Published: July 26, 2025
“Do you want to talk here? Or go into the warehouse?”
“Here is fine.”
Since it was going to be a complicated conversation, I thought it would be better to be cautious about people watching, but Lutz shook his head.
“So, what is it you want to talk about?”
Lutz’s green eyes burned with anger, yet his demeanor seemed calm. He didn’t erupt in rage immediately; instead, his low voice, as if hiding a boiling fury deep inside, uttered the first words.
“...Who are you?”
That was a difficult question out of the blue. I was at a loss even if I were asked who I was.
I still believed myself to be Urano Motosu, but no matter how you looked at it, I was nothing but Myne. And having lived in this body for about a year in this world, I was no longer Urano Motosu.
Reno rarely did anything herself besides reading books. Since she commuted to university from home, she had never lived away from her parents, and generally, all household chores were left to her full-time housewife mother. She could do them if she wanted but never took the initiative.
Unlike me, who went into the forest almost daily to gather things, tried to enrich my diet with seasonings, and even made paper to read books, Reno had no need for any of that. She was entirely different from the current me, who simply read any books around whenever I felt like it.
Lutz must have decided I wasn’t going to answer because seeing me hesitate, he narrowed his glaring eyes even further and opened his mouth.
“You said you know how to make this kind of paper, and that you’ve made it before, right?”
“...The last time I made it, it was quite a different method though.”
“That’s not Myne.”
“...Yeah.”
Since I had failed to evade the question and was already suspected, lying further wouldn’t help. I answered honestly.
“Myne wouldn’t know that. She rarely left the house.”
I knew from Myne’s memories that she seldom left the house. Because of that, it had been extremely difficult due to the lack of information.
With Myne’s memories limited to life inside the house, it was impossible to catch even a glimpse of the common sense of this world. Trying to reconcile my own common sense with this world’s was truly challenging. Even now, I often think I’ve made many mistakes.
“That’s right. Myne really was a child who knew nothing.”
“Then who are you!? Where is the real Myne? Give me back the real Myne!”
Lutz shouted fiercely, his temper flaring.
But for some reason, I felt calmer than I expected when those words hit me—perhaps because my own imagination was far worse or because I had braced myself to face this moment when the truth came out. It was a far cry from the panic I showed right after my self-sabotage.
“I don’t mind giving back the real Myne... but it’s better to do that after we get home rather than here.”
Lutz’s eyes widened in surprise, then his brows furrowed suspiciously, as if he hadn’t expected me to agree.
“Why?”
“Because carrying a corpse home is hard, isn’t it? If I disappear, probably only a corpse will remain. If people think you killed me, that would be a problem, right?”
This warehouse was used by both Lutz and me, and even today, my family and the people at Benno’s shop knew I was going out with Lutz.
If I were to lose consciousness here and die, all blame would likely fall on Lutz. Even if he wasn’t blamed, I wondered if Lutz himself wouldn’t feel guilty.
I intended my suggestion to be considerate of him: “It’s better after we get home,” but it seemed like a bolt from the blue for Lutz.
“W-What the hell are you saying!?”
Lutz’s face stiffened as he started to panic. The idea that if I disappeared, Myne wouldn’t return seemed completely unexpected to him.
“So you’re saying Myne is gone!? She won’t come back!?”
“Yeah, probably...”
That’s all I could say.
I could only delve into Myne’s memories. I had never talked with Myne, nor had she ever demanded her body back.
“Answer me this!”
Lutz glared fiercely at me like a justice warrior hating evil.