It was hard for her to say what her real, unfettered feelings truly were. For as long as she could remember, she had been taught that she would one day be offered up to an erdgod. She had been taught that she wasn’t like the other village girls, who dreamed of falling in love, marrying, bearing and raising children. Such a future, she was told, was not in store for her. So she had always tried not to think about it.
Now, suddenly, she was being told that it was all right for her to love someone as the object of her own desires, and she didn’t know what to make of it. She had never been allowed to want something for herself, and it left her with the sense that perhaps her desires were wrong. But...
Lord Yukinari...
Yukinari was kind. He was truly kind. If he hadn’t saved her— If he hadn’t taken on the role of the god—
If he hadn’t done those things, would Berta still want to offer herself to him? If she hadn’t been put here by circumstances, would she still want to be by his side?
She thought about it, and... yes. She believed she would.
So this was love she felt for him. Perhaps it had begun as duty, or because she owed her life to him, but from the moment she had this realization, it became real love.
It was okay for her to actively pursue him.
But... How? What could she do? She wasn’t smart like Fiona. She lacked Dasa’s intelligence, to say nothing of the sheer time the girl had spent with Yukinari. She didn’t have absolute power like Ulrike did. Even if she didn’t intend to shove these other girls aside, at this rate Berta would get lost in the crowd.
“It’s a mistake to think things will go your way without your doing anything. Sometimes, by the time you realize that, it’s already too late.”
Veronika seemed to have read her mind. Her tone was somber—but also empty; it sounded somehow as if she were looking far into the distance. Her words seemed to spring from her own experience. Clearly, there was something she regretted. A time when she had done nothing, or had been unable to do anything.
Something Veronika had said flitted through Berta’s mind.
I’m tired of leaving people behind.
“Sorry,” Veronika said, a hint of a smile in her voice. “Maybe it’s none of my business. You’ve done a lot for me, and I’m grateful. It’s not much, but I thought maybe it would help you. If you don’t like it... Just think of it as the babbling of a passing stranger.”
“No, I—”
“Good night again, for real this time.”
“Right. Good night...”
Berta closed her eyes once more. The night and her eyelids formed two layers of darkness enveloping her. She lay there, turning Veronika’s words over in her mind again and again.
●
Morning. Waking up was the worst these days.
He would wake to find himself in a room vastly inferior to the one he’d had in the house he had grown up in. It wasn’t even as good as the lodgings he’d had in the barracks after he entered the Missionary Order. Wind got in through the cracks, the night was dark, the bed creaked, the pillow was thin. This was less a home than a warehouse. The building had, in fact, originally been intended for storage. It was at least better than camping out, in that it kept most of the elements off him.
Pitiful. It was an utterly pitiful place to live.
Finally, though, he put on a familiar shirt—he had packed plenty of extras into the carriage when the Civilizing Expedition set off—and he began to feel human again.
He thought about the day’s work. When shipments of goods went to Rostruch, he acted as a guard. On other days, he generally patrolled around Friedland and looked after public safety. That was basic. He wasn’t sure about guarding merchant caravans, but looking after local stability was part of the job he had originally been sent here to do, so he didn’t have any specific objection. Still, it bothered him that when the townspeople looked at him, there was no awe or respect in their eyes. Depending on the day, he might even be put to sundry chores.
Truth be told, that was what he resented the most. Knights of the Missionary Order trained hard, but fighting and farming use the body in fundamentally different ways, so he was always more tired than he expected to be. The unfamiliar work made his joints ache. And if he took even a moment too long to do something, the townspeople didn’t hesitate to yell at him. He had been born to the nobility; he had never been shouted at by commoners.
“I’m supposed to be a knight!”
The frustrated words slipped out of him, but nobody responded. Griping was common enough in the unit, but nobility was rare even in the Order, so there were many who quietly accepted what had happened to them. There were so few with whom he could commiserate.
Still, the human body was an astonishing thing; even he could see that, despite circumstances he would never have wished upon himself, he was adapting day by day. Sometimes the girls from the orphanage would give him words of encouragement as they passed by. It wasn’t much, yet now it was one of his greatest joys. If his younger self, from even a year ago, could see how far he had fallen, what would he think?
With those thoughts in his head he left the hut and headed down the street, whereupon someone called out to him.
“Well, aren’t you a hard worker, Arlen.” He—Arlen Lansdowne—turned to see Fiona Schillings, accompanied by what appeared to be a maid. “Starting your patrol so early?”
“...Hrmph.”
Arlen had met Fiona at the academy in the capital, and she had always been the same: very intelligent, the trade-off being that she was strangely stubborn and impertinent. Since they had met again in Friedland, he thought she had only gotten more pompous. Truly a hopeless woman.
“Maybe you’re getting used to helping this town?” she asked. “I see the girls from the orphanage stopping by your place. Don’t teach them anything weird, okay?” Maybe Fiona thought this passed for light banter, but Arlen was only further incensed by the note of mockery.
“Y-You are a vulgar woman! A truly vulgar woman!”
Fiona was unfazed by Arlen’s outburst. “What are you so upset about? And what did I say that was vulgar? Here I thought I was encouraging you.”
“To think I would so much as touch such young children!”
“Touch them? ...Heh, is that what this is about? I was talking about trying to indoctrinate them into Church teachings or your twisted way of looking at the world. So which of us has our mind in the gutter?”
“Hrk...?” Arlen, who had indeed misunderstood Fiona, had no response.
Still, Fiona had a composure beyond her years, and he couldn’t stand it. He simply couldn’t help feeling that she was making fun of the depths to which he’d fallen.
“Y-You want to encourage me? Well, actions speak louder than words! Do something about that hovel, for a start!”
“What, you want us to build you a mansion?” Fiona was smirking. “What are you up to? Is your brain still asleep? You can’t talk in your sleep when you’re wide awake, you know.”
Arlen went silent. Fiona had always been like this. She was such a quick thinker, she could make a case for anything and make it stick. He had gotten into more than a few arguments with her in his time, but he’d never won.
“Okay,” she said. “Get moving. You went to all the trouble of getting up early—don’t waste it!”
“Hrmph.”
Having anything more to do with her would only make him even angrier. It would be better just to get to work, even if he didn’t want to. He set off walking, but Fiona’s voice came from behind him.
“It’s true that I’m grateful to you, though. I’ll make you something sweet for when you’re done working today—savor the anticipation!”
Arlen felt his cheeks twitch upward of their own accord and pointedly forced them back down. He didn’t think Fiona could see him, but just in case. He could hardly call himself a knight of the Missionary Order—or even a grown man—if he could be bought off with a few treats. Fiona must have thought she was
very clever, Arlen told himself, using the carrot and stick this way. But Arlen Lansdowne would not be so easily brought to heel.
Yes. He was Arlen Lansdowne, knight of the Missionary Order. Perhaps he was doing menial work in Friedland, but it certainly didn’t mean he had turned his back on the teachings of the True Church of Harris. He was no apostate.
Truth be told, what Arlen and the other knights were doing in Friedland now was not, in principle, so different from their original plan. As the local garrison, they would have protected the town. Because Yukinari had already defeated the erdgod, the creature supported by the area’s barbaric customs, the missionaries’ job could be considered half-done already. Probably. He thought.
If there was anything in particular that was a problem, it was that Yukinari had destroyed the statue of the guardian saint...
“But that’s over,” he whispered to himself. “There was nothing we could do about that.”
They had never for a moment thought that they might find the Blue Angel when their expedition came here. Nor had they expected that the angel’s fighting abilities might be greater even than the statue of the guardian saint. Angels were originally created to perform miracles when converting people; they were never intended for use in battle. Arlen had never even considered the notion of pitting an angel against a guardian statue.
In any event, they hadn’t planned for any of this. There was nothing they could have done. Their enemy had turned out to be overwhelmingly powerful.
To confront a vastly more powerful enemy, one against which there was no hope of victory, was a fool’s errand. Arlen was doing the smart thing. He was protecting himself, maintaining a modicum of freedom, and accomplishing some part of his charge as a knight—even as he pretended to obey his captors.
Under the circumstances, this was the best choice. So he kept telling himself.
And then...
“—ed. —y, are you listening?!”
The voice snapped him back to reality. He looked around in a hurry and realized he was already outside of town.
During the day, several of the town gates were left open, making it comparatively easy to go in and out. Arlen had been walking along, lost in thought, and had left the walls without even linking up with his fellow missionaries. The guards at the gate knew Yukinari had asked Arlen and the others to do patrols, so they wouldn’t have stopped him even if they’d noticed him.
Even so...
“Arlen Lansdowne?”
The voice said his name again.
A female knight stood in front of him. She was wearing a light outfit—no plate armor, but her clothes bore the insignia of the Missionary Order in several places. She was perhaps about twenty years old, and despite her youth, three men were following her.
Oh yeah... I never did hear how old she was, he thought.
Many young members of powerful noble families entered the Missionary Order, so it wasn’t unusual to see a young woman in a position of authority. Arlen himself was in a relatively high position for his age, thanks to his aristocratic background.
“Oh—Oh! It’s been a long time, Angela Jindel.”
He was a knight of the Missionary Order. That was what he reminded himself of as he hurriedly straightened up and greeted the woman.
Angela Jindel. They knew each other’s names and faces because they had entered the Order at the same time. Angela was so passionate about the teachings of the True Church of Harris that he suspected she hadn’t joined just to make herself look good, and she had very much held her own against other members of the Order despite her gender.
Now that he thought about it, he’d heard rumors that she had been assigned to the Ninth Missionary Brigade.
“Is that the town of Friedland over there?” she asked, looking at the walls that rose behind Arlen. “Where the Sixth Missionary Brigade is posted?”
“Oh, um, yes. Of course.” He nodded, trying to hide the shudder that ran through him.
“How’s the conversion coming?”
“Nicely. We’ve made no errors.”
It sounded almost like he was making an excuse for something. A doubtful look passed over Angela’s face, but she didn’t pursue it. It didn’t seem that she had been sent by Church headquarters in the capital just to see how things were going with the Sixth Brigade. But what, then?
“I see. Would you show me to Friedland, then?”
“Right, leave it to—me?!”
“Is there any trouble here?”
“U-Uh, no—not at all!” He frowned seriously, trying to cover the crack in his voice. “Why would you ask that...?”
“You’d be surprised how many towns appear to be converted, but still harbor rebel elements,” Angela said. She sounded somehow self-deprecating. “We’re looking for someone. As I said, many of these ignorant frontier folk refuse to cooperate with us, so I just wanted to know upfront how things were going. Forgive me.”
“I-Is that so? Pay it no mind.” Arlen somehow managed to regain the bearing of a knight of the Missionary Order, even as a cold sweat trickled down his back.
●
The mansion had gotten rather lively. Fiona, attending to the day’s work in her office, frowned and looked up.
“Huh...?”
Using formulae she’d created in consultation with Yukinari and Ulrike, she was trying to determine what kind of crop yields they could expect from the new fields and irrigation measures. But it was hard to focus on her calculations when the house was so noisy.
With a sigh, she set down her pen and stood up—and as if this were some sort of cue, the door to the office was opened without so much as a knock.
“Wh-What’s going on? Who are you?!” Fiona asked, surprised.
She found herself confronting a woman wearing the uniform of the Missionary Order. She was only wearing light armor, the design somewhat different from that Arlen and the other men wore, but Fiona had seen female knights in the capital. Not that she remembered there being a woman in Arlen’s unit...
“Are you the leader of this town?”
The words were polite, but the tone was arrogance itself. Anyway, it reminded her of how Arlen had sounded when he first came to Friedland. The contempt for Fiona and her fellow barbarians was unmistakable.
“Quite young, aren’t you?” The knight didn’t look so old herself.
“I don’t know who you are,” Fiona said, “but you’d do well to remember your manners.” She had been shocked at first, but now she scowled at the other woman’s imperious attitude. Fiona didn’t care if she was a missionary knight or the Dominus Doctrinae; she had no obligation to smile at someone who barged into a woman’s room without even knocking and started asking rude questions.
“I believe a mercenary fled to this town. Hand him over.” The woman didn’t even give her name, but simply stated her demand.
“Mercenary? I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
No doubt she was referring to Veronika. Fiona couldn’t have handed her over even if she’d wanted to—Veronika had already left. But what were the chances the knight would believe her if she told the truth? And on top of that, this woman was probably part of the Aldreil garrison Veronika had been talking about.
Meaning...
“You have no idea at all? No guesses?”
“No. And if I did, I wouldn’t feel compelled to share them with someone who doesn’t even know how to knock when she enters a room.”
“Goodness. Pardon me,” the woman said, shrugging. “I never thought a barbarian in this part of the world would have heard of the custom of knocking. Maybe the civilizing effort has gone better than I expected.”
She seemed to be speaking over her shoulder to someone. A moment later Arlen appeared, out of breath.
“Jindel...!” he said to the woman. At the same time, he caught sight of Fiona’s piercing gaze and froze.
What in the world is going on here?! her glare seemed to say.
Arlen’s mouth worked open and c
losed, and he shook his head vigorously.
No, you’ve got it all wrong! You’ve got it utterly wrong! she thought he was saying. Probably. He followed this up with a series of incomprehensible gestures, trying desperately to tell her something, but without having worked out a code in advance, she couldn’t for the life of her tell what he was saying.
“I see,” the woman said, almost to herself. “Well, perhaps the mercenary died somewhere before he got here. The corpse then eaten by scavengers, no doubt.”
It appeared Arlen’s false report to Church headquarters in the capital hadn’t been discovered; this woman wasn’t from another unit dispatched specifically to deal with the matter. But...
“That aside, why are you not wearing the Holy Mark?” She seemed to sense the momentary relief and spring on it.
“The Holy Mark?”
Behind the woman, Arlen was once again doing his strange little dance, although he probably thought he was making meaningful gestures. Fiona stared at him, trying to come up with a good excuse as fast as she could.
“In this town, we’ve had many passionate believers in the Church’s teachings since before the honored members of the Missionary Order arrived.”
“Oh, my. Is that so?”
“Yes, ma’am. Arlen Lansdowne and I were classmates at the academy in the capital. I actually sought to enter the Order myself after graduation, but then I received word that my father’s health was deteriorating rapidly, and I rushed back here.”
“Th-That’s true,” Arlen sputtered. “Completely, utterly true.”
Quiet, you, Fiona glared at him, then resumed lying through her teeth. “When I spoke to the villagers about the True Church of Harris, they were quite taken with it. I’m not clergy, so I couldn’t perform baptisms, but the Church’s teachings spread like wildfire. Just when we were considering whether we should request clergy to be sent to us, the noble Mr. Lansdowne appeared.”
“I see. Quite a story.”
“Yes, ma’am. The only problem is, the erdgod in this area was a wily creature. It shamefully attacked Mr. Lansdowne and his comrades from behind, destroying most of their equipment... including the device used for the ritual of the Holy Mark.”
Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 3 Page 12
