My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's

Time rewound to before Akira and the others discovered traces of our camp.

I woke up in an unfamiliar room, quietly confused.

We had been unable to eat lunch because of the demonic beasts’ attack, and those “beasts” turned out not to be beasts at all but artificial robots.

We fought with everything we had, using a new skill—limit break—to barely win, but the robots had self-repair functions. Just when we were on the brink of disaster, we were saved by a girl who looked like the robot’s creator.

…That much I remembered, but after that my memory was blank.

I must have collapsed from hunger and battle wounds, but where was this place?

The room felt clean and was painted white. Besides the bed I was lying on there was only a desk and a chair—a simple room.

There was no sign anyone lived here.

Maybe a guest room.

Having been camping for a while, it felt strange to lie in a bed again, surrounded by walls.

If there was a building with a room like this in the forest, perhaps we had arrived at the safe house that served as our meeting point.

Maybe because of accumulated exhaustion, or the safety of being inside walls, after verifying that much my consciousness simply fell again.

“…I, …Kazu!…Hey! Wake up!!”

The next time I opened my eyes it was the time when the sun, no different from the one in the other world, was sinking and casting a gentle light.

A loud voice echoing through the room jerked me awake.

“Hmph, you’re finally awake.”

The voice sounded like a girl’s, but the haughty tone reminded me of some pitch-black cat familiar.

She was the one who woke me, judging by her voice.

“…Who are you? Or rather, where is this?”

My groggy head snapped to attention at the dangerous situation: an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar person.

I grabbed the sword that had been propped by the bed. The girl wearing gothic-lolita clothes narrowed her eyes at me.

“What, did you forget me? I saved you, you ungrateful fool. Besides, ‘Usako No. 11’ intercepted you because you blithely broke through the warning line without noticing the trap set for you.”

She followed with a remark about how I shouldn’t be trusted to serve as a hero.

I opened my mouth and froze.

Her attitude was absurdly free. She was a type of person I’d never encountered before.

She hadn’t really answered any of my questions, but I could remember who she was. She must be the girl who seemed to be the robot’s creator that I’d seen just before losing consciousness.

Despite how much that robot messed with us, its name stuck out as being ridiculously bad, so the robot left a stronger impression than the creator did.

Besides, I hadn’t been fully conscious then, so I hadn’t gotten a good look at the girl’s face.

Still, I felt I’d recently seen the color of her hair and eyes somewhere.

Judging she wasn’t an enemy, I relaxed my shoulders.

Maybe relieved, my stomach made a loud, unguarded noise in the quiet room.

I felt my face grow hot.

Seeing me flush, the girl sighed.

“What a body with a noisy voice… Well, whatever. I came all this way to feed you, after all.”

Her exasperated, superior tone made me open my mouth to argue for a moment, but a bad feeling stopped me and I closed it again.

For some reason I felt I shouldn’t go against this girl.

She led me out of the room.

The interior of the building showed some decay in places, but overall it was kept clean.

“Where’s everyone else?”

I called out, anxious about my missing comrades.

There were signs of people downstairs, but I couldn’t tell whether they were our companions.

She snorted.

“You were the only one who slept for two days. You idiot. The others are downstairs preparing food. From tomorrow you’ll be joining them.”

An order was given for some reason. I didn’t know why I had to obey, but trusting that uneasy feeling from earlier, I nodded without arguing.

Wait—I’d been asleep for two days?

No wonder I was starving.

“Oh! You’re awake, Sato!”

“Kazu-kun, good morning!”

“You were late.”