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We’d been staying with Filia and Noche in their den for a few days now. What had seemed like a precarious life at first was, somehow, beginning to find its rhythm.

At the beginning, we had a few squabbles over how to divide roles, but once that was settled, things went surprisingly smoothly.

When Sufi went out foraging, Filia stayed with me. My insistence that I didn’t need a babysitter… was shot down immediately for “lack of credibility.”

And maybe they were right. That day, right after our meal, I’d come down with a fever and spent an entire day flat on my back. I’d always been frail enough to envy Sufi’s sturdy health since childhood, but looking back, I’m amazed I even survived that escape at all.

…I don’t think Alice died and I possessed her body that night… yeah. Sufi hasn’t once called me out on anything ever since I regained my memories of my past life. And when I compare myself now to the “me” she knew before, there really isn’t much difference in how I talk or act.

*…Actually.*

Even before remembering my past life, I never really accepted being treated like a girl.

I hated skirts until I finally got used to them. I hated using “watashi” or “watakushi” for my first-person pronoun, but calling myself “ore” or “ora” like the village boys didn’t feel right either. In the end, I settled on “boku.”

Grandpa really tried to correct me, but I was stubborn and refused to budge, so he eventually gave up.

When I look at everything as a whole, the only real change is that now I carry knowledge from a past life.

Sure, ten-plus years of living as a boy had left its mark on me, nudging my way of thinking a little more toward the boyish side. I won’t say that influence is small.

But what surprises me most is how naturally my current self matches up with the self I remember.

No need to pretend, no guilt from lying or acting—it’s honestly a relief. Still, realizing that even across one whole life and one whole world, I’m still essentially the same person, it made me a little melancholic.

■■■

Speaking of which, Sufi’s ability to survive in the wild is simply off the charts.

It’s not that Filia or Noche are lacking, it’s that Sufi is simply too skilled. When there isn’t much difference in physical ability, experience and knowledge make all the difference.

After all, she’d spent years learning the fundamentals of alchemy and the practical skills that went with it from a master alchemist. On top of that, she’d been taught how to travel and survive on the road. Things that ordinary people would pay a fortune and bow their heads to acquire had been freely poured into a naturally gifted girl.

At the very least, she would never have trouble finding food in the forests and mountains. The only reason we’d struggled during our flight was because she had to protect me. Kindhearted Sufi could never leave her sickly little sister alone in the woods for hours while she went foraging.

If she didn’t have a burden like me, she could live just fine on her own. I actually told her that shortly before we escaped from the village, and she puffed up her cheeks, burst into tears, and nearly strangled me, so I’m never saying it again.

Anyway, with Filia—our trustworthy babysitter—now around, Sufi threw herself into work like crazy. So much that we ended up with more food than we could possibly eat.

…In fact, she nearly stripped the surrounding mountains of edible plants. It might have gotten dangerous if I hadn’t stepped in and warned her.

“Here, more nya!”
“W-wait, Noche, we can’t take any more—”
“My honor is on the line, nya!!”

On the other side, the one spurred into action by the “outsider + younger + annoying + super talented” quadruple combo was our hostess, Noche.

Her physical ability was different in type, but almost rivaled Sufi’s. Though she looked skinny, she had surprising strength for a child, combined with feline agility. When it came to reflexes, she might even surpass Sufi.

She would go out into the forest to catch field mice and squirrels, or into the underground ruins where a river flowed, fishing with all her might. She poured all her energy into hunting.

Now, competition that drives each other to improve—and gives us more food—is fine and good. But in reality, one problem loomed too large to ignore.

“Alice, are you okay?”
“…Not really.”

I sighed as I watched Noche run off toward the river, ignoring Filia’s protests, while a freshly caught fish—its scales a greenish tint, but otherwise looking and tasting like trout—flopped wildly on the floor.

Behind me were pots we’d scavenged from the ruins, stuffed full of the forest’s and river’s bounty. On drying racks woven from vines, strips of meat and herbs were lined up in rows.

Sufi was openly competitive, still clinging to Noche’s initial hostility to us. On the other hand, Noche had grown stubborn because she felt her pride wounded. Since she quickly realized she couldn’t win on plants, she focused solely on animal protein—a calm, reasonable decision, I thought.

But the end result was this: our “Back Players” just couldn’t keep up.

“Ugh… I-I’ll take care of it, so please rest, okay?”
“Sorry, Filia. I’ll make sure to talk to Sufi later…”

The problem was obvious: the butchering and processing were left to two near-amateurs—me and Filia. Fish we could handle, but meat, even from small animals, took strength, so I had to rely on her. And dragging it all back to the river for processing was exhausting.

“To think… we have so much food, and yet it hurts… life is really tough, huh…”

The biggest issue was that, well, neither Filia nor I had much stamina. We’d butcher until we were dead tired, cook a meal, collapse, then wake up only to face another mountain of ingredients.

Never in my life did I imagine I’d come to understand the saying, “Too much is as bad as too little.”

Is this what the Japanese internet used to call “black labor”?

“Filia… sorry, looks like you missed a poisonous mushroom there.”
“Eh—wha!?”

Filia hastily tossed away the red-cap lookalike mushroom she’d been holding. I kicked it over to the “poison corner” of our storage area. That pile was also growing faster than we could dispose of it.

With the sheer volume of wild plants being brought in, we just couldn’t check everything thoroughly. At the very least, we had to make absolutely sure not to let anything poisonous slip through.