In Love With the Strongest Man
Translator: Shizukuku
Editor: Helen
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Arc 3: True Identity
Chapter 7 “I Know You, Too.”
However, with my current physical condition, I wouldn’t last long enough to shake them off.
There was only one path to choose.
“Where the hell did that son of a bitch go?”
Drunk footsteps wandered closer to me as I gasped for air.
Don’t notice… Please don’t notice…
My mouth was dry from the tension. My whole body was sticky with sweat.
“Tsk, wasn’t he over here?”
“!…”
I was kicked and I almost let out a gasp. I breathed quietly, trying not to make even a sound, and soon the sound of drunken footsteps moved away from me.
“—Hah, I guess I made it through somehow.”
“Mew-ka! Are you okay, meow?”
“Yes, I’m fine…”
“Thank goodness. But how are you going to get out of there, meow?”
Akane, who had been hiding in the shadows, peeked over to where I was. When I looked up, my eyes met Akane’s, who was on all fours on the ground.
“What are we going to do…?”
“What are we going to do?!”
Right now, my whole body was completely contained in a jar about the size of a bale of hay. As expected of a drunkard, he didn’t think there would be a person inside such a small jar. I was kicked and rolled over, but they never noticed I was inside.
It was a water jar placed behind the store. Although there was only a little left, I had poured out the water, so the ground was unnaturally wet. It wouldn’t have been strange if someone had noticed. I was glad the other party was drunk.
I had managed to pull through, but there was a significant problem with my methods. Folding my body to the limit and forcibly cramming it into a jar almost half my size made it very difficult to get back out.
“I’ve dislocated my joints… It’s going to take some time to twist my way out, probably a couple of days…”
“Foolish human! Meow, I’ll go back to the mansion and call someone, mrow…”
“Ugh, sorry…”
“Hahaha! What’s that? What kind of technique is this?”
Just as Akane lowered his tail and was about to walk away, a shadow fell over us.
“What, is there someone in there? …Whoa!”
A sudden sense of liberation hit me. The jar I was stuck in broke in half.
“Wow, just like a mollusk. Can you stand up?”
“Oh, um, wait a moment.”
“Woah, is this a magic trick? Can human bodies move like that?”
Using the ground and my own weight, I fit my joints back together.
There was some pain, but I somehow managed to get myself back to normal.
I stood up and dusted off my clothes.
“You’re the guy from earlier…”
There stood a young man with long red hair. He was the one who’d been tangled up with the drunkard a while ago.
“I’m Atu. And you are…”
“Ugh… bleh…”
As soon as I saw the young man who called himself Atu from the front, I winced. I quickly turned away and vomited on the ground.
“Meow?!”
“What!? Why are you suddenly vomiting?”
“Ugh… cough…”
I felt my blood rushing noisily through my veins. My whole body trembled and I felt like I was about to collapse.
It was all because of the clasp on the young man’s cloak.
“You… ugh… are you… a noble…?”
Carved on it was the owl emblem, which indicated that he was a nobleman of this country. While there was no family crest, it clearly indicated his status.
“Ha, a noble? Oh, maybe it’s this.”
With a casual rustle, a sound echoed. The cloak that Atu was wearing fell on the wet ground at the edge of my vision.
“Eh…”
“It’s a hand-me-down. It’s not like it’s my taste.”
“You’re not a noble…?”
“That’s right. Don’t vomit anymore. It’s disgusting.”
“Oh… sorry…”
I covered the spot where I had thrown up with dirt and hobbled back to my feet. My legs were still shaking.
As it turned out, he wasn’t a nobleman, but it was the first time in twenty years that I’d been this close to someone who I thought was one. I had once been tortured by a noble and had an instinctual fear of them. Even the mere sight of a noble from a distance was enough to frighten me.
I was caught off guard because, even though this was the capital, it was far from the noble district. If Atu had really been a nobleman, I would have been punished for disrespect by now.
“Huff… huff…”
“What’s wrong? Damn, humans are so weak. I thought it was a bit amusing earlier.”
“Earlier? Oh… the drunkard…”
I remembered that Atu was entangled with the drunkard. The shock of the noble emblem had made me forget all about it.
“I’m not going to thank you. You did it on your own.”
“That’s right. And I don’t need a thank you either—”
Talking with Atu triggered something, a vague and murky sensation that nagged at my memory.
“—Atu, was it? Have we met somewhere before…?”
“Huh? Are you hitting on me?”
“No, it’s not that. I really feel like I recognize your voice…”
“What’s with that response in front of such a beautiful man? You’re a rude one.”
As I caught my breath, I searched through my memory. Sound was the most easily forgotten of the five senses, so it couldn’t have been from twenty years ago. Recently— yes, very recently, I heard it…
—So what about Shuka?
“Oh…! You’re the guest who came to Ideal’s place…!”
There was no doubt about it. I didn’t see the person’s face, but this voice belonged to the guest who was in Ideal’s study that morning.
“Huh? So, you really knew?”
Atu’s face, which was proclaimed as beautiful, was pulled up close to me. I backed away but was immediately blocked by a wall.
“I know you, too.”
Up close, Atu was two heads taller than me. He looked down at me, completely covering me with his shadow. His red hair descended like a wall, separating me from the outside world.
Atu smiled wryly at me.
“You’re Shuka, right? That naive, inexperienced, virgin?”
