By the time Lara and Wendell made it back to camp, it was already dusk.
The company members had set up a grill beside the camp, with several of them gathered around it, and Olla in the middle grilling fish.
The men on the other side waved them over with an invitation.
Lara took a skewer as well, found a tree stump to sit on, and ate quietly all on her own.
The spices of the Frieren world were actually quite well-developed — for a modern person like her, the food wasn’t so bad that she couldn’t bring herself to swallow it.
The cities even had dessert shops that ordinary citizens could afford to patronize.
Once all the fish were on the grill, Olla turned around and spotted Lara sitting off to one side by herself, wearing the gear he’d rounded up the day before — and a look of sudden realization crossed his face.
“So that’s what the Captain meant — if I’d known the stuff was for our very own goddess of war, I’d have made a special trip to the blacksmith’s and had a set custom-made for you.” Ignoring the don’t-come-near aura Lara was giving off, Olla plopped down right beside her, facing the setting sun: “One look and I could tell the Captain took you out on a job.
Has to have been a hunting-grade one at minimum, right?
I don’t buy that he’d take you out just to gather herbs.
How’d it feel?” “It was all right, I guess.” Lara didn’t particularly feel like chatting with Olla.
Being this cold to someone wasn’t exactly nice of her, but she kept picking up some kind of off-putting vibe from him — a man’s intuition.
“I’m not talking about how hard the job was.” Olla’s tone took a sudden turn — no longer flippant.
His eyes seemed to be fixed not on the sky, but somewhere much farther north.
“Truth is, a lot of folks in the company are refugees.
I am too.
The war up north made plenty of people lose their hometowns, and when I drifted down here, it was the Captain who took me in.” “You haven’t said anything about it, but I can tell — and so can everyone else in the company who drifted in from somewhere else.
We’re all the same in that way: nothing to lean on, just constantly searching for some reason to keep ourselves alive.” “I’ve found a home with the company now.
But what about you?
Why is it that you want to get stronger?
Why do you want to go to the Central Continent?
You’ve even got friends here.
If you’ve got no particular goal, wouldn’t staying down south and living together be just fine?” …
Why did she want to go to the Central Continent?
Why did she want to get stronger?
Wasn’t all of it just because she wanted to live out the rest of her life more safely?
No…
that wasn’t quite right.
Granted, the Central Continent was safer, and granted, getting stronger would mean greater ability to avoid danger — but the Lara of right now didn’t really feel she was doing all of this purely to keep on living.
The regrets from before her reincarnation were still nagging at her.
‘Go and do what you want to do.’ Nina treated Lara very well.
Uncle Haiven was a good man.
So was Captain Wendell.
But she herself, somehow, had never once seriously considered staying in the south to live — even though this place had already steered clear of the most extreme war zones.
…why?
Lara fell silent.
All she could do was keep turning the grilled fish over in her hand, her thoughts scattering in every direction.
The first thing she had felt after being transmigrated into this world was bewilderment — every part of her life had to start over from zero.
Right on its heels came fear: death was just a step away.
And now, the only thing left lingering around her was…
loneliness.
All the relationships from her past life had been left behind on the other shore.
The only ones still alive in her memory, besides herself, were the little anime characters.
In her past life, she had loved watching anime, which was why she had recognized Aura the moment she first laid eyes on her.
She had also been deeply fond of all sorts of characters from the Frieren anime — villainous demons and protagonist’s party alike.
Even the side characters were full of charm in her eyes.
I guess I’m chasing the past.
Lara thought to herself.
She loved those vivid characters, and that love wasn’t going to change just because she had been reincarnated, or because she had been turned into a girl.
The memories left over from her past life had become her landmarks.
Only by chasing the past, walking forward toward it, could she feel that she was still the same person she used to be — not just a label like “James” or “Lara,” but herself.
It was the purest kind of love.
And all that love, gathered up to this moment, had transformed into the longing to see them again.
She just wanted to lay eyes on the people who lived on in her memory.
Face her own heart head-on, and follow what it told her.
Once again, Lara firmed up the resolve in her heart — only now for different reasons.
Lara broke into a smile.
It had been a long time since she had felt this kind of happiness — the sort that rose straight from inside her.
“Thank you, Olla.
The way you usually talk is so airy and breezy — I never would’ve thought you had a serious side like this.” “If you hadn’t come over to talk with me, I might have stayed lost in my head for a while longer.
Going to the Central Continent isn’t actually what matters.
I just want to go see some old acquaintances.” Those people who lived on in her memory.
Lara was happy.
She’d worked out a lot of things — all she really wanted was to reach out and touch those shining, radiant characters, and so satisfy her own heart.
“Ah!
Sorry, that was way out of line of me.
I saw you keeping to yourself all the time and just assumed everyone was in the same boat.
I really wasn’t trying to put a curse on you or anything!” Lara’s words had suddenly broken Olla out in a cold sweat.
He had been observing her for quite a while, and based on her various behaviors and motives he’d concluded that Lara, too, was someone adrift in the world.
He had thought they were all homeless drifters together — and then that one line of hers about going to see old acquaintances sent his toes curling into the dirt in embarrassment.
Olla’s intense reaction made it clear to Lara that he’d gotten the wrong idea, but that was fine.
Lara simply rested her hands on her knees and tilted her face to the side, her jet-black hair falling with the motion.
She looked at Olla — this big boy who would open his heart up to a near-stranger he’d known only a few days — and said: “It’s not quite what you think.
But going to the Central Continent is the precondition for me to see them, so it’s still something I have to do.” At some point neither of them had noticed, the moon had risen above the mountains.
Olla stared at the girl in front of him a little blankly.
The firelight kept flickering, her shadow dancing along with it — and somewhere in his chest, for reasons he didn’t understand…
Time slipped past like a white horse through a crack in the wall.
Lara stood on the dock, saying her goodbyes to everyone.
The salty, damp sea breeze brushed across her cheek.
After this round of “see you again,” there was no telling how long it would be before they actually saw each other again.
On the ship, Nina leaned out from behind the railing, waving both arms hard at Lara.
Standing beside her were Olla, the Captain, and Uncle Haiven.
“I’ll definitely come visit you someday!” — that was Nina.
“Make sure you practice swinging that sword every day, otherwise you’ll get rusty.” — that was Captain Wendell.
“Next time you come down south, you’ve got to come hang out!” — that was Uncle Haiven.
Olla wavered off to one side for the longest time.
It wasn’t until the sails went up and the ship began to move that he finally made up his mind.
Bracing both hands on the railing, he shouted out at the top of his lungs at Lara: “Lara!
I love you — will you marry me?!” Olla clung tightly to the railing, his face flushed scarlet.
It was as if he had used up every last drop of strength he had — the fact that he was still standing at all was a miracle.
Wendell looked stunned.
Uncle Haiven hadn’t even managed to process it yet.
Only Nina seemed to have been hit by some sort of shock — every drop of color had drained from her face.
Lara was only mildly surprised — but, as if she’d somehow foreseen it all, her own response was no less of a bombshell.
“Sorry — there’s something I’ve never told you.
The truth is, I like girls!” For Lara, while some things had changed, there were others that simply couldn’t be changed.
With Lara’s declaration, it was as if Olla and Nina had swapped bodies.
Now it was Nina whose face was scarlet, her gaze with nowhere to land.
Olla, meanwhile, wore a look of utter despair.
Watching the two of them carrying on like a comedy double act, Lara smiled and waved, seeing the ship off into the distance.
“Goodbye.” After seeing Nina off, Lara made her way back into the streets and found a storefront piled high with books.
She pushed open the door, and a boy who looked like an apprentice stepped up to greet her.
“Welcome to the magical-items shop.
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