A Peach-Flavored Kiss
She asked if I was curious about the taste of the candy. What kind of question was that? Wouldn't it just taste sweet? It was a candy, after all. Or maybe it had a bit of fruit flavor mixed in. I wasn't particularly fond of sweets, so I had only asked out of idle curiosity. Besides, I usually avoided eating sweet things late at night. As I stared blankly at Sirien, the corners of her mouth, still holding the candy, curved upward into a sly grin.
"Do you want some too, Rajen?"
"Do you have another one?"
"Well, I wonder. You teased me earlier, Rajen, so I don't really want to tell you."
She smirked, gently rolling the candy over her tongue. A sweet fragrance wafted from her slightly parted lips. Her eyes, curved like crescent moons, made her look exactly like a predator that had spotted prime prey. Her playful, excited voice continued to tickle my ears.
"Did you know? People usually just lump it all together as 'sweetness,' but there are actually many different kinds of sweet. This is one of my absolute favorites. It's too good to eat all by myself."
"...?"
"I'm sure you'll be surprised once you taste it, Rajen. But the truth is, this is the very last candy left, and I've already tasted plenty of it. So, what should we do?"
"I-I'm fine without it."
"No. I told you, it's too good to keep to myself. I'll give it to you now. Make sure you catch it properly, okay?"
Grab. Sirien grabbed the back of my head and lunged forward. It was a kiss that could only be described as a sudden ambush. Her soft, light-pink tongue invaded my mouth without hesitation, pushing something sweet onto my tongue. I felt a small, glass-bead-like object.
...It was peach.
The candy, already partially melted in Sirien's mouth, immediately unleashed an aggressively sweet flavor. It was somehow elegant yet intensely stimulating—the subtle, blooming aroma seemed to dizzy my mind. A wet, sticky sound echoed as our saliva mingled. A dreamlike vision unfolded before my eyes, as if the world had suddenly dissolved into a fantasy.
Sirien had her eyes gently closed. Her eyelids, as pure and white as eternal snow, filled my vision. In this fairytale-like moment, a slightly suggestive sound resonated.
"Mmh, nnh... *chu, nnh*."
Sirien's hands held me tight, as if warning me not to escape. Once again, I found myself unable to resist her deceptively fragile strength. The kiss was neither too long nor too short. Finally, Sirien gave my upper lip a soft, parting suck before pulling back. Her face was bright with triumph, looking thoroughly pleased with herself for having scored a victory.
I stood there dazed as she bid me goodnight.
"I'm really going now. Goodnight, sleep tight. Sweet dreams—and it'd be even better if you dreamed of me."
"Uh, yeah..."
"Pfft. You're so cute, my knight. I wish you'd show me this side of you every day."
The sound of the door closing echoed. I sat there in silence until the remaining candy in my mouth completely dissolved and vanished. Today was undoubtedly my utter defeat.
The meeting place the dwarf had given us yesterday was a graveyard near the capital. Contrary to my expectation that such a meeting would take place in the dead of night, we arrived at a time when it wasn't yet entirely dark. We reached the location just as the twilight was slowly settling in. The setting sun was melting over the dead grass. While flowers withered beside moss-covered tombstones, Sirien and I slowly looked around the graveyard. Our shadows stretched long across the gentle slope.
"It's a nice place," Sirien remarked. "Despite how it looks, all the souls here are at peace. There don't seem to be any wraiths either."
"I guess the priests of The Pantheon haven't been slacking off."
"Well, considering how much money they take, they'd better work hard. If an undead were to appear in the capital, the entire Empire would be thrown into chaos."
"You're still holding a grudge over that money, aren't you?"
"I told you, I'm absolutely getting it back. I was dead serious."
"...Sure."
The graveyard was clearly neglected. Though it seemed people visited occasionally, very little care was put into maintaining it. Most of the tombstones were covered in thick moss or broken in places. Some graves didn't even have headstones, marked only by crude signs indicating someone was buried there. It was definitely not a resting place for nobles; it was likely a burial ground for commoners or criminals. Still, it wasn't a bad spot for a secret rendezvous.
"He said it was a man with a cross-shaped scar under his chin."
Yet, no matter how hard we looked, no such man was in sight. In fact, there was no one here at all. Even if we strained our eyes, we couldn't find a single trace of a human presence, let alone an actual person. The only sign of human activity was some overgrown grass that looked like it had been trimmed months ago.
"Was it a wild goose chase after all?" I asked.
"Let's look around a bit more, as if we're just sightseeing. Things might have gotten a little complicated on his end," Sirien suggested.
"Alright, let's do that."
"Besides, since we've come all this way, there's something I need to do anyway."
I wasn't particularly disappointed. I hadn't expected much to begin with. After all, isn't there a famous saying that if you don't expect anything, you can never be betrayed? There was no guarantee that a man on the run would keep his word, and there was a high probability that something had happened to him before he could even make it here.
As we walked, Sirien began to gently release her divinity into the surroundings. Although the souls in this graveyard were asleep, they had not yet reached true Repose. One by one, the souls touched by the divinity of Hibras dissolved into the earth and vanished.
We had just finished circling the graveyard when we found him. I wasn't sure whether to call it good luck or bad.
It happened as we climbed a nearby hill to get a better view of the entire area. There stood a massive tree, large enough to be seen from a distance. Slumped behind its trunk, as if fast asleep, was a man.
"Looks like we're a step too late," I muttered.
"This is bad. It means they've caught up to him," Sirien replied.
Just as we had been told, the man had a cross-shaped scar under his chin. The only problem was that he was no longer among the living. A gaping sword wound pierced his heart, and his clothes were drenched in blood. Judging by the dryness of the blood and the state of the corpse, he had been killed within the last few hours at most.
Furthermore, it was clearly a homicide. He had undoubtedly died without being able to put up a proper fight. The circumstances suggested he had been stabbed from behind—an incredibly clean job, typical of a professional assassin.
"Tsk. I didn't expect Marquis Eloran to sit idly by, but... it seems he's decided to play rough," Sirien clicked her tongue. Her beautiful brow furrowed as a dark, black divinity enveloped the man's corpse.
I didn't particularly pity his death. The demons this man had helped smuggle in would eventually cause countless deaths, and he would have had to answer for those tragedies sooner or later. Even so, Sirien guided his soul to Repose first.
It was her duty as a Saintess. Every god possessed their own unique divinity, and clergy members bound themselves to that divinity as their life's work. For instance, while a priest of Hibras gained strength by guiding souls to rest, neglecting a lost soul without cause would bring divine retribution. They called it a form of sacrilege.
Well, it wasn't as if the gods were completely inflexible. From what we had gathered, Hibras was actually quite lenient with his standards.
"Let's check his belongings first."
"I wouldn't get my hopes up. Be careful, they might have coated him in poison."
"I doubt they'd resort to such a cheap trick."
All we found on him was a few coins and a single dagger. The fact that money was left on his person meant this wasn't a random mugging or a robbery. If the killers had wanted to dispose of the body, they certainly had more than enough time to do so. Leaving the corpse behind could only mean one of two things: a warning, or bait for a trap.
In this case, it was the latter.
"It turned out exactly as you said yesterday," I said.
"What did?"
"That the danger would start today."
"I just didn't expect our first opponents to be human."
We had company. They certainly hadn't come to exchange pleasantries; we were likely about to have a very violent conversation. They seemed to be trying to approach undetected, but we were active veterans who had been fighting on the front lines just a few weeks ago. Even when demons used invisibility magic under the cover of night, they had never managed to sneak past us. A simple trick of erasing one's appearance and presence with mana wasn't nearly enough to deceive us.
Sirien's divinity coalesced. She held her lantern in one hand and her axe in the other. Naturally, I drew my sword. We fell into position, standing back-to-back.
"Six? Ah, seven."
"Looks like seven. What do you think, Sirien?"
"Instantly putting them to death is out of the question. It'll be a hassle, but we're better off fighting."
*Piiiiiiiiii—!*
A high-pitched whistle echoed from the distant forest. It was the signal to engage. Watching the enemies rushing toward us, I let out a soft chuckle.
"They really don't know anything about us, do they? Of all places, they chose to pick a fight in a graveyard."
A graveyard was, by its very nature, a place that symbolized death—a sanctuary where souls laid down everything to depart.
The divinity of Hibras blanketed the entire graveyard.
Though the sun had not yet fully set, an early night had arrived.