A nasty thought started gnawing at me, and when Midori kept staying silent, it just escalated. I turned in a panic, ready to ask why she was ignoring me, then snapped back around just as fast. I forgot the awkward situation we were in for a moment. Steam shot from my ears, and my brain had just hit the overheated warning.

  “So, uh,” I said, still uneasy, “is there a way to stop that from happening to me?”

  She didn’t answer, and my tension spiked. I nudged her shoulder with mine.

  “Hey, you there?”

  “Huh? What? Oh, sorry,” she said. “I kind of dozed off.”

  “You did what?” I sighed. “Never mind. I asked if there’s a way to stop that thing from happening to me. You know… the old demon lord going berserk forever problem.”

  “I don’t know,” Midori said. “All I know is just things I heard here and there. About him drowning in endless rage and burning the whole world with it. You can ask the old man for details. That is, if we ever manage to wake him up...”

  Why did she bring that up now. My mood sank way too fast with that fact. The guilt I’d shoved down deep came roaring back, like someone had thrown a boulder into my chest. My mind churned like muddy water, and every ugly thought I’d tried to forget rose to the surface.

  “Anyway,” Midori said, spotting my mood, “forget that for now. But seriously, what was that thing? You took down the boss in one hit. That was insane!”

  "It was supposed to be a boomerang,” I muttered. My head was still foggy. I knew she was trying, but it barely helped.

  “Boom… what?”

  “Something from my world,” I said, narrowing my eyes as the painful memories crept back. “One of my grandpa’s favorite toys. He used it during… my lovely childhood torture sessions.”

  “Oh, so it’s from your world,” she said, pausing. “I don’t remember ever seeing anything like it. So, what about that thin little sword of yours, skinny as you are. I guess that’s too—”

  “Katana. It’s a sword used by people called samurai in my world. My grandpa had one, and I just imagined it in my mind.”

  “Oh, nice… Was he some kind of warrior or?”

  “No,” I said. “But close enough. He was a general in the army. They retired him, but he refused. Instead, he chose me to pour everything he knew into in his last days.”

  “So he taught you how to use a sword?” she asked. “You really don’t look like someone holding one for the first time.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But those are… memories I would rather not dig up.”

  “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to bring your mood down.”

  “No, it’s not like that,” I said quickly. “Just annoying, that’s all. My grandpa was obsessed with the idea that we came from some samurai clan. He even named me after them, the Hayato people, a group of warriors. Supposedly, it means brave.”

  “Huh?!” she said, turning to me, eyes wide. “That’s an awesome name. It fits a lord perfectly. So… what does mine mean?”

  “Can you please turn around?” I muttered, waiting for my face to cool down. “It doesn’t really have a special meaning… it just means green.”

  “What?” She spun around again, tilting her head.

  “G-green.”

  “That’s it?” she almost yelled, her glare making me tense.

  “Y-yeah… you were a green turtle, now with green hair, green eyes, and a green kimono—”

  

  “I thought I had a cool name all this time!” she snapped, punching me on the head.

  She rushed out of the water and started getting dressed, and my eyes got stuck on the interesting floor patterns, well, until she finished. Then she turned her back to me.

  “Come on, get dressed. I’m done with this disgusting place.”

  I quickly pulled on my wet clothes. They were soaked anyway, so it didn’t make much difference, at least now they were clean, not sticky or stinking. Then I noticed Midori’s face fall as she tugged at her clothes, trying to straighten them.

  “Are you still mad about the name thing?”

  She didn’t answer. She turned down the corridor, and I followed, matching her brisk pace without her even looking back.

  “See, when demons asked all of a sudden, I should’ve given them something more reasonable than Slow Death of the Wastes—”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Shhh,” she cut me off, finger to my lips, listening to the surroundings.

  “What?” I whispered, tense.

  

  Something fell from the ceiling, and we both jumped back. But when we saw what it was, our faces fell. A baby spider, no bigger than the palm of a hand, stood before us. We watched it, trying to figure out what it was planning. It crawled closer and sprayed acid… but it didn't even reach our feet.

  Midori looked at me, shrugged, and casually kicked the spider like it was nothing. The poor thing flew across the corridor and stuck to the wall with a splat. As we walked past it, I glanced at the spider with a tiny pang of guilt, then moved on. Just like that, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

  We wandered aimlessly through the corridors for a while, hoping somehow we’d find an exit. Just when it felt like our souls might crack from the endless loop, a light appeared ahead. Squinting into it, our eyes burned, we’d finally reached the entrance, and morning had already come. But something was off. Our boars, they were gone.

  “What the—”

  Midori sprinted outside, and I chased after her. We darted left and right, hoping the boars hadn’t gone far, and my eyes froze on the battlefield. Dozens of spiders lay in heaps on the ground, and my boar was locked in a fight with the last one, exhausted, barely holding on, teetering on the edge of defeat.

  I was about to ignite my katana and rush in when something zipped past my ear, smashing into the spider’s head. Midori’s arrow. The boar dropped to its knees, panting hard, trying to catch its breath.

  We walked up to the battlefield. Midori’s mount lay on its side behind the pile of dead spiders, trembling and barely alive. She knelt, glanced at it, formed a sharp stone blade in her hand, and ended it with a clean cut to the throat.

  

  “Hey… what the hell was that?!” I snapped.

  “It was in pain,” Midori said, calm as ever. She wiped her hand on the cloth bag tied to the boar and looked at me. “Sometimes the only way to help is to end it.” Then she walked to my boar. “Even if I hadn’t, it would’ve died soon.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to kill mine too!” I blurted out.

  She shot me a tired look, rolled her eyes, and started digging through the bag that barely clung to my boar’s back. She pulled out two sandwiches, handed one to me, and stuffed the other into her mouth, talking with it half full.

  “I’m just starving.”

  We sat in the sun, letting our clothes dry while eating and resting. After a brief moment of relief, my mind started racing again. I squinted at Midori and pointed toward the cave behind us.

  “Wait… was this the place you said you’d drag me to hell?”

  “What?” she said, averting her gaze. “No. I didn’t even know this was a spider nest.”

  I squinted harder, not buying that for a second.

  “Seriously,” she added, looking away.

  “Well, anyway,” I sighed wearily, “let’s do a status check… I’ve drained up almost all your mana, and we lost a mount. Can we still make it on time?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, then checked herself and froze. Her eyes widened as she turned to me. “Hey… can you check my mana? Am I seeing this wrong?”

  “What?”

  I activated my mana vision and stared. Compared to when I drained her during the boss fight, she had more mana now.

  “How is this even possible?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, still unsure. “All we did was… wait, maybe it’s the hot spring? Yes, that has to be it.”

  “Really?” I muttered.

  “I guess, maybe it’s some kind of healing water or something. It eased all my pain too, so why not?”

  “I barely feel anything either, especially that dog bite on my leg…”

  She nodded in agreement, and then an idea popped into my head, somewhere between pure stupidity and a stroke of genius.

  “I was thinking,” I said, swallowing the last bite, “should we… go back to that hot spring again?”

  I turned to Midori, and she gave me a suspicious, annoyed look.

  “I think you’ve had enough eye candy for today,” she said, crossing her arms, clearly getting the wrong idea.

  “No, no!” I blurted out. “I mean for mana. If you gather enough now—”

  “Ugh, forget it. Nothing could make me go back to that awful place.”

  She had a point. That cave was a nightmare, and who knew if another spider, or something worse, would hit again. We were both wiped out, barely able to handle anything else. So I let it go. I didn't feel like dealing with anything anyway.

  “So…” I said, standing up and stretching my back as I scanned around. “Which way to go now?”

  “Toward the boar, obviously.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I muttered, following her.

  “I mean, it doesn’t really matter,” she said, waving her hands. “One more day and I’ll have enough mana to teleport us to the mountain.”

  “Still, let’s head toward it,” I said, “I don't want to lose any more time.”

  “Hayato,” she said, hands on her hips as she leaned closer, eyes narrowed. “You know, sometimes I think you’re cursed or something. You find trouble even when there is nothing around for miles.”

  Of course I ignored her, for the sake of my remaining sanity. I climbed onto the boar and it stood up right away. Midori hopped on behind me too and the poor thing nearly folded. It looked dead tired. Carrying both of us was, for a moment, harder than fighting spiders. But somehow, it found its balance and started moving anyway.

  “Not that way, idiot,” Midori said, smacking the back of my head and pointing left. “The mountain is over there.”

  “How was I supposed to know!” I snapped.

  We headed for the mountain together. The path was rough, and every bump made her press against me. Each time it felt like my soul left my body and came back embarrassed. After a while, I got used to it, sadly.

  When we reached a cliff, Midori made a wooden bridge. Crossing it on the boar was pure terror. The bridge swayed, and I was sure we would fall and die in a very stupid way. Then we went down a slope and crossed a wide plain along a dry riverbed.

  After that, we entered a forest full of dead, dry trees. We walked through it for a long time. Night slowly settled in, and for a moment I honestly thought the forest would never end. Then it finally did.

  The boar had started stumbling, its legs shaking. It looked like it couldn’t carry us another step. Night had already fallen, and pushing further would only torment the poor animal. So I loosened the reins, stopped, and climbed down.

  “This thing can't move anymore, and it’s getting dark,” I said. But I was more worried that something could attack us and we wouldn’t even notice. “Should we rest here?”

  “It’s fine.”

  She climbed down from the boar and took a couple of steps, then stretched out her hands and started shaping a wooden dome in the empty space around us. When she finished, we went inside, this time bringing the boar too with us. It still reeked of blood and death, but losing it now would only make things worse.

  “Should we make a separate space for it?” I asked, pinching my nose.

  She agreed and raised a wooden wall inside, splitting the dome in two. It felt like a small, two room hut. We sat on the ground, tired, but at least it felt safe.

  “Get a good rest tonight,” Midori said, her face suddenly serious. “Tomorrow's the day.” She paused, glancing at me with a faint frown. “And… I still don’t know if you’re ready for that.”