Chapter 31
Huh, did I pass out?
Come to think of it, I think I passed out just like that after being buried between two large lumps of fat. Since they were so large, getting my face completely buried between them like that, I couldn't help but pass out..
But how am I lying down like this..?
“...”
Huh.
“Are you awake?”
The Hero looked down at me and asked.
Wait a second, am I seriously using the Hero's thigh as a pillow right now..?
“Uh.. did it make you uncomfortable..?”
The Hero asked with a sad expression.
No, well.. considering that I'd woken up with my head on a man's thigh, it was a little unpleasant.. but Lumia wasn't the sort of character who would say such a thing, and if I did, all the goodwill I'd painstakingly built up might disappear, so I decided to lie.
Even calling it a lie was a stretch, since I couldn't actually say anything myself anyway; I merely shook my head. The Hero seemed reassured by that alone; he sighed in relief, his face relaxing.
But why am I lying here with my head on this guy's lap..?
I was curious, but Lumia wasn't the kind of heroine who would use telepathy just to ask about something like that, so I could only swallow my question. If I'd been cast as a heroine like Cecilia or Ruril instead of someone like Lumia, I could have asked to my heart's content, so why did I have to end up as a heroine who couldn't speak or hear..
On top of that, I'd ended up as a heroine who would die if she couldn't get pregnant, so my misery could only grow even worse. I was already miserable enough just from becoming a heroine, but on top of that, I was apparently supposed to receive the male protagonist's seed, get pregnant, and give birth to his child. How could I not feel miserable about that?
I don't even know why all of this suddenly welled up now and made me feel this way.
Was it because I was resting my head on a man's lap?
I don't know.
“...”
I couldn't exactly say anything to the Hero's face, so I turned my head away to avoid his eyes. It was partly intentional, but it was also a spur-of-the-moment way to keep myself from getting angry at the Hero. I could only hope that, seeing me like this, he would think I was embarrassed.
“Uh..”
The Hero fell silent, as if he had nothing to say.
He was perceptive, so perhaps he had realized that I wasn't acting this way because I was embarrassed.
Whether he had realized it or not, there was nothing I could say..
Anyway, Ruril and Cecilia noticed that I had woken up and came over to me. Ruril in particular seemed quite cowed, perhaps because Cecilia had scolded her severely; she approached me hesitantly, held out a sheet of paper with an apology she'd written in advance, and bowed her head.
No, well.. you don't need to feel that sorry..
I had felt a slight brush with death, but that was all. Saying that someone could die from burying their face in a woman's breasts was ridiculous in the first place.. Well, there probably had been cases where someone enjoyed it so much that they held on for too long and died like that, but it wasn't that serious.
Probably.. not.
“So.. what's your name?”
Had we not even exchanged names yet?
Since I had been unconscious, perhaps she had put off introducing herself until I woke up. Ruril thought for a moment about how best to answer the Hero's question, then opened her mouth with an awkward expression.
“My name is Ruril Spania, and.. I’m an elf who used to live in Kapra Village.”
She introduced herself exactly as she had when I first met her in the game.
As she said this, Ruril showed us her long ears.
If you asked what an elf's defining feature was, most people would mention those long ears. They were the elves' most prominent characteristic. The elves living in the Holy Kingdom had personalities completely different from those of the other elves, who were the subject of all sorts of rumors, so people weren't particularly wary of them.
Cecilia was actually happy to see her.
“But why were you in a place like this?”
At the Hero's question, Ruril lowered her head.
By the way, Cecilia was sitting beside me and writing everything down for me to read, so I wasn't left out of the conversation. I wasn't actually unable to hear, but according to the setting, I was supposed to be, so it seemed to be Cecilia's way of being considerate because otherwise I couldn't participate in the conversation.
It really wasn't for nothing that she had been given such a considerate personality.
The game's setting only said that Lumia had difficulty communicating; it didn't explain exactly how she conversed with others, which made Cecilia seem even more impressive.
Did that mean that, during the long journey to defeat the Demon King, the Hero had served as Lumia's mouth while Cecilia had served as her ears?
...
Or not?
“Uh.. is it hard for you to speak?”
At the Hero's question, Ruril, who had been hanging her head, shook her head.
“Um.. it’s not that it’s hard to speak.. I just have some bad memories..”
I know.
The Hero probably knows too.
About what was happening in Kapra Village.
“Phew..”
Ruril sighed.
Perhaps she had decided to tell us after all, because she looked around at us with a resolute expression. Seeing Ruril's reaction, Cecilia also seemed to realize that this wasn't an ordinary matter and put on a serious expression.
Her intuition was not wrong.
What was happening in Kapra Village was.. related to demons, that is, the Demon King's army.
“Please.. help us..”
Ruril then bowed her head to us and said so.
.
.
.
“The forest has been acting strangely lately..”
“Yeah.. the forest is slowly dying..”
Elves were known as a nature-loving race, a people chosen by nature. Naturally, they were also the ones best able to observe the forest's condition.
Hearing that, Cecilia and the Hero fell silent, deep in thought.
Although this was the Holy Kingdom, that didn't mean the Demon King's army never attacked here. It was entirely possible for them to sneak in and destroy an entire village. It just happened that Kapra Village was the one they had targeted.
And well.. although what was happening in this village was indeed related to the Demon King's army, we didn't encounter the Demon King's army from the very beginning of the game. More precisely, the incident began with undead appearing in the village because of a certain necromancer who served the Demon King's army.
I suppose it was fortunate: this situation had both a transmigrator who knew the game well and a regressor who had returned from the future, so we knew exactly how to resolve it. The Hero probably knew where that necromancer was, too.
It was an incident that had nearly put an entire village in danger, so he probably would have kept it firmly in his memory. If he couldn't even remember something like this properly, it would be like losing the whole point of regressing.
This was a long story, so instead of Cecilia, the Hero himself wrote up a summary and handed it to me. I felt bad saying this about him, but the Hero's handwriting was so terrible that it was hard to tell whether I was looking at writing or a bunch of worms.
Of course, perhaps thanks to my power as a transmigrator, I could somehow understand what it meant despite the squiggly handwriting. After roughly reading the whole thing, I raised my head and looked toward Ruril. The moment I looked at her, she turned toward me with a smile, as though she had never been gloomy.
Still, it looked like I had succeeded in giving her a good impression of me..
Thank goodness. She hadn't fallen for the Hero..
I let out a sigh of relief inwardly.
“We should step in..”
“Yeah..”
Cecilia nodded in response to the Hero's question.
As she said, this matter was related to the demons in any case.
The fact that undead had appeared around the village and were threatening it meant that this was connected to the demons threatening the world, so it was something the Hero ought to deal with.
This was usually when the Hero stepped in.
“R-really..? You’ll help us?!”
“Of course!”
That was the Hero's answer to Ruril's question.
Ah..
Come to think of it, this was one of the reasons Ruril came to genuinely like the Hero.. In fact, Ruril was the easiest heroine to raise my favorability with here.
If things went according to the setting, the Hero had rescued her in her moment of crisis, and he would also save her village, so her favorability could only rise dramatically from the very beginning..
Ah..
Damn it.
This wasn't something I could do anything about..
So the Hero really was the Hero, after all. Seeing how he seemed to be unconsciously flirting with everyone around him, I couldn't help letting out a sigh.
I had to do everything I could to keep the Hero from sweeping the other girls off their feet..
...
Wait a second,
What was I just thinking?
I was going to take action to keep the Hero from winning over the other girls..?
“...”
It was something that needed to be done, but it felt strange when I was the one thinking it.
As heat suddenly rushed to my head, I covered my face with both hands with my head still resting on the Hero's thigh.
I suddenly felt embarrassed..
Ha..