Chapter 6: Reasons for Respect.

Since coming to this world,
I have never once stepped outside the house.

I did it on purpose.
I made sure not to go out.

Because I was afraid.

If I went into the garden and looked outside,
the memories would come rushing back immediately.

The memories of that day.

The pain in my side.
The coldness of the rain.
Regret.
Despair.
The agony when the truck hit me.

They would resurface as vividly as if they had happened yesterday.

My legs would tremble.

I could look outside from the window.
I could even make it as far as the garden on my own two feet.
But no farther.

I knew.
The peaceful rural landscape spreading before my eyes
could turn into hell in an instant.

A scene that screamed “how tranquil and idyllic”
would never, ever accept me.

In my previous life,
how many times had I fantasized while stewing inside the house?

What if Japan suddenly got dragged into war?
What if a beautiful girl suddenly started living with me out of nowhere?

Surely I would rise to the occasion.
I escaped reality with fantasies like that.

I dreamed it over and over.

In those dreams I wasn’t a superman,
but I was at least average.
I did what an average person could do.
I was able to live on my own.

But the dream always ended.

If I took even one step outside the house,
this dream might shatter too.

I might wake up
and be thrown back into that moment of despair.

Back to that instant when I felt crushed under waves of regret…

No—this isn’t a dream.

There’s no way a dream could be this realistic.
If someone told me this was a VRMMORPG,
I might actually believe it more easily.

This is reality.
I tell myself that.

I understand.
This reality is not a dream.

I understand—
and yet I cannot take a single step.

No matter how motivated I feel inside,
no matter how seriously I swear to myself that I’ll do it,
my body simply refuses to follow.

I feel like crying.

—

The graduation exam would be held outside the village.

When Roxy told me that,
I resisted—quietly.

“Outside?”

“Yes, outside the village. We’ve already prepared a horse.”

“Can’t we do it inside the house?”

“No.”

“No…?”

I hesitated.

My mind understood.
I knew I had to go outside eventually.
There was no way I could remain a shut-in in this world too.

But my body rejected it.

It remembered.
That time.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing… um… well…
there might be monsters outside, right?”

“Around here you almost never encounter them unless you go near the forest.
And even if you do, they’re weak—I can handle them alone.
Actually, I think you could manage them too, Rudy.”

Even at this point, seeing me make excuse after excuse to avoid going outside,
Roxy looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“Ah—come to think of it, I heard something. Rudy, you’ve never been outside, have you?”

“Uh… yes.”

“So you’re scared—of horses?”

“N-No, horses don’t scare me at all!”

I actually like horses.
I used to play Dabita and stuff.

“Fufu. I’m relieved. You do have some age-appropriate parts after all.”

Roxy had misunderstood.

But I couldn’t bring myself to say I was scared of going outside.
Saying I was afraid of horses would probably be less shameful than admitting the real reason.

I still had my pride.
A cheap, hollow pride with no substance behind it.

“Well then. Up we go—hup!”

Since I still hadn’t moved,
Roxy suddenly hoisted me onto her shoulder.

“Wha—!?”

“Once you’re on, the fear will disappear right away.”

I didn’t struggle.

Part of it was the conflict inside me,
but another part thought—maybe it’s fine to just let myself be carried,
to go with the flow and leave it to her.

Roxy tossed me lightly onto the horse’s back.
Then she hopped up behind me
and gave the reins a single pat.

The horse began walking with a clip-clop.

Just like that,
I left the house.

—

It was the first time I had ever gone beyond the garden since coming to this world.

Roxy proceeded slowly through the village.

From time to time, villagers glanced at us—without reservation.

No way, I thought.
My body tensed.

Those stares were still frightening.

Especially the kind that looked down on someone inferior.
Would someone speak to me in an obviously mocking tone?

No—they wouldn’t.

The only people in this world who know me
are inside that narrow house.

They shouldn’t know anything.
So why are they looking?

Stop looking. Go do your work…

No…
They’re not looking at me.

They’re looking at Roxy.

Some even gave her small nods of greeting.

Ah, right.

In these past few years,
she had built herself a position in the village.

Even though discrimination against demons is still strong in this country—
even more so in the countryside—
in just two years she had become someone the villagers would nod to in respect.

The moment I realized that,
Roxy’s presence on my back suddenly felt incredibly reliable.

She knew the roads.
She knew the people.
If anyone said something to me,
she would handle it somehow.

Who would have thought
the girl I once caught peeking into the bedroom doing that
would one day feel so reassuring?

Little by little,
I felt the tension draining from my body.

“Karavaggio seems to be in a very good mood.
He looks happy to have you riding him.”

“I see.”

As I leaned back,
Roxy’s modest chest pressed lightly against the nape of my neck.

It felt nice.

What had I even been afraid of?

In a peaceful village like this,
who would possibly mock me?

“Are you still scared?”

“No… I’m fine now.”

“See? I told you it would be okay.”

With my mind finally at ease,
the scenery around me came into focus.

Fields stretched out as far as the eye could see,
dotted here and there with houses.

A perfect picture of rural life.

Quite a wide area, actually—enough houses that if they were more densely packed,
I might have mistaken it for a town.

If there were windmills, I might have thought of Switzerland.

Oh—there’s a watermill too.

Once I relaxed, the silence started to feel noticeable.

Until now, being with Roxy had never felt this quiet.
We had never been pressed so closely together like this either.

The silence wasn’t unpleasant,
but it was a little ticklish.

So I spoke.

“Sensei, what do they grow in these fields?”

“Mainly Asuran wheat—it’s used for bread.
Also some Batirus flowers and a few vegetables.
The Batirus flowers get processed in the royal capital into perfume.
Other than that, just the usual things that appear on the dinner table.”

“Ah—those over there are bell peppers, right? The ones Sensei can’t eat.”

“I-It’s not that I can’t eat them. I just don’t like them very much.”

I kept asking questions about this and that.

Today was Roxy’s final exam, she had said.

Which meant the end of her time as my tutor.

Knowing how impatient Roxy is,
she might leave the house as early as tomorrow.

If so, today would be the last day.

I wanted to talk more.

But I couldn’t think of anything clever to say,
so I just kept asking her about the village.

According to Roxy,
this village is called Buena Village
and is part of the Fittoa Region in the northeast of the Asura Kingdom.

Currently about thirty households live here by farming.

My father, Paul, is a knight dispatched to this village.
His job is to monitor whether the villagers are working properly,
mediate disputes within the village,
and protect it if monsters ever attack.

In short—he’s a government-sanctioned bodyguard.

That said, the young men of the village take turns standing watch.
So once Paul finishes his morning patrol,
he’s usually home in the afternoon.

It’s fundamentally a peaceful village,
so there isn’t much work.

As we talked,
the fields gradually disappeared.

There was nothing left to ask about,
and silence returned for a while.

Then perhaps another hour passed.
The fields were completely gone,
and we were traveling through empty grassland.

—

Grassland stretched all the way to the horizon.

Well—faint mountains were visible far in the distance.

At the very least, it was a sight you would never see in Japan.

It looked something like the Mongolian plains I’d seen in a geography textbook.

“This should be far enough.”

Roxy stopped the horse beside a single solitary tree,
dismounted,
and tied the reins to it.

Then she lifted me down.

She faced me.

“Now I will use the Water Saint-rank attack spell
‘Cumulonimbus Thundercloud.’
This spell brings a violent rainstorm accompanied by widespread lightning.”

“Yes.”

“Try to imitate it.”

Using Water Saint-rank magic.

I see—so that’s the content of the final exam.

The spell she’s about to use is Roxy’s most powerful magic.
If I can use it, there will be nothing left for her to teach me.

“I’ll disperse it in about a minute for the demonstration,
but… let’s say if you can keep it going for more than an hour,
you pass.”

“Is it a secret technique, so we have to do it where no one’s around?”

“No. It’s because it might cause damage to people or crops.”

Oh.

A rain powerful enough to harm crops?

This is going to be impressive.

Roxy raised both hands toward the sky.

“O mighty water spirit,
and Prince of Thunder who ascended to the heavens!
Grant my wish, bring ferocious blessing,
show your power to this puny being!
Strike the divine hammer against the anvil to inspire awe,
and flood the earth with water!
O rain! Wash everything away, sweep all things before you!
Cumulonimbus!!”

She recited each word slowly,
savoring it.

It took more than a minute.

The moment she finished,
the surroundings darkened instantly.

After a few seconds’ lag,
rain slammed down.

A ferocious gale roared,
and pitch-black clouds began flashing with lightning.

The air tore apart.

BOOM!!

It struck the tree.

My eardrums rang,
my vision flickered.
I thought I might faint.

“Ah!”

Roxy let out the voice she makes when she messes up.

The clouds scattered in an instant.
The rain and thunder stopped immediately.

“Awawawa…”

Roxy rushed toward the tree with a pale face.

When I looked—
the horse was lying there, smoke rising from its body.

Roxy placed her hand on it and chanted at once.

“O merciful mother goddess,
close this one’s wounds and restore him to vigorous health—
Ex-Healing!”

Roxy frantically cast intermediate healing.
Soon the horse revived.

It hadn’t died instantly, apparently.
The horse looked terrified,
and Roxy’s forehead was drenched in nervous sweat.

“P-Phew… that was close.”

It really had been close.

That horse is the only one our family owns.
Paul takes meticulous care of it every day
and occasionally rides off with a cheerful smile.
It’s not some famous steed or anything,
but after years of shared joys and hardships,
he openly says it’s the second-most precious thing to him after Zenith.

Of course Roxy—who had lived with us for two years—knew that very well.
I remember her looking slightly put off
when she once caught Paul clinging to the horse in rapture.

“C-Can we keep this a secret, please?”

Roxy said it with teary eyes.

She’s clumsy.
She often makes careless mistakes like this.

But she’s also hardworking.

I know she stayed up late every night preparing lessons for me.
I also know she tried her best to project dignity
so no one would look down on her just because she’s young.

My Shishou is adorable.
If the age gap weren’t so large,
I’d want her as my wife.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell Father.”

“Ugh… thank you.”

I wish I could have met her when we were the same age.

“Uuu…”

Roxy was half-crying,
but she shook her head sharply,
slapped her cheeks a few times,
and turned to me with a determined expression.

“All right—your turn.
I’ll protect Karavaggio, so go ahead.”

By the way, Karavaggio is the horse’s name.
He looks ready to bolt in terror at any moment,
but Roxy is holding him firmly with her small body.

As I watched,
Roxy muttered something under her breath.
In the next instant, an earthen wall rose up around her and the horse.
In the blink of an eye it became a dirt igloo.

Advanced earth magic—‘Earth Fortress.’

That should withstand a thunderstorm just fine.

Right.

Let’s do this.

Time to show Roxy something spectacular
and blow her mind.

Um, the chant was…

“O mighty water spirit,
and Prince of Thunder who ascended to the heavens!
Grant my wish, bring ferocious blessing,
show your power to this puny being!
Strike the divine hammer against the anvil to inspire awe,
and flood the earth with water!
O rain! Wash everything away, sweep all things before you!
Cumulonimbus!!”

I got it in one go.

Dark clouds began to gather.

At the same time,
I understood ‘Cumulonimbus Thundercloud.’

Create clouds in midair,
then intricately manipulate them into thunderclouds.
Something like that.

Unless you keep pouring mana in constantly,
the clouds stop moving and disperse immediately.

(Mana aside, keeping both arms raised for a whole hour sounds exhausting…)

Wait.

Magicians are supposed to be creative.

There’s no need to hold that dramatic pose for an entire hour, is there?

Right—this is an exam.

Instead of staying in the same stance for an hour,
once the clouds are formed,
I can maintain them with mixed magic.

That was close.
I need to apply what I’ve learned.

“Um… I think I saw something like this on TV once.
The process of cloud formation was—”

Since the clouds Roxy made were still lingering,
I created something like a sideways tornado
to generate an updraft by warming the lower part.
Then I cooled the upper part to increase the updraft speed—

By the time I finished adjusting,
I had used up about half my mana.

But with this much effort,
it should hold for more than an hour.

Satisfied,
I stepped into the dome Roxy had made
amid the roaring thunder and pouring rain.

Roxy was sitting at the far edge of the dark dome,
holding the horse’s reins.

When she saw me,
she gave a small nod.

“This dome will disappear in about an hour,
so as long as it doesn’t vanish before then, you’re fine.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry—Karavaggio is safe.”

“Yes.”

“Stop saying ‘yes yes’—you need to stay outside and properly control that thundercloud for a full hour.”

Hm?

“Control it?”

“Hm? Did I say something strange?”

“No, I mean… is control necessary?”

“Of course. Even a Water Saint-rank spell is still magic—
if you don’t actively maintain it with mana,
the wind will scatter it.”

“I already made sure it wouldn’t scatter, though…?”

“Huh…?!”

Roxy dashed outside the dome as though something had occurred to her.
At the same moment, the dome began crumbling apart.

Hey—control it properly!
The horse will get buried alive!

“Whoa whoa whoa—”

I hurriedly took over control
and stepped outside.

Roxy was staring up at the sky in stunned silence.

“…I see… the diagonal tornado is pushing the clouds upward…”

There, in the sky,
was the cumulonimbus cloud I had created—
growing without limit.

I have to say, it turned out pretty well.

Back in my previous life,
I once saw a special program that scientifically explained
how supercells form.

I didn’t remember the details clearly,
but I had a rough visual image of “something like this”
and built it accordingly—and it came out looking the part.

“Rudy. You pass.”

“Eh? But it hasn’t been an hour yet.”

“No need. That’s more than enough.
By the way—can you dispel it?”

“Ah—yes. It’ll take a little time, though.”

I cooled the ground over a wide area,
warmed the upper layers,
created downward air currents,
and finally used brute-force wind magic
to somehow disperse the clouds.

By the time it was over,
both Roxy and I were soaked to the bone.

“Congratulations. You are now Water Saint-rank.”

The dripping-wet beautiful woman
declared it with a radiant smile.

In that moment,
a modest—but real—sense of omnipotence sprouted in my heart.

—

The next day.

Roxy stood at the entrance,
dressed in exactly the same traveling outfit she had worn when she arrived two years ago.

Father and Mother looked almost unchanged from when she first came.
Only my height had increased.

“Roxy-chan, you can stay with us longer if you want.
There are still lots of dishes I haven’t taught you yet…”

“That’s right. Even though your tutoring is finished,
you helped us a lot during last year’s drought.
The villagers would welcome you too.”

My parents tried to hold her back.

Apparently, while I wasn’t looking,
Roxy had grown close to them.

Well, she had entire afternoons and evenings free every day.
If she did something every day,
she was bound to make connections.

Unlike game heroines whose stats don’t change
unless the protagonist takes action.

“No… thank you for the generous offer,
but this incident made me realize how powerless I still am.
For the time being, I plan to travel the world
and hone my magical skills.”

Apparently she was shocked
that I had caught up to her rank.
She had said before that she didn’t want to be overtaken by a disciple.

“I see. Well… sorry about that.
Looks like our son crushed your confidence.”

Paul—that’s not a good way to phrase it.

“No—it is I who should be grateful
for having my arrogance corrected.”

“You can use Water Saint-rank magic—
how is that arrogance?”

“Even without that spell,
I learned that with enough ingenuity,
one can perform magic far beyond it.”

Roxy gave a wry smile
and placed her hand on my head.

“Rudy.
I did my very best,
but I was not sufficient to teach you.”

“That’s not true. Sensei taught me so many things.”

“I’m glad you feel that way… Ah, yes.”

Roxy reached inside her robe,
fished around,
and pulled out a pendant on a leather cord.
It was made of metal with a green sheen
and shaped like three spears crossed together.

“A graduation gift.
I didn’t have time to prepare anything else,
so please make do with this.”

“What is it…?”

“A Migurd-tribe charm.
If you ever meet a difficult demon,
show them this and mention my name—
they might… bend the rules a little.”

“I’ll treasure it.”

“Might. Don’t overestimate it.”

With one last small smile,
Roxy set off on her journey.

By then I was crying.

She had given me so much.

Knowledge, experience, skill…

Without meeting her,
I would probably still be fumbling inefficiently
through the magic textbook all by myself.

And above all—
she had taken me outside.

Outside.

That was all.

Just that.

Roxy was the one who took me outside.

That fact carried meaning.

Roxy—who had been in this village for only two years.
Roxy—who didn’t seem particularly good at dealing with people.
Roxy—who, as a demon, must never have received warm looks from the villagers.
Not Paul, not Zenith—
but Roxy.

Even though all she did was cross the village with me.

But for me,
stepping outside had definitely been a psychological trauma.

She healed it.

Just by crossing the village.

She cleared my heart.

She hadn’t set out to rehabilitate me.
But something inside me had definitely been resolved.

Yesterday, after coming home soaked,
I turned back at the gate
and took one step outside.

There was only ground.

Just ordinary ground.

I didn’t tremble.

I can walk outside now.

She had done something no one else could.
Something my parents and siblings in my previous life had never managed.
She did it for me.

Not with irresponsible words—
but with responsible courage.

She hadn’t done it on purpose.
I know that.

She had done it for her own sake.
I know that too.

But still—I will respect her.

I will respect that small girl.

With that vow in my heart,
I watched Roxy’s back until it disappeared.

In my hand remained the staff and pendant she gave me,
and the countless pieces of knowledge she left behind.

…

Or so I thought—

until I found, in my room,
the pair of Roxy’s stained panties
that I had stolen several months ago.

S-Sorry.