2
Chapter 2
I'm certain.
This is definitely a hit.
Ciel.
That was the name of the protagonist's companion from the spoiler post I read before I possessed this body.
I remember she was supposed to be a young half-elf abandoned by her own kind.
Wait... an elf?
Recalling her race, I looked closely at Ciel's ears.
Sure enough, though hidden by her hair, they were slightly pointier than a normal person's. Her skin was pale too.
Her black hair didn't seem very elf-like, but she was a half-elf. It made sense if I considered it as traits mixed from another race.
"......?"
Perhaps staring so openly felt a bit strange, because Ciel looked at me with an odd expression.
Feeling a bit awkward, I quickly looked away and pretended not to notice.
Maybe because of her personality, Ciel didn't ask me anything. She just turned her head back forward without much thought and continued toward the mining site.
Anyway, I confirmed once more that this girl was indeed the Ciel from the spoiler post.
I wracked my brain as hard as I could to remember the contents of that spoiler post I had read.
I'm pretty sure Ciel's backstory was... that elves who believed in bizarre superstitions had cast her out, calling her an ill-omened child.
...This kid is ill-omened?
I couldn't help but doubt the intelligence of elves once again.
She's just pretty?
Looking a bit blank and thoughtless, she didn't seem evil at all.
Just how deep were they immersed in strange superstitions to be able to abandon their own kind, and a child at that?
I couldn't understand it at all. But that wasn't what was important right now.
Having come this far, what I needed to do was set.
An opportunity had practically rolled right to my feet. There was no way I could let it slip by.
I had to make that girl my companion, no matter what.
That was the top priority, even above escaping.
'So I need to become friends with her quickly...'
My train of thought suddenly stopped.
Come to think of it... how do you become friends with a young girl?
My mind went completely blank.
In a way, that was to be expected.
Knowing suspiciously well how to get close to young girls would be even stranger.
No, beyond strange, that's a crime.
I can barely even remember how I made friends in elementary school.
I could only come up with ideas so lacking in creativity they were downright pathetic, like offering her some candy and saying "let's be friends."
'...I'm seriously losing my mind.'
A sigh naturally escaped me.
With such a blunt personality on top of that, it felt even more hopeless.
But hey, what could I do.
Rather than agonizing over how to escape here alone like before, it was much better to figure out how to gain this girl's cooperation.
Whether it works out or not, I just had to give it a try.
*****
I was wrong.
She's not a person, she's a block of wood. A block of wood!
For the past two weeks,
I've definitely tried everything to build up some goodwill.
I shared my food with her, taught her this and that from beside her, and protected her when other kids picked a fight with her.
I seriously did everything I could possibly do.
However, the results haven't changed a single bit.
Normally, if you treat someone this well, shouldn't they at least greet you first when you see them and naturally start hanging out together?
But this kid is exactly the same as when we first met. Even us sticking together right now is because I went looking for her, not the other way around.
And the problem didn't end there.
"If you keep eating like that, you won't even finish half of it before mealtime. Hurry up and eat!"
Despite my scolding, Ciel still ate the bread little by little with a spaced-out expression, like a rabbit.
Nagging this kid by her side had become completely natural at some point, to the point where it was now an everyday routine.
In other words, it meant I had unilaterally grown fond of this brat.
...I know I look like an idiot, but it couldn't be helped.
The kids here all had dozens of snakes wriggling in their bellies. They were more black-hearted and sly than most adults I'd seen.
But Ciel was the opposite.
She was too transparent.
She didn't have any ulterior motives.
Because of that, if I just left her alone, she'd get whipped and have her food stolen.
The more frustrating part was that she just took it without fighting back.
In the end, feeling like I was raising some kind of pet, I ended up taking care of her from the side because it seemed like she'd die if I didn't.
'Is she really an elf?'
Seeing as her senses were a bit strange and her reactions somewhat inhuman, she was definitely an elf without a doubt.
But no matter how abandoned of a half-elf she was, being weak enough to just be a punching bag like this didn't make sense.
Considering the status of elves in the original work, I had to assume she at least had the ability to sneak out of here.
Then what on earth did she like about being stuck here?
"......."
While I was spacing out and thinking about that incomprehensible girl, Ciel looked my way, which was rare.
Now that I've accumulated some experience dealing with her, I felt like I could understand her language to some extent.
This was her reaction when she wanted to ask something.
"Is there something you want to say?"
"Aren't you going to eat?"
Hearing that, I looked down at my food tray again.
Sure enough, there was still a piece of bread left.
My only food source, which I had desperately protected during the early days of my possession.
But... I just couldn't bring myself to eat it.
Was this what they called the curse of knowledge?
I should have just torn off the moldy parts and eaten it like the other kids.
Why did I have to pick up that random piece of trivia from the internet about mold being the flag planted by bacteria after completely conquering their food?
Even if I somehow got over the hygiene issue, it tasted absolutely awful.
No, beyond just tasting bad, it felt like my tongue was being tortured.
"......You eat it. I don't have much of an appetite today."
In the end, I held the bread out to Ciel again today.
I didn't want to be picky about my food at the risk of starving, but I didn't feel hungry yet.
It was probably thanks to the Healthy Body trait.
I probably wouldn't feel a thing even if I didn't eat for a week.
'Besides, I've stashed some food away during this time, so I can just eat that if I get hungry.'
It was better to just give it to Ciel here.
Her affinity towards me... well, I had given up on that a long time ago. Still, it felt like feeding a pet. Just watching her gave me a feeling of fullness.
After offering the bread to Ciel, I spent the rest of the mealtime casually thinking about my future plans.
Or rather, I tried to.
"......? What are you doing?"
However, the sensation of the bread I held out to Ciel didn't leave my hand. It didn't seem like she had any intention of taking it.
Ciel and I locked eyes once again.
And for once, Ciel asked a question first.
"Why?"
Normally, I would have given this elf a lesson in social skills, telling her to be more detailed if she was going to speak, or that she needed to explain the context for me to understand the question.
Strangely, however, I found myself overwhelmed by the aura she was giving off.
"Why are you doing this for me?"
Her tone wasn't blaming or reprimanding me.
It was just pure curiosity.
Her words were filled with nothing but the genuine bewilderment of someone who couldn't comprehend my actions.
"Was the bread you ate earlier bad or something? My arm is getting tired, so just take it already."
I said that to Ciel. But the response I got back was once again completely incomprehensible.
"You have to eat this."
That, just looking at the words themselves, was a perfectly normal thing to say.
She was telling me to eat it because she felt sorry for just taking everything I gave her.
However, that expression.
That expression alone was completely incomprehensible to me.
For the past two weeks.
Even when she was being whipped, even when she starved because her food was stolen by other kids. She never made a face that sad.
"You haven't eaten anything for days."
......It was only then that I understood this kid's reaction.
Well, I only skipped meals and endured it because I trusted my trait anyway. But how must it have looked in her eyes?
Besides, thinking about it, there was a lot more I could guess.
Since she's an elf, she probably wouldn't get Mana Poisoning, but since I was completely immune, it was better for me to step up, so I even helped with her share of the mining.
Since I barely felt any pain when hit thanks to my trait and healed quickly anyway, I even took some of the whipping for her.
Thinking about it that way, it made sense.
So she didn't completely ignore my efforts. The thought that I wasn't the only one who had grown fond of her crossed my mind, and I even felt a little pleased.
But.......
Thinking like that, there was something a bit strange.
'Was that really something to say so sadly?'
If she was thankful, she could have just said so, right?
"Why?"
Ciel asks me that.
The context was cut off this time too, but I could understand the intent of the question.
That was why I hesitated.
Why did I help her?
Because as a protagonist in the game, she was bound to be strong.
Because I wanted her to help me as a companion.
Because the more I kept looking at her, I felt like she'd just drop dead if I left her alone, so I wanted to take care of her.
Because I ended up growing attached to her.
There were simply too many reasons.
But how was I supposed to explain all of that?
-Clang, clang!
While I was agonizing over it, a bell rang.
That was the signal for a gathering.
Seeing as they suddenly called us when mealtime wasn't even over, it seemed some idiot broke the rules and was about to be publicly executed.
Either way, I needed to head to the assembly point quickly.
So, I just said the first answer that came to mind.
"Just because it's you."
Why was it, I wonder.
That Ciel made such a strange expression back then.
It was something I had absolutely no way of knowing.