Side: Amahashi Kakeru

After the lingerie shop, we made the rounds of a few more stores. One of them sold the kind of clothing fabric Filia had wanted, too. Filia was amazed by how cheap the ready-made goods were and how expensive the fabric itself was.

It was lunchtime now, so we ducked into a fast-food place. A burger joint of the sort you could find anywhere in Japan.

"How bold."

When I bit into my burger to show them how it was done, Pricia made a slightly startled face.

Back in the other world, there was meat you ate by biting straight into it too. It was just that fine dining among the nobility didn't include manners like that.

Even so, Pricia at least knew that some people ate this way, so she imitated me and chomped into her own burger.

"Oh, this is delicious."

She looked a little surprised. Why, I wondered? She was highborn, but she'd served in the military, so I figured she wouldn't have much resistance to it.

Noctia, meanwhile—who I'd have thought was just as highborn—was eating like it was nothing. She really had a talent for making everything look like something she was used to. There was no way she'd actually eaten one before, right?

The customers all around us were eating cheerfully, after all. The mood seemed to put everyone in good spirits too.

But then, halfway through her second bite, Pricia got a look on her face like she'd just remembered something.

"Come to think of it, Kakeru. It's a precious day off—are you sure you don't need to go see your fiancée? We'll be fine on our own now."

At Pricia's sudden remark, Noctia's face showed surprise for the first time.

The truth was… I'd completely forgotten about it too.

"Ah, that. …It was a lie."

There was no need to hide it anymore, so I confessed the truth. Filia seemed to have had a vague idea already, but Pricia, Sanctina, and Noctia were all taken aback.

Noctia was probably hearing it for the first time, so I figured I'd give a quick explanation.

The night I was summoned to the other world, a woman came to the room where I was resting. She was there to be my companion for the night. To use a slightly old-fashioned word, you might call it a night companion.¹

She was about my age, or maybe a little older. I remember she was beautiful. But this was the night of the day I'd been hauled off to a place where I didn't know up from down and told to fight the Demon Lord as the Hero—I was bewildered.

I went back and forth about it, but when I tried to turn her down anyway, she made such a troubled, sorrowful face that I blurted out a lie on the spot: that I had a fiancée.

Sure enough, she accepted that and left the room.

"You mean it was a lie all along…"

"Sorry. There's a saying in this country—nothing is more expensive than something that's free. Back then I never dreamed I'd actually end up shouldering the role. We don't have that kind of custom over here, and I was scared of what might come later."

Pricia was an earnest person. She'd genuinely thrown herself into trying to send me back to my own world. Which was exactly why I felt bad about having lied.

Honestly, if it had been a little later, once I'd settled down, I might have accepted.

Of course, there were a few more occasions like that afterward, but I turned them all down. By then I'd already made up my mind to go home.

"You're more of a schemer than you look."

"More cowardly than scheming, I'd say."

To Sanctina's hard-to-read comment, Filia read my feelings and spoke up for me. Cowardly—that was exactly right.

"Assigning women to a man who's been put in a role like yours has been done since ancient times. In the old days our side did it too, while hiding their true identities. Learning from that, your side assigned women and made it so the holy warriors were chosen mainly from the opposite sex."

Noctia said it as though it were nothing, and Pricia's and Sanctina's expressions went stiff. They probably hadn't known it in that much detail.

"Those people, really…"

"Pricia, you can't settle this with pretty platitudes. You understand that Kakeru had no reason to see the role through, don't you? I've heard there were several among the role's past bearers whose loyalties were turned by the opposite sex."

Pricia was earnest by nature, and she let her anger show at the underside of the war. But when Filia spoke to her as if gently admonishing her, she calmed the anger and hid her expression.

Well, I understood how she felt. No decent person could fight for the sake of peace in a world they had no ties to. Which was precisely why they baited the hook with a way home, with wealth, with fame, with women.

"It's true that I wanted to go home. Anyway, that's enough about that—shall we get back to shopping?"

Honestly, it wasn't all calculation on their side. There were people who felt guilty about making a Hero fight. I think sending the woman to me was partly meant to ease that guilt, too.

I'd heard that being the Hero's companion was itself considered an honor for the woman chosen, something to be glad about.

One of the Royal Guards who'd drilled me in training early on was the sort to give advice like not overthinking it and just enjoying myself, and he'd once offered to quietly take me to a brothel in town if the women at the castle were on my mind.

Not a hundred percent goodwill, and not a hundred percent ill will either. That's how I take it now.

Well then, next I should go take a quick look at shoes and a smartphone.

I'd have to get them on a train at some point, too.

Side: Filia

The tangled situation surrounding the Hero was far too difficult for a human in his teens. In that sense, Kakeru had managed to walk a very fine line.

Noctia surely knew it, but the thing both the human race and the demon race feared most was the Hero and the Demon Lord teaming up. That was why they made absolutely certain it could never happen.

A single individual holding power enough to shake the world. Managing such a dangerous existence was the problem facing that world's rulers.

"Come to think of it, we need cosmetics too. I'd completely forgotten."

We made the rounds of a few more shops after lunch as well, and then Kakeru spoke up as if he'd just remembered.

He'd hardly ever acted on his own initiative over there, yet since coming back here he'd been moving so actively it was hard to believe. It was true that it was necessary—but he also looked like he was enjoying himself.

"I'd like at least some lipstick."

"Yes. I'd like to see what kinds they have."

Sure enough, Noctia showed no interest. Naturally enough, since the demon race and the elf race didn't wear makeup to begin with. The humans, Pricia and Sanctina, seemed to want some.

Why had the gods left humans the art of summoning a Hero from another world? They must have known it would be used for selfish ends.

The Elders had said the gods took no interest in the doings of people.

Was that really so? Might there be some intention even the elf race and the demon race knew nothing of?

Watching Kakeru and Pricia and Sanctina enjoying themselves, I found myself thinking about such things, for some reason.

Well, it didn't matter for now.

In time… I had the feeling I would understand.

Though I had no particular reason to think so.