said Renya as he leaned in toward his bewildered victim with a menacing glare. “Don’t you?”