"Are you stupid?"
Shin'ya straightened up slowly, still catching his breath. The smoke was clearing. The monster was gone. And this girl was standing there looking at him like he'd personally wasted her time.
"I was glowing," he said.
"You weren't glowing."
"I was absolutely glowing."
She didn't respond to that. Just looked at him for a moment longer, then turned and started walking.
"Hey– wait–"
She didn't stop. But she also didn't walk faster. So Shin'ya followed.
Her name was Yuki.
That's all she gave him for the first ten minutes.
The forest thinned out gradually, and the town came into view – stone walls, market stalls, smoke curling from chimneys. Real. Completely, impossibly real.
Shin'ya was so busy staring that he almost walked into a tree.
Yuki stopped at the treeline and looked at him. Really looked at him this time – his clothes, his shoes, everything.
"Where are you from?" she asked.
"Okay," Shin'ya said. "Don't freak out."
"I don't freak out."
"I'm not from this world."
Yuki blinked.
Then –
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT FROM THIS WORLD?! ARE YOU SOME KIND OF WIZARD THAT GOES WORLD TO WORLD TO DESTROY THEM?! WHY ARE YOU SO QUIET ANSWER ME–"
"If I was a wizard I could have cast magic."
"..."
"Back there. With the monster."
"...oh. Yeah. Fair point."
She crossed her arms. Looked away. Looked back.
"So you just... appeared here."
"Woke up here actually."
"From where."
"A completely different world. I went to sleep and ended up here."
Yuki stared at him for a long moment.
"Man," Shin'ya thought, "this girl has read way too many fairytales."
"Fine," she said finally. "Come on."
The city was everything Shin'ya had imagined and more.
Cobblestone streets, market vendors calling out prices, the distant sound of steel somewhere – an adventure guild maybe. His eyes were going everywhere at once.
Yuki walked through it all like she owned the place. Which, Shin'ya would later find out, wasn't entirely wrong.
At the edge of the upper district she stopped.
"Alright," she said. "Go join the guild. Become an adventurer. Live your life."
She turned.
Shin'ya grabbed her leg.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN GO LIVE MY LIFE."
"I have things to do."
"I JUST GOT HERE. YOU ARE LITERALLY THE ONLY PERSON I KNOW. YOU'VE KNOWN ME FOR LIKE AN HOUR AND THAT STILL MAKES YOU MY OLDEST FRIEND IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD–"
"That's genuinely sad."
"I KNOW."
Yuki looked down at him. Then at the hand on her leg. Then back at his face.
She sighed the sigh of someone making a decision they already regret.
"...Fine. Get up."
She took him through the rest of the city without much explanation. He asked questions. She answered maybe half of them.
At some point the streets opened up and Shin'ya saw it –
A castle. Up on the hill. Large, unmistakable, impossible to miss.
"Whose is that?"
"My father's," Yuki said. "We live there."
Shin'ya stopped walking.
She kept going for two steps before she realized and turned around.
"What."
"You live in a castle."
"Yes."
"On a hill."
"...Yes."
"And you're a–"
"Don't."
"—princess—"
"I said don't."
"MY ISEKAI CLICHÉ IS REAL–"
"It is NOT–" Yuki grabbed him by the collar. "It doesn't work like that here. Blood means nothing. Power is what determines royalty. If someone stronger than my father walked through those gates tomorrow the castle would be theirs. I live there because my father is strong. That's it. There's no crown. There's no birthright. There's no princess."
Shin'ya was quiet for exactly two seconds.
"So you're a princess in the making."
"NO."
"Princess candidate?"
"STOP."
"Princess–"
"I will leave you on this street right now."
Shin'ya closed his mouth.
Yuki let go of his collar, straightened up, and turned back toward the castle.
He fell into step beside her.
"I'm calling you my friend," he said, after a moment.
"I don't remember agreeing to that."
"Yeah but you didn't leave either."
Yuki said nothing.
But she didn't deny it.
— To Be Continued —