The Protagonist's Party is Too Diligent

Yeah, I knew things were progressing way too fast.

Not that I minded things moving quickly.

I actually preferred it this way, rather than wasting time overthinking every little thing. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

The problem was when the story didn’t progress the way I expected.

Thinking about it, this was always a possibility.

Claire had used this relic when she crossed over the first time.

I hadn’t considered that it might also be able to pull people here, but... it made sense if you thought about it.

After all, it was a device designed to steal the goddess’s power—and it had worked to some extent.

“So, this place...”

Charlotte slowly walked around the room, inspecting everything as she spoke.

“This is where you lived before coming to Azerna, right? It’s obvious that this is a different world just by looking at the objects here. There are things I’ve never seen before.”

Her gaze lingered for a moment on Claire’s smartphone.

For the record, we had only dropped our backpacks onto the floor.

Changing clothes in front of Claire and Alice wasn’t a big deal anymore, but Charlotte and Mia were a different story.

If anything, it was Charlotte and Mia who needed new clothes, not us.

Neither of them had any major visible injuries, but their outfits were practically rags—just like when we had first arrived in this world.

“...There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

I spoke to Charlotte.

“How much time has passed over there since we disappeared?”

“Hmm.”

Charlotte narrowed her eyes at us.

We, of course, were dressed in fresh clothes. No way were we going to keep wearing outfits that had holes ripped in the sides.

We hadn’t thrown them away, just in case, but honestly, given their condition, we weren’t going to wear them again.

“Maybe about five minutes. Barely enough time to realize you were gone and start searching.”

At her answer, Alice, Claire, and I exchanged glances.

“I’d like to ask the same thing. How much time passed for you after coming here?”

“A little over a month.”

“......”

Hearing that, Charlotte closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Then she turned to Mia.

It wasn’t just Charlotte— Claire, Alice, and I also instinctively looked at her.

“I-I don’t know! We were just investigating the remaining ruins!”

Startled by the sudden attention, Mia flailed like a scared little animal.

“It’s true. Mia and I were nearby.”

Charlotte closed her eyes again, searching her memory.

“We were investigating the device made to steal the goddess’s power... when this happened.”

“......”

What is this, Digim●n?

“...Anyway.”

Charlotte pressed her fingers against her temples and muttered,

“That means you three have been living here for weeks now.”

“......”

“And if we’re not careful, we might end up spending even more time here ourselves.”

Oh...

Yeah, that’s... right.

Since none of us answered, Charlotte let out a long, deep sigh.

*

Still, we needed to sleep eventually.

It was lucky we hadn’t folded up the blankets yet when we were rushing to leave. Otherwise, we’d have had to set everything up all over again.

Of course, we still had to unpack all the stuff we packed earlier and change into something more comfortable.

We managed to find clothes for Charlotte and Mia too.

Charlotte’s size was pretty close to Alice’s... and Mia borrowed Claire’s clothes, though it looked ridiculous— like a kid wearing a school uniform two sizes too big, bought in hopes she would grow into it.

We’d definitely have to go shopping for them tomorrow.

Anyway, after awkwardly changing clothes, the five of us gathered around, sitting and facing each other.

Luckily, the room wasn’t too cramped— although, honestly, five people living here was pushing it. Still, it wasn’t impossible to manage.

If anyone tossed and turned in their sleep, they'd probably wake everyone else up instantly.

And frankly, we didn’t even have enough blankets.

Charlotte and Mia hadn’t been prepared to sleep here at all, and we three weren’t exactly in the mood to sleep anymore either, so we decided to just sit and talk for a bit.

“Magic doesn’t work in this world?”

Given Mia’s strong magical talent, I thought she would be devastated. But her eyes sparkled with fascination instead.

“But the relic is still glowing.”

True.

“We don’t really understand it either. But at least in this world, magic wasn’t the foundation of civilization.”

“Oooh...”

"...We can explain it properly starting tomorrow."

“And there’s no monarchy here either?”

“Yeah.”

Alice answered Charlotte’s question.

“It’s not that monarchies don’t exist at all, but at least this country isn’t one. It’s a full republic... We’ll explain that in detail tomorrow too.”

Even Alice, who had to learn all this stuff after arriving, looked like her head hurt just thinking about explaining it.

“......”

And then silence again.

Hmm.

How should I put it?

I thought when we met again, it would feel overwhelmingly joyful.

And it was. It really was.

But you know that feeling— when you haven’t seen a friend in years, and you get super excited to meet up, but after a few minutes, they casually say,

"Mind if I crash at your place for a while?"

It’s that kind of complicated feeling.

If I were still a teenager or a college kid, I would’ve thought it sounded fun and exciting.

Unfortunately, even in this body, my soul still very much recognized itself as being in its thirties.

Yeah. Of course.

It’s not like they wanted to come here.

......

They didn’t choose this.

“No need to overthink it.”

I was the one who broke the silence.

“From what we heard, even if we spend some time here, it’s unlikely that so much time will pass over there that we can’t resolve things when we return.”

“That’s true, but...”

Charlotte said, looking conflicted, but I cut her off by raising my hand.

“You’re here now. Might as well stay comfortably. The event already happened, and looking at the relic’s condition, it doesn’t seem like we’ll be able to return right away anyway.”

“I’m sorry, unni...”

“It’s fine. It’s not your fault, Claire.”

Technically, it’s the goddess’s fault.

Honestly, we didn’t even know if Claire was responsible for bringing Charlotte and Mia here. It might just be that the goddess, in one last spiteful move, dragged them here.

We had no way to communicate with her, so we’d never know the truth.

"And even though the place is a bit cramped, living here isn’t so bad."

"...It does seem that way."

Charlotte said that, glancing at Alice with an expression of ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) suppressed frustration.

Because even in Charlotte’s eyes, the change in Alice was painfully obvious.

Alice had brightened so much since coming here— not just emotionally, but physically. Her skin, her hair— everything about her had become noticeably healthier.

Of course, the better soap and shampoo here helped, but compared to Claire’s minor changes, Alice’s improvement was overwhelming.

The biggest factor had to be stress.

Especially from Charlotte’s point of view— it must have been shocking, seeing how different Alice looked just five minutes after their timeline.

Alice, sensing Charlotte’s gaze, awkwardly looked away.

"Yeah, that’s right! There’s plenty of fun stuff to do here too!"

"No, we’re not exactly in a situation where we should be ‘having fun’—"

Charlotte tried to object—

Gurgle.

"......"

The sound cut her off immediately.

The source of the noise was painfully obvious.

Everyone turned to stare at Mia, whose face gradually turned bright red.

Well.

If they had just come from a final battle, of course they’d be starving.

Mia always had a bigger appetite than her petite frame suggested anyway.

I slowly stood up.

There should still be some food left in the kitchen cabinet. Aside from the spicy instant stuff I usually ate, there was probably a cream pasta meal kit.

"I’ll make something to eat."

"A-ah, no, you don’t have to—!"

"I’ll help!"

"Unni, anything I can do?"

No, not really. It’s just a meal kit. You just rip it open and heat it up.

...Still, they probably felt awkward too, sitting around with Charlotte and Mia.

Better to have something to do.