The longer Konrad thought, the less sense this situation made.
"You said you had an epic fight," he noted, trying to put the pieces together. "But then why're you both playing school kids together now? What am I missing here?"
"We did fight," Kaede scoffed. "But I guess we have a truce now."
"A what?!"
His knuckles turned white from gripping the railings. Meanwhile, the girl only shrugged.
"What what? We're both out of mana, and you know what they say. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." So it only took her a year to become an expert on Earth proverbs?
"You could fight him without magic, too," Konrad groaned. "Turn into a dragon, or something."
"Because dragons are so common here," she scoffed again, her hands on her hips as she puffed out her chest. "You can't imagine how much pain it was to cover up my arrival already."
Right. If she teleported in the same form she had in Kasserlane—
Did she also land in Akihabara? He hadn't even thought about that. And while he heard of dragon maids in anime before, no amount of garnishing could have sold her as a cosplayer.
"If I turned now, I'd be stuck forever," Kaede explained. "You want to get me arrested?"
That wasn't exactly the word he had in mind.
The military would have thrown everything at her, for sure, which made him blurt.
"You could've bought a gun—"
Which made Kaede burst out laughing.
"Konrad-kun, I know I never asked before, but—did you happen to live in the United States?"
The way she said it made it sound like an insult.
"What about it?"
He never went into details. There was no reason.
Lily knew everything—she was the cause of his misery in the first place—and the others?
They couldn't imagine how different Earth was without actually seeing it.
"Well, as much as I gathered from television, Americans do love to solve everything with guns."
He, who never held one in his entire life, sure felt offended. But Kaede had a point.
"This is Japan. You can't walk into a shop and buy one. And thank the spirits. Otherwise, Midori-kun would've gone on a rampage already."
"Yeah, but—"
"Or you mean I should've beaten him up in this body?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"He's a kid right now," Konrad noted, only to regret it immediately.
"You're telling me to punch children?"
"He's also two hundred years old. And he's going to destroy countless worlds if we let him," he defended his point, arms crossed. "Is whatever game you play here worth it?"
Kaede's cocky smile turned into a frown.
"You're no fun," she said, mirroring his stance. "But even so—we need him."
That gave him a pause.
"Need him? For what?!" Konrad demanded, towering over her without meaning to.
"Well, duh," she waved towards the school yard. No, the entirety of Tokyo. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're kinda in a situation here. He's the only one who knows the way home."
Another pause.
Sure, of course, right. Not that he could wrap his head around it yet, but—
"T-there is a way back?" he muttered, his arms dropping by his side.
"I mean—the Demon Lord brought us here. He must know how to take us back, too," Kaede claimed, though it sounded like wishful thinking. "But as I said, we're both out of mana."
And that was when he put two plus two together, his eyes snapping onto hers.
Right. She said there was no way to replenish magic essence here. And that no matter what, he shouldn't cast spells. Keep his mana topped up. But not because of an imminent showdown—
"You brought us together to have me recharge his reserves."
If he tried his best to understand her point, it did make sense.
But it was a terrible, terrible idea.
"Don't you want to go home, too?" she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper. She stepped closer as if trying to seduce him with the idea. "This isn't my world. A year here was enough."
Well, not hers, for sure.
But Konrad already lived a life on this planet, even if he wasted it.
Knowing what he knew now, he could have started over.
This body was still young, and while it wouldn't have been the easiest thing—
"Don't tell me you'd throw away everything you built in Kasserlane. For this mess?!" Kaede snapped at him when she didn't get a reply right away. "You're a duke over there. With a harem."
"And here, I'm a nobody," Konrad finished in her stead.
But her tone must have been different from what she expected. It was different from what he expected of himself, too. But despite how it might have looked, his life wasn't exactly a dream.
"When I was on my deathbed in this world, I wanted to take control of my next life," he said.
But that was as far as he got. It was difficult to put everything into words.
This might have been the first time he missed her intrusive mind-reading powers. But Kaede didn't say anything, waiting for him to finish at his own pace, so Konrad gathered his thoughts.
They were all over the place.
"In my past life, I've met you," he started, clarifying, "the past you. It was so random, and I was so happy, but it only lasted like, what? Three months? And it was all over. Everything was over."
Thanks to Lily's influence, he burned many bridges for nothing.
It was a bad choice, but it was his choice regardless.
"I ended up in a dead-end job and wasted my life on it. But this place has many opportunities."
"Look, I get that you're homesick," Kaede whispered, patting his arm. "But come on, nothing you could do here would get you the things you already have in Kasserlane."
"And I wanted none of those to begin with," Konrad had to point out.
Okay, learning magic was his own choice, but it didn't turn out the way he expected.
Everything else? They were things that others forced onto him.
"I became a duke because Vargas tried to take advantage of me—then he betrayed me. Now I have to risk my life to defend Kasserlane, while its king wants me to stand down."
"Well, but I mean—you have us, too," Kaede tried again, her fingers tightening. "A literal harem."
"If you could even call it that," he groaned. "You. You again, but older. An angel who'd imprison me at the drop of a hat. An insane necromancer, and—well, Eyna is too pure for that world."
Plus, there was a huge hole in Kaede's arguments.
"In all the visions we saw of the future, the Green Mage returned to destroy everything," Konrad pointed out. "What you're suggesting is that we'd bring him back ourselves."
She couldn't answer right away as the bell warning about the next class went off.
"I-I thought we'd supervise him together," she mumbled, taking a step towards the door. "But looking at you now, I'm not sure if you even care about us, at all."
"I do," Konrad grunted. "And that's why I must consider what's actually best for that world."
And, first of all, he had to figure out what he himself wanted.