Feeling Down......

“............”

Now what should I do, I wondered, agonizing as I looked down at the street from the rooftop, light snow flurrying around me.

What lies at the end of my gaze...... is a food stall.

A stall grilling meat.

On that stall's roof is an illustration of a beast mottled yellow and black, with 3 pairs of legs and 2 pairs of wings.

In other words, it's a stall that serves Mekena meat.

Just as I expected, there it was—a local specialty using Mekena meat!

Its name: the “Mekena Sandwich.”

It's an incredibly simple specialty—just a grilled Mekena steak sandwiched in reddish bread—but I can tell without even eating it...... that thing is absolutely delicious.

I mean, Mekena meat looks exactly like beef, and they're putting that steak in bread?

Do you get it?

Omake-sama, do you get it?

Do you know why I'm so excited?

In my previous life, I was hardly ever allowed to eat delicious food.

But I wanted to eat it.

I wanted it like crazy.

That's why, in my previous life, I never once skipped my image training: desperately watching from outside the window while my “family” ate something that looked tasty, imagining exactly what it tasted like and what the texture was, until I felt as if I'd eaten it myself!

In that process, I'd seen dishes where something like grilled chicken was sandwiched in bread, but I'd never seen a dish where a beef steak was sandwiched in bread!

Hamburger patties or roast beef, sandwiched in bread.

I'd seen those.

But not steak.

Do you know why?

I don't know if this is the correct answer, but in my opinion, it's because beef is tough.

Beef steak is tough enough that you have to eat it with a knife and fork.

In other words, I understood that it couldn't become a sandwich-type dish, where you have to bite through it using your own teeth and jaw.

But it seems Mekena is different!

Even though it looks exactly like a beef steak, the old man at the stall sandwiches it in bread without any hesitation.

And the people passing by stuff their cheeks with it, smiling!

In other words, Mekena meat is!

Softer than I imagined!!

The taste!?

What does it taste like!?

I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm cuuuurious~~~!!

<If you're that curious, why don't you just go eat some instead of muttering to yourself in a place like this?>

Omake-sama delivered a calm retort to me as I writhed on the rooftop.

“............”

But, you see......

I remember that windy town where I met Kamasse.

There, because I had black hair and black eyes and was considered ominous, I ended up not being allowed to shop at all.

It'll probably be the same in this town.

In this world, people are abnormally harsh toward those with black hair and black eyes.

<Then, let's become friends with that old man at the stall! Gradually close the distance and eventually build a relationship where he'll be willing to sell you meat!>

........................No way.

I don't want to become friends with weak humans anymore.

......Because they die so quickly.

<Then, let's kill that old man at the stall and steal the meat!>

Good grief, so extreme!!

Befriending or killing—those two options are way too extreme, Omake-sama!!

Why do you always try to lure me into the enemy-of-humanity route so casually!?

<I'm sorry...... but as far as I'm concerned, as long as Emi is happy, I have absolutely no interest in what happens to any other living creature......>

What a troublesome person you are, honestly...... I wish you'd learn some common sense.

<I don't want to hear that from Emi.>

Ah, but, that's right.

Before I even agonized over whether a cursed child could buy that Mekena Sandwich, there was another problem to begin with.

<What is it?>

I'm penniless, so I can't go shopping in the first place......

<I don't know how to put this, but all the futility of this whole conversation just came crashing down on me at once.>

◇ ◇ ◇

For the time being, having fully enjoyed the scent of the Mekena Sandwiches, I left the stall and strolled through the town of Serelirin, hopping from rooftop to rooftop.

Doing that, I found out this town has a lot of pigeons.

So my stomach was reasonably filled, but this is no different from the meals I eat in some random forest......

I want to eat something people actually put some work into......

Today's weather in the town of Serelirin is cloudy.

Grey clouds spread across the entire sky, and even though it's daytime, it's dark.

My mood is also somehow dark and depressed.

......Haah.

I lie down on the roof of someone's house and let out a sigh.

I feel like an idiot for being so excited earlier, thinking it had been a while since I'd been in a town.

Lately I'd been getting along well with everyone at the forest base, so surely I could get along in this town too.

That's what I thought before I came into town, anyway.

But once I'm faced with a crowd, I hesitate to act among them—no, I hesitate even to show myself.

If I were to show myself in public now, would I be accepted?

How would I be seen?

Surely, as an ominous cursed child.

And, a dirty vagrant.

<On top of that, a Dark Spiky Rock Man.>

There's no way I'd be accepted......

Ah~ah......

Maybe I should just leave this town......

I looked up at the cloudy sky in resignation and sighed.

But it was then!

That Omake-sama scolded me!

<Why are you being so timid! Don't you want to eat the delicious things in this town!?>

Omake-sama......

<The Emi I know is a stronger girl than this! A brave girl who has beaten even the biggest monsters! I won't tell you not to run, but I'm sure you can still do so much more! That is what I believe!>

Omake-sama......!

<Let's do our best, Emi! Let's eat lots of delicious things! It's too early to give up!>

Omake-sama......!!

<Now! Stake everything on a sliver of hope, and open the lid of a trash can! Let's scavenge for leftovers!>

......No way!!!

Aaaagh, enough already!!

My spirit's brokeeen!!

That's it, my heart's snapped clean in twooo!!

I'm done!!

Who cares about this stupid town!!

I'm leaving!!

I'm leaving right noooow!!

<Eh! Wai, Emi, please wait! I'm sorry! That joke went way too far!!>

Omake-sama is saying something, but I don't care anymore.

I hop up and immediately start running along the rooftops, heading for the outskirts of town.

<But Emi! I really do think it's too early to give up! I mean, you haven't shown yourself in public even once today! Giving up before you've even tried anything would be such a waste!>

Shut up!

Shut uuuup!

I don't care about Omake-sama anymore!

What the heck was that, ‘Let's scavenge for leftovers!’?

<I said I'm sorry, didn't I! But in the end, isn't it unavoidable!?>

Like hell it's unavoidable!!

It's completely different from digging in the dirt to find and eat bugs!!

<Eh!? Is it different!?>

Seriously, Omake-sama and I are having our first big fight in a long time.

While arguing loudly inside my head, I was sprinting across the rooftops at high speed.

And that was the problem.

Because I was so distracted, see.

I just, you know.

I lost my footing and fell off the roof.

I fall headfirst from the rooftop onto the cobblestones of the alley.

The momentum was so tremendous that, upon impact, my head sank into the cobblestones up to my forehead.

Like an arrow stuck in a target, I went biiin.

My core is well-trained, after all.

Once I go biiin, I can stay biiin for a while.

Of course, an impact of that level wouldn't damage my beautiful-girl face.

It's the cobblestones that shatter.

Seriously, sorry, cobblestones.

Anyway.

Since I'd suddenly fallen from the roof to the ground, I was so startled that I just froze in my biiin pose.

But there was someone here who was even more surprised than I was.

It was a passerby boy who had witnessed a transcendentally beautiful girl fall from above and spear herself into the ground right in front of him.

The boy, whose legs had given out at the sudden shock and who now sat on his backside, had short hair and a round build—a rather lovable sort.

But to me, that didn't matter.

My gaze was glued to something red and stick-like that the boy was holding in his hand.

From that red stick-like thing, a fishy, delicious scent was emanating.

My superhuman fantasy sense of smell had already concluded that the thing was undoubtedly something delicious.

The boy, legs given out, staring at the beautiful-girl Dark Spiky Rock Man stuck in the ground.

Me, stuck biiin in the ground, staring at the red stick-like thing in the boy's hand.

There are no other passersby around.

Both of us, silent.

A strange silence continued for several seconds.