The Wise Sheep Is My Friend (5)
#144
"So... what exactly does it feel like that makes everyone, e-everyone want to do it from behind?"
How would I have known? I wasn't a woman either.
...If you're that curious, why don't you try it yourself?
Since I couldn't exactly say that, I did my best to deflect with a vague answer.
"I'm not entirely sure, but I imagine people do it because it feels good, don't they? Everyone's erogenous zones differ—"
As I trailed off, Estelle quickly fired off another question.
"Do-yun, I'm asking for academic reasons, you know. This could have something to do with mages' bodies, so please answer me properly."
Oh for fuck's sake!
How the hell am I supposed to know that, woman.
And now she was playing the academic card. Even then, she kept crossing and uncrossing her legs. It was blatantly obvious she was asking because she was personally curious. Aaargh!
I could not for the life of me figure out what to say to get this girl to drop it.
So I decided to just charge straight ahead.
"You see Lily over there, right?"
"Yes."
"What do you think?"
"I'm not sure... what you mean."
The blonde girl pressed one hand lightly against her lower abdomen, attempting once more to evade my gaze.
"You saw it for yourself earlier, through the illusion. You must have seen exactly how much she was enjoying it."
"..."
Gulp.
The girl's thighs kept pressing together and parting again in a faint rhythm, and her golden eyes were visibly wavering.
"I'll let my answer stand in the form of Lily right there, sprawled out as she is. Was that somewhat helpful?"
Estelle fell silent for a moment. Her eyes seemed to bore intently into me and the sight of Lily laid out before her gaze settled back into place.
"...I see."
With those words, Estelle stopped pressing. Instead, she turned her head to glance at Lily lying further inside once, then quietly walked toward the cave entrance, and that was all.
The breeze blowing in from outside made the hem of her shirt flutter just slightly, and it genuinely made my heart tingle.
Where her disgraceful state from moments ago had gone, Estelle had already regained her usual composed demeanor—
As I followed the girl to the cave entrance, a voice tinged with mild disbelief reached me.
"Wouldn't it be wiser to finish the cleanup? If not now, when do you plan to do it?"
"It's nearly done anyway. Cut me some slack, won't you?"
Plop.
I sat down side by side with the blonde girl at the edge of the great boulder.
The very same boulder she had failed to climb while going ing-cha, ing-cha.
A brief silence settled—
A prime spot where the majestic forest and the vast river came into view all at once, no matter how many times I looked. I made up my mind right then: if I ever made it back to the present world, I would return to this place without fail.
"Do-yun."
"Yes."
"You do know we have to head to the Watchtower shortly, right?"
Estelle began to broach the main subject.
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#145
"The place called the Watchtower is fundamentally a location for monitoring and defending against external forces like Hunters who infiltrate Arcanum."
The Watchtower...
"At the same time, it's one of the very few critical strongholds within this vast Arcanum. It's not just a tower — you'd find it easier to think of it as a small village stacked vertically."
Hmm. Not even a small city, but a village. I wasn't sure if that was because their population was so low, but honestly, from what I was hearing, it didn't sound all that grand.
A village, she said. A village.
Perhaps reading that thought from my expression, Estelle spoke again.
"I don't know what you're imagining, but the campaign against Countess Valenor is going to be quite the arduous journey. The tower isn't wide — but it's tremendously tall. You could think of it as reaching above the clouds."
To that extent?
"Lady Estelle, if such a tall tower existed, shouldn't it have already caught our eye by now?"
"That's a good question. But you need to exercise your mind a bit more. Didn't I clearly say the Watchtower is one of the most critical strongholds? There's no way the mages of great Arcanum would leave such a place visible to just anyone."
I understood. That meant some kind of mechanism was keeping it hidden.
"So does it become visible when you get close, or something like that?"
"Half right and half wrong. To be precise, it's a structure that can only be detected when approached — and only by authorized mages."
"Then how does one receive authorization? Have you been authorized yourself, teacher?"
The girl flicked at her own blonde hair with her fingers and retorted.
"Please stop using the word 'teacher.' Anyway, I haven't been authorized either. Traditionally, only mages stationed there can enter the Watchtower."
Stop stop stop! A question I'd never asked, but an answer surfaced.
"Then Lady Rubel must hold the authority to enter the Watchtower! Is that right?"
"...I thought you were about to ask another stupid question. That's right, sister Rubel will have the authority to enter the Watchtower. Everyone else will simply follow her in."
As if she found it thoroughly irritating that I'd nailed the answer to an unasked question, Estelle continued in a sulky voice.
"Anyway. To be honest, I still don't really understand what you're thinking, Do-yun."
"Pardon?"
"If even now you were to say you wanted to give up on the Countess Valenor campaign, I'd gladly side with you. To speak candidly, I'd actually prefer it if you did."
"..."
"Because as I told you yesterday, this is practically suicide. Do-yun, no matter how poor Countess Risie Valenor's condition might be, the title 'Valenor of Martial Might' is no empty name."
"Just how powerful could she possibly be for you to keep repeating that? From what I saw last time, your mother was extraordinarily strong as well, teacher."
Cassian Eurasia, plummeting from the sky.
Perhaps recalling that image, I saw Estelle's expression darken oddly.
"I told you to stop calling me teacher... My mother is strong, but... she's no match for Countess Valenor."
The great magic that had unified the entire Eurasia encampment's forces into one.
Even now I couldn't forget that magnificent magic she had displayed on the battlefield — so if someone was stronger than that, just how strong could they be?
Estelle began to give me the answer that would resolve my question.
"The army-scale great magic that you witnessed, Do-yun — Countess Valenor can perform it alone."
Um.
So, roughly calculating, did that mean a devastating exchange rate of "Total Eurasia Encampment Forces = One Risie Valenor" was in effect?
"Does that give you a bit more of a sense of reality? The Valenor family are monsters who have trained for generations solely in magic specialized for war. Especially Countess Risie Valenor, who served in the key role of Arcanum's guardian in the previous generation — among those monsters, she was a great mage of a wholly different caliber."
No, LilyLily. Just how exactly did you think I could beat Risie Maman? How?
"So even with her being gravely wounded, our odds of victory are slim. Would you reconsider, even now?"
Estelle asked me again in a cautious tone.
What was I supposed to do?
Should I just call it quits?
No matter how strong I'd become, I hadn't experienced it with my own body, so I couldn't make any kind of calculation at all.
Put bluntly, based solely on what I'd just heard, the training Lily and I had done yesterday would probably look like mere child's play magic to Risie Maman, wouldn't it.
But... separate from that fear, I could feel a reluctance to run away filling my heart to the brim.
No other words could explain it.
A word of pure convenience, inexplicable by any logic.
Instinct.
Someone's tenacity — an instinctive fixation on meeting Maman no matter what — was whispering within me.
"I'm sorry, but that doesn't change my decision."
She'd be disappointed by my answer, perhaps—
Just as that thought crossed my mind.
Estelle smiled wryly and answered.
"I knew you'd say that, Do-yun."
"In that case—"
"So in my own way, I worked hard last night to come up with a plan. Together with sister Rubel, inside the tent. Though it seems certain someone was having a delightful time while I was working so diligently."
She glared at me with a slightly flushed face and continued speaking.
"Anyway, let me tell you the plan. As I said earlier, we can't win in a direct confrontation. This is something I've also confirmed with sister Rubel."
So that meant the badass one-on-one magic battle LilyLily and I had imagined was off the table?
"From what I heard from my sister, Countess Valenor is currently in a state where her Imprint has been half-destroyed for some reason. But that doesn't mean she's unable to use magic. If that were the case, the Valenor army wouldn't have been annihilated by her alone in the first place."
"Then it would be more accurate to assume she can't use large-scale magic."
"That's right. So the course of action we need to take is clear. We utilize the abilities she doesn't possess."
"Abilities she doesn't possess?"
Estelle answered with a confident gleam in her eyes.
"Her personal unique magic is 『Commencement of War』. It's one of the two powerful unique magic abilities passed down through House Valenor for generations. In matters of war, she possesses abilities that allow no equal, but outside of that, you can consider her to be an airhead."
Maman had been a bit of an airhead.
"Do-yun."
Estelle paused slightly and asked me.
"What do you think is the opposite of war?"
"Hmm... wouldn't it be peace? Peace!"
"A rather clichéd answer."
Perhaps dissatisfied with my reply, Estelle slightly furrowed her brow and continued.
"I think of it this way. When you look back through the long course of history, 'peace' is closer to a result that comes after war is over. What I was asking about is the state most distant from the act of war itself."
"..."
"I believe the word most opposite to war is 'Oneness.'"
"Pardon?"
"A state where enemy and ally are not divided. A state where no one aims their spear at another, where no boundaries exist at all."
It sounded plausible enough, but... I had no idea how she intended to apply that concept against Risie Maman.
It wasn't as if there was a woman with unique magic called Oneness anywhere nearby.
Seeing my puzzled expression, Estelle started to say something, then closed her mouth.
Was there something she couldn't bring herself to say? So frustrating.
"Do-yun. So, s-so to restate the final plan—"
"I don't know what it is, but just say it plainly. You've already seen the full extent of my humiliation anyway."
Just what was she trying to say?
Estelle stared at me with a slightly reddened face, then parted her lips faintly several times before barely managing to open her mouth.
"So... in this Countess campaign... Do-yun, you yourself will have to achieve Oneness with Countess Risie Valenor."
Pardon?
"So, I mean... haah... oh no... I mean you're to have sex with Risie Valenor."
"......Pardon?"