Episode 14 – Recollection, Restart

-I may have never heard Ur say something so extreme in all the years we’ve been together.

I look at Ur, who has a somewhat radiant expression on her face, feeling as if I have discovered a new side to her.

Until then, Ur had been a girl with a noticeably mature side, standing one step removed from the free-spirited Anri and the innocent Rietta.

But now I realize that I was wrong. At just seventeen years old, Ur is a girl who has made a deep resolution at her age.

Although she does not seem to be in an unstable state of mind like Anri, I have mixed feelings about her willingness to die. However, I can’t blame her because it is not my place to say so.

All I could do was to accept Ur’s statement.

–Then Ur and Rietta began to talk to each other in a friendly manner. The content was mainly about me. I could do nothing but laugh at their complaints, which they exchanged while deliberately looking at me.

However, on the other hand, the two of them do not seem to be angry at my confession, and from their friendly atmosphere, I understand that my earlier apology has been completely accepted.

I should be thankful that it turned out to be lucky for me, because I was prepared to be disappointed and even hated at worst.

As for Ur’s declaration, which is a bit of a puzzle to me, I have to put it aside for the moment, as there is nothing I can do about it now. I’ll also keep it in the back of my mind to see if there is anything I can do to change Ur’s mind.

–And if the apology is over, the next step is…….

Hopefully, the heavy topics that are being discussed one after the other won’t make them sick to their stomachs. But still, I thought it was necessary, so I opened my mouth slowly.

“—Both of you. I have one more thing to say to you, and I want you to listen.”

They stopped talking and looked at me as if they still had something to say.

“What I want to talk to you about is what’s wrong with Anri,”

“–…….”

At my words, both of them open their eyes as if they had just remembered something like that. I couldn’t help but feel deflated when I saw my companion’s reaction to the big change was lighter than I expected.

“Anri’s thing, I was kind of used to it already and went through with it. But now that Tale is back, we have to do something about it.”

“I’m kind of paranoid about something I don’t understand. ……! I heard that Tale-kun is Anri-chan’s lover or something.”

The two of them had noticed something was wrong with Anri after all, and said so with a difficult look on their faces.

The particulars of the situation are probably caused by my disappearance, but without knowing more details about the circumstances, I can’t think of a way to solve the problem.

I nodded my head at the two indescribable expressions on their faces.

“Last night, Anri came to my room, thinking I was his boyfriend. Of course I was confused because I didn’t remember anything about this, but there was also something else that didn’t come through in our conversation. It seems that Anri is having trouble remembering what I’ve been doing while I’ve been gone.”

Now I am really having a hard time dealing with Anri. She become unstable when she believe that things that are clearly not true are true, and when discrepancies appear in her own memories – unless something is done about this problem, adventurer activities will be hindered, such as not being able to accept dangerous requests.

And more importantly, I could not leave my childhood friend in a mentally unsound state.

I expressed these concerns to Ur and Rietta and waited for their response. But they looked at each other and both growled as if they were troubled.

“As far as I know,……, Anri suddenly became like that a little while after Tale was gone. If I had to foreshadow it, I’d say that she was terribly depressed at the thought of losing Tale, but that could be said of all of us.”

“Tale kun, you want to know what caused Anri to go crazy and how to get her back to normal, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. I have heard that sometimes people lose their memory due to a big shock, but I heard that forcing people to remember the truth is not very good. I thought that if I knew the details of how it happened, I might be able to get some clues.”

Then they racked their brains for a while.

After a little while, Rietta opened her mouth with a difficult look on her face.

“I don’t know if …… it has anything to do with it, but ………… it’s probably been about two weeks since Tale-kun disappeared. One night, Anri chan–“

Then Rietta begins to talk about an incident that may be a clue.

–I think it was a night when the sky was clear and cloudless with stars.

It has already been two weeks since Tale kun disappeared. We had lost our precious friend, and in our disappointment, we had been forcing ourselves to complete our requests every day, as we had no choice but to do so in order to stay alive.

That day, after defeating the demons during the day, we returned to the guild and cashed our money without saying a word. I wondered if the next day would be another day of just earning such deadly sustenance for living, or something like that.

At night, as I was closing my eyes, spilling tears as usual, thinking about Tale kun, I noticed someone in the same room quickly walk out of the room.

I opened my eyes and looked at the beds and saw that the place where Anri chan had been sleeping was empty.

At first I thought she had gone to the bathroom or something, and tried to stay in bed. I thought she would be back soon.

But as she was about to leave, I caught a glimpse of Anri-chan’s back… It felt like she wasn’t the Anri-chan I knew… I couldn’t help but feel that someone was controlling her body. That bothered me.

I was so worried about it that I immediately got out of bed and chased after Anri chan, who had left.

I left the room, saw Anri chan walking down the stairs, and followed her. She left the inn and stood on the front street, leaving the entrance door open.

I remember how mysterious she looked in the light of the moon and stars, as if her platinum hair was shining.

Then, as I stared at Anri-chan, who did not move, she suddenly muttered

“The shock of losing my precious Tale was too much. The reason why usually acted tough and aloof was because of the fear of rejection,……. I’m ……….. .”

I was struck by those rather otherworldly words. I couldn’t catch the last part of what she said, but I remember that she had a mysterious atmosphere from the beginning to the end.

So Anri chan stood there in the street for a while. I was worried that she might be okay, because she put her hand on her forehead as if she was trying to stave off a headache, but after a little while she slowly put her hand down.

After that, she suddenly started moving again and came into the inn as if nothing had happened. I hurried back to my room and pretended to be asleep to see if Anri chan would come back.

And then, the next morning――Now that I think about it, I feel like that’s when Anri-chan started going crazy.

Rietta concludes her story by asking, “What do you think?”

I thought for a moment and then opened my mouth.

“I’m sure Rietta is right, there is something fishy about the way Anri is behaving. Especially if it is true that Anri has gone crazy since the next morning.”

“Yes. Maybe from the next day… But it’s true that Anri-chan was different back then, so maybe…”

“I see. But just the story I just talked about might give you a starting point. Did you notice anything else at that time?”

“Hmmm.”

Rietta’s head twists in response to my question. She closed her eyes tightly and seemed to be remembering what had happened then. It was already two months ago, so I guess she can’t give me any more information about it. That’s what I thought.

Rietta’s eyes fluttered open and she looked at me, murmuring, “Speaking of which,” she said.

“At that time, Anri chan’s hand–I think it was glowing like Tale’s phosphorus just now,…….”

“Anri’s hand?”

“Yeah. Anri-chan has a strange birthmark on her right hand, right? she hide it with gloves because it’s noticeable during the day, but it was night at that time. That bruise… it might have looked like it was glowing.”

Rietta’s words made me think.

It is true that Anri has had a strange shaped birthmark on the back of her right hand for a long time. The birthmark looks like some kind of pattern.

It was glowing – it was clothed in magic ……? I don’t know what on earth that fact means, no matter how much I think about it.

Then we exchanged a few more words, and each of us racked our brains. What on earth was it that Rietta had seen? What was the change in Anri?

But in the end, time passed without any decisive insights. It was about time for Anri to finish her talk and come back. It was probably best to end the discussion at this point.

I could not think of an effective way to deal with the unusual situation of my dear friend, and with gritted teeth, I grudgingly said to them,

“–…… let’s call it a day, shall we? We can’t let Anri hear us, and once she does something, we’ll just have to try not to dismiss what she says too much and see what happens.”

“Yeah,…… I think Tale is right, we have no choice.”

“I understand. But Tale-kun, if Henri-chan is about to do something strange, please tell me. Because we will help! ”

“Yes, thank you. Yeah, that’s right. Anri is a girl, too, and she can’t go …… off with someone she doesn’t want to be with without knowing it.”

“It’s not Anri I’m worried about though,……”

Ur whispers something under her breath. Rietta and her were face to face, and they were talking and pointing at me with some dissatisfaction.

The reaction was not very satisfactory, but at least we have decided on a plan for the future.

–We, the Sword of Wheat, will continue to work as before to earn our living, while getting used to the lighter requests. At the same time, we will wait and see what we will do about Anri. It feels a little weird to have the issue hanging in the air, but we can’t think of any other way to deal with it.

We looked at each other and nodded. Then, just as we spotted Anri walking toward us from the back, we waved to her to let her know where we were.

–Thus, the plan to restart the “Sword of Wheat” was to proceed behind the scenes, unbeknownst to Anri, the leader of the group.

The road ahead was not a smooth one, but it was a good start.

–But even so, the mere fact that we could all work together again toward the same goal gave me great strength to overcome the difficulties that lay ahead.

(TL/N : Bro trying to cure Yandereness)

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