Chapter 18 - Stranger
I'm sick of this other world.
I want to go home. I want to see Mom and Dad. I want to play games again. I want to go to school.
I don't want to see another goblin, orc, dragon, or demon ever again.
After all, every single monster tries to kill me first.
As soon as they see my face, they charge at me, lunging to sink their fangs into my throat.
Because I'm the Hero summoned from Japan.
Because I'm the head to be taken.
I'm the enemy of all monsters and the ally of all humans.
Not an individual, but a public figure.
No, a public utility.
This isn't much different from a public road or a public toilet.
But that was the way of life as a Hero.
In a sense, I'm infrastructure, so this is no longer just my own life.
My failures are mourned throughout the country, and my successes are celebrated throughout the country.
So I have to be strong.
Stronger, still stronger. To even greater heights.
Training like that, before I knew it, I came to be called the strongest Hero in history.
I willingly stepped into the mold of the ideal Hero-dono that everyone sought.
The parts that didn't fit, I cut off and threw away.
The me who was a boy.
The me who was Japanese.
The me who was an ordinary middle schooler, with a girl I liked in my class and who wanted to become a game designer someday.
All of that was excess, so I ripped it off and threw it away.
Each time, I grew stronger and became someone different.
It wasn't just my heart.
My body was the same.
A fire dragon sliced off my arm from the elbow down, but I grew it back with magic. I used the detached arm as a thrown eye-gouger.
Both legs were lost when a flock of gargoyles attacked. I regenerated those with magic too.
Eventually, even my head went that way. Me, severed from my neck, rolling around, and a new me sprouting from the cut surface.
In which of those brains did my soul reside?
I don't really know.
The original body my parents gave me was almost entirely lost in battle.
Now, there are more parts I remade with magic.
Even after remaking myself, I conquered ten demon castles.
I defended six castles.
I worked hard, didn't I?
So couldn't you just see me as Keisuke Nakamoto now?
Not as a Hero, but just as plain Keisuke.
I've had enough of being treated as a hero for everyone's sake.
Yeah, what hero? What Hero-dono?
Screw that!
How much I'm suffering. How hard it is. How lonely I am. You don't understand a thing, yet you prattle on.
Tell me, where is the real me?
Is it that the real me vanished long ago, and what's here is just the Hero-dono cultivated by regeneration magic?
Women who purr and cozy up to me, calling me "Hero-dono."
Nobles and royals who plaster sycophantic smiles and say "Hero-dono."
These otherworlders who, with completely clueless consideration, tell me, "The title 'Hero' is an honorific, so you must be happier being called that than by your real name."
Someone, please call me by my name. The name my parents gave me. In a sound that reminds me of my homeland.
Please.
Anyone.
At this rate, even I myself am in danger of forgetting who I am.
—It was at such a time that I met a single slave.
"Who are you?"
The slave's name was Elsa. A girl who, before she could remember anything, had been kidnapped by a goblin nest.
She was the same age as me, seventeen.
A frail-faced girl with long black hair. Lonely eyes, and a thin body covered in bruises.
Ever since she was kidnapped, Elsa had never been allowed out of the nest.
A goblin's nest is usually a world of darkness. It's an environment where a human child wouldn't grow.
However, the limestone cave where Elsa was taken had a large collapse in the ceiling.
Fortunately, she didn't lack for sunlight, and she miraculously survived.
When Elsa reached an age where she could do manual labor, she was worked to the bone by the goblins.
She couldn't read or write, hadn't received a baptism, and was kept purely as labor. Or as a tool for venting their frustrations.
As a result, she didn't even think of herself as human.
Frighteningly enough, Elsa was convinced she was a "goblin with a strange face."
From her perspective, I was nothing more than "Keisuke Nakamoto."
She'd probably never even heard the title "Hero" in her life. Even if I vaporized a horde of goblins in front of her, the fact that she didn't worship me as "Hero-dono" was a refreshing sensation.
"I'm Keisuke Nakamoto."
"Keisuke Nakamoto?"
"It's okay now. I've annihilated the goblins who kidnapped you from your parents."
"But I'm a goblin too?"
"You're a human, just like me."
Elsa's eyes flew wide open in shock. She whispered, "I'm a human," under her breath.
"The goblins who hit you are gone. I'll take off your shackles too. You're free."
"What's 'free'?"
"If you want to know what that means, come with me. I'll take you to a human settlement. Do you not want to?"
"...No, I want to."
When we emerged from the nest together, a carriage was waiting to receive us.
Elsa looked at the coachman controlling the horses, then at me, and tilted her head in bewilderment.
That's when the real trouble began.
Because Elsa had to start a long struggle to reintegrate into human society.
Washing away the crude habits of the goblins and molding her into a proper lady of refinement.
Needless to say, it was an incredibly difficult task.
Every day, from morning till night, she learned her letters and was drilled in table manners.
She was disciplined so harshly that she might have been happier if she had just remained a goblin.
Eventually, Elsa began spending more time looking at my face.
I thought she resented me.
If you hadn't stuck your nose in, I could have stayed a goblin forever. I figured she must hate me like that.
But that wasn't it.
On a night with beautiful moonlight, Elsa stopped me and said,
"Why are you different from everyone else, Keisuke? Your face is a bit flat. Your skin is yellowish. You're different from everyone. You're different from me too. Where did you come from?"
In response to Elsa's question, I answered simply, "Japan."
"It's a world not from here."
"Is it far?" Elsa asked.
"So far I might never be able to go back."
"Do people in Japan have faces like yours?"
"Yeah. They all look a lot like me. ...Because we're the same race. There are... a lot of people over there... who look just like me."
But there wasn't a single one in this other world.
Tears spilled from my eyes, unbidden.
Why now, all of a sudden? I'm a man, it's pathetic.
As I roughly rubbed my eyes, Elsa gently embraced me.
"I was like that too, for so, so long. I lived thinking I was different from everyone else. I was torn away from my real family and made to do a job I hated. I understand how you feel, Keisuke."
In my third year in this other world, I cried out loud for the first time.
After that, Elsa and I started talking often. The person I cared about. Someone I could speak my mind with. A relaxing member of the opposite sex.
It didn't take long for that to develop into a romantic relationship.
"You're the only one who treats me as Keisuke."
"And you're the only one who doesn't call me a female goblin. Everyone else finds me creepy somewhere inside."
"We have no place in this world."
"We do... When we're together like this, I feel like it's okay for me to be here. If the two of us, you and I, are together, that place becomes our home."
"You're smarter than me, Elsa. If you'd lived a human life from the start, who knows how far you could have climbed."
"I don't care about climbing the social ladder. As long as I can be with Keisuke, I don't mind my status. I don't even mind being a slave."
On the night I was united with Elsa, I was certain.
In this very moment, we had returned to being human. From a goblin to Elsa. From a Hero to Keisuke.
Elsa. For your sake, I can do anything.
If I have you, I don't need anything else.
I'm sure I came to this world to protect you.