9
Chapter 9
I blankly watched the scene unfolding before my eyes.
White hair and black eyes.
A girl possessing an inhuman beauty soared freely through the sky.
And then, a massive prey was split in half in an instant.
Very cleanly.
With just a single swing of a blade.
However, what left me flustered wasn't such an overwhelming display of force.
I saw a girl sobbing. I saw a girl crying sorrowfully all by herself.
Why on earth was that child crying? After hunting down her enemies so skillfully. She should be rejoicing, so why was she looking so sad?
I couldn't understand it.
But, if there was one thing I could be certain of.
'......Rien?'
It was that this child was the reason I came here.
It was exactly the same as with Ciel.
In this kind of situation, with such a distinct appearance, there was no way a girl crying and suffering all alone just happened to be here by chance.
Not a coincidence, but an inevitability.
A predetermined encounter.
However, if there was a problem.
'......What on earth should I do?'
I knew that her appearance and her tears meant she had a story behind them.
Still, I didn't have the silver tongue of a protagonist.
There was no way I had any experience comforting a crying child.
If this were like the original story, the protagonist would have somehow comforted her, resolved her trauma, and fixed the problems she held inside.
But I didn't know how to do that.
Even up until the moment I revealed myself to the girl, I couldn't guess how I should act.
However,
"I told you not to come.... I said don't come closer......."
I could tell that the sorrowfully crying child's words were a lie. I knew she wanted someone to stay by her side.
I couldn't help but know.
Because of that, I slowly approached the girl.
One step at a time. Slowly.
And then,
"W-What on earth are you doing?"
I embraced the girl.
That was what the girl asked.
But contrary to her words, she didn't try to pull away from my embrace.
As if she just needed something to hold onto.
As if she needed someone to lean on, she gripped me with weakly trembling hands.
I wasn't used to this kind of situation. Naturally. Just how many people have ever experienced something like this?
But even so, I couldn't bring myself to let go of those small hands gripping me so precariously.
I hugged her tight, over and over again, as she shed her tears.
Babbling clumsy words like how it would be okay, how she would feel better after crying a bit more.
Like that, time flowed on endlessly.
The girl's sorrow slowly dulled as well.
It was a wondrous thing.
Simply having someone stay by your side, just letting you know they are there—that is how a person's sorrow is healed.
I blankly looked up at the sky.
As I did, I briefly thought of my mother, who used to do this for me.
It wasn't as if I particularly wanted to go back to my original world to see the family I left behind.
My mother and father had both been gone for over ten years. Now, their faces were fading from my memory.
It was just... maybe because the night sky was so beautiful. I was merely feeling a little sentimental.
Just a little, a very tiny bit.
I just thought that I missed them.
*****
[Sovereign's Grace suppresses the energy of ■■'s ■■.]
Such an incomprehensible message flashed before my eyes.
Perhaps it had no intention of letting me see it now. It vanished in less than 0.1 seconds, so I couldn't even read it properly.
I tinkered with it here and there, wondering if a message saying the Status Window had been restored had popped up. But as expected, it only spouted nonsense about resetting some path or whatever, giving me nothing but silence.
Eventually, I pulled my attention away from the Status Window and focused on a much more pressing matter.
"Y-You. Now that I think about it, who exactly are you? And why did you suddenly do something like that?"
The girl babbled on incoherently.
Well, thinking about it, it was a perfectly normal reaction.
I had been overwhelmed by the atmosphere, and some childhood memories had surfaced, prompting me to hug her on impulse. But looking back on it, it was definitely a crazy thing to do.
A man she was seeing for the first time, ignoring the girl shouting for him to stay away, forcing his way over to hug her.
Fuck, that's literally a crime.
This was undoubtedly all because of the Healthy Body trait.
That wicked trait must have manipulated me, a perfectly sensible person with a solid moral compass, into acting so bizarrely.
"I-I asked who you are! You didn't cast some Seduction Magic on me, did you? Are you a Black Mage or something?"
However, I couldn't undo what was already done.
That said, I couldn't exactly apologize here either.
If I apologized now, it would be the same as declaring that I had impure motives behind that hug earlier.
Given that I needed to earn the girl's trust, nothing could be worse than that.
That was why I pointed to the sky with a confident expression.
"Do I look like an Archmage who can cast Seduction Magic that lasts over three hours without a Staff?"
What had risen in the sky was the sun.
A beautiful sunrise that made me wonder if I should take a picture of it.
In other words, this girl had been clinging to me for hours.
Listening to her cry and pour her heart out about this and that, I figured she had a lot pent up, so it was somewhat understandable. But this was definitely taking it a bit too far.
"...Th-That's..."
Another sun rose in the sky.
Of course, since there was only one sun in this world, the other one had to be someone's face, burning so red it looked ready to explode.
She was the one who had clung to me for three hours—or perhaps even longer—crying and complaining. She must have realized that making a fuss about it now was ridiculous, even to herself.
To top it all off, I pointed at my clothes.
The girl could no longer meet my eyes.
With her flushed face, she kept her gaze fixed on the ground, as if there was something fascinating down there.
It was to be expected, in a way.
My clothes looked as if I had just finished meditating under a waterfall.
She was quite strong, so they were crumpled and tattered all over, and the shoulder area was completely soaked with tears.
"......I'm sorry."
Rien spoke in a voice so small it was barely audible.
Her swollen face, her red-rimmed eyes. Her gaze, unable to look me straight in the eye out of shame.
Her meekly offering her apologies was quite a cute sight.
"Don't worry about it too much. Anyone can be like that when they're going through a hard time. I don't really mind."
Like that, the situation somehow wrapped itself up.
And.......
A slightly awkward moment of eye contact followed.
I could somewhat guess why Rien kept fidgeting, meeting my eyes before quickly looking away.
It was only natural.
Thinking about it objectively, I was an incredibly suspicious person.
An outsider who had suddenly appeared while she was living in hiding.
A stranger who had approached her with overwhelming familiarity.
I looked like a Mastermind no matter how you sliced it.
A Villain hiding some sort of ulterior motive.
Yet, the fact that the girl wasn't saying anything meant she was surely grateful for what happened earlier.
She was just an ordinarily honest, ordinarily kind kid.
I felt a renewed surge of sympathy welling up inside me.
"If there's anything you want to ask, go ahead."
That was why I spoke up first.
Rien hesitated for a moment before throwing a question my way.
"Why on earth did you come to a secluded place like this?"
"I just stopped by while passing through. Is it somewhere I'm not supposed to be?"
"It's not that......."
It seemed the girl's suspicions hadn't faded.
It was understandable. I mean, I wouldn't fall for such a lame excuse either.
But it was fine.
Because I had the perfect alibi.
"Besides, if I came here with some bad intentions, I wouldn't have held you for hours. There would be no reason to strike up a conversation with you in the first place."
The girl's face, which had finally calmed down, flushed red again. Rien avoided my gaze and nodded with crimson cheeks.
Fortunately, she seemed to have accepted my explanation to some extent.
"Well then, I suppose it's my turn to ask?"
"...Huh?"
"You're allowed to ask me whatever you want, but I'm not allowed to ask you anything? Yeah, sure. If that's how it is, I guess I have no choice."
Instantly, the girl wore a visibly flustered expression and began spouting incoherent excuses.
She said that wasn't what she meant. She said I could ask whatever I wanted. That she didn't mean to interrogate me, and that she was sorry if it came off that way.
She was transparent in a different sense compared to Ciel.
Her personality was simple, she couldn't hide anything, and her expressions gave everything away.
If Ciel spoke her mind exactly as it was, this kid felt like the type whose face would give her away completely, even if she lied.
She was the kind of kid that made you want to tease her.
I suppose you could say her reactions were bouncy.
However, now wasn't the time to be worrying about things like that.
"What you said earlier. What did you mean by that?"
This girl's current situation was far more serious than I had thought.
I had assumed Rien was being held captive by the cult villagers.
A misunderstanding caused by the sheer lack of information written in the spoiler post.
But listening to her tearful complaints, it turned out she was a Tribe Member born in this very village.
What's more, the one trying to kill her was apparently Rien's adoptive father.
"Why on earth is your dad trying to kill you?"
"Because....... I was born wrong."
A story that was impossible to comprehend.
The girl looked at my expression, seemed to realize I still wasn't convinced, and continued her explanation.
Hmm....
It certainly was severe. To the point where I could somewhat understand why her father, who was steeped in a cult, thought of her as the Heavenly Killing Star.
But...... was that really a problem?
I understood that she was born with a talent for killing people, and that she sometimes lost her mind when intoxicated by blood.
However.
"Is that really such a serious problem?"
I could guess why this girl had such symptoms.
It was simple.
I could figure it out just by thinking about my Healthy Body trait.
The Weakness Insight trait always had a description saying it easily identified the opponent's weaknesses.
When the game became reality, it could have caused a side effect, making her see people's weaknesses whenever she met them.
Besides, for a protagonist's companion with such a simple personality, it was common to have a low-rank Berserk passive attached to them.
If the text about getting excited in combat was implemented, it was natural to be drawn to such things.
"But....... I almost killed you too."
"But you didn't in the end."
"If things had gone slightly wrong, I might have killed you."
"But you didn't kill me. That's what's important."
Rien still wore an expression of disbelief.
So I looked into the girl's eyes and continued speaking.
"No one can choose the disposition they are born with, right?"
It was an obvious statement.
No one is born wanting to be that way.
Just because Rien had such a dangerous disposition, it didn't give her father a reason to kill her.
"So. In the end, how you choose to live is what's important. You tried not to kill me. Isn't that enough?"
"......Still."
However, it seemed Rien still couldn't bring herself to accept it.
So I spoke with a playful smile.
"Don't worry, if you lose your mind again, I'll just hug you like I did earlier."
The girl's face turned bright red.
As expected, she was fun to tease.
I told you her reactions were bouncy.
I smiled as I watched the girl's reaction, but then.......
"Rien."
Instantly, I scowled.
A bizarre scene unfolded before my eyes. An ominous feeling naturally washed over me.
"That... isn't some kind of traditional ritual in your village, is it?"
At my words, she also turned around.
Instantly, Rien's face turned pale.
Rising smoke.
A burning village.
Horrible screams of people that could be heard if you listened closely.
This current situation.
It was obvious what was happening.
......The Empire.
The Empire had found this place.
To wipe a Tribe off the face of this world today.