Repaying Kindness
With those final words of farewell, Harry threw himself backward without a moment's hesitation.
Thud!
"...Huh?"
Freed at last from the shackles that were Frank, he rose for a fleeting instant like an angel taking flight — then his brief soaring ended, and he began to fall.
Thump!
Harry's figure dwindled as he slipped down the slope. The image burned itself into Jun's eyes with perfect clarity.
Thump! Thump!
Their eyes met.
In that instant the world lost all time and color. Only Harry's eyes still held any hue, still moved as if they alone were the whole of existence. Looking at Jun, Harry's eyes curved into a gentle smile.
Snap. Every thought in Jun's head cut out.
"Jun!"
Fortuna's cry — half scream — dragged him back to himself. And then he understood what he was already doing.
Tap-tap!
He was running. And more than that—
Whoosh!
—he was leaping through space.
His legs screamed under the strain of a pace past every limit. His mana cores, still reeling from overload, shuddered as if they might shatter under the reckless magic. But Jun did not stop. His heart hammered like mad; something hot rose in his throat. He clenched his teeth and drove himself harder still.
And so—
"Why?"
"I don't know! My body was already moving!"
—he reached him.
Harry, who until moments ago had been as calm as a man heading off to bed, was now crying. Jun cried with him, and at the same time smiled with a fierce, satisfied joy as he thoroughly ruffled Harry's hair. Then he seized Harry's shoulders in a crushing grip and whispered, desperate:
"Please!"
Just once. Even if this was the last time — that would be enough.
Magic — Blink
Skill — Realize
Flash!
As if answering his wish, the cores burned through their last reserves. Light erupted from them and wrapped Harry's body whole — and in the next breath he was gone, vanishing far across the lake to the opposite shore.
"...You idiot."
"I'm sorry."
Fortuna's scolding. Jun coughed blood as he apologized to her. She only held him tighter, as if she had never found him more precious.
Then the pitch-black lake—
Splash!
—swallowed them both.
Splash!
"...Ah."
The bastard he hated more than anyone had vanished into the lake. From the moment Harry had thrown himself in of his own free will, Frank had been struggling to keep up — and only now did the situation finally click into place.
This is how it ends? Over something this small?
He stared into the water until his eyes ached, but there was no sign of the boy resurfacing. A vast emptiness he had never felt before, a hollow, gutting disappointment, swallowed Frank whole.
I should be happy. That's the right reaction. So why the hell do I feel like this?
He turned the question over and over inside himself, but no answer came. With eyes that would not stop trembling, Frank simply kept staring at the lake.
"What happened? Is the kid actually dead?"
"Hey, brat. Is that lake really that dangerous?"
The two mercenaries who had come chasing after him a little late peered down at the water and asked. Frank wanted nothing more than silence, but their voices rose, and he had no choice but to nod.
"Yes. There are a lot of dangerous creatures living in that lake. The village old-timers always warned us never to go near it."
"What kind of creatures?"
"Hundred-year-old electric eels, man-eating catfish the size of whales, piranhas… and plenty of venomous fish and snakes, too."
"Damn. Is it a mana spot?"
"Ah — yeah, the old-timers said that. Mana pools there, so dangerous things throng to it."
The two mercenaries nodded as if that settled it, then looked at each other.
"With all that, he's definitely dead."
"Living through it would be the weird part."
"Still — is that kid insane? Why jump in with him? If he could run like that, he should've just bolted on his own ages ago."
"Friendship, I guess. Leaves a bitter taste, doesn't it?"
Listening quietly to their exchange, Frank realized something. The mercenaries thought Harry had gone into the lake with Jun.
Well — of course. They never saw Jun pull that stunt with Harry. From their angle, it couldn't have looked any other way.
Frank hesitated. Should he tell them the truth, or not?
In the end, there was nothing to hesitate over. Now that Harry had gotten away, he and the twins could never go back to the village — never go back to the church. Even Leonard, for all his leniency toward Frank and the twins, would never let this slide. So he had to confess the truth as soon as possible and leave the village with these men. Otherwise Leonard and the villagers would catch them for sure, and what followed would not be gentle.
"What?! Why are you only telling us this now?!"
"Calm down. More importantly, brat — did you see where that kid sent the hostage you were holding?"
"No. I didn't catch that much."
"Any chance of catching him?"
"...He's the one who used to climb the mountain with Jun all the time. He definitely knows paths we don't."
Frank shook his head, unconvinced. The mercenaries' faces twisted.
"Damn it! Goddamn it! Why does everything always go to hell like this?!"
"No time to get angry. Move. If we dawdle, the villagers will grab us."
"Shit! Where are we even going?!"
"...As far from Lemumni as we can get."
"What?! Then what about our coins?!"
"We have to write them off. The church is going to hunt us with blood in its eyes. If we head for Lemumni — basically the church's home base — just because we can't let the coins go, we'll be caught in no time."
Faced with his partner's bleak assessment, the furious mercenary snarled and kicked a stone from the ground into the lake. The act seemed to bleed off a little of his rage; he exhaled a long breath and slid his bastard sword back into its scabbard. Then he started trudging back the way they had come. The other mercenary fell in right behind him, and Frank, watching carefully, quietly followed.
Before he could finish his third step, a prickling sensation ran through him. Frank glanced back.
Somewhere in the black lake — right about where that bastard ought to be — blue lightning was thrashing and coiling.
Why was it, he wondered, that those blue bolts made him think of that kid?
Frank stared blankly at the water for a moment, then called out toward the mercenaries.
"H-hey."
"What now?! What is it this time?!"
"We need to hurry. If you've got something to say, spit it out."
Their eyes locked on him. Frank hurried to point at the lake, ready to tell them what he had seen. And yet, for some reason—
"Ah — it's nothing. Looking closer, it's just a mountain animal."
—what slipped from his mouth was not the truth, but a lie.
Glug. Glug.
...Am I going to die like this?
The surface above him shimmered, holding light; air bubbles fled upward as if running for their lives. Jun stared blankly at the scene, then — if only to say he had tried — put every scrap of strength he had into his body.
But his body, unlike usual, refused to obey him at all. No matter how hard he pushed, only his arms moved, and those with agonizing slowness; his legs did not so much as twitch. The cores in his chest and belly, which had always held a brilliant light, had gone completely dark and stopped working.
Will I drown? Or get torn apart?
With effort, Jun turned his head and looked toward the deep reaches of the lake. All manner of creatures were swimming toward him at speed. He would have liked them to be the kind of grateful friends who, in fairy tales and on television, became stepping stones to safety — but the way they worked their jaws and flashed their sharp teeth suggested they were not that sort of friend at all. Least of all the enormous catfish that had its mouth stretched wide as if it meant to swallow him whole. If that thing ate him, he would leave this world without so much as a bone remaining.
It was the worst possible situation. Despair and terror began to eat through his mind; a cold chill crept up from his hands and feet and claimed his whole body. It was so hollow, so cold, he thought he might cry.
Why did I have to go and do something I never do?
He had never been the type who lived to help others. He only ever lent a hand to the people in obvious trouble right in front of him. He had always thought people who risked their lives to save strangers were remarkable, worthy of respect — but he had never once wanted to be one of them. And now he was about to throw away this second life he had barely managed to get, just like that.
Jun hated himself for it.
"Our Juni. You mustn't hate yourself."
In that moment, a soft warmth reached him — the kind that could thaw a frozen body and a frozen heart. As if spellbound, Jun looked down into his own arms.
Fortuna gazed up at him with a smile as warm as sunlight. Behind her, a pure-white wheel of fortune turned clockwise. Both of them poured out a brilliant light, as if determined even now to drive the despair and terror out of him.
"Jun, did you know? The world — the gods — grant luck to those who do good deeds, equal to the good they've done."
"That luck is something no one can control. Sometimes it finds a person terribly quickly… and sometimes far, far too late."
"But there's exactly one being who can freely command what neither the world nor the gods can touch. Do you know who that is?"
Did he even need to ask? She was right in front of him.
"Correct. All right! Our good little Juni — time for your reward!"
And then a radiant light lit the lake from within.