“Unfortunately for you, I am related to all this. The katana vassal weapon hero who you see here is originally from the world I’m responsible for, you see. If this world gets wiped out, it’s going to cause trouble for me too. That’s because she’s a resident of the world I’m responsible for and one of my dearest companions.” I pointed at Raphtalia, making my point that I was very much invested in this world. Under his logic, that should change me from someone unrelated to all this to someone who was here to protect someone. “If you want to talk about being unrelated, you might start fulfilling your duties as a vassal weapon hero and stop all this selfish messing about. If you don’t, some very related parties are likely to have a problem with you.” I turned this talk of being related right back at him, playing things right by the book. I knew this type of person wasn’t going to respond to talk, anyway. I’d just have to go on the attack before he replied. I continued. “You could talk with Kizuna and the others and work with them. Or you could try to handle your hero duties in your own way. Why are you choosing to stand against them? If you have a reason, speak. If it’s a good one, we might even help you.” If he was going to talk about heroes being involved in this world, after all, that presupposed him to actually do the job of one. And yet this Miyaji had resisted making contact with Kizuna and her allies and just run around doing his own thing. I’d wanted to run away from the responsibilities of a hero myself, to start with, so I could even understand where he was coming from. If I’d been able to kill Motoyasu when he attacked me in order to achieve that, I probably would have done so.

“You can certainly talk the talk, can’t you?” Miyaji said.

“I could say the same about you. Why are you doing this? Why are you being so hostile?” I asked. Circumstances demanded that we work together, and yet he made no contact with anyone else, holed up in his own nation, seemingly planning something—it was to be expected that we found him hostile. If there was some reason behind all this, like some kind of trauma in his past, we could discuss things.

“I got dragged here against my will, and now you think I should just play nice at being a hero? You have to be joking,” he snapped.