I didn’t see any other choice. I approached the matter as I would when talking to a monster.

“Everyone other than me can’t go,” I stated. No response from the gemstone. “Is it possible for me to take at least one of the other four heroes?” Then it glowed. So it looked like that meant yes. “Can I take them all?” I continued. This time nothing. “Man, this is a pain.”

“Naofumi, please give it a better try than that,” Ren said.

“Okay, okay, I’m not done yet,” I retorted. “I don’t think we should all be leaving anyway. Our search for Witch hasn’t turned up any results yet, for one thing.” Witch had cast Takt aside and fled and was now hiding somewhere in this world, very likely—no, definitely—plotting some fresh evil.

She was wanted, dead or alive, not just in Melromarc but in every nation in the world. Once she was found, it had been determined that the heroes would go and deal with her. If Raphtalia hadn’t been summoned to Kizuna’s world, I would have been out searching for Witch myself.

To be quite honest about it, we really didn’t have the time to go off and pull Kizuna’s ass out of the fire. Yet it was still an issue that we had to take care of.

Q’ten Lo offered a good rate of experience, but without Raphtalia, the only way there was from the port in Siltvelt. We were already having Sadeena and Shildina help us with some nice experience gains under the sea, but Ren swam like an anchor, so he couldn’t take part. He had been patrolling regions with powerful monsters and gradually raising his level that way. Itsuki had been patrolling the nearby oceans on a ship with Rishia, while Motoyasu had been racing around in the mountains with his filolials. Those who could swim should really be going under the sea!

Even now we were ostensibly working together, but we were still all over the place. The only advantage of that, perhaps, was that materials from all sorts of different locations were coming in.

“We still need to decide who to take along,” I said. I proceeded to take a look around the assembled faces. “Trash.”

“Yes?” Trash replied, turning his gentle gaze from Melty, Ruft, and Fohl.

“I’d like to refer to your opinion here,” I told him. It certainly couldn’t hurt to hear from the Wisest King of Wisdom—the one who had destroyed the Faubrey forces Takt led during the previous battle. The plan was to have Trash himself stay behind. In terms of intellect, there was no one more trustworthy than Trash right now. Even without me here, he’d be able to handle pretty much anything that came up. I almost wanted to take him along, to be honest, but that would seriously damage our defenses back here in this world.

“Based on what you have already told me, Hero Iwatani,” Trash started, “if you go to that world, you are returned to level 1, correct?”