The place I was led to was a large wooden building that looked like a dining hall.
"This place is exactly what it looks like — a dining hall. Basically, we all eat three meals a day here together."
Heh, I looked around the dining hall.
It reminded me of the forest school camp I'd gone to in middle school.
In the back of the dining hall, in what served as the kitchen, four boys and girls — presumably former students — were cooking.
Their hands froze when they saw us.
"Kudou-san, who are these people?"
A boy's voice, wary and uncertain.
Well, fair enough. Katiya and I were armed, and anyone would be on guard if strangers suddenly showed up.
"Yamada Shunsuke."
"Oshima Kanata."
So I rattled off our names quickly.
That should be enough for them to get it.
"Wait — Shun? And Kanata!?"
The boy's voice drew the other three's eyes toward us.
Especially toward Katiya.
"Hey… don't tell me I'm the only one whose gender changed?"
"Yeah. None of the kids here had their gender swapped."
Katiya was dumbfounded by Kudou-san's words.
Well, you know… hang in there.
"Whoa, whoa! It's been forever!"
The boy who'd spoken first took off the hat he was wearing and walked over.
His appearance had changed, but there was something familiar about that grin.
"Ogi?"
"Yeah. Nice to recognize me so fast."
"Nobody else grins like that — all intense and in-your-face."
We shared a light laugh.
Ogihara Ken'ichi.
A friend from the old days who'd been on the soccer team.
Incidentally, the reason he was called "Ogi" — a play on his first name — was that it overlapped with Natsume Kengo,
"So Ogi, you're on cooking duty? I'd have figured you'd be better suited to something that needs more physical labor outdoors."
"Yeah, I thought the same thing."
Ogi had been on the soccer team, so he had good reflexes and stamina. I figured outdoor farm work would be more his speed.
"At first we rotated the duties, but eventually we figured out each person's strengths and weaknesses, so we fixed the assignments. Ogi-kun could handle just about anything, but we had fewer people for the kitchen rotation, so that's where we put him."
"Hey, it's not like I'd ever cooked before coming to this world, but I was seriously surprised by my own talent."
Ogi puffed out his chest with a smug look.
Kudou-san immediately shot him down. "Don't get cocky."
"Honestly, cooking for this many people is pretty heavy labor, so having Ogi-kun around with all that stamina is a lifesaver."
"Taste-wise, though, I'm only so-so."
He scratched his head, modest despite himself.
With work to do, Ogi headed back to the kitchen.
We sat down and exchanged information.
From our side, we told them Hugo was planning to move in soon. The background behind it. And the state of the world at large.
From Kudou-san, we learned about life here.
There were fourteen reincarnated people in this village.
I'd heard from a teacher before that there had been twelve, so two more had been added.
She told us all their names as well.
Life here was just as Kudou-san had described — completely self-sufficient.
They ate the vegetables and livestock they raised themselves, and for anything they truly couldn't procure, they received it from the elves.
Daily necessities had to be provided by their own hands as much as possible. The elves would only give them things that were genuinely beyond their ability to obtain on their own.
"The desks and chairs here were all made by our own hands," Kudou-san said.
At that, I couldn't help but glance down at the chair I was sitting on.
A simple chair carved from wood.
Kudou-san then told us the story of how they'd come to live in the elf village.
She'd been brought here as a small child, too young to even really speak.
At the time, her parents had cried as they let her go.
Kudou-san said she'd probably been bought with money.
"My family must have been extremely poor. I couldn't really talk yet, but I could understand conversations. Apparently, I sold for a lot more than the usual price for a slave."
She gave a self-deprecating wry smile.
Most of the others had similar stories, though some had been living as adventurers before basically being kidnapped and brought here.
Most had been very young when it happened.
When they were still practically babies, even the elves had looked after them. But once they were old enough to work on their own, the elves had them tending fields and livestock with only minimal assistance. As they grew bigger, even that assistance disappeared.
The beginning had been nothing but hardship, she said.
Small, childlike bodies doing farm work and herding — it was brutal labor.
Every single day had been spent just trying to keep going.
Only recently had they finally gotten a bit of breathing room.
Their bodies had grown to adult size, they'd accumulated know-how, and their work had become more efficient.
That had given them just a little spare time.
"The question is what we do with that free time," Kudou-san said.
"What do you mean?"
"The elves don't seem to want us to acquire Skills. That's probably what this surveillance and this whole lifestyle is about."
Most of the reincarnated people here had barely developed their Skills, too consumed with just staying alive.
With two exceptions.
Those two had been brought here later. They'd apparently been living as adventurers.
The idea was that having moved from place to place, it had taken the elves longer to catch them.
Because of their adventuring background, those two had high-level Skills.
"We have a choice. Either we develop our Skills while sneaking around the elves' watch… or we keep living in this birdcage just as we have been."
Either way, I needed more time to think.
But Hugo might be coming soon.
When she heard that news, Kudou-san put her head in her hands.
After that, we shared a meal with all the other reincarnated people.
The reunion after so long got conversations flowing. We spent practically the whole day in the dining hall, taking turns catching up and celebrating our reunion.
But Kioya was nowhere to be found.