Bonds
The woman who approached me with a hesitant voice had bright golden-blonde hair and clear blue eyes. She looked exactly like the heroine from a storybook. Her soft, elegant bob was styled with gentle waves at the ends, and she carried the warm radiance of sunlight itself. I had passed by many people since entering the village, but none had been as beautiful as the one standing before me now.
She was of average height, somewhere in the mid-to-late 160s. Probably in her early twenties, at the very peak of her youth. Even though she wore plain, unremarkable monochrome clothing, she couldn’t hide her voluptuous figure. She must have been on her way back from shopping, because she was hugging a paper bag stuffed full of goods. The way she blinked at me with those wide eyes was incredibly cute.
“Is something wrong? Are you feeling unwell…?”
When I simply stared at her in a daze, she asked again, her voice now laced with even deeper concern. Her gentle tone flowed into me without the slightest resistance. The wild pounding of my heart and the throbbing pain in my head both calmed in an instant. It was like human sound therapy. If she ever started a personal broadcast centered around ballads, she would probably become an absolute sensation. Her voice was so beautiful that such ridiculous thoughts came to mind.
In short, her first impression was so overwhelmingly favorable that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call her someone blessed by the gods themselves.
“──You must have been through a lot.”
Whether she knew I was quietly evaluating her or not, she continued to study my face with a deeply worried expression before giving a small nod. In that moment, I noticed her gaze briefly sweep across our surroundings rather than staying on me. The people still walking by were all staring directly at me. Even though the woman in front of me possessed beauty that could rival anyone, they focused solely on me as if she didn’t exist. It was truly incomprehensible.
I wasn’t making any strange noises or performing any exaggerated movements, so why? Was red hair really that eye-catching? Even so, it felt far too artificial, like some kind of staged scene.
…Damn it, I don’t know.
I decided to set that issue aside for now. The unbearable thirst that had been rising inside me needed to be dealt with first. Fortunately, she had spoken to me first. She was a kind person who couldn’t simply ignore the sight of a poor, homeless girl(?) trembling under the weight of everyone’s stares. Therefore, she was undoubtedly the type of magnanimous soul who would smile and forgive a little bit of inconvenience.
“──Please give me some.”
“Pardon?”
“……Water. Please give me some water.”
“……”
“Just one bottle. I’ll pay for it.”
The woman tilted her head at my murmured request as I stared fixedly at the paper bag in her arms.
“You want to… buy water?”
“……?”
Huh? Why was she reacting like I’d said something completely bizarre? It didn’t have to be water; any kind of drink would have been fine, but… wait, did that bag not contain a single thing to drink?! That would be a problem!
Nia Serita has a strange personal jinx.
On days when she cannot decide on the evening menu before going grocery shopping, something special almost always happens on her way back home.
For example, a stray cat might suddenly rub against her leg and act cute, or she might find an injured puppy crying by the roadside. Sometimes a bird that had flown into a building would fall unconscious right onto her head. So today, she had wondered if something might happen again.
Stir-fried chicken or fried chicken? Should she yield to her own preferences after holding back for several days, or respect her stubborn father’s tastes? Even after deciding to sacrifice her own desires once again for the sake of family peace, she had spent an unusually long time agonizing over the choice. She had picked up and put back ingredients so many times that the store owner had even scolded her.
Anyway, this incident occurred on the way home after she had once again compromised and was returning in a somewhat dejected mood. The evening shopping trip had ended fifteen minutes later than usual. It was a tiny difference. But as they say, changes in daily life always begin with such small shifts.
‘……A girl I’ve never seen before.’
She looked precarious. Like a small child who might burst into tears and collapse at any moment. That was the exact impression Nia had gotten the moment she saw the girl’s back.
Her red hair resembled freshly bloomed flower petals. The black dress, which looked like a jeweler’s rough-cut gem, appeared to be an item so expensive that people in District 11 could never afford it no matter how hard they worked their entire lives. The silver rod-like object she clutched tightly in both hands—was that a magic staff that only the wealthy used?
Whatever the case, she looked like an incredibly cute doll. The kind of child who must have received endless love at that age. Yet her back was clearly hunched with a gloomy, withdrawn aura. Like a frightened little animal pushed into a corner of the street, she was floundering beneath the weight of everyone’s gazes.
Nia stopped walking for a moment upon seeing her. By the time she came to her senses, she had already approached the girl and spoken to her.
Normally, she never spoke to strangers first. Moreover, she tended to be quite cold toward anyone outside her family and the staff. Just like most people living in this place. She had no desire to get into arguments by sticking her nose into other people’s business. In the worst cases, she could even end up being falsely accused. Therefore, the golden rule was to ignore anyone in trouble on the street unless she knew them personally. That was how she had been taught, how she had always acted, and thanks to that, she had lived without any major incidents so far.
She had certainly believed that… so why had she spoken to the girl?
But there was no time to feel any regret. The girl had turned to look at Nia. Golden eyes and blue eyes gently intertwined in the air. Her back had already been extraordinary, but up close she was truly beautiful. For a moment Nia even forgot to breathe, her gaze completely stolen by the work of art before her.
She couldn’t believe they were the same species. The girl was truly as beautiful as a doll. It was as if every possible form of beauty that humanity could create existed within her. If she could, Nia wanted to kidnap her right then and there and take her home. The dress she was wearing suited her perfectly, but Nia also wanted to dress her up in all the clothes she herself had worn as a child. She wanted to feed her delicious food. She was confident in her cooking skills, after all.
Let’s feed her, wash her with warm water, change her into pajamas, brush her hair, and finally lie down together in my bed, hugging her tightly as a replacement for my body pillow. She would definitely feel incredibly soft and smell amazingly good…
…Wait.
Nia suddenly froze in the middle of her runaway thoughts.
‘W-wait, what was I just imagining…?’
Although it had been only for a split second, she realized how unnaturally the train of thought had progressed. It was far too radical and impulsive for her. Forcing down her pounding heart, she looked at the girl once more.
It was true that she had an exceptionally pretty face that was rarely seen, but she still clearly looked like a young girl. Thanks to regaining her composure, the strange impulse from earlier did not return. What on earth had that been? Some kind of hallucination? If she had to compare it, it felt similar to the emotions one might feel upon seeing an incredibly adorable animal.
In that moment, Nia understood why the people on the street had been sending such harsh looks toward the girl. Of course, understanding and accepting were two different things, and above all, she could never accept a conclusion that placed her on the same level as those perverts. So she offered what she genuinely felt was sincere comfort: “You must have been through a lot.”
Tears welled up in the girl’s eyes as she received the warm consolation. Then, without even bothering to wipe away the droplets, she gave a small nod and moved her pink lips to ask for water. Nia had assumed that someone who looked like a rich young lady would make a much bigger request, so she reacted like an idiot.
She wants water? And she’s even willing to pay for it? There are wells for drinking water everywhere, so why would she suddenly go out of her way to buy water with money…?
One piece of information flashed through Nia’s mind.
‘Now that I think about it, I heard that people from District 7 mostly drink something called “bottled water”—purified water sold in bottles from factories?’
They apparently cared a lot about things like minerals, so they drank special water. It seemed the girl before her really was from District 7.
The core residential district of the evacuation fortress Labica. Although the population was small, it housed outstanding mages and engineers. It was the undeniable central command tower of humanity, where the fortress’s main administrative facilities were concentrated. The moment Nia realized the girl had come from such a place, her heart began to race like a child’s.
She was seeing in real life someone who only appeared in stories.
“I don’t have any water with me right now. But I can guide you to the nearest well. It’ll be closer than my house.”
“……I see. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Oh, my name is Nia Serita.”
“………I’m… Berry.”
What a cute name. Is it a nickname? The rather long pause before she answered made Nia suspect she had a different real name, but that didn’t matter at all to her right now.
‘She’s cute, so it doesn’t matter!’
This was simply a matter of differing common sense.
Working on-site, living alone, no water purifier at home, and an old building. These four factors had apparently led me to the firm belief that drinking water meant bottled water. I never imagined I would realize this wasn’t my original world over something so trivial.
‘Nia… Serita, was it?’
I stared quietly at the side profile of the woman walking half a step ahead of me. She was an angel who had reached out to me when I was lost, and a grateful person who had corrected one small misunderstanding of mine. Who would have thought that wells usable as drinking water were such a common facility scattered throughout this village? All the time I had spent wandering the streets while desperately enduring a thirst that felt like it would make me collapse now seemed utterly pointless.
“And most houses have wells that draw up groundwater. You can easily get drinking water no matter where you go.”
“I see.”
“I’ve never heard of an aquifer drying up in all the time I’ve lived here… Anyway, in District 11, water is practically free.”
“That’s really fortunate.”
“Though some people complain that everyone uses so much that the sewage treatment plant is short on manpower…”
“Ahaha……”
I smiled awkwardly and gave appropriate responses to her words when a thought suddenly occurred to me. It felt like I had gained a bodyguard. Ever since she had spoken to me, I could feel that the stares from the people around us had become much softer, so it wasn’t exactly an incorrect description. It might simply have been a change in my own mood, but it was definitely a positive one.
Once my mind had stabilized, I began interacting with people in my usual manner. Nia seemed to find my attentive listening—trying not to miss a single word of our conversation—quite endearing. She kept chattering on about things I hadn’t even asked about, so she might simply enjoy talking. Either way, about ten minutes had passed since our simple self-introductions and the polite exchange of conversation.
“Here it is.”
Dragging my thirst-exhausted body, I finally reached the land of the life-giving water.
“Wait, Berry! That’s heavier than it looks───”
Nia was saying something beside me, but I didn’t hear it. The moment I saw the typical well with its dug-out shaft, stacked stones, pulley, and bucket, I temporarily shut off my thoughts and dashed straight toward it. I scooped up a bucketful of water. It must have been nearly twenty liters. Yet the twenty-kilogram weight came up as easily as a sheet of paper. There was no resistance at all.
Confirming the sloshing liquid, I lifted it over my head without hesitation and poured it straight down. Cold, fresh water cascaded over my face. Half went into my mouth, the other half over my face. My clothes were instantly soaked, but I didn’t care in the slightest. I could feel clean groundwater flowing down my throat. The stream of life that soaked my face and hair washed away all the stress I had accumulated. My overheated body cooled down. My relentlessly pounding heart quickly found stability. As my thirst was quenched, my rapidly declining stamina began to recover at an astonishing rate.
Human bodies absorb water quickly, but this was beyond common sense. Surely I didn’t have some setting where I could survive on water alone? …That was probably just an overactive imagination. I wasn’t some alien robot, after all. While hydrogen and oxygen certainly made good fuel, I was an ordinary human who wanted to live an organic life. I was absolutely not a doll.
Oh, come to think of it, hadn’t Nia said something earlier? After putting out the immediate fire, I realized I had momentarily ignored the person who had kindly guided me all the way here. I quickly turned around.
My violently soaked hair swung with the abrupt motion, scattering water droplets. I paused for a moment at the unfamiliar recoil and looked at the spot.
“……I really can’t hold back anymore.”
There stood a beautiful—no, a terrifying—noona, breathing roughly as she stared intently at me.