1

  Young children were running around the sprawling playground while teachers observed to ensure safety. The children were soaring high on swing sets, reenacting scenes from their favorite shows and simply talking with their friends. Except for one.

  The girl in question was sitting on the steps of the stairs leading up to the school, still grumbling over the dress her mother forces her to wear. She despised having long hair and wearing such girly clothes.

  What nearly put her on the verge of tears was how she was always intentionally left out of activities with the other children. The boys didn’t want to play with her because she was too girly. The girls didn’t want to play with her because she only had interest in the things only boys like.

  She was about to let herself cry until a brown-skinned boy walked up to her. He pointed to another group of kids pretending to cast spells.

  “Do you wanna play with us? You can be the princess.”

  “I don’t like being the princess.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re boring. I want to be the hero that saves people but no one will let me.”

  “Don’t you have any friends?”

  The girl remained silent. That question stung like a thousand needles to the heart. The boy sat down next to her and asked what her favorite video game was.

  “I-I really like The Ancient Scriptures: Colosseum.”

  “I have that game too! Which guild did you join first?”

  “I joined the Children of the Arcane. They have really powerful spells.”

  “They’re awesome! Mustang Click is my favorite spell. It can obliterate enemies with only one shot! Hey, why don’t you come over to my house? We can play all sorts of games together!”

  The girl sitting on the stairs didn’t know what to say. She had never been invited to play at a classmate’s house before. She would be insane to pass up this opportunity to make a friend. So, she accepted and the boy jumped up and down with infectious enthusiasm.

  “Yay! Yay! Yay! We’re gonna have so much fun together! What’s your name?”

  “S-Suzue.”

  “Su-Su-Su-Su- Ah! Suzi!”

  “No! My name is Suzue!”

  “I can’t pronounce that, so I’ll just call you Suzi. My name is Danielle. You can call me Dani if you want!”

  Suzue stared blankly at the person in front of her after she heard that name.

  “Danielle? You’re a girl?!”

  “Of course I am! Wait a minute… I guess I don’t really look like one. Dresses are so embarrassing to wear after all.”

  “I keep trying to explain that to my mom but she won’t listen. I don’t think she’ll ever let me cut my hair.”

  “I know right! It took forever for me to convince my mom to cut my hair. Short hair is just so much easier to maintain.”

  Dani placed a hand on Suzue’s shoulder and smiled at her.

  “I can tell that we’ll be best friends! We’ll play all sorts of fun games even when we’re adults. We’ll be together until the end!”

  From that moment on they were truly the best of friends. They experienced everything together from their first basketball game to their first battle.

  The last time Suzue saw her friend was during a chaotic raid on an airfield.

  Suzue was recently promoted to the rank of sergeant after the death of her team’s previous leader. She was not confident in her ability to be a leader but she was given the promotion anyway.

  She gave her team the order to move up even as they were being bombarded by enemy fire. Bullets zipped past their heads only a breath away from hitting them. Mortars shook the ground they desperately trudged through but nobody complained. They all did as they were expected.

  A mortar blast sent Suzue falling into a nearby crater and her helmet flying off to never be seen again. She peeked over the edge and saw Dani lying face down in the mud. She was about to call out until she saw the lower half of her friend’s body was missing.

  Dani’s intestines were stretched out behind her and the blood pumped from her body like an overturned bucket filled with water.

  Suzue stood up and kneeled by her friend’s body, grasping her lifeless hand. Before she could apologize for sending Dani to her death, she was hit in the neck by a stray bullet. She fell over, closed her eyes and let herself bleed out.

  She had a calm look on her face, as if she was relieved her death had finally come.

  2

  The boyish-looking woman opened her eyes and was greeted by the blurry image of an unfamiliar ceiling and a throbbing headache.

  She tried to sit up but someone nearby kept her from doing so. The voice that told her to lay back down was soft and gentle. Not until her eyeglasses were put on was she able to see who it was.

  The person by her side was the same elf girl that joined the guild at the same time as her. When she looked into her red eyes, Suzue felt absolutely nothing. There was no sense of relief and in its place was a bitter disappointment that sapped away all the energy in her body.

  “You shouldn’t move too much. You’ve suffered a really bad head injury. Just let the healing potion do its work.”

  Suzue remained silent which caused Lily to grow concerned. Looking into her eyes only made her more worried.

  In the brief time Lily had known her, Suzue always looked exhausted but there was always this intensity that made her very intimidating. But looking into her eyes now only revealed complete emptiness and a lack of vigor that would be typical of someone her age.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Suzue did not even look at Lily when she answered, only causing the poor elf to grow more worried.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  There was a knock on the door and Jack entered the room with fresh clothes for Suzue.

  “You're awake. That's a relief. I was starting to think your injuries were worse than I anticipated.”

  Suzue’s head hung low. She didn't even bother to look up.

  Jack frowned at the sight of the person whose life he had saved not expressing her thanks as would be expected of the most basic manners. He set this frustration aside as he figured Suzue must have been slightly embarrassed to lose to goblins.

  Jack set down the change of clothing at Suzue’s feet and was about to explain to her how even the most embarrassing of defeats could be a source of growth for an adventurer but stopped himself when he saw an emotionless person detached from reality. Suzue was completely lost in deep thought. Something was clearly bothering her.

  Jack and Lily left the room to talk about their teammate’s strange behavior. He chalked it up to simple embarrassment to losing to goblins but Lily was far more concerned. She was convinced that there was something more to Suzue that they did not understand.

  The more Jack thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Suzue was an enemy of the guild. However, he had no evidence to back that theory up but promised to watch her closely for the safety of his friends.

  Meanwhile, Suzue was putting on the outfit that was given to her. It was a pure white shirt similar to what an office worker would wear, only more durable, tucked into dark leather pants and boots that reached just below the knee.

  As she was dressing herself, Suzue was wondering why she couldn’t express her gratitude towards the people that saved her life. The only answer she could come up with was that there would be no point for she realized that there was no reason for her to do anything.

  She had no family, no friends, no motivation. Any possible motive for joining the guild and wiping out a goblin nest was lackluster at best.

  Suzue was familiar with this type of setting and story setup from light novels and video games and did what would be expected of the protagonist of such a story. However, she did not realize how hollow it would truly be.

  Based on what she had seen and heard so far, there was no evil force threatening the peace of the world. Even if there was, she doubts she would be able to face it for she had no personal ties to this world.

  Suzue looked out the window and stared at the people celebrating their saviors and was suddenly wracked with guilt. She still had family back home and practically gave up on their ability to provide her with a life worth living in her final moments. She realized that the moment her friend died, she gave up on living.

  If being reincarnated in this world was punishment for such a shameful display then she could bear it no longer. The grim reality that she had nothing to live for crushed whatever spirit she had left.

  Suzue finished dressing herself, grabbed her things and made to leave with Lily and Jack.

  Before they left, the villagers gave the trio their well-earned reward of about 3000 Dia per person, which they humbly accepted. Except for Suzue, who returned the money without even batting an eye.

  The villagers were stunned by this sudden act of generosity but the reality was that for Suzue, the money was completely worthless.

  The road back to the guild was unbearably silent with Suzue not even giving Lily the luxury of a short response to her questions. It only made Lily more concerned and Jack more suspicious.

  Jolene gave them another payment of 5000 Dia each when they returned and presented private rooms to the two newest recruits.

  Lily graciously accepted the room with great joy while Suzue simply went inside and lied down on the bed with only one question on her mind:

  “Why am I here?”

  3

  Ten days have passed since the two newest recruits of the Iron Hawk guild, Lily Valentina and Suzue Kobayashi completed their first quest.

  Lily went on to complete thirty-six more quests since then, which the other members of the guild greatly approved of. The quests were much simpler and easier than killing goblins. She was mostly gathering alchemical ingredients for the guild alchemist and apothecary and delivering things to the townsfolk. It was rather boring but still appreciated.

  Lily was saving up to buy a plot of land within the town walls that had a house. It was apparently in poor condition and it wasn’t cheap but she still wanted it.

  When compared to Lily, Suzue was considered lazy and some believed her to be someone dedicated to harming the guild. Even Jack had grown suspicious of her motives. He thought that her not leaving her room was a sign of guilt because he had saved her life.

  Lily felt sad every time she heard the adventurers of Iron Hawk make such accusations and wanted to speak out against them but couldn’t. The only person she was comfortable sharing how she really felt about the situation was Jolene, who had been leaving food outside Suzue’s room everyday.

  “Everytime I go up to collect her dirty dishes, the food is still there. She doesn’t touch it. She only leaves her room to bathe and she looks worse every time. I’ve even tried talking to her but she never responds. She doesn’t even look at me.”

  “I’m getting really worried. The other adventurers are accusing her of being an enemy infiltrator.”

  “It’s certainly starting to look like she might be an enemy.”

  “Jolene, do you actually believe the accusations?”

  “She hasn’t talked to anybody or left her room in ten days, Lily. Jack said she wouldn’t even look at him when she was injured. How can I trust somebody who behaves like that?”

  “You don’t have any evidence!”

  “Niether do you. You don’t have any proof that she isn’t trying to harm the guild. In fact, you even admitted to me that you met her just moments before you joined us. Why are you defending someone you don’t even know so vehemently?”

  Lily flinched back at Jolene’s words because she had no counter-point other than her belief that no one would join an organization just to harm it. She expressed that no one could be so evil.

  Jolene looked back at the door to Suzue’s room and felt her body tense up. She was frightened of Suzue. Not only was her appearance intimidating but her motives were so unclear that she could not bring herself to share Lily’s optimism, even though she really wanted to.

  “For all our sakes, I hope you’re right. Either way, the guildmaster is returning from his trip and I need to help prepare for his arrival. When he’s back, he’ll have to resolve this situation himself.”

  Lily began to sweat at the thought of what the guildmaster would do and hoped that Suzue would come out soon to disprove the allegations herself.

  While the adventurers of Iron Hawk were growing increasingly skeptical of her, Suzue Kobayashi was spending every waking moment with her mind dominated by misery and mental anguish. She was at her breaking point because she did not have the strength to overcome it.

  When she first entered her room, she immediately pushed the single large wardrobe to block the window out of fear that a sniper would shoot her. Every night, Suzue would stare intensely at the door, waiting to defend herself against an enemy that would never arrive.

  Her head constantly ached as if it were in a vise. She didn’t want to eat and she couldn’t sleep. She only slept briefly when she could no longer keep herself awake and it was always the same dream that haunted her.

  Suzue would be running across a wide open field and would be deafened by the terrifying scream of artillery. When the dust settled, she would look to see herself with a hole in her neck and maggots eating away at her eyes. She would then look over to see her childhood friend, Dani, whose intestines and vital organs were being gnawed on by crows and bugs. She would then look up to ask her, “Why couldn’t you save me?”

  The dream would wake Suzue up in a sweat and then the cycle would continue. Even during the day, she was terrorized by the sounds of her comrades screaming in agony and the roar of gunfire. Every noise outside her room made her anxious. She was far from the battlefield yet it was like she never even left.

  When she was calm enough to think clearly, she was obsessed with the desire to commit suicide. She often toyed with every weapon in her arsenal and thought about how best to do it.

  Suzue finally reached her limit and was ready to end her misery. The thing that finally got her to attempt to end her own life was the feeling of utter loneliness in this fantasy world. There were no words she knew that could describe how dreadfully alone she felt. She had no friends and she would never see her family again.

  She took her XM17 pistol and placed the muzzle into her mouth and pointed upwards. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on a peaceful image of her old friend so that she could find some semblance of peace before she died.

  Suzue was about to pull the trigger until the voice of Jolene boomed in her head to deliver an urgent message.

  “Attention! Masahiro Kirishima of the Iron Hawk Adventurer’s Guild has been located after being reported missing for a year! He is being held captive by bandits! All available adventurers are to partake in this urgent quest immediately!”

  The message repeated itself and upon hearing it a third time, Suzue pulled her pistol out of her mouth. The thing that caught her interest was the name mentioned.

  “Masahiro… Kirishima. That’s Japanese. Which means I’m not the only one here.”