Chapter 75 - Volume 8 (1/2)

To Accomplish One’s Obligation

“… Endou?”

Hajime’s mutter made the black-clothed boy, Endou Kousuke, respond with “!,” a response similar to a certain cardboard-loving mercenary when an enemy appeared in a game. He kept looking around and began to shout as if he was irritated, because he could not find the one he was looking for.

“Nagumoo! Are you here!? Is it really you!? Where are you!? Nagumoo! Come out if you’re alive! Nagumo Hajimee—!”

Because his shout was too loud, one by one people began to shut their ears with their fingers. His voice was filled with desperation since he wanted to ascertain whether the should be dead classmate of his had survived.

Yue and the girls turned their gazes towards Hajime. With an expression as if he didn’t want to be involved in this, Hajime scratched his cheek and spoke towards Endou who repeatedly shouted his name out loud.

“Ah~, Endou? I can hear you just fine so stop repeatedly shouting my name.”

“!? Nagumo! Where are you!?”

Endou turned his face towards Hajime, reacting to Hajime’s voice. Hajime was inadvertently taken aback because Endou looked so desperate.

For a moment, Endou’s gaze met Hajime’s, but he immediately averted his gaze and began to look around again.

“Damn it! I can’t see him even though I can hear his voice! Is he a ghost now? As expected, he returned as a ghost!? So that’s why I cannot see him!?”

“No, I am right in front of you, you big idiot. Rather, calm down already. You whose thinness shadow ranked the best in the whole world.”

“!? Again, his voice!? Wait, whose shadow did you say was so thin that even the convenience store’s automatic door didn’t react to it and disappears from time to time! The automatic door opened at least one of three tries!”

“So, it didn’t open two times in three tries… as expected of you.”

After conversing that much, Endou finally noticed the source was the white-haired, eye-patched boy before him and he began to carefully observe Hajime’s face. Towards Hajime, who averted his face since he felt unpleasant due to not having a hobby where he’d be pleased from being watched by a man, Endou spoke as if he could not believe what he perceived.

“Y-You… are you… Nagumo?”

“Haa… yeah, that’s right. Though I look like this now, I am Nagumo Hajime.”

As he carefully observed Hajime from head to toe, Endou became dubious because Hajime was quite different from the one in his memory, but he finally believed Hajime after looking at his features and how he knew about the thinness of his shadow.

“So… you are alive.”

“Of course, after all I am right before you now.”

“Somehow, no you have completely changed… Your looks, atmosphere, and tone…”

“I crawled up from that abyss with my own power, you know? So, of course, I’ve changed.”

“I-Is that so? No, but, I see… You really are alive…”

Although Endou was perplexed by Hajime’s blunt attitude, his gaze softened as he was relieved that the classmate he thought to be dead was alive. No matter how he envied him like the other boys because Kaori paid attention to Hajime, and how he pretended to not see Hiyama’s gang bullying Hajime, nothing was more frightening than thinking Hajime had died. Hajime’s death had such a great impact. That’s why Endou was purely glad his classmate was alive.

“Rather… when did you become an Adventurer? Moreover, a “Gold”…”

“Nn~, well it just happened.”

After Hajime replied, Endou’s expression completely changed. The relieved expression he had because his classmate was alive, had changed into an expression as if he was in a pinch. Hajime looked at Endou again and he noticed Endou was in ragtag state. He tilted his head, wondering what had happened.

“… In other words, you came back alive from the depths of the dungeon by yourself, and became strong enough to gain the Adventurers’ highest rank? That’s rather unbelievable…”

“Well, that’s true though.”

After Hajime confirmed what Endou said with a serious expression as the truth, Endou sprang up towards Hajime and gripped his shoulders, and in a voice filled with more desperation than before, he began to speak in sorrow.

“Then, please! Please enter the dungeon with me! We must hurry or else everyone will be dead! We need someone with battle potential even if it is just one person! There’s also the possibility that Kentarou and Kondou have died! That’s why please help us, Nagumo!”

“W-Wait a sec. What’s with you all of a sudden!? I don’t know the situation, you know? So what’s with the dead thing? And can’t Amanogawa somehow do something about it? There’s also Commander Meld, so there’s no need to worry about another failure like when we faced the Behemoth…”

Hajime perplexedly asked back because even though he usually didn’t stand, out Endou wore an expression as if he was truly at his wits’ end. And at the moment Endou heard Commander Meld name, he fell to his knees with a truly dark expression. Next, he muttered with a low, subdued voice.

“… –ad.”

“Hah? I can’t hear you. So, what did you say?”

“… I said they are dead! Commander Meld, Alan-san, and the other Knights are dead! All of the Knights who entered the dungeon are dead! They died to let me escape! Because of me! They are dead! They died!”

“… I see.”

“They died,” Endou said repeatedly like a child throwing a tantrum, and Hajime only replied with two words.

Hajime’s class was not a fighting one, so he didn’t have much encounter with Commander Meld. However, he remembered that Commander Meld was a good person, and he recalled that Commander Meld believed the “incompetent” him before Hajime fell into the abyss. If it was Hajime who just got out of the abyss and heard of Meld’s death, he would have probably just said, “So what?” However, the current him thought it was little regrettable. At the very least, he prayed for their happiness in the next world in his mind.

“So, what happened?”

“That’s…”

Still on his knees, Endou tried to explain the situation to answer Hajime’s question, while he hung his head. However, a hoarse voice interrupted him.

“Please continue your conversation inside. After all, you are my guests.”

The owner of the voice was a powerful man with a good body build, and had a large scar on his left eye who was around 60 years of age. It was obvious his eye had the ability to perceive the situation, polished for years, and ambition was overflowing from his body.

With the previous receptionist by the man’s side, Hajime guessed the man must be the head of this guild branch. And because Endou’s wails and shouts made the guild atmosphere returned to one of high tension similar to the time Hajime’s party entered the hall, he thought this was not an appropriate place to have such a talk, and obediently followed the man.

Endou had probably already made such a commotion earlier, and exposed that something had happened to the Hero’s group and the Knights. And that was the cause of the strange atmosphere when Hajime’s party entered the guild.

The man Hajime thought of as the branch head grab Endou’s arm to force him to stand up and lead them to the guild interior without saying anything. Endou was considerably emotionally unstable, and currently had lost all of his strength.

Because the content would not be something pleasant, Hajime’s party moved after the man while expecting the unpleasant.

* * *

“… Demon… race, huh.”

Hajime’s mutter rang out inside the reception room of Holad branch Adventurer guild. Seated on the sofa before him were the Holad branch’s head, Lorr Vauabith, and Endou Kousuke, and seated beside Hajime were Yue, Shia with Tio at Shia’s side. Myuu was sitting on Hajime’s lap.

Hajime’s first response after hearing the situation from Endou was something Endou had said during his explanation. The talk of how the Hero’s party was attacked by the demon race and was in pinch, made Endou and Lorr’s put on serious expressions, and the room was filled with an oppressive atmosphere.

…Or so it should be, but the little girl sitting on Hajime’s lap was munching on the snacks, and it made her cheeks swell up like a squirrel, so she didn’t even notice the serious atmosphere. The conversation between Hajime and the others was slightly difficult for Myuu, and she could feel the uneasy atmosphere. However, Hajime gave her a snack so to divert her attention from being uneasy.

“More importantly! What’s with that!? Who’s that child!? Why is she eating the cake!? Doesn’t she understand the situation!? Everyone might have be dead, you know!”

“Eeek!? Papa!”

Unable to endure Myuu’s existence, who destroyed the mood in the room, Endou stood up and said with an angry voice while pointing at her. Surprised, Myuu raised a small scream and clung to Hajime.

Naturally, bloodlust far above an ordinary person could emit, overflowed from Hajime. Papa would not forgive his daughter’s enemy.

“Bastard… Who are you to snarl at Myuu, ah? AH? Should I kill you?”

“Eeek!?”