Chapter 83
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 83
Chapter Title: Festival - 12
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I brought another glass of water to Sua.
She was still shouting for more alcohol in a completely intoxicated state right beside me, but judging from the sheer volume of cold water she'd drunk so far, her stomach was more than full enough.
This was probably going to be the last glass.
She'd take a few sips and then be done with it.
"Phew, chasing her out of the village. That's a bolder response than I expected."
"Ah, she used such extreme language because she was offended. Delion doesn't actually intend to do that..."
"I'm not going to make a fuss over something like this. I know better than anyone that Sua has a straightforward personality. It's fine, so keep going with the story."
'After fighting like that, she's even defending him now.'
Of course, it wasn't a light or casual tale by any means.
Delion's hostility toward Sua far exceeded what I'd anticipated.
But sweeping the issue under the rug and pretending it didn't exist could never be the right answer.
'On the contrary, it's making me curious.'
Even if I nodded past the motive for his actions, the matter of actually carrying them out still loomed for him.
Looking at it objectively, no viable method came to mind for Delion to drive Sua out of the village.
Blindly resorting to force wasn't even worth attempting.
No matter how many days or months he poured into that approach, the results would obviously be nil.
Forming an atmosphere where the majority of village residents, including me, rejected Sua's presence.
It was an extreme example, but if a single adventurer attacked a resident with a weapon, everyone would agree to bar that adventurer from the village.
That was likely what they meant by "finding justification."
Sua no longer had any affiliation.
The responsibility for her actions fell solely on her, and the guards could take justified measures against adventurers harming the village for its sake.
Without notifying the group's leader or seeking consensus, they could impose punishment on the individual adventurer.
They could detain her for a set period, like with Fria.
Or restrict her from approaching the village, just as Delion desired.
Of course, if Sua rejected the sanctions and went on a rampage, Delion alone couldn't prevent damage to the village.
But even without enforcing the punishment due to the power gap, it would still be fine.
Irrespective of the sanctions' effectiveness, simply seizing an incident and officially declaring refusal of her settling in the village would suffice.
That was the outcome Delion sought.
If she committed a wrongdoing that made the sanctions feel justified, I couldn't side with her even if I tried.
For now, with Sua enjoying her rest in the village without any pressure, it seemed Delion hadn't yet unearthed a crime to drag to the surface against her.
"So, how?"
"That's..."
"Whether it's a plan or something already underway, there's got to be something, right?"
"What Delion's thinking to escalate things like this..., even I don't know that far."
Koon hadn't heard any concrete plans.
He only knew that Delion left his post multiple times during shifts and, even after hours, patrolled the village all night under the guise of rounds.
Wandering the village aimlessly in the dark hours was suspicious in itself.
"So it's suspicion without evidence?"
"There's definitely something he's zeroed in on."
Sua kept alternately sipping from and setting down her water glass.
She was enjoying a jobless lifestyle so thoroughly that she'd admit it herself, with no fixed routine to speak of.
If hunting slimes with me counted as one, then she had at least that.
"Delion said that mage is definitely tampering with the village all night."
"Evidence?"
"He claims the day the presences started being felt matches the day Sua began living here."
She surely wasn't holed up in her room the entire time she was out of my sight, so maybe Delion's hunch was right and she was up to something.
I just didn't know about it.
"What the hell do you even do all day, anyway?"
"Suuuaaa...!"
"Forget it. My bad for asking."
Asking now wasn't the time.
Only after Sua sobered up would a proper conversation be possible.
Right now, she was like a toddler who'd lost her grasp on language.
"Every night shift, Delion kept sensing presences. But I felt nothing."
"Delion might have keener ears, or it could be a misunderstanding of nothing at all. Reasons depend on how you frame it."
"On the worst nights, he'd spot someone passing, hand his post to me, and charge off. He didn't find anything special those times either."
Did he think that presence was Sua?
I couldn't imagine why Sua would sneak around at night.
She genuinely saw the first floor as a peaceful, livable haven.
Who would wreck their own home with their own hands?
"To me, it looks like he wants to believe it's Sua."
"Pardon?"
"If Sua were really moving at night to harm the village, there wouldn't have been a presence."
There were plenty of spells to mask one's presence, and Sua could use several now.
Whether a presence even existed was dubious, and if it did, it wasn't hers.
High chance his subconscious bias toward pinning suspicious events on Sua steered his thoughts.
"It's not incomprehensible. Given past incidents, being sensitive to this is natural."
"True, back then you all were as exhausted as me—no, more so."
During the time rumors about me spread to the upper guilds, the village was overrun by covert adventurers.
Not just nights—even days had them lurking in building nooks, tailing me.
While that mess resolved, the guards endured stress rivaling mine.
"I thought Delion's suspicions had low odds too. I'd usually let it slide without comment..."
Koon had subconsciously shared my view, and the argument dredged up words best left unsaid.
Something along the lines of dropping the conspiracy theories and cutting the nonsense.
He didn't detail what slipped out—deeming it childish folly—but if it stung that badly, I could picture the harshness.
This was the reverse scale Koon had prodded, and Delion's foolishness to boot.
Delion's bid to manufacture justification for ousting Sua would take considerable time.
"Even if Sua harbored some nefarious plot, she clearly lacks the skill to detect our movements. Doesn't seem her style either."
"Hold on. But he handed his post to you?"
"...Did I say that?"
"Yeah. Your shifts are opposites—how?"
"Ah, that..."
Days of surveilling residents' lives alongside the overseer came to mind.
Seo Ji-woo had even remarked:
"The guards here must be underpaid. They forage and deliver themselves."
Koon's figure, arms caked in dirt, emerging from the forest entrance lingered in memory.
At the hour Delion should guard the entrance, Koon—who fatigue wouldn't let sleep—was in the woods.
It wasn't a one- or two-day whim.
Just as Delion chased Sua's supposed presence nightly, Koon haunted the forest every night.
This was the reverse scale Delion had prodded, and Koon's foolishness besides.
"I don't know the details of what you do in the forest, but it doesn't strike me as foolish."
"No. It's foolish—to Delion's eyes and mine."
"You're still at it?"
"Yes. Up to yesterday."
As Seo Ji-woo's words suggested, money wasn't the motive.
A knowingly foolish habit impossible to quit couldn't stem from finances.
Not hatred like Delion's, but some personal, hard-to-articulate cause.
"Spilling it all out, it's ridiculously childish."
"Regret makes the past feel nothing but shameful."
"Yet I lack the guts to apologize first. Too long acquainted, maybe?"
"Festival's got time left—talk it out again. Opportunity will come."
Alcohol's virtue might lie in chipping at emotional walls, I mused.
"Thanks to you, it's clearer now. Sorry for stealing your time."
"No big deal. The folks I was drinking with all—"
"More booze!"
"...are in this state."
In the interim, she'd drained the water glass.
Now my collar was clutched in Sua's hand.
"How can you crave more after all that water?"
"Even I'm amazed. Anyway, where's Ellie? She was with us at the start."
"Ah, Ellie got smashed first—couldn't pace herself. So I laid her on that bench earlier..., Huh? Where is she?"
Ellie, whom I'd placed on the long bench, was gone.
The outer garment I'd pillowed under her head was missing too.
"Right now..., she's behind your back?"
Ellie had woken from her nap.