Picked Up
Picked up.
I killed the last friend I had left.
Because he had broken into a private home to fund his gambling habit, committing robbery and murder in the process.
In a world where everyone used me until I was scraped against the ground, he had been a friend who came by now and then, taking nothing but money.
It happened while I was away on a brief leave from duty.
I hunted him down myself and put him to death.
A harmonious family. A friend. I killed them all.
Is this what it would feel like, if flesh flung up toward the sun came falling back down to pierce your heart?
The bandages swallowing my whole face felt as though they were strangling a throat they never even touched.
After finishing the commission to eliminate the fugitive, I returned to the guild that regarded me as an enemy.
"That was fast. You're always dragging your feet—so I suppose you kill people just fine, huh?"
The barb that flew at me the moment I opened the door felt like a spear pointed at my chest.
There were only two men in the party—him and me—so maybe it was too much to expect any sense of brotherhood between us.
Sometimes I can't tell whether I'm a member of this place or its sworn enemy.
The people I once thought of as friends no longer welcome me. Perhaps they never have, for a long time now.
"Well, this is the last time anyway, isn't it?"
A woman's voice, sharp enough to pierce thin glass without effort.
The mage with the long purple hair, coming down the stairs from the upper floor as she spoke.
I knew instinctively what she meant by "the last."
The man took a small step—just the smallest step—closer, and said, rolling his wrist, "We've held out a long time. Sorry, but you need to disappear from the party... no. From the guild. From in front of us. We'll inform the Master ourselves."
He paused, shut his mouth briefly, then went on. "No need to explain yourself, is there? You can't even use magic properly anymore. And yet you still insist on playing the hero from a fairy tale, stepping forward at exactly the crucial moment."
The woman laughed—a laugh in her voice, but not on her face—as she tilted her chin up slightly to cut in. "That's right, you're useless. All you're good for is lurking in the back."
This time, the man drove a dagger into my heart.
"Honestly, your face is hideous."
The woman chimed in once more. "Agreed. I can't even eat because of you. Maybe if you wore a full helm, I could manage—but why do you insist on half measures, covering just your shoulders, hands, and feet?"
If this was the price of my devotion, had my devotion simply not been enough?
Two of the other four had made it clear they wanted me gone. What point was there in staying?
I didn't argue. I didn't say a single word. I just—
Creeeak.
Where was I supposed to go? I had nowhere to go.
After being cast out as if my home had vanished, I found myself in a familiar forest.
It wasn't a place I'd visited that often, yet the sheer length of time I'd spent here made it feel like I had.
Yes. A long time.
I couldn't tell what all that time had left behind. I didn't know what remained.
Even breathing was a burden. I couldn't even manage resentment. I didn't even know what to resent.
It was simply the consequence of my own choices.
And so, setting my feet onto a path I had never walked before, I greeted the rising of a new sun.
A small, dirt-colored rodent I couldn't name scurried out from beneath a tree, brushing past my heel.
Morning had come for that little creature too, I suppose.
I leaned my back against the tree it had emerged from and closed my eyes.
That sleep did not last long.
Because an ogre came walking toward me, shaking the very earth.
Half again as tall as me, bulky yet surprisingly agile.
Cunning, even—it had likely ended many a life by striking suddenly from behind.
Before I knew it, I'd drawn my old sword, its blade worn rough as a saw.
This body could no longer wield proper equipment or manage its magic—but an ogre was merely an ogre.
Its green fist clenched tight, swinging in wide, swift arcs, while its torso left tiny openings here and there.
I closed the distance, drove my blade deep into that torso, and toppled the ogre backward.
Then I decided to give it the sword as a gift.
In exchange for stealing away one creature's morning.
Other beasts would surely come sniffing around now, so I had to move.
After passing through a short cave, the dense woods stretched on once more.
And so did the sleep I hadn't finished.
I knew I shouldn't sleep just anywhere—but who was going to pick up something like me?
After the bandaged freak vanished, the party felt refreshingly clean, like filth had been scrubbed away.
They were in good spirits, and with their fresh start, they assumed everything would go smoothly.
"Something keeps getting on my clothes today."
"Don't fuss over something so trivial."
"Honestly, I question whether we're even the same gender."
"Please, keep your voices down. I can't concentrate on preparing treatment when I need to be ready to heal at any moment."
At first, they were nothing more than light complaints.
That was just how women were, day in and day out, so I decided not to read too much into it.
The pedantic sword-swinger carved a path forward while I marched in the middle, directing the two mages.
It was a simple job. It had to be.
"Kyaah!"
"Wh-what is it?!"
Shlick!
"...Ugh, damn it. What even is this?"
I saved the healer in the rear by slicing off something long that had burst up from the cave floor—and for a brief moment, I regretted it.
Should I have used that guy as a meat shield instead?
He was the type who clanked noisily in the plated armor wrapped around his legs—perfect for that sort of thing, really.
Bad luck follows me, it seems...
We'd been here plenty of times before, yet something I'd never seen was rising up from below.
It had been a mere single day since the place had been cleared. That bastard's lingering curse was clearly still tormenting us.
How long had I slept, exactly?
Had only a little time passed, or had the sun set once and risen again?
The one thing I knew for certain was that there were people nearby.
"He's awake."
"R-really?"
A girl with short-cropped hair in a color I found hard to love—purple—with a hat and a robe. A mage, most likely, and she reacted first.
A woman with bright, pale golden hair, carrying the air of a nun, caught her words.
And then—
"Um, excuse me?"
A woman with bright yellow hair tied back.
"Excuse me. Ex-cuse, me!"
She kept poking my shoulder with her finger. Not that it mattered—it was over armor anyway. I couldn't feel a thing.
Any hope of a peaceful rest was ruined, so I rose to move elsewhere.
The short-haired girl said, flat as a child confirming a simple fact, "He's getting up."
Leaving them behind me, just as I was about to walk away—
"Wait a moment! Where are you going?"
The yellow-haired one stopped me in my tracks.
"Even if it's uncomfortable, wouldn't you come with us for a little while?"
The nun-like woman politely requested my company, her gaze fixed on my face.
...Is this pity?
Pity is the kind of thing that makes some people burn with wounded pride and scream.
But for me, it was more than I'd dared hope for.
Because what I'd wished for had been thrown to me, I couldn't even take it with me.
Repaying kindness with enmity—that is what I am, down to my very existence.
"Erm, mister, I'm leaving—"
"Wait, wait, please!"
The loudest of the women raised her voice. "I won't ask anything of you, I promise. Just come with us first."
I didn't open my mouth, but I stopped moving as a sign that I would oblige, once.
Who knew—maybe this would leave me with yet another regret.
Creeeak.
The place they led me to was the adventurers' guild. I had nothing to dread there, but no reason to feel welcome either.
I had no particular intention of sitting, so I simply stood—until the nun-like woman seated me herself.
"Master! Master!"
The loud woman, the archer, half-ran and half-waved her way toward the back of the hall.
"Please wait just a moment. I'll prepare you a meal."
Soon the nun-like woman, too, headed over to the receptionist, and the mage sat down across from me.
The stares around us pricked like needles. It wasn't my imagination.
"What is that? That freakish thing."
"He looks murderous."
"Kind of filthy, too."
They might have been an unusual bunch, but how many people would ever welcome me gladly?
I was drifting off, letting time slip by, when the nun-like woman returned.
In her hands was a plate.
Turnips, bracken, oyster mushrooms... soup.
"It isn't much, but please help yourself to as much as you like."
A spread as generous as her kindness was incomprehensible.
It was so dazzling I couldn't bring myself to lay a finger on it.
"Do you... not like it?"
Since when did my likes and dislikes matter so much to anyone?
While I hesitated, the archer appeared alongside a tall woman.
"Master, this person..."
The woman's long hair was nothing remarkable in itself, yet it radiated strength.
Though it hung in calm repose, its vivid, deep red felt like a flame burning furiously.
At last, she spoke. "...Everyone out."
"Huh?"
"...Yes."
"Lily, you too."
At her abrupt command, the three women reluctantly filed out, followed by the others, spilling beyond the building's doors.
And so we were left alone, she and I. A brief silence fell.
Then her orange eyes began a slow survey of my face.
"You've come to me carrying something quite foul."
Is she talking about me?
Perhaps even pity had been expecting too much. To these people, I was nothing but an unclean thing.
She squeezed her eyes shut once, then—
"You. Don't move from this spot. Wait right here."
And she vanished somewhere, leaving me behind.
A short while later, she returned carrying a box.
"It won't blister or anything from being applied, so don't worry. ...Where on earth did you get poisoned like this?"
After that, she unwound the bandages from my face, took something out of the box, and applied it with painstaking care.
"Sorry for touching you without asking. I just couldn't bear to look at it a second longer."
...I suppose not.
"If you really don't need to hide it, you're better off leaving it bare... but it wouldn't look good for the girls, and I'm sorry about that."
Clean bandages were wound around my face by another person's hands.
Even if it was calculated kindness, even if it was charity doled out in contempt, it didn't matter.
Given that the vast majority saw me as no more than an insect, I might well be a nuisance to them too.
But if I was bound to be a burden somewhere, and to be used regardless—wouldn't here be better than most?
I knew it was a presumptuous thought. But for as long as I was allowed, I intended to stay.