The World Is Mine For The Taking

Where Veronica led me was the command room of the commander, which was apparently where Lilia had decided to gather several of the heroes for some reason that I still hadn’t been told about.

Lilia was sitting in her usual seat, looking as composed as ever, and when I finally entered the room, I immediately noticed that she was already in the middle of a conversation with several familiar faces.

They were Kashiwagi, Sakai, Morishita, Morofuji, and Kaori.

Seeing them all standing there together was honestly a little strange.

It had been quite a while since I had last seen Morishita and Morofuji, to the point where I felt like I had almost completely forgotten what they actually looked like.

That sounded a little rude when I thought about it, but considering everything that had happened since I died in that world, I figured I could probably be forgiven for it.

The funny thing was that, from their perspective, hardly any time had passed at all.

The gap between the moment they were summoned to this world and the point where I eventually died there had been incredibly short. Because of that, even though what felt like an absurd number of years had passed on my end, they still looked practically the same as they had when I last saw them.

Kashiwagi looked the same.

Sakai looked the same.

Morishita and Morofuji looked the same.

And, of course, Kaori looked the same as well.

"Leon," Lilia said as soon as she noticed me entering the room. "Thank goodness you’re here."

I looked at her for a moment, wondering what exactly was going on and why she sounded like she had been waiting for me.

Was this the reason Veronica had practically dragged me over here as quickly as possible?

If that was the case, then I suppose it made sense.

I wasn’t exactly going to complain about being called over, especially since I had already been wondering what was happening in the first place.

While Lilia was speaking, however, I noticed Sakai staring directly at me.

His eyes were fixed on me in a way that made it pretty obvious that she had something on her mind.

Kaori seemed to be staring at me as well, although her expression was noticeably different from what I remembered.

She wasn’t looking at me with the same sense of familiarity that she used to have whenever our eyes met.

There was something else in her expression this time, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

It almost felt like some part of her had already figured out who I was, or at least had some sort of suspicion, but she wasn’t letting that feeling show on her face.

I couldn’t exactly blame her for that.

There were probably plenty of reasons why she would be hesitant to say anything.

"What is it?" I asked Lilia, deciding that it was better to simply get straight to the point rather than stand around wondering.

"These heroes want a favor from you," she answered.

"A favor?"

I looked toward the group again, taking a closer look at all of them.

They certainly looked serious.

Actually, they looked more than serious.

They looked like they had already discussed this among themselves and had come here with a very specific request that they weren’t planning on backing away from.

I had no idea what they wanted from me yet, but judging from their expressions, whatever it was probably wasn’t something as simple as asking for a few pointers.

"We heard from the Commander herself that you’re currently leading the war involving the three nations against the incoming threat from the Republic and the Empire," Kashiwagi said as he looked directly at me.

His voice was calm, but there was a strong sense of determination behind his words.

"Which is why I’m asking you to give us a little more of your time and train us directly."

Train them directly?

Seriously?

I stared at him for a moment.

Of all the things I had expected them to ask for, that probably wasn’t anywhere near the top of my list.

"We saw your battle against Vice Commander Veronica," Morofuji said, picking up where Kashiwagi had left off. "We watched the entire fight with bated breath, and honestly, we could barely believe what we were seeing."

She seemed genuinely impressed by what she had witnessed.

"After seeing that, we started thinking that you might actually be the person who could train us properly."

I couldn’t help but find that statement a little funny.

They had apparently watched me fight Veronica and concluded that I was qualified to teach them.

That was certainly one way of judging someone’s teaching ability.

Still, I understood where they were coming from.

"Right now, the Kingdom is facing a serious threat, and we’re living here as well," Sakai said. Her expression was serious. "The Kingdom and the King have been taking care of us ever since we arrived here, and because of that, we don’t want to simply sit around while everyone else fights to protect the place we’ve been living in."

She paused for a moment, apparently choosing her next words carefully.

"If we can’t do anything to help guarantee the safety of this Kingdom, then our chances of actually returning to our own world become practically impossible."

Her expression tightened slightly.

"Those chances would become even closer to zero if we simply stood around and did nothing while the Kingdom was destroyed."

That part was difficult to argue against.

Their situation was complicated, but their reasoning was fairly straightforward.

They wanted to go home.

At the same time, they were currently living in a Kingdom that had given them shelter and protection.

If that Kingdom fell, there was a very real possibility that they would either die or lose the only opportunity they had to return to their original world.

Under those circumstances, wanting to become stronger wasn’t exactly unreasonable.

"Which is why we’re asking you," Kaori finally said.

She looked directly at me.

"If you could help us, please."

Her voice was quiet compared to the others, but there was still plenty of determination behind it.

Morishita didn’t say anything herself.

Instead, she simply nodded along with the others, making it pretty clear that she agreed with what they had said and was supporting their request.