「Have you calmed down?」
Kaname-kaasan slowly releases me. I nodded in response.
「I see, that’s good. Um, so what should I ask first?」
Seeing her tilt her head with her index finger on her cheek, I feel a sense of childishness and can’t help but smile wryly, thinking, ah, this person hasn’t changed.
「I’ll tell you everything in order. Where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing… but──」
Will she believe me? Such an absurd story.
「I’m not sure if you’ll believe me, but…」
──It was around the time I was in my third year of middle school, just after summer vacation ended.
At that time, I was just watching students presumably on their way to school from my hospital room window, so I didn’t really feel like summer vacation had ended.
That’s because I had been in an accident during summer vacation and woke up from a week-long coma just around that time.
Multiple contusions, paralysis of the lower body. That’s what I remember the doctor saying about my condition. Well, Kaname-kaasan, who was my guardian, knows about that, so I’ll skip it.
While I was spending an unusually long summer vacation in the hospital, it happened. I think it was night because it was already dark outside.
The hospital room was suddenly enveloped in light, and the next thing I knew, I was in an unfamiliar place.
A man dressed in luxurious clothing, a woman in extravagant attire standing beside him. Then there were elderly men in robes and people in armor.
As for me. No, the four of us were in hospital gowns, unable to utter a word about what had suddenly happened to us.
「We are glad you have come, heroes from another world.」
That’s what they supposedly said, but unfortunately, I couldn’t understand a word. This is something Daiki told me later. Apparently, we had been summoned to another world. Me, Daiki, Asaki, and Hikari, who were in that hospital room.
I don’t know how it works, but the other three could understand the language being spoken from the start. Normally, when you’re summoned, you gain the ability to understand the language, but it seems it didn’t apply to me.
The reason why only I couldn’t understand was revealed later.
The ones who were supposed to be summoned were those three, and it seems I was accidentally caught up in it. I thought it was an utterly ridiculous story even then.
With Daiki acting as my interpreter, I slowly began to grasp the situation. There was even something called a magic power measurement, but of course, I had absolutely no magic power. That’s right, absolutely none.
Not a little, but zero.
The place we were summoned to was a world of swords and magic that everyone has dreamed of at least once. A world with monsters where heroes are summoned from another world…
Of course, since Daiki and the others were in the same hospital room, it could be inferred that they were hospitalized due to some injury or illness. But even that was restored to normal when they were summoned, and the three of them were delighted.
Except that I alone still couldn’t walk.
Hikari, who had light attribute magic power, was recognized as a hero, and Asaki, who had the most magic power among them, was called a sage, a saint. Daiki, who also had a lot of magic power and excelled in physical abilities, was called a holy knight…
I, who had no magic power and couldn’t even walk, was called trash.
Naturally, I (through Daiki) asked them to send me back to my original world if I wasn’t needed, but they said they knew how to summon but not how to return. It might be a common story in tales, but from my perspective, actually being in such a situation, I thought it was utterly ridiculous.
The three of them, excluding me, were treated as state guests and were to go on a journey to defeat the demon god after training with the knights.
As for me, I was shoved into a room like a storage closet and continued to receive only the bare minimum of food every day. Perhaps I was some kind of hostage for the three of them. Maybe I was lucky not to be abandoned or killed on the spot.
The days that followed would be long if I went into detail, so I’ll skip them.
Now, I must touch on why I can walk now and about this eye.
Being able to walk again was largely thanks to Asaki’s help. Asaki, who was also skilled in healing magic, healed my legs that were said to never recover.
However, the method was not ordinary. Even if healing magic was used, my body had already begun to recognize this state as normal, so it was meaningless.
That’s why we had to resort to drastic treatment.
Even if I write “drastic treatment”, you won’t understand to what extent, but at least in modern medicine, it would be an unthinkable method. To crush the legs once and then regenerate them to a normal state…
Literally, my legs were crushed to a pulp. Of course, this wasn’t Asaki’s idea.
So who suggested it? It was my master in that world, the person I hate, resent, and am grateful to the most.
「They’re not working anyway, so it’s the same if they’re crushed, right?」
Honestly, I could only think she was insane. She mercilessly swung a metal ball in her hand down on my legs repeatedly, crushing them beyond recognition. Even though my senses were numb, it didn’t mean there was no pain, and above all, it was terrible for my heart.
Asaki, who was watching from the side, turned pale and seemed about to faint, but if she had fainted, I might have died from blood loss, so I can only be grateful that she endured.
To conclude, after repeatedly crushing and healing, my legs began to move. Although, as they gradually healed, I regained my sense of pain, so it was nothing but hell for me.
But even with my legs healed, without magic power or any special physical abilities, there wasn’t much I could do.
All I could do was support the three who hadn’t abandoned me and were working hard to defeat the demon god, sometimes by being a conversation partner or learning to cook to recreate the food from Earth that I vaguely remembered.
But it seems that lunatic found value even in me, and from there, hell accelerated even further.
Apparently, she was a pariah among knights, called an evil knight.
I was made to run on my newly healed legs until I passed out. When I regained consciousness, I was made to swing a sword even if I vomited. I was made to fight her subordinates while half-conscious and was half-killed… etc.
Originally, before the accident, I had been practicing kendo, so I thought I knew how to swing a sword, but even that sense of value was utterly crushed. “Can you kill a person like that?” she said.
To defeat monsters, you need to attack them with magic-infused attacks, so I knew I was useless against monsters, and when I asked my master why she was making me do this.
「Who said anything about defeating monsters? I want you to kill humans.」
She said that in this world, it’s normal to have magic power, and she’s never heard of a person with zero.
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Usually, physical enhancement is done through magic power, but I can’t even do that.
But even I had one use. That was having zero magic power.
Seeing me with question marks floating above my head, my master sighed in exasperation and said.
「Having no magic power means you don’t get detected by magic sensors. So I’m going to train you to completely erase your presence and develop your reflexes to become an assassin.」
In short, she wanted me to approach unnoticed and kill people. I resisted, asking why I had to do such a thing, but when she said it was for those three, I couldn’t turn her down.
In the end, as she planned, I killed people many times.
It might sound like an excuse, but I only killed nobles who tried to politically exploit the three. I haven’t harmed any innocent people, and I want to make that clear.
──And now about this eye.
It was about a year and a half after we were summoned to the other world. Hikari and the hero party finally reached the demon god.
I couldn’t fight monsters, but I had become able to at least protect myself, so I accompanied the three mainly as a handyman. I think by that time, some kind of bond had formed between us.
We heard from a scholar we met during our journey that the demon god had the ability to move through space, and if we defeated the demon god, we might be able to use that power to return to our original world.
Finding hope in that story, the four of us headed towards the demon god.
The battle with the demon god was fierce, but Daiki defended, Asaki healed, and Hikari defeated the demon god with a single slash.
As for me, I was behind them, watching the situation, giving instructions, and using necessary tools as needed.
After the demon god fell, just as the scholar said, space distorted, and a hole-like thing appeared. There was no guarantee that the hole led to our original world, but we swore that if the four of us were together, we’d try as many times as it took to get back, and decided to jump into the hole.
But the hole didn’t expand beyond a certain size and wasn’t big enough for a person to pass through.
Perhaps if we had given up and returned to the royal castle, Hikari and the others would have been hailed as heroes, married into royalty or nobility, and gained glory. But it was easy to foresee that, regrettably, after the demon god’s death, human conflicts would begin, and they would be used as tools of war.
Moreover, in my case, I only thought I would be sent out as an assassin again.
But not only I, but the three of them also had no intention of staying in this world. Hikari, Asaki, and Daiki poured magic power into the hole, trying to expand the space.
Perhaps thanks to their efforts, the hole expanded a little. But just when it was about to become big enough for a person to pass through, it stopped.
I hated myself for being useless at such a time, so I searched through the tools I had, looking for something, but there was nothing that seemed useful. We didn’t know how long the hole would last either. As I looked around in desperation, I saw it.
──The demon god’s corpse.
To be more specific, its eye.
It was probably what you’d call a magic eye. During the battle with Hikari and the others, the demon god had repeatedly made that eye glow red and cast spells.
When I saw that eye still shining red even after the demon god’s death, I made up my mind. If it meant we could return to my original world.
Fortunately, I’m used to pain. It’s a life that was almost lost anyway. Even if I fail, it won’t be much of a loss.
Thinking so, I gouged it (・・) out from the demon god’s corpse and then stuck my finger into my left eye.
The three of them looked at me and called out to stop me, but I ignored them and gouged out my eyeball.
The sound of something tearing oddly echoed in my head, and of course, excruciating pain attacked me, but it wasn’t unbearable.
Breathing heavily, I steeled myself and embedded the demon god’s eyeball into my empty socket.
That eyeball, which shouldn’t have any nerves connected, still reflected the world just like my eye that was there (・・) before. Dyeing it deep crimson.
I went towards the three and faced my pupil towards the hole. Even though I didn’t know how to use magic power, somehow I understood this was the right way.
Whether it was because of my actions, the hole kept expanding until it was big enough for all four of us to pass through at once.
The three seemed to want to say something to me, but I ignored them, spread my arms, and jumped into the hole, taking them with me.
The next thing I knew, the four of us were rolling down a mountain somewhere. It was just around sunset, and it would normally be a worrisome situation, but we had just been fighting a being called a god. We didn’t feel scared at all.
After walking a bit, we saw artificial lights. We hurried towards them and realized we had returned to our original world.
After that, we exchanged information about where we lived and returned to where we belonged.
Seeing a large clock on the way, I realized that about a year and a half had passed since we were summoned.
「──And that’s what happened… though I guess it’s hard to believe.」
Haha, a dry laugh escapes my lips. If she ends up being appalled by this, then so be it.
「──Shougo.」
「Yes, ──wappu.」
I’m hugged by Kaname-kaasan again. But unlike before, I felt strength in her arms, and they were trembling a little.
「It must have been tough. And you did well to endure it all.」
「Kaa… san.」
Kaname-kaasan speaks to me in a tearful voice. She must believe the absurd story I told her. And at the same time, is she pitying me?
「But if that’s the case… why didn’t you come back to us right away?」
「Uh, well. I did come back, but…」
I hesitate, unsure if I should say it. But as if seeing through my hesitation, Kaname-kaasan questions me.
「I see, something happened…」
「Haha… from here on, I want you to listen without getting angry.」
With that preface, I decided to confess what happened on the day I returned to this world.