Hero Esmeralda (7)
Eleven, Legion Commander of the Demon King's Army, stared at the scene unfolding before his eyes and thought:
This is an illusion.
Nothing else made sense.
A world drenched in falling red rain. Every shape that entered Eleven's sight had been honed to a razor's edge, making even the thought of lifting a foot tremble with hesitation.
And yet he could not simply stand still. The crimson rain falling from the heavens was molten steel, and what rode the wind toward him carried not a breath of coolness but a chill of killing intent.
Clang!
And so Eleven had no choice but to swing his sword against the pelting raindrops, against the raging storm.
Yes—this was the sensation of an entire world turning upon him with malice.
He had to swing his blade in the very hell he himself had built.
Chaaang!
With that clear, ringing note, Eleven opened his eyes.
Only then did he notice the blue flames coiling around his body.
Every uncanny vision he had experienced had been conjured into being by this fire.
Absurd power—one that seized both flesh and mind alike.
Eleven swallowed dryly.
What he had endured was a species of illusion magic. But the fact that those illusions could bleed into reality made him shudder to imagine where that path ultimately led.
"Hah… hah…"
Still, he had survived.
He had clawed his way out of that hell and stood once more in reality—and that alone spoke volumes about the gulf in ability between him and Jim.
Eleven glared down at Jim, sprawled on the ground as though every ounce of his strength had been poured into that single technique, leaving him utterly spent.
The Hero had already fallen, and Jim was no different. Nothing remained to stand in his way now.
"……"
Approaching Jim with his chipped sword still in hand, Eleven looked back and forth between the blade and the fallen man with cold, level eyes.
What was it I came here to do?
The landscape of hell he had just endured was reason enough, by itself, that Jim should not be allowed to live.
The threat he posed was beyond question.
Eleven had already become Jim's enemy. He had swung his sword at him; he had drawn blood.
But it was precisely because of that, that Eleven sheathed his blade with a calm heart.
"So this, too, is merely the twilight of my era."
Eleven remembered his mission. He remembered the position he stood in. He recalled the words Lilith had spoken.
Yes. He was a soldier prepared to throw away his very life for the Demon King.
And that soldier's mission had been to extract Jim.
"My mission has failed, then. But Aide Lilith—though belatedly, I have come to understand the words you spoke."
Eleven turned away, returning to its sheath the sword he had swung to within a hair's breadth of Jim's throat.
"I suppose I have no face to show before the Demon King for some time."
He had earned Jim's enmity.
To try escorting him to the Demon King's army in this state would only breed resistance.
He had botched the task because he could not bring himself to trust the Demon King's words, or Lilith's, or the claims that this man was something special.
Eleven turned his back on the fallen Hero and on Jim alike, leaving them where they lay.
As he passed, he caught sight of blue flames gathering over the Hero's wounds. But it was not the clinging, viscous fire that had ensnared him—this flame burned as radiantly beautiful as holy light.
"There is so much I do not understand."
The wounds touched by that flame were closing before his eyes.
Yes—Jim was saving the Hero.
Eleven could fathom no reason for it. Who in the world was this man? Whose side did he intend to stand on?
Muttering ruefully at his own position—a man of a bygone age, being pushed ever further into obsolescence—Eleven made his way back.
"Uuuaaaaagh?!"
When I opened my eyes, a catastrophic wave of muscle soreness ruled my entire body, exactly as predicted before I'd gone to sleep.
That damn Hero. She'd cheered me on in such a sweet, gentle tone that I hadn't realized it, but thinking back on it now, there was never a more brutal forced march.
How can a person think only of herself like that? Does the concept of consideration for a delicate porter simply not exist in her world?
"……Oh, you're awake."
"Ah."
For some reason, the Hero's face was right in front of my eyes. For a moment I wondered if she'd crawled into my tent, and a pink-tinted fantasy unfurled across my mind—until I looked closer and realized I was sleeping on the bare ground.
Only after belatedly scanning my surroundings did my gaze finally land on the Hero herself.
She was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, and the sheer number of them—and the places they covered—was alarming.
Whether they'd failed to wrap some spots properly, or the wounds had simply been that severe, dark red bloodstains were seeping through the bandages here and there.
"……Did we come under attack while I was sleeping?"
"I see your memory's gone."
"It feels like I had some kind of nightmare, but…… was I still asleep through all of this chaos?"
"……"
Esmeralda held her silence for a long moment, staring straight at me.
Was it contempt? Wariness? Or was she just tired? Probably tired, judging by how thoroughly worn out she looked.
After that brief silence stretched between us—
Esmeralda answered with her usual bright, sunny smile.
"You woke up for a moment, then just smacked your head straight into the ground and passed out."
"Ah……"
Am I an idiot?
From what Esmeralda said, there had been a demon attacker in the night.
Considering how badly Esmeralda had been wounded, the intruder must have been a formidable one—while I, apparently, was catching up on sleep through the whole thing.
If I'd fled during that window, Esmeralda couldn't even have chased me down. How on earth am I supposed to explain this to Lieutenant General Lilith?
This time, I might genuinely get abandoned.
"Well anyway, I'm glad you're safe."
"Ah! Th-thank you for protecting me, Hero……."
If I'd been knocked out cold by a blow to the head, the battle must have been that fierce—and whatever the circumstances, the Hero had fought to protect me, so expressing my gratitude was only proper.
At those words of thanks, the Hero—Esmeralda—let out a soft chuckle. Maybe it was because it differed from her usual guileless smile, but for once she seemed almost human.
Well, the only non-human creature here was me, of course.
That's not what I meant. It's an expression. That's all.
"Um…… if it's not too much trouble, would you like me to help with the bandages?"
"……"
Watching her fail again and again to tie the bandage on her opposite arm using only one hand had me feeling antsy on her behalf.
The Hero shot me a sidelong, wary glance, then dutifully held out the bandage and offered up an injured spot.
Meaning she'd entrust it to me.
"Jim."
"Yes, Hero."
I was quietly wrapping the bandage around her wounded arm when the Hero, evidently bored, struck up a conversation.
"Honestly, groping a girl's body all over like this—you're enjoying yourself, aren't you?"
"Yes. N-no, I mean! I'm not!"
"You're not? Pffhahaha. Oh, please redo this side too. It's hard to manage alone with my body all beaten up like this……"
"O-of course."
"Not that side, this one."
Faced with a playful side of the Hero I'd never seen before, I momentarily had nowhere to put my eyes.
I hadn't been thinking anything at all, but once she'd said it out loud, I—that is, well……
Honestly, it did feel like I'd come out ahead. It was astonishing that a body so small and soft could produce that kind of monstrous strength, too.
Wrapping the bandages afresh, I was reminded once more of just how brutal last night's battle had been.
Not just her arms—her waist, her shoulders, her inner thighs, and straight down her centerline.
There wasn't a single unscathed spot on her.
And as I helped in order—arms first, then thighs, then waist—I discovered, just as the Hero had teased, that it didn't feel entirely unpleasant.
Good grief, how could a waist have not one shred of fat on it?
I'd assumed someone that strong might have a set of abs, but sneaking a feel as I wrapped, the skin there was every bit as soft as everywhere else.
"Ah, then, next is……"
With my head ducked low so she wouldn't catch my reddening face, I finished wrapping the bandage around her waist.
What remained was a long, single sword gash running from her shoulder down across to the opposite hip.
This was a situation where wrapping it properly meant seeing her bare skin. There was no way around it.
And Jim is a man who does not flinch.
"Ah, I can handle this one myself."
"Yes……"
No, don't do that.
Couldn't you just let me do it? I'm quite good at bandaging, you know. I'm a man who passed his field medic exam with a perfect score.
"Jim. I know you're having a grand time manhandling a girl's body, but let's not cross the line, shall we?"
"I wasn't enjoying it."
"Oh? Was I a burden, then?"
"……I did feel like I came out ahead."
"Right?"
"Yes."
"Then I trust you also understand that greed invites disaster?"
"But of course."
It's precisely because of that that I'm being held captive here like this.
"I am, after all, a woman too. Showing my bare skin is embarrassing, you understand?"
"Naturally."
"Then why aren't you turning your head away like I asked, instead of staring like that?"
"Ahaha!"
Warned with that guileless smile, I turned my body away.
The human heart is truly a fickle thing.
I had never once looked at the Hero and thought of her as a woman, and yet—
With her flesh pressed this close, I was forced to confront the fact that she was quite the beauty.
"Jim. Could you perhaps stop imagining things in such vivid language?"
"I have no idea what you mean."
"No, just—haah. Never mind. Just keep your head turned properly. I'm watching you while I do this, so I'll know the instant you turn around."
"You have that much confidence?"
Right. The Hero wasn't on Tina's level, but her instincts were sharp. Best not to do anything that would get me caught.
That said, the sound of clothes coming off seemed to ring in my ears with unusual clarity—but surely that wasn't my fault, was it?
"Jim."
"I was contemplating mountains and seas, fields and rivers."
"No, spare me the excuses. I'm finished, so you can turn around now."
"Already?"
"Well, you were meditating on mountains and seas, fields and rivers for a very long time. Did it really come to you that vividly? So vividly you lost track of time?"
"Yes. It was a beautiful vista."
"……"
How lovely is Mother Nature.
Are not humans and demons alike, also part of that great natural world?
Esmeralda had been quietly testing Jim. Between what had happened last night and everything else, she couldn't even be certain he had truly been trying to help her.
She had unmistakably been mortally wounded—yet when she came to, her gravest injury had long since healed.
If someone had treated her wounds, she could only assume it was Jim.
But I don't know what he really is.
Which was exactly why she had to stay on guard.
Jim's Comprehensive Estimated Level now stood higher than her own, after all.
So she had deliberately left an opening, probing to see how he would react.
By letting him bandage her, for instance.
Note: Now that he has pressed flesh against yours, he is thinking that a woman is, indeed, a woman. The beast.
But it was the same old Jim.
No—if anything, this was Jim hiding his lust even less than usual.
Reading that note, Esmeralda felt her face flush so hot and red she thought it might burst.
Jim kept thinking such strange thoughts that she was starting to feel strange herself.
In the end, she gave up on the probing and decided to wrap the rest of the bandages alone—but then……
Note: Hearing the rustle of small talk, he is imagining a shirt sliding down over her shoulders. Listening to the sound of a hook coming undone, he is imagining the twin peaks soon to be liberated from their confines.
Why, this little pervert—?!
In that fleeting moment, Jim was picturing her bare body more brazenly than ever.
Not being able to see was no defense at all. Jim's surface thoughts were far more shameless than Esmeralda had imagined, and with no idea what to do about the situation at hand, all she could do was let her face burn red.