episode_0084

As a Korean, I feel guilty sleeping in the bed. But then again, the bed is a bit narrow to share.

What argument could I possibly make when the landlord says this while I’m just staying for one night?

“…Um, well then… excuse me.”

In the end, Friede had no choice but to move her belongings from her room to mine and quietly take off her outerwear before sitting alone on the bed.

Her belongings were more like those of an adventurer—armor, weapons, a backpack, and a bottle of wine with its cork removed.

“Alright, get some good sleep. You have work tomorrow.”

I leaned back against the armrest of the sofa, swirling my wine glass, and bid her goodnight.

“Yes… I’ll just finish this.”

Friede replied as she lifted the bottle of wine she brought from my room.

“Suit yourself.”

Seeing that there was no glass, it seemed she intended to drink straight from the bottle.

Normally, drinking like that with her face buried in a bottle would have been a sight that would immediately attract the attention of the police in the real world, but surprisingly, given Friede’s appearance as a twenty-year-old adult, it wasn’t really an issue by normal world standards.

“Gulp, gulp, gulp. Ahhh…!”

Visually, it was a scene that I could never quite get used to no matter how many times I saw it.

Anyway, Friede and I spent a leisurely time enjoying light drinks until we felt sleepy.

◆◆

About thirty minutes or so passed.

“She finished it… should I have brought another bottle?”

Feeling regretful, I cleared the empty bottle to the corner of the table. It was satisfying to empty the bottle, but it left a slightly incomplete feeling. I guess that’s the sensation of incomplete combustion.

It was a bit ambiguous to demand another bottle at this hour. It’s a little disappointing, but I should stop drinking here today and get a good night’s sleep.

As I made up my mind and absentmindedly untied my hair, I was about to take off my upper garment and lay it over the back of the sofa when…

“Um… Mr. Hilde. Can I ask you something…?”

Similarly, Prédé, who had finished drinking the liquor that had been thrown into a frenzy and put down the bottle, came up to me.

He was lying flat on the bed, propping his chin with both hands. The fact that he had taken off his shoes proved that there was at least a minimum of common sense and morality in this world.

Yes, you should definitely take off your shoes when getting on the bed.

A being who lies on someone else’s bed without taking off their shoes would have been innocent even if their legs were cut off along with their boots.

Like Procrustes from Greek mythology, who invited travelers to lie on the bed and immediately adjusted their size.

“You, too, why do you ask for permission for such things? If you have any questions, feel free to ask. We’re at the same party, aren’t we?”

I took off my leather pants, hung them next to my casual clothes, covered myself with a cloak that I had roughly washed and dried instead of a blanket, and lay completely naked on the sofa.

“…That’s right. ‘We’re at the same party’….”

Prédé murmured quietly, as if slightly lost in thought.

It was a strange expression. It seemed like he was smiling, but his face didn’t seem genuinely happy. There seemed to be a hint of something like regret in his expression.

“Um, Hilde.”

Prédé spoke again.

“Do you remember Bardu and Jane?”

“Bardu? Well, of course I remember. How could I forget after just a few days?”

What’s with this sudden question?

“But why do you ask?”

The questioner’s intention was so inscrutable that if it were included in an exam, it would probably deserve about 20 points.

“Oh, well, those two, they were, you know… lovers? Is that… common among adventurers…?”

Huh, really? Was that what you were curious about?

Come to think of it, Prédé was at an age where he might be interested in such things.

Because of his fierce behavior of cutting monsters and bandits to pieces with a greatsword, I hadn’t really thought about it before.

“Well, it’s not that common, is it? Even I’ve seen it a few times.”

Romance between party members. It wasn’t very common, but it wasn’t so rare that it was hard to come by.

“Is that so…?”

“Sure. By going through hardships together, eating and sleeping together, it’s natural for affection to develop. As time goes by, losing affection is also a matter of course.

Of course, whether that affection develops into love was a separate issue.

Perhaps due to their short average lifespan in their profession, adventurers tended to prefer casual flings over long-term relationships even if they developed affection.

It might not be fair to call it an animal kingdom, but there was a joke circulating that if an adventurer encountered a unicorn, they should run away immediately.

“…Hey, Hilde, what do you think about people like that?”

Me? Well, I don’t particularly have any thoughts. Frankly, as long as they don’t cause me trouble, I’m fine.

However…

I’ve seen several parties fall apart because of that issue. It’s always the same with relationship problems, isn’t it?

All sorts of things happen. Former close comrades fighting over one woman, a party with a gender ratio of 3:1 where one person gets left out and the remaining three form relationships, or a guy who had separately pursued all three female party members and eventually got caught, leading to a disaster.

At the end of a series of killings, the last remaining woman left with the severed neck of a man and disappeared somewhere.

There were rumors that she fled to another country by boat or ventured deep into a dungeon. Either way, it was truly a tragedy among tragedies.

“Oh… is that so…”

Freida let out a faint sigh.

“So… Hilde, it seems like you dislike those kinds of things…?”

“Well, it’s not that I dislike them… it’s just that there have been many such incidents.”

Contrary to Freida’s misunderstanding, I didn’t particularly harbor any aversion to such things.

What can I do if they like each other? As long as they don’t cause trouble in the party.

Even when Bardu and Jane, whom I met last time, were openly showing affection, I didn’t pay much attention since they didn’t cause me any trouble.

“Personally, I think it’s neither something to like nor dislike. As long as it doesn’t cause problems, it probably doesn’t matter, right?”

The adventurers’ romantic affairs often caused a lot of trouble, so I was a bit hesitant, but if it didn’t cause any harm, I didn’t really care one way or the other.

“I guess it doesn’t matter… Yeah. That’s right. You’re different, Hilde.”

Frida chuckled, tapping her legs alternately. She didn’t know what it meant to be “different.”

She seemed far from interested in romance at first glance. Well, it wasn’t entirely wrong. She wasn’t interested.

Disguising herself as a wanted criminal and living with others, was that even justifiable? It was something I shouldn’t have done to someone else, not me.

No, finding a partner in the first place was difficult.

My body was an unquestionably perfect female form, but I still clearly remembered the time when I lived in my original body.

For me, harboring feelings for a man was an impossible feat, even if heaven and earth were torn asunder and a goddess descended to threaten me.

So, if I had to pursue a partner, I should look towards women… It’s not such a common preference to like women if you are a woman yourself.

It wasn’t a very major preference in my original world, let alone in a world where men were the main characters, like in a typical harem novel.

Someone who created such a world would hardly make same-sex preferences a common occurrence.

Instead of pairing up female characters in that worldview with other women, it would be more typical to put both women into the protagonist’s harem.

In the first place, even if there was a woman who liked me, accepting her would be awkward.

She would probably like me as another woman, but the soul inside this body is not a woman, so if we dated, it would ultimately be deceiving the other person.

For that reason, since I arrived in this world, I had resolved to consider things like romance as completely unrelated to me.

…Actually, even in my original world, my life was never intertwined with romance.

“Th-then, Hilde, how about you? I mean, do you have feelings for a man, or did you ever have…?”

Therefore, when Fred asked me this question, I was able to answer without much hesitation.

“A man? There wasn’t one. There won’t be in the future either. Probably never in my life.”

“…Oh, really…? That’s a bit surprising.”

“Surprising?”

When I asked what she meant, Fred seemed startled and shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“Oh, uh, um. Excuse me, was that rude…? I mean, I just thought that someone like Hilde, a beautiful… no, a great person, would have had many people confessing to her for a long time…”

Fred rambled on in an apologetic tone. It was a bit amusing to see her so flustered, wondering if she had been impolite.

Leaving that aside, confession…

Well.

There were plenty of guys trying to woo me, but I’ve never experienced anything like a love confession.

Telling someone to behave themselves isn’t a love confession, is it?

In the first place, even if there were confessions, I would have just found them uncomfortable and put up a clear wall.

“There wasn’t any. Even if there were, I wouldn’t have accepted them. Confessions from common guys, they’d just make me uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I see. Is that so?”

Is that so? What do you mean by “is that so,” Fred?

Fred suddenly started to smile as if she felt good about something in my words.

She seemed to be bouncing around as if in high spirits, perhaps the drink she had just had was a bit strong.

“Fred. Is that so, that’s a bit…”

“What about women then? How about women?”

Fred abruptly interrupted me and fired off a new question in a rapid tone, almost like an interrogation.

…What about women?

“Well, women are a bit better…”

An instinctive response. Fred’s manner was so abrupt that I couldn’t help but give an honest answer.

Honestly, even as I said it, I realized how awkward it was. Being in a situation where I share a room with a woman who likes women. If you switch the genders, isn’t this a complete horror story?

Of course, liking the same gender isn’t indiscriminate, and such thinking itself is a form of bias…

I wonder how Fred will react.

In the worst case, because of this one word, our relationship could quickly sour and the party might eventually fall apart.

So I stopped in the middle of my sentence and tried to come up with excuses to retract the words I had already uttered.

“Is that so…?”

However, Freide’s reaction was almost the opposite of what I had expected. Freide beamed with a bright smile, pulling up the corners of his mouth.

For some reason, the expression on my face seemed to make my heart slightly uneasy.

No way, no way, but…

No, there’s no way. Surely not.

A cold sweat ran down my cheek.

Contrary to my previous concerns, it felt like a crisis that could explode at any moment for completely different reasons.