The next morning, I left the rock shadow I had been using as a den and decided to make my way through the forest. The reason is simple. I will not last long here.
Tree nuts and stream water can hold off starvation. In the gap of a rock, I can somehow get through the night, too. But that is closer to “not dead yet” than to “living.” What if winter comes? What if I run a fever? In this forest all by myself, things like that will probably lead directly to a quiet end. If I have decided to survive, I have no choice but to go where people are.
The egg inside my jacket was faintly warm this morning, too. Even when I spoke to it saying, “– Let’s go,” there is no way there would be a reply. Still, it somehow feels reassuring.
Just how many days have I walked since then? Honestly, I stopped counting along the way. What I did was always the same. Walk while the sun is high, and hide before it gets dark. If I see a shadow that looks like a monster, fighting is out of the question, so I hold my breath and take a detour. If I get hungry, I find nuts that small animals are eating and nibble on the same ones. For water, I choose clear streams to drink.
Even though I can manage to rinse my face and hands with that cold water, I have not taken a proper hot bath even once since coming to this world. My hair is stiff with sweat and dirt, and I can tell that I even smell sour myself. And at night, when I hug my knees in my hiding place, that glowing window invariably floats up softly.
‘Daily Reward — Experience +1’
… 1. Yesterday it was 2. The day before that was 1 again. It seems to differ just a little depending on the day. Sometimes, a withered tree nut came along as a bonus. Every night, before sleeping, only that increases with a pop. The experience points at hand had exceeded twenty before I knew it.
But my level remains at 1 as before. Once, I tried checking how much is needed until the next level. … I should not have looked. It was still quite far away. It looks like it will be a long time before I reach that point with this daily accumulation of 1 or 2.
Oh well. I have time to spare like rotting wood. Still, whether on days I walked or days I rested, it accumulated properly by just 1 each. That much was certain.
It is plain. It was plain all the way.
… I cannot help but laugh. I was supposed to be a “hero summoned to another world,” after all. The one whose head was bowed to by the king in that luxurious hall, asking me to defeat the Demon King. Now, I am just a filthy wanderer looking for fruit-bearing trees, feeling grateful for animal leftovers, and sneaking into bushes.
— Well, it is not bad, though. Compared to the folks who were flashily lifted up and sent to the front lines, I probably have to worry about my life a lot less.
It was the afternoon of some day or other. When I brought my face close to the water surface to drink water at the stream as usual — suddenly, my hand stopped. My face reflected in the water is somehow a little different. The line of my cheeks is slimmer than before. The area around my eyes is also softer. There is no sign of a beard growing at all. … Looking like this, I look just like a girl. The trace of what should have been an uncool boy had thinned out considerably before I knew it.
I try pinching my own cheek. It is smooth. The mismatched part is probably because my clothes are still those of a man. A worn-out and filthy male school uniform. A strange tailored piece that no one in this world wears. Only my face changes mismatched to that.
… Does “not aging” include things like this, too? A body removed from time might be drifting away from its original build little by little. … Well, whatever. No matter what my face becomes, my stomach will not fill up and I will not be chased. Stopping myself from thinking deeply, I scooped up the water and drank it.
The turning point came on the evening of that day.
When I crossed a gentle hill, my field of view opened up. Fields partitioned into squares are spreading out in large numbers below my eyes. Right in the middle of them, small houses are gathered together. Thin smoke was rising straight up from several of the roofs. The smoke of supper.
There are people.
That ordinary scenery looked dazzlingly bright. Just how many days has it been since I last laid eyes on the light of human life? I rolled down the hill and approached the village. After getting closer, my feet got a little timid. … If an outsider visits all of a sudden, will I be driven away? Empty-handed, shabby, wearing strange clothes not seen in this world, and on top of that — a weird fellow whose gender cannot even be told.
It was at the edge of the village, beside a field, when I was hesitating.
“– Hey. Big brother? Big sister?”
A voice came from near my feet.
When I looked, a child of about five or six years old was pulling gently at the hem of my clothes with muddy hands. He was looking up at my face intently with perfectly round eyes.
“Which one?”
… Which one, huh. Children are honest.
“…Well. Even I do not really know.”
When I answered that way, the child giggled. There is not the slightest bit of vigilance. Rather, they are shining eyes, like they found a rare toy. Because of that innocence, I somehow got carried away and smiled a little bit.
“Hey, where did you come from? Are you hungry?”
Hungry. To death.
“Mom! Mooooom! A weird person came! A pretty person!”
The child runs off energetically toward the other side of the field. A “weird person” and a “pretty person,” huh. … Quite accurate.
Before long, wiping her hands with a cloth, a woman who looks like a mother walks toward me with a perplexed face. In those eyes, there was certainly vigilance toward an outsider. But from behind her, that child from earlier is pointing at me and pleading about something earnestly. Now then, how will this turn out?
I put on a clumsy smile to look as un-suspicious as possible and bowed my head deeply.