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The Kingdom of Roud lay among the cluster of small states on the far western edge. Alveria, on the other hand, was across the continent—beyond a massive central mountain range and a great strait on the eastern side. There were shortcuts one could take along the route, but no matter how you looked at it, the journey was still nothing less than a full-scale crossing of the continent.

By the time he had taken us in, Grandpa had already been stricken with illness, living out a semi-retired life in the countryside. There was no way he could have survived such a journey. I remember how he tearfully confessed that rather than collapsing partway and abandoning toddlers who hadn’t even formed a sense of self yet, he had chosen instead to use what time remained to pass down every scrap of knowledge and skill that would let us walk on our own.

He kept apologizing right up until his final moments—that he couldn’t take us there himself.

“You’re going all the way there, nya?”
“Yeah. Grandpa said our father and mother are waiting for us there.”
“…are they, nya.”

Noche’s face clouded. I could hear it—the sound of jealousy, pity, and longing all tangled together. Filia, sitting beside her with her head down, was the same.

“Though, there’s no guarantee they really are waiting.”
“Alice…”

Sufi’s reproachful tone made me clamp my mouth shut. Maybe there had been reasons, circumstances we didn’t know. But still—why had infants ended up abandoned in some remote forest at the western edge of the continent, with no word from their parents for years afterward?

Were they really waiting for us? Or had we just been cast off? Would we be silenced if we showed up now? Every bit of evidence we had seemed to point to the harsher interpretation.

Parents were human too… they had circumstances. But was going there truly the right thing to do?

“…It was Grandpa’s last wish.”
“Yeah.”

Sufi probably understood all that as well. But she couldn’t give up on hope. That’s why I, too, believed we should follow Grandpa’s words.

At the very least, Alveria was a nation where beastkin who had fled the old Beast Kingdom found refuge. Unlike the West, the influence of Luminism didn’t reach there. Their state religion was the Celestial Dragon Faith, which worshiped a living divine dragon.

Its power in the West was limited, but as far as we knew, it was not a creed that taught discrimination against other races.

Alveria was the nation that housed the continental headquarters of both the Alchemists’ Guild and the Adventurers’ Guild—arguably the most prosperous country on the entire continent. …Or at least, that’s how Grandpa described it.

Even setting aside the matter of our parents, it still seemed like a country where beastkin like us could probably live more comfortably.

“That grandpa of yours… he was an alchemist, right?”
“Mm-hm. He knew all about medicine and taught us all sorts of things.”
“Hmmm…”

Before I knew it, the conversation had shifted toward talking about our parents.

“He showed us how to find edible things in the forest, and how to gather ingredients for medicine.”
“What about alchemy?”

Filia’s eyes sparkled as she eagerly latched onto Sufi’s words, clearly intrigued by the idea of alchemy.

“Sufi’s really bad… Alice is the amazing one at alchemy.”
“Eh, really?”
“Didn’t you say you couldn’t do anything, nya…?”
“I can’t do anything right now.”

Even when they gave me doubtful looks, I wasn’t lying. Alchemy was a specialized branch of magic, and practicing it required a whole arsenal of tools—alchemy circles, catalysts, interference devices, and more.

It wasn’t like regular magic, where if you had talent and drive, you could cast spells with just your body. The tools were expensive, and since mine had all been taken away, I was, unfortunately, more or less useless now.

“You talk kinda like some government official, nya.”
“I must respectfully decline to comment on that statement.”
“…What’s with that, nya?”

I brushed it off with a flimsy excuse while flicking my tail—ugh, great. Now the damp fur was picking up all the dust on the floor…

“As for Noche, her mother taught her how to hunt, right?”
“…She did, nya. I’d always get a fist to the head whenever I made noise, nya.”
“Grandpa could be a little scary too, when he was teaching us about medicines or warning us about poisonous plants.”
“M-my mother as well. When it came to manners, she was terribly strict with me…”
“But mom’s cooking was the best, nya. And her hunting skills were amazing, nya.”
“Sounds nice… My mother was good with sweets, they were delicious, but her regular cooking was… well…”
“Our grandpa was an incredible alchemist, but he was awful at cooking too.”

While I wrestled with the sand sticking to my tail, the others had gotten wrapped up in chatting about their guardians.

To me, Grandpa had been both a grandfather and a master. As a grandfather, Sufi had already said most of what there was to say. As a master, though… those stories tied into his alchemical techniques, things that weren’t supposed to be shared with outsiders. So I couldn’t exactly talk about them carelessly.

Still, listening to everyone’s cheerful memories like this wasn’t unpleasant.

*Guardians, huh…*

Without warning, the face of my guardian from my previous life—Captain—rose in my mind. Maybe it was because my memories had returned, and I still felt that lingering thread of connection to my past life.

A breezy, stylish trickster of a man, fond of mischief, who hated being called “old” and insisted on being treated like a mischievous older brother. I never even learned his real name. He was the one who dragged me—back when I was just a shut-in gamer glued to my room—out into the world, insisting we go have fun.

I learned all sorts of things both from Captain and his subordinates.

His subordinates taught me how to cheat at poker, how to run a scam, even how to break out of prison… Captain would get furious, yelling at them for being a terrible influence. Of course, I never took any of it seriously. To me, it was all just funny stories.

After all, I was just a shut-in otaku gamer in peaceful Japan. There was no way I’d ever have to put any of that into practice¹, and in the end, I really didn’t—my life ended without those skills ever being useful. My last day is still patchy in my memory, but I know none of the tricks or knowledge they taught me ever came in handy.

Captain did drag me around for his pranks, but some of them were genuinely funny.

Like the time we sneaked one of those statues that moves when no one’s watching out of the storage room in a different wing from mine in the facility and set it up in the hallway.

Most people froze and stumbled back in shock, or screamed and collapsed. And the thing was, the statue wasn’t even doing anything—just standing there silently. That somehow made it all the more hilarious, and I couldn’t help laughing.

Of course, it wasn’t long before the adults stormed in, and we got scolded within an inch of our lives. Later, I learned that the statue had a rather naughty reputation in the past. I’d always thought of it more like a cooperative child who liked playing games like “Red Light, Green Light.”

We used to sneak out other forbidden items too, playing with them until we got caught—and every time, Captain would get scolded right along with me.

There were definitely parts of him that made me wonder if he was really fit to be an adult, but thanks to those little escapades, I managed to make “friends.” At the very least, I was never left to feel lonely. Well, I never did manage to make any human friends, though.

*…Huh. I see. For me, this is the first time I’ve ever spent time like this, with kids my own age.*

“I kept telling them it wasn’t me, but they wouldn’t believe me, nya!”
“Eeeh?”
“And then when they finally realized it was the rats’ doing, all I got was a ‘sorry, our bad, nya!’ Way too casual nya!”
“Ahahaha.”

Someday, I’d like to become friends with these kids too. Not just here and now, but maybe even share stories about my past life.

The frustrations, the complaints, the happy moments, the fun times—everything. I’d like to put it all into words, so we could share what we know about the people we each loved.

“Do you have anything to tell, Alice?”
“Hmm…”

Prompted by Sufi, I tilted my head, but nothing came to mind except technical stuff.

“My memories of Grandpa are pretty much the same as Sufi’s.”
“I see… Then I’ll tell everyone about Alice!”
“Wait—don’t.”

Whatever she was about to say, I really didn’t want my past spilled out in front of everyone like that.

“Why not?”
“Just because.”
“Eeeeh.”

I somehow managed to stop Sufi, and let myself stay in the role of listener as the round of stories continued.

By the time our clothes had dried, and we’d all gotten just a little sentimental reminiscing about those we cared for most…

The rain outside had stopped. And I felt like maybe… just maybe, I’d grown a bit closer to Filia and Noche.