13 - Interview with Princess Knight
Just after the sun rose, the camper was parked.
Naoto was alone in the driver's seat with the curtains
closed.
The driver's seat is connected to the living area of the
camper, but when it is closed like this, it creates a strange space that is
both wide and narrow, like the driver's seat of a large truck.
Naoto was sipping a cup of tea alone.
"Hmm, when I was a kid, we used to build little secret
bases like this.”
Naoto smiles at the memory.
When he closes his eyelids, the scenes from his childhood
seem to come back to him.
He would get cardboard boxes from the local supermarket and
use them to build a secret base.
Using the space in a closet or something like that, he would
make his own room in the room.
He would bring his toys into the kotatsu or futon and crawl
around like a snail with only his face showing.
Naoto had been longing for a space of his own since then.
"Doraemon had a secret tool like that, right? When you
put a poster on the wall, it becomes a doorway that leads to a room in another
dimension.”
The manga he had seen as a child had increased his longing.
He made it come true.
A microbus camper, a custom-made six-mat Japanese-style room
and a veranda.
In a word, it was.
A mobile secret base.
Naoto had fulfilled a childhood dream in the form of a
camping car.
He turned on the air conditioner and felt the warm air
blowing gently.
"It was winter when we built our secret base out of
cardboard, and I was really pissed off when I brought in the stove.”
He looked back at the time with distant nostalgia.
At that time, he thought he could kill two birds with one
stone by making the inside of the secret base brighter and warmer.
"I guess you got mad at me for bringing candles into
the closet too.”
It was morning and for no good reason, he turned on the
light above the driver's seat.
It used to be dark in the closet, and there was no power
supply, so he bought candles at a hundred yen store and brought them in.
“When we had a kotatsu, he said, ‘It's transforming!’ I
said, ‘It's transforming!’ and flipped over the top of the kotatsu and broke
the fusuma*. (Japanese Sliding Doors)”
Pushing the switch that was custom made and labelled
"Transform".
Behind him, he hears a mechanical sound. The door opens at
the back of the camper, and you see it transform into an edge.
A microbus camper, Patricia.
It is the embodiment of Naoto's boyhood dream.
It is a dream itself.
Naoto sipped his tea and looked up at the sky.
The sky was blue, stretching out as far as it would go.
The sky was so clear and blue that not a cloud could be
seen.
It was blue, blue, and blue everywhere.
It was blue, so there was nothing wrong with it.
It's so beautiful, and just looking at the blue colour warms
the heart, it's like seeing the sky for the first time.
It's like seeing your childhood friend who has lived next
door to you for a long time wearing makeup for the first time, a feeling that
you know but don't know.
"Well, I don't remember the sky being this blue."
He twisted his neck and thought about it.
He thought about it for a while, but he couldn't remember
what the sky was like after he became a member of society, so he quickly
stopped thinking about it.
Because he was happy now.
In a secret base on the move, under the blue sky, sipping a
leisurely cup of tea while looking up at the sky.
Happy, so he stopped thinking about it.
It's been an hour of happiness.
That's how long it's been since Naoto woke up and started
sitting idly in the driver's seat, doing nothing.
Time to do nothing, time with no plans to do anything.
Time to just stare up at the sky.
Maybe he won't run the camper today.
He just wanted to stay here and relax without running it.
The sky was so blue that this time he turned off the air
conditioner and opened the window.
The wind blew with the sound of rustling leaves, caressing
his skin.
The wind felt good.
It was different from the wasteful wind of the city or the
strong wind of the subway that seemed to whip the slaves.
It was a gentle, comfortable breeze.
Naoto sipped his tea for a while, letting the wind blow over
him.
"Oh, it's gone."
He noticed that his teacup was empty and went back to his
room to refill it.
"Huh? Sophia,
you're awake."
Sophia was sitting in front of the kotatsu, her face
uncomfortable and her eyes half open.
There's something off about her, he thought, and then he
noticed that her upper body armour was turned backwards and forwards, probably
because she was sleep-deprived.
The light armour, typical of a princess knight, made it
possible for her to move backwards and forwards without getting stuck.
"Pfft."
Naoto blurted out.
His eyes met Sophia's unfocused ones.
He made a cup of tea for Sophia and handed it to her.
"Aaaaah..."
Is she saying thank you? He was amused by Sophia's sleepy
way of saying that.
Naoto chuckled and picked up his phone, which had lost its
communication function in the other world and was no longer in use, and
activated the camera function.
Click. Click. Click.
One by one, he captured the sleepy figure of the princess
knight in his lens.
Thinking of the childlike spirit restored by the blue sky,
he decided to take a video as well.
"Sophia, look at me.”
"Huh?”
"What's your name?”
"Sophea. ...... Pane. ...... Exsia.”
"How old are you?”
"Fifty-eight.......”
"What are you good at?”
"Military discipline.”
"That's a lot of noise. What's your weakness?”
"......”
Unlike before, when she had vaguely answered immediately,
Sophia fell silent.
She tightened her mouth and closed it like a shell.
Naoto was curious and asked further.
"Sofia? What's your weakness?"
"......”
"What if...?”
Ping, I thought.
Coughing, he let his throat reset.
"... Ogo?"
"Kuu! Kill it!"
Poof! Sophia looked up at him.
In an instant, Sophia was awakened. Her face shook with
anger, and her half-open eyes snapped open.
"Pfft...hahahaha."
Naoto holds up his phone and starts laughing with his
stomach in his hands.
Sophia's reaction was on point.
"Huh? This place is..."
The humiliation on her face lasted only a moment, and the
princess knight looked around with a puzzled look on her face.
"A mobile home... wasn't it in a cave?”
"Maybe you were dreaming. You have no business going
into a cave.”
"That's true... but what is it, Naoto?”
"Oh, I was taking photos and videos.”
"Pho-to? What do you mean?”
From Sofia's pronunciation, he could tell that it was not
from this world.
It didn't matter, so Naoto took control of his phone and
first pulled out the picture he had just taken and showed it to her.
"See, that's you, isn't it?”
"Oh, my God!”
Comparing my figure to the photo, she noticed that the
armour was on the back of her head.
Her white skin was quickly turning cherry red.
"What have you done?"
"No, no, no, no, I didn't do anything. You just fell
asleep and did it to yourself, didn't you?"
"No! No, I didn't do anything.”
"It's a good thing I now know how to wear armour upside
down. And... yeah, this could be cool."
"Forget it! Forget it now!”
"Oh, yeah, I got one of those.”
He controls the phone and now shows the video to her.
"Sofia ...... peiin ...... exsia”
"Ahhhh!"
Sophia screamed her head off at the video, which was even
more destructive than the photo.
"What are you doing, Naoto?”
"Well, you're pretty cute. Destroying the enemy army is
a little scary, though. Are you going to be a one-man warrior? Do you have a
nickname like "princess knight of slaughter" or something like that?”
"I don't have such a nickname! And I haven't destroyed
that many people!”
She ranted loudly and blushed even more.
"I mean, what the hell is that? Magic! It's magic
again!”
"It's not magic... it's some kind of magic tool. You
can record things like this."
He added in his mind, "I'm just making this up as I go
along.”
"Yeah, erase it, erase it!"
"It's such a waste. It's so cute.”
"Erase it!”
"Hmm, okay, but on one condition.”
"What? What?”
Sophia braced herself.
"If you don't get under the kotatsu for the rest of the
day, I'll erase it.”
"What--?"
Sophia looks at me as if it is the end of the world.
"You're taking the kotatsu hostage again? How cowardly
can you be?”
"It's a standard thing for female knights to use
hostages to the fullest. Anyway-what do you do now?”
"Kuu..."
Sophia's face twisted in frustration.
"'If I endure this for one day you'll really make it go
away, won't you?”
"Yes, I keep my promises."
Naoto said in a tone of voice that made it sound like he was
not going to keep his promise.
"All right, I promise.”
Sophia nodded and moved away from the kotatsu.
Naoto then approached it and pulled the kotatsu futon off
the body.
Carrying it, he got out of the car from the porch, hung it
to dry on a nearby tree, stretched out the wrinkles and patted the comforter.
The sun hits the futon.
Instantly, a warm feeling came over him.
Since I had just wanted to hang the futon out to dry, he did
that while Sophia was tinkering with it.
This meant he couldn't move the car for the rest of the day,
but that was okay.
When Naoto returned to the car, Sophia, who had immediately
put her armour back on, was staring at the kotatsu, the futon of which was
gone.
She looks like she wants something and is trying to hold
back.
"Oh, you can go in that kotatsu. As long as you don't
have a futon."
"Really?”
"Oh, yes.”
With his permission, Sophia immediately jumped in.
"This is not a kotatsu.”
The kotatsu without the futon made her feel depressed.
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