Did You Come to Save Me?
"Is it this way, this time?"
"Just wait a little longer."
"..And just how long am I to keep waiting?"
For a while now, Shino had done nothing but shuttle them this way and that, offering nothing but requests to wait. How much longer was he expected to wait? Even steadying the Saintess — drained to the last drop by all the running — was beginning to wear on him.
At first, he had been purely, simply glad. At the fact that he could go and save Aria.
"Hello? Jenison... no, wait — should I be calling you Baron Jenison now?"
"..What brings you here?"
"Well... I figured it was about time someone told you, now that you've received your title and all─"
"We leave. Now."
"Wh-what? W-wait a moment!!"
He vanished on the spot, without so much as a backward glance. Having heard what he'd heard, there was no reason to linger a second longer. She had said from the very beginning that all he needed was to secure his title, after all.
...
"Huh? Why? Aren't you going?"
Partway through that relentless run, he had brought them to a halt. She had assured him that Aria herself would come to no harm, but... preparing for the unforeseen never hurt anyone, did it?
"Hold on. There is someone I must collect along the way."
"Huh? Someone else, from here?"
"Yes. Someone absolutely indispensable."
"I can hide them, but... my power tops out at one person."
"No matter. That one person is all I need."
"Where — who exactly... are you out of your mind?"
Her protest at the direction my finger pointed ran a little hot, but what did that matter? The Saintess herself had said she would help me.
And so, one way or another, we succeeded in slipping out of the Imperial Palace. Shino's magic was a convenient thing — without warning it had wrapped us in darkness, and in the next breath, whisked us elsewhere entirely. However many times I witnessed it, it remained a remarkably useful spell for saving time.
"There — you can open your eyes now!"
"Ugh... all that darkness left me feeling..."
"..Where is this?"
When we opened our eyes inside the darkness once more, a scene wholly unlike the one before had spread out around us. Not an interior dressed in plush crimson carpet and glittering chandeliers — instead, a snow-white cloak, looking for all the world as though it had been sewn from pure fur, stood there to greet us.
"Where... is this? No — first things first, just why did you bring me here..."
...
"Now, this is the very place where she's being held...?"
"H-held? Where on earth have you people taken me?"
I reached out and laid a hand on that snow-white cloak. Not because it was finely wrought, and not because it was beautiful. Simply because that cloak was far, far too familiar to my eyes.
"Jenison, what's wrong?"
"What's the matter with you?"
...
A cloak white as a fresh snowdrift. I remembered it well. The north — a land ringed with snowy peaks — and the wild beasts whose pelts had bleached themselves snow-white under that climate. From exactly such fur, a master craftsman had stitched this cloak together, one painstaking seam at a time.
The hammer-and-anvil crest planted boldly at its center proved as much. That emblem certified the garment as the work of an artisan formally recognized by the imperial household.
Naturally, goods of this caliber were not things just anyone could come by. Not unless they were a noble wielding considerable power.
...
"..Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"
"You're looking a bit off...?"
"..Lady Charlotte."
"Hm?"
"Would you tell me... where exactly this place is?"
From this alone, I had a private suspicion of the kidnapper's identity — and I prayed, with everything in me, that I was wrong. It couldn't be that man. Kidnapping his own daughter, of all things. And a man who had been sitting face to face with me only hours before, no less.
Locking his own daughter away in a room was one thing — but then to show his face at an official banquet as if nothing whatsoever had happened? With that kind of gall? No. It was far more plausible that Charlotte's information was simply mistaken. Yes. Surely that was it.
"We're inside the Reinhardt Ducal Estate?"
But there was no twist coming. Cruelly, brutally, none at all. I had no desire to hear another word. There was only one thought left in my head: I had to get Aria out of this godforsaken place — the sooner, the better.
Perhaps ten minutes had passed since we opened that door and pressed on. And right now, we were...
"No, not that way — I'm telling you, we have to go this way, no matter what!"
"No... as I remember it, this way is the sure one..."
"Ugh, honestly!! The alarm wards laid everywhere mean we have to zigzag our way through!!"
We were hard at work hunting for the right path. Somewhere inside this sprawling mansion — one every bit as vast as a ducal estate's name demanded.
"Hah... hah..."
"..Say, was there really any need to bring the Saintess along?"
The head of the woman still laboring for breath dipped in a nod all on its own. Even turning it over herself, she couldn't fathom why she'd been hauled to this place.
"Hah... huff... in case someone... got hurt... huff..."
"One can never be too careful. What if some other ailment had befallen Aria's body?"
"..She didn't look like she had a single problem when I saw her, though?"
"...?!"
The moment Charlotte's baffled remark ended, the Saintess's glare swung straight at Jenison — a look that plainly demanded: then why, exactly, did you drag me all the way here?
"..There is always the 'what if,' you see."
"Y-you... honestly... hah..."
And the moment Jenison, caught beneath that gaze, let his eyes drift subtly away, hers began to blaze as they never had before — with resentment, of all things.
"..Even so, the Saintess really does look like she's at her limit."
As if to second those words, the Saintess's head bobbed up and down, pouring every last ounce of her strength into the plea: please, please, just let us go a little slower.
Wh-what... do these people simply not tire...?
Had anyone else been watching, they might have sneered — who on earth wears out from this token bit of exertion? — but to her, those ten short minutes had felt like five full hours. Her entire world, after all, began and ended within the Church's walls, and even when she ventured out to treat the sick, she went by carriage — even when the destination lay close enough that a stumble would have brought her nose to the door.
"C-could we not simply walk a distance like this?"
"Absolutely not, Saintess!!"
"We could never allow your precious feet to touch such common dirt!!"
"B-but I am wearing shoes..."
Thanks to the Church's suffocating overindulgence, her body had had no choice but to wither year after year — until at last she became a hopeless case, unable even to manage a proper ten-minute run. A complete stranger to exercise.
..Fine, I'll grant it for that man... but how is Lady Shino still perfectly fresh after running all that way?
..The Saintess is glaring daggers at me. Did I do something wrong?
"..Could you not manage something with a different spell?"
"What sort of spell?"
"Recovering the body's fatigue with holy magic, perhaps..."
"Oh! I'll try it right now.."
"..If it takes, that is."
The instant Jenison finished speaking, the Saintess drew up her Holy Power without a moment's hesitation — swallowing, deep down, a whispered thank goodness. She had never put it into words, but she knew perfectly well that her feeble stamina had become a burden to them all.
But with holy magic at her command, the fatigue of this paltry body was nothing...!
"..Huh?"
And yet here, another problem reared its head: her holy magic simply refused to activate. Alarmed that something might have gone wrong with her Holy Power itself, she examined it at once — and thankfully, it rose up bright and unimpaired.
"Huh... then why...?"
"I had a feeling that would happen."
"...?"
"I never mentioned it, but this entire mansion sits beneath a barrier that nullifies magic."
"Th-that's...!!"
"If not for that, there'd have been no need to trudge along on foot like this... seeing as I have my own magic, too."
It was a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Just as it seemed this walking burden's lot might improve, if only by a sliver─
"Wh-what?! You! What do you think you're doing?!"
That was the moment. The Saintess — slumped on the floor this entire time — felt her body drawn upward, and in the same breath she soared into the empty air. No, to be precise, she had been settled firmly upon someone's back.
"W-wait... put me down!!"
"Time is short, so I must beg your forgiveness for this breach of courtesy."
"I don't forgive you!! I absolutely won't!!"
"Lady Charlotte, pray continue leading the way."
"R-right."
"Eek..! Would somebody please listen to me!!"
..If only I could sever this one thing.
At that very moment, inside the gilded cage of this vast, luxurious estate — the bird trapped within it. Aria was showing a rare glimmer of drive. Perhaps because she had finally understood that sitting idle and pathetic would resolve absolutely nothing.
First... if I can just get this thing off somehow, my own magic can handle the rest..!
She was now throwing her entire strength into snapping the Mana Restraint clasped snug around her right wrist — a device whose appearance could, at a glance, easily pass for an ordinary bracelet. Of course, she could not let the other servants catch her at it. They, too, were in the end the ducal house's own people. The eyes and ears of Duke Reinhardt, so it was said.
Right now... if I can just sever this somehow..!
Knock, knock─
That was when the sound of knuckles rapping on her door rang through the room. Aria paid it no mind. It was bound to be the servants. Short of outright madness, no one would dare barge uninvited into a duke's daughter's chamber — refusing to answer was all it took.
Knock, knock─
Knock, knock─
Knock, knock─
But the servant beyond the door, apparently a stranger to the very concept of giving up, kept knocking and knocking — and with every rap, Aria's patience wore a little thinner. Still, she forced herself to ignore it. Without her express permission, no one could set foot inside this room. Absolutely no one...
Creeeak─
At the sound of the door swinging open, Aria hurriedly swathed herself in the blanket — lest the truth of what she'd been doing to the restraint come to light.
"Walking into my room without so much as asking leave... have you lost your mind?"
"...?"
"..Hah, get out. Now. You're grating on my─"
"..Aria?"
Her head, buried in the blankets, shot up at once. Because a voice she should never have heard had just reached her. A voice that could not be here — that had no right to be here — and yet the one she had longed, so desperately, to hear.
"..Big brother?"
Her family stood there at the door. Watching her with those black eyes, just as he always had.