What a Strange Personality

"I must decline."

"May I ask the reason?"

"Ah, well..."

He was already running three accounts. Blurt that out, and he might become a living specimen of black magic and end up on a dissection table. Nahan turned it over for a moment, then spoke.

"As I told you last time, the power I possess is meager."

The answer given, he began to edge away, but Asha caught his wrist at once.

"And what does that matter?"

"Of course it matters. If I followed only my heart, I would join your side this very moment and attend you. But I would do nothing except drag at your heels."

"...? Wait."

Only then did Asha realize he had misunderstood, and she hurried to add the rest.

"The party I spoke of is not our Radiant Light. I meant a party in the plain sense of the word."

"...Pardon?"

"Hestia returned safely, did she not? It is a gathering to celebrate that."

"Ah."

Nahan flushed on purpose.

"Forgive me. I am a man who once dreamed of being a hero, the same as anyone else..."

He wore the look of someone embarrassed—Ian Red, a free priest only because his ability had been too poor, refusing a seat in a hero's party that had never even been offered.

"There is no reason you would make such an offer to a man like me. This is embarrassing in more ways than one."

"No."

The feint seemed to have landed rather well. Asha shook her head.

"I am the one who should apologize. I was the first to let you misunderstand. And this matter was resolved entirely thanks to you."

"Ahaha... You praise me too highly."

"Too highly?"

A soft weight settled.

Onto Nahan's shoulder—onto Ian Red's shoulder—came a pale, slender hand, thick with calluses.

"Had it not been for you, we would have lost Hestia. You accomplished what even the heroes could not. Stand a little prouder."

"...For a true hero to say so, I hardly know where to put myself."

"You seem to have found a place for it. Yourself."

...Was that a joke?

While Nahan puzzled over it, Asha, who had been watching him with clear eyes, quietly lowered her hand.

As if something still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clung there, she faltered, looked down at her own hand, and closed it tight.

"In any case. The party is set to begin tomorrow. If you are willing, come with us."

"With you... do you perhaps mean...?"

"Just as I said. Attend the party together with Radiant Light."

Radiant Light.

The hero party of Babylonia, made up of Asha, Balkan, Marin, and Selena.

Asha offered it as if it were nothing at all. Put in terms he knew, it was a lone military chaplain being folded into the company of the president and the minister of defense.

Nahan's answer came at once.

He had to refuse.

Asha already trusted him, but the others would be meeting him for the first time.

The other side was a hero party. The Great Sage Marin belonged to them as well.

He might draw suspicious eyes, and in the worst case they would catch him using an artifact and his identity would come apart. And was Hestia herself not the finest strategist in this entire world?

Yes. He had to refuse.

He finished the thought and lifted his head to say so.

A deep-blue system window rose to greet him.

Eclipse.

The true shadow behind this world, moving toward an end no one could name. Lunatics who would deceive the hero party and drag the world's conclusion into a bad ending.

If he did not want events to run as they had in the original, he was to accept Asha's offer. It was a sub-quest that stopped just short of a knife—threat in everything but the blade. It pretended to offer a choice. In practice, it was nearly a command.

...The System, same as ever, doing whatever it pleased. And smearing ointment on her face—what was that supposed to be?

He was a little stung. That did not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mean he could refuse. So long as the ends they sought pointed the same way, Nahan had decided to follow without a word of complaint.

"Thank you for the generous offer. It would be an honor to attend alongside the heroes."

He dipped his head with a faint smile, and it was Asha who looked flustered.

"Ah, that is... Will you be all right?"

"All right?"

"Well..."

Asha chose her words with care before she set them down.

"You are a free priest, are you not?"

Free priests. Those who had left the Church, each for reasons of their own, and still revered the Goddess. Most chose seclusion, living as if they were there and yet not there, helping those around them, their foremost aim to depart at last without regret.

Radiant Light were the heroes of the world. Unlike the free priests who helped in quiet, they shouldered a great cause and a great duty, and aided the world beneath a brilliant blaze.

That was Asha's worry.

"If you move with us, a great many eyes will turn toward you."

They lived the exact opposite of the still life a free priest sought. They were always the people most watched.

"So do not force yourself. In truth, Margrave Gardner has been pressing to see his benefactor, and I offered only the once, out of courtesy."

...That was not how it had looked.

For a courtesy offered only once, her eyes had been glittering in a rather particular way.

"Of course, there are other ways. You might hide your identity with a robe or a mask, or wear full plate, or travel by carriage with only the two of us."

"Ah. That—"

"Do not worry. If you are truly uneasy, I need only ask Marin to raise a barrier of cognitive dissonance around us. Even so... if, by some chance, you are still anxious even now, you may refuse."

Look at that.

Her face was as blank as ever, but her eyes were exactly like the supply officer's, back when the man had told him to put in for specialist sergeant.

A good sign, either way. It meant that to Asha, the man called Ian Red had become at least a little special.

Nahan met those faintly trembling, sky-blue eyes, and smiled.

"Did I not tell you? I, too, am a man who dreamed of being a hero. I accept the offer you have given me with gratitude, and I will go with you."

Asha's eyes flew wide.

"You have my thanks. Thanks to you, I can show my face before Margrave Gardner."

Not the emotionless look she had worn until now, but a faint smile in which joy and relief were mingled. It was slight enough to miss if one were not watching. Nahan caught it exactly, and because he did, the words left him before he knew it.

"You are beautiful."

"...Ah?"

As if chasing the words, Asha lifted a hand and tapped lightly at the corner of her mouth.

...A soft brush of fingertips.

A faint upward curve, felt at the ends of her fingers.

...She was smiling?

...Her?

It was blurred enough to vanish the moment she looked at it straight on, but it was, without question, a smile.

And she would have her revenge.

Memory surged in with her fumbling hand.

A crash.

Asha shot to her feet in a start and, without meaning to, cut her own cheek.

"A-are you all right?!"

Just as startled, the gentle man reached out as he came toward her.

Asha struck the hand roughly aside. Her face twisted with anger, and she added in a rush.

"Forgive me. The weariness of the road must still be on me. I will come to fetch you at this hour tomorrow."

That was the end of it.

She turned sharply and walked away from Nahan, step by heavy step.

Revenge.

A fierce rage toward the lofty filth who had trampled little Mirabell, once so small and warm.

"I must not grow dull. I must not stop, and I must not grow comfortable in the place where I have stopped."

That day, saved by the villagers' sacrifice, I ran with nothing but my life. I have to go on carrying the whole of their lives.

...A slow trickle.

Only then did a thread of crimson run down Asha's cheek, blank once more.

The iron scent of blood. A lukewarm heat. A clinging, sticky feel.

Her life looked cold as ice. In truth, it had always been burning, low and steady.

"...I ought to keep my distance."

Used to misfortune, she lowered her head and trudged on.

Sudden partings were a familiar thing.

When the woman she was now opened a distance—

—there was no one who would close it again, not even by pretending not to hear her.

But she did not know.

"...Hero!"

She did not know that even if the woman she was now—the Hero of Iron Blood, the Emotionless Empress, the strongest blade—opened the distance between them,

a man had drifted into this world who would not bend at the last, not even before power and authority of absolute cold, and who would see his own will through.

"Hero!"

A grab.

Nahan, having snatched something up and come running, caught Asha by the wrist.

...Teeth ground.

Jaw locked, Asha flared her aura in threat and demanded of him.

"What do you think you are doing? Did I not say clearly that I would come for you tomorrow?"

Call her personality strange. She would allow it.

"And you dare lay a hand on me? Do you not know that I, a hero, stand as the Pope himself?"

Think her a madwoman who swung from one thing to the next without warning. She would allow that, too.

"So I warn you."

Everyone who had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ever unsettled her had thought exactly that, and turned away.

"Never approach me in this manner again, Free Priest Ian Red."

Turn away, as they did.

It would be better for you.

The warning finished, she drew back her chill gaze and was about to turn once more.

"Forgive me. But since I have already been rude, allow me to be rude once more."

...A soft press of cloth.

Something warm and clean touched her face and hid half her sight.

"Wh-what—!!"

She swept a hand up in a flurry, but Nahan slipped past it with practiced ease and wiped the blood away.

"I told you, did I not? That the hero is truly beautiful."

In the space where she faltered, unsure what answer to give, his hand moved again.

...Another soft press.

Ointment, warmed just as the cloth had been, was smoothed over the cut in her cheek.

"Someday, when every hard thing has ended, you will return to an ordinary ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠life. Would it not be better to carry even one scar fewer?"

"...There will be no returning."

"Shh. The cut is splitting, and the medicine will not take. Hold still, just for a moment."

With a careful hand he spread the salve, and only once he was sure the bleeding had stopped did he lift his fingers from Asha's cheek and take one step back.

"There. Now judge the offense as you please. Kill me, or let me live."

A faint smile rested on his face.

"...Why would you..."

"Yes?"

"...It is nothing."

Asha worked her mouth as if more words were waiting, then quietly turned her head.

"I will come for you again tomorrow."

This time she was gone before there was a gap in which to catch her, so fast she left an afterimage behind.

Still wearing Ian Red, Nahan went back inside and shut the door.

"...Wow. I seriously thought I was dead. Why did she flip like that out of nowhere?"

Her personality was genuinely strange.

Anyway. It had been as precarious as tying a bell around a tiger's neck, but—

The first objective of the sub-quest Lo, I Too Am a Hero was complete.

He had been invited to a party out of nowhere, but that was tomorrow's trouble...

"Might as well check the rewards first."

He hesitated a moment, then decided to confirm the main scenario reward first. He touched the golden system window and accepted the grant.

Letters rose before his eyes.

From here on, Nahan resolved, the main scenario would be his first and highest task.