One Day

~Two days after Tooyama Naruhito finished handling some minor business~

“Bishop-sama, here are the next documents.”

“Yes, yes, yes, aaand done. Hey, Svi, I’m tired already, seriously tired. Please, could you give me a break soon?”

Stamp, stamp, stamp.

The pleasant sound of a large seal being pressed rang through the sunlit office.

Under the gentle light pouring through the glass, Kanosa Tier Field, bishop of the Angel Church, was leisurely battling a mountain of stacked documents.

“Hmph.”

Her subordinate, who could be called her right arm, one of the Church’s greatest fighting forces, the Chief Saint, Svi Dakmarshall.

The petite girl dressed in a sister’s habit closed her eyes and puffed out her cheeks at the bishop’s words.

“Oh no, oh dear, my saint is still sulking.”

The bishop joked, not looking particularly hurt. Yet even the mountain of documents was not much work for a woman of her capabilities.

“……I don’t care. People who deceive me and go play at night establishments should just be buried in work.”

“Gweh. Come on, Svi, Svi, Svi, Svi, I keep telling you I really was sorry about that. But don’t worry. Those girls are, you know, just for fun. A casual relationship.”

“……You only had your weakness poked by my junior because you go out at night like that.”

“Ah, yes. I really do regret that. That crazy black-haired man doesn’t leave the slightest opening. It was amazing. He looked like he was strangling himself with a straight face.”

“……But in the end, he overcame it again, didn’t he?”

“Thaaat’s right. I don’t really get what happened, but just when I thought he’d started talking about something called a host, he began seducing two half-enraged dragons. Even I had gotten tired of thinking by then, so I was drinking.”

“……The fact that you could choose to drink alcohol there, Bishop-sama, means you really are two of a kind with my junior, doesn’t it?”

Svi stared at the bishop with a flat, reproachful gaze.

“Ugh, stop it, Svi. Don’t lump me in with some weirdo whose hobby seems to be walking a tightrope on the very edge. Ah, I’m tired…… Come to think of it, Svi, what is today’s dragon slayer up to? I seriously hate how that guy starts doing things that make no sense the moment I take my eyes off him.”

The phrase “hatred of one’s own kind” came to Svi’s mind, but she decided not to say anything. She knew very well that she could not beat her mistress in either words or wits.

“……For today, a hunting procedure has been submitted to the Adventurers’ Guild. For the past three days or so, he seems to have mainly been targeting not Titanos Mares, but the monsters and furred species that live in the plains region.”

“……Hmm? Furred species at this point? Even though most furred species on the plains near the city are only third- or fourth-rank monsters? No, no, that’s no good. I’ll stop thinking too much about it.”

“……Ah, Bishop-sama.”

Svi murmured softly.

“What is it, Svi?”

Stamp, stamp, stamp. The seals overlapped, and the documents danced. Even while speaking, not a single part of the bishop’s work slowed.

“No…… On second thought, it’s nothing……”

“Svi, please. Once you’ve said that much, just say it. Now I’m curious.”

“……No, um, I just remembered that recently, there has been an increase in adventurers going missing in the forest in the northern part of the plains region…… Yesterday, even a Tower-Class Adventurer finally failed to return. Though it seems their grave good, the Light of Life, has not gone out yet……”

The relationship between the Church and the Adventurers’ Guild was not bad. They did not share absolutely everything, but they had built a good enough relationship to properly keep each other informed about serious matters.

“Svi-chan, Svi-chan. Where were the dragon slayers hunting again?”

The bishop’s working hand stopped completely.

“In the plains region, targeting furred species. However, furred species often appear in large numbers fairly close to the forest belt in the northern plains, so……”

At Svi’s words, the bishop slowly smiled and sank deep into her chair.

“Feels like something’s going on~”

The bishop let out a weak groan. Her stomach groaned in the same way with a tight squeeze.

~At the same time~

There had been no mistake. I had not messed anything up.

This time, I thought I had made use of my reflection from last time.

I had not held back Relic Blade either. I had fought at full strength from the very start.

And yet, here I was.

“……Geho.”

I spat out blood-mixed saliva along with a cough. Let us say I had only cut the inside of my mouth.

The feel of the tree trunk I was leaning my body against, the smell of blood rising from my throat. I was still alive. My body could move.

But I could not stand. The numbness from being slammed by the monster’s long, supple body had not gone away.

This was bad. This time, it was seriously bad.

“Ah, ah, ah, I am the greatest me. Soft and squishy, floating and drifting, I become a fledgling. I am a fledgling.”

A monster.

It laughed while coiling itself and flicking out its long tongue.

I had thought I was used to hunting monsters. I really had only thought so.

The core of my body was cold. I knew this feeling. It was the same feeling as that moment I faced alone inside the modern dungeon.

Had Stolu managed to withdraw with Lazaar?

Was Lazaar alive?

How much more time did I need to buy?

Was help coming?

“……Last time, it didn’t……”

No. Don’t remember. Don’t remember.

Why was I thinking about that time now?

“Back in Babel’s Great Pit, it didn’t come……”

I died.

I died in the modern dungeon. I was killed by a monster.

And now, even in another world, by a monster.

This was bad, bad. No, not in a place like this. No. Again, again—

“……I don’t want to die.”

Clack, clack. When I wondered what that sound was, it was the sound of my own teeth chattering together. I could not stop trembling.

I was scared.

I was unbearably scared of dying.

Here, alone—

“I WAS THE SAME.”

The monster bloomed into a smile.