The Exiled Boy (!?)

This world was called Xenoric Enelis.

The name meant “the world created by Xenoric, the God of Creation.”

The Lumerio Continent, where I currently lived, was surrounded by sea on all four sides. Across the eastern sea lay the Neldsis Continent, inhabited by demons; across the western sea lay the Feriana Continent, home to the elves; and beyond the northern and southern seas were continents and island nations inhabited by humans and various other races, just like Lumerio.

There were also all sorts of other places, ranging from tiny island nations to huge uninhabited islands, but explaining every last one would take forever, so I’d skip that for now.

The place where I currently lived was the Kingdom of Etowars, located in the southwest of the Lumerio Continent.

The commercial city of Eto stood along the coast, so trade flourished there. Large numbers of adventurers came and went as well, which meant its Adventurers’ Guild Hall was enormous.

The Guild grounds were practically a small town unto themselves, containing weapon shops, armor shops, general stores, a bank, a monster exchange, an herb exchange, a Flying Creature Rental Station, lodging facilities, and more.

I’d have liked to register the kid—well, the boy, as far as I knew—as an adventurer right away, but today’s registration counter had already closed.

So I planned to register him tomorrow morning.

Since it was already late, the boy and I ended up staying at one of the lodging facilities built within the Adventurers’ Guild grounds.

First things first, a bath. Definitely a bath.

After hunting monsters, I always cast Clean Magic over my entire body, clothes included, but I’d worked up a sweat getting all the way here.

The Guild’s lodging facilities had great baths. Private open-air baths attached to the rooms, no less. The water even flowed straight from a natural hot spring. The kind of thing that left your skin silky smooth.

When I stepped out of the bath, the boy looked at me and turned red.

Hm?

Ah, right. I only had a towel wrapped around my waist.

Had he been captivated by my magnificent physique? I might look like a plain old middle-aged guy with my clothes on, but once they came off, I was something else, you know? Hunting monsters was part of my daily life, so naturally I had to keep myself in decent shape.

Boy, you ought to train yourself at least this much too… though I supposed that was none of my business.

“You should go take a bath too.”

“…I can’t keep imposing on you this much.”

“It’s more of a nuisance having you wandering around looking that filthy. Hurry up and get in.”

“…Okay.”

At my urging, the boy sluggishly rose to his feet and headed toward the bathroom with an unsteady gait.

He looked like some exhausted old man, despite being so young.

Still, those tattered clothes of his were beyond wearing anymore. Maybe I should pick up a new set downstairs.

I was pretty sure they sold standard adventurer clothes.

When I went down to the first-floor shop and asked, they told me they were currently out of adventurer clothes, but they did have mage cloaks and tunics.

Well, it couldn’t be helped. Anything was better than having nothing to wear.

I bought a blue tunic and a navy cloak, and while I was at it, I picked up a hairpin too. With bangs like those, he could barely see in front of him. I could have his hair cut later, but for now it would be better to pin his bangs back.

I left everything in front of the changing room.

“I’m done with the bath. Thank you so much… Soaking in a bath feels really nice.”

So he hadn’t even been able to properly soak in hot water until now.

Wearing the mage clothes, the boy had a contented expression as he dried his wet hair with a towel… Wait. Boy??

There was a distinct swelling at his chest that no man could possibly have.

—Wait!? Don’t tell me he’s a girl!?

I hadn’t noticed earlier because those linen clothes had been so loose and baggy, but was he actually a girl rather than a boy?

At first I’d thought he looked around fifteen or sixteen, but maybe she was actually a little older than that.

With her bangs pinned back, I could finally see her face clearly.

S-She was… cute.

She had smooth azure hair and blue-violet eyes framed by long eyelashes. Her slightly messy bob cut looked a little unfashionable, but no matter how I looked at her, she was undeniably cute.

“S-Sorry… I thought you were a boy, so I bought men’s clothes.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I… no, I was the one hiding the fact that I’m a girl. I kept cloth wrapped around my chest all this time so no one would notice.”

Her voice was noticeably higher than before too. Considering she’d gone so far as to hide her sex, she’d probably been deliberately speaking in a lower voice as well.

“Hiding it? So the Hero and the others don’t know you’re a woman?”

“I don’t think they ever found out… When I was little, the village chief ordered me to protect the Hero, and I was raised to cast aside the fact that I was a girl.”

From what she told me, she came from the same village as the Hero, and when she was young, the village chief had ordered her to become the Hero’s guardian.

But now that she’d been expelled from the Hero’s party, there was no longer any need to dress as a man, so she’d returned to her natural appearance.

Well, I could understand why the village chief might have wanted her to hide her sex. If the Hero had been traveling alongside a girl this cute, he might have gotten distracted by romance and neglected defeating the Demon King.

Then again, Rosa, who’d been traveling with the Hero, was beautiful too, and that mage girl had been cute as well. In the end, he was already traveling around surrounded by women. So much for the village chief’s consideration.

Ah, I’d have to get separate rooms now. I couldn’t exactly share a room with a girl.

“Thank you for even buying me clothes… I’ll make sure to pay you back for them, along with the lodging fee.”

“Pay me back? From the looks of you, you don’t have a single coin to your name.”

“Ugh… I-I’ll work and pay you back.”

“Work, huh? What adventurer rank are you?”

“…E-rank.”

E-rank!?

She’d been part of the Hero’s party despite being at the absolute lowest rank!?

…Ah, well, I supposed that did explain why they’d kicked her out. There weren’t many jobs an E-rank adventurer could even take. You needed to reach at least C-rank before you could make a proper living.

But she didn’t even seem to have a sword, so how exactly had she been fighting monsters?

Judging by her physique, she’d trained her body to some extent, but she didn’t look like a martial artist who fought barehanded. Maybe she could use magic?

Even if that was the case, going on adventures without a weapon was reckless.

“I’ve got a sword I’m not using. You can have it.”

I’d bought it recently, but it hadn’t suited me very well.

A red magic stone was embedded in the center of the sword’s hilt.

As a rule, when using ordinary offensive magic, you were supposed to carry a staff. Otherwise, your offensive power was cut in half.

A sword embedded with a magic stone could serve the same purpose as a mage’s staff.

I could use magic too, so I’d tried buying one, but it was too small to use comfortably as a sword and awkwardly long for a dagger, so I’d barely touched it.

For a girl, though, it was probably just the right size.

I handed her the steel sword.

“I-Is it really okay!?”

“Yeah. It’s too small for me anyway.”

“…Why are you doing so much for me? We only met today.”

Hmm. Good question. Maybe I was more of a busybody than I’d realized?

Still, after seeing her in such a miserable state, who could just leave her alone?

Though giving her a sword too might have been getting a little overly involved.

For the moment, I decided to simply put my honest feelings into words.

“Hmm… Maybe because you’re cute?”

“Huh…?”

“This old guy has a weakness for cute girls.”

“D-Don’t tease me!! I-I… no, I was living as a boy until just a little while ago. I’m not cute at all!!”

“You don’t have to force yourself to change your first-person pronoun to ‘I’ in a feminine way.”

“N-No… b-but…”

“I think girls who refer to themselves like boys are cute too.”

“I told you I’m not cute!!”

At my words, she frantically denied it.

Her reaction was far more innocent than I’d expected. Maybe she hadn’t been told she was cute very often? Considering she’d spent her life disguised as a boy, that wouldn’t have been surprising.

As she lowered her head in embarrassment, her face really was adorable, and I wasn’t just flattering her.

If I wanted to keep living my quiet, inconspicuous life, I knew I shouldn’t get any more involved with one of the Hero’s former companions.

But I couldn’t simply abandon this girl after she’d suddenly been cast out of her party and left all alone.

We were already staying at the same inn, and I’d even given her a sword. After going this far, it would have been strange not to even know her name.

So I asked her.

“What’s your name?”

“Yuri… Yuri Claudevel.”

…Thump!

W-What was that?

All I’d done was hear her name.

And yet, for some reason, I felt a shock as though something had struck me directly in the chest.

The name Yuri in particular seemed to have triggered it.

Could it somehow have been connected to my previous life?

After all, I didn’t remember everything from my past life.

I remembered what I had been back then, and I remembered being reincarnated into this world for certain reasons, but I had the strange feeling that I’d forgotten the single most important thing.

Yuri…

I repeated the name silently in my mind.

For an instant, it felt as though I was about to remember something.

Skillfully hiding the confusion that even I couldn’t understand, I introduced myself as well.

“I’m Roylotte Blake. Just call me Roy.”