When It Comes to Orario, Of Course
My reunion with Orario got off to the worst possible start.
“Hold it right there. We need to conduct an inspection, so I’ll have to ask for your cooperation.”
“Huh?”
Apparently, a figure completely swaddled in a black cloak was, unsurprisingly, quite the suspicious sight.
I’d tried to keep a low profile, but slipping out unseen through the one and only gate… honestly, I probably could have managed it, but I hadn’t wanted to. All the more so because the Dungeon was a place I used to come and go from like it was my own front door.
Though if I’d known this would happen, I would have just traveled in secret… No, even if only for the money, I had to stop by the Guild anyway, so maybe this was only natural.
“Um… is something the matter?”
My voice came out thin and high for a man, exactly the same as when I was a boy. Personally, I prefer a low, weighty voice, but what can you do when your voice is as young-looking as your face?
Thankfully, it seemed to visibly put at ease the men—who looked to be from the Ganesha Familia. If that was a blessing, then a blessing it was.
Children are never suspected, no matter the era or the culture. Not that I am a child in any way whatsoever.
Not in any way at all!
“We have to confirm everyone passing through. Could you show us your face, if possible?”
“Eh? I, um…”
“…What seems to be the problem? Is something wrong?”
“It’s not exactly a… problem…”
Thanks to Rivira Town, Miss Ais, and Lady Riveria, a single hypothesis had taken root inside me.
Time travel. The hypothesis that I was now standing in the past.
Honestly, it was an absurd notion—but the situation made just as little sense to deny. For now, I should proceed on the premise that I had, in fact, traveled through time.
Which raised one more problem: the effect my actions would have on the future.
Let’s be honest, my appearance stands out. Snow-white hair and crimson eyes. It genuinely pains me to admit it, but an appearance that evokes a rabbit—a face more human bunny than any human bunny out there—plants itself in people’s memories and refuses to leave.
So what happens if I show my face here? Maybe that’s oversensitivity on my part, but what if someone connected this face to my future self?
The odds were slim, but this situation was a first for me, and I found myself growing needlessly cautious. Still, I couldn’t just throw my weight around here either… Hmm…
“If there’s a problem…”
“No, there isn’t. I’ll take it off. Just the hood, right?”
“R-right…”
Since they were eyeing me with suspicion, I decided to comply and pulled off my hat. Considering the era, I was unlikely to be remembered anyway.
My appearance was a little eye-catching, but hardly a face anyone would carry in memory for a lifetime. Besides, even if someone crossed paths with my future… past? Either way, my later self, they’d write me off as a lookalike—nobody would conclude I was a time-traveling version of myself.
After all, who would believe something that even I, the person involved, could hardly believe?
I pulled back the hood and showed my face. The white hair I’d failed to cut lately slid down over the black robe like embroidery.
I could feel the guard’s gaze keenly. First on my hair, and then on my one empty eye.
A look of pity lingered there a moment before it faded. Did he take me for a child because of my young face?
As expected of the Ganesha Familia—compassion overflowing. A small bead of moisture welled up at the corner of his eye.
“Ahem. Looks like you’ve had a hard road of it, boy. That’s enough—go on through.”
“No, no, senpai! How can you just wave him through like that?!”
I agreed completely. I was grateful, sure, but can someone in charge of security really act like this? Orario’s future is looking dark.
Ah. So that’s how it ended up the way it did. Haha, so I was slandered all along?
“‘Waving him through’?! Can you not see that boy’s eyes, pure and clear as untouched snow?!”
“That may be true! But that’s no reason to let him pass!”
Every word out of the junior’s mouth was correct.
But he had overlooked one thing.
“How dare you talk back to me!”
“Wah?!”
Orario right now was a romantic age of hawks and fists flying thick and fast. Insubordination was not tolerated.
Of course, it was just their way of playing around, but watching from the sidelines was a bit uncomfortable. Not for any other reason than my own pathetic jealousy.
It stirred a longing I had lost, something I could never take back, and it left me melancholy for no good reason. Really, this is exactly why I didn’t want to come to Orario…
“Stop fighting. If it’s an inspection, then I’ll receive it properly.”
“Aha—showing such pluck even in hardship! As a child of Lord Ganesha, I cannot stand idly by!”
“That’s right! I am Ganesha!”
“Lord Ganesha!”
“Ah, you again! Didn’t I tell you not to come to the inspections!”
Lord Ganesha himself now appeared at the checkpoint, which was growing more chaotic by the second.
Ah. This is going to take a while.
After many tribulations, the lively, clattering, boisterous inspection time finally got underway.
From start to finish, an inspection took roughly an hour.
“Th-then… we’ll begin the search momentarily. Please raise both arms.”
An impossible demand from the very start. How’s a one-armed man supposed to get by?
“Um… if you could raise your other arm as well…”
“I only have the one arm…”
“Urk…!”
“My… Ganesha…?!”
The checkpoint turned into a funeral the instant those words left my mouth.
The so-called senpai, and even Lord Ganesha himself, were crying rivers of tears from beneath his elephant mask, mourning for me.
Setting aside the fact that Lord Ganesha could only ever speak in the format of “I am Ganesha!”, he was a god so benevolent I’d rank him second only to my Goddess in kindness—which made it all the worse.
So this, too, hadn’t changed with the passage of time. It drove home, once again, that the gods are immutable.
“Ahem… to march into the Dungeon so unbowed, in that condition…! I am moved, boy!”
“I! Am! Ganeshaaa!”
“He says: ‘What a remarkable boy! If there is anything you desire, speak it, and I shall grant it!’”
With a single raised arm, I had apparently become, in their eyes, “a poor, plucky child who bent but never broke under misfortune.”
The junior who had coldly heckled me earlier was even getting teary-eyed—would they believe me if I denied it? Well, Lord Ganesha is a god, so maybe he would?
But there was no need to correct the record here. Frankly, it wasn’t entirely a misunderstanding, either.
So, here goes…
“Then, might I ask one favor of you?”
“Ganesha!”
“He says: ‘Leave it to me.’”
As expected of Lord Ganesha. Utterly reassuring.
“Your settlement is complete. Please proceed to window three for the exchange.”
“Yes, thank you.”
The Guild. The adventurers’ final destination.
Suffering in the Dungeon to gather magic stones and drop items, settling accounts at the Guild, then capping it off with a drink—this sequence was such a staple of the adventurer’s life that you could call it the standard ritual. In truth, if you couldn’t manage even that much, you’d hardly deserve the name adventurer.
Of course, to me it was a sight more than familiar—downright tedious, in fact. Not that I had ever truly found it tedious.
Not here…
Despite myself, I found my eyes sweeping across the receptionists’ faces.
I had unconsciously gone looking for the half-elf receptionist who had always greeted me with a smile.
But of course, she was nowhere to be seen. It was only natural, really.
Judging from Miss Ais’s appearance, Eina couldn’t be more than ten years old or so.
Eina being the younger one—honestly, it wouldn’t sink in. To me, Eina had always been the one person the word “big sister” suited best.
Setting my disappointment aside, I left the Guild. For some reason, I didn’t feel like lingering there.
Really, how pathetic can I get.
At my age, still held captive by the past. Anyone who saw me would laugh themselves sick.
Or they might rebuke me instead. You’re the one who survived—why are you making such a pitiful show of yourself? Get up already.
“…”
Forcing myself to ignore the clinging, sticky emotions, I looked around.
A landscape both familiar and not. This place really was very different from the Orario I knew.
And yet the familiar scenes that survived here and there testified plainly to what kind of city this was.
“Oh, The Chick’s Anvil! So it’s existed since back then.”
I got excited seeing the beginner-only forge I’d frequented in my very earliest days.
“The tavern where Welf and Bete used to drink… still small, huh.”
I got drunk on nostalgia at the upscale tavern that would one day flourish, back when it was still a newbie’s haunt.
“And over there is the Loki Familia’s… what?! That’s the Hera Familia’s home?!”
Shocked to learn that the building I’d assumed was the Loki Familia’s home belonged to a Familia I’d only ever heard of in old tales—and determined to blow my gloom away as thoroughly as possible—I kept myself moving hard.
Maybe it worked, because my appetite was starting to stir a little. I had to stuff something in before it vanished entirely.
Whatever happens, never go hungry—that’s rule one of being an adventurer.
Before I knew it, my feet had started carrying me toward a familiar street.
This direction…
A corner I could never forget, no matter how I tried. Aside from our home, probably the place I’d spent more time than anywhere else.
A lavish restaurant run by a Level 6 dwarf heroine. The Hostess of Fertility.
“…”
Where it should have stood, there was a completely out-of-place ornament shop. Presumably she hadn’t opened the store yet.
How to put it—the place was filled to the brim with hollowness. All that anticipation, all for nothing.
Ever since the time travel, my luck has been rotten. No, I know a missing store isn’t a matter of luck, but still.
“Hah… hm?”
The moment my poorly-hidden desolation threatened to swallow me whole, a familiar fragrance began drifting in from somewhere.
“Sniff, sniff… this rich, savory yet simple, faintly oily smell—could it be?”
I turned my steps toward the source of the smell. Rather than moving deliberately, my body simply moved on its own, without my noticing.
And the place I arrived at was—
“Last discount before close! Three Jagamarukun for the low, low price of 5 valis! Cheap, cheap!”
Jagamarukun. You again?
I bought out every remaining Jagamarukun on the spot. You simply cannot resist Jagamarukun.
It’s just a simple food—mashed potatoes mixed with this and that, then deep-fried—so why does it never taste right outside Orario? It got so bad I even considered moving back to Orario for this alone; that says it all. Real Jagamarukun is a legend.
“Come to think of it… did I buy too many?”
I’d absentmindedly bought a whole mountain of them out of old habit, but there was only one mouth to feed now—mine. It wasn’t that I couldn’t eat this many, but finishing them all might be a bit of a chore…
“…”
To hide my gloomy mood, I quickened my pace. My destination was the church where my Goddess and I had lived alone together in the earliest days. It was a place almost impossible to find unless you knew to look, so as far as my options went, it was the best choice available.
After a short walk, I arrived.
The former Hestia Familia home, completely wrecked in the war against the Apollo Familia.
Back when I lived here, my Goddess and I had gotten by hand to mouth, just the two of us. Each day spent leaning on the kindness of the neighbors was a full and honest life.
Reminiscing on those precious memories, I stepped inside the church. Unlike when we first claimed our home, the interior was cleaner than I expected.
Well, color me surprised. Honestly, I figured it would be just as much of a wreck even now.
Ever since the Age of Gods began, faith had long since lost its meaning.
Not that reverence for the gods itself had disappeared. It’s simply this: when the god is standing right in front of you, why bother walking to a church to pray? If you’re going to pray at all, better to do it in front of the goddess herself.
In that sense, a church-shaped building like this was a genuinely rare case. Considering the hidden room, it had probably been built as a decoy from the very start.
I kicked the corner of the church a few times, hunting for the hidden door. It had been a while, so I was a little fuzzy on the details. It should be around here… oh. Found it.
I slipped through the hidden door as it scraped open. It was the moment the time travel finally became real to me.
“Whoa…”
The secret base, once revealed, was far tidier than I expected.
Sparse on furniture, but with a bed, a sofa, a desk, a lantern… everything a home needed—the very picture of cozy domesticity. I couldn’t help but marvel.
Is someone already living here…? No, wait—more than that, isn’t this a better setup than the Hestia Familia home before the War Game?
Swallowed by a vague sense of defeat, I let out a meaningless groan, plopped down onto the sofa, and pulled out a Jagamarukun.
Ah… this is the very sofa we used to have. Did the owner of this place put it here?
Back when this was our home, the sofa was already worn down to nothing, but it was reasonably soft, so I used it in place of a bed.
I slept on the sofa so my Goddess could have the bed. For some reason she had a habit of crawling on top of me in her sleep-talk, so we both ended up sleeping poorly—but even that is just another memory now.
“…”
I tried not to remember. I remembered anyway.
The lingering echo of those days I could never return to.
How many memories had once felt like a Sacred Flame that would never go out?
How many memories had vanished like a guttering candle?
How many times had I broken apart, staring at the cold ash left behind?
A heavy weight on my heart, I happened to look up at the sky. Through the one small window, a single moon hung there, all alone.
That moon looked just like my own situation; I started with a short sob at how wretched I was, crying alone, and ended up wailing long into the night.