by Mamare Touno
It was that smile that stopped Nyanta in his tracks, more than the sword.
Accepting the smile, like a riddle that had been handed to him with no answer, Nyanta stood stock-still in the forest for a very long time. He looked like a statue, and even after he no longer sensed any humans in the vicinity, he didn’t move.
Even when the sun set, even when the area sank into darkness, Nyanta couldn’t move an inch, not even to sheath his drawn sword. Even the moon, which rose after a little while, was unable to move him.
1
“Mademoiselle Isuzu, Mademoiselle Isuzu.”
Rundelhaus had contacted her with a party telechat first, so he knew she was awake, but that didn’t make it all right for him to just walk into a lady’s boudoir, so he called at the door of the girls’ room.
He’d received a report that wyverns had been sighted near the town.
Touya, Minori, and Serara said they were already headed for the reservoir to help defend the town. Rundelhaus had been ready to run to them, but they’d told him to meet up with Isuzu. The monsters hadn’t invaded the boundaries of civilization yet, but under the circumstances, there was no telling what could happen. Meeting up with Isuzu first and going to join Touya’s group together was probably the right decision. Rundelhaus felt that Minori wasn’t the sort of girl who’d issue poorly conceived orders.
After a few moments, just as he raised his hand to knock again, the cheap-looking wooden door swung open, revealing the room’s interior.
Isuzu had fastened her equipment to herself, and she nodded, ready, but Rundelhaus fell speechless.
Her face looked awful.
Her eyelids were swollen, and her nose was red, as if she’d rubbed it too much.
When he’d left her in the back garden that night, she’d been crying pearl-like tears. She’d probably continued crying when she was alone. Isuzu was kind, and Rundelhaus had indeed thought she might blame herself, so he’d also thought he should stay near her despite her directive. However, he’d reconsidered, thinking that it might be presumptuous, and had gone away quietly. It had only been about fifteen hours since then. Rundelhaus had waited for dawn in his room without sleeping a wink.
That meant that Isuzu’s tear-swollen face wasn’t something he hadn’t anticipated. Yet, even so, he found it hard to speak. There was a lump in his throat. Faced with this, he felt as if he’d done something terrible. Rundelhaus was the one who’d made Isuzu cry, and he’d left her when he should have stayed to dry her tears.
He didn’t think it was the wrong decision, but of course that didn’t make the pain go away. Needless to say, Isuzu’s grief was clearly several times greater than his own.
“Rudy.”
“Y-yes, Mademoiselle Isuzu.”
“Quit looking dumb.”
“What do you mean, dumb? Who’s dumb?!”
“Hm.”
Mouth set in a cross line, Isuzu pushed Rudy’s shoulder, making him do an about-face, then pulled him down the inn’s corridor.
“C’mon, let’s go. Minori and the others are waiting!”
“I know. I’ll walk on my own.”
“Look sharp, Rudy.”
You’re the one who isn’t looking sharp.
You look awful.
Here, wipe your face with this.
Rundelhaus swallowed all those words.
If he said anything like that, Isuzu would hit him with a fist more powerful than a Frost Spear, but that was only a very tiny part of the reason. It was because imagining himself saying those things and wiping away Isuzu’s tears had made his chest ache strangely.
Having left the inn at a trot, the pair quickly looked to either side, then hurried toward the northwest section of the city, as instructed. There were no figures on the road. The townspeople seemed to be hiding in their homes. As proof, shapes watched them through narrow gaps in the shutters and cracked doors.
Rundelhaus knew that feeling very well.
Before he left Nine-Tails, he’d been just like that. Even when you knew you didn’t have the strength to stand against a disaster, you couldn’t keep from peeking out at it. If you shut yourself up in your house, closed your eyes, and plugged your ears, it made the terrible things you imagined swell and grow, and that was really hard to take.
Without speaking to Rundelhaus, Isuzu set off at a jog. She seemed out of sorts, but Rundelhaus was relieved.
It showed him that she’d recovered from her depression of the previous night. Besides, for some reason, he could tell she wasn’t as angry as she looked. It must be the magical telepathic ability peculiar to Adventurers: Sometimes Rundelhaus could tell exactly what Isuzu was thinking.
She looked angry right now, but she wasn’t actually all that mad. She was troubled, or flustered, or sulking, or embarrassed; something along those lines. At times like this, he knew from experience that if he gave Isuzu practical advice—“Your nose is red,” for example, or “You should go wash your face”—he’d get hit.
This was a point that was particularly worthy of note: Astonishingly, Isuzu would strike him even when she wasn’t angry!
In fact, it happened faster when she wasn’t mad.
He might have learned to read her feelings to some extent, but that didn’t mean he was any faster at evading (and Sorcerers’ defensive abilities were lower than Bards’). In any case, as a rule, he didn’t understand her feelings at all. Rundelhaus had decided that, whether or not one was an Adventurer, this was based in the difference between the sexes, and had given up.
In any case, Isuzu jogged away, and Rundelhaus ran through the streets after her.
A sizzling, fizzing tension hung in the air. It was the atmosphere of combat.
“Rudy.”
“What is it, Mademoiselle Isuzu?”
“I feel kind of scared.”
That was a statement he had to agree with.
According to what Minori had said, the enemy was wyverns. Although they were powerful and their numbers were great, the Odysseia Knights had rushed them on the outskirts of the town, and the results of the charge were currently unknown. It wasn’t yet clear which side would win, but either way, it would take time for the conclusion to appear.
No matter what outcome presented itself, it would be a while before it made its influence felt in this district, near the center of town. The fizzing tension seemed as if it might be an overreaction.
Rundelhaus concentrated on searching for the sword attacks he could hear in the distance.
Right beside him, Isuzu was listening hard, her expression serious. Her adorable, shell-like ears worked much better than his did, and they were able to probe the state of the battle.
“How is it?”
“It sounds all right. They aren’t close, anyway.”
“I see.”
“Let’s go, Rudy!”
“Oh—Mademoiselle Isuzu.” On reflex, Rundelhaus stopped her.
Isuzu turned back, looking puzzled. He searched for words to say to her, but couldn’t find any. He gazed at her face, trying to think of what he should say to her, but since it was so sudden, he came up empty. All he felt was that the longer he looked at Isuzu, the crosser she got.
“Um?”
“Right. Mademoiselle Isuzu.”
Rundelhaus threw out his chest. At this point, as a guy, he should probably do his best to dispel the unease of a girl disturbed by the atmosphere of battle.
“I know the sudden monster attack has made you anxious, Mademoiselle Isuzu. However, while the Adventurer Rundelhaus Code is here, you have nothing to fear! My Orb of Lava is sure to protect the town of Saphir, and you, and Mademoiselles Minori and Serara! In any case, we are a party seasoned by combat! This hardship is no more than a modest trial… And so, Mademoiselle Isuzu, have no fear!!”
She hit him.
Even though he hadn’t been joking.
Still, the attack completely dispelled the haze that had hung over his heart.
His vision cleared, and even t
he things which had been clouded over for him were sharply visible. He’d probably managed to dispel the unease Isuzu felt, and because of that, at the same time, the dismal feeling inside Rundelhaus had disappeared as well. He didn’t really know what he’d been holding inside or why he’d hesitated, but the fact of the matter was that his heart had grown lighter.
Unconsciously, he felt that this very lightness of heart was the Adventurers’ nature. After all, it was the treasure he’d gained in the village of Choushi.
At the time, he’d thought that there was a secret to Adventurer strength. Adventurers’ combat abilities were many times greater than those of the People of the Earth, and he’d assumed that they had some sort of secret magic or tool that they used to develop those abilities. He couldn’t tell Isuzu and the others, but when he’d resolved to participate in the summer training camp, Rundelhaus had been planning to steal that secret method from the Adventurers.
But he’d had it wrong.
The Adventurers didn’t have any secrets like that.
They were strong because that was the sort of beings they were, and it seemed to be more like a curse than a secret or any sort of training. They were unable to return to their home, and in exchange for that tragedy, they’d been given their current combat abilities. Rundelhaus thought one would have to call that a curse, not a blessing.
Then, too, Adventurers were noble people.
Just as they’d done for him, they never abandoned those who were struggling. That was the sort of Adventurer Rundelhaus had wanted to become.
During the battle for Choushi, when he’d clung to the Dire Wolf and shoved his gauntlets into its mouth, his heart had been light.
There had been no terror or regret in it. Only his companions and his mission.
Shiroe, the man who’d saved him, had said that Rundelhaus was already an Adventurer—that by then, his heart had been one of theirs.
Rundelhaus thought that he’d had an Adventurer’s soul, and that was why Shiroe had come along.
Just as it had then, his heart grew lighter. The fist Isuzu had landed on his forehead hadn’t hurt at all.
It had struck him with a thunk, and it seemed to be a method of Adventurer telepathy that Rundelhaus hadn’t yet learned. Masses of heat were born with every heartbeat, and he could tell with clarity that they were racing around inside his chest, carrying energy throughout his body.
“Mademoiselle Isuzu!”
“Honestly. What now?”
Isuzu turned around, pouting, and Rundelhaus waved his staff at her. Invisible mana gave the power of the wind a physical shape, forming a shining blue force field. The force field raised the two of them about ten centimeters off the ground.
“Whoa! Wh-what is this?!”
“It’s the flying spell Lark’s Shoes. At my skill level, we can’t run through the sky, but it will ignore bad roads and increase our movement speed.”
“Whoops—! Um, so… You mean it’ll make us faster?”
Isuzu stepped lightly, testing the transparent platform with her toes, and grinned. Her eyelids were still puffy, but her smile was like a rainbow after rain.
With this, they’d be able to go to the outskirts of town, to the battlefield, or absolutely anywhere. When they broke into a run, their progress was smoother and several times faster than it had been earlier.
Rundelhaus felt deeply satisfied by his choice of magic. It was a spell that demanded prodigious study and vast talent. At this point, unfortunately, he wasn’t able to exercise its full potential. It was all he could do to levitate Isuzu and himself slightly and get them to the battlefield. However, if Isuzu’s smile was his reward, it wasn’t bad at all.
“Nice, Rudy.”
“But of course, Mademoiselle Isuzu. I am a genius Sorcerer, after all!”
“Don’t get full of yourself!”
Even as they bantered, the two of them glided along, roars raining down around them alongside striking metallic echoes. It was the wyverns. Even though they weren’t out of the town yet, a wyvern wounded by arrows dropped out of the sky, shearing away the wall of a ruined building. At its roar, Rundelhaus knew something with certainty.
The fizzing tension he’d felt up until now had belonged to the townspeople. It wasn’t his own. The anxiety and fear of people with nowhere to run had been clinging to the two of them. That was what Rundelhaus had sensed as eyes trained upon him.
However, at this point, it was no hindrance whatsoever.
One step ahead of him, a girl was running through space.
Her braid looked like a brown tail, and Rundelhaus leapt with all his might to keep from losing to it. He’d manifested a fireball near his hand, and he condensed the energy of its magic, then released it all at once. Flare Arrow joined the tip of Isuzu’s spear and ran the wounded wyvern through.
Fearlessly, Rundelhaus and Isuzu joined the defense of Saphir.
2
“I’m going, too! Wolfie!”
Serara broke into a run, worried about Touya, who’d been sent flying on the front line. However, without sparing a glance for her, Minori looked up at Roe2. Technically, Touya and Serara might need her support, but she chose to stay where she was.
She knew instinctively that this conversation with Roe2 was important and that she would probably never get another chance to have it.
Abruptly, her vision grew sharper, and a premonition whispered insistently in her ears. It was the same agitation she’d felt when she’d run off to defend Choushi from the goblins. The same feeling she’d had when she’d decided to support Shiroe at the Production Guild Liaison Committee.
Something had come to Minori and presented her with a choice. Minori held her breath and, inwardly, chose to take a great leap. She might be wrong, and she might regret it. However, she had to choose. She opened her eyes wide. The assumption that she couldn’t do anything was a chain that bound her. She’d learned that earlier in Hamelin. It had been an expensive lesson. For that reason, she’d never forget it.
Touya had run off toward the battlefield. It might not be the same one, but Minori had to stand on her own battlefield.
Minori instinctively felt that her most important opponent was the one currently watching her with great interest.
“You’re sure you don’t need to go over there, Minori?”
Swallowing, Minori nodded.
“I see. That’s the second time you’ve heard that question, isn’t it?”
Minori nodded again. Roe2 gazed at her.
Behind the round glasses, her eyes were intelligent, and Minori knew she was reflected in their luster. It might have been those eyes that made her think Roe2 looked a bit like Shiroe. Her eye color and the shape of her eyebrows were very similar to his. Even more than the shape of those eyes, that pensive expression reminded Minori of her teacher.
“……”
“……”
The two watched each other wordlessly.
Even with the tension in the air, Minori wasn’t the least bit frightened anymore.
This was very odd, and she thought about the reason. This was an Adventurer she didn’t know, someone she’d only met a few days ago. Because the woman spoke candidly, she was easy to warm up to, but considering what she’d said a few moments ago, even if she viewed it favorably, she had to consider her an unknown.
It should have been all right to feel fear or alarm regarding someone like that, but although Minori felt tense, she couldn’t feel any of those other things. The fact that she felt this way struck her as odd, and she remembered it.
Abruptly, Roe2 raised her eyes and looked in the direction of the battlefield.
Following her gaze, Minori saw an ugly fight. The broken battle lines had made systematic combat an impossibility. She didn’t know where the Moving Temple was, but members of the Odysseia Knights who’d probably resurrected there charged indiscriminately at Nightshades and wyverns alike.
Ordinarily, the level difference should have given the Knights an overwh
elming advantage, but the decrease in abilities that followed on the heels of resurrection meant they couldn’t exercise their true power. Not only that, they weren’t even attempting to. They just attacked blindly, killing and being killed, with no regard for aggro management by the Warrior classes or status management by the Recovery classes.
It was a chaotic war of attrition, a lunatic battlefield.
Confusion she’d never seen even in this other world, let alone on peaceful Earth, unfolded before her eyes.
“Awful, isn’t it?”
After she’d nodded in agreement, Minori realized it had been Roe2 who’d spoken.
“That’s really ugly. I’ve never been there, but I think hell’s probably a lot like this. There’s not a single thing to be gained here. Getting involved is terribly risky and lacking in merit. I really can’t understand why they’re doing this… Not that I particularly want to. I doubt it would be possible to recoup the cost of doing so.”
Roe2 spoke to herself, in a voice that was unusually low for a woman’s.
Minori didn’t fully understand what she had said, but her tone seemed to resemble Shiroe’s somehow.
Roe2 and Minori gazed at the battlefield for a while.
A wyvern that had been dragged down to earth and was writhing around as if it had gone mad was killed, the Knight who’d killed it took a Nightshade’s black, flame-like spell in the back, and the confusion deepened.
“That’s not what I meant! Why are you so… There’s gotta be some other way, right, brother? Another way to fight, a better way—”
She heard Touya’s heartrending shout, physically struggling against something.
His voice reached Minori and Roe2 over the party chat. The yell was filled with anger, but what Minori felt was Touya’s sadness. She heard herself in it, the one that couldn’t do anything, that wasn’t allowed to do anything, because she was a child.
That’s not true, she wanted to tell him. There are things you can do. She was saying it to herself as well: There were things she could do. They might be little, trivial things, but she wouldn’t get discouraged over how small they were anymore.
