After Kushidani-san carried the teacher away, nobody said a word.
Everyone was at a loss for what to do, so they just shut up.
Still, their reactions split into several camps.
One group let their eyes wander aimlessly.
These were the ones who genuinely had no idea what to do, and were content to leave things up to fate.
Another group turned their gaze toward Kudou-san.
Even within that group there were different flavors — some looked at Kudou-san with blame in their eyes, while others were hoping she'd step up as class representative and steer things forward from here.
Needless to say, the temperature difference between the two was stark.
And then there was the majority — the ones looking at me.
Well, yeah.
If anyone was going to move the conversation forward in this situation, it'd have to be my job.
I couldn't want to shove it off on anyone more than I did right now!
Ugh… hmm…
For now, I went back and sat down in my seat.
Maybe it was from doing something I wasn't used to, or maybe from running my mouth nonstop, but I was completely wiped out.
Could I just fast-forward to the finish line already?
No? Is that not allowed?
…Right, figured.
"You really are kind."
The one who broke the awkward silence was an unexpected person.
Wait — was it really that unexpected?
"Then why… No, never mind…"
Yamada-kun, the one who'd shattered the silence, trailed off with an indescribable expression woven from a tangle of complicated emotions.
From that face, where a dozen different feelings were all jumbled together, I couldn't read what he'd been trying to say.
Honestly, Yamada-kun himself didn't look like he'd sorted out his own feelings yet.
But his body — still frozen in the posture I'd pushed him into — went limp, and he sank into his seat with a heavy *thud*.
It was the kind of thoroughly deflated collapse where gravity did all the work, a dead-weight slump straight into the chair.
Onishi-kun, looking worried, gently patted Yamada-kun's shoulder.
In response, Yamada-kun lightly patted Onishi-kun's hand right back, as if to say *don't worry about me*.
Get a room, you two.
"Class rep, why don't you sit down too?"
Oni-kun called out to Kudou-san, who was still standing.
Kudou-san flickered through an expression like a lost child for just an instant, then did as she was told and settled into a seat.
"I think everyone has something they want to say. We were living outside this elf village, so we only know what life here was like from secondhand accounts. I can't claim to fully understand how all of you feel. But I think the teacher's attitude just now showed that she didn't force everyone in here because she wanted to. She did it out of good intentions, not malice. She was desperate. I just want you all to remember that."
Oni-kun spoke to the group in a calm, measured tone.
Some listened seriously, some accepted it with vague discomfort — the reactions were all over the place.
"But even so, the fact that we were locked up in here all this time doesn't just disappear, does it?"
The one who openly opposed Oni-kun was, naturally, Urushihara-san.
Kudou-san's face went rigid at those words.
The earnest Kudou-san and the freewheeling Urushihara-san had never gotten along, going all the way back to their previous lives.
Apparently that hadn't changed one bit.
"And besides, the way things were going, we were about to get used by some — what was it — Poly-ma-something? Right? That's what it sounded like from the way you all talked about it. The teacher was unknowingly carrying water for those people. Just because she didn't know, does that make it okay?"
Huh?
What is this girl even saying?
…Should I kill her?
"He's right, though."
"For a fantasy world and all, being kept like pets is pretty pathetic."
"Even if you call it 'protection,' it's still imprisonment."
Murmurs of agreement with Urushihara-san rippled through the group.
"But we did have food, clothing, and shelter guaranteed. It wasn't so bad, was it?"
"It wasn't exactly a slow life, but I don't have any complaints, personally."
"Once you've been shown *that* kind of thing, you can't really blame them too much."
On the other side, voices defending the teacher could be heard too.
The ratio was roughly fifty-fifty.
But what both sides had in common was that they were debating with the understanding that each position had its merits.
They'd had no shortage of grievances about life here.
But they couldn't bring themselves to condemn the teacher entirely.
That was the atmosphere.
If anything, the boys were voicing more dissatisfaction.
Did boys just naturally yearn for adventure and that sort of thing?
They'd been sending envious glances at Tagawa-kun, who'd been active as an adventurer outside.
Maybe it was precisely because Tagawa-kun existed as a success story that they thought that way — seeing him, they imagined *that could be me* out there.
Did I handle that okay?
"I should warn you — life outside isn't all sunshine and rainbows either, you know."
Oh look, Tagawa-kun himself opened his mouth.
"Dude, even if it comes from you, that doesn't exactly carry weight."
One of the guys tossed that retort back at him.
Fair point.
Coming from someone who'd succeeded, it just sounded like bragging.
"All right then, let me ask you this — have any of you ever spent a whole day groaning in pain? Or even if it wasn't that bad, ever broken a bone or gotten a huge gash?"
Tagawa-kun's words made the reincarnators — the boys especially — exchange glances.
"I've only broken a bone once, from a work accident."
"Then imagine that. Now imagine it's an everyday occurrence."
When one guy owned up to it, Tagawa-kun dropped the follow-up like it was nothing.
"…Huh?"
"You're an adventurer, that kind of injury comes with the territory. You heal it with recovery magic and then immediately get the same kind of injury all over again. If you don't get used to being covered in fresh wounds, you can't keep going. For the record, if
Was that a serious piece of advice, or was he showing off about his girl?
Hard to tell.
"There was something I absolutely wanted to do, so I took up the dangerous job of being an adventurer. But I've regretted it more times than I can count. I almost died plenty of times, and honestly, if Asaka hadn't been there, I don't know how many times I'd actually be dead. If you're thinking about becoming an adventurer just because it sounds cool, I'm not going to sugarcoat it — don't."
Tagawa-kun looked around at the group of boys as he spoke.
Hmm.
So was he being serious or flexing? Which was it?
"Anyway, that was about the specific profession of adventurer, but the outside world is dangerous regardless. Because of my line of work, I've seen all kinds of tragedies in all kinds of places. People killed by Monsters. People killed by bandits. And it's not just those who died — there are children left behind with no family, children abandoned for financial reasons. The class rep's family was poor, right? If she hadn't been here, who knows what would've happened to her."
Tagawa-kun directed those cruel words at Kudou-san.
Kudou-san hung her head in silence, unable to muster a rebuttal.
After all, Kudou-san had been sold by her own biological parents.
The only reason she'd ended up with elves was chance — she could easily have been sold somewhere else entirely.
Granted, in that scenario she probably wouldn't have been sold as an infant, so it would have happened a bit later, but where she'd have ended up was pure luck.
If her Reincarnation and sharpness had caught the eye of some respectable merchant house, things might have turned out fine.
But if her Reincarnation beauty had attracted the attention of some seedy establishment — that was entirely possible too.
"But you're only saying that because you actually lived outside, Tagawa. We never had that choice."
Urushihara-san's rebuttal stirred up another wave of murmuring among the reincarnators.
Oni-kun clapped his hands to quiet them down.
"At the end of the day, I don't think there's any point in arguing about which side was better. The past can't be changed. The fact that we're alive and standing here right now is unalterable. And the fact that some people who should be here aren't — who died — that's unalterable too. For those of us who are still alive to sit around debating which was better… that's a luxury, if you ask me."
*Being alive itself is a luxury.* Those words silenced the reincarnators completely.
"Yugo — you're the one who killed Natsume, and *you're* saying that?"
All except one.
[Note: WEB-version Urushihara-san should be considered an entirely different person from the book version.]