Fellow Reincarnators
"Ah—h-hello, junior. I-it's really, truly a p-pleasure to meet you."
The other Stigma bearer, who moments before had been bellowing without a care for the stares around him, crumpled the instant Jun, Fortuna, and Carol reached the table, stammering like a man who'd never spoken before.
Watching a hulking brute with that raw, wild air about him act so thoroughly out of character was enough to draw a laugh from Jun before he could stop himself.
At the sound, the small woman seated beside the man flushed an even deeper red than before and smacked him hard across the shoulder.
Slap!
"Y-you idiot brother! Why are you st-stammering like a fool?!"
"Y-you're stammering too!"
"I am n-not! Shut up and seat the guests!"
Slap! Slap!
"A-all right! All right, just stop hitting me! How does a little thing like you hit so hard?!"
It didn't look like it hurt in the slightest from where Jun sat, but the man screwed up his face and rubbed the spot she'd struck all the same. Then he put on a tense expression once more and gestured for his invited guests to take their seats.
His speech was a little slow, but he no longer stammered the way he had a moment ago. The exchange with the woman—presumably his younger sister—seemed to have loosened him up a touch.
Once the guests were seated, though, neither of them could seem to find a word. The man and the woman both simply stared at Jun the way one might gape at a beloved celebrity suddenly sitting across the table.
And so an unintended silence settled over them—until,
Grrroowl!
Jun's stomach clock chimed once more.
"...Haaah∼."
Jun let out a forlorn sigh and rubbed his belly. Unlike earlier, he no longer had the energy to feel embarrassed about broadcasting his hunger to strangers.
It couldn't be helped. A body of such unreal performance demanded an equally unreal amount of energy, and Jun knew it well—which was why he kept his subspace stocked to the brim with food and snacks, pulling them out whenever hunger struck.
At a glance, it looked as though Fortuna was the one devouring most of the stores inside the subspace. In truth, the bulk of that consumption belonged to Jun.
For the record, Fortuna wasn't simply eating the food and snacks either—not if you looked closely. She converted every nutrient she digested into rich, nutritious milk, stored it in her enormous milk tanks, and fed it to Jun on a regular schedule.
Well, she squeezed him dry in return, too—but compared to the volume of milk she fed him, it wasn't all that much.
In any case, for a man who solved his empty stomach on schedule with a high-performance food warehouse and a milk-production machine, going long enough for his stomach clock to ring twice was a thoroughly unfamiliar experience.
After Jun's stomach announced itself, silence fell over the central plaza once more.
It did not last long.
"Waitresses. What exactly do you think you're doing, standing around so oblivious? It seems some re-education is in order."
Carol's cold warning rolled out in a low voice. And right on its heels—
"Food! Waitress-noona, fooood!!!"
"Who are you even looking at?! You pervert of a brother!"
"Everything on the menu! That guy over there's paying!"
"What the hell is wrong with this bastard?!"
"Your Highness! Don't you want to eat food your noona made with her own hands?"
"You planning to feed him that poison?! Sit still!"
"Who just called it poison?! Come out here! Get out here right now!"
"Hieeeng∼. Everyone, please calm down. Pleeease∼"
Adventurers' shouts and waitresses' tearful pleas rang out across the central plaza. In the middle of it all, the big man looked at a cow-beastwoman waitress and yelled for food—only to take a smack across the back from the small woman beside him. Apparently the enormous milk tanks that covered a full third of the waitress's upper body had led him to an unfortunate misunderstanding.
"Here is the menu."
"...Thank you."
Amid the chaos of shouting and sniffling, a cat-beastwoman waitress with white hair approached in perfect silence and handed Jun a menu. He took it and stared at her blankly.
She had less presence than any of the assassins he'd faced over the past five years.
Why is someone this skilled working as a waitress?
"Yuna, the surroundings are far too noisy. Would you mind tidying things up a bit?"
"Of course, Carol. However, it may take me a little while alone—might I ask for your assistance?"
"That much is easy enough."
Carol rose from her seat. Receptionist and waitress turned to survey the crowd and raised their voices together.
"Everyone! Please quiet down! If you keep making a scene, we will not be introducing that gentleman to any good commissions!"
"As a bonus, we'll put you on a drinking ban. Anyone who was already thinking of cutting back for their health is welcome to keep shouting."
Thud.
Every mouth snapped shut at once.
Jun was certain. Whether there were others or not, the two people in front of him were clearly the ones who actually ran the guild.
"Jun, Jun. Stop staring and pick something already. And I want this! I'm eating this."
Fortuna pointed at a photo of a jumbo parfait loaded with fruit and chocolate, eyes sparkling. Jun snorted a laugh, nodded, and scanned the menu for his own order.
Then he found them.
"...Rice? Steamed rice! Doenjang stew! Bulgogi!"
Dishes that dragged a wave of homesickness straight up from the bottom of his chest.
"Th-this, please! All of it, double portions!"
"Heh. Understood."
Jun jabbed at the menu items in a full-blown frenzy. Perhaps finding his reaction endearing, Yuna—the cat-beastwoman waitress who had worn a blank expression since the moment she appeared—allowed a faint smile to touch her lips.
She then gave Jun a polite bow, handed Carol a stack of documents she'd somehow produced out of nowhere, and slipped away.
"Heh. Working with competent people really does make life easier."
"What did that waitress just give you?"
"Adventurer registration forms and bank account application papers. She must have figured out why we came back here and brought them over."
"She's sharp."
"Yes. Since she arrived, my workload has dropped considerably. Now then, Jun—let's get the tedious business out of the way before the food arrives."
Carol smiled pleasantly and passed him the documents. A quick skim showed they weren't much different from the bank forms he'd known in his previous life.
He took the pen she offered next, wrote his name, and checked the male box under gender—when,
"Steamed rice, doenjang stew, and bulgogi! Junior—no, Jun. Could it be that you are a true Korean man of Korea?!"
The big man's voice rang out, thick with emotion.
Jun's heart kicked into a sprint.
"Yes! B-but—is it all right to talk about that kind of (past-life) information so openly?"
He'd agreed on impulse, then caught himself a beat too late. Jun glanced at his Stigma and asked carefully.
Carelessly airing knowledge from a previous life in front of this world's people tended to earn a warning from the Stigma. If the information wasn't critical, it was only a light electric tingle—but Jun had no desire to give a god any reason to take issue with him.
"You needn't worry on that point. When Stigma bearers converse with one another, the information is automatically filtered. It may sound a little odd to anyone listening in, but it's considered good manners among Stigma bearers to ignore such conversations—so there's no need to be concerned."
Jun looked around. Sure enough, everyone—including Carol—had averted their eyes and gone quietly about their own business. A few adventurers who looked like newcomers were staring their way in confusion, but the veterans nearby were already warning them not to.
"Thanks for the tip. So then..."
"Tatsu! That's my name in this life! In my previous life I was Park Gi-tae! I served in the Republic of Korea Army, and the day before my final leave I had the rotten luck to get caught in a firearms accident and reincarnated here!"
"...Good lord."
A wave of pure pity rose so thick it nearly brought tears to Jun's eyes; a soft exclamation slipped out of him unbidden.
Tatsu himself, though, just grinned as if none of it bothered him in the least, adding that Jun should call him by his current name—and that there was no need to share his own past-life name or cause of death the way Tatsu just had.
"Nice to meet you, Tatsu. Jun—that's my name in this life. In my previous one I was Park Han-jun. I was out celebrating passing the civil service exam with friends, got dragged into some trolling by a so-called friend, and ended up in a car crash."
"Hahaha. You've had rotten luck too, Jun. Well, anyone in a situation like ours would be... well, not everyone, I suppose? Haha."
Tatsu had been about to say that anyone would be miserable in their shoes—then saw Jun's face curdle at high speed and hastily changed course. He asked the next question with a sinking feeling.
"Haha. Y-you don't mean..."
"Yes. That damn so-called friend who dragged me into it reincarnated right alongside me. Ah—no need to look around. The bastard isn't here."
Ever since he'd put together a decent amount of money, Jun had been gathering information on Jin-seong—the bad friend who'd reincarnated with him—through Lawrence, an employee of a merchant company under the Council who also bought magic books on Jun's behalf.
Gathering intel through the Church would have been more accurate, but they'd refused, citing a policy against freely disclosing information on Stigma bearers.
Still, thanks to Lawrence, Jun had learned that the guy had been reborn into a prestigious magic family in the Britia Empire; that his innate core grade and elemental affinities had him labeled a genius both inside and outside the house; and that his personality was such garbage that behind his back they called him a complete wastrel.
Come to think of it, that bastard was supposed to enter the Imperial Academy this year too. He'll run into Leon naturally enough.
The moment the thought crossed his mind, a full-body shiver raced over Jun's skin.
Just imagining the synergy between his past-life bad friend and his present-life bad friend was enough to make him sick.
And it wasn't only those two at the Imperial Academy. The Hero and the Saintess, both rising to their third year this year, were there as well—and while he hadn't enrolled, Harry the Holy Son was also in the picture.
A prince. A reincarnator. A hero. A saintess. A holy son.
Any one of them alone was a walking bomb, and every last one of them was gathering in the same place. It truly could not get more nightmarish than this.
Please, let nothing go wrong.
Jun turned his face toward the direction of the capital and offered a silent prayer—not for the bombs (the main characters), but for the extras who would get swept up and die meaningless deaths in their wake.
And then he swore an oath.
No matter what happened, from this moment on, he would never so much as glance toward the capital again.