Since I Was Banished, There's Something to Take Back
When I first fell into this godforsaken fantasy world, I was as good as empty-handed.
All I had were the clothes on my back and a single bag of convenience-store food. It would not have been strange in the least if I had dropped dead in the street one day. This was a world bristling with keen cold steel and magic, a world where superhuman beings called Heroes walked the earth—and an ability like Curse Immunity did nothing whatsoever to protect me.
My body was unremarkable. I had no talent for magic. There was nothing I could do.
In the end, the day the convenience-store food I had been rationing finally ran out, I started begging. It was my eighth day in this other world.
"Um... e-excuse me, are you all right...?"
I could barely hear her. Maybe I had gone too long with an empty stomach. I wanted to force a voice out, but it wouldn't come. I hadn't managed so much as a proper mouthful of water, and my parched throat refused to allow it.
"Stay with me!"
A cool sensation spilled over the crown of my head. A moment later a cold stream ran down from my hair and wet my lips. I managed, just barely, to look up—and found a beautiful girl I had never seen before, her face drawn tight with worry.
If princesses from fairy tales truly existed, I thought, they would look exactly like this.
"Here. Drink this first."
The neatly kept girl introduced herself as Riel Ballenhart. I couldn't even hold my own body upright, so she brought the canteen to my mouth herself. I looked no better than a grimy beggar, and yet Riel did not hesitate to touch me.
As the cool liquid slid down my throat again and again, my fading consciousness slowly returned.
"...Thank you."
"I'm glad you've come around."
Riel looked at me—I had barely managed to get the words out—and smiled, soft and bright.
"But... why did you save me?"
She had shown me nothing but pure kindness, and I repaid her, ungratefully, with a question. In the two weeks or so I could dimly remember, she was the only one who had helped me.
Even at that foolish question, Riel gave it serious thought. She pondered for a moment, then quietly opened her mouth.
"Hmm. Maybe because you looked about my age?"
Even she didn't sound entirely certain. Still, I was satisfied that she had answered me in earnest at all. It was the first time, since I had crossed into this world, that anyone had treated me like a person.
"Mm. But what's your name?"
Riel's perfectly ordinary question left me speechless. I couldn't give her the name from my original world, so I rummaged through the books I had read and offered up something that sounded properly fantastical.
"...Kyle."
"Ky... Kyle. Kyle, is it. That's a good name. Well then, take care, Kyle."
She pressed the canteen into my hand and, as if her business were finished, turned her back and bid me farewell.
In that instant, a translucent window rose between Riel and me.
More precisely, it hovered over the white gloves she wore. Judging by her reaction, I was the only one who could see it.
The Curse of Frost gnaws, ever so slowly, at the wearer's life force.
A Curse of Binding lies upon this item. It cannot be dispelled.
It was the first cursed object I had ever seen, and my Curse Immunity had answered it. I blinked at a sight I could not believe even with my own eyes, then hurriedly caught Riel by the wrist as she walked away. She had every right to be offended, but she showed none of it, and simply turned back to me.
"What is it?"
"I, um..."
I braced myself to be called a fraud, and went on anyway. I wanted to repay the one who had saved me.
"The gloves you're wearing. They're cursed."
At my words, Riel's eyes went round, and her brows twitched.
"H-how could you...?"
"I have an ability that lets me recognize curses. And one that lets me lift them."
"I've never heard of an ability like that in my life."
"If you don't believe me, there's nothing I can do......"
Carefully, I brought my hand to Riel's white glove. A light tug, and it slipped free without the slightest resistance, baring a hand of pure white.
"That... that can't be. Not even the master of the Magic Tower could lift the curse on these gloves."
Her emerald eyes lit as they turned on me, bright with expectation.
"I... I'm actually a Hero, you know."
Both of Riel's hands closed tight around mine. Her soft hands felt cool.
And that was how we first met.
There had been days like that.
Ha. Well. All of it was pointless now.
Even so, it was true that I owed them a debt, Riel included. They had taken into their party a human who was utterly useless once you set Curse Immunity aside. The least I could do was keep to the bare minimum of decency.
So hand them over. The cursed equipment. You'll get hurt if you keep wearing that.
"I'm taking these."
I reached for the Demon Sword Gram at Riel's side, meaning to reclaim it, and she stopped me. The hand that had been about to take the demon sword was knocked aside by her arm and circled uselessly through empty air.
"What the hell are you doing."
I glared at her, not bothering to hide my irritation.
"Quit playing around and hand them over. You know perfectly well what these things are."
"I'm sorry, but I can't give the equipment back."
She answered me calmly, and bit down on her lip. This was obviously not a joke.
"Ha. Seriously, what is this. You know it too. Using cursed equipment without me is dangerous."
"I know. I'm telling you I can't give them back even knowing that."
"Are you serious? Do you think I'm doing this for my own sake? It's all for you. You threw me away, and I'm still showing you this much kindness."
"We know how dangerous it is. It's all right even so. Once we defeat the Demon King, we won't have any reason to use cursed equipment again."
You've got to be kidding me.
Did the gear they were wearing look like the sort of thing you could slip on and off at your leisure? A demon sword that sent emotions running wild. Grimoires that held the power of Outer Gods. The ones with a will of their own would thrash desperately to keep from being parted from their host. They didn't carry a Curse of Binding, that was all—once you put them on, they were miserable things to get back off.
If words wouldn't reach them, I would have to take the equipment by force. Overpowering them was, in practice, impossible. But if I simply shoved ahead with no regard for sense, they would reluctantly give way and step back. It wouldn't be easy for them to lay a hand on me when I had been their comrade until a moment ago.
I drew the Demon Sword Balmung from its sheath and lunged at Riel.
The blow I drove in toward her body was a feint, of course. I couldn't bring myself to actually hurt someone who had been my comrade.
With a sharp clang, a single light swing of Riel's sword sent Balmung flying from my grip. In the next instant she drove the hilt hard into my solar plexus. She was too fast for me to react at all.
A tremendous boom, and my body was hurled away. A heavy impact slammed into my back. I had been driven in so hard that the tree I struck was left with a deep dent.
"Kh...!"
Blood surged up my throat. The rank taste of iron filled my mouth.
"Heartless, aren't you. We were comrades once."
"Please, Kyle. I'm begging you. Just stop."
I couldn't understand it. I was the one being driven out of the party. I was the one who had been struck and left coughing up blood. So why did she—no, why did all of them—wear such a sorrowful look? Were they pitying me for being weak, now that I was down?
The pitiful ones were them. They were the hypocrites who had thrown away a comrade they had faced life and death beside, just because he was no longer useful. Who was pitying whom? I couldn't believe this.
"Fine. Your true feelings came through loud and clear."
I didn't know what could drive them to go this far. It didn't matter anymore. It was none of my concern.
"I don't understand it either, so do as you like."
With that, I said my farewell. The long journey came to the worst possible end.
I looked at the place they had left behind. The camp I had made, and a great heap of traveling supplies, still filled the space. Only a few people had vanished, and yet an emptiness I could hardly put into words came rolling in.
"They really took only the bare minimum."
They must have left in a terrible hurry. I had nagged them over and over that they needed to pack enough supplies, and they hadn't listened, right to the very end.
"In the beginning, they listened to me. It wasn't this kind of relationship."
I sat back against the tree and let the lament out.
"Ha..."
They hadn't treated me coldly from the start. At first they had been comrades I could rely on, kind enough that I mistook them for a family I had finally found. Every one of them was lacking in some corner or another, and because of that we leaned on one another, and the bond between us stacked up quickly.
"Why did all of you have to change like this."
Our relationship had begun to twist, I think, around the time the party's name started to spread. I, who had only ever supported them from the rear, had built up my strength so I could stand shoulder to shoulder with them. When the cursed arms we had gained on the journey came together with the experience I had piled up, I was finally able to take the field beside them.
I could feel it myself—that I had grown stronger. Confident, I took the front of the battle line and made our party's name known across the whole kingdom. The presence of mine that had been hidden behind them began, at last, to shine.
The moment my name, never spoken of until then, started passing through the mouths of the kingdom's people, they suddenly flew into hysterics. It seemed to gall them terribly that I stood out more than they did.
I had done nothing more than cut down demonkin for three days and nights, and they tied me to a tree at the camp and locked me away so I couldn't go out to fight. I came back a little scratched from a fight with a Bone Dragon, and they wrapped my entire body in bandages until I looked like a mummy. I had only stopped by a brothel to gather information, and because I exchanged a few words with a pretty courtesan, they suspected me of being brainwashed.
Looking back now, I had never seen hysterics like those hysterics.
Well. None of it had anything to do with me anymore.
"Sayonara. Bye-bye."
It was time for a new beginning.