"Now, is it okay if I ask you something?"
"Yeah, go ahead. Ask me anything."
"First of all, what's with that outfit? I've never seen clothes like that before."
"These are called sweats. They're my pajamas."
"Why are you walking around in the middle of the day wearing pajamas…?"
"I woke up like this. I guess I got drunk or something."
"Then you should go home first."
"Unfortunately, I don't have a home."
"…I see."
Once again, a look of pity came flying from beside me.
But thanks to the painful stares I'd been receiving from everyone around us since earlier, this level of pity didn't even make me flinch anymore.
*Yeah, yeah, I'm the weird guy here.*
"Spending money is your own business, but at least don't die from it."
"Yeah. As shabby as I look, I'm actually pretty confident about how I handle money."
Before coming to this world, I had been living on a diet of bean sprouts, but as long as I had my part-time job, I had been able to live a normal life.
*If only that job hadn't disappeared…*
"You say that, but I bet you waste it all on alcohol and women, right?"
"Hey, do I really look like some old guy who throws money at booze and girls?"
"You do. That's why I'm saying it."
Lisa's expression was completely serious. She wasn't joking or teasing me—she was genuinely worried about that possibility.
"…Well, I admit my current outfit is terrible, and I only have one silver coin on me. But I'm not that rotten. I won't ask you to believe me, but I don't drink much, and as for women… I've never… well, I've never laid a hand on one."
The part about drinking was fine, but when I reached the second half, I realized I had basically just announced to Lisa that I was a virgin. I tried to mumble and cover it up, but it was already too late.
Lisa's face clearly said "I'm shocked."
What? Is being a virgin at twenty-two really that rare? Even now, while carrying this woman on my back, the feeling of her soft thighs and chest against me is making my little guy react a bit. Is that so strange?
"You're pretty unusual, Takuma."
"Sorry for being unusual!"
"Why are you apologizing? It's actually kind of impressive."
"Hey, are you making fun of me? You are, aren't you? No matter how patient I am, if you go that far, I'll get angry."
It didn't matter that she was younger or that she was a beautiful girl. Even after everything that had happened, basic manners still mattered.
Just as I was about to say something to teach her a bit of adult courtesy, Lisa interrupted me.
"Making fun of you? I'm not. I'm genuinely impressed."
"…Huh?"
"Most guys around your age waste their money on women or alcohol."
"Hey now, isn't that a pretty biased way of thinking…?"
There had been guys like that at my university too—ones who always had girls around them on campus and went drinking after every class.
But even so, those kinds of people made up only about ten to twenty percent at most of the guys I knew.
The rest went to club activities, went straight home, or worked part-time jobs like I did. There were people who chased women and alcohol, but they were definitely not the majority.
"It's not biased. That's normal."
She must have only seen that kind of world.
In the world I was born in, there was no such thing as an "adventurer" job. Most of the jobs humans did weren't ones where life and death were constantly on the line.
That's why people had some leeway and could live their daily lives with a bit of comfort.
But for adventurers, it was different.
Every day was a matter of life or death. In that kind of world, becoming wild was probably inevitable. From an animal instinct perspective, the drive to reproduce might simply be stronger here than it was for us Earth humans.
"Lisa… You've really walked a tough path, huh…"
"What's with you all of a sudden…?"
This time, *I* looked at Lisa with pity.
I didn't think this counted as revenge, but seeing a nineteen-year-old girl who had already seen so much of the world that she viewed it this way, yet still growing up so properly, made me genuinely happy.
*Keep that sense of justice and keep growing strong.*
A strange parental feeling welled up inside me as I watched her—until I noticed something.
It was on the other side of Lisa. Among the flow of people, I could catch glimpses of street stalls here and there.
Unlike Tong's stall, this one looked like a vegetable shop. It was selling unfamiliar items along with some vegetables that looked vaguely familiar.
What caught my attention wasn't the stall itself, but the customer—a woman—and the middle-aged shopkeeper.
From here, I couldn't hear what they were saying. But it was clear that the shopkeeper was openly groping the woman's large breasts.
Breasts that I had never once touched in my entire life.
"What have you been staring at…?"
Lisa noticed that my gaze had drifted away from her toward the scene across the street. She turned to look in the same direction.
I wanted to stop her immediately, but both my hands were busy supporting the woman on my back. I couldn't move them.
I tried to say something, but the shock of the scene in front of me left me speechless.
In the end, Lisa saw exactly what I had been looking at, then turned back to me.
"See? That's normal here."
The words that came out of Lisa's mouth were not what I had expected.
Her tone wasn't shocked or sad. It was completely flat.
It was the calm, matter-of-fact voice of someone stating something completely ordinary.
"Everyone is honest with their desires. Men who like that kind of thing do it, and some women don't mind being touched like that in public."
The shopkeeper had already stopped groping her. The woman whose breasts had been fondled didn't look displeased at all. With a completely normal expression, as if nothing unusual had happened, she bought some ingredients from the stall and walked away.
"B-but… maybe she was just that kind of person…?"
There had been people with strong sexual desires in my original world too. And people who liked doing things in public.
Bad way to put it, but it was possible that the shopkeeper and that woman were both into that kind of thing. If it had been someone else…