His head hurt.
His chest hurt too.
But Roya's face remained calm.
The problem was that he remembered nothing.
The only thing he could still recall was this:
under moonlight, he had been leaning against someone's lap, smiling, saying that he really didn't want to die.
That woman had been crying.
Her tears had landed on his face.
He had wanted to lift a hand and wipe them away for her—
but by then he could no longer move.
Above her head, there had been a very beautiful moon.
Still, she had been prettier.
But what had she looked like?
"Roya! I'm hungry!"
A silly dog girl with long golden hair launched herself at him and slammed into his waist, cutting off his thoughts and very nearly sending him flying on the spot.
He genuinely could not understand where a girl barely one and a half meters tall got this kind of strength. She had managed to carry him on her back and run, all while hauling around that pile of weapons.
"All right, all right, I know. Good thing we still have something left to eat. Though a little seasoning would've been nice."
"Silly dog girl" was Roya's name for her, because she didn't even know her own name. At first glance, she radiated the sort of energy that told you she was very stupid and very easy to fool.
Since she had saved his life, and since her intelligence was genuinely alarming, Roya had reluctantly decided to travel with her for a while.
This would go on to become one of the greatest regrets of his life.
Because this girl could really eat.
"You can finish half a sheep in one sitting. What kind of digestive system do you even have?"
Roya no longer knew what to say.
He took the remaining roasted meat from the bag and handed it over, making sure to keep some for himself before she devoured every last scrap.
"Stomach?" The silly dog girl blinked, chewing her meat, then tugged up her shirt to expose her belly. "Do you want to look, Roya?"
"Don't just show that kind of thing to people!"
Roya rapped her on the head with his knuckles.
"Oh."
The silly dog girl didn't look hurt in the slightest. She just lowered her head and kept gnawing on the meat.
He had already witnessed how absurdly tough she was yesterday.
A full-speed charge from a wild ram had launched her more than ten meters through the air, and she had gotten back up grinning as if nothing had happened.
"Seriously, you don't remember anything? Not even your own name?"
According to her, she didn't know what she was called, where she came from, or where she was going. She was simply alive, wandering around, and happened to find Roya collapsed out in the wasteland.
Even though Roya himself had amnesia, he at least remembered his own name, his power, and a fair amount from before he had crossed over.
He was certain of one thing, though: he had not just arrived in this world.
He had a clear sense of what this world was and how it worked. He understood the language too.
At the very least, judging by the crystallized growths on the silly girl's thigh, he knew that was the visible sign of a disease called Oripathy—something everyone avoided like the plague.
Yet judging from how carefree she was, Oripathy did not seem to trouble her too much.
"I really can't remember. But... I do have this!"
The silly girl pulled an axe out from her heap of weapons.
She carried a lot of weapons, most of them looted from others. She seemed to enjoy collecting them, and in battle, her preferred style was to hurl them directly at people with glorious simplicity.
Except for this axe.
"A kind person once told me this might be my name," she said. "But they couldn't read the writing."
Roya took the axe from her.
"This is... looks like a Minos language. But probably not the modern version. I can only guess at it. The first part should be a syllable... Ce... Ke...?"
The moment she heard that Roya had managed to decipher something, the silly dog girl's ears shot up. Her entire face lit with excitement. She was so thrilled she forgot to keep eating.
"Sorry. That's all I can make out, and I can't even promise I'm right. But... well, I can't keep calling you dumb dog forever."
After all, she was his lifesaver. He couldn't stay that rude.
Roya handed the axe back.
"How about this? For now, I'll just call you Ke. Once we reach a town, we'll see if we can find someone who can properly read the rest."
"Ke... I'm Ke!"
The girl who finally had a name practically exploded with joy. She shoved a half-gnawed lamb rib toward Roya.
"Thank you! Roya, you're such a good person!"
Unwillingly handed a good-person card, Roya pushed the bone back toward her.
Leaving aside the issue of indirect kissing, she had already stripped all the meat off the front of it.
How exactly was he supposed to bite that?
"You don't give people food you've already eaten halfway."
"Oh."
Ke took it back and gnawed on it even more happily than before.
To her, having another name—any name at all—was important.
Roya ate while watching her, already turning over what he should do next.
Trying to recover his own memories did not seem especially realistic. He even had the vague feeling that he had already died once.
So for now, he might as well help Ke sort out her name first, then look for clues about his own past afterward.
If that was the plan, then getting to Minos became the first priority.
But there was nothing but wasteland in every direction. He had no idea where the nearest town was.
Neither he nor Ke had a change of clothes.
Surely they couldn't just beg their way to Minos?
And even if they reached a town, there was a much more immediate problem.
"We're broke!"
Roya let out the sigh of a truly poor man.
He and Ke were completely penniless.
Ke's pile of weapons was worth some money, sure—but after a single day traveling with her, Roya already understood something very clearly:
Asking Ke to sell her weapons would be like asking her to give up part of her soul.
"Hm? What's money?" Ke asked thickly around another mouthful, licking clean the bone she had already stripped bare.
With Roya around, life was wonderful. She could eat her fill at every meal.
Before, she had tried hunting on her own too, but she lacked patience, so she rarely succeeded. And since she couldn't preserve food, her life had always been: eat this meal, then nothing for the next, or the next after that, or the next after that.
"It's something wonderful!"
Roya put a hand on her shoulder and looked at her with solemn seriousness.
"It can buy... well, you probably don't even know what trade is. Anyway, if you have money, you can exchange it for food, for clothes, and for new weapons!"
The bone dropped from Ke's hand.
Her gloriously vacant but somehow shining eyes lit up. If Roya hadn't had his hand on her shoulder, she probably would have jumped three meters straight up on the spot.
"Then where is this thing called money? Ke will go find it right now!"
"Well... with your level of intelligence, you probably couldn't find it even if you tripped over it. Better leave it to me."
With Ke's intellect, if someone sold her off, she'd probably help them count the money afterward.
Actually, no.
She hadn't even mastered arithmetic within ten yet.
Counting the money would be beyond her.
"Mhm! I'll leave it to Roya!"
In just one day, Ke's trust in him had already maxed out.
In her mind, Roya was a good person.
Because he fed her.
Just as Roya was wondering where their next meal was coming from and how he was supposed to find the nearest town, he spotted two battered, modified vehicles rolling toward them from the distance.
The people coming clearly did not mean well.
The vehicles stopped in front of them, and several people climbed out. It was obvious they lived rough on the wasteland. Their weapons and clothing were worn, and they were armed with crossbows and crude melee weapons.
"Boss, that's her! That little girl! She beat up the boys, stole our lunch, and took our gear too!"
One of them pointed accusingly at Ke, who stood beside Roya looking innocent while chewing on a rib bone, only to be smacked on the head by the taller man standing next to him.
"You useless trash. Four of you got handled by one little girl?"
Roya immediately understood the sequence of events.
Apparently Ke had committed robbery on the road and now the victims had come looking for her.
No wonder the flatbread she'd given him yesterday afternoon had actually tasted pretty good.
Turns out it had been somebody else's lunch.
Still, Roya didn't think much of it.
This was the wasteland.
When survival was on the line, everyone's moral standards dropped a few notches.
Staying alive came first.
He wasn't a bad person.
He just didn't do good things.
"That's fate for you."
Roya rubbed his hands together, and his eyes gradually turned cold.
He was just about to speak when a mechanical female voice sounded in his ear.
[Remaining lifespan: 8736 hours.]
He pretended not to hear it.
Then he gave the command.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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