Latikan

We'd decided to rest for about a day, so it was about time to start heading to the Holy Kingdom.

To be honest, I wanted to stay in the city and play all day, but there wasn't anything to do, and we did need to meet the Saintess, so we had to leave. I'd only spent a day in the city, but it was so vast and felt so much like a place where people actually lived that I found myself reluctant to leave.

“The line is long..”

I nodded in agreement with the Hero.

There are a lot more people than I expected.

It was only natural, since this was apparently one of the major cities where countless merchants came and went.

Teleportation magic circles were one of the more expensive forms of transportation used by a great many people.

Of course, being expensive didn't mean only nobles could use them; ordinary people could use them too if they had enough money. It took at least a noble's wealth to use one casually whenever they had business somewhere, while the richest tycoons could ride one whenever they were bored without feeling the expense at all.

Since that was all the game explained, I had no idea what they cost.

A royal decree had apparently been issued allowing anyone carrying the Hero's holy sword to use them freely without paying, so there was no way to find out the price in-game. I even dug through the game on the theory that the information might remain in the dummy data, but it didn't exist there either.

In the end, the cost of using teleportation magic circles remained one of the game's mysteries..

Would I finally find out now?

I swallowed hard.

I hadn't expected to find out like this.

“Are you nervous?”

The Hero asked, apparently noticing that I was nervous.

Well, if he was asking whether I was nervous, it would have been a lie to say I wasn't.

After all, I was about to experience the teleportation from a fantasy story firsthand. Wouldn't it be a lie to say I wasn't excited?

What would it feel like?

“You don't have to worry. Just close your eyes, and you'll be there.”

How do you know that?

The fact that he spoke as though he'd ridden one before made it even more certain that he was a regressor.

The Hero I knew was supposed to be a commoner who had come to the capital from the countryside, accidentally pulled out the holy sword, and become the Hero. How could someone like that have ever ridden a teleportation magic circle? It would be impossible unless he really was a regressor.

No matter how I looked at it, it seemed as though he was testing me..

Since I couldn't let him see that I was suspicious, I pretended not to know anything and simply kept staring toward the magic circle with an expression of wonder.

And then,

“..?”

I felt a hand move over my head.

I couldn't feel it clearly because of my pointed hat, but I could tell well enough that the Hero's hand had come to rest on my head and was stroking it. Startled, I raised my hand, caught the Hero's, and looked up at him with a flustered expression.

“Ah, sorry.. I didn't mean to..”

“...”

What was he trying to do?

Was he thinking of Lumia before his regression?

Even if we'd grown close as party members, I doubted Lumia would have let him run a hand through her hair.. I had only been startled, and I wasn't particularly angry, so I simply stared at the Hero for a moment before turning away.

He's so tall my head hurts.

Did I become shorter?

I wish we'd hurry up and ride the magic circle.

Apparently, there was a different magic circle for every route to each city.

In other words, we were currently standing in line at the entrance to the teleportation station, which meant we'd have to wait quite a while before reaching the station for Latikan, the capital of the Holy Kingdom.

“Aren't you hungry?”

“...”

So that was why he had suddenly gone out and bought lunch to carry around.

Apparently, he had some unpleasant memories of using teleportation before.

In any case, now that the Hero had apparently decided I wasn't a regressor, it would be strange for him to know whether he'd used a teleportation magic circle before or been to the Holy Kingdom, so for now I had no choice but to let it go.

I thought that as I stuffed the sandwich the Hero had handed me into my mouth.

.

.

.

.

Ugh..

Uuugh..

I never imagined that the side effects of a teleportation magic circle would affect me..

Come to think of it, Lumia hadn't seemed to like teleportation magic circles very much either. I remembered her turning pale and her mood sinking whenever she rode one, but since she was the type not to show such things, I had assumed it was a debuff and simply ignored it.

Was this the side effect of teleportation magic?

It was already miserable enough that I couldn't speak. If she'd had to endure side effects like these every time she used such an important means of transportation, I couldn't even imagine how difficult it must have been for her.

I felt sorry for the Lumia in the game..

I'd used them constantly because I couldn't be bothered to travel, which meant she'd felt this way every single time.

My stomach feels awful..

“Are you okay?”

The Hero patted me on the back as he asked.

Seeing him made me feel even guiltier.

When I played the game, I saw a debuff appear in Lumia's debuff window every time she used teleportation, but it was a debuff with no actual effect, and it disappeared with time, so I had simply ignored it..

But the Hero had immediately come over to worry about me as soon as I complained that my stomach felt bad.

Was it just my imagination, or was my anger toward the game company starting to rise? No matter how much they wanted to make the characters appealing, did they really have to painstakingly create and include every single one of these tiny details?

This was just ridiculous.

“Want me to carry you?”

I shook my head.

His sense of personal space is kind of strange..

How long had we even known each other, and he was already offering to carry me? Still, it was hard to blame him, because he was genuinely worried about me, which made me feel worse for having such strange thoughts.

I felt nauseated and queasy, but it was still bearable.

“This won't do.”

The Hero told me to wait a moment and approached one of the teleportation station's employees.

I wondered what he was planning to do, but then he pulled some money from inside his clothes and came back with something like a potion.

Huh.

That looks pretty expensive.

“Drink this, and your stomach will feel better.”

The Hero handed me the potion with a bright smile.

Seriously, what a cheerfully unhinged guy..

My stomach was merely upset because of the side effects of the teleportation magic circle, so why had he gone and bought me a potion?

Isn't this expensive?

“Don't worry, it's not very expensive. It's medicine they give to people who complain about side effects.”

“...”

Is that so..?

I felt even guiltier.

I found myself thinking that I should have bought a potion like this for Lumia and made her drink it, even if it meant paying a little extra. After accepting the potion from the Hero, I stared down at the cork lodged firmly in the mouth of the glass bottle.

...

I'd never seen anything like this before.

I examined the bottle from every angle, then gripped the top of the cork and pulled with all my strength.

“..! ..!”

What was this..

It won't come out?

Why is it so.. tight..

“Ah, sorry. That must be hard to pull out.”

The Hero gave me an awkward smile, took the bottle, casually gripped the stopper, and pulled it straight out.

“...”

What was that?

“Here, drink.”

I accepted the glass bottle with a blank expression.

Wasn't this something even an adult man's strength couldn't pull out?

No, it was possible to pull it out, but with that much grip strength, wouldn't the bottle simply break?

“Hmm? Is something wrong?”

I shook my head.

Come to think of it, this was the lunatic who had grabbed several huge, muscular adult men and sent them flying more than ten meters at once. As the Hero, his physical abilities were absurdly powerful to begin with, so he could perform the absurd feat of gripping a stopper with one hand and pulling it out.

Right, why was I trying to understand something like this..

I gave up trying to understand.

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.

.

Latikan.

The capital of the Holy Kingdom, and a massive city where the Papal Court stood.

Naturally, it was the safest place in the world, protected by roughly a thousand holy knights, three knight commanders who had each been granted a sacred sword by a god, and barriers cast by the clergy. Why else would it be called a god-given city?

It was surrounded by enormous walls, with the Pope at its center, and every year young girls from all over the world gathered there to undergo the Saintess baptism ceremony.

Of all those girls, exactly one was chosen as the Saintess and raised as such.

And that Saintess was Cecilia, the name she had received at baptism.

She was the heroine of the game.

“What do you think? Impressive, right?”

The magnificent sight before my eyes left me speechless.

Even the Vatican in the real world hadn't been this grand.

I nodded with a dazed expression.

Could Cecilia really be in a place like this?

I swallowed.

“Shall we go in?”

“...”

I nodded.

Cecilia and I had already become very close in the game, but this was my first time meeting her in reality—and in Lumia's body—so I found myself wondering what kind of girl she was.

I hoped we could become friends.

With excitement fluttering in my chest, I stepped forward.