“Yuma Kamishiro. I am expelling you from the Explorer Team, Sword of Dawn.”
Kurose Ren’s voice echoed coldly through the guild branch meeting room.
The monitor on the wall displayed yesterday’s clearance record. However, the crucial scene was unnaturally cut off.
In the middle floors of a B-rank dungeon, we had been attacked by a mutated monster. The decision to retreat was delayed, the passageway began to collapse, and Reina Shiratori and the other rear-guard members were about to be left behind.
I stayed behind at the rear.
I held off the monsters in the collapsing passageway and let my companions escape ahead.
As a result, only I was late to the extraction point.
And today.
For some reason, I was being treated as the one responsible for the failed clearance.
“The number of magic stones collected doesn’t add up. You embezzled them, didn’t you?”
Ren tossed a report onto the desk.
Several red marks were stamped right next to my name.
“That’s wrong. In that situation, I didn’t have the luxury of picking up magic stones. In the first place, the one who told me to stay at the rear was…”
“Making excuses?”
Ren cut me off.
His refined face showed overt irritation. He was a young ace in the upper ranks of explorers, popular even on clearance streams, practically the advertising tower of the guild.
The eyes Ren cast at me were terribly cold.
“I heard you abandoned Reina and ran away during the retreat.”
“I didn’t abandon her.”
I involuntarily looked over at Reina Shiratori.
She was a healer, two years younger than me. Usually, she would narrow her eyes as if wanting to say something, yet in the end, she would say softly, “Yuma-san isn’t that kind of person.”
But today was different.
Reina was clutching her hands in front of her chest, keeping her head down.
“Reina.”
When I called her name, her shoulders trembled slightly.
“I don’t know.”
Her voice was squeezed out.
“At that time, there was so much smoke. I couldn’t properly see who was where. But… Ren-san said that Yuma-san left first.”
“I stayed until the very end.”
“But, the recorded footage shows…”
Reina closed her mouth at that point.
It wasn’t that she was blaming me. Rather, it was the face of someone who wanted to believe, but couldn’t bring herself to do so all the way.
That hurt the most.
Much more than being yelled at, much more than being hit.
I had no evidence.
The recorded footage was cut off. According to the report, the number of magic stones made me look suspicious. The testimony within the team leaned toward Ren’s side, and it wouldn’t matter even if I alone said that was wrong.
Besides, I had a trump card I couldn’t play.
I had returned from another world a year ago.
To be precise, during the three years I had been missing in this world, I lived in a world filled with swords, magic, and magical beasts.
If I used the power I gained over there, I really could have defeated yesterday’s mutant. No, I could have wiped it out.
However, doing so would require explanations.
Why could a C-rank explorer like me independently handle a high-level B-rank monster?
Why could I use types of power that didn’t show up on magic power measurements?
Why did I know techniques not found in modern Japanese explorer theory?
Ever since I returned, I had kept it hidden.
Because I didn’t want to return to the center of battle.
Because I didn’t want to be used by anyone as a convenient tool.
That was why I had always behaved as an explorer who could do just a little bit. I carried luggage, scouted, made maps, treated wounds, and cooked meals.
Filling in the gaps.
That was fine.
Or so I had thought.
“Branch Manager Akutsu.”
Ren shifted his gaze toward the back of the meeting room.
Sitting there was Osamu Akutsu, the branch manager of the Explorer Guild. He was looking at me from behind silver-rimmed glasses with eyes whose emotions were unreadable.
“Please issue the disciplinary action. This incident affects the team’s credibility.”
“Hmm.”
Branch Manager Akutsu nodded with a face that seemed to have decided the conclusion from the start.
“Yuma Kamishiro. Your explorer license is suspended as of today. The duration is until the investigation concludes. Though, judging by the content of the report this time, returning will likely be difficult.”
“Aren’t you going to listen to my side of the story?”
“This is a judgment made after listening.”
Lying.
No one was listening to my story at all.
Yet, I knew that saying so wouldn’t change a thing.
Ren stood up from his chair.
It wasn’t the face of someone triumphant. It was simply the face of someone clearing away something that was in their way.
“We don’t need useless guys like you anymore.”
With those words, something that had remained deep inside my chest quietly snapped.
There was anger.
There was frustration.
But exhaustion came before all of that.
Here we go again, I found myself thinking.
It had been the same in the other world. If you had a useful power, you were used; once you became useless, you were discarded. I had thought I could live normally in this world I had returned to.
I looked at the team badge placed on the desk.
Sword of Dawn.
Such a grandiose name, as if aiming for the dawn.
I took off that badge and placed it on the desk.
“Understood.”
Saying just that, I left the meeting room.
Behind my back, I felt the presence of someone gasping for breath. It might have been Reina. I didn’t look back.
The guild hallway felt unusually dark, even though it was daytime.
In front of the reception desk, young explorers were buzzing. Word must have already gotten around. When they made eye contact with me, some hastily averted their gaze.
I returned to the locker room and packed my luggage.
A spare change of clothes, a cheap cooking knife, a portable stove, a small spice case.
I almost smiled a little at the realization that there were more cooking tools than exploration gear.
I had liked making food since long ago.
Even in the other world, I had figured out how to make the meat of defeated magical beasts edible. Boiling tough meat, masking the odor with herbs, and choosing non-poisonous parts. When my companions were exhausted, only a hot pot could silence them.
Only those times were a salvation to me.
When I left the guild, my smartphone had several notifications.
Sword of Dawn fails clearance
Yuma Kamishiro suspected of magic stone embezzlement
Expelled from the team?
Explorer streaming clipping accounts were already making a fuss.
I turned off the screen.
I had the urge to refute it. I had the urge to tell the truth.
But I felt like the more words I piled up, the wider the wound would grow.
When I returned to my apartment and checked my bankbook, the balance was lower than expected. While my license was suspended, I couldn’t earn as an explorer. With me not even streaming, I had no source of income.
Rent, utility bills, food expenses.
The time I could hold out in the city was less than a month.
“Shall I go?”
I took out an old key from the back of the drawer.
It was the key to my grandmother’s house in the countryside.
A small village nestled between mountains and the sea. When I was a child, I had visited several times during summer vacation. After my grandmother passed away, it had become an empty house, and I had just been paying the maintenance fees little by little.
I could get there by transferring trains and buses.
There might not be any jobs. I didn’t know the neighbors either. The house itself should be damaged.
Even so, that was the only place left for me now.
At night, I packed the bare minimum of luggage into my backpack and left the apartment.
On the way to the station, the city lights glared blindingly bright. Convenience store lights, the laughter of izakaya patrons, a line of cars waiting at a traffic light. The world kept spinning just as always.
Even if I alone was chased out, nothing would change.
That felt a little lonely, and a little relieving.
Rocked by the last local train, I got off at an unmanned station near the end of the line. From there, it was about a thirty-minute walk along a mountain path to my grandmother’s house.
The May night breeze was colder than in the city.
Water was pooled in the rice paddies, thinly reflecting the moonlight. The sound of frogs echoed in the distance. Weeds grew along the narrow paved path.
As I walked while gripping the shoulder strap of my backpack, a small sound suddenly reached my ears.
A faint, weak cry.
“A cat?”
I stopped walking and strained my ears.
Again, I heard it.
Near the drainage ditch by the roadside. The shadow of the grass was moving slightly.
When I shone my smartphone light on it, a white cat was there.
No, it probably used to be white.
Its fur was stained with mud and dyed red in places. One of its ears was torn, and it was curled up as if protecting its front paw. Yet strangely, only its eyes shone golden in the night.
The cat looked up at me.
Having no strength left to run away, it simply opened its mouth slightly.
“Are you okay?”
I slowly squatted down.
The battered white cat trembled, yet it still did not look away from me.