CH 2

“Why did you bring me here?”

It was a voice full of vigilance.

“I brought you here because you were injured and collapsed. More than that, did you break all of this?”

“I don’t remember coming this far.”

“Ah, of course not. I barely managed to drag you, who collapsed in the woods, though. Anyway, I asked, did you make a mess of the house?”

“…Collapsed, you said? How many days have passed since I collapsed?”

“A week.”

He didn’t even pretend to listen to me. I was a little annoyed, but I endured it because the eyes that were glaring at me looked like they were going to kill anyone.

The man looked at his upper body wrapped in bandages and asked sharply again.

“What were you trying to do when you brought me here? I…”

“What are you saying? I didn’t do anything to you. Look, except for the top, your clothes, bags and accessories are still there. The bag is over there, check it, and the earrings are still hanging in your ears.”

Then he shut his mouth tightly. He looked puzzled, apparently knowing that I had shot back. What’s the point of making that face after saying what you want to say?

I sighed once and walked into the messy house. Ah, my sofa is all ruined…

There were times when the robbers robbed me of everything, and there were times when I was engulfed in a fire, so I wasn’t upset that the house was in disrepair.

What upsets me is that the person I picked up did that. Is this why I was told not to collect black-haired beasts. Not the ones at the level of consuming grace day by day, this one.

The man didn’t move from the bed until I entered the house, cleaned up the mess and made the soup. As I offered the soup, he looked at me again, so I just stared at him as well.

“Why. Do you want to just go starving?”

When I said this, he quickly went dispirited and received the bowl. I guess he was hungry.

I sighed once more, pulled the chair in front of the bed and sat down.

“Why are you sitting here?”

“Wherever I sit, you have no right to say anything. I’m the owner of the house.”

“…Until now, you used honorifics, yet now you dropped them.”

“You’re speaking informally too, you know.”

“…”

You don’t have anything to say so shut your mouth. Either way, I said what I wanted to say.

“If I ask you how you got hurt, you won’t answer, right? Also the reason you even came all the way here and collapsed.”

“…”

“As you can see from the way I picked you up and treated you, I’m not a very cold-hearted person. I have no intention of asking an injured person to leave my house, so go out as soon as you can walk.”

Do you have money, or what. To the subject who was injured and collapsed in the forest. The man, who had been silent for a long time while sitting on a chair and only tapping his feet, struggled to speak.

“… Going immediately is difficult, though.”

Ah, what else now.

***

As I heard about his circumstances roughly, he can’t go back to where he was right now because of the bad people who are targeting him. He needs some recovery to go back or something.

“What did you do wrong? Why are they looking for you?”

“I did nothing wrong, but… There is something like that.”

“Ah, alright.”

Actually, I’m not really curious, but I asked out of courtesy. I didn’t pretend to ask back, so I felt the man staring at me like a fool, but what should I do?

To be honest, isn’t that a very mild attitude for a householder to deal with a vandal? He demolished the house, yet he answered me regularly, and I even listened to what was going on without kicking him out right away. Normally, I would have sent him away and said, “That’s on you, goodbye.”

Still, I’m the one who took care of him for a week, that’s why I’m listening.

I frowned and looked at the man.

“Thank you for your explanation of the unfriendly situation that I don’t understand.”

“…”

“But do you really need to be here? If you go out of this forest, there’s a village.”

And above all. When I pointed my finger at the scenery behind my back, the man’s gaze also turned to the back.

“I don’t think my house is ready to accept guests now. What do you think about it?”

“…”

The man glanced at the scene of the house that had been shattered, and he saw me staring at him once, then secretly averted his eyes to the side. Ah, yeah. You know what you did wrong, don’t you?

“I don’t want to stay in crowded places until my body recovers. They will still be looking for me.”

“Hmm. What’s the chance that they don’t look for you anymore because they think you’re dead? You were really on the verge of losing your breath.”

The man shook his head slowly but firmly.

“I don’t know anything else, but they won’t think I’m dead. At best, they’d guess I’d be lying down, weak.”

Then they’ll try to find him faster. I was about to tilt my head for a moment at the added words in a shrill voice. I wonder why they’re so sure this guy isn’t dead.

But that wasn’t the point. In conclusion, this man is not dead, and the gang after him knows that he’s alive for whatever reason. That meant the man had to recover before they could find him.

“So now what you’re saying is,”

I said, “Hm,” and looked straight at the man.

“Aren’t you saying that you want to stay at my house until you recover?”

“…If I had to explain it in words, that would be it.”

I pretended to be seriously troubled. Whether or not he knew that my heart was already half-set, the man’s hands put strength on the blanket and wrinkled it.

To be honest, there were many reasons to kick him out. I saved him once I saw him, but the fact that this man was the first person I had met a week ago and talked to today hasn’t changed. And that person even demolished my entire house.

Besides, he wants to hide himself in my house because he’s being chased. I don’t know what the people they are chasing are doing, but considering that this man was lying half-dead, they don’t seem to be people with common sense.

Then the answer is out, well. Why should I take this risk?

From the beginning, I didn’t mean to keep asking him to stay, but hearing the story made me want to kick him out even more. Still, if there’s one thing that bothers me…

Do you think it would be very uncomfortable if someone dies because of the fact that I kicked him out?

I stopped thinking for a moment, glanced up, and our eyes met as if he was waiting. As I looked at the man’s slightly anxious face, I frowned slightly. It’s not a sentiment I’d like to say about a person who died and came back to life, but it was a face that really disturbed my thoughts.

With such a handsome man, there are probably people who won’t listen to his situation and let him stay, but it was a pain in the ass to say that he doesn’t like crowded places

“What are you going to do if you told you to get out of my house?”

“Huh?”

The man looked at me in surprise, but I looked at the man with an expressionless expression.

“It’s burdensome for the two people to live in because my house is ruined, and I’m afraid that people who are looking for you will even target me, so what if I have to send you off? What are you going to do?”

“…”

The reason I asked this was simple. I thought there would be a second best option other than staying at my house, and if it’s plausible, then I really can just let him go.

But the man seemed to have taken it a little differently.

“If you think so…”

He sighed once with a really troubled face.

“…I surely have to convince you.”

…Ah, and not go out and look elsewhere?

Before I could even express my doubts, the man asked me to bring his bag. It looks like it’s hard for him to get up, but how the hell did he destroy the house? Anyway, according to the patient’s expression, I quietly brought the bag, and the man continued to talk.

“I’m also sorry for destroying the house. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was brought to a place I didn’t know, so I overreacted.”

“Ah, yeah.”

“I can’t fix what I broke right now, but… I’ll be able to buy new ones for urgent stuff.”

I’m the one who’s going to buy it, though? Just as I was thinking about it, the man opened the bag and pulled out one of his pockets.

“I’ll pay in advance, from the cost of the broken things to the cost of my stay. Take whatever you want.”

The man was speaking in a very soft voice, unlike when he first woke up. However, apart from the calm tone of voice, the pocket that was handed to me was light, so I couldn’t raise my suspicions.

Take whatever I want? What if I ask for this pocket?

The pockets I opened were quite ordinary, as expected. A very ordinary… hundreds of gold coins.

“… ”

My hand reflexively closed the pocket.

What did I just see?

As soon as I opened the pocket, I closed it, and it seemed like the man was looking at me in wonder, but now it was me who was wondering. Considering the weight and size, it’s not a pocket that can fit anything like this at all, is it?

“…How did those fit in here?”

“What?”

“There’s too much money to be in this pocket.”

“Ah.”

The man was about to reply, then paused for a moment before shrugging his shoulders.

“Is that important?”

“It surely is… not important.”

Whatever this pocket is, the important thing is that he has money. That’s too much for me to be embarrassed about.

I didn’t know there was something like this in the bag he was with. If he has this much money… Even if there is no special reason, it seems that his life is worth aiming for?

As I opened the pocket again and said nothing, the man who was watching me quietly spoke up.

“If I leave as soon as I get better, you won’t be targeted by them. If you’re still worried… just think of me as just an ordinary traveler.”

What the hell kind of ordinary traveler carries something like this?

I was rebutting that in my head, but I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. With a little exaggeration, there is more money in front of me than I have seen in my entire life.

Yeah, as the man said… I’ll buy enough of the urgent stuff and leave it behind. In an instant, what I received from the village and the money I earned flashed through my mind.

“…You told me to think of you as an ordinary traveler?”

“Mm.”

It’s so shameless of me to respond even though I’m looking around, but my mind was already inclined to the point that I didn’t even care about that.

Yes, well. It surely wouldn’t matter if an ‘ordinary traveler’ paid to sleep for a few nights, right.