Chapter Seven: No Way?! My Skills Are Amazing?!
“You’re pretty good at cooking, Rin! Were you a chef or something before?”
“Cooking is just a hobby for me… If I made it my job, with my personality I’d probably stop cooking for myself…”
…Well then. Both of us are full, and we’ve finished tidying up after the meal and packing up the tent… Now we are sipping on the mysterious barley tea that doesn’t seem to deplete even though I drank a lot yesterday, and Mr. Ville is looking at me with impressed eyes. Well, what can I say? My cooking skills are mediocre… ambitiously to say above mediocre at best? Probably, Mr. Ville feels that way because he’s hungry. Hunger is the best spice, as they say.
It’s fun because it’s a hobby and I can cook whatever I want, not what duty forces me to cook. But if cooking became my "work", I think I’m going to stop cooking for myself. I’d be like, "Who wants to cook at home after working all day?!”
Rather, the undepleting barley tea is more concerning… Is it a bottomless tea spring?
No, surely not… Right…?
“By the way, Rin. This is just me thinking out loud but… just who are you?”
Oops!
What’s with that out-of-nowhere question!?
Pretending not to notice my almost-spitting-out-barley-tea moment, Mr. Ville nonchalantly continues to talk.
“At least I’ve never seen a chair that folds as freely as the one I’m sitting on, a metal stand for a fire, the strange feeling canopy, or a sleeping place like that.”
“U, um…”
“Well, regardless of who you may be, I owe you for helping me. I swear I would never willingly do anything to hurt you unless I had to.”
“Unless… you had to…?”
“Yes. How to put it… For example, if you tried to betray or hurt my comrades, I suppose.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will happen. Even though I’m just a small part of it, I’m involved in medical work. I wouldn’t intentionally harm people.”
Ohh? Despite the harsh words, Mr. Ville is willing to be my ally… I guess?
…If so, I can’t stay silent when we’ll be traveling together, and with my personality, I don’t think I could deceive him anyway… Maybe I should tell him about my circumstances and skills…? If something bad or suspicious is about to happen, I’ll abandon my luggage, jump on Campy, and escape at full speed.
“Um… Mr. Ville, there’s something I want to tell you before we head out…”
“What is it, Rin? You look so serious, is it that important?”
“Yes… Well, I think it might be faster to just show you…”
Despite making up my mind, I found myself unsure of what to say and sneakily glanced at Mr. Ville, trying to gather my thoughts. Noticing this, he tilted his head slightly while holding a cup of barley tea. The gap between this cute gesture and his robust physique… It’s troubling for my eyes. You know… a friendly, handsome guy can be a bit troublesome sometimes.
For now, I’ll send a hmm… thought wave to Campy saying, “Let Mr. Ville see the car too.” Seeing is believing, after all.
The next moment, the chair topples over with a bang. Mr. Ville abruptly stands up. Campy that was always in my sight must have become visible to Mr. Ville’s eyes as well.
“Ri-Rin… This is…!?”
“Ah… Sorry for surprising you. This is one of my skills I wanted to tell you about.”
“This is…!? Rin… Just who are you…?”
“Um… Just an ordinary acupuncturist and licensed care worker…”
While staring fixedly at Campy, Mr. Ville muttered in a daze. Yes. I’m aware it’s inexcusable to get him caught up in such things. Mr. Ville’s gaze contains surprise, confusion, and excessive wariness… Well, I’d react like that too if such inexplicable things happened. That’s why I think I need to explain until he understands. An explanation and consent are crucial not only in treatment but also in everyday life, right?
“So um, I’m not sure where to start, but I came to this world through a ’saint summoning’ ritual or something. I’m an otherworder.”
“S-Saint summoning!? Don’t tell me some idiot actually carried out that ritual!?”
“Probably… Because me and another girl got summoned here, and I was deemed ’useless’ and got sent here to this area…”
“…After arbitrarily summoning you, without even investigating, they judged you useless and forcefully relocated you to a remote area… If you were truly ’useless,’ you would be dead by now, right!?”
“Maybe that was their intention…? I got the impression that they couldn’t even tolerate my presence…”
Anyway, once we sat back down and refilled our tea, I roughly explained the events so far. Mr. Ville, who seemed surprised at first, ended up slumping with his hand on his forehead, thoroughly dejected.
Yup. I personally felt that their behavior was cruel, but it seems like it was downright outrageous from the perspective of Mr. Ville too.
My senses weren’t wrong! I’m relieved!!!
“Hmm… so this skill activated after you were thrown here…”
“Yes. It seems to be a ’Special Skill’ that only activates outdoors. With it, I can store or retrieve a significant amount of luggage.”
Yeah. Not telling lies, part two. That fourth-dimensional storage seems to hold a considerable volume…
“I see… But to call this ’useless’… It might not be useful in direct combat, but wouldn’t it be quite helpful for marching?”
“I wonder about that? Since I was summoned indoors, maybe the skill wasn’t visible. And it might help small groups but probably wouldn’t be very effective for armies…”
“No. If you can manipulate a box with large capacity storage that can be freely taken in and out in the caster’s position, even with the minimum of you and one horse you could transport large amounts of supplies like food, medicine, weapons, armor, and tools. It’s an ability perfectly suited for maintaining battle lines.”
“Eh… That’s kinda scary.”
It sounds like I alone could maintain battle lines!
…And, from Mr. Ville’s wording, does he not realize Campy is a vehicle?
Now that I think about it, he did say “box”, so for him, Campy just looked like a big box.
Well, certainly, it’s hard to imagine a lump of metal like this moving on its own… I also occasionally wonder why it moves despite being so heavy… For example, I understand the logic of how airplanes work, but I still wonder why they can fly…
It’s just unimaginable, right?!
But rather than that, Mr. Ville’s pondering expression gives me uneasy thoughts.
…If, by any chance, he captures me and sends me back to that country, it’s almost certain that I’ll be treated as expendable and face death by overwork, right? No way!
“…Hey Rin, what do you plan to do from here on?”
“Hmm… To be honest, getting back to my original world is a top priority, but if that is not possible, I want to find work to support myself and settle into living here.”
“Okay… So you have no intentions of becoming a war hero…”
“None at all! Especially I don’t want to work for the bunch who summoned me on a whim and then dumped me!”
“That’s true… from my perspective too, it doesn’t sit well for you, my benefactor, to be used up and discarded.”
When Mr. Ville breaks the silence and speaks to me, I steal a glance at Survival… but no alerts appear… So it should be… safe… right?
He did say earlier that he would never willingly do anything to hurt me, so I’ll trust those words!
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