The Five Desires and Seven Emotions (2)
Look, I'm not the type to brag, but I'm actually pretty good-looking.
Being a mage gave me the intellectual air, sure, and all those years hauling luggage had forged my body into something genuinely handsome. Yes — I was attractive. And the day I became truly certain of it was this one.
We were midway through a journey to the Magic Tower, where Milia was staying, to rally the scattered members of the Hero Party.
"Jim, if it's really too much for you... why don't you run away with me instead?"
"Uh, um..."
With the Hero away, the Saintess had made me that offer.
Now, honestly speaking — is that not a temptation?
Come to think of it, Esmeralda and I had been whispering together alone quite a lot lately. Apparently they'd been talking about me. So, two girls conferring about their budding, youthful feelings. Right.
"If you'll have me, Jim, the two of us will run away together — somewhere no one's hands will ever reach us."
The Saintess, Irina, was proposing we elope.
Wow. What an irresistibly charming offer. No, truly — if she'd been anyone but the Saintess, I would have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
If merely being near her didn't cause me physical pain, it was the kind of proposition I might have seriously considered. In a sense, wasn't her side even more dangerous than the Hero Party?
And besides, I hadn't met the Demon King yet. I had to meet him, speak with him, and reach my own conclusion.
"Jim. Is that a no?"
"Uhh..."
But those tear-glistening eyes staring up at me were doing a number on me. Eyes a man could drown in.
Couldn't I just put up with a little pain? Run off just the two of us, build a house on a hill, live cozy and close, and have a nice round thirteen kids...
"Ahahaha, what are you two talking about that's so much fun?"
The moment Esmeralda — who I'd thought had left — appeared and spoke up while I was painting that rosy future, reality snapped back into focus. That was close.
I could have sworn I was being brainwashed. What kind of mental state had I been in, seriously entertaining a proposal like that? My own complacency frightened me.
"Irina?"
"Hehe, just kidding."
Wow. That had been genuinely close. Apparently I'd nearly taken it in complete earnest, joke or not.
Yes — once again, I was the only one being serious. And one of these days, I would make them pay every last tear of blood.
I secretly swallowed my tears as I watched the two of them gazing at each other, laughing in perfect harmony.
She absolutely could not let her guard down.
Such had been Esmeralda's state of mind lately, ever since the journey began.
She'd had a heartfelt conversation with Irina at the Papacy, and they'd reached a genuinely amicable conclusion. Yes — the Heavenly God Order was now truly cooperating with Esmeralda. What a wonderful thing.
Irina herself, for her part, had set herself the goal of receiving Jim after the Demon King's subjugation was over, and was keeping herself well in check because of it.
Or — that was what Esmeralda had believed.
"Haha, honestly, Irina? If you're going to joke like that, I'll get upset."
"Hehe, my apologies, Hero."
But Irina was no ordinary woman. She'd been quietly working something behind the scenes.
NOTE: Target has entered Stage 2 of Brainwashing. With the passage of time, sanity will naturally return.
Irina had been secretly kneading away at Jim's mind. Given that she'd reached Stage 2 of the brainwashing, she must have been dosing him in secret for quite a long while.
Esmeralda thanked her stars that the effects of brainwashing surfaced in the target's surface thoughts — a supplementary effect of the Emerald Tablet, a power even she hadn't known it possessed.
If not for that, what would have happened? Would Jim and Irina have fled together?
Knowing that woman, she's more than capable of it.
Esmeralda answered Irina — who was even now gazing at her with a sweet smile — with an equally innocent one.
And that little bastard too.
Then she turned to look at Jim, who moments ago had come within a hair's breadth of falling for Irina's hook.
Brainwashing or not, watching him snap it up that eagerly...
"Jim, you said you'd finished preparing the supplies — all of it, and here you are just sitting there, right?"
Esmeralda's interrogation.
"Of course. Glacies Magic Tower isn't all that far, but I packed generously, just in case."
Dutiful as ever, Jim began laying out the supplies he'd packed and explaining each one in meticulous detail. Perhaps because it was his first real porter's work in a long while, his eyes were positively shining.
He was simply too dense to notice that he was being toyed with. His intelligence seemed to be slipping by the day.
"Ah, yes... Well done."
In the end, Esmeralda found herself at a loss for words.
"Hehe."
And Irina, smiling down at that Jim with a beatific rapture that was almost frightening to behold, was scarier than ever before.
Clop, clop.
Jim was driving the wagon's horses for the first time in an age. All this time he'd been lugging around a single backpack playing porter, but now there was no need.
This was a safe zone, after all. What threat could possibly exist on the roads running through the Empire, on the route to the Magic Tower itself?
The day was neither cold nor hot, pleasantly warm with a cool breeze besides, so Esmeralda, seated in the back of the wagon Jim was driving, let out a yawn.
"Sleepy..."
The demon legions she'd had to clash with countless times on the way to the Fortress City. The Legion Commander she'd stumbled upon while searching for Jim's "hometown" (not). Even the crisis that had awaited her at the Heavenly God Order when she'd gone to have her wounds treated.
Having crossed such a perilous journey, Esmeralda found this present moment unbearably dull. Not that she didn't love peace — she was fighting the Demon King and the dragonkin precisely to build a peace like this.
Still, sitting idle like this just doesn't suit my nature...
But even back in the countryside, she'd lived each day to the fullest. Wake up, run to the fields, work until the sun set. It might have looked like the life of an ox, but she'd found her own satisfaction in it — the harvest from her fields had been rich precisely because she'd worked them so long.
"Bored, Hero?"
"..."
And there was exactly one person who could read Esmeralda's state of mind that precisely — the Saintess Irina, blessed with that peculiar personality that delighted in tormenting others.
"Irina. What are you scheming now?"
"Scheming? We're friends, aren't we? Nothing strange about enjoying a bit of leisure with a friend."
Unbelievable. That open, utterly innocent smile made it all the more so.
Esmeralda narrowed her eyes into a glare and fixed them on Irina. Jim was up front holding the reins, with no leisure to watch what was happening back here — but making a scene to draw his attention would do no one any good.
Esmeralda lowered her voice and asked.
"So? What do you want?"
"This."
With a beaming smile, Irina held something out to Esmeralda.
"...A book?"
"Yes!"
Esmeralda, who had flinched and braced for a counterattack, belatedly realized the thing being offered was a book, and relaxed her guard.
"Where'd this come from?"
She'd known Jim had packed all sorts of odds and ends, but she hadn't known a book was among them. Was this for leisure?
No — come to think of it, Jim and Milia used to swap each other's books to read, so it wasn't particularly strange. He did get a book as a gift from Milia not long ago, after all.
Then this must be a present he'd prepared for Milia.
"Reading is nourishment for the soul, you know."
"Hmm..."
Esmeralda eyed Irina suspiciously, but accepted the offered book anyway.
The Female Knight and the Tentacle Dungeon
"..."
"..."
Esmeralda froze solid, book in hand, exactly as she was. And Irina smiled as she watched her, unblinking.
"...Irina. What kind of reaction were you hoping for?"
"Squealing and blushing in embarrassment wouldn't have been bad, honestly."
"Not happening. What do you take me for? Did you think I was some pubescent teenager?"
Esmeralda quietly set the book down. There was nothing to be flustered about — she'd never fully let her guard down even in the moment she'd accepted it. Granted, she hadn't predicted Irina's scheme would take this particular shape.
"How disappointing."
"Hmph."
Perhaps taken aback by the unexpected response, Irina pouted, crawled sheepishly back to her original spot, and quietly began offering up a prayer. Had she been bored too?
Esmeralda glared at her as though she were a lunatic, then heaved a deep sigh and turned her gaze back to the scenery unrolling beyond the wagon.
Beyond the well-kept highway, rows of densely planted trees stretched into the distance. That was all there was to see.
"..."
For an instant, Esmeralda's eyes drifted toward the book she'd set down.
She knew. She knew this was Irina's real play. The moment Esmeralda's curiosity got the better of her and she opened the book, Irina would use it as leverage to torment her. Reading through that much was nothing.
"..."
Sneak a glance.
But her eyes kept drifting back. The fact that Irina hadn't retrieved the book and simply left it there was surely part of the trap too.
Esmeralda subtly turned her head to study Irina. She was still praying — hands devoutly clasped, both eyes squeezed shut.
With my reflexes... getting the book back in its place before Irina opens her eyes wouldn't be a problem at all.
Reading the book was already a settled matter.
Esmeralda had now descended to calculating her own physical abilities and reaction speed. And after confirming Irina's angle, the state of her eyelids, and more, Esmeralda finally reached out her hand.