Worries (1)

The necromancer wasn't very far away.

Apparently never imagining that the barrier could be broken, the necromancer began shouting at the top of their lungs that this was impossible the moment we approached. Just as the necromancer, glaring at us with bloodshot eyes, seemed about to do something, the Hero, who had somehow stepped forward, cleanly cut the necromancer's head off.

How should I put it..? It was a strangely hollow death for someone who had created a barrier that had driven all of us into a crisis only moments earlier.

For some reason, Cecilia covered my eyes the moment the necromancer was beheaded.

Should I thank her for being considerate?

I still didn't particularly want to see someone die like that, so I didn't say much. Since I looked relatively young, perhaps she hadn't wanted me to witness a death.

“Is it.. over?”

Ruril stared down at the necromancer with a hollow expression. The village might have been so far away that we had to ride in a carriage for several days without rest, but it was still a village within the Holy Kingdom. And the necromancer had summoned undead and slowly ruined the village here.

He had some nerve.

I looked around to see whether there was anything useful, but all I found were items scattered here and there that gave off the sort of eerie atmosphere you'd expect from a necromancer. Nothing looked practical enough for me to use.

Except for one thing.

“This is..”

A wand.

Oh, right.

My memory wasn't perfect, so I hadn't remembered there was an item in a place like this until I saw it. It was a useful wand in the early game, but since it had originally belonged to the necromancer, I remembered that it could only be used after clerics purified it.

I remembered that its effect was quite powerful, befitting an item with such a restriction. Was it a 10 percent increase in mana efficiency? Later on, there were rods with even more absurd performance, so it was only useful in the early game and never afterward. But for me right now, it was perfect.

“That’s..”

The Hero looked down at the rod with a peculiar expression.

“Hmm.. It seems to have been a staff used by the necromancer? Though it's closer to a rod than a staff..”

Oh, it was a rod?

Cecilia's expression stiffened slightly as she examined the rod I had called a wand from every angle.

“I can't use this.”

“Huh? Why?”

Ruril, who had been staring down at the rod with a curious expression, asked in confusion at Cecilia's words.

“Maybe because the necromancer used it, but it has a terrible curse on it. I can feel it coming from the gem at the front.”

“Th-then we should throw it away right now..!”

“Hmm..”

Cecilia turned to look at me.

In the game, Lumia didn't have a rod or staff when you first met her. She used magic with nothing but her hands, yet she still produced more than enough firepower.

To begin with, the rods and staffs mages used were extremely expensive, so a mere D-rank Lumia could hardly even touch one. I would certainly have liked a magic rod, but removing its curse would cost a fortune, so it was probably better not to..

Fwoosh.

“..?”

“Okay, all done~”

A thunderous burst of light illuminated the cave, and the amethyst that had been glowing ominously purple had turned into a sapphire radiating blue light. In other words, the tainted mana stone had become a pure mana stone.

In other words, this was something we had needed to pay a cleric to do in the game, but somehow Cecilia had done it herself. It looked as though she had completely dispelled the curse and purified the item—the ominous feeling I had sensed only moments ago was now nowhere to be found.

I had never personally seen a cleric purify anything in the game, so I didn't know how Cecilia's work differed from what an ordinary cleric would do. Still, there had to be some major difference between what an ordinary cleric would have done and what Cecilia had done, even if I didn't know what it was.

I looked down at the rod she held out to me, then looked up at Cecilia. Seeing my gaze, she smiled sweetly and held it out as though urging me to take it quickly.

I accepted it as though I had no choice and gave her a questioning look. She had explained things to the Hero and Ruril, but normally, I shouldn't have heard that explanation. Sensing my gaze, Cecilia seemed to realize her mistake, wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed it to me.

As expected, the note explained the situation. It roughly said that the rod obtained from the necromancer had been heavily cursed, that she had purified it, and that I could use it if I wanted to.

After reading it all, I raised my head and looked back at Cecilia. She gazed at me with her eyes shining brightly, as though asking me to praise her. But Lumia wasn't the type to praise people, so..

After all, everything I knew about Lumia's personality was limited to what had been portrayed in the game, so I didn't know how I was supposed to act in a situation like this.

I had simply been lucky up to now..

No, perhaps the Hero had guessed my identity. He had returned from the future, so wouldn't it be natural for him to find it strange if I acted differently from how I was supposed to in the present?

Even so, he hadn't said anything to me all this time and had always treated me as though I were the real Lumia, so I could only assume that he still hadn't figured it out.

Of course, when I first came here, all I could think about was surviving. I had tried to somehow make him believe that I was Lumia and keep the truth hidden. Had I been more cautious, I might have told the Hero the truth when I first met him.

However, I had met the Hero only after the original Lumia had already met him, and on top of that, I was already assuming that the Hero was a regressor. He was a devoted Hero who had returned to the past solely to save Lumia, who had sacrificed herself to save the world, wasn't he?

If I told such a Hero that I wasn't actually Lumia but someone who had taken over Lumia's body, what would he do to me? It was so frightening, and the anxiety of not knowing what would happen made me keep hiding the truth.

Even though I knew I was deceiving the Hero, I couldn't stop.

...

How should I put it..? Perhaps it was because I had finally relaxed after being saved by the Hero in a crisis, but I kept having this strange feeling that I was deceiving him. At first, I had only thought that I needed to survive and hadn't spared a thought for the Hero, but looking back on it now, that had been terribly selfish.

But.. considering that I was a man about to be held by another man, and that the world would be destroyed otherwise, was it really rational to think of someone else first? That was what a true saint or saintess would do.

At least, I wasn't one.

I.. I wasn't at fault.

I was just an ordinary male college student who had played this game a little. If you wanted to find someone to blame, the game developer who had sent me to a place like this was far worse than I was. I had only pretended to be Lumia because I wanted to survive.

That was all it was..

Why did I have to feel guilty?

“...”

Tap, tap.

“..!”

Ah..

That's right..

I was talking to Cecilia, wasn't I..?

“Um.. Does she not like my gift..?”

“That can't be it. Since she's pondering while looking at the rod, maybe she's checking whether there's some problem with it?”

“...”

That wasn't it.

It was simply that, with everything going so smoothly, the relief I felt after the Hero saved me and the strange comfort I felt whenever I was with him suddenly brought a thought to mind: I was deceiving the Hero right now.. What would happen if he found out who I was..?

That was the thought.

But I couldn't let that show on the outside now.

Hiding my feelings as I had all this time, I accepted the rod Cecilia held out to me.

Despite my complicated feelings, the rod that had been glowing ominously purple was now shining a clear blue.

“Then shall we head back?”

The Hero asked while checking the location of the cave again.

Ruril had originally left the village for no other reason than to go to Latikan and ask for help in person, so in a way, things had ended well. I glanced back at Ruril's happy expression, then turned my head and looked down at the rod again.

“...”

As I looked down at the rod, I faintly sensed the Hero watching me intently. He seemed to be looking at me with the same worried gaze as always.

Even in a situation like this, you always worry about Lumia.

I smiled bitterly.

Was it just my imagination?

I hoped it was just my imagination.

I really did.. hope that was the case.