"F-Friends!?" Lynn's voice cracked, and her eyes went wide as saucers.
"Yeah." Little Gwen looked as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Of course you have to carry your friends with you. What if you lose them? But my friend is very quiet. She won't move around."
Lynn was no longer merely frightened. Her whole body had begun to tremble slightly, her lips quivering as she looked at Lina pleadingly, on the verge of tears.
Lina sighed. She suddenly felt that, compared to these two, she—a person the world called a "madwoman"—was practically far too normal.
Whether someone was crazy really depended on who they were compared to.
"Sister Lynn, there's no need to worry. It's just a figure of speech. For example, I really like machinery, so I could also call the mechanical creation on my back my friend."
Only then did Lynn let out a long breath, patting her chest. "Th-thank you! I thought she was carrying a corpse on her back..."
It really was a corpse—and it belonged to her lord. She even had to take it out regularly to talk to it... Better not tell poor Sister Lynn any of that.
Lina glanced at Little Gwen. This little girl looked normal enough, but she was crazy in her own way. She had an extremely obsessive attachment to the idea of friends.
Lina only hoped that Little Gwen would never classify her as a [Friend]. She had no desire to be stuffed into a coffin and carried around everywhere...
...Hmm, and to keep her quiet, Little Gwen might even do something else to her...
"...What's wrong, Lina? Why are you suddenly looking at me like that?"
"Being your friend sounds way too burdensome."
"???"
The three of them set off together and soon