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"Someone's there!!!"
Chito and Yuuri froze at the sound of voices. It had been a very long time since they had encountered anyone else.
The feeling that washed over them was equal parts surprise and relief. Surprise, because they had no idea whether these strangers were friend or foe. Relief, because hearing another human voice at all meant humanity had not yet been completely extinguished.
Which meant the rumors about Eden might actually be true.
Even so, the two immediately dropped their playful bickering and turned toward the source of the sound.
Yuuri raised her rifle and loaded it.
"Hey, hey, hey! I'm not a bad guy, I promise! Friendly! Please be careful with that thing!"
Kaito looked at the rifle barrel pointed directly at him and raised both hands in the most non-threatening gesture he could manage.
He wasn't actually afraid of bullets. But there was no reason to startle two children who had been surviving alone in the apocalypse for who knew how long.
"Who are you two? And aren't you cold?"
Chito stared at Kaito in his short-sleeved shirt, then at Sakuya in her maid uniform, and asked with a genuinely puzzled expression.
"Who am I?"
Kaito reached up and smoothed his hair back with one hand, striking a pose, chuunibyou energy radiating off him at full power.
"I am Lord God!"
"LORD GOD!!!!!!!!! ∑(ﾟДﾟノ)ノ"
Yuuri stared at him with her mouth hanging open, gasping.
"Yuuri, you idiot! He can't actually be Lord God!"
Chito shot her a look that said everything about her opinion of Yuuri's credulity.
"Oh? Little one, you don't believe me?"
Kaito lowered his hands. The hair he had swept back fell forward on its own.
"I just don't think there are really any gods in this world. But if there were..." Chito said, with unexpected seriousness, "I would want an endless supply of books."
Yuuri, rifle still in hand, immediately cut in.
"Chito! You should wish for endless food! So I'd always have something to eat! Hehehe!"
At that, Chito seemed to drift into a pleasant daydream, and a small, foolish smile spread across her face.
Dong!
"Ow! Chito, why did you hit me again!"
Yuuri clapped a hand over her head and looked at Chito with a deeply wronged expression.
"Because you started smiling like an idiot again!"
Kaito watched the two of them with a quiet, warm flicker behind his eyes. Then he raised his right hand and swept it lightly from left to right.
A dining table and four chairs appeared on the ground.
In the center of the table sat a copper pot, steam rising steadily from the rich broth within, heated by a charcoal flame underneath. All around it, an assortment of ingredients and side dishes were laid out in an almost dizzying spread.
"This... this... is this... IS THIS REALLY LORD GOD!!!"
Yuuri stared at the table and screamed.
Chito stared too, eyes locked on the table, the smell reaching her before anything else could. A thin trail of drool ran from the corner of her mouth before she could stop it.
"Are... are you really Lord God?"
She looked at Kaito with wide, stunned eyes.
"Didn't you just see it?"
Kaito answered her question with a question.
"..."
The two were still staring at the table in reverent silence, drooling too much to speak. Kaito walked over, pulled out a chair, sat down, and smiled.
"Come on. Sit. Let me treat you to a meal."
"Re... really? We can actually eat?"
"Of course."
That was all it took. Yuuri sprinted for the table.
Chito held out considerably longer, but in the end, the smell won. She walked over slowly and took her seat.
Watching them, Kaito felt a little like a demon luring two innocent souls astray.
He was also fairly certain that after a meal like this, if he left them on their own again, their survival instincts would crater. There was an old saying that applied here perfectly: I could have endured the darkness, had I never seen the light.
Once they were seated, both of them carefully set their most important belongings close beside their chairs.
Kaito looked at Chito's diary. He looked at Yuuri's rifle.
He thought about what came later in the story.
In the later chapters, the two had abandoned the Kettenkrad they had ridden for so long in order to continue upward. As their journey went on, Yuuri left behind her rifle, the one thing she had never once let out of her sight. And Chito, when they needed to boil water, had fed her precious diary and books into the fire as fuel.
With every important thing discarded, they were left with only each other. And that meant they were drawing closer and closer to the end.
By the time they reached the very top, despair was no longer something that felt unbearable. Because by then, they had already long since despaired.
"Oh, right. I haven't introduced myself yet." Kaito looked at the two sitting stiffly in their chairs and smiled. "My name is Kaito. And this is Izayoi Sakuya, my personal maid."
It was as though the dramatic Lord God entrance had never happened.
"Kaito?"
"Maid? Chito, Chito, what's a maid?"
Yuuri turned to Chito with a baffled look.
"I think I read about it once. A servant who specializes in looking after people, I believe."
Chito thought for a moment, drawing on some half-remembered book.
"Whoa! Someone whose whole job is looking after people?! That's amazing! Does that mean if I had a maid, I could have food whenever I wanted?!"
"Idiot Yuuri, that's not how it works!"
Kaito glanced sideways at Sakuya standing behind him.
'Actually, Yuuri might not be entirely wrong. With Sakuya around, I really don't think I've ever had to worry about food.'
"Haha! Now that I've introduced myself, shouldn't you two do the same?"
At that, both girls shot to their feet and announced at the top of their lungs:
"Chito! Seventeen years old!"
"Yuuri! Seventeen years old!"
PS: The author has no confirmed information on their actual ages and is guessing somewhere in the sixteen-to-eighteen range. Seventeen it is.
Their thick padded coats made it hard to guess their age at all. They looked more like fourteen-year-old middle schoolers. The likely culprit was chronic malnutrition.
"Got it. You can call me Kaito-nii, or just Kaito, whichever you like."
"Now stop being shy and eat."
"Chito! Chito! It's meat! And what's this green stuff?!"
"You're so loud! Yuuri, keep it down!"
As the two began dropping beef and vegetables into the copper pot, Sakuya stepped forward and set a small dish of dipping sauce in front of each of them.
"It will taste even better with this."
Both girls immediately stood up.
"Thank you, Sakuya-san! *2"
Sakuya gave a small bow. A smile appeared on her face, quiet and rare.
"You are most welcome."