“Rin!” Hilde exclaims with joy as I exit the hospital.

He jumps onto me and gives me a bear hug. How fitting considering his weapons are bear traps. I blush a bit, only to remember that Hilde is still a guy.

Alright dude, off me now. I don’t want to question myself anymore.

After being let go from the crushing bear hug, I catch Roy and Liz standing together smiling at me. I give them a thumbs-up as I walk over to them.

“Hey guys, I guess I’m not dead,” I say with a hand behind my head.

“We wouldn’t let you die so easily.” Roy jokes as he pats my back.

“You’re our precious party member after all,” Liz says with a soothing smile.

Man… what is this?

A warm sensation slowly spreads across my chest and all over my cheeks. For the first time in this new world, I feel like I’m being valued. The warm sensation quickly disappears however when I realize a certain someone is missing.

“Where’s Isabel?” I ask.

Roy and Liz’s eyes meet for a second, Roy finally nods with a serious look on his face.

“She’s currently having a talk with her father.” Roy starts, “She’ll be back soon.”

“What’s with the strict look?”

“P-pardon?”

I waste no time in questioning Roy’s serious expression. I’m not dense enough to not notice the way he looked when giving me an answer. Something serious must have been going on while we were talking.

Roy and I engage in a little staring contest until, finally, Roy sighs and slumps his shoulders.

“You see, Isabel is a daughter of royalty.”

What?

My bravado completely disappears as I fail to hide the shock on my face. I slowly regain my composure and clear my throat.

“S-so, what if she’s royalty?” I cough.

Roy hums and scratches his head in a thinking manner. After a couple of seconds of obvious brainstorming from the knight, he points to an imaginary light bulb above him.

“Do you remember the condition of our carriage?” Roy answers my question with a question.

“Y-yeah? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Look around at the other carriages here.”

I scan at my surroundings properly to see that the hospital was built across from a busy street. The street was filled with multiple varieties of carriages pulled with horses and other creatures.

I started to understand a little bit what Roy was trying to get at.

As I watched 5 more carriages roll by, some made out of shiny metal and some made out of polished wood, I confirm to myself that those carriages were in a more comfortable and well-managed state.

Royalty usually wouldn’t be riding around in a carriage made completely out of unpolished wood and in a rather poor condition like the carriage our party uses.

“Isabel doesn’t like using her royal status to get what she wants in life,” Roy says after noticing that I figured out what he meant.

I think deeply about what Roy just said.

If Isabel really doesn’t want to use her royal status to her advantage...

“Considering the fact that I took a full blast from a dragon,” I slowly start, “the hospital fees to bring me back to the condition I am in now…”

“Yes, it’s very expensive.” Roy finishes.

I clench my fist and grit my teeth. I start to feel conflicted with my current feelings about Isabel.

On one hand, I hate her.

She’s foolish, stubborn, and downright rude to me simply because I was reincarnated with a shield.

However, with this act of Isabel letting go of her ego to treat a Spirit that she didn’t even want in the first place, how am I supposed to face her with hatred now?

If you hate me so much, why do you keep me alive?

Why go so far?

“If you guys have so much time to spend just standing there, you could have visited the palace to pick me up.” A familiar voice says.

I follow the sound of the voice to see Isabel standing with her arms crossed, her light brown hair and black cape flowing in the wind like some superhero.

Hilde, full of energy, jumps towards Isabel and gives her a bear hug.

“Isabel!! I was so worried, your father looked so scary!!” Hilde says as he squeezes Isabel.

“I-it went fine. S-stop Hilde! Too hard!” Isabel manages to let out.

Hilde lets go of Isabel with an “oops” expression on his face.

After regaining a suitable amount of air for her lungs to function, Isabel’s eyes meet mine and she looks away instantly.

Ah, she still hates me…

The atmosphere around my party grows quiet as no one is sure of what to say to one another. It’s almost like everyone is avoiding eye contact with me or Isabel.

Well, everyone but Hilde. He was looking rather confused by the silence.

“R-Rin!” Isabel suddenly calls out to me.

“…Oh, y-yeah?” I let out a weak voice as Isabel catches me off guard by actually calling my name.

Isabel forces herself to look me in the eye. Her black eyes stare at me intensely as she makes her way towards me. Once she approaches me, I catch a flowery scent with my nose.

Was she wearing perfume?

With her face so close to me, I start to notice features on her face I haven’t noticed before. How long her eyelashes were, the fact that she wore small purple earrings, how soft her lips looked…

What on Spirinall am I thinking!?

Finally, Isabel looks away as she brings out a small and thin rectangular box from her pocket.  “H-here, this is a thank you gift for saving me.”

A gift? From Isabel?

The box was wrapped in shiny blue paper with a golden ribbon placed on top. I take a second to admire the neat wrapping of the thin rectangular box.

“This isn’t a trap, is it?” I accidentally slip out.

“W-what do you take me for? Just take the gift!” Isabel shouts as her innocent-looking face quickly returns to one of anger.

Ah, she’s back to normal.

I take the box from Isabel and open it up.

In the box was a familiar-looking device with a sharp razor and a small hilt with a circular end. I immediately recognize what I was looking at and stared at Isabel in shock.

“Roy mentioned to me that you knew how to cut your own hair… It was his idea to give you a gift, not mine!” Isabel softly says.

“What are you talking about, Summoner? You wanted recommenda-”

“S-shut up Roy!” Isabel quickly runs over to Roy and stands on her toes to cover his mouth.

I stare at the hair-cutting razor and smile to myself.

Of course, there’s no way Isabel would’ve known, but it looked almost identical to the one that Lisa had gifted to me back on my life at Earth.

“Thank you, Isabel, I’ll take great care of it.” I smile at Isabel.

Isabel quickly reddens up as she looks down at the ground.

“You better…” She softly says.

I notice Hilde and Liz raising their eyebrows at me. I stare back at them and they look away while whistling.

Hey, I saw you guys giving me that look.

“Let’s just head back to the inn already. Tomorrow we begin traveling again.” Isabel begins walking away.

“Where to?” Hilde asks as he skips behind Isabel.

“Eskal, the land of elves.”