Chapter 5: Everyone Is Different

========================================================================

Chloe, who had been quietly listening while nodding along, seemed to notice that Kazami had been absent-minded, and when the talk ended, she roughly summarized the key points for him.

“The emperor apparently said this: With you, who are poor at managing your territory, it is uncertain whether even your son will do. If you cede territory to another country within one year, I will recognize your son as successor. If you cannot, I will let your younger brother succeed. Incidentally, Doni-sama’s son is active in the imperial capital as the commander of a certain knight order. I hear he is a highly capable man, accomplished in both letters and arms.”

Between an old man and the beautiful Chloe, there was no comparison when it came to listening to the talk.

For Kazami, who had been gloomily letting it go in one ear and out the other with an “oh, I see,” it was like a gentle breeze carrying the scent of flowers blowing in.

Incidentally, when he asked with his eyes whether he could already run away, whether she understood the meaning or not, he only got back a flawless, radiant smile.

He returned his gaze.

And there, once again, was Doni’s passionate stare. He placed a hand on his knee and leaned his upper body forward as he spoke.

“Keika. My younger brother does nothing but reach endlessly for status and honor. That is one reason my father, the previous lord, entrusted the territory to me. Please, would you lend us your aid, thinking of it as saving the common people?”

“Even if you say that, I’m just a veterinarian with no connection to politics or war. Even if you tell me to save the common people, there’s nothing I can do.”

Kazami had no particularly noteworthy talent, nor any special bloodline. He was a pure Japanese person, and it was not that he was actually from this world either.

In addition, he did not possess mighty, unmatched latent potential, nor had he been granted any special power through the process of coming here.

For such an ordinary human, being suddenly told something like this left him with no choice but to be troubled.

To begin with, he could barely communicate only with an interpreter present. Putting such a person to work on the front lines would surely be nothing but hardship.

If they simply wanted a popular figurehead, they could grab anyone walking around and dress them up with, “This person is a hero from another world!” There should be no reason at all to go out of their way to use an unknown genuine article.

Kazami could not quite see Doni’s aim—or rather, his true intention—and it felt unsettling. Leaving Chloe aside, he could not believe that Doni was saying this from the heart.

He could not wipe away the unease that he might be disposed of like the people in that forest.

It was partly that he was genuinely bewildered, but in order to test them, he deliberately hesitated to give an answer.

“Before any of that, I have my own work and life. I can’t agree so easily.”

“Have you left your spouse behind?”

“No, it’s not like that.”

“Then did you hold some important post over there as well?”

“Only a little research to be useful on the ground…”

To a medieval society where one was treated as an adult once the body grew, he could not say that he was still a student despite being twenty-six.

But even as he evaded and said it, he became sad while putting it into words.

He was, after all, an ordinary person.

If he spoke truly, there was nothing about him that was one-of-a-kind, and the people who needed him were only his family and a few friends.

Being sought after for his abilities was, if anything, something to be grateful for, and he was not important enough to hesitate like this.

“Hmm. Then what is weighing on your mind?”

He was pierced right in a sore spot.

They say children are cruel, and this was similar. Doni and Chloe probably meant no ill will, but Kazami’s heart was a little gouged.

“Ah… In short, I’m bewildered. Even if I’m suddenly asked for a favor while surrounded by unfamiliar places and unfamiliar people, you can understand my reluctance to agree, right?”

“I see. It was indeed an impatient request, perhaps.”

“Besides, anyone would have troubles if they were suddenly torn away from their homeland. It can’t be just two or three days, and I can’t help but feel anxious, including about life here.”

When he tried putting it as a question in return, Doni seemed to accept it and nodded repeatedly.

But perhaps he had said a little too much.

Hearing the last remark, Doni changed his expression to one of “Oh?” and smiled confidently.

“Please rest assured. I will not cause Keika any inconvenience. If you lend us your strength, then even if you were to return, I promise you wealth enough to live without any want.”

Behind Doni as he said that were this castle, its many furnishings, and on top of that the people who served him.

The persuasiveness of his words, backed by the implication that such wealth was no trouble at all, pushed him forward.

Kazami, feeling an “ugh” as he was about to be pulled into the other man’s pace, searched for a flaw in his words to somehow change the subject.

Then he remembered that he had forgotten to ask something important.

“Return… I see, so I hadn’t asked about that yet.”

It was all well and good to be summoned to another world, but there was no easy way to return.

That was one of the troubles borne by the protagonists of the otherworld summoning stories he had seen until now, but judging from the part about “even if you were to return—,” it seemed not to be the case here.

“But once you’re summoned, don’t you have no right to refuse…?”

The thought suddenly occurred to him, but there was probably no mistake about it.

Around him was only an unfamiliar land. Unfamiliar people. Unfamiliar common sense. It was a different matter from being dumped outside the country. After all, he could not even think of a means to return to his original world.

In a case like this, the summoner already held the summoned person’s life in their hands, it seemed.

That’s right. So you won’t do as I say? Then I’ll summon the next person, so go anywhere you like. Okay, goodbye.

—And so, he could be cast out at any time.

But for the one treated that way, it was unbearable. Just as a pet dog suddenly released into the wild would mostly starve to death, surviving would surely not be easy.

He also stopped Chloe, who was about to supplement in detail.

If any more words were added, his head felt like it would burst.

“I want to confirm for now, but there is a means to return to my original world, right?”

“Of course. We did not call you here so much as connect the worlds and then had you come to this side. So it is not one-way. If we do the same thing, you can return.”

“…The same as that, you mean.”

If it was a hole that had been pierced once, one could probably go either way freely, and perhaps it was more normal that one could not return after going. But it seemed the opened hole could not be used forever.

The memory of that tragedy was still stuck in Kazami’s mind.

Honestly, repeating the same thing as that did not seem like a human deed. Perhaps Chloe agreed, because her expression clouded again.

He could not return at the cost of so many lives. If he was going to return, he should find another method.

And until it was found. Until Doni’s true nature was known, quietly staying put was probably the wisest choice.

“By the way, about how much would I need to accomplish, or how long would I need to cooperate?”

“What I desire is for Keika to save the people suffering in this territory with the knowledge and power you possess. However, if possible, I would like to ask, knowing it is unreasonable, that you produce considerable results within one year. Otherwise, the result will surely be that the people suffer even more than now.”

The words “because the territory will be taken by my incompetent younger brother” would probably follow.

From the talk up to now, he could understand at least that much.

“Eh… So that means I can’t return for a year? To prepare, couldn’t we at least obtain materials from over there…”

“Unfortunately, even connecting a small hole to the other world requires considerable preparation, so…”

Doni made a pained face.

It seemed that if he was going to do anything, he had to start with only what he had on hand, with what existed in this world.

But among the things that had come along with Kazami, the only useful ones were his dissection tools and his microscope, and it was fair to say there were no medicines.

If he were to begin, considerable difficulty was to be expected, and Kazami felt dizzy.

“…I understand the situation. If it’s measures against starvation and plague, that’s my specialty, and from what I’ve seen of things here, there seems to be a lot I can do. For the time being, I’ll do what I can with what I have now. So if possible, from here on, could you make it clear what I should do?”

Having despaired at this situation, he kept his head hanging and replied with words that only sounded good.

And then, what do you know. The reaction from the other side was tremendous.

Doni took both his hands and rejoiced as if he had won the lottery.

As for Chloe, she clasped her hands in front of her chest and seemed deeply moved by something.

“Uh, um… What are you telling me to do…? I’m telling you, I’m not a superhuman or anything…? Even if I say I can do it, it’s only some medical treatment and disease prevention…”

“That is not true at all. I believe that Juui-sama will accomplish even more than the Keika of past generations. I too will do my utmost for what you do!”

“No, I’m telling you, I’m just a veterinarian.”

Kazami was not used to having expectations so unfitting for his stature thrust upon him. Rather, as a representative of the common people, he was bound to be at a loss as to how to handle it.

The heavy responsibility of having to live up to someone’s expectations was a path he would avoid if at all possible.

“I am not asking you to do anything immediately. You may hear the details from her. Keika must be tired as well, so for now, please rest at your leisure and gradually grow accustomed to this world—that is enough for the present.”

So he said.

He wanted to clear up this misunderstanding-like magnitude of trust, but he did not feel it could be changed with just a little effort.

While Kazami was resigning himself, Chloe stood up, bowed to Doni, and invited him with “This way, please,” so he followed and left the room.

“Hey, Chloe. About how many rooms does this castle have?”

While feeling shocked that his six-tatami single dormitory was inferior even to a corridor, Kazami walked two steps behind Chloe.

The reason he did not walk beside her was that he was afraid of dirtying or breaking the furnishings.

In a corridor decorated with nothing but things that looked extraordinarily expensive, he hallucinated price tags everywhere, and his state of mind was close to walking through a minefield.

This was a world where price tags of a million, ten million, a hundred million lay scattered about.

So he relied on at least this: if he followed Chloe’s footsteps, he would be safe.

“Let me see, I believe it is probably about twenty rooms per floor.”

“…? Chloe, don’t you work here?”

“I am a priestess of the Hadria faith, so I served not in a castle like this but in a temple. The place I was at before was the headquarters located between this imperial territory and the great northern power.”

Here, between the southern empire and the great northern power, there was a steep mountain range.

The Hadria faith placed its headquarters there and managed the whole area as a religious neutral state.

And it was not merely a neutral state; it occupied the majority as the religion of both countries and functioned as a conveniently placed buffer zone.

And in the holy sites of both countries there were temples, and in the towns there were churches.

In other words, it would be appropriate to say its position in this world was that of Christianity.

“Doni-sama applied for the summoning ritual, so I came all the way here over a month and a half as part of my duty to supervise it and so on.”

“A-a month and a half, that’s tremendous… Is it that far?”

“In the units of Juui-sama’s world, I believe it is about six hundred miles.”

“That’s a foreign unit… Let me see, roughly a thousand kilometers, was it. I see… Wait, that’s about the same as a round trip between Tokyo and Osaka!?”

One mile is about 1.6 kilometers.

The walking speed of a person or horse is four to five kilometers per hour. Even walking eight hours a day, with mountains and such, they could probably advance only about thirty kilometers at a time.

Moreover, roads could not be traveled in a straight line—thinking it through, he could imagine how hard it had been.

Kazami was shaken by how much this was in a world without the conveniences of civilization. She had done well to accomplish it with that slender body.

“Are there bandits and such here too, as expected?”

“Yes. But the most dangerous thing is wild monsters. However, on this journey, priest-knights and others from the headquarters accompanied us, so there was no particular harm. Besides, I no longer have to turn back, so compared with other priestesses, it is easy. From now on, please treat me well, Juui-sama.”

“…Hm?”

When they reached the third floor, Chloe turned around and smiled modestly at him.

Yes, he had seen this smile somewhere before.

Surely women who leave a company with a “congratulations on your retirement” had faces like this as they left their posts, or maybe not…?

Before his vague memory could become clear, she had gone on ahead.

Somehow, he had a premonition that a flag had been raised.

However, how would a man who had kept breaking such flags for the past twenty-six years handle it this time? That was still a mystery.

“Beyond here is Juui-sama’s room.”

“Hm, that girl is…”

In front of the door stood two people in the military uniforms he had seen at the time of the summoning.

One of them was the woman who had killed that girl. There was no way he could forget those jade-colored eyes turned toward him.

The moment they entered his sight, the two straightened their posture and saluted.

At first he wondered what it was, but he guessed that they were probably on guard duty or something.

“Your belongings have already been placed in the room, so please confirm them. If you are not tired, I would like to talk with you a little more together, but what shall we do?”

“I’m not particularly tired, so it’s fine. And, the girl in the military uniform there. Was your cheek all right?”

Chloe had been about to guide him into the room while ignoring the soldiers as if they were ornaments, but Kazami stopped.

The other side also put on an air of not being involved, so he ended up keeping his gaze on her for several seconds.

At last their eyes met.

When he indicated his cheek with a finger, she seemed to understand what he said even without translation.

“…Please do not concern yourself. It is nothing serious.”

“You say it’s nothing serious, but you were just punched a moment ago, so nothing has been done for it, right? I’ll touch it a little, so bear with me.”

Before she could grumble complaints, he looked at her cheek.

It was a girl’s face, so a mark must not remain.

Looking at it, it was somewhat red and a little swollen, but there seemed to be no abnormality with her teeth or anything, and it really did seem not to be serious.

If treating it, it would be a question of cooling it, but in a place that looked to be at a medieval cultural level, ice would probably be a rare commodity.

The season also felt close to autumn, and there seemed to be no refrigerator, so treatment looked impossible.

“…Are you satisfied?”

“Yeah, sorry for touching you suddenly. I was just worried you might be injured.”

“I have been ordered to obey Keika-sama’s commands as well, so please do as you like. I have been told to refuse nothing if asked. I am a lowly one unbefitting Keika-sama’s station, but please use me as you please.”

Chloe’s translation was polished, but from the tone, Kazami could well tell that a freer rendering would take a quite different form. The words were polite, but respect did not accompany them. It was an attitude similar to keeping distance from someone untrustworthy.

Perhaps the reason she could not hide it was that she was originally poor at dealing with people.

But this girl also looked about a round younger than she was. Kazami did not mind at all. He took it only to mean that she would work hard.

At that point, Chloe shot her a look as if to say, “Isn’t that a little rude?”

However, the military-uniform girl’s response was again unchanged, as if to say, “I am sorry. I am not skilled with words,” and the result was like pouring oil on a fire.

“Eh, what is this atmosphere?”

He was helplessly swallowed by the atmosphere of a quarrel between women that had suddenly been born.

A priestess entrusted with Kazami’s care, and a soldier whose only duty was guard duty.

It seemed they still could only respond in ways bound by their posts, and could not smoothly compromise with each other.

“You were the commander of the servile knight order, if I recall?”

“Knight and commander are in name only. After all, I am a girl who does not step beyond the realm of a slave.”

It was a business smile that did not even let him sense the strained atmosphere. Apparently she took no issue at all with Chloe’s expression or voice.

That was why it seemed like a provocative act. Was she the kind of personality that could not help doing such things?

Kazami had no choice but to find something to change the atmosphere by entering the room before the fire grew bigger.

Arbitration at times like this was an adult’s role.

“Riz=Vart=Savi, was it? I do not intend to make a fuss about rank. If there is a chance, I would normally become friends and hold goodwill as well. However, if you are a commander even in name, please take responsibility for your actions. Above all, I do not mind for myself, but if by any chance you damage his mood—”

“Not only the Hadria faith, but the lord would be troubled as well, yes. It is all right. I have been told similar things myself, so I understand. But if that is the case, would it not be more convenient for you if there were no people fawning over him in the same way?”

“That is…”

Chloe suddenly lost her words.

And then, at that moment, from inside the room came Kazami’s voice: “Whoa, the bed is this big too!?”

“See, he is calling considerately. Please go ahead.”

“G-go ahead, that’s…”

“There’s some strange stuffed animal too…!? Is this horn bone, or is it skin? Could it possibly be the kind made of hair…?”

“…”

Chloe’s eyes wandered guiltily, but when she became conscious of Kazami still calling from behind her, her movement froze.

Riz’s eyes looked at her.

Feeling that gaze seem enormous, Chloe hurried back to Kazami while striving to restore her expression.

Then Riz, still as indifferent as ever, closed the door.

“I am sorry, Juui-sama. Did I make you worry?”

“Hm, what are you talking about?”

When Kazami finished looking around the bed, he was looking at the luggage placed in the corner of the room.

His work tools—rubber boots, disinfectant, a tank for disinfectant, and the case packed with the tools he had planned to use for dissection, plus the case containing the microscope—were all properly there. He checked the microscope first, but it did not seem broken.

He behaved as if he had never been conscious of what Chloe was saying from the start.

Now then, he had finished checking that side for the most part. Nothing that had flowed over here seemed abnormal, but as expected, they were all things that did not go beyond the realm of tools. The only thing that seemed genuinely useful was the microscope.

And the next thing that bothered him was the gaze still stuck to his back.

When he turned around, Chloe was apparently still hung up on that matter, and only looked at him with her brows drawn together in a “ha” shape. Playing dumb did not seem to work.

Was living honestly as a priestess important to her?

There seemed to be no escaping this, so Kazami shrugged.

“You mean what happened earlier?”

“Yes. Did it offend you?”

“No, I’m not particularly bothered. Riz, was it? That girl is just awkward. She’s not as bad a girl as her words and behavior make her seem.”

At least, that was how Kazami felt.

The reason he thought so was in the moment they had met.

At that time, he had felt it was excessive that she had mercilessly killed the dying girl. But the expression she had shown just before that had certainly not looked fake to him.

Kazami had tried to save the girl because he did not know he had come to such a world, but here, saving her from that amount of bleeding would probably have been impossible.

After all, even if he wanted to transfuse blood, there were no blood packs. And it was doubtful whether there was even a means to examine who had what blood type, or injection needles.

While agonizing over what treatment could be done and trying this and that, he must surely have made the girl conscious of the despair creeping toward her.

In contrast, Riz had faced that girl head-on and seen her off.

It was different from being cold-blooded with no mercy at all. That was the part that had stuck strongly in his mind from the scene at that time.

He had looked at her thinking that if he put this into words and conveyed it, she might understand, but Chloe still dragged a shadow across her face.

“Oh, was there something else?”

“No, um… I am sorry. I can only say it is that.”

“…?”

It seemed there was still something else Chloe had, different from what Kazami had said.

But prying into it and interrogating her seemed likely to trouble her all the more, so he could not ask.

In the end, she forcibly cut it off herself, saying, “Even so, this is a lavish room, isn’t it!” and tried to change the atmosphere, and that was how it ended without touching on it further.

========================================================================