Chapter 2
I opened the door and went downstairs, pretending to be groggy, as if I had only just woken up.
I did so expecting that, if I had companions traveling with me, they would greet me. However, even after I came down, no one spoke to me, which meant either that I had no companions or that they had not come down yet.
Was that performance for nothing?
“Hmm..”
It feels like I can hear the phantom sound of a stomach growling.
I'm hungry.
Since this was reality rather than a game, it was only natural that I would be hungry.
No matter where I was right now, this was reality, so I should refrain from judging things by the standards of a game. Even in stories, there had been more than a few cases of people suffering misfortune after a fictional world became reality because they kept treating it as a novel.
Anyway... this wasn't a world in a novel but a world in a game, so it might be a little different.
In any case... I felt like I might come back to life if I ate something, but even if I tried to eat, the bandage around my neck made it clear that I couldn't even speak to anyone. I didn't know how to use magic either, so talking to someone through magic was out of the question.
As far as I knew, Lumia's usual way of communicating was to send her thoughts through telepathy, but there was no way I could do that when I didn't even know how to use magic.
I looked around.
The breakfast the adventurers who had gotten up in the morning were eating wasn't anything special, but perhaps because of the embellishments typical of a fantasy world, it looked quite appetizing. I swallowed hard without realizing it and wondered how I was supposed to eat.
The currency used in the game was gold.
I checked to see if I happened to have any gold on me, and fortunately, I did.
The problem was that, since money could only be spent in a limited number of places in the game, I had no idea what its current value was.
First, I needed to find out whether I had companions. If I didn't, I would have no choice but to approach the clerk myself and somehow get some food.
Fortunately, I could read.
If I couldn't read as well, I would have been in serious trouble.
Hoping that the clerk might know whether I had companions if she remembered me from yesterday, I approached her. The clerk standing at the counter turned toward me, asked what was wrong, and greeted me warmly.
“Oh my, you're that kid from yesterday? Uh... Ah, right... You said you couldn't hear, didn't you? Goodness..”
But I can hear everything..
The fact that she thought I couldn't speak or hear made it highly likely that someone else had explained it to her, though I couldn't be certain. If I hadn't answered her, then, come to think of it, someone must have mentioned the bandage around my neck.
There was no chance that the heroine I had become, Lumia Secriphice, would have used her magic just to announce that she couldn't speak. She had been a quiet heroine who barely spoke at all in the first place, so I was certain of that.
They could have figured out that she couldn't speak from the bandage around her neck, but she wouldn't have used magic to tell someone she had only briefly met at an inn that she couldn't speak or hear.
It was true that she couldn't hear.
The strange thing was that I could hear now.
It was clear that I had a companion besides myself. If I had a companion, there was a very high chance that it was the Hero, the only person who could converse properly with me.
Right, one of the pieces of foreshadowing.
The Hero was the only person Lumia could have a proper conversation with. I didn't know the exact reason, since it was apparently revealed in the happy ending, but the story often mentioned that even the other heroines would break into a cold sweat when trying to talk with Lumia without the Hero.
Depending on how the player played, his personality could vary, but his basic personality was that of a kind-hearted eunuch, like some ordinary harem protagonist you could find anywhere. So he had probably told the clerk that I couldn't speak or hear.
While I was thinking, the clerk tapped me on the shoulder and held out a board listing the names of the dishes, as if asking what I wanted to eat. I briefly worried that I might not be able to read it because this was another world, but fortunately, that wasn't the case.
Hmm... Surely people ought to eat meat.
There were so many kinds of meat that it was hard to choose one, and since this was my first time at the place, I couldn't tell what would be delicious and what might be a trap.
Then I remembered hearing that, when you had no idea what to choose, you could ask for whatever dish they were most confident in.
...
Come to think of it, I can't speak.
Oh, right.
“I'll have this, please.”
“..?!”
Startled by the voice from behind me, I turned my head, then made an oh-no expression. I had forgotten that, since I couldn't hear, I was supposed to pretend not to notice even if someone spoke to me from behind.
“Oh, there you are? Your companion came out alone to eat, so I wasn't sure what to do..”
“Ahaha..”
I turned around with a doubtful expression and looked at the man behind me. A tall, brown-haired man with a face so handsome it inspired awe rather than mere jealousy was looking down at me with concern.
“Let's go sit down.”
A man—no, if he knew my name and spoke to me so familiarly, there was only one possibility. Given that the clerk had called him my companion and mentioned that we had arrived together yesterday, I couldn't help but be certain.
This was the Hero.
.
.
.
“Are you okay?”
A question laden with several meanings.
For him to ask me that meant he also knew that I was unable to speak and had unexplained hearing loss. I couldn't say that the Hero was the only one, but the people Lumia could properly converse with in the game were extremely limited.
The Demon King and the Hero.
Besides them, there were only mages who could use telepathy.
I nodded.
“If you sense that the clerk is about to say something strange, be sure to tell me.”
Saying that, the Hero set the cutlery down in front of me.
I could have done this myself... At least, his characterization as a kind-hearted eunuch from the game didn't seem to have changed much. I remembered that the protagonist, the Hero, was definitely supposed to look after people in small ways like this.
Since options to do something for someone would pop up when I acted as the protagonist, anyone on the receiving end would obviously think he was trying to woo them. But the protagonist was supposedly just considerate of others by nature, doing things like this without giving it much thought.
Of course, most of the heroines gained affection from things like this.
Not that I was planning to fall for it.
“Your food is here~”
The clerk approached from behind and set the food down in front of me.
Unlike earlier, I didn't do anything stupid like flinching when someone approached from behind. When the clerk came over, I looked down at the food placed before me as if I had only just noticed it. It wasn't food I had chosen because I wanted it—the Hero had ordered it for me—but it looked appetizing.
The Hero had ordered food as well, but for some reason, he wasn't eating. He was simply staring at me.
...
I can't eat if you stare at me like that.
When I hesitated, the Hero smiled and said he would eat after watching me eat.
No... Was this because of his characterization?
It seemed a little excessive, but characterization was characterization... I had just said that I shouldn't trust the common sense of the game world too much, so acting this way felt a little strange. Still, for the moment, I had no choice but to judge the Hero according to the common sense of the game world.
If I was wrong, it would be no different from losing all my memories overnight.
For now, acting naturally came first.
Reluctantly, I cut the food with a knife and put it in my mouth.
“..!”
Wow..
This is fucking delicious.
What?
Did I normally like this kind of thing?
“Tasty, right?”
Ah..
I had forgotten that the Hero was watching me.
At the Hero's question, I nodded slightly.
This much should be fine.
Thinking that, I slightly increased my eating pace.
“Hey, Lumia. I'm thinking of going to pick up the saint who's going to be traveling with us starting tomorrow.”
If he meant the saint who would be traveling with us, there was only one person it could be.
Saint Cecilia.
Unlike Lumia Secriphice, a mute mage who appeared infrequently in everyday situations, Cecilia was extremely popular thanks to her beautiful illustrations and the gap between her devout saintly appearance and the side she revealed at night.
Her exquisitely made model was one thing, but her adult scenes were also highly praised, so there was no way she could be unpopular.
I was going to meet a character whose intimate side I had seen in full..
If I had my way, I would have liked to prepare a little before meeting her, but I didn't know how to use telepathy yet.
...
Nod.
In the end, I reluctantly nodded.
At my answer, the Hero looked at me with a genial smile. Then, after briefly making a surprised expression, he pulled out a tissue and brought it to the corner of my mouth.
..?”
“It's nice to see you enjoying your food.”
The Hero grinned as he said that, then began his own meal.
...
I hate to say it, but I think I understand why the heroines fell head over heels for him.
His face is a cheat code.
Sigh.