THE REINCARNATIONS GATHER
Kudo leads us into a dining hall.
Like the rest of the elf village, it’s built inside a large tree.
This one is particularly big, but it’s still cramped because of all the desks and chairs inside.
Somehow, it reminds me of the outdoors school I went to for junior high.
Inside the dining hall, four other kids are already cooking.
One of the boys notices us and pauses.
He seems skeptical when he looks at Katia and me, but his eyes widen when he notices Fei.
Even after all these years, it seems like a lot of people remember her well.
I guess that probably has to do with how intense she is.
“Kudo, are those three by any chance…?”
“Yes, they are.”
Kudo calls the four people over from their cooking.
Everyone goes to what I assume are their usual seats, while Kudo brings the three of us to the front of the dining hall.
“First of all, could I ask you to introduce yourselves again?”
“I’m Shunsuke Yamada.”
“Kanata Ooshima.”
“And I’m Mirei Shinohara, obviously.”
As soon as we finish introducing ourselves, the whole room erupts into chatter.
Inevitably, most of the eyes in the room seem to be on Katia.
“Shun and Kanata? Is that really you?”
It’s the same boy who was cooking earlier.
“Yeah.”
As soon as I answer, his face breaks into a grin.
“Good to see you, man!”
Something about that smile gives me déjà vu.
Though his features are different, I’d recognize that genuine friendliness anywhere.
“Ogi?”
“Yep, it’s me. How could you tell?”
“You’re the only person I know with such a goofy smile.”
Kenichi Ogiwara, also known as Ogi, smiles even harder.
He’s a friend from back in the soccer club.
Incidentally, his nickname is based on his surname because his first name was too similar to Kengo Natsume, Hugo’s old identity.
After Ogi, the rest of the class introduces themselves.
Some of them I missed dearly, while others I admittedly can barely remember.
All in all, there are thirteen reincarnations here.
That’s two more than the eleven Ms. Oka told us about before.
The two newcomers are Kunihiko Tagawa and Asaka Kushitani.
“You two were adventurers?”
“’Course. If you’re in a fantasy world, you gotta go on adventures, right?”
“I’m not sure about that…”
Tagawa and Kushitani were apparently mercenaries before they came here.
Specifically, both their parents belonged to their own mercenary groups, so they grew up as childhood friends.
However, those mercenary groups were wiped out in a battle against demons.
After that, the pair decided to switch from being mercenaries to being adventurers, striking out on their own.
During their journey, they were contacted by the elves, and that’s why they came here.
They only arrived in the village quite recently.
“Wait, why are you a babe now, Kanata?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Katia’s shoulders sag.
Evidently, she’s the only person whose gender changed.
“Whatever, at least you’re still human. I’m a monster, you know!”
Fei starts talking about herself, and the girls all flock to her.
For some reason, this leads to their touching her wings and shrieking.
She always was the center of the girls in the class, one way or another.
Before long, the girls have all gathered around Fei, while the boys all gather around Katia and me.
Of the thirteen people here, there are five boys and eight girls.
It seems like the boys are a little self-conscious about being outnumbered.
We start exchanging information.
“So that dumbass Natsume is coming to attack us?” Tagawa asks incredulously.
“Yeah.”
I nod gravely.
“Natsume, huh…?”
Ogi’s face clearly shows his conflicted emotions.
He was good friends with us but also with Hugo.
It’s only natural that he would be shocked to learn that one of his old friends has changed so drastically.
The other boys were dismayed as well, but I could see in their expressions that they weren’t quite as surprised.
The old Natsume wouldn’t do anything as insane as Hugo is doing now, but he always had a pushy, disagreeable personality.
Many of the boys privately disliked Natsume, even if they didn’t dare say it aloud.
That’s probably why the majority of reactions were along the lines of “Yeah, I’d believe it.”
“Did the elves not tell you what’s going on in the outside world?” Katia asks.
Ogi hesitates for a second before responding.
“Yeah. They try to have as little to do with us as possible.”
“I see. What was with that weird pause, though?”
This time, Ogi exchanges glances with the other guys.
“Uh, sorry if I was acting weird. It’s just, it’s hard to believe a pretty girl like you is really Kanata, y’know?”
The other guys all nod in agreement.
Katia’s expression is difficult to read.
“Yeah, I guess it would be, huh.”
“Crap, I’m sorry! I know it’s not like you chose to be a girl or anything, and I’m sure it’s been super-hard for you! It’s just that you kinda seem like a different person now…”
Ogi’s panic makes it painfully clear that he has no idea how to interact with Katia.
“That’s all right, dude. Just talk to me like you would’ve normally, okay?”
“That’s easy for you to say…”
“If it bothers you that much, I’ll just go join the girls. Okay?”
“No, please stay here.”
Ogi is practically tripping over himself now.
It’s all too obvious why he wants her to stay.
I mean, Katia is almost stunningly beautiful.
I’m sure he’s excited just to be able to talk to someone that pretty.
“Shun, you traveled here with Kanata and Shinohara, right? Man, I’m so jealous. You’ve got a girl for each arm!”
Ogi turns on me to complain.
Even though one of those girls is right in front of us.
“But one of ’em is Kanata, and the other one’s…well…Shinohara.”
At least Tagawa’s defending me.
“Besides, is it just me, or are all of us reincarnations totally hotter than average?”
At that comment, I take another look at the faces of the people around me.
He’s right, actually: Every one of them is quite good-looking.
I was pretty plain in my old life, and aside from standouts like Fei and Wakaba, most of my classmates were similarly average-looking.
But while there’s a wide variety of appearances here, overall everyone is gorgeous.
Maybe the gods who reincarnated us wanted to do us all a favor.
“You’re right. Guess you shouldn’t be complaining, huh?”
Katia nudges Ogi teasingly, and he throws his hands up jokingly in surrender.
For a moment, it’s almost as if we’re back in our old lives.
But that’s just an illusion, of course.
We’ve all spent the same amount of time in this world by now.
“So most of you were basically kidnapped by the elves and brought here?”
Katia’s voice brings me back to the present. While I was busy getting absorbed in emotions, the subject changed to how everyone got to the elf village.
Ogi and the others nod.
“Everyone’s situation is a little different, but yeah. A lot of us were sold by our parents for money. I heard Temarikawa actually did get kidnapped.”
This revelation makes me feel a little dizzy.
I always believed in Ms. Oka and her efforts to protect the reincarnations, but now it’s clear that there’s a dark side to that.
My classmates were traded or captured like slaves?
Katia, on the other hand, seems strangely calm.
“Aren’t you shocked?”
“I mean, yeah, I guess. But I had my suspicions.”
Katia was suspicious of Ms. Oka from the beginning.
She must have had a lot of theories.
Including the unsavory things Ms. Oka might have done in the process.
I remember something Sophia said when we faced off against her.
She told Ms. Oka, “You’ve done plenty of killing yourself.”
Back then, I knew there had to be a good reason for that, and I still don’t believe that our teacher would kill anyone without a reason.
But at the same time, I can’t deny that my doubts about Ms. Oka have only been growing.
I want to trust her, but I can’t, at least not completely.
Should we really be protecting the elves at all?
Of course, if Hugo attacks this place, I have to fight to protect the reincarnations who live here.
Besides, I have my own reasons for wanting to defeat him.
But what am I supposed to do after that?
From what I’ve heard so far, pretty much no one here is satisfied with the way things are.
They’re constantly being monitored by the elves.
Based on what they’ve told us and the work they were doing earlier, they seem to be living more or less self-sufficiently here.
They grow vegetables in the field and raise livestock for meat.
If they need something that they can’t get here, the elves will give it to them, but for the most part, they take care of things themselves.
Most of them were brought here when they were babies or otherwise too young to be aware of the world around them.
At that age, the elves took care of them, but their presence gradually lessened, and now they rarely make contact outside of surveillance and providing supplies.
“They don’t want us to do too much, I guess,” Ogi says.
He’s probably right.
The elves don’t want the reincarnations to raise their skills.
Because of their battle with the administrators that Ms. Oka told us about.
But is that really the only reason?
Is that enough to justify committing crimes to gather the reincarnations and force them into this lifestyle?
There must be something else we don’t know about.
Is Ms. Oka hiding it from us?
And is that for our own good or not?
I have no idea.
But for right now, the situation with Hugo is more important.
Once that’s done, I’ll have to confront Ms. Oka once and for all.
Even if it means making enemies of the elves.
Anxiety eats away at me as I listen to Ogi and the others.
The excitement of reuniting with old friends went on for hours, and we ended up renewing our bonds until the sun went down.
This means that I’ve met most of the reincarnations now.
There are only two left who I haven’t seen yet, aside from the four who are apparently dead.
One of those two is a close friend of mine and Katia’s, Kyouya Sasajima.
When Ms. Oka told us about Sophia, she said:
“Her name is Sophia Keren. And in her previous life, she was Shouko Negishi. She is one of the reincarnations who has sided with the administrators.”
One of the reincarnations who has sided with the administrators.
Doesn’t that mean that there are other reincarnations besides Sophia who have done the same thing?
Thinking back, when I asked Ms. Oka about Kyouya, she blatantly dodged the question.
Does that mean he’s one of them?
Did she know about that and hide that information from us?
If so, it would explain a lot of things.
Unfortunately.
I haven’t talked to Katia about this yet.
I’m sure she reached the same conclusion long before I did.
And knowing Katia, she’s probably thought it through even further than I have.
About why Ms. Oka would have kept that from us.
Until now, I always believed that if Ms. Oka was keeping secrets, it must be for a good reason.
I didn’t think she would ever hide something from us, unless she had to.
There had to be some reason that she couldn’t tell us, for our own sakes.
But after hearing the other reincarnations’ side of things, now I’m not so sure.
What if I was wrong, and she was keeping this information from us not for our sakes but for hers?
Did she avoid telling us about Kyouya because it would be inconvenient for her if we knew?
I really want to trust her.
But more and more, I’m not sure if I can.
Would all this doubt clear away if I got to see Kyouya again?
Hey, Kyouya.
Where are you right now? What are you doing?
If we meet again, will it be as friends? Or as enemies?
All these questions go unanswered.
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