SIDE: Kite.
"Your mission is to protect humanity and defeat the evil one's messengers. It's not too late. I've asked you.
　Human prosperity?　An emissary of the Evil One?

...... Where are we?
　I found myself lying in a strange room.
　I sat up, puzzled by the hard stone floor.

"Where am I?
　I rubbed my eyes ...... quickly as I tried to look around every corner of the room, searching for the memories until I passed out.
　Maybe it was a dream gone wrong.　It was filled with a scene so bizarre that I thought .

　I was surrounded by a group of ...... that looked like something you would find in a picture book or history textbook, and the floor where I was laying was covered with symbols and letters that I couldn't understand at all, and I couldn't tell if they were symbols or not.
　The most surprising thing was ...... when I saw a girl on her knees in front of me, with her eyes closed and her hands folded in prayer.
　A girl with a bright red dress and beautiful blonde hair .
　No, is this more love at first sight than surprise?
　The way they were praying was so beautiful, so beautiful.

''Oh~''
It's working.
So the future of the kingdom is bright.
You did it, my king.

　As I was gazing at the beautiful girl in front of me, the quietness of the room suddenly became noisy.
　Then a big, fat man and a thin, light-haired man with a black collar came walking toward me.

"Elaine, thank you. You can go now.

Okay. ......
　The big, fat man spoke to me, and the beautiful girl opened her eyes, looked up ...... and locked eyes with me.
　We stared at each other in silence, not saying a word, not changing our expressions.
　The girl's eyes were unusually crisp, which added a little bit of coolness to my image of her as beautiful and pretty.

'What's wrong?'

No, no, no, I'll be off then.
　When the thin-headed man, worried that the girl was not moving, spoke to her, she huffed and stepped backwards.
　Then the two old men came in front of me to replace the girl.

Nice to meet you. May we ask your name?

What's your name?　It's Kite.

Mr. Kite? My name is Lambros Beckman and I'm the Prime Minister of this country. And this is His Majesty Clairhants, the King of the land.

Hi. How do you do?
　What is it?　I don't know what that means. Poppy?　The king?　I don't know why, but I have no idea what he's talking about.
　It's true that this guy is dressed in a pompous outfit, but without that, he looks like an old man out there.

Don't introduce yourself. Ramroth, get on with it and put a collar on that man.
　The old man, who was introduced as the king, gave the old man a high and mighty order.

Yes, sir. I'll leave you to it.

What?
　Suddenly I thought that old man Saishou had his hand on my neck, and he had a hard collar on me.
　I gasped and went to touch the collar to take it off, but he caught my hand.

It's necessary for you to live in this world. Don't ever take it off. Always wear it on at all times, okay?

'What?　Oh, I see: ...... yes.
　I was so bombarded with information that I couldn't make a right decision, and I was convinced that this was how it should be.

Hmmm. So you are going to do your best to make this country great again?
　Working hard?　What is this guy talking about?
　Just as he was thinking about this, the king started to walk towards the door with a satisfied look on his face.

'Wha?　Huh?　Do you have a better explanation than that?
　Where am I? I need to know where I am and why I'm here. I need to ask you some questions.

'Is that a detailed explanation?　Yes. ...... Princess, could you tell me about this world, Kite?
　The old man stopped at my words, and after thinking for a moment, he grinned and turned his attention to the girl from earlier and said something like that.
　Princess?　Huh?　Are you a princess?　So beautiful on the street.

Yeah. Elaine, you're up.



Yes ......
　The princess was expressionless as she replied to the king's words, but I could sense a hint of discontent in her voice.

''I'm counting on you .
　After saying that, the king and his men left the room.
　I would have liked to have had you two, the most important people in the room, to explain it to me.
　Whispering these complaints in my mind, I turned to the princess.

''......''
......
　Huh?　You gotta talk to me. I'm not the one who understands this situation at all, okay?
　The princess opened her mouth to see if those feelings were understood.
　Just ......
Okay, follow me.
　That's all he said.

'Yes, yes ......'

　Then the princess showed me to a luxurious room.
　Even to a layman like me, the walls are decorated with expensive jewelry and other ornaments.
　It's a very uncomfortable room. .......
　With that in mind, I took a seat across the desk from the princess.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Elemenane Alvar. Please call me Elaine.

''Well, uh, ...... me, no, I'm Kaito Emi Emi Emi Emi, no, I'm Kaito Emi. Please call me Kite.
　To the princess's polite words, I responded in an uncool way.
　I mean, what would happen if I suddenly tried to use a term of endearment that I don't normally use?

You don't have to use honorifics if you don't want to, do you?
　I don't know if I was being too respectful, but the princess made me an offer.

"Well, uh, ...... then. I don't usually use honorifics ....... Elaine, no honorifics, please.

Don't you usually use honorific language?　What do you mean ......?　Could it be that you, no, Master Kite was a famous nobleman in the original world?
　Hmm?　Oh, since there's a king in this country, will there be nobility and stuff.

No. - No. No. - The people of the people. There weren't any nobles in the original world. So let's just talk to her without the polite speech. No, I'm the princess, so I have to use honorific speech.
　Well, even in my former world, there were people who actually had to use respectful words for teachers and such.
　I was always allowed to talk to them in a friendly manner.

'You don't have to worry about the fact that I'm a princess. You're a hero from today. The brave woman is technically the highest in the land.

　Formality?　Well, never mind. It doesn't matter.
'My hero?　Is a brave man in that story?
　The kind of thing you'd expect a kindergartner to read in a storybook or something?

'What?　Does your world have a story about a brave soul?

'Well, I guess there is: ....... Maybe a story about a princess being captured by a dragon and going to save her?
　I used my hazy memory to make up a story about a random hero.
　I mean, how many stories like this could there be if you looked all over the world?
　I don't usually read books other than textbooks, so I don't understand.

...... I didn't know there were dragons and stuff in your world.

'What?　Wait a minute. What do you mean your world has dragons too?　Are there dragons in this world?
　I thought you were caught up in some kind of time warp?　Or, I guess I expected to, but seriously, have we come to a different world?

'What?　No?　They're rare in this world. There's a great mountain range far to the east, and many dragons live in it.

Wow, ...... that mountain sounds really dangerous.
　And it's been confirmed after hearing this story that we're not on Earth .
　I don't know how I ended up in this world: ...... It's more likely, or at least makes sense, that someone is forcing me to watch this crazy dream.

"There's no danger. Hasn't mankind ever slayed a dragon?　Even the previous heroes who defeated the Demon King could barely turn away a stray dragon that wandered into the human village.

'Huh ...... there were brave men and women from the previous generation. For that matter, what do you mean by a dragon more powerful than the Demon King?　Is it like in a game, a back-up boss that comes out after you've completed the game?　I don't like it: ...... or you can't leave without defeating a dragon.


　How did the brave men of the previous generation get back to the world they came from?

'What are you talking about?　You can't go home now, can you?

What?
　What did you just say?

So you have to stay in this world until you die.
　Do I have to stay ...... in this world ...... until I die?

Really?

I'm serious. As a matter of fact, the brave man who preceded you even had grandchildren and died when he was a grandfather.

That's right: ......
　That sounds like a happy life to me: .......
　I just don't think that future exists for me .

'Hey, is your world such a disappointing one that you would be so disappointed if you were brought here?'

Well, I don't know. It's a world that's probably been civilized for three or four hundred years.
　From the looks of it, there's a light three-hundred-year difference between this room, which doesn't seem to have electricity, and the way people in this world are dressed, right?
　If you asked me to live in that world today for the rest of my life, I wouldn't be happy about it.

Four hundred years. ...... So the jewels here aren't so much in that world over there then?

No, it's not. Jewelry is very rare and expensive there too. Maybe if I had continued to live my life as usual over there, I would never have had the opportunity to be surrounded by such amazing jewelry.
　You'd have to go to a museum or something. Well, I'm not interested in museums, and it wasn't an exaggeration to say the rest of my life.

Yeah, yeah. ......

That's great, though. If you wanted to collect all this stuff, you'd have to have enough money to live a dozen lifetimes playing with it. Is this something that's been collected by royalty for generations?
　Do you think they've been hanging in this room for generations with things they've gotten from the public's donations or something?

No, the things in this room are things I've collected over the last few years.
　Huh?　Hélène?　In a few years?
　You're kidding, right?　You're just kidding to make me laugh, right?

'What?　Is it okay to spend that much money?
　If it's true, ...... is Elaine's country so rich that it's safe to buy this much jewelry?

Yeah, it's okay. Because I'm a princess in this country.
　No, that's not what I meant: .......

'Yeah ...... well, I don't know anything about this country yet and I won't go off on a tangent.'
　There's nothing to be gained by prying further into the matter and upsetting Hélène.

Yes. Do that. There's more to it than that, don't you want to know?

I know. Hey, what did I get called out for?　Do I have to take down a demon king?
　I have a lot of questions, but I guess that's a start.
　I really want to know what I was brought here for.

No. The Demon King was defeated about 50 years ago.

Then what do you do?　When I came over here, I felt like I was told to help humanity prosper and defeat the messengers of the evil gods, but how can I do that?
　Before I woke up over here, I felt like a voice had been thrown directly into my head like this: .......

'Yes, that's right . You are hereby invited to join the war against the evil messenger and the neighboring Vector Empire. You will defeat the messengers of the Evil One!
　Hmm?　Why are you so upset about this?　Maybe you've got something to be guilty of?
　Let's do some digging.

War?　And between people?

Yeah, I do.

Oh, God. I don't want to kill anybody.
　I'm serious about this, right?

'That's not what men say. It's your mission to take down the followers of the Evil One, isn't it?
　Huh?　The evil one's emissaries have been changed to believers!
　I knew something was wrong .

'Yeah ...... but will humanity thrive in a war?'

Isn't it obvious?　Because if we win, what belongs to that country will be ours.

But that's only for Hélène and her country, what about the country that lost?
　When you think of a losing country, humanity as a whole is going to die in the war, and wouldn't that be rather negative for humanity as a whole?

'Well, I don't know about that ......!　It's the loser's fault.


　Yeah, we got it all figured out.
　I was called in to benefit from Hélène's country winning the war.
　But you know what? ......

'Sure, there's a saying that it's more righteous to win, but it also applies when we lose, right?

So?　We're not going to lose.
　Wow. What's with the confidence.
　Sure, confidence is probably more important than anything else, but ...... there's nothing scarier than unfounded confidence, right?

...... Well, all right. Anyway, it looks like I'm gonna have to be in that war to survive here. So, what am I supposed to do?
　I guess I don't have veto power anymore, so we'll just have to worry about surviving in one piece.

Huh?　Isn't a brave man capable of defeating any opponent with a single sword?

What?
　You read too many comics. No. Doesn't this world have any comics?

Of course that's impossible. In the previous world, I was a normal student, living a life without war or killing each other, you know?　I don't have any experience in martial arts, so how am I supposed to survive on a single sword?
　It's making me sad to hear myself say that.
　I'm gonna be the first to die when the war starts.

I don't know. I didn't know that ...... brave men were so incompetent.
　Incompetence?　What are you talking about when you call yourself out?

I'm sorry for my incompetence. So, what are you gonna do about me being incompetent?
　Oh, wait. I know I was just trying to make you feel better about your words, but on second thought, no!
　And what do you see in front of you, a princess?　If you piss him off, he's going to be beheaded or something!
　Oh, my God. I'll be dead before the war comes.

"Well, you can't report ...... incompetence to your father and ...... right. I get it. There's something inside you that you don't know about. For now, I'm going to get you a sword teacher. I'll give you one year. You have one year to get strong.

That being said, ......
　I'm glad I don't have to be killed right now, but can I be strong in just one year?

Just go!　Just get some sleep today!　Somebody get a room for Kite!

'Haha ...... I've still got a few more questions to ask you: ......
　Giving up on saying anything more to Hélène, I left the room with the butler in a straightforward manner.