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Ah, that dream again today.

He—Yamagata Tatsumi—was acutely aware that this was a dream.

*A dream where you realize you’re dreaming, they call it a lucid dream, right?* He mused, pondering something trivial as he watched his usual dream unfold.

The setting seemed to be a basement of some sort. It wasn’t particularly spacious—about the size of a school classroom. And in the dimly lit room, a woman was kneeling, offering a prayer with single-minded devotion.

Everything around her was made of stone: the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. That was why Tatsumi surmised it might be a basement.

The only light came from several flickering candles.

The woman appeared to be in her late teens. She looked to be the same age—or slightly older than—Takumi, who until recently had been a first-year high school student, albeit for the second time.

Her hair was long and straight, reaching past her waist.

In the red glow of the candles, her hair shone a vermilion-gold, though its actual color might be blonde. Or rather, perhaps it was a paler shade—what is commonly called platinum blonde.

He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes. They remained closed, likely because she was focused on her prayer.

She appears to be of Western descent. That said, Tatsumi gets the feeling she’s somehow subtly different from the Americans or British people he knows. Well, he can’t identify her exact ethnicity, but there’s no doubt she’s exceptionally beautiful.

She was adorned with a straight, well-defined nose and a sharp jawline. The placement of each feature of her face is truly exquisite. It was a slight pity that she had her eyes closed in prayer.

Looking closely, he could see her delicate, petal-like lips moving ceaselessly. It seemed she was reciting something like a spell or a prayer in a language Tatsumi couldn’t understand.

—Holy Maiden

Suddenly, that word popped into Tatsumi’s mind.

Perhaps he thought of that word because the woman praying in his dream now gave off the image of a clergywoman rather than a so-called mage.

In the dream Tatsumi was seeing, that holy maiden continued to pray fervently for what seemed like an eternity.

.

He woke up.

In his drowsy, groggy state, Tatsumi stared at the ceiling he knew so well and pondered.

When did it start? When did he begin seeing this dream?

Recalling the image of the holy maiden he had seen in his dream, Tatsumi pondered for a while.

Maybe around a year ago? At first, it was only about once a month. Even so, as he had the same dream over and over, he began to notice how unusual it was.

And then, gradually, the intervals between the dreams grew shorter.

Once a month became twice, then three times, eventually once a week, and then once every three days. And now, he sees that saintly maiden in his dreams almost every day.

It must have been about ten days ago that he started seeing her in his dreams every day.

At the phrase “ten days ago,” Tatsumi realized something.

“…Ten days ago…? That’s the day I… lost Chiiko…”

Chiiko. That was the name of the last, and most beloved, family member he had left.

.

About a year and a half ago, Tatsumi’s parents and younger sister passed away in a car accident.

It happened while the family was on their way to a hot spring resort to celebrate Tatsumi’s acceptance into the high school of his choice. A large truck, driven by a drowsy driver, plowed into the family car his father was driving.

Of course, Tatsumi was in that car too. He was the only one who miraculously survived, but the rest of his family died almost instantly.

He remembered seeing the front of the large truck filling the entire windshield, and yet he couldn’t remember much of what happened afterwards. He himself had been unconscious for several days following the accident.

Having suffered severe injuries, including multiple fractures throughout his body, Tatsumi was forced to spend more than two months in the hospital even after regaining consciousness.

And during those two months, his life changed completely.

Tatsumi lost his parents and younger sister all at once in the accident.

The arrangements of his family’s funeral had been taken care of by his neighbors, and he only heard of it once he was discharged from the hospital. It seemed the funeral expenses were later covered by his family’s insurance payout.

Fortunately, it seemed the insurance payout would be enough to support him until he reached adulthood. The lawyer handling the case explained all the details to him, but to be honest, not much of it entered Tatsumi’s mind.

That said, Tatsumi—a minor who had just started high school—was in no position to manage the remaining insurance funds.

The task of managing the insurance money was entrusted to his paternal aunt, his only relative.

Tatsumi remembers that his aunt was in her mid-thirties and unmarried.

This is because she lived quite far from where Tatsumi and his family lived, and they had almost no contact with her on a regular basis. In fact, she was so busy with work that she didn’t even show up for Tatsumi’s family’s funeral.

What’s more, she flatly refused to take him in and look after him now that he was on his own.

“I’ll act as your guarantor and legal guardian so you can live on your own. But other than that, let’s keep our lives separate, okay? Or do you want to go live in some kind of facility?”

Hearing this directly from her, Tatsumi nodded without saying a word.

And so, his aunt became his guardian in name only, and Tatsumi’s solitary life began.

The money for school and living expenses was deposited into his account every month in the exact amount needed. Was this the one thing his aunt was actually taking care of, or was that simply part of the contract with the lawyer?

Perhaps his aunt was secretly pocketing a portion of the insurance payout that was supposed to be deposited.

Though Tatsumi wasn’t entirely immune to such thoughts, he had no intention of investigating or bringing it up.

He could have reported his aunt to the appropriate authorities for abandoning her responsibilities as a guardian.

But if he did that, she would be disqualified as a guardian, and Tatsumi would have to be placed in some kind of facility. Tatsumi decided that living alone as he was now was preferable to that.

He sold the family home and moved into an apartment near his school.

The house he had lived in until then was too big for him to live in alone, and the maintenance costs, including taxes, were no small matter. Above all, living alone in that house, steeped in memories of his deceased family, was simply too painful for him.

.

Although Tatsumi had managed to get into his school of choice, it would be hard to say that his high school life was going well.

He spent the first few months—the crucial start to his new life—in a hospital bed.

Even after he was discharged, grueling rehabilitation awaited him. By the time he had completed all his rehab and returned to daily life, the first semester had already ended, and summer vacation had begun.

Tatsumi had missed the entire first semester of his freshman year. Naturally, he stood out as an outsider at school starting in the second semester.

Tatsumi suddenly appeared at school in the second semester. His classmates seemed to have been informed of his misfortune beforehand, and everyone treated him as if he were a hot potato.

He wasn’t being bullied or treated meanly, but he felt somewhat uncomfortable, so he began spending more and more time alone.

Since he had missed the entire first semester, his grades couldn’t keep up with his classmates’.

As a result, his grades steadily declined, and before he knew it, he had become a bottom-of-the-class underachiever.

Even so, Tatsumi kept going to high school because his late family had been so happy when he got accepted.

Tatsumi continued attending high school to honor his family’s wishes.

But his grades weren’t good, he didn’t have a club activity he was passionate about, and he didn’t have anyone he could call a close friend.

Before he knew it, he was simply going to high school out of habit.

Even if it was just out of habit, the reason Tatsumi was able to keep looking forward was because he had Chiiko, the last family member he had left.

Chiiko hadn’t gone on that family trip; she’d stayed home to watch the house. Because of that, she hadn’t lost her life in the accident.

Whenever he returned to the apartment, Chiiko would be waiting for him.

That thought alone was what kept Tatsumi going day by day.

But.

The time had come to say goodbye even to his beloved Chiiko.

.

Chiiko and Tatsumi first met over ten years ago. His parents introduced her to young Tatsumi as a birthday present.

Ever since then, Tatsumi and Chiiko have been together.

He took care of Chiiko’s meals when she was still too young to eat on her own.

Once Chiiko grew up, they ate ice cream together during the hot summer months. In the cold winter, they would curl up together under the kotatsu.

In the spring, they went for walks together, and in the fall, they enjoyed the various harvests together.

When Chiiko got sick, Tatsumi would carry her and rush to the vet, and when Tatsumi caught a cold, Chiiko would stare at him intently with a look of concern on her face.

Chiiko was Tatsumi’s most beloved companion, but the time had come for them to part ways due to the natural end of her life.

It was exactly ten days ago that Chiiko passed.

Chiiko passed away peacefully in Tatsumi’s arms, as if falling asleep. Tatsumi still remembers that sensation clearly.

The warm, soft feel of Chiiko’s body. That sense of dread as it gradually grew cold.

Alone in his apartment, Tatsumi cried quietly all night long.

He cried and cried and cried. But when dawn broke, he carried Chiiko’s now completely cold body to the riverbank nearby and buried her remains there.

He built a small grave and placed some wildflowers in front of it.

Standing before the grave with his hands pressed together, Tatsumi prayed for Chiiko’s repose.

Forever and ever. Tatsumi offered his prayers before Chiiko’s grave.

He would have liked to keep praying forever, but he couldn’t do that.

His high school life was entering its second spring. Or rather, for Tatsumi, it was effectively his first spring.

With poor grades and having missed the entire first semester, Tatsumi had been officially held back early last year. Because of that, since being assigned to a new class, Tatsumi hadn’t set foot in high school even once.

The reason he didn’t go to school was indeed partly because he had to repeat the year, but more than that, it was because he wanted to stay with Chiiko, who was beginning to show signs of frailty due to old age.

Tatsumi stayed by Chiiko’s side without going to school—rarely even leaving his room, in fact.

Now that Chiiko had lived out her natural life, Tatsumi had made a decision. Yes, the decision to drop out of school.

With no close friends and having lost Chiiko, who had been his emotional anchor, he had absolutely no regrets about his high school life.

When Tatsumi returned to his apartment, he changed into his uniform for the first time in a long while and headed to school.

He went straight to the faculty room instead of the classroom and silently handed his withdrawal form to his new homeroom teacher, whom he was meeting for the first time.

The teacher seemed to have expected this to some extent; though he tried to dissuade Tatsumi with words, there was no passion in his voice, and Tatsumi’s high school life came to a swift end.

That was when it began. That was when he started having that dream about the holy maiden every night.

Still reeling from the grief of losing Chiiko, Tatsumi shut himself away in his apartment room.

He spent his days doing nothing but staring blankly at the birdcage where Chiiko used to be, and when night fell and he crawled into bed, he would have that dream about the holy maiden.

Tatsumi had been living like this for ten days.

He had completely lost any will to live.

.

Sitting up in bed, Tatsumi picked up the cell phone lying by his pillow and scrolled through the many photos of Chiiko, looking at them one by one.

“Chiiko… What should I do…? Alone… without you, I…”

It was a question he had asked himself countless times over the past ten days.

Tatsumi stared intently at Chiiko’s face on the small screen of his cell phone, where she gazed back at him with an innocent expression.

Round eyes.

A soft body wrapped in feathers of a grayish-silver hue.

Amidst all that, her head was a stunning pure white.

A White-faced Cockatiel.

That was Chiiko—Tatsumi’s beloved and only family, who had grown up with him since he was a child.

***

Author’s Note:

I’ve started writing “Pet Holy Maiden” (← working title).

I’ve been posting on this site for over two years, but I’ve finally ventured into reincarnation and isekai summoning.
Yeah, an idea just popped into my head!
But, MC didn’t get summoned by mistake, or a god just transferred him on a whim, or he got hit by a truck (lol). I mean, he did have a head-on collision with a truck, but that has nothing to do with the summoning.

Well, now that I’ve started this, I’m determined to write it all the way through to the end, so I’d be grateful if you’d stick with me.

So, I look forward to your support from here on out.