After Jae followed Kannazuki into Fraxinus, he arrived at the captain’s room at once.
“Welcome, Hyun.”
Greeting him was the girl with the red ponytail, Itsuka Kotori.
She was speaking from a script she had asked Reine to translate for her.
At Kotori’s welcome, Jae gave a small nod.
“First, you heard what Kannazuki told you, right?”
As she said that, Kotori motioned toward Kannazuki with her chin. Jae glanced at Kannazuki, then turned back to Kotori and nodded again.
Jae remained as taciturn as ever, and Kotori felt a faint headache coming on. Still, she forced it down with the fact that they had secured a Spirit-class combatant, and continued speaking.
“From here on out, we’re going to help you adapt to this world. We’ll start with basic language and teach you about the culture, too. In exchange, you’ll be escorting one of our important people.”
“……”
Escort. Protecting someone.
Jae did have memories of doing that sort of thing. When he traveled with Henri, there had even been times when the three of them fought together with Horace to protect her.
The only problem was the gap between that world and this one, and he had to think about how escorting should be done here.
Whether to “eliminate” danger, “prevent” it, or “defend” against it. None of those options were dangerous to Jae.
So Jae nodded once more. It meant agreement.
“Good. Nice and straightforward. Oh, and for reference, there’s only one person here who can speak with you naturally, so she’ll be your dedicated contact. Reine?”
“……Understood.”
The only woman aboard Fraxinus who could hold a natural conversation accepted the commander’s order.
Even now, Kotori was only speaking haltingly, and Reine, who handled the actual interpretation, was the only one who could converse with Jae naturally.
Jae looked at the woman whose name had been called, and felt a sense of unease.
“...A monster.”
The power he sensed was considerable. It was enough to make him wonder whether the souls possessed by the kings who had inherited the fire all along had been that vast. Such immense power radiated from Reine.
But it was nothing he needed to worry about. Even if that woman tried to harm him, death was not a privilege granted to Jae, and she had no reason to do him harm in the first place.
“……You are listening properly, right?”
When Jae, who was following her, said nothing, Reine asked that.
It would be troublesome to explain everything again, so he had to have been listening.
“...My apologies.”
“……Ah.”
Her dark circles grew even deeper today.
#
Before becoming Jae, Hyun had lived in a world similar to the one he had come to now. Perhaps because of that, he did not run into any major difficulties while receiving Reine’s instruction.
While Hyun was being taught, Kotori watched his emotional graph.
“It hasn’t changed from zero.”
When Kannazuki first approached him, she had truly thought something terrible was about to happen.
The man who had shown no threat at all toward the police officer who first spoke to Jae had suddenly swung a sword at Kannazuki.
But that had only gone as far as wariness toward the other party, and in the record of the situation at the time, Jae’s emotional value had shown no change at all.
There was only one thing that could mean.
“It seems he has no emotions.”
Jae, Hyun, had no such thing as emotions. More precisely, it would be more accurate to say his emotions had been “broken.”
Judging from the fact that the day Jae first appeared his mood plunged into the negative, then later rose back up to zero.
“It must have broken for some reason back then.”
She did not know why. From their perspective, Jae was simply an unknown figure who had suddenly appeared, and a person of concern.
There was no way to know the thoughts he carried, either.
Even so, the fact that someone who looked human had no emotions left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Moreover, because she knew it was “broken,” Kotori let out a sigh, feeling that bitterness.
“Haa……”
Of course, she only felt pity. She could not actively help him. There was no method, and if she carelessly stepped in to help, she did not know what kind of problems it might cause. If he had been a Spirit, it would have been easier.
“Hyun isn’t a Spirit.”
Hyun was not a Spirit, but something else. It was uncertain whether Shido’s power would even work on him.
In the end, there was no solution. Only bitterness and unease remained.
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