Side: Amahashi Kakeru

In the end, it took the whole day to assemble everyone's furniture.

Noctia's room alone was full of personal effects she'd brought over from the other side, and it was turning into something more like a workplace—a laboratory, really. Well, if she was happy with it, I supposed there was no harm.

Come evening, Pricia and I headed out for a jog, just the two of us. Ever since last Sunday she'd been running every day, morning and evening both. With school and all I hadn't been joining her, but I'd decided I'd at least run with her on my days off.

It wasn't like I disliked moving my body.

A bit of an aside, but Pricia was the only one we'd bought a separate sports bra for, and she switched to it whenever she exercised. It wasn't that she'd particularly asked for one—I'd heard that female athletes over here used them, so I bought one to try, and she ended up liking it.

The other women had bought clothes and shoes for working out too, mind you. The sports bra was just her, for now. Filia had been eyeing the actual article, wondering whether she could make one herself.

"This item is a fine thing. I can train regardless of my level. To think a criminal's restraint could be put to a use like this…"

When we stopped at a traffic light, Pricia looked at the magic item Noctia had given her and said as much.

"Probably not something you can just whip up, huh."

"True. There were alchemists making magic items in my country too, but I never once saw anything new come out of it. And it wasn't that the alchemists were incompetent, either."

Figures. Noctia was the odd one out, I'd say. Though even with magic items, putting out something new could spark conflict over it, so there were probably plenty of people keeping things to themselves.

Whoops, light's changed. Time to move.

But honestly, Pricia looked happiest when she was moving her body. She ran with a great look on her face. It might be rude to say so, but she struck me as more alive—and more beautiful—than she'd been back at the royal castle.

In that other world, she'd been more popular with the army's officers and soldiers than with the nobility. I'd heard the upper nobles found her hard to stomach—too strong, with too much of a sense of justice and too firm a will.

Part of it was probably that Pricia herself didn't much care for the royals and aristocracy, and had lived as a soldier.

Which earned her the reputation of a troublesome princess who couldn't even get herself engaged.

"Kakeru, I'm picking up the pace a little!"

Ah, her training was as brutal as ever. She kept an eye on my condition and judged accordingly—but she'd seen right through me, caught me with enough spare attention to be lost in thought.

"Roger that. Go easy on me."

"Hehe. If you wear out, I'll carry you on my back."

I'd really rather she didn't. It wasn't that I wanted to put on airs, but in Japan it'd stand out way too much, and it'd be embarrassing.

Over in that other world she actually had done it, mind you. There'd been a few times she carried a soldier who'd been hurt in training back on her back.

The army folks over there had to be grieving that Pricia never came back. If I could at least get word to them that she was doing fine, that alone would be something.

Well, that'd just turn into a hassle of its own, I supposed.

Whoops, I was about to run out of spare attention for thinking. Time to run for real.

Side: Pricia

The setting sun was dyeing the town. Things like this weren't so different even in another world.

Here, plenty of people were still out even after dark, but it didn't change the fact that people were on their way home.

I liked the pleasant sense of fatigue that came from moving my body. Kakeru looked a little worn out. While we caught our breath, we decided to rest together on a bench at a place called a park.

Looking around, there were others running the same as us, and people walking their dogs. There were children, too, playing with a round black-and-white ball they kicked about…

But then I caught sight of a young man and woman walking by—children around Kakeru's age. They were holding hands, walking pressed close together.

Those two looked to be on intimate terms. Strangely enough, the ways of men and women weren't so different between the world over there and this one.

The worlds might differ, but Kakeru and I were no different as members of the human race, so it wasn't anything to be surprised at.

Suddenly, I remembered the past.

How, back when I went out into town disguised as one of the common folk, I'd envied the young men and women my age making merry.

With my attendant ladies-in-waiting always at my side and not a shred of freedom to my name, I had envied them.

Even if I came to admire someone, to fall for someone, I was permitted nothing but the formal greetings, and was told to show no joy, anger, sorrow, or delight at all. There was no place for me within that royal castle.

And so…

I thought and thought, all so I could get out of the castle, and joined the army, for which I had an aptitude.

Of course, given the station I was born into, I knew full well how selfish it was. But the people of the human race I knew were nothing but selfish themselves.

In that case… I wanted to live too. By my own choosing. Bound by no one.

That said, even as a soldier I had no freedom to choose.

Having left the royal castle, I was still a princess of my kingdom all the same. Even when I was with Kakeru, who had been the Hero, there were always people around, keeping watch to make sure I did nothing unbecoming of my station.

When I glanced back, Kakeru was looking at me. Unlike back then, his face was that of someone his own age now, and the words I couldn't say at the time rose up in my mind.

"Hey, Kakeru. If I wear out, will you carry me on your back?"

"Hm? Ah, sure."

He answered at once, even as he looked slightly surprised, and I couldn't help laughing.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

"No, it's nothing."

That's right—it was nothing. Not the Hero, not a princess. A man and a woman no different from the people around us. That was all.

I think what Noctia said was right. Rather than looking back on the past, one should live in the now and what's to come.

After all, I was no longer a princess, nor anything of the sort.

"Shall we head home?"

"Yeah. Let's head back."

Kakeru might have grown a little stronger since coming back here. Not in body—in spirit.

Rather than carrying out a forced role as the Hero, he thought about us and tried to support us, to help us live.

That might be one of the qualities a Hero is truly meant to have.

To become the hope of his companions and the people, and to guide the world toward peace.

Still, Noctia had said something that stuck with me. That the Hero and the Demon Lord were two sides of the same coin.

Was the Hero's true enemy not the Demon Lord? No—it was a fact that a Hero who defeated the Demon Lord returned to his homeland. So did the Hero exist in order to defeat the Demon Lord?

I didn't know. But… I thought it was fine to leave it unknown now.

At the very least, I had no intention of going back over there, and I would never again take part in a war with the demon race.

That so many lives were lost, friend and foe alike, was something I must never forget—but that was neither a war I started nor a war front I expanded.

Kakeru and the rest of us, and Noctia, who had been our enemy—though our positions had been the exact opposite, we'd all fought desperately to put a stop to the conflict.

Now that I'd calmed down, I understood Noctia's position and her anguish.

She had been the same as us.