Inside A Cramped Room

“Ah… Seriously, I’m exhausted…”

With an utterly worn-out face, Tooyama returned to the room at the inn.

He should not even have been there for two full days yet, but that room somehow even felt strangely comforting.

After that, everything had turned into complete chaos.

The old man and the maids had treated him like a deviant, Drako had somehow been squirming and fidgeting so much that she was no good for conversation at all, and as for the pervert dragon, she had just stared silently at him and completely ignored him.

“Good work, Naruhito. Should I not ask what happened?”

Lazaar, who was sitting in a chair, called out to him. From his expression, it seemed he had sensed what had happened outside.

“I’d appreciate it if you did that. Anyway, Drako was taken in by her guardian, and the pervert dragon also somehow went home with them.”

The lucky part was probably that those uncontrollable beings had gone home rather obediently.

The pervert dragon had been talking about something with the old man, and when he thought that was happening, the old man nodded with an expression like the end of the world had come, while the pervert dragon was smiling. After that strange sight, everyone happily went home together.

Right about now, there were probably two dragons living under the same roof at that Dragon Embassy. Stay strong, people of the Dragon Embassy.

Tooyama finished his half-hearted prayer and sank into a chair. His exhaustion burst out all at once.

“I-I see. I thought an outrageous pressure was swelling from the courtyard… Well, I am glad you are safe above all. Hm? Don’t tell me the All-Knowing Dragon—no, even the Dragon of Human Knowledge came?”

“Yeah. When I noticed, she was inside a water bucket.”

“My head is starting to hurt. I will leave that area to you, Lord Dragon Slayer.”

Lazaar waved his hand in jest, and Tooyama opened his eyes halfway and shot back with a light joke.

“Don’t say stupid things. What’s mine is mine, and my hardships are your hardships, right?”

“I do not remember making such an unfair promise.”

Lazaar narrowed his eyes blankly and muttered curtly. It seemed things would not go as they would with the son of a certain strong-armed shopkeeper.

“B-Brother, i-is that thing gone now?”

“Oh, Luca. What happened to you?”

Trembling nervously, Luca, the androgynous boy wearing a hat, called out to Tooyama with teary eyes.

He was wrapped in the bed sheet, with only his face sticking out, making him look like some kind of creature.

“N-No, because, outside, outside there was, you know…”

“He’s been like this for a while. He ended up like this at the same time Boss Lazaar’s face went pale. Hey, Luca, our brother came back safe too, so calm down already.”

“R-Rida, didn’t you understand? There was something really dangerous outside…”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

In complete contrast to Luca, who seemed to have sensed the presence of a dragon, Rida had noticed nothing.

Tooyama gazed at the contrasting pair and muttered.

“Huh. Luca, you really are sharp about all kinds of things, aren’t you?”

“Honestly. What is the matter, Luca? Look at Pero and Shiro. They are sleeping peacefully, peacefully. If you are tired too, hurry up and sleep.”

It seemed Niko, Pero, and Shiro had likewise been unable to sense that presence. This was probably a matter of talent and aptitude.

Tooyama unconsciously sorted out the children’s aptitudes.

“I see. There’s no electricity, so once the sun goes down, it’s basically time to sleep.”

Before he knew it, darkness had fallen outside the window. The only lights in the room were a nearly spent candle and a lantern using it as a light source.

“Electricity?”

Niko tilted her head at Tooyama’s words. It seemed the concept of electricity really did not exist.

“It’s nothing. Just talking to myself. Only the ones who are still awake need to listen. I want to talk about various things for a bit, about what happened today.”

Tooyama sat down on the hard chair and slowly began to speak. He spoke of that day, which had turned into a long one.

The trouble at the Guild, the dispute with the gatekeepers, the meeting with the sharp merchant, the hunt for the great serpent, the conflict with the knights, the deal with the greedy bishop, and then the dragons.

The children continued listening to Tooyama and Lazaar’s story, sometimes with sparkling eyes, sometimes trembling, and sometimes frightened.

Even after the sun sank and the darkness of night arrived, voices continued in that room that day.

The story of Tooyama and Lazaar’s adventure was, for those who lived in the slums, an unbelievably fun and thrilling tale.

“Wow, amazing! And then, and then?! Did you get strangled and die, big brother?”

Pero, who had somehow woken up and crawled out of bed, begged for a dangerous story with sparkling eyes.

“Silly Pero. If that had happened, our brother would not be here, right?”

Niko chided Pero with a laugh, but her tone was also bright.

“B-Bro, keep going, tell us the rest! How did you beat that person called Stolu?”

Rida, visibly excited, asked Tooyama for the continuation.

“No, more importantly, I’m curious about Lazaar-san’s bone dragon…”

Luca had also been listening intently.

Why did adventure stories, tales of someone who was not oneself and somewhere that was not here, attract people so much?

It was probably because everyone wished for that somewhere in their heart.

Perhaps there had been another way of living for me. What would I have done? Spending time outside one’s own common sense, time that was not safe. Humans, to a greater or lesser extent, wished for that dark pleasure somewhere in their hearts.

“Ah, that thing of Lazaar’s really scared me. When I woke up, you know, there was this stupidly huge bone lizard thing there.”

“I was the one who was surprised. A man who had been foaming at the mouth, with a face blue as a corpse’s, suddenly stood up laughing. I thought you were a dead man from the depths of Mayazia.”

“Is that like an expression for the depths of hell? I can at least understand what you were trying to say.”

And Tooyama and Lazaar, the two adventurers, also talked cheerfully and not entirely unwillingly about the events in which they had almost died.

People liked to listen to adventure tales, and they liked to tell them too.

Perhaps that was because, at their core, humans were a race that had prospered by taking risks.

“Amazing… But wait, Bro and the others went through a lot of really dangerous stuff in just one day, didn’t they…?”

“…True. I feel like an ordinary person would definitely have died before noon.”

“Why, that is true! N-No, you must not! Brother-san! Lazaar-san! If the two of you died, I would be very sad! I am sure I would cry!”

“Yeah, that would be bad. I wouldn’t like it if the two of you disappeared.”

Even while their eyes sparkled at the adventure tale, the children trembled at that tightrope-walk of a day, which even they could understand.

Tooyama too, belatedly looking back on the long day, once again realized how dangerous it had been.

“Ah… Sorry. I got a little too carried away. Um, sorry, Lazaar. If I had thought a little more, maybe we wouldn’t have gotten into such a dangerous mess.”

It would not have been strange if they had died. That applied to both himself and Lazaar.

At that time, disposing of those gatekeepers had been entirely his own decision. Without thinking much about what came after, he had killed them based only on the judgment that he could do it without anyone seeing.

The result was the day they had just experienced. If he had made one wrong move, perhaps neither Lazaar nor himself would be here.

These children had waited all this time, in this cramped room, for the two of them, not knowing when they would come back—

“Heh, heh-heh, hahahahaha.”

What stopped Tooyama’s thoughts was Lazaar’s laughter. It was low, yet loud, as if he found it irresistibly amusing.

“Wow. Your mouth is amazing, Lazaar-san.”

“So cool. Those fangs are awesome.”

For some reason, the children’s eyes sparkled at the lizard smile.

Well, Tooyama could kind of understand. Fangs were cool. Tooyama vaguely thought that while looking at Lazaar’s laughing face.

“Oops, excuse me. Heh. That is not like you, Tooyama Naruhito. What are you apologizing for?”

After he stopped laughing, Lazaar asked Tooyama again.

“No, I mean, that. If I had just left those gatekeepers alone in the first place, we probably wouldn’t have gotten into such a dangerous mess, right?”

Tooyama put into words the anxiety that now felt real and covered him.

“No problem.”

Lazaar cut off those words.

“There is no problem, Naruhito. We, or at least I, found today exhilarating. It is true we almost died, and it would not have been strange if everything had been ruined today.”

Lazaar sat deeply in the chair. The well-worn backrest accepted his solid frame and let out a small creak.

Tooyama fell silent. For some reason, he could not interrupt.

“But it was exhilarating. Ah, not a single day since I was born has been as exhilarating as today.”

Straight on, those reptilian eyes, those vertically slit pupils, looked at Tooyama.

“Huh?”

Lazaar’s voice was low, yet almost lively.

Tooyama let out a bewildered sound.

“Think about it, Naruhito. We are alive like this. We returned alive to this small room where our small, young, yet clever and wise companions are. Haha, and on top of that, after rampaging that freely and as much as we pleased, following our desires.”

Sitting deeply in the chair, Lazaar continued speaking with his arms crossed.

His eyes gleamed brightly, and his voice gained momentum.

“We disposed of those we disliked, kicked aside those who obstructed us, overcame crisis, and brought this day to an end. Without a doubt, today we were freer than anyone in this adventure city—no, the Empire—no! Freer than anyone in the world.”

That man’s half a lifetime had held no freedom. Born into a tribe with strict commandments, he had soon been loved by the shadows and absorbed into the dark side of the Kingdom.

“O-Oh.”

Tooyama did not know how much joy this one day had held for that man, who had lived within darkness, shadow, and duty.

The freedom to decide for himself whom to kill, the freedom to entrust his life to someone he could trust, the freedom to choose his own path by himself.

“Is that not exhilarating?! That Church acknowledged us and yielded. Even those knights could not reach our lives! And even the dragons did not block our path.”

The freedom to freely decide the way one died.

Every one of those things was something Shadow Fang, La-Zaar, had wanted so badly he could have reached out from his throat for it—

“So, Naruhito, those are not the words you should be saying. Do not apologize. Hold your head high. We are the pair who handled things better than anyone else in the Empire. I had fun. Thank you, Naruhito.”

That was precisely why Lazaar gave his thanks. To the friend who had brought that to him.

He sent straightforward words to his strong, wise, and yet somehow precarious friend.

“O-Oh, I see…”

Tooyama froze at those unexpected words.

He was so surprised by Lazaar’s words that he could not quite understand what to say, or what had been said to him.

“Wow… Me too! Me too, Brother-san! For the first time, I spent a whole day doing nothing. Helping with laundry and washing dishes were so much fun! Because even if I failed, no one died.”

Niko cheerfully moved close to the frozen Tooyama and hugged him tightly.

She was warm and soft. Tooyama froze again.

“M-Me too, Bro. A place where I could sleep without worrying about what was around me… It was really the first time since I was born… Washing my body and eating food, I realized they could be this fun… And that was because you found us, Bro.”

Rida gazed straight at him, and Tooyama instinctively looked away from that gaze.

“…Me too. Really, I’m sorry for stealing your wallet back then.”

Luca, while looking away, also lowered his head. When Tooyama timidly reached out and patted his head over his hat, Luca broke into a loose, age-appropriate smile.

“Hehehe. Everyone’s this calm for the first time, you know. Thanks, Bro.”

Pero hugged Tooyama’s neck from behind as he sat there.

“…………Oh.”

Seeing Tooyama surrounded by the children and turned into something like a dumpling, unable to speak properly, Lazaar laughed a little.

“Heh. Everyone, it seems our Dragon Slayer has become embarrassed.”

“Shut up, octopus. …Ah, brats, it’s about time you slept. Starting tomorrow, we’ll talk about all kinds of things, including what we’re going to do from now on. I’m tired, so I’m sleeping already.”

Slowly peeling away the children clinging to him, Tooyama grumbled. Unlike him, his words were pointlessly prickly.

“My, you are embarrassed! You are embarrassed, aren’t you? Hehe, what should I do? Brother-san is usually so cool, but right now he is very cute… Huh, what is really wrong with me…?”

“Hey, you guys, Bro is tired! Let’s let him sleep. Bro, if you need a lullaby, tell me. I used to sing them a lot to put Pero and Shiro to sleep, so I’m good at it.”

“I’ll just accept the thought. I’m taking this bed.”

Raising his hand at Niko and Rida’s words, Tooyama sat down on an empty bed. It was a shabby bed with straw packed inside and only a sheet laid over it, but right now this was fine.

“…Brother, should I sleep with you? My body temperature is high, so I’m warm.”

For some reason, Luca, his face red, looked down while fidgeting with his fingertips and muttered.

“I’ll just accept the thought on that too. If it gets cold, maybe I’ll ask you again.”

“…I see. Okay.”

Luca looked a little downhearted. Seeing him like this, Tooyama truly could not tell whether he was a boy or a girl. He would probably grow into a handsome man in the future. Annoying.

“Yeah. Good night, Luca.”

Tooyama flopped down onto the bed. Turning his body sideways, he faced away from the children and Lazaar, and half-opened his eyes to catch the dim lantern flame reflected in the window.

“I see… That’s right.”

That was right. Lazaar was right.

Following his desires.

The right to live everything freely. Humans were all originally free. They had merely forgotten it, but how they lived and how they died were all things they could decide for themselves.

That was what living meant. It was a series of choices, and even without knowing the future, people had to continue choosing and advancing.

They were made to arrive where they ought to arrive.

And today, Tooyama had arrived. At the goal of keeping everyone alive and ending the day.

That was enough. There was nothing to fear.

“Tarou…”

Adventure was here. The continuation of the adventure that he and his small fluffy friend had once dreamed of was certainly here.

For some reason, Tooyama realized that the sensation still remained in his palm.

The warmth of him, who should not be there, for some reason felt close—

“…Well. Um, you know. I’m glad you guys are good people.”

Softly, Tooyama let those words slip. Whether they could hear him came second; he simply wanted to say it.

“Hm? Naruhito, did you say something?”

“No, nothing. All right, I’m sleeping. Good work today.”

There were many things he had to think about. The new home, how to conduct himself in this town, and the bakery.

He would probably have to talk with that merchant again too. He still needed to earn much more as an adventurer.

Making daily life into a routine, securing rent for the new house—there was a lot to do.

And then there was the bakery plan he was now thinking about, a strategy combining Lazaar’s skill with his own knowledge, but his knowledge of bread was somehow lacking.

“…………”

Knowledge and power. He wanted them. To obtain, to avoid losing, and to reach his destination.

He had to become stronger than he was now. If he was going to behave according to his desires, he would inevitably reach his limits as things stood.

His head grew heavy, and the moment he closed his eyes, sleepiness spread slowly through his brain.

Assailed by sleepiness like the kind he felt in childhood during afternoon classes after swimming lessons at school, Tooyama quickly let go of consciousness.

While imagining his thirst for power and knowledge in order to seek a better life—

The second day of Tooyama Naruhito’s life in another world was about to end.

………

……

…

TIPS? A dream is something in which, while a person’s brain processes memories during sleep, past memories and recent memories are visualized. It is an internal phenomenon that reflects the condition of the mind and body.

However, in dreams, information that the existence should not originally know, and images of nonexistent memories, also often flow through.

What exactly dwells within a human who dreams?

Crackle, crackle.

“Ngh?”

Something was popping. Tooyama Naruhito woke up. What leapt into his vision was light.

Ah, was it already morning? Wondering how long he had slept, he sat up.

He looked around, intending to check on Lazaar and the children.

“………Huh?”

A foolish sound slipped out.

No one was there. No, not only that—

“Where is this?”

Crackle, crackle. What popped was the sound of fire. A fireplace. Inside a fireplace made of bricks, red-burning firewood popped as it was licked by flames.

What the fireplace light illuminated was countless bookshelves. They were lined up in many rows, spreading through everything he could see.

Tooyama should have been sleeping on a cheap, hard bed stuffed with straw, yet now he was sitting on a fluffy carpet.

“Ah, you have finally awakened, have you, Advanced Explorer-dono?”

Suddenly, a voice echoed from the darkness.

“Who’s there?”

“Who do you think I am?”

A voice mixed with laughter like ringing bells.

A woman.

The light of the fireplace and lantern illuminated her.

Red-rimmed glasses, a hat with a feather ornament, and clothes resembling a uniform he felt he had seen somewhere before.

What drew the eye was her gray hair. Glossily reflected by the fireplace flames, it possessed a strange beauty.

“…Answer the question. Where did the lizard man and the brats go?”

At her suspicious entrance, Tooyama’s words were sharp as well.

“Ah, if that is your concern, then please rest assured. They have gone nowhere. In a room at a cheap inn in Agatra, they are sleeping soundly and safely in the world of dreams. Yes, just like you.”

“Like me?”

“Yes, none of you have gone anywhere, you included. This place is within your dream, not the dream you see while awake, but within your own heart, where you can visit only while asleep.”

The woman laughed. The woman whispered.

The resident inside Tooyama Naruhito’s dream smiled at her master.

There were multiple vacant seats, and this existence had filled one of them.

Among the many powers attending the angel, this woman was in charge of one.

“…I must be tired. Now I’m even seeing a weird lucid dream.”

“Hehe, yes, exactly. This is your dream. A space that is not reality. Please feel free to behave casually, unguardedly, thoughtlessly, and foolishly.”

Behind her glasses, her glass-bead-like eyes, gray eyes the same color as her hair, distorted like the Cheshire Cat’s.

“………Who are you?”

Tooyama asked the resident of his own dream.

This was Tooyama Naruhito’s first encounter with a resident of dreams.

They always dwelt in the dreams of those who challenged trials, and those fascinated by trials.

To dream. That was a defense mechanism that humanity, Homo sapiens, had possessed since the distant past in order to face the outside world.

Within dreams, people prepared for trials.

The resident of dreams bent at the waist, placing a hand against her thin chest and bowing at a ninety-degree angle, like a ritual salute.

“I am… Harvey. I am Harvey, familiar of knowledge.”

That vacant seat had been filled. The woman had the qualifications. The woman once derided as a monster had the talent and power fitting to fill that vacant seat.

“I look forward to your favor, our master of dreams.”

With an especially sharp crack, a piece of firewood in the fireplace popped.