A Transferee’s Troubles

The more Tōru looked at the twins, the more alike they seemed.

They were apparently identical twins, with exactly the same faces. Their clothes and hairstyles were identical, too. In fact, even their gestures were perfectly synchronized.

Incidentally, he had been told that the one holding the bow was the older sister, Euphie, while the one who had opened the door was the younger sister, Mary. However, Tōru had already lost track of which was which.

“—So, are you strong?”

The question came from two mouths with precisely the same voices and intonation. Everything about them was so perfectly synchronized that Tōru almost wanted to ask if they were broadcasting in stereo.

“If you told me to take you two along and wipe out the Demon Centipede right now, I’d be strong enough to pull it off.”

“…But you’re a Rank B adventurer, aren’t you, Tōru-san? Leaving aside the lower-ranking members, the Demon Centipede is a clan built around a Rank B party, you know?”

Euphie and Mary regarded him skeptically.

“The Adventurers’ Guild’s ranking system has specific requirements for promotion. To reach Rank B, you need to be capable of channeling magical power into your weapons and equipment, a technique commonly known as enchantment. It’s a combat technique, but it doesn’t directly measure combat ability. In other words, there can be a considerable difference in fighting strength even between adventurers of the same rank.”

“But if you were that strong, wouldn’t you have become Rank A?”

“To qualify for Rank A, you need to belong to a party of at least five adventurers, all of whom are Rank B or higher, and the group must have achieved accomplishments worthy of the promotion. Being strong isn’t enough.”

Many assignments reserved for Rank A adventurers involved tasks such as defending multiple locations simultaneously, which were difficult to accomplish without sufficient personnel.

The reason Tōru remained at Rank B was precisely that he primarily operated alone rather than joining a party.

When the twins turned toward the branch manager as though seeking confirmation, he nodded.

“To begin with, the ranking system exists to ensure that the guild can properly assign requests to adventurers capable of completing them. If you want a ranking based on the actual abilities of individual adventurers or parties, there’s the Adventurer Rankings, which lists the top fifty. Those rankings are publicly available.”

“Come to think of it, there are Rank B adventurers who appear in those rankings, aren’t there? Red Thunder, Hundred-League Piercer, and Bird’s-Eye View, for example. I’ve heard that Red Thunder and Hundred-League Piercer in particular are strong enough to rival entire Rank A parties.”

The twins’ words reminded Tōru of an acquaintance, leaving him with a complicated expression.

He knew Farai, the nineteenth-ranked adventurer, better known as Hundred-League Piercer. Farai was an exceptionally skilled user of magical firearms, capable of accurately shooting through a gap no larger than a palm from several kilometers away. Unfortunately, Farai also had a nasty personality and a remarkably vindictive streak. A guild clerical error had once resulted in their monster-subjugation requests overlapping, and Farai had held a grudge against Tōru ever since Tōru killed the target first.

Apparently trusting the branch manager’s explanation, the twins turned toward Tōru with expressions of understanding.

“Tōru-san, is it possible that you don’t have any friends?”

“Nope. At least, I don’t belong to a party.”

“A lonely Rank B adventurer.”

“Look, when I call myself a loner, it’s a joke. When someone else says it, it’s an insult, you know?”

“My apologies. I assumed you were deliberately maintaining your solitary lifestyle out of some deeply held conviction. I never imagined it was due to a personality problem.”

Whether they were joking or entirely serious, the twins somehow managed to deliver both an apology and another insult while maintaining perfectly composed expressions.

These girls are pretty quick-witted, Tōru thought, finding the exchange rather amusing.

The twins returned to the subject at hand.

“What we need for this assignment is someone capable of protecting us, not a large number of guards. We’d like to formally commission you. Please serve as our bodyguard. The duration is indefinite. We don’t intend to keep you tied down for too long, but you should be prepared for approximately ten days.”

“I’ve already received an advance, so I was planning to protect you regardless. Anyway, what are we doing about nighttime security?”

“Stay beside us throughout the night. Anyone who enters this room, regardless of who they are, must be eliminated.”

“Understood.”

Tōru had assumed they might have hired a female adventurer to handle the night shift, but apparently he was their only guard.

It seemed they genuinely had no allies they could rely on.

He was about to ask which of them was really the loner when he remembered that his clients were twins.

‘Must be nice having family,’ he thought sarcastically.

The twins extended their hands toward him. One offered her right hand, while the other offered her left. Apparently, they wanted to shake hands. When Tōru extended both of his hands, each twin shook one.

After witnessing Tōru and the twins shake hands, the branch manager rose to his feet.

“Well then, I’ll leave the rest to you.”

“You can count on me.”

After seeing the branch manager out of the twins’ room, Tōru retrieved the tools of his trade from his pocket.

The twins leaned forward with obvious curiosity.

“What are those?”

“Gloves, obviously.”

“But they’re made of metal?”

“They’re not meant to keep my hands warm.”

The gloves Tōru slipped onto both hands were protective metal gloves woven from fine chains. Despite their appearance, they were lightweight and allowed considerable freedom of movement at the joints.

“Are you planning to punch your enemies?”

“Inside a room, punching them is usually quicker.”

With his chainmail gloves on, Tōru surveyed the room, partly to identify possible escape routes in case of an emergency.

The room occupied a corner of the second floor and was spacious enough to accommodate both twins. Its windows faced north.

A door on the southern side led to the corridor, while bookshelves covered the western wall. There was another door in the eastern wall, which apparently led to a small bathroom and a storage room.

When Tōru spotted something familiar among the titles on the bookshelf, he involuntarily read it aloud.

“High School Chemistry?”

The bookshelves in the twins’ room were filled with Japanese educational textbooks, English-language magazines, and similar publications. There were actually fewer books published in this world than books from elsewhere.

The twins tilted their heads in opposite directions.

“Tōru-san, can you read the writing on Otherworld Relics?”

“Tōru-san, are you interested in Otherworld Relics?”

For the first time, the twins spoke different words.

Otherworld Relics. The term referred to objects and living beings that, like Tōru himself, originated from another world.

Tōru found an answer that addressed both questions simultaneously.

“I’m an Otherworld Relic myself.”

“Ooooh!”

The twins’ eyes sparkled as they applauded.

One stood up and began slowly circling Tōru, examining him from every possible angle, while the other hurried over to the bookshelf, pulled out several volumes, and returned.

“Which one of you is Euphie, and which is Mary?”

“I’m Euphie.”

“I’m Mary.”

“Don’t talk at the same time.”

“Okaaay.”

The one who answered casually was the girl circling Tōru, so apparently she was Euphie.

Her younger sister, Mary, was the one approaching him with a book held up to display its cover.

“You’re going to have plenty of free time while guarding us anyway, aren’t you? I’d like you to teach me how to read these. I don’t understand these characters.”

Tōru frowned when he examined the cover of the book Mary was practically shoving into his face.

“How am I supposed to read old-fashioned kanji? I dropped out of high school, you know.”

When Tōru was transported to another world nine years earlier, he had been a first-year high school student.

“Even an educated guess would be fine. Since you’re an Otherworld Relic yourself, your instincts should give you a higher chance of reading them correctly than ours.”

“Even so… Let’s see. Journal of the Society of Organic Synthetic Chemistry, maybe?”

Huh. I can actually figure out quite a bit from the surrounding characters, Tōru thought, briefly impressed with himself.

However, that feeling lasted only at first. A few minutes after he began the halfhearted exercise in codebreaking at Mary’s insistence, his brain, which had gone nine years without any exposure to modern science, began to overheat.

“I’m a bodyguard. I’m not a Japanese teacher, an English teacher, or a chemistry teacher. This is outside my job description!”

“But Tōru-san, since you’re an Otherworld Relic, reviewing these subjects might come in handy someday.”

“I can guarantee you they won’t. I’ve already given up on returning to Earth. And I only made that decision yesterday! Learning the meanings of English words isn’t going to help me now. Being able to read English scientific magazines isn’t going to help me, either!”

“But learning is fun, isn’t it?”

“I hate studying. If it’s compulsory, fine, but I’m not doing any studying I don’t have to. Besides, you twins can already read English better than I can, can’t you?”

What’s the point of making me read it, then? Having struck at the heart of the matter, Tōru sighed and picked up an English-Japanese dictionary that had been left nearby.

It was remarkable that they had managed to collect so many books from another world.

As items that had somehow wandered in from other worlds, they were extraordinarily rare, and purchasing one could easily cost several gold coins. The market wasn’t particularly large, since few people could read them, but some cities specialized in researching such artifacts. Collecting them required considerable financial resources.

As expected of the daughters of one of the largest merchant companies in town.

“…Tōru-san, don’t you feel homesick for Earth?”

Euphie, who had been playing with Tōru’s hair, gazed at him with her clear blue eyes, seemingly seeing straight into his heart.

“What are you talking about?”

He tried to play dumb, but Euphie refused to back down.

“When you saw our bookshelf, you didn’t ask where we kept our books about the Ancient Civilization. Even if you’ve given up on returning home, you’d normally be interested in anything that might offer a clue.”

The Ancient Civilization was a civilization of this world said to have opened gates to other worlds in pursuit of their resources, only to be destroyed when those worlds retaliated.

Its ruins still remained scattered throughout the world, and Tōru had heard that it was an advanced civilization whose people had even developed the theories underlying the barriers that protected modern towns.

The monsters that now roamed this world were also said to have come from other worlds. They were regarded as one of the Ancient Civilization’s negative legacies, but if Tōru wanted to return to Earth, the otherworldly gates the civilization had opened would surely provide valuable clues.

Euphie’s deduction that Tōru felt no homesickness for Earth and didn’t particularly mind never returning was correct. After all, he had shown no interest whatsoever in the twins’ extensive collection of books.

Having been caught out, Tōru placed the English scientific magazine on the desk and gave a weary smile.

“Well, I’ve been in this world for nine years. Memories are bound to fade after that long, aren’t they?”

“But you aren’t attached to this world, either, are you, Tōru-san?”

Mary looked up from her book and pointed this out.

Tōru felt a sudden jolt and averted his gaze, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken.

The twins’ clear, deep-blue eyes seemed capable of peering into the deepest recesses of his heart. Both pairs were now fixed directly on him.

It wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling.

Apparently, neither twin intended to look away until he answered.

Tōru opened his mouth with a bitter expression.

“Do you know how Otherworld Relics end up in this world?”

“No, we don’t.”

That was hardly surprising. Even Tōru had never encountered another Otherworld Relic capable of communicating with him.

“In my case, I was living alone. One day, I stepped through the front door of my house, and suddenly I was standing in a forest in this world. Just a moment earlier, I could see the wall surrounding the house across the street. Then I took one step, and I was in a forest. When I turned around, there was no house. Not even a front door.”

No god had appeared to explain that he had died and was about to be reincarnated. Nor had he been standing in the middle of some enormous, mysterious magic circle.

Without so much as the time to blink, he had simply found himself standing in another world.

“For all I know, I might suddenly end up back on Earth the same way I came here. The ground beneath my feet has never felt solid. I don’t even know how long I’ll be able to stay in this world. How am I supposed to grow attached to a place like that?”

“That said,” Tōru continued.

“Yesterday, when I entered my tenth year here, I decided to make a fresh start and live my life on the assumption that I’ll eventually die in this world.”

At Tōru’s declaration, the twins blinked several times.

“But that still hasn’t put your fears to rest.”

“…You don’t have to point it out. Now you’re making me think about it again.”

Perhaps sensing the genuine emotion beneath Tōru’s joking retort, the twins chose not to pursue the subject any further.