"Shameful.
There's no more accurate way to describe my current feelings than this.
This thought has been smoldering in my heart since I entered this forest ...... no, since I escaped the castle with Sato and the others and had my first battle.
While all the boys can fight except me, I'm behind Tsuda's shield with the girls.
A trainer is basically a profession that does not allow one to participate in battle, but this is not the case when one can use a demon as an emissary.
And yet, I can only use animals at the moment.
I know that I can't use it unless I raise my level.
But I can't help but get distracted.
Even if I leveled up, the other guys were raising their levels even more in that time.
Even if they were in the same party, the difference in the levels of those who were fighting demons and those who weren't would inevitably widen.
It couldn't be helped that even if you tried to raise it through training, there was more experience in fighting demons than in fighting demons.
Until now, there were plenty of excuses like that.


''Even if that's the case, there's no way.


It was Hosoyama who inflicted the fatal wound in the battle with the whale demon.
He was a healer, and despite his profession, which was supposed to have a lower basic status value than mine, he killed such a large demon with one finger.
There was no excuse for this anymore.
The excuse I had been telling myself was that it was because of the difference in professions no longer worked.
If Hosoyama, a healer, could do it, there was no reason I couldn't.
Even if it wasn't the skill 'bad food' that Hosoyama was using, I would still be able to fight him.


''I'm an idiot even though I'm .......


Middle school and high school were both places where I came to do club work, not study, so I never studied outside of the pre-test club ban period and the assignments I was given.
I'm especially bad at subjects that require flexible thinking.


''Waki-kun, what's wrong?''

Tsuda, who was washing the tools he used to cook the meal with me in the nearby river, looked up in response to my mutterings.
Come to think of it, this guy was near me.
He's been thin in the air since we were in class, or maybe not as thin as Oda, but it's hard to tell his presence.
Or rather, I don't remember talking to this guy much.
On top of that, he tilts his head with a woman's face and looks up at you, which makes me feel weird.


"No, whatever ......

'Oh, did you have any trouble with Hosoyama-san's skills earlier?


My voice was muffled when I said it was nothing, and I was even more brazen.
You're right! I tilted my head at Tsuda, who was looking at me with glittering eyes, wondering if this guy was this kind of character.
No, I just didn't see it, but he may have been showing this kind of appearance to his nearby friends.
He's surprisingly friendly, isn't he?
At this point, I opened my mouth to ask him about it.
He's probably smarter than me.


I've been thinking that if a non-combat profession healer can defeat a demon by taking away its life force, then I should be able to defeat it somehow too. I'm not that smart, so what do you have in mind?

'Hmmm, how to fight a trainer: ......'


Tsuda crossed his arms and tilted his head back, thinking seriously.
I smiled a little and watched him.

I never thought that Tsuda, who had been living quietly in the corner of the classroom, and I, who had been fooling around in the middle of the classroom, would end up traveling together.
I'm surprisingly happy with this life.
Sometimes I miss my mother's cooking, but it's refreshing to not hear her nagging voice.
The club activities that we worked so hard for every day are probably being let down as regulars because of this, and the flow of time between them is not always the same to begin with.
The tournament you were aiming for may have ended, and it's possible that you may be in a world hundreds of years later, just like Urashima Taro.
Since there was another world, it could be that one, too.


''I think trainers are fatally unsuited to killing demons,''


I looked up with a huff.
Come to think of it, I was in the middle of talking to Tsuda about it.


'What makes you think that?'


I felt something hit my feet, and I looked to see the cat, who was with me enough to be my partner, rubbing his head against my lap.
I guess I used it in the castle before the monkeys did.
I pick the cat up and give him a gentle pat on the head.
A rumbling and relaxing sound came from the cat.


I'm not sure if this is the case, but trainers are supposed to tame animals and demons like that, right? So I think what you should be thinking about, Waki-kun, is not killing demons, but taming them.


I nodded my head.
If that happens, I'll go back to what I was thinking in the beginning.
I can't say that I'm still not at the right level to use a demon.
After all, what am I supposed to do now?


I think a trainer can do more than just use the boy. That boy trusted you from the bottom of his heart and followed you here. It's not because he's forced to use her. Is it impossible to do that kind of thing with a demon you've never met before?


I'm starting to understand.
The bottom line is that the trust that the cat and I have built up in each other can be used against a demon with a single blow using magic.
It's impossible to do that with just hand-to-hand tactics, but it's possible with magic.
Probably when it's completed, it will produce an effect similar to brainwashing.


Magic is a way for us to do the impossible. The more you think about it, the more you think about it, the more magic will return to you. That's what the knight who taught me in the castle told me.


I laughed at the hope I could see.
That's when I finally realized that I hadn't been laughing at myself before.
I might have worried everyone else.
He patted Tsuda on the back with the hand opposite the hand that held the cat that had fallen asleep in his arms.
Tsuda is as slender as a woman, so of course he took it easy on her.


''Wha!''

'Thank you! You've given me an idealistic vision!


I stand up with the tools and cat in my arms.


"And you shouldn't wear the 'mon' thing as a man, you know. You look good in it, but you don't like it, do you?


I hadn't been involved in the classroom, but I had been living with them since I got here.
I could see what everyone was trying to do and what their goals were.