Picked up a Strange Knight – Ch 1: To be honest, I thought he was a suspicious person

Please note, this is a BL/Yaoi novel and contains explicit content in later chapters.

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It had been an ordinary day, same as always.

I let the new guy leave on time after I had gotten fed up from his senselessness. With my third energy drink of the day in hand, I stayed behind to finish the overtime work and left around when the trains stopped running.

I didn’t feel like cooking, so I bought a bento and something to drink from the convenience store. In the minute and a half that it took my apartment’s elevator to go from the first floor up to mine, I thought about how I was so damn tired today, but tomorrow I still had to work. Just how many more days were there until the weekend? As those meandering thoughts drifted through my head, the doors of the elevator opened up with a brisk sound. I exited the elevator while digging out my keys and turned left toward my grand ol’ castle. It was just the same as usual.

Yep, except that in front of my apartment was some blond guy curled up at the door.

“Wha… What the—?!”

As I repeated the same meaningless syllables over and over, the blond man in front of me let out a pained groan. Did I, maybe, go to the wrong floor or something? I looked around with that convenient explanation in mind, but this was the same familiar place as always. Right before my eyes was the number plate belonging to the apartment I live in. There’s no mistaking it—this door with some guy in front of it was the entrance to my residence.

The hell is with this guy, passing out over here. I’m here tired as shit because I had to work some endlessly long overtime, and all I wanted was to drop asleep. Just move the hell out of the way, seriously. And also, just who the heck is this guy. Police? Is it better to call the police at a time like this? But seriously, come on, I just want to sleep already…!

“Hey.”

I tried to call out to him, but the guy only groaned like he was in pain.

“Hey, you alright? You able to get up, or?”

I shook his shoulder, only then realizing that the body of this guy in front of me was running hot. His eyes opened a sliver, and they were both a pretty blue as well as completely bleary. Today was a day so cold that it might snow, and even though it could be considered ‘indoors’, the corridor didn’t have any heating or anything. I recognized that if I just left him here, it’d pretty much be like saying ‘Welp, sorry, see ya!’. If I just ditched this guy over here, then come next morning who knows if he’d still be breathing—and in the first place, if this guy didn’t get out of the way then I wouldn’t be able to get into my room, anyway. From the very beginning I didn’t have the choice of saying ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with me’, so the best thing to do would just be to help this guy out, huh…

“—ah, shit! The hell is with this…!”

While cursing, I wrapped the man’s arm around my shoulders and forcefully pulled him up. I’d thought he looked thin but he turned out to be surprisingly heavy, and when I took a much closer look… why the hell was he wearing armor and a sword? Is he cosplaying as a knight? This isn’t some cosplay event venue, come on.

“Hey, pick yourself up.”

“S… sor… ry…”

The weak reply he gave was in perfectly fluent Japanese. For such native Japanese to leave the mouth of such a clear and distinct foreigner’s face really didn’t fit at all…

I somehow opened the front door with the key, and after going inside, I frantically took off this guy’s shoes, armor, and sword. He had this big rock hanging at his waist, so I took that off too since I thought it would probably get in the way. Beneath his armor, this guy was still fully cosplaying, and I left him in those clothes as I dragged him onto my bed. By the time I laid him down he was half thrown off of the bed, but, well, nothing I could do about it. I was way too tired, you know.

I shed my outer layers of a coat and suit jacket, and as I loosened my necktie, I rummaged around in the medicine box, which just barely had some cold medicine left inside. I took a water bottle out of the fridge and went back to where that guy was. I forcibly propped his torso upright and put the medicine in his mouth, and when he looked like he was about to spit it out, I hastily poured in water. His mouth couldn’t hold all of it, so some water spilled from the corners of his mouth and wet the sheets—but since today I wouldn’t be sleeping there, it was all good. After making sure that he had swallowed the medicine in between his coughing, I covered him up with the futon. He looked at me in complete befuddlement, and he reminded me so much of some kind of big dog that I ended up smiling without meaning to.

“I’ll do you the honor of putting you up for the night. Go on and sleep.”

“I give you my thanks…”

Already drifting off, the man thanked me and promptly fell asleep. All at once, I felt tired as hell, too… I went over to the sofa in the other room, and after lying down and rolling on it, I also fell right off into sleep.

 

 

Beep beep beep… the smartphone blared its shrill alarm. With the same morning ritual as usual, I angrily muttered ‘So damn noisy—’, tapped the phone screen, and tried to go back to sleep—only to realize that my bed was twice as hard as usual. I then looked around, and there before me was the living room. My small living room, which also had my dining area and kitchen inside of it. Why the hell wasn’t I sleeping in my bed?, I thought, only to remember what I’d done last night. I recalled how I’d picked up some cosplaying foreigner who looked like a big dog, and I gradually woke up. My body freaking hurts… yep, today’s definitely a stay-in-and-chill day.

When I opened the door to my bedroom, inside there really was some blond-haired and sparkly dude taking up my bed. His face was pained in his sleep, and I realized that the medicine had worn off and his fever had gone up. When I touched his forehead, it felt so hot that I thought he really might end up dying if this keeps up. With a fever that went on like that, I knew that I’d better take him to the hospital… But. This guy, did he bring his health insurance card with him? Nope, he absolutely didn’t. If you’re not gonna bring your card with you in case you get lost and need to go the hospital, then absolutely don’t collapse in this kind of place, you.

“What should I do, huh…”

As I looked down at the man while scratching my head, I saw the guy’s eyelashes move. When his eyes opened, for some reason the man’s slender eyes looked at me with a wandering gaze. And then, when his eyes met mine, he tried to get up with a speed that I wouldn’t expect from someone sick. But he was ill after all and didn’t have the strength to hold up his body, so he  just as quickly collapsed back onto the bed. Really, what the heck are you doing, mister.

“You have a fever, so don’t move.”

“You, just who are you…!”

“Ha? Is that the kind of attitude you’re supposed to show to your savior? Just whose bed do you think you’re using right now, huh.”

“This… where am I? Where is this?”

“My place.”

“And you are…?”

“Ah? If we’re asking questions, then aren’t you the one who should answer first. Who’re you?”

“… I’m Ilias Garland.”

“And I’m Sakurai Azusa. So? Why’d you have to go and collapse with a fever in front of my place? You live somewhere in this apartment, or?”

“A… partment? The place in which I reside is the knight dorm, but…”

“Oh, a dorm resident huh…”

The man who calls himself the knight Ilias seemed to get annoyed by my vague remark. Hey, it’s because of you that I had to sleep on a tough sofa for the first time, and though I was thinking ‘Hey you, you’re not even going to say “Sorry, excuse me”?’, I also considered that if the two of us got into a fight, there was no way I would win what with the disparity between our bodies. And so, I swallowed the rest of my words and kept my mouth shut. It’s a principle of mine to never start a fight that I can’t win.

“Excuse me, Sakurai Azusa, may I ask which country we happen to be in?”

“Uh… this is Japan, but…”

“Nippon…? I have never heard of it. This is not the territory of Gretia, then…?” ¹

“Gre—? No idea.”

“I would like to examine the coordinates of this place. Where is the Position Core located?”

“Ha? What? Position Core?”

“… It’s necessary in order for Transfer Teleportation to work. Don’t tell me, the technology for Transfer Teleportation doesn’t exist here?”

What the heck’s with this guy, did he play too many games? Scary… ² On my face was an annoyed expression showing perfectly how much I honestly didn’t get his story, when Ilias staggered up and got out of bed. I hurriedly went over and lent him my shoulder upon seeing his uncertain steps, and as I thought, he was still overly warm. I lowered my head in apology. I may have a big temper but at heart I think I still might be considered a fairly good guy.

Because he told me that he wanted to check the things that he had been wearing before, I went to fetch the armor and sword set that I had left at the entrance, with the weird rocks that had been attached at Ilias’ hip held in my hand. I’d thought they’d get in the way of sleeping, so they’d been removed yesterday.

Wanting to know what the heck he was doing, I watched him place the rock in his hand and trace it with a finger. Suddenly, the rock began to shine, and a screen appeared in the air. Coordinates, communications, and letters floated up. Just what was up with all this sci-fi stuff? Even the principle of how the display worked was a complete mystery… While I stared stupidly, Ilias tapped at the letters and coordinates like he was used to it. He inputted some search words, and after a few seconds came an error message. Ilias sucked in a breath, and this time tapped some words for communications. From the numbers typed in the back some kind of call started. Like a phone, the call rang for a fixed amount of time, but in the end there wasn’t any response. The time ran out after a while, and when the stone lost its light the screen also disappeared.

“It cannot be… I’m unable to contact…?”

I took a look at him when I heard that voice filled with despair, and saw that his face had turned pale blue. And so collapsed the idea of a place from another dimension that he had embraced.

“In any case, you’re still overheated with a fever. Just rest for now.”

“But…”

“I’m not so much of a demon as to throw you out in this state, and I’m not cold enough as to hand you over to the police, either, you know.”

Though Ilias’s body was at least an entire head taller to the point where he would have to look down to see me, that anxious figure of his really did look like that of a big dog, huh. Upon thinking that, I laughed weakly and pushed him back down to the bed again. He was surprised when I handed over a tablet rather than medicine powder, and struggled to swallow it down. Meanwhile, I searched for clothes that seemed like they’d fit Ilias. Since I’m a comparatively small guy compared to this giant, I thought it’d be preferable to give him bigger clothes like a sweatpants and top, but it was still a pretty tight fit. Well, it’s better than sleeping in a dress shirt and slacks, at least.

Also, though we’re talking about a sick patient right now, this guy was still some unknown mystery man that I’d brought into my room, so I couldn’t just skedaddle off and head back to work today. Ah, I’ll have to contact the company and tell them my grandpa is in critical condition so I need three days of vacation, please, thanks. Since it’s Wednesday today, that means five whole days of holiday. What should I do from now… while I was pondering that, my belly grumbled ferociously. Ah, that’s right, I didn’t even get to eat yesterday night’s meal.

In any case, Ilias is fine over there recovering on his own. I picked up the uneaten convenience store bento that I’d bought yesterday and threw it into the microwave.

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Footnotes

1. Pronounced gu-ri-ti-a. A more accurate Romanization would be Gritia. (x)
2. Azusa thinks that Ilias is some random foreigner who played so many games that he lost touch with reality and even started going around dressing up like a video game character… (x)

Thanks to Olivia for some extra proofreading! (cheer)

[Edit May 06, 2018] I re-translated the first 2/3rds of this chapter! My comprehension really leveled up over these past months.

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Posted in Novel Translations Picked up a Strange Knight and Tagged PSK