Volume 2 - CH 113

Fui: Sorry for not upload any chapter yesterday, I was busy and I won’t upload any capter at thursday or friday.

The depths of the forest seem to be unattended, with trees of various sizes growing in the forest.

The shapes and sizes are different, and the ivy is entwined with the trees and climbs up.

There seem to be many broadleaf trees in this area, and many of them are so huge that they can be called giant …… trees, or even sacred trees.

Besides, this is a natural forest.

This forest, also called a native forest, looks rough at first glance, but it is all trees in a steady state, suited to the climate over a long period of time.

The cycle of various plants from their germination to their withering, decomposition, and return to the soil is naturally maintained.

But the word “rough” is a word that people make up as they go along.

It is not really rough just because it looks rough. It is a natural forest.

Perhaps it is the appearance of this forest that makes it ‘rich in nature,’ but it is difficult to know the exact details of the area.

Me and Reizen were walking through that kind of forest.

In the front is Reizen with straight line formation.

I guess I can’t say “formation” when there are only two of us, but since I’m at the end of the line, I guess it doesn’t matter.

We have walked for a little while since then, and still no attack has come.

Were the Acid Dogs from earlier an elite unit?

If so, there must not be that many of them.

First of all, we had to find out where they lived.

I heard it was a little further away. ……

“…”

“…? What’s wrong?”

When I approached him, he startled me by raising his shoulders.

I didn’t mean to do anything bad, but he seemed …… to be nervous in some way.

He didn’t look as casual as he had earlier and he didn’t talk much at all.

When I notice that, I get a little worried.

Reizen looked at me with a fake smile on his face.

“I- I’m okay!”

“Do you? If you’re not feeling well, why don’t you tell me? It’s a foolish thing to try to fight when you can’t fight.”

“Yes”

As soon as I said that, he turned around and started walking forward.

He may not be feeling well, but …… what’s really going on with him?

I should ask him when this one is over.

He walks away in silence.

I’m watching Reizen from behind, and I can see that he is still tense and hunched over as if he is nervous.

His fists are clenched all the time, and his shoulders are slightly elevated, perhaps because of the tension.

The way he walks is not strange, as if he is conscious of it, but it makes the stiffness of his body more obvious.

Should I let him fight in this battle?

If we encounter Acid Dogs, the battle would be inevitable.

It is obvious that Reizen is in a strange state of mind.

Even if Reizen has a high defense capability, he might get injured at this point.

Not physical injuries, but mental injuries.

This is a world where there are monsters that attack people.

It is possible to become an adventurer and be defeated by a monster and escape with your life, but you may not be able to fight the monster from then on.

Let’s talk briefly for once …….

“Reizen. Let’s take a break.”

“Ah, eh, Okay.

Saying so, I sat down without much thought.

Reizen also followed and sat down at a suitable place.

The ground felt like a natural carpet.

It didn’t feel uncomfortable to sit at all.

Now …… how to start the conversation …….

I guess I could just ask him straight out, but that might make it harder for Reizen to bring it up.

It seems like he was trying to hide it from me earlier.

Ummm …….

But I can’t figure out anything that Reizen is hiding.

I wonder what it is?

He would never say that he is afraid of monsters, would he?

The villagers had lost their will after he made such an earnest appeal.

Besides, he had eaten monster meat when he was alone.

There’s no reason for him to be afraid.

Then what is it?

What is there to be so tense about?

What’s the point of me worrying about it?

What’s going to happen now is going to happen. All right.

“Reizen, what were you so nervous about earlier?”

“Ugh …”

He flinched a little bit exaggeratedly.

These moves were not intentional, but rather spontaneous.

After a moment’s thought, Reizen smiled again, this time with a fake smile.

“N- no, …… when I think of …… fighting monsters, I’m a bit ……..”

“Bullcrap”

If this were true, he would be like this in the previous battle.

I guess Reizen is not good at lying after all.

When I pointed this out to him, he looked troubled and flustered.

“Reizen … What’s wrong? If there’s something on your mind, you’d better talk to me.”

“Um … mmm …”

“Is this something you have trouble talking about?”

“……Just a bit”

After all, Reizen is a human being, too.

He must have some kind of trouble.

But if it’s hard for him to talk about it, there’s nothing I can do.

It’s no use for me to force him to listen to me.

I’ll just quietly back off for now.

“Well, you don’t have to force yourse ──”

“It’s about my previous life …”

Reizen started talking, interrupting me.

Realizing this, I immediately retracted what I was going to say and decided to listen to Reizen seriously.

After a few moments, Reizeni began to talk about his past and what had happened to him in the past life.

“I was an intelligence officer. I would go overseas on business trips to gather information and send it back to Japan. Most of the information was about drug dealing organizations involved in criminal cases or the activities of the Mafia, and that was about it. But that was just a front. The real purpose was to get …… me killed.”

“What? Your bosses tried to have you killed by the mafia or by the organization?”

“… Yes. When I sent information, I was made to send it in a very obvious and discreet way. Not once or twice. It happened many times. When I criticized them for this, they would not listen to me, saying things like, [If you don’t notice when we send you information in an easy-to-understand way, it will be useful to you in the future ]  “

After that, Reizen looked frustrated and told me what had happened to him in his previous life.

I was told that Reizen was an intelligence officer who was tortured to death in the end.

But I had never been told what happened before that.

In conclusion, Reizen was a nuisance.

He was a capable person, but as you can tell, he was not very smart.

He seemed to solve everything on the job by chance without making a strategy, which annoyed the people around him.

However, he is a competent and reliable worker.

So his friends did not criticize him, in fact, they praised each other, but it seems that only his boss did not like him.

His bosses sent him overseas to keep him in touch with the drug trade and the Mafia.

It was a reckless move, but to their surprise, Reizen had established trust with the mafia by contacting members of the drug dealers and interacting with the mafia.

However, Reizen’s English is a bit rusty.

It may be because of his character that he was able to do so well when he could not even speak proper English.

They would not think that someone who could not understand English was an intelligence agent.

That is where Reizen came in.

Even just by listening to him, I could tell that he had a great natural talent.

But on the other hand, he also thought that he was a person who could only live in that kind of place.

There were many people like that.

But I guess he was not bought by his bosses for his talent.

Then, he was forced to choose and do some reckless ways of transmitting investigation reports.

But Reizen was grateful to his bosses for picking him up.

He never thought that his boss hated him.

That is why he did everything as he was told.

He was even prepared to kill if necessary.

However, the boss still did not praise him.

Amidst these thoughts, Reizen was caught.

The whole thing had been exposed.

But the reason he was caught was not because of the method of communication.

Then what was it?

It was a letter directly from his boss.

It was sent to the mafia involved in the case.

The content of the letter was, needless to say, a report that Reizen was an intelligence agent.

In short, they sold him off. Reizen was betrayed.

And when I said to him earlier, [Try it on your own] he suddenly overlapped me with his boss.

A direct request from someone he trusted.

He was only confident that he wouldn’t fail, but for some reason he assumed that it would happen again.

A betrayal.

He’s been worried constantly since then that I might even betray him.

“What a fool.”

“!? I seriously thought about it, you know !?”

Oh. It seems Reizen is getting back on track.

That’s right, that’s exactly right.

This is the way it should be for this guy.

He’s been struggling in a strange way, hasn’t he?

Yeah, it’s ridiculous. It’s really ridiculous.

“You know what? There is no hierarchy between us. You call me [Aniki], so naturally there’s a hierarchical relationship, but you know what?　There’s really no such thing. We are friends. You know, we’re the same friends you told me about back then.”

In fact, hierarchical relationships suck.

It’s too old-fashioned to think that because we did it this way, the same should apply to everyone else.

It’s stupid.

It’s really stupid.

I sighed heavily, seriously dumbfounded.

I glanced at Reizen and saw that his eyes were moistened as if he had been moved to tears.

I noticed this and immediately sent a ball of water falling right on top of him.

With a splashing sound, Reizen’s upper body was drenched immediately.

Surprised by this, Reizen fell down.

“Cool your head, Reizen. There you go. Break’s over. Let’s go.”

I wouldn’t have minded if he had cried, but it’s not my job to comfort a man.

I’m asexual, so I guess it doesn’t matter either way.

I mean, that’s a pain in the ass.

Reizen wiped his face with his clothes with a giggle, then said loudly, [Aye, sir!} and followed me from behind.

I urged him to come to the front, not the back, and he laughed and stepped forward.

That’s when I saw his face, and it was beaming with joy.