Chapter 249 - The Story So Far: The Manager

The Story So Far: The Manager

To be honest, I did not pay any attention to the fight between Adlus and Heinrich. After all, the thing with the manager had all of my attention…

I heard it from Daniela later. Heinrich was defeated. Apparently, it was a rather good battle, but Adlus used the various water abilities that he was known for, and Heinrich was eventually swept away. I had assumed that someone like Adlus, with his terrible personality, would torment his opponent, but that was not the case. It had been a good and fair fight. I could respect him for that, at least.

In any case, that meant that I would be fighting Adlus next. This guy who kept bothering Daniela. He even mocked my friend, Lemonfrost. He antagonized me. And now was the time to put an end to it all.

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Some time earlier, when Heinrich and Adlus were still fighting…

“So, why are you here in this world?”

“Like I said. I was taking a walk.”

She said with an annoyed expression as she folded her arms and sank into the chair.

She was no longer covering her face.

“I had to work in your place for a bit, after your sudden disappearance. It was quite tiring… And one morning, I finished the orders and went home to rest for a while before going back to the store. I think it was right in the back of the building that I suddenly lost consciousness. And before I knew it, I was here.”

“That’s quite a coincidence…”

“Perhaps. I’ve been thinking about it. It could be that the area around the shop is special.”

Right. There was some kind of special magnetism there that was the reason people were sent away… So that could mean that others in the area might be sent here as well. I really hoped it was a rare occurrence…

“Do you know how much trouble you caused with your vanishing act?”

“You have my sincerest apologies.”

“We checked the security cameras, but the footage was messed up and I couldn’t tell what I was looking at… I was eighty percent sure that you had just decided to quit without saying anything. Out of spite. That is, until I discovered that there was a famous Adventurer with your name.”

“And the other twenty percent was because…?”

She looked at me.

“I thought you might be here. And so I searched.”

I see… She had been dumped into this world out of nowhere, but had also remembered me… It almost made me want to cry. It must have been hard.

“So, I would like to ask you the same question. Why are you here?”

“It’s a long story… No, not really. I robber stabbed me during my shift and some voice rang in my head as I was dying. And then I woke up here.”

“A robber… Damn it. I thought you had run away with all the money or something.”

“You’re terrible!”

Apparently, there was no proof to suggest otherwise. My pool of blood had disappeared. Even the knocked over pile of cigarettes…

After that, we continued to ignore the fight and talk about what had happened. I told her about my travels and how Daniela and many others had helped me. As for the manager, she honed her abilities alone and would occasionally remember me long enough to do a little searching.

“Well, it was mainly looking at faces at the guild. I didn’t go around asking people.”

I wasn’t sure if she had cared all that much. But it was better than nothing, and I was touched.

“I first landed very far away from here. A country of snow.”

The manager had awakened in a northern town of a small religious country called ‘Erdiares.’

“I saw a beautiful sea. But it was so cold I thought I was going to die. It was still summer back at home, you know? I was wearing a shirt and shorts.”

Yes, that was one way to die in a snowy mountain. However, she hadn’t died.

“There was something wrong with my body. As I searched, my shadow began to move.”

The shadow attribute was supposed to have been lost. Eventually, she discovered that she could enter the shadow. Then she no longer felt the cold. After that, she moved through the shadows until she reached the nearest town.

“Obviously, I was hounded by questions once I reached it. But, well…I just told them that I had amnesia. Shortly after, I found a stable occupation in Adventuring.”

It was a pretty stable job. And unlike me, the manager partied up with many different people as she raised her level. Once she was strong enough, she attached herself to a caravan as a guard and left the country.

“And then I stayed in Lambrusen and traveled. After a while, I just happened to hear your name in a certain town.”

That town turned out to be Spiris. Spiris. The plains. Fiona worked at the guild there. I had many memories attached to the place.

The manager had stopped at the guild and was about to accept a quest, when she heard something most shocking.

“This woman would look at my hair. Then she complimented it and said it was like yours.”

She said with a laugh. I snorted.

“Hahhh… So it was Fiona…”

“Hehe. Yes, she told me many things.”

Our meeting and things we had talked about. And a lot more. While this had been quite the surprise for both of them, they hit it off well and became friends. While I was happy to hear that my acquaintances were getting along, I was a little worried about whatever lies they were telling each other.

“To think the boring part-timer would turn into a heartbreaker.”

“I’d rather not talk about that…”

That scene hadn’t been very fun. It was kind of a miracle I had gotten through it. And it was not the thing you wanted to be reminded of.

The manager lived comfortably in Spiris after that, until Fiona gave her some unexpected news.

“‘Rindo. I hear that Asagi is in the Imperial Capital!’ She stormed into my room with this information. And so I left the town.”

I had sent a letter the night before we found the ruins. It was a simple letter telling about our route after leaving Spiris. I had left it to be delivered at the guild. I hadn’t really wanted Daniela to know about it. Yes, we had promised to write, but it didn’t really seem like something I would do… Or so I assumed, anyway… And I had only done it out of a begrudging sense of duty.

But that letter had eventually reached Spiris and found its way into Fiona’s hands. So that was how the manager found out. And then she came to the capital as fast as she could.

“First, I had to go to the capital. But I didn’t have enough money. So I completed quests along the way and would constantly hear rumors about you. They talked of the newcomer who killed two wyverns. The pair that stopped a stampede. It was all very boring, and it only got worse when I reached the capital.”

I wasn’t too happy about the rumors myself, but she looked oddly amused as she talked.

“You helped the group of Adventurers who stopped the orc army. And then you faced a lesser wyvern that had attacked a village, and killed it with a single hit. Oh, and then there was the Adventurer who purged a town of bandits that even the Empire hadn’t touched. The Adventurer who turned a great wolf into a block of ice. It was all you.”

Well, perhaps I hadn’t been keeping a low profile in any way. Besides, I knew that there were a lot of false rumors about me, and the fact that she only stated the right ones suggested she had heard from many people and determined which were credible.

“Of course, I just had to come and see you then. And I knew I would find you here. It’s been lonely here. But knowing there was someone else from my old world was a tremendous encouragement. It motivated me to come here.”

She stopped there and looked at me for a second before glancing towards Daniela, who was sitting silently between us all of this time.

“I had heard that you were partnered with ‘Lightwind.’ But who would think you’d ever have a girlfriend.”

“Uh, heh, yeah.”

“…A girlfriend…”

She repeated the words with a sigh.

…That wasn’t good. I think.