Sunset Over The Royal Capital, Paris Palace

“Hiiragi-chan! Wait for me!”

“You’re too slow! We almost got caught because of you!”

Hiiragi and Konoha had made their way to an observation deck overlooking the royal capital, Paris Palace. The Heroes had shown their faces to the townspeople during their triumphal procession, but Konoha had never gone outside, so no one knew who she was.

However, men and women of all ages had been staring at Konoha along the way, drawn in by her beauty, which made her extremely uncomfortable.

“Seriously, being too cute is a pain in the ass too, huh? You stand out way too much. Here, I’ll give you a hood, so put this on.”

“Thanks, Hiiragi-chan. Hmm, that’s kind of long. Hii-chan♪ Yeah, Hii-chan works! Nice to meet you, Hii-chan!!”

“Why the hell… Why are you deciding my nickname on your own?”

“You can just call me Konoha, okay? Kono-chan is fine too!”

“Not happening. Well, ‘Konoha’ is fine, I guess. All right, Konoha, hurry up and put that hood on.”

“Okay!”

Konoha put on the gray hood she had been handed. Apparently, it was not particularly expensive. It felt a little scratchy.

“Ah, that’s a little better. You had this sparkly celebrity aura pouring off you.”

“Come to think of it, Hii-chan, what about training? You were supposed to be clearing Mount Godard again today, right?”

“I’m skipping. I skip pretty often anyway, so it’s no big deal. Taking a break is important, you know?”

“…I see. Yeah, you’re right. Hey, Hii-chan. You don’t… dislike me?”

Konoha timidly asked. From everything that had happened so far, she already understood that Hiiragi did not harbor any disgust toward her, but she still could not stop herself from asking.

“You mean everyone avoiding you? I don’t know why they’re doing it either. Well, for various reasons, I’m fine… Wait, saying it like that makes me sound like I’m the mastermind behind all this…”

“I see… Hey, Hii-chan.”

“Hmm?”

“Can I hug you?”

“H-Hyeaah!? What!? That came out of nowhere… Wait, why do you look like you’re about to cry? Jeez.”

Konoha’s heart was overflowing with happiness. Everyone had said cruel things to her, looked at her with disgust, and avoided her, and now, amid all of that, she had finally felt someone’s warmth again after so long. The fifteen-year-old girl clung to that warmth exactly as someone her age would.

“First, eat a cookie and calm down. You’re exhausted. I get how you feel, though.”

“…Staaare.”

“Aaah! Don’t look up at me like that, idiot! You’re making it look like I’m bullying you or something! Come on, just eat already!”

“Ahaha, okay. Thanks for the food.”

Konoha took a cookie from the bag and put it into her mouth. A gentle sweetness spread across her tongue before melting away. It was almost as though it were melting Konoha’s heart along with it…

“Wha!? You really cry way too easily… Jeez.”

Before she realized it, tears were overflowing from her eyes. It felt like that had been happening constantly these past few days.

“Yeah. It’s deli…cious. It’s really good. Thank you, Hii-chan.”

As Konoha stuffed cookies into her cheeks while crying, Hiiragi awkwardly turned her gaze toward the morning sun. Recently, Konoha had even started eating breakfast at a different time from everyone else, so it had been a long time since she had eaten with a classmate. Well, technically only Konoha was eating, but still. She remembered just how delicious food could taste when eaten with a friend.

“Like I said earlier, I’ve got no clue why those guys suddenly started treating you so coldly. So today, let’s have so much fun you forget all about it! We’re playing hooky! Playing hooky, you hear me, Miss Honor Student?”

“You’ve changed a lot since elementary school, Hii-chan.”

“Sure have. All right, let’s grab something to eat first, then do some proper sightseeing in another world.”

“Ooh, sounds good~”

Once they passed through the royal capital’s Guild Street, they entered an ordinary restaurant district frequented by commoners. Decorations adorned every corner of the city, while brick buildings stretched endlessly into the distance. Around the fountain in the center of town, a group of musicians played something resembling accordions, drawing enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

The royal capital, Paris Palace, surrounded on all sides by massive defensive walls, had served as the capital of the Sacred Kingdom of Parsia for a thousand years and had never once fallen to a foreign invasion. The Second Demon King, Pavane for a Dead Princess, had appeared relatively close to the royal capital, but the walls had repeatedly repelled the demon forces that attacked during that time. The capital’s defenses relied not only on its walls, but also on eight fortresses. It could be said that the existence of such a formidable yet graceful capital was precisely what had allowed the kingdom to continue expanding its territory.

“O-Ooooh! Snails! I’ve only ever eaten these at Sai-eriya!”

“The food here isn’t actually all that different from our world. But I guess if you think of it like traveling overseas, it feels different. Mmm! This is delicious!”

Hiiragi usually looked lethargic, but today she seemed unusually lively and excited. What she was currently eating was something resembling pasta. It had been generously covered in a meat-sauce-like topping, and its spicy aroma stimulated Konoha’s sensitive nose.

“That looks delicious!! C-Can I have a bite?”

“…Fine. But you’re giving me some of yours in exchange.”

“Sure! Here, say aaah!”

The paella-like dish Konoha was eating looked just as appetizing to Hiiragi. However,

“Wha!? No, I can just eat it myself… We can just put some on each other’s plates.”

“Muu, Hii-chan, you’re so cold.”

“How the hell were you eating with Obana and Tsuruoka before this…?”

“We fed each other normally, you know? Karen-chan would sometimes get nosebleeds, though. It was pretty serious. Do you think she has some kind of illness?”

“Oh yeah, that’s definitely an illness. Just not the physical kind. (What the hell were you doing, Obana?)”

Obana Karen was a hardcore lesbian.

Setting Karen aside, the two continued sightseeing afterward.

“Waaah! It says this is Pator Temple! The murals are beautiful!”

“It’s a temple of the Church of the Full Moon. Guess they’re fine with worshipping images.”

“Wasn’t this one called Fortuna-sama? Such a beautiful woman~”

“That’s apparently a man.”

“Whaaat!?”

Pator Temple. It was a temple of the Fortuna Sect of the Church of the Full Moon, constructed roughly seven hundred years ago. The enormous mural inside the main hall overwhelmed all who saw it, possessing such intensity that it seemed capable of drawing viewers directly into the painted world.

The figure depicted was Fortuna, a god said to have been born from Full Moon-sama, the deity of the Church of the Full Moon. Fortuna had a beautiful face, but the body was unmistakably male. More specifically, he had the relevant anatomy.

“Even within the same Church of the Full Moon, apparently the traditions are completely different depending on which god born from Full Moon-sama they worship. The Empire and the United Kingdom worship one god, while the Federation and the Commonwealth worship different ones. You’ve been skipping classroom lessons all the time, so you didn’t know that, did you?”

“So that’s the kind of thing they were teaching during lessons. That place was… how should I put it? Sure, everyone was giving me dirty looks, but… I also really don’t like the smell of the ‘incense.’”

Incense was burned inside the lecture hall where their lessons were held. Everyone else seemed entirely unbothered by it, but Konoha did not handle the smell well, and it had been one of the reasons she had felt unwell.

“…Ah, yeah, I can’t stand it either. Everyone keeps saying it smells nice, but it makes me feel like I’m gonna puke.”

“Hmm, that’s vulgar.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

As they chatted, something caught Konoha’s eye. The instant she saw it, her eyes visibly widened, turning into sparkling starry eyes.

“O-Ooooh! Crab! It’s crab!”

“Yeah, yeah. How many crabs have you eaten since we came to this country…?”

“Ahaha. Well, my family’s poor, so I didn’t really get to eat that kind of thing very often…”

“Whoa, that got heavy really fast. Ah, you live with just your mom, right? Well, I’m not gonna pry into your circumstances.”

“Yeah, thanks. Though technically my dad sends us money, so we don’t have any trouble getting by… But Mom’s in the hospital too, so I’ve always felt kind of guilty about spending money on luxuries.”

“I see. Hope we can get back to Japan soon.”

Kushibiki Konoha currently lived alone with her mother in a detached house. Their lives were relatively stable thanks to financial support sent by her father, a former local politician, after her parents’ divorce. However, ever since Konoha’s older sister died six years ago, her mother had seemed permanently weighed down by gloom. Recently, perhaps because all that emotional strain had finally taken its toll, Konoha’s mother had been hospitalized. Konoha’s aunt took care of her, but not every day. Her mother’s condition was not particularly good, and Konoha could not stop worrying about her.

“Yeah! There’s no point worrying about it right now. Okay, I’m buying this!”

What Konoha picked up as she said that was a hand mirror. Peonies had been painted on the back in a style reminiscent of lacquerwork, and the craftsmanship was impressive. Surprisingly, though, it was fairly inexpensive.

“Then I’ve got something I need to buy too, so head over toward the bridge and wait for me.”

“What are you buying?”

“…Secret.”

Hiiragi ran off. When Konoha watched her from a short distance away, the shop she entered was…

“A defensive magic specialty shop?”

(Is it something she needs for clearing the Witch’s Treasure Chest? Oh well.)

On the way there, Konoha had seen something interesting. A soldier-like man riding atop a huge animal resembling a hippopotamus had been blowing a trumpet. Presumably, he rode that creature into battle. Then again, perhaps there were other creatures used in similar ways.

(Now that I look closely, there are sometimes people with cat faces, and women with rabbit ears too.)

“Yo. Why’re you making such a suspicious-looking face?”

“Wah! Hii-chan, what about your shopping?”

“Already finished. So, how about it? Feeling better?”

“Yeah! Much better! Thanks, Hii-chan.”

“I see… Hey, Konoha.”

“What?”

“I’m thinking of taking you somewhere that’s probably going to ruin that good mood… What do you want to do?”

Hiiragi spoke with a serious expression. Konoha realized that this must have been one of the reasons Hiiragi had wanted to bring her outside. No—perhaps this had actually been the main reason.

“If you wanted to bring me there, Hii-chan, then I’ll go.”

“I see. It’ll probably be hard for you. No, it was hard for me too, but it’ll be even worse for you.”

“Now that you’ve said that much, there’s no way I won’t be curious. It’s okay. Let’s go.”

And so, the place Konoha and Hiiragi arrived at was—

“What… is this…?”

A slum. For Konoha, who had only been shown beautiful things until now, the sight was horrifying.

A slave market. A tragedy from human history that had existed even in their original world. In this world, however, the people subjected to it were demi-humans. A dog-eared girl sat inside a cage, her eyes dead and her body completely motionless. Nearby, the decaying corpse of a rabbit-eared man lay abandoned, his stomach seemingly having been cut open for someone’s amusement. The slave merchant made no effort whatsoever to remove the body and instead desperately tried to strike up casual conversation with a well-dressed man passing by.

“Ah… Aaaah…”

“It’s horrible, isn’t it? But this is reality. The kingdom—no, this whole world—is rotten. In the end, it’s following the exact same history as our world. Even now, huge numbers of slaves are being brought here from the Southern Continent and the New Continent. I wonder why the kingdom hasn’t shown any of this to us.”

“…U-Ugh… This… Something like this…”

“If Shirataka Gatari saw this, his sense of justice would definitely kick in and he’d do something troublesome. That’s why the kingdom doesn’t casually let us roam around the city. And whenever they do take us outside, they assign lots of escorts and make us follow approved routes. Whether we’re shopping, eating, or even going to a Guild Hall, they’re incredibly careful to make sure we never see the slums. And I hate that. I hate it so fucking much!”

“U-Uuugh… Bleeegh…”

Konoha could no longer suppress the nausea that suddenly surged up inside her, and she vomited at the side of the road. But the street already reeked so badly that her vomit hardly stood out. Hiiragi immediately began rubbing Konoha’s back.

“S-Sorry! Yeah, of course this would happen. I knew it would… Sorry. I wasn’t thinking enough about you, Konoha…”

“Cough, cough… I-I’m okay. Thank you. Besides… this was something I needed to see. If I kept living comfortably in the royal palace without knowing any of this, that would be even worse. If I found out later, I’d feel even guiltier. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for enjoying an easy life while this was happening. So… thank you.”

“I wanted you to see it too. Everyone’s been acting weird lately, and there’s no way they’d ever be brought somewhere like this. But you… you still seemed like you hadn’t changed at all… I’m really sorry.”

“No. Please don’t apologize. But… I think I do want to leave soon. My mouth feels awful…”

“Yeah. This isn’t somewhere we should stay for long. There’s nothing we can do anyway.”

Before they realized it, the sky had been dyed crimson, and darkness was beginning to swallow the city. It seemed almost like a manifestation of the shadows cast by this thousand-year-old kingdom, and with an inexplicable chill running down her spine, Konoha made her way back toward the city.