Jae sat in front of the bonfire that had appeared in the clearing and reflected on the past.
No, there was no past left to reflect on. The only things that came to mind were the experiences of desperate battles.
Even so, Jae stared blankly at the bonfire.
The bonfire was a place that restored his strength, so looking into that fire was his rest.
Memories of a home he could no longer remember. He had once held onto hope, believing he would return, but everything had crumbled away and would not rise in his mind anymore.
Yet the fire given off by the bonfire brought back a faint homesickness.
It was a cold, almost mechanical sort of nostalgia, but without even that, Jae would have fallen into despair long ago.
That was why Jae only ever rested at bonfires, and that habit had continued until now. For him, rest meant sitting beside a bonfire and staring blankly into the flames.
Crackle, crackle
The sound of embers wavering as they irregularly filled the clearing.
Even though he had lit a fire in the middle of the night, there was no one living nearby to complain about his actions.
How long had Jae been staring blankly at the bonfire like that?
“……”
Sensing movement nearby, Jae rose to his feet.
There was no hostility in the air, but the mere fact that someone had intruded into a clearing he had already confirmed to be empty was reason enough for Jae to go on guard.
“Um….”
Swish!
At the same moment a figure emerged from the darkness, Jae drew a longsword from thin air and thrust.
“Ack?!”
Fortunately, the person who appeared did not end up with a hole in his body.
That was partly because the one who had been attacked twisted away with superhuman reflexes, and partly because Jae had never intended to take his life in the first place.
Jae brought the longsword to the man's waist and inspected his appearance.
The hair caught in the bonfire’s faint light was gold. There was, as expected, no hostility from the long-haired blond man.
Still, Jae did not lower the longsword.
It was not as if he had sensed someone approaching from far away; it was closer to the sudden appearance of a presence. There was no reason not to stay cautious.
“It, it’s dangerous, so could you put that away…!”
“……”
Even after the man's earnest plea, Jae remained wary and ignored him.
Kannazuki was going out of his mind.
He had come here at the command of Commander Kotori, intending to persuade the Knight, and yet the man was suddenly showing hostility toward him.
Not only that, but he was threatening to cut open Kannazuki’s waist with a sword Kannazuki had no idea when he had drawn.
If he could turn back time, he would not have listened to Kotori’s order.
“Hah? You’re not going? And this is my order? Looks like your brain finally broke.”
No. If it were him, he would have obeyed Kotori’s order for sure.
“……”
While Kannazuki felt his life threatened, Jae sorted out his thoughts.
He was not dangerous.
Though he did have a somewhat unusual presence, that power was too weak to harm him.
In the first place, even if the man did cause harm, Jae was already undead. He was difficult to kill, and even if he died, he would not stay dead. So Jae judged that the man could do him no real harm.
And so Jae sheathed the longsword.
“Hah, haah….”
Kannazuki let out a sigh of relief.
If this had gone on any longer, it would have been the worst-case scenario.
“Ahem. It seems there was a misunderstanding.”
As expected of the vice commander and vice captain, Kannazuki quickly regained his composure and said that.
But Jae did not understand a word of it.
“……”
It was the first language he had ever heard in his life, so Jae simply stared at him in silence.
“Um, could you at least say something….”
Feeling uneasy, Kannazuki pleaded with Jae, but Jae still did not understand and only kept staring at him.
Kannazuki grew anxious at Jae’s silence.
He had to bring the Knight back quickly. That way he could receive Commander Kotori’s praise, laced with insults. Of course, even if he failed, the scolding that came with it was also appealing….
“Could it be….”
After brushing aside his random thoughts, Kannazuki came up with one possibility.
The Knight might not know Japanese.
As if proving his guess, Jae shrugged as though he could not understand a thing Kannazuki was saying.
Clink, clink
With Jae’s movement, the sound of armor rang out.
“Uh, um. So….”
This was a difficult situation.
He did not know what language the Knight could speak.
He had to persuade Jae before anyone else found that bonfire and bring him to Fraxinus, but they could not communicate.
In the end, what Kannazuki chose in this awkward situation was to blurt out every other language he knew.
“N, Knight…?”
“……”
In the middle of saying that, Jae opened his mouth.
“……Knight. Is that my name?”
The question came in a deep, rough voice.
The only word he kept hearing was Knight.
Since the other man kept saying Knight while looking at him, Jae realized that the man in front of him was calling him “Knight.”
Whether that was a name used only by this man or one others also used to address him, he did not know. But it was clear that Knight was the name currently given to him.
“...!”
When Jae finally spoke, relief spread across Kannazuki’s face.
If they could just communicate, he could persuade him.
But if there was one thing he had not considered, it was that Kannazuki also could not understand Jae’s language.
In the first place, the only two languages Jae remembered were the language of the world he had lived in as Jae, like Lothric and Irithyll, and the faint remnants of a language from before he became Jae.
The latter had long since been nearly forgotten, leaving him with only one word he remembered.
So the language he had just spoken was the former—the language of the world where he had lived as Jae—and there was no way Kannazuki could know it.
Still, that was fine.
Because Kannazuki was not the only one speaking with Jae right now.
[He’s asking whether Knight is his name.]
The interpreter, Reine Murasame.
That irreplaceable asset analyzed Jae’s thought patterns in real time and translated the language he spoke.
With Reine’s help, Kannazuki began to communicate with Jae.
“It’s just a temporary alias I gave you because I didn’t know your name. If you don’t mind me asking, what was your original name?”
“...Hyun.”
The name he quietly gave was Hyun.
That was the last word Jae remembered from the world before he became Jae.
“Ah, yes. Hyun.”
“Why did you approach me?”
Jae, Hyun, asked that.
He asked the man who had approached him while he was merely resting what his purpose was.
Kannazuki decided to get straight to the point.
“Well… that sword? Or whatever I should call it. I’d like you to put that away. This is land with an owner….”
The first thing that needed to be dealt with was the spiral sword Hyun had planted in the ground, and the bonfire that had arisen from it.
For that reason, Kannazuki made his request politely.
“...My apologies.”
At his plea, Hyun nodded and pulled out the spiral sword.
Then the bonfire sank away as if it were being absorbed into the ground and disappeared.
When Jae pushed the still-warm spiral sword into the air, the sword vanished as well.
“Oh ho….”
Kannazuki watched the strange sight intently, but there was nothing else to see.
The power of a being unlike a Spirit, yet just as unusual as one, looked extremely useful.
“...Was there something else?”
After dealing with the bonfire, Hyun asked Kannazuki again, and he brought up the second point.
“Hyun, do you still not know much about this world?”
“……”
Hyun nodded.
The fragments of memory that remained faintly in his mind clearly insisted that he knew the modern world, but he knew nothing about Tengu City. It was only natural, since this was a world completely different from the one before he became Jae.
So Hyun nodded, and Kannazuki made him an offer.
“Then why not come with us? We can teach you about this world.”
“……”
It was a meaningful offer.
What Kannazuki had said was certainly something Hyun needed, but more than that, the proposal itself was far too suspicious.
There was nothing more unbelievable than someone offering help without expecting any compensation.
In the world where he had lived as Jae, no one had ever acted without seeking a price.
At least, had Anri done so without asking for anything in return?
Other than her, the Fire Keeper had wanted the linking of the fire, and everyone else had dealt with Jae for their own purposes.
So Jae doubted Kannazuki’s words.
“You don’t need to be suspicious. In exchange, Hyun, you can do us a favor. It’s a trade.”
“...And what favor would that be?”
“It’s simple. We’d like you to protect a boy.”
The boy who would soon join Ratatoskr and begin making his mark, Itsuka Shido.
He needed an escort.
Since the beings Shido would face were Spirits, the person guarding him should ideally possess combat power on par with the front line.
Kotori had ordered Kannazuki to recruit the Knight if possible.
“……”
At Kannazuki’s proposal, Hyun fell into thought.
Was it really right to accept that offer?
Even if he had become the Lord of Cinder by linking the fire, even if he was undead, it would be impossible to live alone in this world.
Strictly speaking, surviving would be possible, but there was no doubt that all kinds of problems would arise in the process.
Then accepting that man’s offer would probably be the better choice.
“……,”
Hyun nodded.
And so the undead who had appeared in Tengu City joined Ratatoskr.
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