Side: Amahashi Kakeru

It was a little past sunset by the time I got home. After all that, I'd talked things over with Horii-san's father a while longer, and in the end he'd even given me his private contact information.

It made me happy that he knew my parents were abroad and went so far as to tell me to come to him if I ever ran into trouble.

"Kakeru-san, welcome home!"

Sanctina was there to greet me the moment I stepped into the entryway.

"Oh—yeah. I'm home."

Maybe because I'd been lost in thought, it caught me off guard to be greeted like that. How to put it—I hadn't even been living in this house a full month yet, but it made me remember that, before I was summoned to the other world, the moment I least liked was coming home to an empty house.

If only Grandpa and Grandma were still alive… That sort of thing.

The house smelled like something good was cooking. When I'd messaged that I'd be late, they'd said they would do the shopping and get dinner ready.

"Kakeru, how did it go?"

"Yeah, doesn't look like a situation where we can just go acting on our own."

When I told Pricia and Filia—who were in the living room—what Horii-san's father had said, the two of them sank into thought as well.

"If someone moves on their own and makes it worse, it'll just be a headache, won't it."

For Filia, though, it seemed to have been within the range of what she'd expected. Sure enough, with the experience of an adult behind you, playing it safe like that was probably the reasonable call.

"Kakeru, welcome back."

"Oh, Noctia. Any idea what happened with that video leak online?"

"It seems quiet today. It's died down."

With me home, Noctia—who'd been in her own room—joined us too, and it was dinner all together. It had been bugging me, so I checked on yesterday's business, but apparently it had settled since then.

Incidentally, the one who'd actually gotten the hang of using the internet was Noctia. She used my computer and was tireless about gathering information.

I mean, she'd figured out how to search all on her own, which was impressive.

"Your country is amazing, Kakeru-san. There were so many ingredients and seasonings. I had a hard time choosing!"

Dinner was something Sanctina had made—the main dish a Western-style stew of fish, potatoes, and onions.

"Yeah, it's good!"

The fish broth came through nicely. Simple, but it went well with rice, too.

"You're a good cook. I had no idea. So they teach this kind of thing even in a marquess house, huh."

Sanctina had cooked a few times since the other day, but I'd heard she was the daughter of a marquess house over there, so it was a surprise.

"My real father was… of a count's family, but he held a station with no right of succession. My mother is a commoner. Until I was seven, we weren't exactly commoners, but we lived an ordinary life. Until the day the Oracle Skill appeared… So I can do all the household chores."

At Sanctina's words—her face a little guarded, as though hiding her feelings—Pricia made an expression I couldn't quite put into words. Sanctina, too, hadn't become a Saint because she wanted to. That was what it came down to, I supposed.

It struck me suddenly. Pricia had been on the anti-war side from the start, and I couldn't imagine Filia had joined of her own wish either.

Counting Noctia too—wasn't every single one of us fighting in a war we'd never wanted any part of?

Maybe that was somewhere near the reason I'd never quite managed to like that world. For all that I'd been taught the gods actually existed, the place was somehow worldly—it moved according to people's convenience.

Of course, it might just be that I didn't know that world well enough.

Still, each of them probably had their own reason for not saying they wanted to go back right away. That much, at least, was certain.

After dinner, we took it easy in the living room.

More than anything right now, I wanted to make sure I set aside time to be with them and talk.

With food, clothing, and shelter in order, it wasn't as if surviving the next day was in doubt—but small anxieties and questions kept coming up no matter what. And once things settled, I figured new wishes would start to surface, too.

"This is a peaceful country, but it's quite a difficult country to live in, isn't it."

After dinner, sitting on the sofa, the one who spoke up looking troubled was Pricia. Did she have some kind of complaint?

"If there's something you need, I'll get it as best I can?"

"No, I'd been thinking I wanted to work, but it seems you can't work without identification papers…"

Working, huh. If they were going to be staying, that was something I'd need to think about too. Identification papers—well, they didn't even have a family register¹to begin with.

If Pricia and the others were to pass themselves off as foreign residents in Japan, they'd need a Japanese certificate of residence on top of their home country's citizenship, and to get that they'd need a residence status. Without it, they couldn't work.

That said, the idea of legally obtaining a family register by saying "I came from another world" was out of the question. As for the family register, I couldn't say anything until I looked into it a bit.

"What kind of work do you want to do?"

"No, it's not that I've thought it through that far… I've never done housework, and I can hardly become a soldier in this country."

In Pricia's case, she had experience serving as a soldier, but probably no experience working under a commoner as an ordinary citizen. She seemed aware of that, and while she had the urge to do something she was capable of, it felt like she had no idea what that something should be.

Sanctina handled the housework while I was at school, and Filia had started making clothes from fabric she'd bought. Noctia, while it wasn't exactly a job, seemed to be gathering all sorts of information and doing research.

In that sense, Pricia was the only one without anything to do, so she was probably overthinking all of it.

"I don't think there's any need to rush. We're going to be searching the dungeon too, right?"

"Yes, that's true, but…"

Was she a little impatient, or did she just have no experience passing the days without a goal? The latter, probably. As royalty and as a soldier alike, even if you did nothing, the schedule filled itself in. Pricia wasn't the only one—the royals over there had all seemed busy.

"Could you wait just a little longer? I want you to get to know this world more first. I think doing something can come after that."

Golden Week was coming up too, so maybe I'd put together a bit of a plan.

Going sightseeing would be nice, and picking up where we left off with the shopping might be good too. Either way, we had to get out of the house.

Oh, right—there was Grandma's forty-ninth-day memorial²too. I'd have them hold down the fort for that one.

"Kakeru…"

More than a job, she probably wanted to find something to do. And that really was something she needed. The house was big, but even so, the training you could do indoors was limited, and it wasn't enough to spar with weapons or anything.

Doing it outside would draw attention, too. In that sense, maybe doing a bit of some sport together would be good.

The memorial was Friday, so I'd be back on Saturday. I'd think about where to go on Sunday.