Victoria made a new friend.
It's Polaris, whom we met before. She's a good person, so she came to help when Victoria became isolated. Thanks to that, it was good to have a chance to hear what Victoria thinks.
However, I don't intend to resolve it so actively.
Rather, I was planning to go along with Merriwather's rhythm and watch what this person intends to do.
I had planned to slowly seep in over several years, but people grow up quickly and disappeared fast. The end in the faded man's memories was like that too.
Really without knowing anything, without any context, when I came to my senses, I was buried in the cold.
That was when the time of being human ended. People die suddenly.
It means the time to meet Victoria is short.
Well then, how should we get rid of this surveillance?
As long as the king is giving orders, even if this person changes, another person will come. It seems that then, someone a bit harder for me to figure out will come.
If it's because this person is inexperienced that I caught on, that is.
Still, there's an opportunity to ask for the escort to be removed. It's asking through the prince or king to remove it because it's stifling.
But to do that, I need to accomplish the early goal.
I know what the royal family's biggest goal is now.
Aurora's safety.
Aurora, who is now working hard on rehabilitation to return to daily life in the palace, is aiming to come to the Royal Academy next year.
Considering the age difference between Prince Sorindiges and Princess Aurora, they can meet for one year next year.
In other words, since the prince and princess will be at the Royal Academy for a year, isn't it dangerous if a terrorist attack occurs?
Come to think of it, not all the royal family members die. The first princess is now studying abroad in another country, so there's someone who will survive even if something happens.
No, that's not important, securing Princess Aurora's safety is the royal family's important goal.
And the subject that created the problem is an unnamed witch.
The witch cast a curse on Aurora, putting her into a sleep from which she couldn't wake up.
I know that.
That's all I know.
I can't know the exact name because no one talks about the witch in front of Aurora.
And Sorindiges is thinking of using me as bait to catch the witch.
The conditions are sufficient for that. Because they've praised me as the person who cured Aurora through newspapers and broadcasts.
Aurora woke up safely with a special superpower, though with some oddities. So even if they're leaving it alone saying a curse was cast, wouldn't the witch pop out when she learns that the princess has woken up?
I guess the royal family assigned an escort to me to catch the witch if she takes the bait.
In other words, that's it.
I just need to make it possible for the escort to catch the witch.
For that, the witch needs to take the bait.
The bait is none other than me.
Until now, the roads I've been traveling have been too simple. The Royal Academy and the lodging in front of the main gate. Basically, just these two.
If I were an attacker, I'd want to wander around other places. Suddenly attacking in an unsafe place.
Fortunately, I've created an excuse that can be used at this time.
When I was called to the royal family for the reason of going to the Brightshin slums.
I spoke with the nuance that someone called me so I went. At that time, I said it hoping it could be used someday, but now it's suitable to use this excuse.
Fortunately, a reason to reinforce that excuse has also arisen.
My relationship with Victoria.
Special incidents are easy to understand.
Even without me explaining anything, they'll imagine on their own. When something happens, if there's a special incident before and after, people want to connect them.
Even if there's actually no causal relationship at all.
It's now during class.
When class ends, I should go out and wander around.
I have no specific destination.
I'll wander around the capital until at least dinnertime. I'll walk around defenseless while filling in the map, going to places where Harvesters haven't been.
To make it easy for the witch to attack.
Given that only one escort named Merriwather is attached, we can assume that this person has some function to deal with it somehow when the witch appears.
While at it, if Merriwather gets seriously injured, and her life becomes endangered?
Maybe I can make her a Harvester and peek into the intelligence department.
How many of these will come true?
* * *
After class ended, I headed straight outside.
I met Victoria's worried gaze, but I just greeted her with my eyes and left the Royal Academy as is.
"Huh? Where are you going? Aren't you going back to the lodging?"
As I walk straight along the road instead of my usual path, Merriwather asks as if puzzled.
I just look at the air and say this:
"Someone might be calling."
Words that are neither fact nor lie. I walk aimlessly. Of course, there's a possibility of being suspected if I just wander around, so after wandering around appropriately, I'll head towards the house of a poor person known by a Harvester.
That day. Not all the poor in Brightshin put me in.
The day when my relationship with Victoria was split.
There are many people who missed the opportunity, like those wandering in back alleys where sunlight doesn't reach.
"Oh my, is that so? Then I guess I should follow."
This is a bit unexpected. I thought she would ask me to stay in a safe place as much as possible since she's an escort, but she's just allowing me to go.
Maybe she's gotten bored of escorting me. She can't get much information, and even though quite some time has passed since I became isolated, I'm not showing any signs of dependence, right?
Maybe it's a time when she's looking for other methods because there are no more results.
If there's no need to persuade, that's fine with me.
But this person is busy too.
Dealing with me and preparing for the witch's attack. Having to do two things at once, she might be quite a capable person.
In other words, she likely has a high position and thus possesses a lot of information.
If something happens, I should use the escort as a shield as much as possible. If she gets seriously injured, and her life flows out, she'll cling to me.
Not knowing that it's a rotten rope.
Trudge, trudge.
After walking on the road for a while, I thought.
At times like this when walking around, it's regrettable that my body is small. Half the size of an ordinary adult. Even by simple calculation, my stride is half.
When I was using Choseol's body, I was taller than most men, so I could go far in the same amount of time.
But I don't intend to run around. The concept is this:
It seems like I can hear something from somewhere, but the sound is too small to know. Is this the right place?
It's a perfect reason for wandering. Even if I don't actually say this, I can hear sounds. I'll mumble like that and answer.
Inwardly, I'll say I can hear sounds directly through the Harvesters' ears!
Trudge, trudge
From here on is a road that Harvesters have never walked. After leaving the main road for a medium-sized road, I walked for quite a while.
But this is a place where upper-class people live. So it's a place where the poor living in Brightshin have no chance to come at all.
To fill in the map of the capital, I should wander around here in advance.
It reminds me of when I was filling in the map of the underground temple in the first world. There, I finished quickly after obtaining the Harvesters' memories.
"Is there someone asking for help in a place like this?"
"I can hear a sound."
Maybe because I wandered too openly, Merriwather asks as if it's strange, so I answered with a mumbling voice.
The concept is important.
I enter an alley from the road. But it's a dead end. From there, I turn back and come out again. Saying the sound is this way, I point to the straight distance where today's final destination actually is.
That's the place where a woman who became a Harvester is raising a child she gave birth to before becoming a Harvester. The child is suffering from severe malnutrition.
The mother, who became healthy once after becoming a Harvester, feeds the child various things, but you can't get the necessary nutrients if you only eat pale oatmeal.
By the way, she has a job selling her body, and her husband was a thug. They married in a way close to wild animals, and that woman is living unhappily.
Moreover, true to being a thug, the husband died a while ago. Death in jobs that use force is common in this world. He got minced after picking a fight with someone stronger than him.
The corpse is thrown away with food waste the next day.
The gap between rich and poor exists in every world, and this world is no exception.
If it were a world where only purely good people live, it would be impossible for it to develop like this in the first place. People can only go far when there's desire.
That's also why I don't give up on this world.
If it were too evil a world, they would kill each other until only Asuras remain in a barbaric world, and then meet the end after killing everything.
If it were too good a world, they wouldn't be able to move beyond being primitive. Moving around here and there, taking responsibility for injured people until the end, mourning and grieving for the dead, and then moving again.
They can't advance because there's no greed.
I like worlds where technology is developed. At least as far as I know, utopia doesn't exist, and there's no world completely armed with only destruction, madness, and selfishness.
There are worlds where humans groaning with electrodes planted in their heads are grown like plants in machines, or where everyone is happy!
By the way, these two are the same world.
People who woke up from the dream endlessly lamented and wanted to return to the dream world. So they reached out to me.
But what's the problem? That all wounds heal when they become my Harvester? Even the connection terminals embedded in their bodies were peeled off, so far from returning, even the device checking their biosignals flew away, and they were treated as dead meat chunks and torn to pieces by machines and died!
I felt a bit sorry for them having their genitals torn out alive at the last moment, saying they were producing astral bodies.
While thinking about such a distant world, I wander around at an appropriate place and slowly approach the destination.
And that day.
In an old house where the sunset was setting, a child who couldn't walk even though the time to walk had passed became a Harvester.
Unfortunately.