Episode 7 — Valerie Gius
The knight kneeling before me, swearing her oath at the top of her lungs, had an erection.
"Why... why now, of all times...?"
"I-I'm sorryy...! It's just that, partway through my oath... the, the things at the ranch... came back to me...!"
Ah. So it was that. I'd been doing my best to scrub it from my memory, and now...
No. No, think differently. The whole point is making sure nothing like that ever happens again, right? Then first things first — I need to steer this conversation somewhere, anywhere else!
To change the subject, I circled back to Valerie's oath itself. If she truly wanted to follow me, then there was something I owed her. Something I had to tell her.
"Valerie, please, stand up. Let's at least have a seat. There's something I need to talk to you about."
"Y-yes? Something you need to... talk about...?"
Valerie's face flushed crimson as her eyes began to wander.
"It's not that kind of talk. You're not taking requests today, remember?"
"M-my apologies!"
And so, the air between us settling into something calmer, we took chairs by the window and sat facing each other.
To survive in this world — where I knew next to nothing — I needed Valerie, and Valerie wanted to travel with me for the sake of her own training. Which meant I couldn't keep lying to her any longer.
I decided to tell her the truth.
I told Valerie that I had come from another world, and that a goddess of unknown identity had decreed me the one fated to defeat the Demon King. About the world I'd originally lived in, I kept it brief — I figured detailed explanations would be useless to her anyway, and probably impossible to understand.
After some deliberation, I also explained my passive skill, at least in part.
Apparently the concept of a "passive" doesn't exist in this world. Probably another one of the Goddess's convenient little systems.
Even so, once I framed it as a kind of magical effect, Valerie accepted it. And when I explained that her heightened libido lately was likely a result of being around me, she looked positively stunned.
"Which means you can never blame yourself for it again. Ever."
"I understand what you're saying... wait. Did you say ever again?"
"Ah."
"Wha—! N-no, you don't mean—! Hero, last night, you saw it?!"
And there went my mouth, spilling far more than I'd intended. Valerie's face burned scarlet and she absolutely did not know what to do with herself. She flapped her hands uselessly in the air before covering her face with them and doing a long, dry face-washing gesture.
"I'm so sorry... that you had to witness... that..."
"No, no, I'm the one who should apologize for barging in on it..."
The atmosphere, which had been going so smoothly, began tangling itself into knots again. I had to pivot the conversation — I could not let myself get swept away by the mood a second time. I had to lead this dialogue!
"Still... to think you saw me in such a state. I know it's strange for me to even ask, after I'm the one begging for the favor... but would you truly be all right, having someone like me at your side...?"
Valerie asked this while peering at me through the gaps between her fingers. It struck me as the perfect question at the perfect moment.
"Yes! Like I just said, it was my fault, and if anything, you were the one holding back admirably. Someone as dependable and righteous as you — I figured I owed you honesty in return for trusting you."
"Hero..."
Valerie's eyes sparkled as she slowly lowered her hands, revealing her face once more.
"I don't know what's going to happen to me out there, or what I'll have to endure! But with a trustworthy companion like you at my side, I think we'll be just fine!"
I rose from my seat, clenching my fist with passion, and declared it with everything I had.
"A-a-and, companion! Me... your...!"
Valerie's voice trembled even as her eyes shone brighter, her own fist tightening.
"Yes! A companion! You're exactly the kind of person who'll become the very best of them!"
"The, the very best! Your companion...!"
Valerie shot to her feet, fist raised.
"So please! Be the companion of this rookie Hero!"
I threw both arms wide open and shouted it with my whole chest.
A cool breeze came pouring through the window, a few tree leaves drifting in after it. In that wind, Valerie's red bangs swayed beautifully. She closed her eyes, took one long, deep breath, snapped to attention, and laid her right hand over her heart.
"I, Valerie Gius, knight. This honorable choice you have bestowed upon me, your Hero — I shall receive it with everything I am, and serve you with my life!"
She was magnificent. Beautiful, even. Valerie's eyes didn't just sparkle — they blazed, radiating a strength you could feel from across the room.
And so, on that excellent note, we became companions. When we stepped out of the inn to grab a belated lunch, one of the staff overheard us and told us we should stop by the guild.
At the guild, they even tried to cover our meals. We debated refusing for a moment, but decided that wandering the streets hunting for a restaurant would draw far too much attention, so we accepted.
We were shown into a private meeting room, and that same receptionist from before came back with thick sandwiches, soup, and fruit drinks purchased from a nearby eatery.
And so we found ourselves eating a free meal, almost by accident, and as we ate, our real conversation began. Namely: an explanation of this world.
Valerie walked me through the things I hadn't already heard — everything beyond that talk about futanari from before.
As I'd suspected, this world wasn't all that different from your average fantasy setting. I'm hardly a history buff, but from what she described, it seemed comparable to medieval Europe, only with a fair degree of modernized technology layered on top.
And true to fantasy form, there were monsters. Broadly speaking, two kinds: wild monsters, and the Demon King's army's monsters. Wild monsters were just that — creatures like wild beasts — while the Demon King's army commanded monsters either tamed by its demonkin or, in the case of unusually intelligent ones, monsters who joined of their own volition.
That Demon King's army had withered over long centuries — its scattered remnants were only occasionally spotted, and most had broken off into independent factions of their own — but the recently revived Demon King had been rebuilding its strength, and now threatened humanity once more.
To combat him, the various nations were raising armies, supporting adventurers, and forging coalitions with one another.
The adventurers, it turned out, were exactly the adventurers I was imagining. Straight out of a fantasy setting — people who took on requests, hunted treasure, and grew stronger. Valerie introduced herself as a wandering knight, but in truth she was an adventurer too.
She also gave me a rough sketch of the nations in this region. The country we were currently in was the Zortia Kingdom, a small land blessed with a temperate climate — and, thanks to its great distance from the major powers, a long peace.
The territory containing this village belonged to its southern reaches; head north and you'd eventually reach the Royal Capital. To the west, the Zortia Kingdom bordered a vast desert that stretched toward the great powers, and to the north, its border with neighboring countries ran along a rugged mountain range.
To the east lay the sea, and heading south would bring you to a region of small, independent city-states.
Listening to all this, it genuinely felt like a game's starter village — the nation where every journey begins. I said as much to Valerie, and, as expected, got zero sympathy. Her awkward attempts to react brightly to the joke only made me feel more embarrassed.
Valerie's homeland was one of those very city-states. From the sound of it, it sat quite far south, nearly touching the Great Tree Forest. Elves were said to live in that forest, though she admitted she'd never actually seen one herself.
When elves came up, I asked about the races of this world.
Valerie prefaced her answer with the disclaimer that she certainly didn't know everything, then listed a few: Humies, Beastfolk, Elves, the Horned Tribe, Demonfolk, and so on. Collectively, they were all referred to as "humanity."
Humie was the term for people like me and Valerie. Beastfolk and elves were more or less what I'd expected. The Horned Tribe, from her description, sounded like big, horned dwarves. And while Demonfolk technically counted as humanity too, so many of them belonged to the Demon King's army that they'd earned themselves a rather poor reputation among the other races.
Between listening and eating, I suddenly realized both of us had finished our sandwiches and soup, and were now just sipping at our drinks.
Last of all, I asked about the Hero. The story, she said, had spread from a single prophet, long ago, after the heroes who first vanquished the Demon King had all grown old and passed from the world. It was told and passed down differently from region to region, but the common thread was always the same: When the Demon King revives, a Hero shall appear and save the world.
As for anything related to futanari — Valerie had never heard a word of it either.
Of course she hadn't. I didn't hear about it either, and I lived there...
With the explanations more or less wrapped up, we both fell silent. Before long, Valerie seemed to remember something and turned to me.
"By the way... have you not been able to hear that goddess's voice since?"
"Ah, yeah... I've tried a few times, but she hasn't answered..."
"You didn't describe much about her, so I can't quite picture what kind of goddess she might be. There are so many religions in this world, after all..."
Just as our conversation threatened to lapse into silence again, I noticed a commotion outside. We opened the door of the meeting room and peered out.
Over by the entrance, people were murmuring in alarm, wondering what on earth had happened.
"Some barbarian warrior and his whole gang! They've taken the ranch owner's wife hostage and are holding her right there!!"