After the memory progressed a little farther, I realized something.
“Ah, shit. Come to think of it, she fought Gluttony!”
And Gluttony was a demon whose body was formed as a colony.
A shriek of “Kyaaaaagh!” burst from the mouth of someone who normally didn’t scream over gross things.
Around the time the sun was beginning to sink beyond the horizon, Deathbringer noticed something was wrong.
“Um… don’t you think Sir has been sleeping for too long?”
“Hmm?”
“He still hasn’t woken up.”
It was no longer merely past noon.
The evening glow had begun staining the sky.
Even an ordinary person sleeping in late would not normally sleep this long.
And when the person in question was the Adventurer?
Yeah.
Something felt wrong.
This was not normal in the slightest.
“…Try waking him.”
“Meister?”
Even Meister, after thinking carefully, reached a similar conclusion.
That sharp mind had clearly recognized how suspicious the situation was.
“Sir?”
“Hey.”
In the end, the two of them took the lead in trying to wake the Adventurer.
All the while desperately hoping he had simply fallen into an unusually deep sleep.
“Sir.”
Shake.
But when they put a hand on his shoulder, gripped it with moderate force, and shook—
the person who should have reacted only swayed limply.
His eyelids did not open.
Shake, shake.
Even pulling and pushing harder made no difference.
“Sir—”
Thump.
Eventually his body lost its…