With the language barrier problem temporarily resolved, I finally had a chance to talk with Rin and resolved myself to take advantage of this opportunity. Although we were currently in the stairwell with a monster (animal?) just on the other side of a thin door, that didn’t diminish my motivation.

When I opened my mouth to talk, my mind blanked. “Uhh… So, how have you been?” I internally berated myself for asking such a stupid question, but waited for her answer regardless.

“Upset.” Rin replied plainly, gazing down the stairs without looking back toward me.

Right… well, that killed the conversation pretty quickly. I didn’t really know how to respond to that. I honestly couldn’t tell that she was upset at all.

“Umm… Okay.” I replied while awkwardly rubbing my neck. Keeping my back pressed against the door, I knelt down to rest. Instead of trying to complicate things further, I just explained the current situation to her. “The fix I found for the translation system is extremely temporary.”

“How temporary?” Rin glanced back toward me and tilted her head questioningly.

“It’ll last around a day at most. After that... I’m not really sure what I’ll do.” I shook my head, all the while avoiding looking directly at her. Until I get something to cover direct line of sight from my eyes, I cannot look at her directly.

Obviously I have some semblance of control of my petrifying gaze, as I managed to make it all the way here without petrifying anyone. However, after using it, I’m not exactly sure how to turn it off…

Turning on the gaze was an instinctual response. How should I describe it? It’s like… Hmmm… Oh, it’s like manually breathing. Once you pay attention to your breathing, you cannot purposeful stop breathing manually.

The more I think about petrification, the harder it is to stop. When I stop thinking about it, it should automatically deactivate. Unfortunately, intentionally stopping yourself from thinking about something is incredibly difficult. Actively trying to stop yourself from thinking about something usually only has the opposite effect.

Focusing back on reality, I decided to confirm my earlier theory. “Why didn’t you return yesterday? Did you fall asleep here purposefully?”

“No… I was-” Rin paused and went quiet for several moments, “I… I can’t remember.”

“It’s fine. What do you remember?” I leaned back against the wall and adopted a more comfortable sitting position.

I had expected that she wouldn’t remember much. Rin wasn’t the type to randomly sleep on the floor somewhere.

She mentioned she was on a mission to find someone here earlier. I cannot believe that she would enter a building searching for someone, then directly fall asleep after entering the building.

“The building’s door was locked, so I climbed the neighboring building and entered through the roof of this building.” Rin began to summarize her experience, “After entering, I began exploring the building to search for that barkeep…”

I kept quiet and simply listened to her speak. Actually, this is probably the longest I’ve heard her talk for. She normally summarizes everything into as few words as possible.

“I don’t remember anything after reaching the fourth floor.” Rin shook her head in confusion, clearly she hadn’t noticed anything abnormal until I’d pointed it out.

I sighed and felt some heartache. If I’d paid more attention to what Rin was doing, she wouldn’t have been put in a situation where this could’ve happened. I need to be more careful in the future.

Gesturing back toward the bar behind the door, I explained, “I strongly suspect this has something to do with whatever monster or animal that is in the room behind me.”

“Monster? What type?” She peered toward the door to the bar.

I coughed awkwardly and pinched my eyes closed, “Uh… I didn’t actually get a good look at it. I’m ninety percent confident it’s an animal or monster, though.”

“Based on?” Rin voiced her doubts.

I covered my face with my palm and uncomfortably replied, “Intuition?”

Rin didn’t bother responding to that, instead she seemed to get lost in her own thoughts.

“Is this what it’s like for you?” Rin asked suddenly without any context leaving me completely confused.

“What do you mean?” I asked, searching for clarification on her question, whilst lowering my hands away from my face.

Her voice was barely louder than a whisper, “Forgetting things.”

I blinked in surprise at her question. Does Rin know I’ve had memory gaps? Did I tell her or did she figure it out on her own? I thought I’d kept it well hidden.

“It’s not that big of a problem.” I clarified and explained my method for dealing with it. “Best thing is to just observe the situation and act accordingly.”

It’s a simple and easily philosophy. Most of the time, if you reciprocate whatever treatment people give you, they won’t question whether you actually remember anything or not. While that doesn’t exactly fix the problem, it makes it manageable.

Rin quietly listened before speaking. “I don’t like it.”

“I doubt anybody would, but there’s not much we can do about it.” I shook my head.

Who would like losing memories? But, after they’re gone, there’s not much you can do about it. The problem is usually not the physical act of losing the memories themselves, it’s with figuring out which memories you're missing and what happened in them.

I saw Rin wordlessly wrap my villainous cloak around her.

Sighing softly to myself. That’s probably my cue to comfort her.

Standing up, I secured the stairwell door with rope. Before summoning a metallic shield from my wristband and jamming it between the door and a metallic part of the stairwell to completely prevent the door from opening.

Unless someone rams down this door, it’s not getting opened from the other side.

After confirming the door wouldn’t be easily opened, I moved next to Rin and sat down beside her.

Reaching past the cloak wrapped around her, I grasping her hand and squeezed lightly squeezed for comfort. “Relax, I’m right here. Right now. Don’t worry about the future or the past for the moment.”

“Kay.” Rin muttered and leaned against me, resting her head on my shoulder.

Time seemed to pause.

Neither of us moved.

Rin seemed rather content to lean against me for eternity and I had no desire to get up deal with the variety of problems I would inevitability have to face. Whether that meant the monster (or animal) in the bar, the basilisk inheritance problem, or the depleting battery of the system.

Instead of worrying about the variety of problem I would have to solve, I simply used this moment to relax.

A truly timeless moment.

As I spent this time with Rin, the strange bizarre feeling haunting me earlier disappeared.

The problems I’d been worried about seemed far smaller and insignificant.

Sadly, everything ends eventually.

Rin stirred and moved into a more upright position.

…and I knew the moment was over.

“Thank you.” Rin said, leaning over toward my face and lightly kissing my lips.

Looking at her beautiful face, only one thought ran through my head.

Too close!

She was way too close, I could feel her breath lightly tickling my face and her hand resting on my leg.

Fortunately, Rin seemed content with a single kiss and backed away afterward.

It wasn’t the first time we’d kissed, nor was it a particularly impressive one. However, it was the first time (from my perspective) that Rin had initiated a kiss.

I’d always been mentally prepared the other times because she let me kiss her. This time, she’d kissed me and did so without informing me in advance.

Without any mental preparation, it felt extremely different. Not bad, per se. Just different and slightly... actually nevermind.

*Imaginary cough*

It’s not like I’m embarrassed or anything by her sudden intimacy. It was just… um, unexpected.

Yeah… let’s- let’s go with unexpected.

Whilst I blabbed on incessantly in my head, Rin had already walked away and began untying the rope around the stairwell door.

Realizing what she was doing, I got up to stop her. “Wait! Wait, wait!”

Rin paused and turned toward me.

“Didn’t we discuss this a mere short time ago? A monster or animal is in there. Likely the one that took your memories.”

“I know.”

A vein in my forehead popped out in frustration at her lacking response, and pleaded for clarification. “Then why are you opening it.”

“Revenge.” She replied. Her plain answer causing me to fall speechless.

She wants revenge because the monster stole her memories? Isn’t it common sense to avoid monsters and animals that are threatening to you. If she loses, she’ll more memories? Death and memory loss might not be scary to her, but I certainly fear the day Rin turns into an amnesiac.

“I thought we weren’t going to take any unnecessary risks?” I attempted to reason.

Rin merely shook her head. “It’s you who isn’t going to take any unnecessary risks.”

Wait…

“In other words… you’re going to take all the unnecessary risks you want?” I said finally realized the true meaning of her words and what she had me promise. She wanted me to sit on the sidelines while she undertakes all our dangerous situations.

Rin didn’t contest my words, implying silent approval.

“No. I won’t sit back and watch whilst you are in danger.” I instantly refused, moving between her and the door. “How could you think I’d ever agree to that?”

Rin’s expression didn’t change, she probably expected my reaction. She replied with an extremely short sentence. “You already promised.”

Her words pierced like an arrow through my heart. However, I wasn’t about to give in that easily.

“I promised not to take unnecessary risks. Helping whilst you are in danger is a necessary risk.” I retorted, stubbornly staring at her.

This was an avenue I wouldn’t back down on. I was far more expendable than her. While I certainly didn’t want to die, it simply common sense. You always protect the healer to the best of your ability.

Especially when that healer has a revive skill. While the gaming metaphor isn’t an exact correlation to the situation, the basic principal still applies. Under normal circumstances, the healer should always be the last to die.

I understand Rin wanting to protect me from danger. I can understand her being anger, upset, and frustrated at undertaking unnecessary risks.

However, what I cannot accept the idea of her taking those risks for herself whilst I sit uselessly on the side.

I’m not a protagonist. I understand that. It’s too easy to accidentally do something stupid and get myself killed in this universe.

My luck is terrible. I’m not particularly special and my ability is probably only mid-tier. It cannot even be considered on the same level as Rin's save/load or Stanley's luck. It also lower than the other participants of Hell Difficulty. The only reason I’m still alive today is because I miraculously managed to clear the tutorial and leech onto Rin… and leech is definitely an appropriate word considering my contribution to her is minimal.

I can accept all that and dismiss any thoughts of undertaking risky temples and other areas. I can accept that my contribution t0 her is completely minimal and probably unnecessary.

However! That doesn’t mean I’ll blindly accept her taking on all the risks for both of us.

I wouldn’t consider my battle skills poor. Even if they were, I could have value in dying for her. Whether that means from exploration, defending her from soul attacks, or in battle.

Currently, I can have some value as a meat shield and fighter. Taking that small value away would completely make me a pointless leech. My existence would only serve to slower her down, which I cannot accept.