Chapter 14: If I’m Alone at Night, At Least Let Me Monologue a Bit

Karen-san and I called for Raiga and discussed how to handle night watch duty.

Between Raiga and Karen-san, they could easily deal with most monsters. But if someone slit our throats while we slept, that’d be a real problem. Waking up to find your head separated from your body—no thanks. Better safe than sorry.

Since there were three of us, we settled on a three-person rotation. We planned to get around nine hours of sleep in total, so each shift would be three hours. A simple and clear breakdown.

If that were all, there’d be no need to discuss it. The important part was the order.

The second shift was the hardest—the person in the middle.
The first and third people could get a solid block of sleep, but the second got stuck with two awkward naps.

“I’ll take it,” Raiga volunteered without hesitation.

I had no objections. Karen-san, on the other hand, looked a little apologetic.

So I proposed, “How about we go me, then Raiga, then Karen-san? We’ll rotate the order each day. That sound good?”

Raiga insisted he was fine always taking the middle shift, but I talked him down with: “If our strongest fighter Raiga ends up sleep-deprived and sick, it defeats the whole purpose.” He reluctantly agreed.

Honestly, I’d thought about this from the start.

It felt wrong to dump all the burden on one person. If I was going to sleep, I wanted to do it guilt-free, without any worries.

Raiga looked at me and asked, “You sure you’re okay by yourself?”

I appreciated the concern, but it wasn’t necessary. “Sleep while you can!” I said, practically shoving him into the men’s tent.

…Still, this is going to be a pain if we’re doing it every night.

Thinking that, I plopped down in front of the campfire.

…It didn’t feel bad, being worried about.

Back when I was still a student on Earth, I had this mindset that I had to survive on my own. And the pride that I could do it.

On Earth, there were laws, punishments, a society that protected people.

Push comes to shove, as long as you had money and an identity, you could live by yourself.

I felt like I had to be independent. That obsession was my way of honoring my parents, who died young.

Fortunately, the inheritance they left behind was more than enough to support me until adulthood.

But that was Earth.

In this world, I can’t survive alone.

Take today, for instance—those goblins and orcs we met.

If one of them got close to me… could I survive?

—No way.

I’m weak.

The sheer uselessness of it made tears well up. It was pathetic.

It’s not that I hate people.

I’m just a coward.

You never know when someone will die. That fear makes me afraid to connect with others. I’m terrified of bonding with someone, only to lose them.

It’s annoying to admit it to him to his face… but I’m really glad I’m not alone.

If I’d been dropped into this world by myself, I think I would’ve broken. Being turned into a girl out of nowhere and told to fight a “demon dragon”? What a sick joke.

And alone, there’s no way I’d ever make it to that demon dragon’s lair.

“Sniff…”

The fire crackled gently.

For some reason, I just started crying.

Maybe it’s the loneliness of being alone in a forest at night. Makes a person emotional.

After a good cry—

“Aaah… that felt better,” I said, refreshed.

Apparently, crying really does relieve stress. I felt a lot lighter afterward.

Even while crying, I’d been casting the 【Detection Sonar】 spell at regular intervals. About once a minute, just going by feel.

It’s hard to control, but it takes barely any mana. Honestly, 【Detection Sonar】 is super handy.

Noticing that my shift was about to end, I headed off to wake Raiga.

“Yikes!”

A cold sensation hit my back out of nowhere, and I let out a dumb yelp.

“Yuto!”

I snapped awake and shouted. There was only one person who would pull something like this under these circumstances.

“Raiga, you up? It’s your fault for being so impossible to wake,” she said.

I started to glare at her… then noticed she was wearing something like sleepwear.

It was pretty revealing. The outfit she got from the elves must’ve been high-quality, because under the firelight, it was just a little see-through.

I doubt she even realized I was flustered. Just a week ago, she was still a guy. Yuto is way too defenseless.

Which is probably why she could barge into a guy’s sleeping area without hesitation.

“Alright, I’m off to bed. I’ll leave the rest to you.”

With just that, Yuto turned and walked away.

“Haaah…”

I let out a sigh as I added more firewood to the campfire.

The flame itself was sustained by magic, so technically, the wood wasn’t necessary. And the stuff I’d picked up was greenwood anyway—full of moisture, unlikely to catch fire.

Still, it’s a mood thing.

I’d seen a scene like this in a movie once.

Being alone at night gets you thinking.

—That mission dumped on us out of nowhere. Yuto turning into a girl. And me… not knowing how to even begin to gauge the distance between us.

I confessed on impulse, but now I don’t know what to do.

Saying “I like you” like it’s an afterthought—there was no mood, no buildup, nothing.

I kept sighing and staring into the fire, letting time pass.

“But still…”

Next time, it’s my turn to wake her up in the women’s tent...

That’s going to be awkward.

What if I catch myself staring at her peaceful, defenseless sleeping face?

I woke up to Raiga-sama calling me. It was my turn to take the watch.

His face was unexpectedly close, and it startled me. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest.

But once I calmed down, the sight of his large frame awkwardly cramped in the women’s tent struck me as oddly funny.

Maybe he noticed my almost-smirking face, because he asked:

“Something wrong?”

“Not at all.”

I straightened my expression.

“Please, rest well, Raiga-sama.”

With that, I exited the tent.

Naturally, Raiga-sama couldn’t stay sleeping in the women’s tent, so he followed me out. Just before leaving, he gave a brief glance at Yuto-sama’s innocent sleeping face.

...Was it just my imagination, or did that look seem to carry something more than friendship?

Then Raiga-sama quietly made his way back to the men’s tent alone.

...Spending the day with them had made it all the clearer. Those two are really close.

At first glance, Yuto-sama might seem cold or distant toward Raiga-sama, but the trust is clear in her every word. And Raiga-sama, for his part, clearly tries to live up to that trust.

—Thinking about that made a sharp pain sting in my chest.

Trying to shake off the bad thoughts, I decided to practice magic.

【Detection Sonar】. The spell Yuto-sama had used so casually earlier today. True, it requires very little mana—just like how one drop of water is enough to ripple a pond. But interpreting the ripples is the hard part—like trying to hear a pin drop from thousands of mel away.

—Imagine a single drop falling into a vast bowl of water.

Drawing out a trace amount of mana, I wove the image together carefully in my mind.

“To see a thousand li ahead and sense the enemies around me—【Detection Sonar】!”

I whispered the chant, careful not to wake the others.

The result—

Failure.

The mana just spread outward. Nothing came back.

I tried again and again, but not once did it succeed.

The mana cost was almost negligible, but the mental fatigue was real.

Maybe I was too focused, too tense. Before I knew it, the sky was beginning to brighten. The morning sun, faint behind the miasmic haze, stung my eyes.

“Why… can’t I do it…?”

Yuto-sama—the ‘Saint’ who doesn’t fight.

In just one week, she was already handling advanced magic like it was second nature. Effortlessly weaving mana in ways I couldn’t manage even after decades.

And me…

—I…

—Is it because I lost my stigmata? Because I’m a false ‘Saint’?

Dark thoughts sank to the bottom of my heart.

I fought hard not to cry. I didn’t want either of them to notice. I struggled to steady my breathing and bring my expression back to normal.