Chapter 12
“I didn’t expect you to be curious about an empty relationship like ours.”
“I-I wasn’t curious out of nowhere, I was just confirming the facts.”
“Ah. Confirming. My lover?”
Garing at him, Elio unconsciously rubbed the cheek and lips the man’s fingers had brushed against.
“If you two are lovers, there are certain boundaries I need to be mindful of. You don’t need to hide anything from me, so please just be honest.”
“Mindful of what?”
Elio hesitated. Through the bangs disheveled by the breeze, the man’s wild-beast-like eyes, staring straight at her, were deep and calm.
“…Just… never mind, forget it.”
Faced with the man’s furrowed brow, Elio quickly changed the subject.
“W-well, anyway, I know you went easy on me during the spar.”
“……”
“My big sis was a lot faster than you.”
Meeting the man’s surprised gaze, Elio added with a bit of excitement.
“When my big sis makes up her mind to move, you can’t even see her body. She isn’t just good at swordsmanship like knights; she’s great at hand-to-hand combat and can take on twenty against one. There’s nothing she can’t do. Her self-defense skills are truly top-tier. She’s probably stronger than most knights, you know?”
At the woman’s proud and joyful attitude, Carlos let out an absurd, dry chuckle and asked in a low voice where on earth that woman was now.
Blinking her round eyes at him, she smiled.
“Probably in heaven.”
With one more bright, lingering smile, she shoved greens into her mouth until her cheeks were stuffed.
“The woman Akiten mentioned. Who do you think it is?”
“You mean that woman with one arm missing?”
In the parlor attached to the largest guest room of the inn, thick with muggy humidity, Carlos lit a cigar.
Leon, who had been polishing and laying out all the magic stones across the center table of the parlor, spoke as if he had been waiting for the chance.
“It might even be Valentin…”
“Valentin is dead.”
Carlos cut him off coldly.
“Since northern ancient characters were written on it, she could very well be from the Kingdom of Cyprus.”
“…Well, right. Should we look into her? A one-armed female swordsman isn’t all that common. She could be a relative of Valentin…”
Tap. Tap-tap.
Leon’s lingering words mingled with the sound of rain drumming against the window.
“…But isn’t it really possible it’s Valentin? I still can’t believe Valentin died just because of the vicious dragon. Given the skills of both Valentin and Yunus, they could easily hold their own against the Lobitan knights.”
“……”
“What if that one-armed woman really is Valentin, and she’s just alive in seclusion due to severe injuries? Wouldn’t there be information we could get about the dragon? We came back empty-handed from this dragon subjugation expedition, too. Damn it. We need to find the dragon quickly. Before we find it, Madam is going to pass away.”
Carlos took a deep drag of his cigar and loosely flicked the ashes.
At the sound of the puppy’s continued whimpering echoing from the courtyard, he finally rubbed his face wearily and turned around. Leaning against the railing, he stared out into the gloomy, dark window.
Elio walked down the inn hallway with soft, measured steps, as if walking through a dream.
Her drowsy little footsteps passed the stairs and lightly touched the first-floor landing.
“…Calm down a bit! I’m just saying we should look into her again.”
“Dammit! Just look into her? Valentin? If we find her, we ought to tear her limb from limb! That’s why I said we shouldn’t make it about that woman! If we dig up that traitor now, what are we supposed to do with her? Kill the mother and spare the daughter? After praying for her soul every single year for a whole ten years, it makes my blood boil just thinking about how I only belatedly found out she was a spy!”
As Elio frantically glanced around the empty first-floor dining area with round eyes, she spotted Toby and Leon frozen in a cold silence.
“……”
“……”
They seemed to be shouting just a moment ago. Their eyes met, but not a single word was uttered. As the air grew increasingly frigid, Elio swallowed hard, clinging tightly to the stair railing.
They hate me.
The needle-sharp silence of the men, transmitting clearly without a word, pricked at her skin. Trembling her lips, Elio instinctively looked up toward the second floor, searching for them like a fledgling looking for its mother.
At that moment, Carlos’s door opened.
Her throat tightened even further because of the man, who sighed with a cool expression the moment their eyes met.
Carlos brushed back his disheveled hair and pulled out a gold cigar case. A tunic loose enough to expose his collarbone gave off a languid vibe.
Why are you shaking?
Elio stared blankly at the mouth of the gangster-like man whispering threats.
Wh-what is he even saying?
Just as Elio frowned, Toby raised his voice in a loud shout.
“Leon! Toss me some cloth! Damn it! The bleeding won’t stop, what a pain.”
“If you’re that old, why don’t you just step down as vice-commander? Are you bleeding just from barely catching a few gargoyles after working your ass off?”
Leon casually tossed a roll of cloth resting on the table.
Elio flicked her gaze back and forth between the ill-tempered mage and Toby’s bleeding forearm, moistening her lips.
Clenching and unclenching her sweat-slicked hands, she stood there like an invisible person before stepping hesitantly toward Toby.
“Shit. What.”
“Sh-shi…”
At the sudden profanity, Elio widened her eyes, causing Toby to vigorously scratch the back of his neck and twist his expression into a scowl.
“…I’m always like this, so don’t expect any commander’s-fiancée treatment from me. If you expect that crap, call off the engagement right now.”
“Wh-who asked to be treated like a fiancée? I don’t need it either!”
Standing three steps away from Toby, Elio stretched out her arms like a long-armed monkey to hand it over.
Her eyes rolled like an orphaned baby bird’s before drifting back up toward the second floor.
Carlos was staring straight down at her from the top of the stair railing.
“What is it?”
“…It’s a potion.”
Elio startled and lowered her gaze again. Her mouth felt bone-dry.
“What about a potion?”
“You said your bleeding wasn’t stopping.”
Up close, the wound looked quite deep. She was flabbergasted to see him downing beer in that state without even properly tending to his wounds.
“When did you get hurt… You should stop the bleeding right away…”
“Hurt when? You were fast asleep in the wagon like a log, Lady.”
“A lady sleeping away is how she helps out. Why on earth are monster pups coming all the way down into the village? Even with the vicious dragon gone, there’s no end to this. At this rate, won’t a full-scale monster war break out?”
The men, who had openly criticized her, started chatting noisily among themselves.
Did monsters attack on the way to the inn?
Elio swallowed hard, her face burning red. Since she really had been fast asleep, she hadn’t even caught a glimpse of a monster’s fingernail.
Did Carlos deliberately choose not to wake her? Wait, how did she manage to sleep through a fight with monsters? And why on earth did monsters come all the way down to the village?
Along with all sorts of questions, she began to wonder why Carlos hadn’t made her get out of the wagon this time.
While a wave of relief washed over her—wondering if the test regarding her had finally come to an end—anxiety crept in right behind it. She worried that perhaps he had judged her to be a useless, cowardly lady who couldn’t even properly lift a sword, and thus decided she wasn’t worth looking at anymore. …I still don’t have any money. What if he kicks me out right now?
“Why are you wasting a potion on a scratch like that? I told you to hurry up and step down as vice-commander.”
Leon sneered as he watched Toby stare blankly at the potion.
“Th-that’s not just a scratch. If it gets infected, it’ll fester and you could run a fever. This has great effectiveness…”
The moment Elio stammered out a reply, Toby furrowed his brow.
“Shit. Do you take me for some weakling like you, Lady? Use it on yourself, and stop being a nuisance to us. The mage is our core attacking force; are you trying to make him waste his precious mana just to heal a Lady’s fingernail?”
At the man’s blatant hostility and picking a fight, Elio stiffened at the back of her neck. It was only now that she remembered how her wounded hands had healed all on their own after digging through the mud, and a surge of sorrow welled up inside her.
Suppressing the urge to look up at Carlos on the second floor, she curled her trembling fingertips inward.
A chillingly low sigh from the man dropped beside her ear.
“…I’m sorry. But I didn’t ask for it. I’ll take care of things myself from now on, so you don’t need to use healing magic-“
“Please treat me as your fiancée. Making a fuss over a tiny bit of mana like that.”
Elio flinched and raised her head at the man’s voice echoing over hers.
“I am a fragile little bunny rabbit. To think you’d all gang up to pick on a weak little bunny rabbit—you lot must have consciences dirtier than beggar’s rags.”
“Shit… The commander’s the one without a conscience.”
Toby wore a menacing scowl as he watched Carlos speak in a languid tone.
Elio blinked her mouth open and shut toward Carlos, who was standing right behind her. He flicked a flame to his cigar and smiled sharply. A thick plume of smoke drifted leisurely away.
“I’m terrified. Please wipe that filthy expression off your face. The heart of a terribly weak little bunny rabbit is about to give out from fright. Even though I am a mere bunny rabbit…”
“D-don’t call me a bunny rabbit!”
Elio shouted at him with a flushed face.
Carlos raised an eyebrow.
Red all the way to the back of her neck, Elio bit her lip once more, chewing on it nervously. She cleanly ignored the man who kept teasing her by calling her a bunny rabbit over and over again. He was the absolute most irritating sight.
“What, are you only good for a loud voice? Stop shaking like that, dammit. Who’s going to eat you?”
Toby clicked his tongue at Elio’s trembling hands and nudged the potion bottle with his clumsy thumb.
“I’ll open it for you.”
Even with her heart hammering as if it might burst, a sudden thought crossed Elio’s mind: Maybe I could actually sell this potion to the Lobitan knights right now?
It was only because they weren’t used to using healing potions, but if they just tried it once, they would definitely come to love it.
“…This is actually super effective. For bruises or shallow cuts, applying it about three times will clear it right up. Of course, you have to soak it generously, and that costs a fair bit, but it’s cheaper than calling a mage or healer. If you return home injured, your wife will be heartbroken, you see…!”
“Wife, my foot? It’ll be a miracle if that brown bear even has a girlfriend.”
As Leon shuddered in disgust, Toby furrowed his brow and opened his mouth as if to shout something back.
Elio quickly cut in.
“You don’t have one? I naturally assumed you did.”
“Who? That brown bear… Sir Toby?”
Wasn’t he the spitting image of an uncle who clearly looked like he had kids? Elio blinked rapidly before nodding.
“You’re the vice-commander of Lobitan, the continent’s premier knight order, so naturally you’d be popular with ladies. Lobitan is every lady’s dream and object of envy…”
Elio swallowed hard and let her voice trail off.
Both Leon and Toby were staring at her with fierce, piercing glazes.
“…That slick-tongued way of talking of hers is an exact carbon copy of a spy’s.”
