Futari De Hitori No Fuguu Hime-tachi Ha Jiyuu Ni Ikitai~ Isekai Tensei O Shitara, Bishoujo No Nake De, Utahime O Suru Kotoninarimashita~ Chapter 4

The girl had grown up much and finally is able to walk around.

This time her shackles have been reduced to one on her right leg. But in exchange it's chain is twice as thick, so we probably can't escape no matter what.

Way the dis-proportionally crude metal on the girl seems like the symbol of the man's obsession on her disgusts me.

If you really don't want her to run, then there should be better ways to go about it. Really, I don't understand how that man thinks.

These days, since it seems that the girl can now understand simple words, I've been often seeing her exchange words with the man.

And speaking of me, I still can't understand a bit. For her to learn how to talk in this empty room, a child's learning ability is amazing.

Still, there hasn't been any direct harm up until now. But lately it's been different.

Just as soon I notice someone entering exactly when the girl falls asleep, knives come flying, fire magic starts spreading, the repeated attempts of a.s.sa.s.sination occurs. Let's just say that it's thanks to these happening that I couldn't learn the language.

Well the detection magic is always active and the barrier seems to be working well, so this much isn't a problem .

I was convinced that the violence started because he noticed me using magic. But there was quite the gap between me using magic in front of him and the start of the attempts, so it's not related– I think.

Though I did say that it isn't a problem, there are times that the attacks were too much that I needed to replace the barrier again and again, so there was a time I ran out of magic power.

From then on, I've put effort on how to minimize the use of magic power.

More importantly, after the a.s.sa.s.sination attempts, I've repeatedly seen the man entering some time after and dance in delight after seeing the girl unharmed.

I can't understand anything he's saying but seeing him screech in a weird voice with his eyes wide open and his mouth warped in a crazed smile is really scary, so I just wish that he'd be happy normally.

And even after the attempts, he didn't move the girl somewhere else so I'm sure that he's at least related the a.s.sa.s.sinations. Still, he doesn't seem to want the girl dead. On the contrary, it seems that he's delighted that she still lives.

Thinking with that in mind, maybe the man is testing her.

Maybe he thinks she special or something and in some way she probably is. But if I wasn't here, she would be dead.

In that case, is he doing this taking in account that I exist? But still, the reason this girl is physically protected is because I was luckily able to use magic, so I'm not sure he knows. Is this girl worthless if she can't even do that much?

Or maybe there's a completely different reason? I don't really know but whatever it is, I don't think I'll ever forgive him.

Finishing my daily singing the girl enjoys and after she had fell asleep, I once again feel a strange presence and focus on it.

I feel in it in the cell opposite of us. In it's corner I can feel the presence of magic power.

This presence is somewhat, thin. Is something written on the ground?

This may be the so called magic circle thing. And the moment I got a bit distracted, I sense a countless amount of things appear from the magic circle.

One increased to two, two to four, suddenly squirming out. Each of them are small in size but when all of them move together they can become a threat.

Obviously, they're all rushing to our cell. I suspect that this is just one of the regular attempts but today it's different in scale.

Those things come closing in, squeaking in a high pitch while rushing to us.

I suspected from the sounds, but confirming with detection, it's a swarm of rats. Like a wave, the flood the room and start biting everything inside with no discrimination.

The stone bed, the bars, the walls, the floor, the chains, the shackles, and of course… the girl too.

I don't know how much of a threat mice are in this world but they don't seem strong enough to bite stone and steel. Still, they do seem to be able to put a dent on it, so a human bitten by them would get injured and if there are too many bites, we would probably die.

Even the girl is being bitten on but since the barrier is protecting her, there's no problem for now. My magic power is the only thing being whittled.

After a while, the rats started biting each other.

Since the girl is asleep, it's not like I can see, but probably since I'm using detection magic, I can know all the details clearly.

Worse, the smell of meat and blood is drifting all over the room.

Add in the scream of the dying rats, It's like a scene from h.e.l.l. Not very good for my sanity.

After a while, the rats suddenly disappear. This is probably due to magic too, but right now that's the best I can guess.

It was a lot more stressful that I expected, but I'm glad that she didn't wake up.

While thinking about that, my consciousness slowly drifts to sleep.

In a different day, a big beetle larvkind of thing was sent in.

Unlike with the rats, they don't really bite. Still, seeing just one is another thing, but the image of a crowd of the wriggling around is probably enough to make some people faint.

And moreover, it seems like they're trying to find s.p.a.ces to squirm in and they're wriggling more and more downwards.

If you throw a person at them, they'll probably dig in more than just the mouth, and if it's a girl, it goes without saying what they'll do. Really, I can't say if he's crafty or just evil, but I'm really glad I was able to learn using the barrier.

But one day, something happened.

It was another of the many swarm flooding. I feel like I'm developing trypophobia and I just have the urge of pushing all kinds of insects to extinction.

It seems like this time, by the look of these eight-legged things jumping around, he's going with spiders.

They come rushing to the cell and bite all over the place like the rats but if it's just this, it's fine. Still, seeing how some of them look like they're melting, they may be poisonous.

Since I'm in the girl I can't see anything, so if I just bear the utter disgust boiling within me it should be fine. Or so I thought, when suddenly light shone through my eyes.

Suddenly in my field of vision, I see hairy legs, red eyes, and it's sickening body.

Then I hear an unpleasant sound.

Several of those eyes shift their gazes to us and start closing in. Since they're blocked by the barrier, I can't feel their touch and I know that it's fine, but realizing again what's happening to us, I suddenly feel sick to the core.

There's this much just in front of my eyes. I'm sure that there are a thousand more of them crawling all over her.

I feel sick.

I feel sick.

I feel sick.

For better or for worse, the girl was grossed out too and immediately closed her eyes, but now she's trembling in fear.

To distract her even just a bit, I started to lull her to sleep. But the fact that I'm singing a lullaby while covered in spiders just whittles on my sanity.

The girl has grown to look like a five year old.

Everyday, I made some time to sing and try to communicate with her and lately, she's definitely dancing along.

After all, she's definitely on rhythm. And see how she changes her dance to suit the changing songs, she's probably quite talented.

I might sound too doting, but seeing a cute young girl dancing to the beat of my song makes me happy, it's adorable.

On the magic side of things, I've also been growing well.

This time I focused on conserving the use of magic power and now even if I constantly use detection magic, I don't run out of magic. And as long as my barrier isn't completely destroyed, I can repair it again and again.

Thanks to that, lately the tendency of me losing consciousness from overusing magic has considerably decreased.

I'm quite talented if I say so myself. But on the other side of things, I feel like I absolutely can't do healing magic.

It's hard to describe, but I suspect that I put all my magical talent on using barrier and detection. Though thinking about what has been happening, I don't really see it as a problem.

Still, the fact that no matter how much I protect her, I absolutely cannot defend her from the wounds that man gives her is really bad for my mental health.

Since even now she relies on the mysterious liquid for nutrition, I don't really have a choice. And though he is healing her in a way that doesn't leave any wounds, it's still vexing.

In the first place, it's probably bothersome for the man to keep on feeding her like this anyway.

Except that, everything's all right. However, it may have been my own pride.

That incident, just suddenly happened.

One day, along with the usual mysterious fluid, the man brought a different container with a fluid different from the usual.

It was the usual meal time, the usual disgust. And since our senses are linked, I feel the usual pain too.

But on that day, before feeding the girl, the man had a slightly long talk with her.

Somewhere in my mind I hoped, maybe this disgusting feeding time is finally ending today. That didn't happen however, and the man tore the clothes of the girl and brandished the knife on her smooth, white stomach.

You would think that I'd be used to getting cut deep enough to almost see the organs but just I can't help but scowl in pain.

After pouring the fluid into the wound and healing the girl as usual, the man excitedly moved his hand to the girl's leg.

Usually he would just dress her and leave, so I suspected that he's planning to use some weird medicine again. That instant, he took the other container he brought along and poured its slimy fluid on her lower body and his finger.

Having a bad feeling about this, I was about to protect the girl but since the man was touching her body, I feared that he might find out about me and hesitated.

It was just an instant of hesitation. But for that excited man to take action, it was an instant enough.

At the same time I feel something entering from below, pain a.s.saulted me.

It was a pain different from the sharp cut of the knife I've felt so far. It was like my organs were being gouged out and I almost screamed in pain. Even when I tried to use magic, my mind blanked out and I couldn't activate it.

The intruder that is the man's hand enter deep without any resistance. And with excitement, he began collecting the flowing red, the proof of pain, in a test tube-like container from his pocket.

I dazedly thought, this is place is his hand crafted h.e.l.l, as I felt madness from the man looking lovingly at the flow of fresh blood.

Soon after, the man dressed her up and hurriedly ran out of the cell.

Left behind, the girl see him off with no emotion in her eyes. However, I didn't have the composure to worry about her right now.

My dazed, blanked out mind began working and right now I immediately understand what just happened.

At the same time, the fact that I couldn't protect her began rapidly weighing down on my conscience.

Looking back, the reason the man talked for a while before feeding her was probably to explain her about this.

In other words, if I just understood even just a bit of this world's knowledge, I may have had avoided this.

In the first place, if I just didn't hesitate earlier, this would have obviously have not happened.

I couldn't protect her. This only fact weighs heavily on me.

Right now, the girl seems to look fine, but that's because she's still a child. For someone like her who endured pain every day of her life, it's doubtful that she understands what this pain means.

Once she learns of what this means in the future, will she despair? Just thinking about it makes me anxious.

At the same time, the calm part somewhere inside me began to speak to me.

–Anxious? You just don't want her to blame you.

–You're just ignoring the fact that your mistake just caused this.

–Why do you never learn? Why did you hesitate?

–Just because you can use a bit of magic, haven't you gotten a little too conceited?

–If this causes her any trouble in the future, this is all your fault.

I know. I know, but I just couldn't stop it.

I couldn't do anything, I didn't do anything, I didn't want to look at reality.

Even if I apologize, her chast.i.ty will never come back. If she starts fearing men because of this incident, she'll fear half of the world.

If there will ever be some peace for her, someone who was a man, like me, would never know.

And exactly because I don't know, that I wanted to protect her in the first place.

My thoughts just loop back and back, cursing me every time.

『I'm… sorry.』

In a voice only she could hear, I apologies to her. Even though I know that it's meaningless, even thought I know it's just for my own ego, I just can't bear it.

Because I don't even have a body to cry with.

I just continue to apologize.

I'm sorry. Forgive me. Next time, I'll definitely protect you.

I'm sure that she doesn't understand me speaking in j.a.panese.

Even so, I continue to apologies. To the point that even I forget who I'm apologizing to.

My lamentation continued until I lost consciousness.

h.e.l.lo everyone, today seems to be a depressing day for our series. And she's still 5 years old. And the time skip is still five years from now.

Anyway as usual, please feel free to comment any typos, constructive criticism, nonconstructive criticism if you're feeling spicy, general opinions, theory crafting even, edit fixes needed and any suggestions. Thank you for waiting and see you soon.

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