And so, their story continued.
"About that matter earlier..." (Reiko)
"Um, what about?" (Kaoru)
"The Goddess's abandonment incident" (Reiko)
"Ah……" (Kaoru)
Reiko brought up that topic.
"Hey, can you just ignore that and not say anything?" (Kaoru)
"Eh, why? I was thinking of giving you a good fight next time I see you..." (Reiko)
"Well, I'll take care of that for you, so the exchange condition is..." (Kaoru)
"I see……" (Reiko)
"Hehehe..." (Both)
It's dangerous to mix them. Individually they're not that harmful, but together they could be disastrous—That was the guardians of school, "KKR"...
"First, I'll go to Grua, the capital of the Balmore Kingdom, and make sure everyone is safe... but that's a bit unlikely. Anyway, I'll make sure that the people I know who are still alive aren't in any unreasonable situations, and then I'll go to the library and find out what's happened since then..." (Kaoru)
"Find out?" (Reiko)
In response to Reiko's interjection, Kaoru replied with a grin.
"If there were people who took advantage of the confusion and acted stupid... then most of them are probably no longer alive, and even if they were alive, they would probably feel like they'd already gotten their money's worth out of their lives... Well, I guess the most I can do is to destroy the family, tarnish the family name, and reduce all of their descendants to penniless commoners... Nobles and royalties seem to care about things like family names, the continuation of their lineage, and bloodlines, so I'll really smear them with dirt, or rather, I'll cover them in mud and shit..." (Kaoru)
"I guess so… Even if they say that the children and grandchildren are innocent, as long as they’re not bullying them more than necessary and are just asking for the return of what their ancestors unjustly obtained, then there’s no problem. It’s fortune and fame that they were never qualified to inherit in the first place…" (Reiko)
Ever since she was little, Kaoru had hated those who trample on the weak and those who lie to take away the benefits of others. Lies to protect people and to make people happy are okay, but malicious lies, lies that hurt people, and lies that are meant to unfairly take something away from people are not acceptable. However, Kaoru rarely directly criticized the other person for telling such lies—It just meant she completely recognizing the other person as an enemy. And you could do anything to the "enemy". Of course, this includes telling terrible lies, just like the other person did. Of course, when she was working at a company, she tried to refrain from doing so. After all, she was not a child anymore. However, when she was a student, she was allowed to be reckless like as a child, and she did quite a lot of things wrong. Together with Reiko and Kyoko (friends)—And the image of Kaoru that Reiko knew was more than 99 percent "Kaoru as a student."
"If someone you know is still alive, would you let them know?" (Reiko)
"No..." (Kaoru)
Kaoru shook her head at Reiko's words.
"In the end, I wasn’t able to protect those children… Besides, they had finally been freed from the ‘curse of the goddess’ and were able to live freely under their own power, so why would I show up now…" (Kaoru)
It was a world where the average life expectancy was short. Kaoru thought that if there were any survivors, it would be the orphans younger than her, in other words, the members of "Goddess's Eye". Besides, the others were not people that Kaoru had to protect. So, the only ones that Kaoru felt pain and responsibility for were those children. Francette and others had been given so many benefits, so if they ended up living an unhappy life, it is their own fault. Kaoru couldn't take care of them that much.
However, in that case, most of the orphans would have died within a few years, given their health condition and circumstances, if they had not met Kaoru. Considering that, they should be grateful that they were able to live safely and happily for a few years until Kaoru was gone, but Kaoru was not the kind of person to think that way. She intended to watch over those she was involved with and intended to protect them responsibly until the very end. However, if one thought about it "until the very end," one could say that she had fulfilled her duty—
"I'll just sneak a peek from the shadows, and if they seem happy, I'll just leave." (Kaoru)
Reiko was not the type to ask a girl like _KAORI_, "Well, what if they didn't seem happy?" She know that without even asking.
"Now that I think about it, there's one mystery that remains..." (Kaoru)
"What?" (Reiko)
Although Reiko had asked her this question in response to Kaoru's words, all she had asked Celestine about was information related to Kaoru's whereabouts. So, she didn't know anything about the country or the people Kaoru knew.
"It's about the hole I fell into and the rock that was dropped over it, though. As for the hole, well, if we use a human wave tactic, getting people to dig at full strength day and night, and rotating personnel when they get tired, we might be able to dig about four meters in a few days... But the rock! That rock, finished to be almost perfectly round! It must be difficult to transport a rock of that size and cut it into a perfectly round shape to fit the exact size of the hole in such a short time, right? I wonder how they did it..." (Kaoru)
"Oh, I know about it then" (Reiko)
"What?" (Kaoru)
Even though she had said it, Kaoru was surprised because she never thought Reiko would actually know.
"Yesterday afternoon, I was following a group of tourists on a tour of the holy sites, and the guide was explaining something to me. Apparently, it was originally placed with the statue of the goddess in the temple. Maybe someone who knew that this world is a sphere placed it there as a symbol of the world being protected by the goddess. Then, perhaps, they just happened to think of using it, or perhaps they felt sadistic pleasure in destroying Angel-sama with an item connected to the goddess that was in the temple." (Reiko)
"Huh? But it just so happens to fit the hole perfectly..." (Kaoru)
"It's the other way around! It's obviously 'I dug the hole to fit the size of the rock'!" (Reiko)
"Ah……" (Kaoru)
It was a terrible mistake for Kaoru.
"But to think that a huge rock could be so smooth and spherical... Perhaps, stonemasons or priests, must have worked hard scrubbing it by hand for a long period of time..." (Reiko)
"Rubbing it?" (Kaoru)
Gyahahahahaha!!
The laughter of (what appeared to be) two girls echoed through the darkness. What a blessing it was to have someone who understood jokes—Kaoru felt at ease hearing a pun in Japanese for the first time in several years.
No, she had a perfect understanding of the language here, so of course they could make puns in the country's language—But it's not popular. Not at all—The orphans only gave her troubled looks. A face that said, "Do I have to laugh?" A face that said, "A goddess shouldn't say such pointless things." A face that was clearly twisted as they tried to force a smile. And then, Kaoru would cry out.
"Damn it, I'll kill you!!"
The cultural differences were simply insurmountable...
The two of them were on foot heading to Grua, the capital of Balmore Kingdom. It seemed that stagecoaches ran quite frequently, but when they were on one, they could not converse freely.
The two of them talked about things like Japan, what happened before Kaoru entered the item box, Celestine, their future plans, and more—There was no way they could talk about these things in public.
In this world, it was impossible for two people who had just met to continue talking happily for several days about topics that they wouldn't mind being overheard by others—Kaoru's item box contained that battle chariot, but she didn't feel like buying a horse, and she also didn't feel like continuing to ride along the roads in that special carriage. It would stand out, and there's a chance that someone who saw that carriage a long time ago was still alive.
However, the real reason why Kaoru didn't want to use the carriage was simply sentimentality.
(...Ed is no longer here...)
Yes, horses had a short lifespan. Kaoru's beloved horse, Ed, must have continued to wait for Kaoru, without knowing why she had not returned, and then passed away. Her comrade and partner, Ed. Ed was no longer there...