"But if you really end up with some shortcoming you can't overcome, that's fine too. At worst, you can stay in the rear like Valenti from now on. That'd be good too. Once I retire, maybe I'll even find time to take you out sightseeing."
Hesta froze for a moment. "Where would we go?"
"Anywhere," Chiba replied. "Snowy mountains, grasslands, rivers, mountains, islands—everywhere except District 15 and District 16, which haven't been opened yet... Oh, right. I'm making a trip to District 14 next, so you probably won't see me next month. I wanted to tell you in advance."
Hesta suddenly fell into thought. She remembered the night she had first met Liz. Back then, Liz had said that perhaps Chiba was selecting candidates for her future combat team—because rumor had it that Chiba Masaki was an extremely shrewd person, someone who never spent time on useless things—"Back when she was at the Reserve Base, Miss Chiba had never even served as anyone's assistant."
But tonight, Chiba did not seem all that concerned about whether Hesta would truly be able to fight in the future.
After all, she had just said, "It's fine if you can't overcome it."
"What's wrong?" Chiba looked at the suddenly dazed Hesta and waved a hand in front of her face.
"Uh... I was thinking, if you aren't in Tanyi next month, won't we fail to meet next month's required companionship hours?"
Chiba laughed. "The Reserve Guardian Order only requires real-time location sharing during the companionship period for the first two months. Once the formal review is approved, location information no longer needs to be shared for privacy reasons. So from then on, all you need to do is fill out a form and sign it every month. It doesn't matter whether I'm actually there."