" Y-···Yeees??? "
Bell sprang up like a startled rabbit, then began babbling as though her pupils had turned into spirals.
" Uh, uh, uh··· th-that··· I mean····. "
Seeing her panic so unexpectedly and so intensely made me feel flustered too.
Once Bell seemed to have calmed down a little, she answered me far too firmly.
" No! We’ve never met before! Today is the first time! "
" Really? "
" Y-yes! Weally··· no, really! "
When you say it that forcefully, it actually makes me more suspicious.
Heh.
Still, judging by how openly she was reacting, it didn’t seem like we had some bad connection.
' But where did I really see her before? '
In truth, whether we had met or not wasn’t the important part. This was what I truly wanted to figure out.
Of course, while working as a mercenary, I’d gone around to so many places that I might have seen her somewhere among them.
It wasn’t as if I’d been an office worker or administrator who lived cooped up in a room.
To put it bluntly, I could have seen her after finishing a request in some tiny village deep in a far-off mountain valley.
If she had been any other ordinary person, I would have just thought that and let it pass without making a big deal of it.
But when the sense of déjà vu was this strong, I couldn’t simply brush it off.
It was possible that I just didn’t remember the person herself.
But the fact that I felt déjà vu from Bell’s smile meant I had seen that smile somewhere before.
In a case like this, there were two hypotheses I could make.
1. I saw her somewhere in the past, and her smile was so pretty that, even though it was only for a brief moment, it stayed in my head enough for me to feel déjà vu when I saw it again.
2. We had known each other for a long time, so every little expression like that remained in my memory.
Honestly, I don’t think the first one makes sense.
The woman in front of me wasn’t that pretty.
She just had the exact feel of an ordinary country girl.
Then was it the second?
That didn’t make sense either.
What do you mean, I knew her for a long time but don’t remember?
It’s not like I had amne···sia, is it?
But no, still not.
The memories I lost were the seven days after I went out into the Demon Realm.
Then that would mean I spent a long time with Bell in the Demon Realm,
' As if. '
Now that I thought about it, if we’d known each other for a long time, she would have recognized me first and acted like she knew me.
It just felt like I was falling deeper and deeper into a maze.
After I asked that question, there was no further conversation.
Bell fidgeted anxiously as she trailed behind me, and I walked ahead, guiding her to Rotten.
The place where we first met wasn’t terribly far from Rotten, and there was also a road people had laid out to reach the city, so before long, we were able to arrive at Rotten without any particular danger or trouble.
" Thank you for coming with me. Because of me, you went through unnecessary trouble···. "
Bell bowed her head and expressed her gratitude.
" Not at all. I was thinking of heading back soon anyway. "
There wasn’t much time left until the mercenary selection tournament.
In case the schedule suddenly changed, I had been coming back to Rotten every day for at least a little while, starting three days ago, to check the notices.
Bell and I exchanged farewells and parted ways.
I introduced her to an old man I personally knew who paid extra for medicinal herbs, but since it was inside the city rather than outside the walls, I didn’t think there was any need to guide her there myself.
It wasn’t that I purely wanted to show her the way; it was more that I wanted to spend a little more time with this person.
" Well··· then. "
I turned my steps toward the mercenary guild.
If there were any additional instructions, the mercenary guild usually posted them on the bulletin board.
When I arrived at the mercenary guild, mercenaries had gathered around the bulletin board.
It seemed there had been some additional notice.
My eyesight was fairly good, so instead of forcing my way through the crowd, I went up to the second floor, where the bulletin board was clearly visible, and read the notice.
The contents of the notice were···.
" What??? "
A little flustering.
' They’re moving the tournament forward to two days from now!???? '
The tournament had originally been scheduled for five days later.
So I had planned to work my body as hard as possible until then, but if it was in two days, I had to completely change the plan I’d made.
Just as people say that when studying for an exam, you shouldn’t study anything new starting a week before the test,
pushing my body too hard now was more likely to have a negative effect on the tournament instead.
' There’s no time now. '
I hurriedly found a nearby restaurant and went in.
" One Deberico fried rice, please! "
It was one of my usual favorite dishes.
A generous helping of pork from a breed called Deberico.
A brown, sweet-and-salty sauce poured over it.
A fried egg cooked soft, sunny-side up.
Small diced vegetables and fluffy, well-separated rice.
With carbs, protein, fat, and taste all covered, I ordered it so often that I thought it might truly be the perfect dish.
The only downside was that it was expensive, but since I was living without much waste in other areas, when it came to food, I tended to order whatever I wanted without holding back.
' Eating it gives me strength, and it feels like work goes a little better too. '
Eating Deberico fried rice was something like a positive routine for me.
After finishing my meal and returning to my lodging, I lightly warmed up my body, then sat on the bed and meditated.
- Fwoosh.
I felt flames racing through my body.
I caught hold of one strand of the flowing fire and slowly began training my aura.
To train aura, one needed a training method.
Occasionally, there were geniuses who created their own training methods, but most people received them from a master.
In my case, though, I wasn’t sure.
I didn’t know how I had learned my training method.
There was simply one training method left in my head, and I was using it for my aura training as it was.
I had heard stories of people picking up strange training methods and suffering aura backlash or ending up half-crippled, but I didn’t have the time or means to find a proper, guaranteed method anyway.
I had to become as strong as possible before the tournament.
Only then would I be able to win the tournament for certain, and only then would I be able to survive even if I got dragged into something dangerous again.
Fortunately, I had trained according to this method until now, and there hadn’t been any particular problems.
- Fwoosh. Fwoooosh.
It seemed my aura had responded to my will.
The aura that had been flowing calmly blazed up fiercely.
Its speed gradually increased.
The aura rotated through my body once, twice, and continued on like that.
Later, when it began spinning like mad, I controlled it carefully before it could get out of hand and stopped the training.
" Huuup. Haaa···. "
As I finished with calm breathing, the fire was gradually subdued and settled down again.
After finishing the training, I checked the aura inside my body overall.
' My amount of aura increased. '
I had achieved quite a satisfying result from that bit of training just now.
If I continued like this all day, my aura would probably steadily increase.
' I should stop here for today and sleep. '
I tidied up and lay down on the bed.
After all, sound sleep was an important factor in growth too.
***
" You’re not going out today? "
Mist-like gray hair, and brilliant violet eyes that contrasted with it.
Signica Violet, a 7th Circle mage and one of the members of the hero’s party, asked while looking at the back of someone with golden hair.
" Ah··· yeah. I think it’ll be okay now. "
" Really? "
" Yeah····. "
" That’s a relief. You were always worried about him, weren’t you? "
" Right··· still····· "
It would have been nice if I could talk to him a little more.
The woman muttered as she tapped her fingers together.
***
Before I knew it, the day of the tournament had arrived.
" Guaaah. "
I stretched my arms far behind me, loosening my stiff body, then headed to the designated place.
The tournament was said to be held over a total of five days, divided into preliminaries and the main rounds.
It was a shorter schedule than I’d expected.
When I entered the tournament hall, I understood why the tournament could be so short.
There were fewer people gathered inside the building than I had expected.
' Looks like there were quite a lot of guys who valued their lives, after all. '
I looked around, checking to see if there were any famous mercenaries or Experts like me.
' Three Experts in total, huh. '
They were mercenaries, and yet there were three Experts.
Just how idle were they, to send three core figures from their mercenary corps?
Looking at them, their faces were fairly handsome,
and in cases like that, they were usually the children of nobles.
Even knowing what purpose this tournament had been opened for, they seemed to have participated while trusting the backing of their families.
" Sigh···. "
I let out a sigh.
Sometimes, there were guys who trusted in their family as if it was something incredibly great and acted up.
In reality, that wasn’t the case at all.
There was always someone higher above.
This tournament was a game personally planned by the emperor.
No matter how outstanding their families were, unless they were families prepared to stage a coup against the emperor who ruled most of the continent and succeed, they wouldn’t be able to protect them.
' They probably haven’t experienced real combat either. '
Those types were usually hothouse flowers.
Guys who reached Expert with their inborn bloodline and the support of their families, without real combat.
Of course, I couldn’t let my guard down because of that, but it was true that it felt somewhat anticlimactic.
' Let’s finish this quickly. '
Time passed, and my opponent was decided.
My opponent was not an Expert, but just a Runner.
A realm of skill at the level of an ordinary peasant soldier.
I drew my sword and glared into my opponent’s eyes.
In fights like this, taking the initiative was usually important.
If you started by sending the message, "I could kill you," the opponent would be frightened and soon give up.
As soon as the starting signal rang out, I took one step toward my opponent.
The opposing mercenary, without thinking much, assumed I was giving him distance and simply waited.
Like that, I smoothly took two steps.
Three steps.
Four steps.
And when I had taken five steps like that.
" Huh? "
I disappeared from my opponent’s field of vision.
Having too smoothly gained the distance to take my opponent’s back in a single breath,
- Swish.
I placed my sword beside his neck as it was.
- Thud.
My opponent’s legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the spot.
At the same time,
" Winner, Evan! "
The judge announced the result coldly.