23-Is this tactic understanding?

Krish-san asked, "Can you give me some of your time?"

"Sure."

I was just going to sleep anyway, so it was completely fine. Did something happen at this time of night?

I opened the door wider to let Krish-san in, but he shook his head. "There's somewhere I want to show you. Will you come with me?"

For a moment, I thought that he wanted to take me to see the luminescent moss, but that should have started a while ago. It would take an hour to get to town from here, and I heard it's another thirty minutes from town to the moss field east of it. If we went now, the event would probably be over by the time we arrived.

So that couldn't be it.

I said, "But Krish-san, my night vision is pretty bad, so I'm not able to navigate well at night."

Compared to the people who grew up in this world, my eyes weren't that good. I'd gotten pretty used to it nowadays, but I still tripped on pebbles whenever I got thirsty at night and went to draw some water to drink.

"It's fine. I'll lead you by the hand," he replied.

Since he was going that far, then I couldn't refuse further.

Krish-san held his hand out to me and waited.

I put my hand in his. His big hand curled and squeezed mine.

With an unhesitant gait, Krish-san led me forward. From up ahead, I could hear the neighing of a horse, and I could vaguely see a large silhouette of what was probably the pure black horse that Krish-san always rode on.

Krish-san let go of my hand to get on the horse, then stretched his hand to pull me up after him.

"Are we riding the horse there?" I asked. "I've ridden on a wagon plenty of times, but I've never ridden on a horse before."

It was so dark that I couldn't really see, which lessened my fear, but being so high up was still making me anxious.

"It's alright. I'll support you, so just relax and lean on me." Krish-san wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled, until my back was completely resting on his armor.

Then with his other hand holding the reins, he urged the horse to walk slowly forward.

Wait, riding on horseback was this shaky?!

I gripped on the arm around me as I internally freaked. Krish-san gently patted on my stomach as if to reassure me.

Strangely, I actually felt a little reassured.

Krish-san's body was so huge, it completely engulfed mine.

Likely realizing that my nervousness was fading, Krish-san increased our speed.

However, he didn't make the horse run as fast as it usually did when he was running errands.

We were heading to the west of town, in the opposite direction of the moss field. And Krish-san still hadn't explained anything about where we were going and what we were doing.

But I was starting to enjoy the ride.

Now that I'd gotten used to the darkness, I looked around. It was a little dim, but I could see the grass illuminated by starlight.

I looked up, and whoosh, the starry night sky spread out in my view. It was really beautiful.

When I thought about it, this was the first time that I'd ever looked up and gazed at the stars.

With my night vision so bad, whenever I went out at night I was always looking down so that I wouldn't trip. Also, I was scared of the dark so I never had the composure to be able to calmly look up at the stars.

What a pity that I'd never been able to appreciate such a beautiful sight before.

The stars were pretty back in grandma's village too, but perhaps because there were no lights on inside the houses and out on the street, the stars here were especially clear and bright.

As I became absorbed with looking up at them, a chuckle came from Krish-san who was behind me.

"Won't your neck get tired looking up all the time like that?"

True, my neck did hurt, plus the back of my head kept knocking on his armor. But the view was so beautiful that I couldn't take my eyes off it.

"Krish-san, do you have constellations here?"

"'Constellations'? I've never heard of those."

"In my world, we would connect the stars in the sky to make shapes like a dog, a bear, and other animals, or even humans," I explained. "And there are myths attached to them; stories passed down from a long, long time ago."

I went to a planetarium once, and there, I'd thought, 'The people who were able to imagine a maiden or a scorpion from such rough shapes were pretty amazing.' Their imagination must have been richer than any ordinary man.

"What an interesting culture the other world has." As he spoke, Krish-san raised a hand and seemed to trace something with a finger. "Doesn't this part look like a ravi?"

"Really?! Where, where?" Squishing my cheek right on Krish-san's armor, I tried to match my line of sight with the height of his arm, and stared straight at where he was pointing.

I couldn't tell at first glance, so I made him repeat his gesture. By the third time, I began to see a clear image of a ravi's ears. "It's the ears! The ravi's ears!!"

Krish-san's finger traced from the ravi's ears, to its back, then tail. He'd drawn a profile of a sitting ravi.

How strange. Before, they were just stars, but now that he'd pointed it out, I couldn't see anything but a ravi anymore.

"Amazing! Heeeyyy, Pyonkichiii!!" I waved at the ravi in the sky. Then I looked around, trying to find more constellations.

Now completely relaxed, I let my body be supported entirely by Krish-san as I looked up at the night sky.

I hadn't needed to be so nervous in the first place. After all, to me, Krish-san was like a great hero. He would never have let me fall off the horse.

In some ways, being in Krish-san's arms felt more safe than sleeping at home. I didn't have a good sleeping posture, so sometimes I would be startled awake by my falling off the bed. But now even if I dozed off, I was certain that Krish-san would hold me up.

"I wonder if there's a constellation somewhere that looks like a knight in armor like Krish-san. Knights are strong, so it should have the brightest star," I mused. "Ah, what about that? That might be the brightest star!!"

From that brightest star, I started tracing out a shape.

"This is the head, and this is the shoulder......" I tried my best to trace out a dependable knight standing at attention, but in the end, I could only make a rough human figure. It looked no different from the figure on a men's toilet sign. "Never mind a knight, I can't even tell if this is a man or a woman."

"Then, let's name that brightest star as the knight star. If that single star represents a knight, then wouldn't it be easy to find?" Krish-san suggested.

I immediately nodded. "That's a great idea!! Knight star, huh? Sounds cool!!"

Thanks to Krish-san, my first horseback ride was extremely enjoyable. From time to time, we traced out some more constellations. I even pointed out one that looked like Pochi. I was having so much fun, I couldn't help but wish that this moment could continue forever. Alas, it surprisingly took little time before we arrived at our destination.

We left the road and headed into empty land full of thick grass. Then we turned west, and a gentle slope soon appeared.

As we climbed up that hill, the grass which was as tall as me gradually shortened. By the time it reached only up to my chest, we'd finally arrived at the top.

Krish-san got off of the horse then held his hands out to me. I jumped off the horse with a little, "Hup!" and was safely caught in his arms.

"Thank you, Krish-san. I was heavy, right?" I asked, feeling bad.

After all, I was still an adult man. I weighed about fifty kilos, so I was pretty heavy.

Krish-san hefted me up in one arm, carrying me like a child. "Knights train hard every day, so we can easily carry one adult man. We've even had to carry our injured comrades up a mountain. Naturally, a man wearing armor is heavier, but we never once dropped them."

As expected of knights, the way they trained was completely different to me. I thought I'd already put on plenty of muscles ever since I came to this world, but even now I still got completely smushed to the ground whenever Pochi leapt on me.

Krish-san let me down on the ground and we started walking forward. Having to wade through chest-height grass, I soon got a little further behind Krish-san.

I didn't want to be left behind, alone in the dark, so I tried to push forward faster.

Krish-san immediately noticed my predicament and held his hand out to me. "Shall I give you a hand?"

I really liked this side of Krish-san.

Since everyone in this world was so much bigger than me, there were many times when I'd been treated as a child, no questions asked. They'd give me candy, or carry things for me.

I thought that there were so many kind people here, and of course I was grateful for their help. But sometimes, I couldn't help but think, 'I'm an adult too, y'know.'

Krish-san always gave me a choice. He always had his hand held out to me, ready to help, but would always wait for me to take his hand first.

It was a kindness that wasn't too much. It was comfortable.

Well, right now, it was too dark, and I wasn't sure of my footing, so it just made sense to accept his help. I kept making such excuses to myself to justify wanting to be spoiled a little. I reached for Krish-san's warm hand and squeezed, feeling affectionate.

Even though I kept telling other people that I didn't want to bother them today, the truth was, I felt a little lonely not having anyone to spend such a special day with. But I didn't want to acknowledge it, because doing so would just make me feel lonelier. So I prepared some elaborate dishes, and brewed some nostalgic-tasting tea to try and distract myself.

That was why I was so happy when Krish-san came.

My sadness earlier in the day about not being able to meet Krish-san for a while, and my wish to get closer to him during dinner—maybe they'd been transmitted to him.

Was this the so-called 'tacit understanding'?

Somehow, I felt warm and fuzzy. Even though it was a dark night, holding hands with Krish-san, I didn't feel afraid at all.

I looked up at the starry sky, which so filled my whole field of vision, it looked like it was going to fall on me, and walked ever so slowly.

As we walked, Krish-san murmured, "It's almost time."

"For what?"

That's right. I hadn't heard why we came here in the first place.

Maybe he knew I was alone at home, and brought me out for a walk? That was what I'd thought.

I was already happy enough to be able to learn of such a wonderful place, and to be able to realize the beauty of the starry sky. But maybe there was something else?

"Today's windy, so I thought if we came here, we should be able to see it. Looks like I was right."

Krish-san let go of my hand, and placed both hands on my shoulders.