263

Chapter 263 — If It Exists (1)

“We’re finally leaving?”

They had never stayed in any city this long during their travels, yet the substance of their stay consisted of nothing but catastrophic memories.

So the moment Deathbringer heard that they would be leaving Bemurchen, his face lit up.

“Most likely. There is no longer any reason for us to remain.”

Strictly speaking, it was not as though every reason to remain had completely disappeared.

A city that had been blown away was hardly going to recover in only a few months.

The wounds left by this disaster would require at least decades to heal completely.

“The people at the castle will not complain either.”

“They’d better not. After everything we’ve done for them…….”

But even if the city had not completely recovered, it had passed the stage where everything would collapse the moment they left.

Nor was it any longer so precarious that simply withdrawing their help would place it in immediate danger.

Reinforcements sent by several cities were staying here, and reconstruction was proceeding at full speed.

Was that not enough?

With that thought as his foundation, Deathbringer snorted and grumbled.

The fact that his own contribution to the “everything we’ve done for them” was not particularly large was hardly important.

At the very least, the Inquisitor had devoted enough of herself to deserve saying something like that, and as her companion, Deathbringer had at least earned the right to complain on her behalf.

“…Are we really taking that person with us?”

Complaining so long as it stopped short of outright refusal was probably within acceptable limits too.

It would be another matter if that resentment grew enough for him to fight to the bitter end over it or escalated to actual sabotage.

“Daniel wished for it, and the parish over there has granted permission as well. What else are we supposed to do?”

“Tch…….”

What was the saying?

If you hated the Temple, the priest should leave.

But if leaving was impossible, then all you could do was accept it.

In the end, Deathbringer acknowledged Daniel’s addition to the party.

“…I know the two of you do not get along, but do not be too harsh. Even if it had not been Daniel, replenishing our numbers would have been inevitable.”

That was, in fact, true.

With the Demon Knight and Berserk, who had practically been the twin pillars of the party’s combat strength, both gone, they needed to replace the missing manpower.

All the more so because, beyond their overwhelming strength, the Demon Knight and Berserk had also shared the fact that they were close-range fighters.

What the group needed now was a combatant.

Specifically, a combatant capable of handling close-quarters fighting.

“I know that much, y’know.”

In that respect, having Daniel along was hardly a bad thing.

Even if Daniel could not perform on the same level as the two who had left, an experienced Inquisitor would at least satisfy the minimum they needed.

“It’s just… I hate that it had to be that person.”

But human feelings did not fold themselves neatly away just because something was necessary.

Deathbringer vigorously scratched his head and shot to his feet.

The Archmage, who understood that his words did not mean, I refuse to accept this, merely shrugged.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got preparations to make before we leave.”

There was still nothing that could properly be called a market, but there were many ways to obtain supplies.

They might not be able to prepare as thoroughly as they would in another city, but it would still be better than doing nothing at all.

“And our scholar’s looking all melancholy lately…….”

There was also someone he needed to visit—or rather, whose condition he needed to check.

Knowing Deathbringer’s usual way of speaking, the Archmage lowered the corners of her eyes.

“…I wish she would at least tell us what is troubling her.”

At her agreement, Deathbringer narrowed his eyes with an irritated look.

It was absolutely not directed at the Archmage.

The expression had appeared automatically when he remembered the state their scholar had been in lately.

His tail irritably tapped against his cloak and thigh.

“…It’s because of the oracle, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is…….”

What their scholar was agonizing over was obvious.

Was there truly no way to save the Demon Knight?

How were they supposed to interpret the oracle?

It was difficult to imagine anything else causing that straightforward scholar so much anguish.

“Whatever. I’m really going now.”

Yet precisely because she was someone who normally found clear answers to things, this particular problem would be even more grueling and painful.

Even he, who was accustomed to being broken and frustrated, found this so difficult.

For her, going through her first defeat and failure, it had to be even worse.

『If it really is true that the oracle refers to him, and if interpreting it as an order to kill him is correct… am I truly supposed to kill him?』

No.

Perhaps… it was not because this was her first failure at all…….

『With the life he saved? With these arms and legs that remain whole because of him… I’m supposed to kill him?』

Deathbringer lowered his eyelids as his breath caught painfully in his throat.

The scholar who had said those words had not actually expected an answer from him, and he himself had lacked the courage to respond, so he had pretended not to hear the question and let it pass…

But thinking back on it now, it really was cruel.

All he had to do was condemn her by asking how she could possibly do such a thing, or accuse her of repaying kindness with betrayal.

But their scholar was in a position where even that was impossible.

“…Damn it.”

Was it the faith she had upheld all her life?

Or the bond she had formed in a short but intense period of time—even if that connection had been one-sided?

Deathbringer was not particularly devoted to any god, so if he compared the two, he would unquestionably choose the latter.

But if he replaced God with Emmett, the story changed.

He would agonize over the choice every bit as fiercely as she did.

And whichever one he chose… he would probably regret it bitterly.

Whether Emmett or his lord, both held immense value to him.

The instant he abandoned either one, he would never be able to go back to who he had been before.

“Damn.”

And so Deathbringer said nothing about the Inquisitor being unable to choose one side or the other.

She was already suffering enough.

As long as he could do nothing to ease that suffering, he had no right to carelessly add his own words to it.

His knees, which had already carried him outside the tent, bent again.

Both hands came up to clutch his head.

It was an unbearably painful day.

Read only on MUGEX

* * *

“My, my, young man, you sure can eat! Want another bowl?”

At the words suddenly shouted with a laugh by the owner of the inn and eatery, I lowered the spoonful of soup I had just been about to raise.

Smack! Smack!

I’d had a bad feeling about the way she approached me, and sure enough, my suspicion had been right.

Her thick hand slapped me firmly on the back.

“It’s nice seeing someone eat so heartily.”

“Hahaha…….”

I was not particularly fond of other people touching me however they pleased—especially the sort of unsolicited touching people used to express friendliness when we were not even close—but I simply gave an awkward laugh and let it pass.

In an era this ridiculously rough, getting visibly upset over this much roughhousing would only get me called oversensitive—though, honestly, modern times still had a bit of that feeling too.

More than anything, I was actually rather pleased by the very fact that someone could casually hit me like this.

I didn’t mean I wanted to be hit.

It was just that it made me vividly realize how much less afraid people were of me if they felt comfortable enough to treat me carelessly.

At this level, I should at least be able to blend in without making people feel that something about me was off.

Being hit itself might be unpleasant, but that benefit was large enough that I could put up with it.

Smack! Smack!

“Eat more, eat m—!”

“W-wait— Blegh.”

I could put up with it, but that did not mean I could stop a body plastered in debuffs from coughing up blood after getting slapped on the back a few times.

Drip.

The instant blood spilled from my mouth, the owner blinked several times.

“Whaaaat!? Young man, are you all right?!”

“I-I’m fine.”

I knew the debuffs were having a huge effect, but still.

Wasn’t coughing up blood just because an ordinary civilian had smacked me on the back seven times a little much?

I swallowed down my stream of complaints and awkwardly wiped up the blood with a handkerchief.

The owner, who had gone deathly pale, brought me a cloth, which let me clean it up a little more thoroughly.

“Y-you don’t have some kind of illness, do you……?”

“Nothing like that. I’ve just been physically frail since birth…….”

Naturally, I carefully cleaned the blood off the table as well.

I could not tell whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that none of it had gotten into my food.

If I ate it again, maybe I could at least recover some of the iron I had lost.

“Oh dear, I see…….”

In any case, I had at least avoided being mistaken for someone carrying some disease.

I happily resumed eating at that realization—which was only natural, because the moment anyone mistook me for having an infectious disease, getting thrown out of the city would be the easiest thing in the world.

The innkeeper no longer interrupted me either, so I could move my spoon in peace.

“Want some more of this, at least?”

“Ah, I’d be grateful.”

Instead—or perhaps afterward—I received a little pity and charity.

My feelings about it were complicated, but if I had to categorize it, it was not exactly a bad thing.

I gratefully accepted the newly provided potato salad and stuffed it into my mouth.

Made from mashed potato mixed with kernels of corn and seasoned only with salt, the salad was actually quite decent as a palate cleanser.

“Hey, scholar. You really think you can travel around with a body that coughs up blood like that?”

Just as I was nearly finished eating it, however, I received some new visitors.

A group of swaggering Adventurers.

“I am at least capable of looking after myself…….”

I gave the three Adventurers an ambiguous smile.

I could neither explain that I was strong nor admit that I was weak, so I had chosen a third answer instead.

After all, just because I was going around pretending I did not even own a sword in order to erase any connection to the Demon Knight, that did not mean the strength I already possessed had evaporated.

And just because I was using a disguise skill, it was hardly as though I had become weak enough to be incapable of subduing a single cat.

“Come on, don’t be like that. Don’t you need an escort or something?”

But these people did not know that.

They did not know, which was why they were acting this way.

How unfortunate.

“I don’t know.”

I smoothly adjusted the glasses resting on the bridge of my nose and watched what they did.

Flies like these had never gathered around me when I was acting as the Demon Knight.

Apparently a disguise that gave me an ordinary appearance with no air of intimidation could work too well.

It was somehow both funny and sad.

“I haven’t needed one so far.”

Separate from that, what would be the best way to handle this situation?

I tapped the table as I considered how to placate them and send them away.

“Just because you haven’t needed one until now doesn’t mean that’ll stay true foreverrr. So how about it? Want to hire us? If you do, we’ll give you a special half-price deal this time.”

“Yeeah. You don’t get opportunities like this often, you know?”

“And if you don’t have cash, payment in goods is fine too! Things like that earring or those glasses.”

As they spoke, one of the Adventurers trying to pressure me into the deal swaggered over and took a place in front of me.

I never said they could join my table.

Before that, did they have some disease that made their ears selectively stop working?

The words that almost slipped out of my mouth were rather far removed from my actual personality.

“Come on, yeah? We’ll do it for half price, so—”

Ah.

I guess I really had spent too long acting out a foul-tempered persona.

A nasty sentence had come to mind almost as a spinal reflex.

If I’d kept this up just a little longer, I might have actually kicked him too.

Wham!

“Waaagh!”

“B-Bro!”

But at the exact moment I had that thought, the table I had been sitting at flipped toward the other side.

As a bonus, the food bowls lined up across it went airborne and crashed all over the Adventurer.

The scattering food—mashed potatoes—and flying wooden bowls entered my vision almost in slow motion.

…What?

I didn’t use my foot.

I really didn’t.

I didn’t use my hands either.

Don’t tell me I’ve become capable of flipping tables just by imagining it now?

Is that it!?

“How truly marvelous. One would think it difficult for a living creature to be quite this base and filthy.”

Thank god.

It had not been my foot or my instincts that had tried to flip the table.

Hair the color of clear water—no, an even more vivid Tiffany blue—fluttered softly.

“I praise you. Among all I have ever seen, you rank within the top three for filth.”

It was as though pieces of jade had transformed into threads and begun swaying in the air.

“And who the hell are y—”

“Innkeeper.”

The person who had overturned the table on my behalf ignored the Adventurers as they angrily surged to their feet and turned around.

With the movement, brilliantly white fabric fluttered and spread.

The outfit could hardly be called a dress, since its lower half was not a skirt, yet it was too heavily ornamented to be called a uniform.

It was absolutely not something an ordinary person could wear.

A high noble, at the very least—or failing that, someone with comparable wealth.

“I will compensate you. Take the money.”

The way the person tossed a coin toward the innkeeper told the same story.

Handing over a silver coin that casually?

At the very least, this was no ordinary person constantly scraping for money.

“Th-thank you. If you wait just a moment, I’ll bring your change…….”

“Unnecessary.”

“Y-yes.”

The question was why this person had helped me…….

I silently stared at the one who had helped without offering me so much as a word.

Noticing my gaze, the other person turned to look at me as well.

Set in a face so pale and pristine that it seemed never to have spent a day working beneath the sun were mysterious blue-green eyes—like cracked sheets of thin ice, or like emeralds split along cleavage planes so that light passed through them in strange ways.

“Th-thank you.”

Still, curiosity was curiosity, and gratitude was gratitude.

Before trying to guess why the stranger had acted, I hurriedly bowed my head.

The other person had been smiling with the exquisite perfection of a doll molded from porcelain, yet with not a trace of warmth.

At my words, she turned away once more.

“There is no need for thanks. I did not act because I wished to help you.”

Whether it was an ornament or something she had been born with, the black streak woven through her blue-curaçao bangs swayed along with the movement of her head.