The Girls Who Travel and a Woman's Day
I stirred in the pitch-black room. “Ugh…”
The wooden shutters were closed tight, so the faint light seeping through gave no hint of the hour. …I need to get back before Pirel wakes up. The thought whispered through my mind.
‘Is it morning yet, Rin?’
No answer came.
‘Ah… that’s right. Rin isn’t here anymore…’
It had been over ten days since that slime vanished from my head. We’d only spent less than a month together, yet I’d grown strangely dependent on her in that short time. The way I instinctively reached for her proved it.
I conjured a small magical light above my left palm and walked to the shutters, not bothering with my boots. The early-winter wind slipping between the slats chilled my bare legs, tickling them with icy fingers.
When I cracked the shutter open, the world beyond was still steeped in deep indigo. No birdsong yet—this was the earliest dawn. Good. I could slip back into the room before Pirel woke.
I shone the light on the back of my right hand, then stuck out my tongue for a quick look. Nothing was wrong. No dark, torn-off appendages clung to me, no blackened veins or ashen skin.
‘Just what conditions trigger the corruption, I wonder… Still, it’s a relief I wasn’t consumed. This time it seems to have faded on its own.’
I reversed time on the camisole—now a filthy mess of dried sweat, saliva, semen, and love juices—slipped it on, rewound my own body as well, gathered the silver coins the men from last night had left, and headed down to the first floor.
I swore to myself, once again, that I would never drink that much again.
The innkeeper must not have slept more than a few hours; she was already up and bustling about, preparing breakfast. Sensing me, she turned with a warm, welcoming smile and greeted me first.
“Oh my, you’re up early, miss wizard?”
“Yes… Thank you for the nice room.”
“Aww, aww… You certainly had a lively night. I could hear everything from down here! Youth really is something, isn’t it? Around dusk those two lads came stumbling down looking like their souls had been sucked clean out. It was hilarious.”
My face burned scarlet. I turned it slightly and mumbled a vague reply.
“Y-yes…”
There were no other guests, but listening to the woman chatter cheerfully about how I’d gotten drunk despite swearing I wouldn’t and made a complete fool of myself was unbearable. I quickly pulled out the room key and a few silver coins and held them out.
“H-here… This is the key to the room I borrowed yesterday, and the payment.”
“Payment? Oh, you don’t need to give me anything. Those boys split the bill between them and paid in full. Hanzel and Haima.”
“Pardon?”
The innkeeper answered with a mischievous grin.
“They said it would be too embarrassing to leave you with the room charge on top of everything else, so they covered it all. Must have been quite the night for them.”
I see. …They must have been completely enchanted by me. Living as a male really is tough, I thought with a surge of sympathy.
I gave the busy innkeeper a small bow, kept the silver coins I’d meant to pay with, and headed back to the room where Pirel was sleeping.
I’d cast a spell on the door, so she couldn’t possibly be awake yet.
I opened it carefully. The dark, cozy room echoed only with the soft, steady sound of breathing—saa, saa. I was relieved to confirm she hadn’t woken after all.
I kicked off the boots I’d shoved on without even tying the laces and left them by the bed, then slipped under the covers still warm with Pirel’s body heat.
And then,
I held my mother.
Pirel’s soft, warm little body wrapped around my own, which had grown cold without any blanket. The girl’s gentle breathing and quiet sighs brushed my ear like a lullaby.
‘This is… really… so cozy and comforting… It feels wonderful…’
A sweet, girlish scent rose faintly from the crown of Pirel’s head nestled against my chest. It wasn’t the smell of fresh bread, but it was a soothing, heart-calming fragrance all the same…
“Mommy…”
After a night steeped in carnal filth, I fell into a gentle sleep like that—holding the small mother who was also a pure girl capable of washing away the lust that had soiled my heart just hours earlier.
“…ira…”
Why is it still so dark?
“…ira……? Hey……”
Oh, right… I had my eyes closed. Of course it’s dark…
“…ira… Kaira!!”
The situation felt eerily familiar. Just like… yes, exactly like the first time I regained memories of my previous life… I missed that. It felt as if I could hear my mother’s voice calling from far away, just like back then.
Mother, Father… If only I could return to that time…
“Huuuueeeeng… Kaira, what do I do… It hurts, okay? Kaira…!!”
The moment I heard the tearful, distressed voice of a little girl, sleep fled in an instant. This wasn’t a dream. It was reality. It was the voice of my mother—Pirel—who existed in this world.
Pirel might have the body of a child, but her mind was relatively mature. For her to be this shaken, something serious must have happened. I opened my eyes in a hurry, sat up, and lit the dark room with magical light from the shuttered window.
“What’s wrong, Pirel? Are you okay?”
I rushed to check on her. Tear tracks glistened on the girl’s cheeks. I pulled her into a tight embrace. Her tears fell onto my bare shoulder, exposed by the camisole, and cooled rapidly.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
“N-no, not that… But… um…”
Pirel hesitated, mumbling.
“My… body feels weird… It hurts…”
“It hurts?! Hold on, let me look.”
I quickly released my arms and examined her. Had she injured herself somewhere? Or caught some illness? Had she picked up a bad disease from the river or my stomach? Or maybe she simply couldn’t adjust to the new climate?
As I checked her over, I gently lifted the blanket covering her lower body. The instant Pirel grabbed my hand to stop me, a realization flashed through my mind.
“Ah…”
Pirel’s face was flushed bright red.
“My belly… feels heavy and painful, and down there…”
I spoke gently.
“…Let go of my hand. It’s okay. You can let go.”
Her small hand hesitated, then released me. I pulled the blanket away completely and looked. The moment the reddish-brown stain was revealed, Pirel’s face crumpled into tears again.
“Huuuaaaang… B-blood is coming out… From inside my tummy… What do I do…? Kaira, I’m scared… Is this a sickness? Huh? You worked at a hospital before, right, Kaira? What do I do…? Can you fix it…?”
I let out a long, relieved sigh.
“Huu…”
Of course she’d react this way.
I had used Taerei’s Memory Preservation to share my memories with Pirel, but the spell transmitted older, faded recollections in a vague and unclear way.
While staying at the brothel I had rewound time almost every single day, so I hadn’t had a period and lived comfortably. I had even forgotten that a woman’s body came with such inconveniences.
Even after we began our journey, I had rewound time several times, so I hadn’t bled then either.
Still, I should have passed on basic common sense from my time as an Earthling and fundamental knowledge about being a woman.
Even so, I could understand. Experiencing it for the first time when your body already feels strange, and then seeing blood on top of that—it was only natural to panic.
I hugged Pirel’s tiny body once more and whispered into her ear.
“It’s alright, Pirel. Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong. You’re a girl, so this is completely natural. You’ve become an adult now, Pirel.”
Only then did Pirel seem to realize what was happening to her. The girl’s sobs gradually quieted.
“Ah… So this is…”
“Yes. It’s your period… I’ve been rewinding time so often that I got too comfortable and forgot to bring supplies. I’ll ask the innkeeper if she has anything we can use.”
“O-okay…”
I got up, slipped on my shoes, kissed the crown of my still-teary, adorable mother’s head, and left the room.
Just then, a voice called out from behind me—trembling with anxiety.
“Kaira!”
I turned, tilting my head, and saw Pirel clutching a pillow.
“U-um… Come back soon… okay…?”
“I will!”
I answered the girl’s request with a warm smile and headed downstairs.
‘How nostalgic. When I had my first period, the situation was completely reversed.’
My body resembled my mother’s—small—but I had gotten my first period before turning thirteen. Much earlier than Pirel was now.
Because I carried memories of Earth, I had anticipated it would happen someday. Even the first time, I understood what was happening to my body…
‘Still, experiencing it for the first time is bound to be frightening. If I had been a woman on Earth it might have been different… but even though my memories had returned, my heart was still that of a child. I knew what it was, but I was still scared. Back then, Pirel… no, Mother held me tight and comforted me…’
And now it was my turn.
“Oh? Back down again, miss wizard? Aren’t you tired? Do you need something? Shall I prepare breakfast?”
“No, not breakfast… My little sister suddenly needs something. I was wondering if you might have it.”
“Is that so?”
I swallowed hard, hesitated for a moment, then spoke.
“Um… My sister… she… started… her first one…”
The innkeeper’s eyes widened in momentary confusion. A few seconds later, her face bloomed into a huge, understanding smile.
“Ah, that! Oh dear, oh dear… It must be hard to go through it while traveling. But what I use might be too big for her… That’s right, that’s right. My married daughter might still have some from when she was little. Let me look.”
A short while later, the woman returned with something made of soft cloth.
“Here. These are the undergarments my daughter used. Will they fit?”
By eye, they looked a little large for both me and Pirel… but I couldn’t turn down her kindness, nor did I have any right to complain.
“Yes. Thank you. May I use the well?”
“Of course. Go out the back door of the inn and walk a little way—you’ll find the communal well. Goodness, when my daughter was young, every time her time came I would…”
Leaving the woman’s chatter behind, I went upstairs to get Pirel.
“Pirel, I’m back.”
“Mmm…”
I approached the girl, who was still a little frightened by the incomprehensible change in her body.
“Want to… take your clothes off?”
The moment I asked, Pirel hurried to undress. She believed I was the only one who could fix this and was relying on me completely.
Watching the once-bold girl act so awkwardly, an inappropriate thought crossed my mind.
‘…She’s cute.’
I created a small amount of water with magic and washed Pirel’s lower body after she had stripped completely, even her underwear.
Even though I was technically her biological daughter, having someone else touch and wash near her private parts was bound to feel awkward and embarrassing. Pirel trembled in her slender legs, not knowing what to do with herself.
After that, I helped her into the undergarment the innkeeper had given us. It was definitely a bit loose on Pirel’s small, delicate frame, but there was no other choice.
Dressing her wasn’t difficult. The shape was almost identical to the menstrual undergarments I had used—the ones I received from Mother… in other words, from Pirel herself.
I had worried the design for handling menstrual blood might differ due to regional variations, but thankfully it was the same.
“There. All done.”
“Mmm…”
“It might be a little big, but you can wear my dress instead. I’ll manage with this camisole for now.”
“But that’s… basically underwear, isn’t it?”
I smiled and answered.
“It’ll be fine once I put my robe on over it.”
After giving Pirel the clothes, I threw on my robe, gathered the stained garments she had been wearing, and was about to leave the room when—
“Hey, Kaira. Where are you going?”
To the anxious girl, I answered simply.
“To wash the clothes.”
“Ehh…? But Kaira can just rewind time and make them clean again.”
“Even so,”
I smiled brightly.
“Sometimes I want to do it this way.”
Yes. I had to do it like this.
Because that was how you—Pirel, Mother—had handled my first time as well.
The well water at dawn was ice-cold.
I drew water with the bucket, cast Menelon’s Ice Sheet on a piece of cloth, soaked it, and worked hard to remove the bloodstains. From behind me came the girl’s voice.
“S-sorry for making you do all this work, Kaira.”
Pirel had followed me all the way to the well after all. She was wearing my traveling dress. It looked a bit large on her, but since both of us were small, it didn’t fit too badly.
“It’s not work. I’m just repaying what I received from you, Pirel.”
“Ehh…? Received?”
I realized I’d slipped up, but I told her honestly.
About how, sometime when I was twelve, I had woken up one morning, gone to Pirel—Mother—with a crying face. How she had looked at me with a proud expression, hugged me tight, and taught me how to wear the menstrual undergarment. How she had taken my stained clothes to the well and washed them clean for me.
“So that… happened…”
“I shared my memories with you. Don’t you remember?”
“It feels more like I read someone else’s diary at high speed, one word at a time… When I hear it, I only get the sense that ‘oh, that memory existed.’ The fact that I forgot and you remember… must mean that memory was especially precious to you, Kaira.”
“I see…”
Pirel fell silent, thinking quietly for a while. Then her lips trembled as if she wanted to say something. I waited patiently until she gathered enough courage.
“Um, Kaira.”
“Yes, Pirel.”
“I like Kaira. So, so… much.”
The trembling, delicate voice sounded almost like a confession. My hands, which had been washing the clothes, paused for a moment.
I had never learned, experienced, or even imagined in my head what kind of reaction I should have when hearing such words from a parent who was now younger than me.
Pirel watched my expression, then continued her shy confession.
“I still can’t really feel that you’re my daughter, and I don’t think I ever will… But as an older sister… I really like you. Hehe.”
When I saw the girl’s bright, bashful smile at the end, I finally found the courage to answer. Yes, I should just smile back at her the same way.
“I like you too, Pirel.”
That was what I had thought throughout our journey. That my mother had been completely erased from this world. That the girl traveling with me was nothing more than a stranger who happened to have the same body. Every time that thought crossed my mind, my chest ached.
But now,
“You were a good mother… But more than that, right now you’re my adorable little sister.”
I realized it no longer mattered. Even if she didn’t share my mother’s memories or recollections, this tiny Pirel was still my precious family.