Still, We Press On (5)

“Why are you in a place like this? The Resistance thought you were dead.”

“And they even called you a disappointing hero! You caused them that much trouble, then had the nerve to live in the very settlement you’d disrupted. You’ve got a lot of gall.”

There were plenty of questions, but Menou first pressed Kagami to explain how he’d ended up here. Then Tina, looking utterly exasperated, brought up what people had been saying behind his back—things he probably hadn’t heard.

“A disappointing hero, huh...? Well, I suppose if I’m alive but haven’t gone back, that would make me one. It’s a long story, but I’ll explain what happened, at least.”

Kagami then explained what had happened since he came to this world.

“The first thing I thought when I got here was... ‘What is this? There’s no way we can save the world before the deadline! And this is barely any different from the war between demons and humans!’”

A year ago, just like Alice and the others, Kagami had been given an explanation of this world by Kurusu. He’d heard everything that had shocked them all: that Earthclear was a system designed to create powerful humans to save Earth, and that they themselves had been kept asleep in capsules.

But none of that mattered to Kagami.

It didn’t matter where the place he’d lived was, because he’d had a real life there and been happy. The form that life had taken didn’t matter, either. The only thing that mattered to Kagami was how to save the world.

“I was shown around by a tomboy with a magic gun and someone carrying a huge wrench, and I joined the Resistance, figuring I’d start by doing what I could.”...