Unexpectedly, there did not seem to be much difference from humans.
“Is Yulin-chan hungry? Did you not eat anything at noon?”
Clearly even Alice had heard the sound my stomach made.
As she spoke she lifted the white robe on her body, as if preparing to take something out from inside it.
But I remembered that robe had no pockets or anything that could be used to hold things…
“Nn…”
Having my stomach suddenly cry out in a situation like this made heat rise in waves across my face.
But thinking it over carefully, I had not eaten anything at all since the moment I was “born.”
When I threw up at the beginning I had only brought up sour water, with no residue or anything like it, so at the time I was “born,” I had been on an empty stomach…
“If you don’t mind, eat this~”
A faint scent, like the smell of wheat.
I looked toward the fragrance.
Alice held out to me an object like a short stick.
A baguette?
No, it was short. It was probably just ordinary bread made into a stick shape.
But just as it looked, this loaf had probably been sitting for a long time.
It had long since lost that soft feel of bread when I touched it.
I looked at the bread in my hand, then looked at Alice, who was watching me with those clear eyes, and broke the bread in two.
“Half each.”
“Eh?…”
Alice herself probably did not have much dry food left either.
I could tell from the way she looked at the half loaf in my hand that she was hungry too.
So before she could speak, I pushed that half loaf straight into her hand.
“It’s fine. I’m not actually that hungry.”
“O-okay… Thank you, Yulin-chan.”
“No… I should be the one thanking you.”
This bread was really hard.
Eating it did not feel like bread at all anymore.
Chewing it was like chewing stones.
Fragments of bread were ground into powder in my mouth and then stuck to my tongue.
It was truly hard to swallow.
But even something like this, hardened bread that in our world would have been thrown in the trash long ago, was precious food in this barren desert.
If I had not washed it down with the water from the flask Alice handed me, I would not have been able to eat the thing at all.
The flask was nearly full.
That rain had probably solved Alice’s drinking-water problem as well.
I was still curious where in the robe she had pulled these things from, but then again, this was a world where magic existed.
After eating something, I felt my spirits recover a little.
But looking up at this towering peak, I still felt that climbing it with Alice would be a very difficult thing.
Should we rest at the foot of the mountain tonight?
Perhaps after a night’s sleep, when I had energy tomorrow, it would feel a little better.
At least in the daytime there would be more details I could see.
Thinking that, I leaned back against a broken wall behind me and hugged my legs tight.
It really was a little cold.
Falling asleep was not an easy thing.
Even a campfire would have been nice.
At that moment I even began to fantasize that there was a campfire in front of me, Alice and I sitting here together staring blankly at the crackling flames.
But in this barren desert there was not even a single sea-buckthorn shrub around.
Where would the fuel come from to keep a fire going?
“Is Yulin-chan going to rest?”
Alice undid the robe on her body, wrapped one side of it around my ice-cold body, then pressed close to me, sending waves of warm body heat my way.
“Yeah. I’m a little sleepy.”
Her body was really so warm, so soft.
One robe could not be worn by two people, but squeezed together like this it felt especially warm.
Drowsiness swept over me at once.
Alice’s breathing, Alice’s voice.
As the sand and dust at our feet brushed across the skin of my legs with the wind, Alice said softly,
“Then sleep for a bit. But if we’re going to travel, night is still better. The desert is very hot in the daytime. If you sweat a lot, you’ll dehydrate quickly… For now, rest a little while.”
“Mm…”
I really had not thought of that.
Living in the desert, Alice was already very experienced at how to move in the desert.
At least it was completely different from what I had seen in anime and novels.
That said, if we moved at night, because the body would be active, it naturally would not get this cold.
…
Huu—
Huu—
The sound of breathing, together with a rising and falling sensation, spread through my body.
A soft touch, a soft scent, and the feel of a pair of slightly rough hands against my thighs.
It was as if, in a dream, I had gone back to when I was small, to the gentle homeland where Mama was.
A swaying feeling made me open my hazy eyes.
Moonlight shone on the earth, turning everything in sight a silver-gray, waves made of sand.
Starlight blazed in the deep-black night curtain.
That band of light hanging high at the edge of the sky was like a brilliant crown.
“A-Alice?”
Her shoulders were a little hard.
Even through the clothes I could feel her bones.
Her long hair was pressed tight to my chest, curled up by me, a complete mess.
I struggled in a panic, trying to jump down from her back.
Alice looked back at me from the corner of her eye and still smiled.
“You’re awake. I think I’ve just about found the entrance to the ruin. Maybe tonight’s luck isn’t bad.”
Th-there was no need to carry me while looking for it.
You could have just woken me up.
Really…
But her body was truly so warm.
In the waves of warmth rising inside the robe there was also a faint, fresh scent of leaves.
I wanted to stay on her back a little longer like this, to hold her a little longer like this.
The feeling was as if I had gone back to the past, to the time when Papa and Mama were still there, the feeling of lying in Mother’s arms and acting spoiled.
But as I moved my legs, let go, and slid down from her back, she also let go and stopped walking.
“Not going to rest a little longer?”
“Nn, no.”
I had grown this big, after all.
Carrying me the whole time while walking on sand this hard to travel would be tiring.
But when I landed on the sand I still felt as if I had not fully woken.
I looked up at the sky.
Such a brilliant, such an unfamiliar night sky.
Following my gaze, Alice looked at the sky as well.
A gust of wind passed through the open robe on her body, making the white robe sway in the silver moonlight like white wings.
She said softly,
“There’s probably about three hours left until dawn. After dawn the temperature will rise quickly, so let’s walk around nearby while we still can.”
“Eh?”
I looked up at the sky the same way.
The star-bright night sky, the bright moon hanging overhead, did not look any different from before I fell asleep.
The moon here, like the sun in the daytime, felt as if it had never moved from beginning to end, as if the idea of rising in the east and setting in the west did not exist.
Alice did not seem to be carrying any timekeeping tool either.
I couldn’t help growing curious.
“Can Alice tell the time from the stars?”
“The stars?”
Hearing me ask that, Alice looked a little puzzled instead.
Then she smiled at me again.
“No. You can tell the time from the [Heavenly Ring], but that only works at night.”
[Heavenly Ring]?
I looked up at the sky overhead.
That shining band of light like a crown did indeed look different from the position I had first seen it in.
So was the [Heavenly Ring] Alice spoke of this thing?
“Yulin-chan doesn’t seem to know anything about the surface world. Is this the first time you’ve descended to the ground?” Alice said.
“Nn… s-sort of.”
As I said that, I lowered my head.