Waking Up in the Middle of the Night

Lairine Rune is currently the Supreme Commander of the Adventurers' Guild, the strongest special-grade adventurer with the epithet “the Immutable.”

The Supreme Commander, the Immutable, the strongest, special-grade.

......Put simply, she's an incredibly big shot.

She is a person of status.

Even if her usual attitude doesn't befit her position, a big shot is a big shot.

And she is a celebrity.

That is why Lairine occasionally receives requests for interviews.

They're a pain, so she usually turns them down, but not always.

Occasionally, she acts on a whim and invites a reporter into her room.

When she does, the question she is inevitably asked is, ‘Why don't you age?’

Despite her youthful appearance, she has already lived for over 300 years.

Nobody wants to grow old, and nobody wants to die.

That is why this question always comes flying her way.

Lairine's answer to this is simple.

“I don't knoooow.”

Just that one line.

What she doesn't know, she doesn't know, and since she has no interest, she's never looked into it.

But the questioners, naturally, can't be satisfied with that answer alone.

They pile on more questions, trying to get at the reason she doesn't age.

They might ask something like, ‘Did your family have a similar constitution too?’

“Who knoooows?”

And to that, Lairine always tilts her head and answers just like that.

Is she dodging the answer?

Or is she making fun of them?

It's the kind of answer a short-tempered, foolish questioner could well take offense at, but Lairine isn't actually teasing anyone.

She simply does not remember her own family.

Why?

Is it because the memories are from long ago?

No.

In other words, was she an abandoned child?

That's not it either.

From a young age, she simply had absolutely no interest in other people, including her own family.

◇ ◇ ◇

As it happens, a few written records of her childhood do survive.

When Lairine was 10 years old, she registered as an adventurer in a country called Kerenkan on the Fantasy Continent.

The records from that registration still exist.

According to those documents, which have practically become ancient texts, she seems to have been the daughter of a farming family in some rural village.

During the registration interview, when asked about her family, she reportedly answered only, ‘4 or 5 people?’

Beyond that vague head count, she reportedly gave no answer at all.

What kind of person her father was.

What kind of person her mother was.

What kind of people her siblings were.

Lairine already remembered none of it, even back then.

◇ ◇ ◇

Since she had no interest even in her family, she naturally had even less interest in complete strangers.

When she first started out as an adventurer, there was a boy adventurer she had ended up teaming up with, more or less by chance.

The boy's name is unclear because the records were lost, but at any rate, he is supposed to have had an aptitude for scouting.

That boy and Lairine traveled together for 1 year.

Lairine was exceptionally strong even then, though not to the extent she is now.

The boy, while not that strong, was cautious and intelligent.

The townspeople thought of this boy and girl, always smiling as they went about their adventuring, as a great duo, and watched over them fondly.

But then, one evening.

Lairine came alone to the counter of the Adventurers' Guild branch office to report the completion of a request.

......Any other day, the boy would always have been standing right beside her.

The boy who handled negotiations and reports so smoothly.

Lairine, smiling brightly beside him.

That was the usual sight.

But on this day, the only one who came to the counter was Lairine.

Dragging along the carcass of a giant bear—likely today's prey—and carrying a basket of medicinal herbs on her back, Lairine opened the door to the branch office all by herself.

What was going on?

When the receptionist, sensing something wrong, asked her ‘What happened to the boy?’, Lairine smiled brightly and said,

“He diiied?”

Just like that.

At those words, the branch office erupted in an uproar.

Basically, an adventurer who dies on the job is treated as having only themselves to blame.

In most branch offices, this would be an incident where the receptionist offers a word of condolence, and that's the end of it.

But this branch office had always had an extremely low death rate among its adventurers.

It was a peaceful, pastoral branch office meant for beginners, with few dangerous monsters nearby.

Under such circumstances, a fatal accident—especially one where the victim was a young boy—was bound to cause a stir.

An investigation was immediately carried out, and Lairine was questioned about the situation.

According to Lairine's testimony, given with a smile, a ferocious bear monster...... an Earth Bear had appeared in the nearby forest, and he had been caught off guard and brutally killed.

She immediately counterattacked and hunted the Earth Bear to death, but by then, the boy had already passed away.

Veteran adventurers immediately rushed outside to the scene, and sure enough, the boy's body was lying there.

A deep cut on the back of the head.

And a bite wound that had torn a great chunk out of his neck.

Just as Lairine had testified, the boy was dead.

The testimony was correct.

The cut matched the shape of the claws of the Earth Bear Lairine had dragged in, and the characteristic bite mark was one commonly seen in Earth Bear victims.

Indeed, the boy had been killed by an Earth Bear.

And Lairine had hunted that Earth Bear to death.

That fact was also accepted by those around her without any particular doubt.

After all, her skill, far beyond what her young looks suggested, was already known to everyone.

With this, the outline of the incident was clear.

But one mystery remained that left the investigators puzzled.

It was Lairine's behavior immediately after the incident.

The boy had been attacked and killed by the Earth Bear a little before noon.

But Lairine didn't report it until that evening.

The forest where the boy died was not far from the town; Lairine could have covered the distance in well under an hour.

So what exactly had Lairine been doing all that time, from before noon until evening?

To that question, Lairine answered with a smile, without hiding anything in particular.

Apparently, after hunting the Earth Bear down, she'd been dressing it, draining its blood and so on.

Furthermore, she had been gathering medicinal herbs.

She had been gathering medicinal herbs, the request she had taken that day.

......Leaving the body of the boy she had traveled with as a partner for 1 year lying in the forest.

The town's Adventurers' Guild branch office at the time explained Lairine's strange behavior this way: ‘She was in a state of mental confusion and could not judge things normally.’

The townspeople also trusted the always smiling and cheerful Lairine, so they supported that interpretation.

And one after another, they comforted Lairine.

They told her, ‘You must be sad to lose your partner. It must be painful. You don't have to force yourself to smile. Don't push yourself.’

At those words, Lairine's smile dropped from her face just like that, and her expression went blank.

And then.

“I see.”

That's what she murmured.

◇ ◇ ◇

(......I've had quite a nostalgic dream, haven't I)

In the middle of the night, Lairine snapped awake.

Before her lay the black-haired, black-eyed girl Emi, asleep, sunk deep into the same soft bed as Lairine.

The one the present Lairine “loves” beyond measure, found at last after 300 years: “someone she can take an interest in.”

That she had dreamed of losing that boy just now was surely Emi's doing.

Because that incident was the first moment she clearly realized that she “might be lacking something.”

That boy—his name, now, what was it again—anyway, what did Lairine feel when he died?

Sadness?

Pain?

......The answer was, ‘inconvenience.’

She had lost a comrade who was an excellent scout and negotiator, and she may have lamented the inconvenience of it, but the very idea of mourning his death never existed for Lairine.

That is why, when she was comforted by the townspeople, she felt a kind of shock.

What are these people talking about, she wondered.

I see, so normally one is supposed to feel that way, she thought.

And at that moment, she finally realized.

That she might be fatally lacking in any experience of feeling “that.”

Now then, what exactly was this “that”?

As the result of long years of research, Lairine concluded that “that” must be, namely, “someone one can take an interest in,” or, to put it another way, “love.”

Since childhood, Lairine had been overwhelmingly stronger and more capable than anyone else, so she could never quite accept that she lacked a sense every nobody around her took for granted.

Hence, from then on, searching for “a person she could take an interest in”—in other words, “a person she could love,” or put more simply, “love”—became the purpose of Lairine's life.

She traveled to various places.

She met various people.

She saved various things and destroyed various things.

But she never did find the “love” she was searching for.

There were plenty of people she felt a little attached to, in the sense that they were useful, but not one who truly moved her heart, not one she could find dear.

What's more, somewhere along the way, for whatever reason, she had strayed completely outside the bounds of humanity.

Her strength could not be measured by human wisdom.

Her beauty, since she did not age, never faded.

Around the time she passed 200 years old, she could no longer even recognize human beings as the same species as herself.

Creatures that looked like her, spoke the same language, but were so fragile they would die from a mere nudge.

That was what humans were to her.

As a result, her interest in humans faded even further.

Through her research, she had determined that the “love” she sought was roughly the affection exchanged between family members and the like.

But Lairine just couldn't see herself loving such inferior beings, so weak she couldn't believe they were her own kind, and so quick to grow old and die.

Lairine was arrogant.

This arrogance of hers was likely something she had unconsciously worn since childhood, and it was the fundamental cause of her inability to love people.

By this stage, she understood that fact well.

And by this stage, she had transcended humanity a little too far to do anything about that arrogance.

What did “love” matter, anyway?

So what if she couldn't love people?

Little by little, she stopped caring about anything at all, and at one point, she finally gave up on “love.”

In that instant, the world and humans became truly trivial things to her.

That's why she decided to try out a meaningless whim that had suddenly popped into her head.

“I know! Let's try wiping out the humaaans!”

Total annihilation of all humanity!!

When that whim crossed her mind, Lairine felt her heart race for the first time in a very long while!

Because in all her long life, she'd never done anything like that before!

And yet, that wicked whim of hers was never put into action.

Because the instant she set out to act on it, starting with slaughtering every human in sight, she was suddenly spirited away by some mystical means into a mysterious space and pinned down by a man with a mustache on his handsome face.

“You, seriously, quit screwing around, like! Seriously, stop! If an adventurer like you goes and does that, it's seriously gonna be on me, like! I sure as hell don't wanna end up like Magecraft God-senpai!!”

This man, who scolded Lairine with a face gone deathly pale and a tone without a shred of dignity, was none other than Dorantos: the first Supreme Commander of the Adventurers' Guild, and now a being who dwells in the Divine Realm as the Adventure God.

This was Lairine's first contact with a god.

◇ ◇ ◇

No matter how extraordinary Lairine's abilities were, she naturally could not resist the power of a god, so she decided to give up on the total annihilation of all humanity (it had been a mere whim to begin with).

After that, there were many twists and turns.

Saddled with a few shackles and some troublesome missions, Lairine went on living quietly on the surface.

She was encouraged to ascend to godhood, but she refused.

She had a vague feeling that her nature was closer to that side of things.

She thought that if she went to that world, there might be a being she could love.

But becoming a god meant becoming a being that would hold up this world in some form for all eternity.

She had already lost interest not just in humans but in the world itself, and she wanted no part of an eternity like that.

And so Lairine went on living, more or less aimlessly, in this mansion on the island the gods had foisted on her.

Since she wasn't forbidden from going out, she spent her days occasionally venturing far and acting as an adventurer on a whim.

Flat days with no stimulation whatsoever.

Saving a boy from a murderer in the slums.

Helping a merchant caught in a stampede.

Plenty of incidents happened, but to her, none of them were the least bit stimulating.

After all, with one swing of her arm, the enemy died.

Moreover, she felt not a shred of interest in the people she met.

It was boring.

Before she knew it, because her accumulated achievements could not be ignored and because she knew the Adventure God's circumstances to some extent, Lairine had been appointed Supreme Commander of the Adventurers' Guild.

Her hours on duty grew, and her freedom shrank.

It became even more boring.

From the Adventure God, she had received the gracious oracle “Someday, someone you can love is bound to show up too. Don't go sour, just keep living.”

They were words that sounded thoroughly slapdash and probably had no basis at all, but an oracle is an oracle.

One way or another, those words had become a support for Lairine's heart.

They had been, but.

Another 100 years passed since her encounter with the Adventure God.

By now, even she was nearing her limit.

She was about to give up on “love” once again.

It was at such a time.

That Lairine learned of the existence of Emi through a report!

◇ ◇ ◇

While stroking the black hair of the softly breathing Emi, Lairine recalled the excitement of that moment.

It was a feeling she had never had before.

The name “Emi” written in the report.

It was nothing but a string of letters, and yet it set her sixth sense, honed far beyond any ordinary person's, tingling like mad!

People often use metaphors like ‘a bolt of lightning struck,’ and that was exactly it!

Emi!

Emi!!

Emi!!!

When she thought of that girl, whose face and voice she did not yet know, Lairine's heart pounded so hard it hurt!

And she was seized by anxiety!

She had to go to this girl!

Her intuition was screaming it!

What was this feeling!?

In the 300 years up until then, Lairine had never tasted such anxiety!

Why was she anxious!?

Was this the feeling they call “yearning”!?

She didn't know the reason!

But from the moment Lairine learned of her existence, Emi was undoubtedly a being that intensely attracted her interest!

So this feeling was!

Surely, it was!!

Without a doubt, “love”!!!

◇ ◇ ◇

“Ufufu......”

Unable to help herself, Lairine kissed Emi's forehead once and then gazed intently at that beautiful sleeping face illuminated by the starlight.

Even now that she actually had her close as her daughter, Lairine's heart still hadn't stopped racing.

That breathing, the way her long eyelashes trembled, every single movement—everything made her heart throb.

She hugged her lightly.

Her instinct screamed.

Hug her tighter.

Tight enough to crush her.

But her reason would not allow it.

She had failed twice.

She didn't want her beloved Emi to hate her any more than she already did.

Gently, gently, gently.

The more she pressed her body close, the stronger the racing of her heart became.

Was this fear?

Was it fear, the kind that comes from not wanting to be apart from Emi?

Apart, she was anxious.

Close by, she was still anxious.

Come to think of it, until she met Emi, Lairine had hardly ever felt something like “anxiety.”

And yet.

And yet!

Now her heart always felt fit to burst!

Ah, “love” is!

An utterly troublesome thing!!

【Adventure God Dorantos】

The god of adventurers who first appeared in Arc 6.

By god standards he's still very much a newcomer: in Arc 6 he got punched flying by a little girl, and in Arc 12 even a cube looked down on him.

Seems like he's got it rough in all sorts of ways.

【Magecraft God】

A different being from the God of Magic Omake-sama mentioned in Arc 5.

【The Boy Saved from a Murderer】

That's Geistpfenanjeshiriard.

See Chapter 237.

【The Merchant Caught in a Stampede】

That's Kamasse's grandfather.

See Chapter 95 (I changed him from father to grandfather).