Whether it was boiling water or washing dishes, water was essential.
Late in the afternoon, Eiji and Yuna returned to the well, carrying two waterskins and the repaired bowl. The sun had begun sinking toward the western ridge. The murmuring flow through the stone waterways kept the same steady rhythm as it had during the day.
The water level in the well had risen almost to the brim—easily within arm's reach. As he submerged the mouth of the waterskin, feeling it steadily grow heavy in his hands was straightforward and strangely satisfying.
Holding the skin steady beside him, Yuna spoke up.
"Eiji-kun, do you remember?"
"Hmm? Remember what?"
"Back when we were little, you used to fix all kinds of things for me, like broken toys."
"...Did I?"
He tilted his head at the sudden trip down memory lane.
Just how long ago had that been?
With a gentle smile, Yuna nodded. "You did. Whenever I cried, you'd sneak tools out of your grandfather's workshop without asking."
"Ah... Yeah, I remember now."
That finally jogged his memory. Afterward, his grandfather had chewed him out thoroughly for taking them without permission. Ask the owner and know where tools belong before you touch them, he'd said. Even showing him the repaired toy hadn't spared Eiji a rap on the head. He still felt a bit aggrieved about that to this day.
As he tied off the neck of the waterskin, Yuna said with quiet fondness,
"To me, Eiji-kun, you've always been a hero."
"You're exaggerating."
"I am not. I mean, look at today—you fixed the well and an entire house."
"The one who made the water safe to drink was you, Yuna. Besides, both the well and the house were thanks to skills. It's not my own power."
Eiji pulled up the second waterskin as he spoke. Skills were something granted to him in this world, completely separate from the hands that had once patched up broken toys. Being praised as if they were one and the same felt awkward and unearned.
Cradling the tied-off waterskin against her chest, Yuna peered over at him.
"You haven't changed in that way, either."
For whatever reason, she narrowed her eyes in a pleased smile while hugging the skin.
"What are you smiling at?"
"I'm not smiling, am I?"
"You definitely are."
"Mmm... Well then, it's a secret!"
She pressed an index finger to her lips, answering playfully.
Whenever his childhood friend pulled out her signature "it's a secret," it usually meant she would keep dodging the topic indefinitely. Past experience made that painfully clear.
By the time they returned to the house, the sun was grazing the ridge.
There was plenty of kindling scattered around the skeletal frame of the neighboring house. Gathering an armful, he stacked it neatly inside the stove.
Once he finished arranging the wood, his hands froze.
(...Wait. How do we light it?)
He had neither matches nor a lighter. All he possessed was a scrap of metal in his pocket and whatever pebbles were lying on the ground.
Naturally, Yuna would be in the same boat.
He searched his memories of the workshop. Carving a notch in a dry board, setting a spindle upright, and spinning it rapidly between the palms... He was fairly certain there was a method like that.
However, after being thoroughly drained from restoring the well and the house, he doubted he had enough stamina left to coax out a spark before night fell.
As he stood before the stove glaring at the firewood, Yuna peered over his shoulder.
"Eiji-kun, are you trying to start a fire?"
"Yeah. We don't have the tools. Sorry, but this might take a while."
"I can light it for us, you know? Probably."
"Huh?"
No sooner had the words left her mouth than Yuna knelt before the stove and held her open palm toward the hearth opening.
"Kindle a flame upon this wood... Holy Flame."
A tiny white ember ignited at her fingertip and drifted down onto the frayed tip of hemp twine. The flame licked across the kindling piece by piece, spreading steadily into the depths of the hearth. No friction, no sparks required. Total time elapsed: roughly three seconds.
(...Could I get a refund on all my mental preparation for primitive survival?)
Wasn't the Saint class just a little too broken?
The Appraiser had only listed four skills for the Saint, but apparently that wasn't the full extent of her repertoire.
"Ah, thank goodness. Looks like it caught properly."
Looking relieved, a soft smile spread across Yuna's face.
It seemed she hadn't been entirely sure it would work either.
"Incredible... A Saint can even do things like that?"
"Yeah. Just now, looking at the stove, I just had a feeling I could do it."
"I see."
Come to think of it, Eiji's Relicta Collectio and Relicta Inspectio hadn't been mentioned by the Appraiser either. Perhaps one naturally acquired abilities and skills intrinsic to their class without realizing it. And then, when faced with a situation where they were needed, those abilities suddenly awakened. Not knowing what would awaken or when was a bit inconvenient, though.
As the fire grew, the ambiance of the dirt-floor room shifted. The walls and floor were dyed a warm orange, beginning from the side bathed in firelight. He filled the pot with water and set it over the flames.
Dinner consisted merely of searing dried meat and warming hard black bread near the hearth. Even so, the experience on their palates was a world apart from the grim rations they had imagined while riding in the wagon last night. The saltiness brought forth savory steam. The bread softened just a little on the outside, though the inside remained rock-hard. He had never tasted bread this dense in Japan.
Since they only had one bowl, they took turns drinking the hot water. Yuna deftly drank while avoiding the spot where his lips had touched the rim.
...Whether she was intentionally avoiding it or aiming for it, he decided not to ask.
It was right then.
From somewhere far outside, the cry of a beast echoed in the distance. It trailed out into a long howl, answered by another.
"Do you think... monsters will come out...?" Yuna asked, sounding somewhat frightened.
"Who knows? I couldn't say."
Eiji stood up and dropped the wooden crossbar across the door. The thud of the beam falling into place echoed with a reassuring, solid weight.
Given all the talk about defeating the Demon King and such, monsters of some kind were bound to exist. But they hadn't encountered anything of the sort on their journey here.
(Well, investigating that can wait until tomorrow.)
Either way, looking out over the village at night right now would reveal nothing; the surrounding ruins were completely swallowed by darkness. The faint glow spilling from their window was the only light in the entire abandoned village. And even that could be blocked out once they fashioned some curtains or shutters.
Sitting back down on his chair, Eiji caught Yuna's eye across the table.
"...It feels so strange, doesn't it? Just yesterday, we were on our school trip."
"It's rough, isn't it? Sorry."
"No, quite the opposite. Right now, I actually feel really at peace."
There was a serene, unburdened look on Yuna's face as she spoke.
He almost blurted out, How can you feel at peace in a ruin like this? but caught himself just in time.
Because deep down, Eiji understood the feeling all too well.
Objectively speaking, their situation was dire.
Cast out into a ruined village in another world without money, food, or basic knowledge.
And yet, there was no suffocating pressure—no despair weighing on his chest. If anything, part of him felt far more relaxed than he had back in their old world.
At the very least... sitting here was infinitely more comfortable than being on that chartered school bus.
The wood in the stove popped, sending up a solitary spark.
Still gazing into the fire, she continued.
"You might find this surprising... but I don't dislike this world, you know?"
It was a truly unexpected confession.
He found himself asking before he could stop himself.
"Why?"
"Hmm... How should I put it? It just feels free."
"Free, huh? Well, when you put it like that, maybe you're right."
Back at school, there were always curious glances and suffocating social expectations. Because of that, he hadn't been able to talk to Yuna much in public.
Starting around middle school, he had grown overly conscious of the eyes around them and gradually kept his distance. Yet she had always reached out, finding small excuses to bridge the gap. The only reason their connection hadn't faded was entirely thanks to her persistent caring nature.
While those thoughts drifted through his mind—
"Besides... this way, I get to stay by your side forever, Eiji-kun."
"Huh?"
He felt like she had just dropped something monumental into the conversation.
"Ah—n-no, never mind! It's nothing, really!"
Yuna waved both hands in front of her face in frantic denial. Even accounting for the firelight, her cheeks were unmistakably flushed red.
(Didn't she just say she gets to stay with me forever?)
He was almost certain that was what he'd heard, but terrified of confirming it, he let it slide for now.
If he pressed the matter, he wouldn't know how to look her in the eye anymore.
"W-Well... This abandoned village is the price of that freedom, though. Whether that's a good trade is up for debate."
"What? It's not an abandoned village anymore! After all, you fixed up a house for us, Eiji-kun."
"It's still an abandoned village. No matter how you look at it."
He had only restored one house; there were still five shattered ruins standing nearby.
Yuna started to pout, puffing her cheeks, but then caught herself and broke into a soft laugh. No further argument came.
The cleanup, if it could even be called that, ended simply by wiping the bowl clean and placing it back on the shelf. While he was doing that, Yuna went to peek into the back room and returned with her hands clasped behind her back.
"...Um, Eiji-kun."
"What's up?"
"It looks like there's only one bed."
"Yeah. You take it, Yuna. I'll sleep out here."
He assumed it was the obvious arrangement. It wasn't as if the frame of a second bed was lying around back there. If he were to make another, he would have to start by gathering materials tomorrow.
Yuna shook her head.
"No."
"Look, saying no doesn't change anything. I'm completely out of mana for the day. Fixing another one will have to wait until tomorrow."
"That's not what I mean. I mean it's not okay for you to sleep on the floor."
"Huh? Why not?"
When he asked, Yuna took half a step toward the table, her hands tightening into small fists.
"Because you're the one who rebuilt this house, Eiji-kun!"
"Well, I guess so."
"And even after all that, having you sleep on the hard floor... I just hate the thought of it."
"Even if you say that..."
It sounded like a logical argument, yet at the same time it didn't.
Still, if there was one thing everyone should have learned back in the throne room yesterday, it was that Yuna refused to budge once her mind was made up. The only one who hadn't realized that was the Hero.
"Then I'm sleeping out here too."
The moment the words left her mouth, Yuna ducked back into the other room. When she emerged, she was clutching a single blanket she had stripped from the bed. Without hesitation, she sat down right beside Eiji. The two of them ended up sitting side by side against the wall, with barely a fist's width of space between their shoulders.
"...Hey."
"Since we're both here, let's just talk, okay? We'll get sleepy while we chat."
She draped the blanket over both of their laps. The split was roughly seventy-thirty, with the larger share bundled over Eiji's side. Silently, Eiji shifted the excess back toward her. The moment he pushed it over, she nudged it right back.
Giving up, he leaned his head back against the wall. The dying embers in the stove cast faint, swaying shadows across the ceiling beams. A roof that had been wide open to the sky until this morning... Sitting beneath it, watching the gentle play of light, he couldn't help thinking it had been quite a remarkable day.
Their conversation drifted aimlessly from one topic to the next. The time she had put her boots on the wrong feet. Stories from his summer job at the workshop. Though the distant, beastly howls drifted in now and then, they were far enough away that neither of them paid them much mind.
The pauses between Yuna's soft responses grew gradually longer. Eiji's eyelids were growing heavy as well.
Come to think of it, he hadn't slept a wink in the wagon last night. Only Yuna had managed to rest, while he had stayed up until morning whittling scrap metal and calculating numbers. Immediately after, he had restored a dried-up well and rebuilt an entire house from the ground up. Honestly, it was a miracle he had remained awake this long.
Suddenly, a soft, gentle weight settled against his shoulder.
By the time he turned his head to see, Eiji's consciousness had slipped away into the dark as well—