Arifureta

57 : Northern Mountain Range Area

The magic-driven two-wheeler’s profound form, and maybe because it was an existence that didn’t belong in this different world, made Aiko and the onlooking students speechless. There, the bike-lover in the class; Aikawa asked Hajime while somewhat excited.

“D-Did Nagumo make this just like the gun from yesterday?”

“Something like that. We are going now, so move aside.”

Hajime answered him perfunctorily as he was about to embark, but Aiko kept standing still. Aiko wanted to tag along with Hajime and his party no matter what it took. She had two reasons. One was to search for the truth about what Hajime said last night. Aiko couldn’t just overlook the words, “A classmate was trying to kill him”, so she wanted find out if it was the truth or just Hajime’s misunderstanding. If it was the truth she wanted to know what Hajime was going to do. She wanted to hear more details from Hajime for the sake of avoiding any accidents that might happen in the future. Once the search ended, she didn’t know when she’d be able to meet Hajime and his party again, so she mustn’t miss this chance.

The other reason was, because Shimizu Yukitoshi was currently still missing. Although they had tried to find any scrap of information without leaving even a stone unturned, there were no sightings of him in any of the nearby towns and villages. However, because there was no one living in the northern mountain range area in the first place, she remembered there was no information gathered there. Even if it was on his own accord or by accident, she naturally never thought he’d enter the northern mountain range area. But with the thought he’d left on his own, she thought of searching for Shimizu’s trail while Hajime and his party looked for the missing people.

By the way, it was partly a coincidence that Sonobe and the other students were here. Aiko had wanted to go to the gate earlier than Hajime, in order to ambush him, so she tried to leave the inn before dawn, only to be seen by Sonobe Yuka who was going to the toilet. Because Aiko equipped herself with travelling gear and tried to leave at such an unreasonable time, Sonobe Yuka of Ai-chan’s bodyguards questioned her without letting her tell a lie. As the result, because they couldn’t just leave Ai-chan to the changed Hajime. Sonobe woke up all of the students and tried to join the search mission. It should be noted that they had left a letter to the Knights, telling them to watch the house, since it seemed like they would only strike up more trouble if they went with Hajime and his party. Though it wasn’t known how they’d react…

Aiko drew near Hajime and whispered her decision to him. Hajime moved his face close to Aiko’s because he didn’t want the contents and only the contents to be heard by others, but when he looked carefully he noticed she used thick makeup to conceal dark shadows. Surely, she was hardly able to sleep having heard Hajime’s story.

“Nagumo-kun, because sensei is a teacher, it’s necessary to hear the details from Nagumo-kun. That’s why, I won’t let you go until you tell me everything, I’ll chase you if you try to run away. For Nagumo-kun, won’t that be troublesome? I don’t care if you tell me while we are travelling or when we are searching, so will you spare some time? If you do that, then it’ll be as Nagumo-kun said, it’ll be good bye after this town… … for the time being.”

Hajime could see the light of determination in Aiko’s eyes, and he slightly regretted his last words from last night resulted in this failure. He understood Aiko’s ability to take action (Although she’s often idle). If he tried to deceive her or run away, she’d likely use the Guard Knights to search for him.

He averted his gaze from Aiko and looked up at the sky, which was becoming more and more bright. Without throwing away the possibility of Will’s survival, he regretted time had passed while they argued. Hajime let out a deep sigh. He admitted that he’d just reaped what he’d sown, and faced Aiko again.