When I opened my heavy eyelids, a red-haired girl who had yet to shed her youthful looks was peering down at me with concern.
She had a lovely appearance indistinguishable from a human, save for a few whiskers extending from her cheeks. I knew this girl well. That was right. Uncharacteristically for me, she was the girl I had wanted to save even at the cost of my life.
"Morning, Char."
A dizzying wave of relief washed over me. When I greeted her with a smile,
"Thank goodness! You're awake!"
Char threw her arms around me and buried her face in my chest, refusing to let go. It seemed I had caused her quite a bit of worry.
I tried to raise my right hand to pat the back of her head, but—
"Ow?!"
The bones in my right arm creaked loudly, and my muscles screamed in agony. My left arm and both legs were the same. I couldn't move a single finger.
"What happened to me?"
"Gil, you've been asleep for three whole days and nights."
Char wiped her tears on the sleeve of her right arm and answered immediately.
"I see..."
There was still much I didn't understand, but since Char had returned safely, it was safe to assume the immediate crisis had passed. At the very least, the mastermind who orchestrated that bandit raid had pulled out of this incident. It was reasonable to think so. Then again, neither the opponent's true identity nor their objective was known in the first place, so there was still a lingering fear that a similar situation might repeat itself. Even so, there was no doubt that we had weathered one crisis.
Even so...
"Is it really all right that I'm not in the dungeon?"
I wanted to avoid putting Char in a difficult position just because she stubbornly insisted on treating me. After all, even I couldn't completely trust myself.
"No need to worry. It was unanimously decided that you, Gil, are to be welcomed as a resident of this village. From now on, you're free to come and go as you please."
My voice must have carried. The door swung open with a bang, and Kiji—the cat-faced man with red hair and a scar on his left cheek—walked in carrying a wooden tub, uttering those utterly surprising words.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I mean you have officially become a fellow kin to us sheep cats."
"You're considering me... a comrade?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Is that really okay? I'm human, you know."
Until just a little while ago, they had been intensely wary of me as a member of the Human Race to the point of trying to kill me. Why had they accepted me as one of their own so easily?
"It's not that being human doesn't matter at all... but everyone realized it's pointless to be on guard against you."
"Pointless? Why?"
Kiji shrugged as if dumbfounded by my question.
"If a guy capable of pulling off such ridiculous feats were to become our enemy, we'd be wiped out in an instant either way. Staying on guard against you would just be a waste of effort."
"No, look, that was probably just the effect of that stake—"
"I checked, but that stake has no such effect. That battle was won purely by your own strength."
"The stake has no such effect... huh."
Indeed, there hadn't felt like anything was off about my movements at all. Even if one's physical abilities improved drastically, their kinetic vision and, above all, their reflexes wouldn't suddenly sharpen. In that moment, I had perceived those feats as my natural, everyday movements. Well, the price for that was being completely battered and unable to move a single muscle now, though.
"At any rate, this incident made us realize a fatal weakness in this village."
"You mean relying on the barrier isn't enough, right?"
"Yeah. We made it through this time because you were here, but if Char gets abducted like that again, the village is finished without a doubt."
That was true. Relying entirely on Char's barrier was precisely this village's fatal flaw. After all, our opponent this time had been capable of snatching Char from within that very barrier. If we didn't devise other means of defense, there would be no next time.
Setting that aside...
"Char, do you remember anything from when you were abducted?"
Well, there was probably no need to even ask.
"No... I don't remember a thing. When I came to, I was asleep in bed at home."
Just as I thought. That meant events had unfolded entirely at the mastermind's whim.
I was sure the mastermind had no intention of harming Char. Had they simply been testing this village? No, maybe that wasn't it either. The mastermind had given us a window of time before the bandits raided, allowing us enough leeway to prepare countermeasures. If not for that, this village would have fallen during the very first bandit attack.
Maybe they were really just playing around—treating this village, the New City of Ket Nya, as the stage for a game. If so, there was a high chance there would be more to come. Kiji had probably faintly sensed that as well.
"We need to bolster the village's defenses. Is that it?"
"Yeah, that's right. This is our village. We have to protect it with our own hands. And so, well..."
"I understand. I don't have anywhere else to go anyway, so I'll lend a hand for what little it's worth."
To the hesitating Kiji, I gave my agreement while lifting the right hand that had been throbbing with muscle aches, and then—
"Gil, thank you!"
Char threw her arms around me with all her might, and an inarticulate scream tore from my throat.