Ceryll Deserves Her Share
It was only right that Ceryll had it.
“No.”
I said as much and drew my body back.
Ceryll, however, showed no intention of giving up.
“Don’t you want to get over that cold quickly?”
“It’s not that bad. And…”
I averted my eyes from her intense gaze and lowered my voice a little as I added,
“It’s weird to kiss over something like that.”
“Come on. We’re both girls, so what’s the big deal?”
Could you not say it so casually?
I was never the type who could just go “Sure!” the moment someone suggested a kiss in the first place.
“Still no.”
“Stingy.”
Says you, just deciding that on your own.
I yanked the blanket up to my chest, making it abundantly clear with my whole body that this was absolutely not happening.
“If you’re going to refuse that hard, I guess there’s nothing I can do.”
Ceryll let out a sigh as she spoke, and only then did I relax.
That was the moment I underestimated her.
Smack.
“Huh?”
I never imagined that, the second I let my guard down, Ceryll would actually press her lips to me.
“Y-you…”
“A cheek is fine, right?”
Ceryll said with a bright little smile.
I just opened and closed my mouth, hunting for something to say.
Honestly, I hadn’t hated it.
Who in their right mind would hate a pretty girl giving them a peck on the cheek?
“…Not fine.”
Even so, it had been far too sudden.
I pressed my fingers hard against my cheek—strangely hot—and managed to force the words out.
“Mm. If you didn’t like it, I’ll apologize.”
Ceryll dipped her head a little.
When you come at me like that, I can’t even get mad.
“I’ll forgive you just this once. …Why are you sticking your cheek out?”
“I figured if Reina kissed my cheek, we’d be even.”
Ceryll said it with a grin.
“…I’m not doing it, so put your face away.”
“Aw, too bad.”
Whether she meant it or not, Ceryll pulled back with that unreadable remark.
I kept my eyes on her, refusing to drop my guard.
True to her talkative nature, she rattled on about this and that while I gave vague replies and let most of it wash over me.
“Phew. Still, I’m glad the teachers didn’t choose the option to just erase the dungeon.”
Ceryll said.
Dungeon Breaks had a time limit.
If they weren’t cleared before it ran out, the boss monster would come bursting out into the open.
“Yeah.”
“They say monsters that leave a dungeon get dozens of times stronger. That golem was already tough…”
History had proven as much.
That was why people either forced the dungeon open and cleared it themselves, or chose to destroy the dungeon entirely.
“This is the kingdom’s finest academy. There’s no way an academy that has a duty to protect its students would pick that option.”
Having read the original, I knew that well.
“Yeah. Looks like they were actually planning to force their way into the dungeon to save us.”
Ceryll said with a smile.
After chatting about various other things, I brought up the reward.
“We got a reward for taking down the golem.”
Ceryll and I were the ones who had defeated it.
But the goddess had only given the reward to me.
…I can’t just swallow everything myself.
I had smashed the core, but Ceryll was the one who had made that possible.
Without her, we never would have cleared the dungeon.
The rewards were a sacred relic (the bow), a quiver, and a Mana Reinforcement Stone.
The sacred relic and quiver couldn’t be transferred, so there was only one thing I could give Ceryll.
Originally, a Mana Reinforcement Stone was a stimulant that forcibly put someone who couldn’t use Mana Reinforcement into a reinforced state.
To use Mana Reinforcement you needed mana and the talent to control it.
But even if you meet the conditions, awakening Mana Reinforcement is still hard.
Without years of special training or some extraordinary trigger, you simply never obtained it.
With this, though, you can safely perform Mana Reinforcement.
It hurt a little, but still.
Ceryll’s already in a reinforced state, so it doesn’t look like she needs it…
Actually, that wasn’t true.
If someone who could already use Mana Reinforcement took one, the reinforcement became stronger and lasted longer.
And this one was a reward from Goddess Eru.
Its effects would be far superior to ordinary Mana Reinforcement Stones.
“This is your share, Ceryll.”
I took a translucent little stone from the bag by the bed.
“Wow, it’s pretty.”
Ceryll’s eyes sparkled as she poured out admiration.
“It’s yours now.”
I held the stone out toward her.
Gazing at the translucent, glowing stone, Ceryll marveled.
Such clear, pure mana. This has to be something truly precious.
You probably couldn’t buy it for any amount of money.
And Reina was trying to give her something like that.
Must be the reward from the Dungeon Break, right?
Having heard the situation from Anin, Ceryll now understood exactly what they had been through.
Surviving that place at all was amazing enough; receiving a reward like this on top of it was another matter entirely.
If Ceryll had been an ordinary student, she would have accepted it with delight.
But she couldn’t.
“It’s fine. You can keep it, Reina.”
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Ceryll yielded it back to her.
We made it out of the Dungeon Break safely because of Reina.
Without the lunch boxes, they never would have lasted seven days in the first place.
If the core hadn’t been destroyed, their stamina would have given out and the golem would have finished them.
It was all thanks to Reina.
So it was only right that Reina should have it.
Yeah. Yielding is the correct choice.
She had always lived a life of yielding everything.
If she didn’t, she might die.
That was why Ceryll was used to handing her own share over to someone else.
“Well, I won’t say no to that, then.”
That kind of reaction was familiar too.
But—
“You thought I’d say that?”
The words that followed from Reina left Ceryll genuinely flustered.
“You put your life on the line fighting that golem. So you deserve a proper reward for it. You did that much.”
Ceryll had always yielded everything.
No—she had always had everything taken from her under the name of “yielding.”
They told her it wasn’t her rightful reward.
That simply coming back alive was already reward enough.
So Reina’s words felt truly alien.
“I really didn’t do anything.”
“Didn’t do anything? There’s someone right here who watched you smash that golem to pieces.”
“You’re the one who broke the core, Reina.”
“If you hadn’t smashed it first, I never could have done that.”
Reina’s words weren’t empty flattery.
Looking into those serious yellow eyes, Ceryll could tell she meant every word.
She had always thought Reina was cute.
But seeing this earnest side of her made something—
Thump.
Her heart gave a single hard beat at the same moment
Clamp.
Reina took Ceryll’s hand.
No—more precisely, she pressed the Mana Reinforcement Stone into Ceryll’s palm.
The motion was forceful and yet somehow gentle.
“Don’t refuse. Turning it down is an insult to me for recognizing you.”
Reina’s hand fell away.
Ceryll looked at what now rested in her palm—her rightful share.
“Mine…”
Ceryll let out a soft snort of laughter.
“You’re the only one who ever looks after me, Reina.”
“…I wasn’t looking after you. I just gave you what you were supposed to get.”
Reina grumbled and turned her face away.
Even that was ridiculously cute.
Like a little kitten, maybe.
“Ah, but if I take this, what happens to your share, Reina?”
“Don’t worry about it. I already set mine aside.”
Reina smiled slyly, clearly pleased about something.
Given how rarely she smiled, she must have gotten her hands on something genuinely good.
Fortunately, I was able to hand the Mana Reinforcement Stone over to Ceryll without trouble.
Now Ceryll should get even stronger in the early stages.
Just as the original protagonist had grown at a ridiculous pace early on, Ceryll would do the same.
Unlike me, Ceryll is destined to become an apostle.
Before long she would obtain the sacred relic of the sword.
Then she would form a contract with the god of that sword, become an apostle, and fight the apostles of the evil gods.
In the original, Ceryll had defeated more evil-god apostles than anyone except the protagonist himself.
In other words, she was the one who fought the most dangerous battles.
Naturally, she had faced death more than a few times.
Since the original protagonist… isn’t handling his role properly, making Ceryll stronger is the right call.
We had already strayed quite a bit from the main story.
The original protagonist couldn’t use my talent and hadn’t even gotten close to Ceryll.
Of course, half of that was my fault.
…There had been the option of giving the Mana Reinforcement Stone to the original protagonist, too.
In fact, before Anin came, the original protagonist had visited my hospital room.
We were childhood friends, so I guess he had been worried about me.
“Reina, I heard you got trapped in a Dungeon Break?”
“…Yeah.”
“Phew, good thing Teacher Anin got you out safely.”
For some reason it had become the story that Anin had rescued both me and Ceryll.
He probably hadn’t heard the full situation.
I didn’t bother correcting him.
The original protagonist kept repeating how glad he was, and I answered offhandedly.
Then the conversation turned to the reward.
“I heard clearing a Dungeon Break gives you an amazing reward. Do you know what you got?”
If I said I had received something, he would almost certainly ask for it without hesitation.
At that moment I considered handing the Mana Reinforcement Stone over to him.
If I did, he would grow quickly.
Then he’d somehow be able to keep up with the fights against the apostles ahead.
Even without Reina’s archery ability, awakening Mana Reinforcement would let him hold his own well enough.
I was about to tell him about the Mana Reinforcement Stone when—
“Still, I’m really glad you cleared it. If even Teacher Anin had failed, they would’ve had no choice but to erase the whole dungeon.”
He suddenly said that, and I forced myself to reply as if it were nothing.
“There was no need to erase the whole dungeon.”
“Of course there was. Otherwise everyone would be in danger.”
True, if the boss monster came outside there might be even more casualties.
I understood the choice to snuff out the threat early because it was dangerous.
I understood it—but I still didn’t like it.
“So for the sake of the greater number, the few can be sacrificed?”
I had hated that idea even before I transmigrated.
It was the reason my parents had died.
“If it means you can save more people, then yes.”
He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Yes.
That was the kind of person the original protagonist was.
Someone who believed that if it saved the many, the deaths of the few were unavoidable.
It was also the reason that I, who had cheered for him at first, slowly started resenting him from the middle of the story onward.
“…I don’t like that.”
“Reina, you can’t save everyone. So you have to make the choice that saves more people.”
He spoke as if he were teaching me a lesson.
All sorts of emotion-choked words tried to climb up my throat.
I compressed every one of them into a single sentence.
“Get out.”
Coming out of the recollection, I let out a sigh.
…I should have just kept my mouth shut.
I had known the original protagonist was like that.
But as long as he didn’t say it to me—
As long as he didn’t pull that kind of thing right in front of my eyes—I had planned to ignore it.
In the end I didn’t give him the Mana Reinforcement Stone.
After that, Anin and Ceryll arrived.
And I decided to hand the Mana Reinforcement Stone over to Ceryll after all.
…Unlike the original protagonist, Ceryll was the kind of person who tried to save everyone.
That was why, whenever a situation required sacrificing people, the original protagonist never took Ceryll along.
Right up until the ending, Ceryll never learned he had done those things.
So I wanted to believe that giving it to Ceryll was the right choice.
Since nothing was wrong with my body, I returned to the dormitory.
The moment I stepped into the room, I froze.
This is my room, right?
I checked again. Yes, it was definitely my room.
So then why…
Why is Jinny sleeping in my bed?
And from the way the blanket shifted and flashed skin, she was clearly naked.
What the hell.