“So, going back to our earlier question, I presume my trait is the cause of my odd perception of, and resistance to, true food.”

“Most likely. Powerful traits are already capable of marvelous feats that defy common logic, so not knowing every feature would not be out of place in the slightest.” Greg agreed.

“Right, especially with how powerful my trait is now. Oh, we can actually test whether my robes are the cause or not! Next time we eat true food I can just not wear them!”

“Indeed, that would at least narrow down the possibilities.” Hansen agreed.

“Okay, that settles it then. Now we just need to remember to do so.” I reminded.

“Don’t worry, at least one of us should remember once our next opportunity comes around,” Rapunzel assured.

“Yeah, especially since I plan on making true food more often.” The Hero added, surprising all of us.

“Really?” Melly exclaimed.

“Of course.” He promised.

“That’s amazing!” Melly shouted in joy, attracting quite a bit of attention from the few remaining people still eating dinner. “Ah, sorry about that.” She apologized.

“So you’re planning on making more true food? May I ask why? And will you be okay doing that?” Rapunzel asked.

“I see that you’ve learned more about true chefs. But yes, I’ll be fine. The difficulties most true chefs have with making true food can be narrowed down to two main reasons. The first reason is that their levels tend to be fairly low, causing the strain of taking that energy for use in true food to be relatively higher. The second reason is that they tend to lack effective means of recovering the energy required to make true food. Even if you also eat the food, the amount of energy you can gain is always lower than the amount of energy you lost creating the meal.” He explained.

“Even when they eat their own food!?” I exclaimed in shock. “Does that mean that every time you make true food, you are just inefficiently distributing your experience- ah, energy, to everyone?”

“Well, not exactly. The total amount of energy in most true food is greater than the amount that you put in. The problem is that a combination of your skill and the quantity of energy you invest limits how much energy you can actually acquire after eating. As such, even should you eat every last crumb, you gain less energy than you started with. So, it is necessary to have alternate means of generating said energy if you want to make true food with any regularity.”

“Interesting. And that would make eating such delicacies a rare occurrence.” Greg realized. “In that case, I do not recommend providing such resources to us often. It would not be desirable to weaken your power.” He advised.

“You don’t need to worry about that.” The Hero denied while smiling confidently. “I am quite confident in catching up to your accelerated growth, as without being limited by constantly draining my energy, I would surpass all of you in level. Besides, even if I can’t catch up, having five strong people with one weak person is better than six moderately powerful people. Anyway, the main reason that I was even summoned in the first place was so I could increase all of your levels, so that’s what I plan on doing.”

“Are you su-” Melly started before I interrupted her.

“I think that’s a good idea!” I declared.

“Eli!?” Melly exclaimed in confusion.

“Our world invited Mr.Roosevelt to help us with our problem, should he prefer to support our growth over directly leading the charge, we should let him. Besides,” I continued, glancing at the Hero. “This plan should be faster than just having us train normally, which would allow us to kill the demon lord faster, and, well… Make it so Mr.Roosevelt could return to his world sooner, or at least when he desires to, instead of being pressured to stay in a foreign land helping us fight a battle he isn’t truly a part of,” I argued with a sigh.

Everyone couldn’t help but stay silent as they digested what I said.

“Haa, you’re right, Eli. As long as we can successfully save our world, we shouldn’t question the means too much. And, well, Franklin never was all that normal to begin with, so being even more different from the legends shouldn’t be a problem.” Rapunzel agreed.

“Rapunzel is correct, we should not restrict ourselves in a vain attempt to mimic the legends, we should instead follow our own path to create new ones. I approve of the Hero’s plan.” Greg followed.

“Indeed.”

Once we had all agreed, we looked at Melly and waited for her answer.

“Haa, fine. It’s his choice anyway. And I will admit, I don’t doubt his ability to keep up with our growth anyway. And if he can’t, we could always slow down. It’s not like we need to rush anyway.” Melly finally agreed.

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“Thank you for all agreeing to my plan.” The Hero smiled.

Haa, it’s nice that everyone agreed. And! Rapunzel even called him Franklin! She’s finally forgiven him! I think. Well… it did seem like she originally changed what she called him out of annoyance. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean she was still annoyed with him until now, right? I mean, it’s been long enough that I forgot that she even used to call him by his name, so I highly doubt that she was just that annoyed at him this entire time. Still, I’ll ask just in case, but I’m pretty certain that if there was a problem, it has long since been resolved.

Anyway, with our new plan of action decided, and the Hero requesting that we meet him in the morning, we all returned to our rooms.

On the way though, I stopped Rapunzel. “Um, Rapunzel, do you mind clearing something up for me?” I whispered.

“Sure? What do you need?”

“Well, it’s about how you referred to Mr.Roosevelt,” I added.

She showed me a confused expression, before continuing. “Okay? Let’s talk in my room as we get ready for bed.” Haa, I probably could have worded that better.

Once we were in her room, she asked sternly. “So, what’s the problem?” Well, at least she didn’t sound hostile.

“So, it itself isn’t a problem, but that there might have been a problem that has only just now been resolved.”

“What?” She responded in confusion.

“Okay, so, you used to call him Franklin but stopped when you got annoyed with him. Now, if you hadn’t returned to your previous form of address, I wouldn’t have thought that you still had any problems with him, but because you did…”

“You thought that I might have been carrying that grudge this entire time and only now decided to forgive him.” She says in realization.

“Yeah. I just wanted to know if that was the case.”

“I can see why you’d be concerned about that.” She sighed. “Luckily, my reason for changing his form of address is quite different, though it’s still not the best reason.”

“Would you mind telling me?” I requested nervously.

She took a deep breath. “Okay. So, you were right that I initially stopped calling him by his name out of annoyance. But you don’t have to worry, I forgave him shortly after. I was just too embarrassed to return to my previous form of address so soon.”

“Ah, yeah, I can understand that. So that’s why it took you so long.” I nodded.

“Not, exactly... I did actually regain the confidence to refer to him by name quite a while ago, but by that point I had stopped seeing him as Franklin.”

“What?” Who was he then?

She sighed. “Okay, he was obviously still himself, I doubt anything could change him. No, the problem was that he just didn’t feel… human. As we traveled, he constantly seemed more and more like a legend manifest instead of a person. Nothing, not even his odd personality, could hide just how amazing he was. I just, well…” She hesitated before eventually sighing. “I felt jealous of him. Of his abilities, his confidence, his knowledge, his skill… He excelled in so many things that it was frightening. And, since some of those skills coincided with what I was supposed to do, I felt that I wasn’t really needed.” She confessed as she weakly sat down on her bed.

Ah, I remember her having doubts about how she was supposed to be our guide. Hmm, I don’t think we ever really resolved that issue, right? I mean, while we did make fun of the Hero for needing to be carried and the like to show that no one is perfect, we never actually dealt with her issues. Haa, I was blinded by the fact that she seemed to be doing better afterwards.

Man, I’m actually disappointed that I just left things like that. I mean, yeah, I was quite busy afterwards, but I did have some free time that I could have used to help, instead of just abandoning her. Haa, I just feel like a jerk now.

“Rapunzel, I’m sorry for not noticing. I just, I don’t know why I just left you with your worries.” I bowed.

“Huh? It’s okay, you had a lot going on, after all, you shouldn’t blame yourself.” Rapunzel denied.

“But, it’s my responsibility to help!” I argued.

“Is it though?”

“Yes. I am a support after all, it’s our job to deal with these sorts of things.”

“As far as I remember, supports aren’t required to deal with the party’s mental state though? So, is it because you are the Saintess that you decided that you needed to be more responsible.” Rapunzel suggested.

“What? No. It, it’s not… It’s just what we do, okay!” I denied.

She just raised an eyebrow.

“It’s really not because I’m the Saintess,” I insisted. My actual reason is quite similar though…

“Then why?”

“It’s, haa, it’s because that’s what a priestess would do…” I mumbled.

“A priestess? Oh, I see.” She smiled, much to my embarrassment. “Well, I can’t argue with that. Just, please be careful, your health is just as important, Eli.”

“I understand,” I agreed with a sigh. It’s not like I can really help others when I’m also falling apart.

“As long as you remember.” She approved. “Now, to return to our previous conversation, I didn’t really see the Hero as a person, just his title.”

“So, what changed?”

“I realized that he is still only human. Someone with normal wants and desires. Someone who has a home and a family. Someone, who despite all his expertise, isn’t all that different from us.

I just nodded, because, yeah?

“Thats… I meant that I finally internalized that fact.”

“Ah, that makes more sense.” Knowing and understanding are two different things, after all. “Well, it’s good that you finally understood that. Hopefully, that will make our journey easier on you.”

“We can always hope.” She smiled, though it was obvious that she doubted that would be the case. Which, well, I guess that’s fair. The Hero certainly wouldn’t be satisfied with anything even close to an ‘easy’ journey. Still, this should at least make it easier on her mentally. And that’s good enough for me.