Down the Rabbit Hole
From that moment on, I couldn't stop being aware of her.
I asked myself if I was overreacting. I wasn't. Not even a little.
Over the past several days of coming and going from the dungeon, she had been pressing herself against me without pause. On the pretext of correcting my weapon stance, she would run her hands over my fingers and along my arms. She would stroke my chest, claiming she needed to check that my armor sat properly. And when we practiced with the bow, she even wrapped her arms around me from behind.
"Hahh..."
A warm, damp breath spilled against my skin, and the puff of her nose tickled my ear.
...And above all else, I would wake to find myself sleeping with her in my arms. Whether I was the one holding her or the one being held, I could never quite tell.
Of course, I knew the weather had turned much colder lately. Even under the blankets it was chilly, and it had even snowed, briefly, not long ago. When I asked how the weather could change so suddenly, she said,
"Yes. Autumn is nearly over, and after the rain that day, it was only a matter of time before it got colder."
And then, without the slightest warning, she slipped her arm through mine.
"Before you say anything — I'm doing this because it's cold. We'll be less cold if we stay close, won't we?"
Smiling, she pressed herself tightly against me, even going so far as to tickle my face with those long ears of hers.
I couldn't make sense of her behavior no matter how I tried. I could guess it was her own way of showing affection — but whether I was allowed to accept it so casually was another matter entirely.
I had recently started learning to write, only to realize almost immediately that the whole effort was pointless.
The problem was this.
"Pul,"
"Pul,"
"gee-eh."
"gee-eh."
"Apple."
"?"
So... apple. In this world, Pulgea meant apple — and when she pronounced it one syllable at a time, I could hear the original sounds. But the moment she read the whole word at once, it reached my ears as English.
In other words, the exercise had become meaningless. No matter how hard I tried to practice the letters, they would somehow resolve themselves into English before my eyes. And if I tried writing in English, she couldn't read it.
"...Did you draw a picture? No, wait... this almost looks like a word."
"Huh? You're saying I didn't write it right?"
"Yes. I asked you to write 'apple.' Could this be a word from somewhere else?"
She held the paper for a long moment before setting it down in front of me, then wrote something out once more.
"Alright then... this is your name, Marcus. Would you try copying it?"
That was when I understood how serious this had become.
"...I can't write it."
Even my own name no longer appeared in this world's script the way it used to. It had become English.
"Just a moment — I'm sorry. I'll be right back!"
I left her in the room and hurried down the stairs, out of the inn.
What greeted me outside was a street full of signs, every last one of them written in English. I didn't even feel a sense of wrongness about it.
The wooden board bearing the inn's name now read, quite clearly, in English:
I reached out and touched it. Only then could I tell that the grooves carved into the wood were a different shape from English letters. But at this rate, there was no chance I would ever learn to write.
I could read. I could speak. I just couldn't write.
It was a nightmare.
I had no choice but to explain the situation to her — but how? It wasn't as though I could simply say, I'm actually from another world.
I stood outside turning it over in my head for a long time before I finally turned around and went back to the room.
"Um... Ely."
"Ah, you're back."
She was in the middle of tidying the desk. I approached her, meaning to say something, but when the moment came my mouth simply would not open. I stood there fumbling, unable to get out even a single sentence — I don't think I can write — and then she pulled me firmly into her arms.
"It's all right. Not being able to write is nothing to be ashamed of. If you ever need something written, please don't hesitate to tell me."
How she had figured it out, I had no idea. She had simply said it first.
Pat, pat. She rubbed my back in slow, gentle strokes, and a warm heat flowed from her into me. The impossibly soft fabric of her clothes and the warmth of her body spilled across my skin. Standing there like that, the worries that had been eating at me only moments before suddenly felt foolish, and I decided to lean on her a little more.
Once the writing fiasco had blown over, we started putting more effort into our dungeon runs. One part of that was mock combat training with her.
"On the first and second floors we ran into stone golems and plant-type monsters, didn't we? And they were relatively weak, so we beat them easily."
"Right. You just had to stay calm and tear off the vines if they wrapped around you, or smash the slow ones coming at you with raw strength."
Of course, there had also been the time I had been thoroughly rattled watching her rip those coiled vines apart with her bare hands.
"On the third and fourth floors, you start seeing ones that imitate humans to some degree. The typical examples would be goblins — green skin, pointed ears, small build — and kobolds."
"Kobolds?"
"They look like dogs, but they walk on two legs and use tools. Whether they used to be mine workers or not, they carry around these terribly old pickaxes."
Dog-faced, bipedal, swinging a rusty pickaxe. Something about that description clicked into place with a sudden, vivid clarity.
"Neither of them is a particularly difficult monster. But that's only true by my standards. Which is why—"
Thok. The staff struck the ground.
"—we're going to train like this."
"About that, though."
"Yes?"
"If I take a hit from that thing, I die, don't I?"
The image of a stone golem shattering to pieces was still vivid behind my eyes. The one that had turned to dust without even managing a death cry. The one that had reached out with its vines to bind her, only to be seized and shredded with a sickening crack. Every one of those scenes flickered across my vision.
If that wooden staff connected, I was going to die. I was sure of it.
"...Me? Hurt you, Marcus? Why would you think that? Do you still not trust me?"
Thok. The staff hit the dirt.
She came toward me in long, unhurried strides, and then, all at once, she pulled me into a crushing embrace.
"Oh, Marcus. I would never hurt you."
She stroked my hair roughly, affectionately. The arm around my back pressed me deeper into her. Startled by the sudden change, I tried to push her away — but the overwhelming difference in strength would not allow it.
"I would do anything for you. That's all this is. I'm only worried. What if you let an attack through? What if I fail to protect you, and you get hurt?"
Her arms tightened. I could barely breathe — and it wasn't because of the physical pressure. Her sweet, heavy whispers were crushing me. The thick, overpowering scent rolling off her seemed to slowly press down on my brain. My vision drifted upward. The world went dark.
A winter wind wrapped around me in that instant.
"Ah — ah, I'm sorry. I'm so— oh my. How did I— oh, heavens..."
Her face had gone scarlet. Flushed as red as a beet, it vanished behind both of her hands. Her ears flopped and twitched, laying her feelings bare for anyone to see.
I stood there stupidly, unable to keep up with how fast everything had changed, and then, slowly, I drew the cold air into my lungs. Only then, freed from that suffocating pressure, could I find myself again.
"I— Marcus, I am so terribly sorry. I don't know what came over me. Please, forgive—"
I barely managed to stop her from dropping to her knees on the spot, and told her we should get back to training.
"Ah. Yes, of course. That's what we came here for today, after all."
But there was no chance I was going to be able to concentrate. That ear-meltingly sweet confession. The hunger to claim me that had poured through her boldness. I had no idea how I was supposed to respond to any of it. I couldn't even understand why her attitude had shifted so violently in such a short span of time.
Even now — even in this very moment, as she explained how the training would proceed — her eyes were curved. She was smiling at me. Focusing on me. Not on the conversation. On me, as a person.
How burdensome that felt. How it might, if I let it, tip over into something like fear.
But I swallowed it down. She was someone I needed for dungeon exploration. And yet...
I had a feeling I needed to look again at why I was exploring dungeons in the first place.
For our living expenses.
To support her family.
To survive in this world.
Ah. Right. To live together with her...
With her...
Wait?
Huh?