Naming (1)
Ser-Aria seemed to be misunderstanding things in more ways than one. Granted, it was a situation ripe for misunderstanding. If I'd been in her shoes, I probably would have thought the exact same thing.
I was still fretting over how to explain it when I remembered that Ser-Aria already knew I'd obtained an artifact.
Ah, I can just tell her straight, I thought—only for Letisia to speak first.
"……I, I only hid because I was startled. I was worried it might look like something else…."
Letisia stepped out from behind me and immediately set about clearing up Ser-Aria's misunderstanding.
"We really didn't do anything. There was just… a bit of business yesterday, so we were together…."
"…What kind of business? Letisia, this isn't right."
Ser-Aria, who normally spoke in that playful, booze-soaked voice full of mischief, was suddenly dead serious—completely out of character.
"Is this okay with Erinn?"
Erinn?
I had no idea why Erinn's name had suddenly come up. It was strange, but Ser-Aria's expression was so grave that I couldn't quite bring myself to ask.
And Letisia answered as if that reaction were the most natural thing in the world.
"I'm telling you, it's nothing that would warrant that kind of misunderstanding. Aria, you already know, don't you? That Allen… gained magic power in the Lizard Lord dungeon."
"…Huh?"
The seriousness that had been etched into Ser-Aria's face a moment ago melted away in an instant. She looked back and forth between me and Letisia, then spoke like someone who had just put the pieces together.
"Ah, the artifact?"
"…That's right."
"Did you maybe learn magic?"
"Yeah."
I nodded, and Letisia quietly pressed a finger to her lips, signaling for silence.
"Shh, Aria, keep your voice down. No one else knows. Allen asked me to keep it secret…."
"Aaaah~! You scared me. I almost completely misunderstood!"
"That's why I kept saying it wasn't like that."
"Ahaha, sorry!"
Ser-Aria looked thoroughly embarrassed, scratching her cheek with a finger and offering an awkward smile. She had misunderstood, sure, but the situation really had been easy to misread, so I didn't feel much like blaming her.
"I'll talk to Erinn about it myself."
"Ah, yeah. Do that. Then where do we say we found Letisia?"
"You're the only one who came this way, right, Aria? Then let's say she was sprawled out drunk in a corner of the hallway."
"Puhaha, that's a hilarious excuse!"
I was relieved the misunderstanding had been cleared up. I'd been a hair's breadth from becoming the guy who put his hands on a party member. If that story had reached Erinn's ears….
…Just imagining it is awful.
I probably would have been subjected to every insult under the sun.
"Then let's get out of here quick. Staying will only invite more misunderstandings."
"Alright."
Letisia followed Ser-Aria's lead and left the room. I was staring blankly after the two of them when Letisia turned her head just slightly to look at me.
She mouthed something. What was she saying?
…Next time?
I could only make out the words "next time." She was probably saying she'd give me another lesson later. I gave a light nod, and Letisia quickly turned her head forward again.
With Letisia and Ser-Aria gone, the room fell quiet once more. I thought back to everything she had shown me the night before.
This is the kind of thing you have to try again on your own. Thorough review is important for any kind of study.
If I roughly summarized what Letisia had demonstrated yesterday, it was the method of forming Circles and constructing Force, and then the process of completing that into a single spell.
First, you draw out magic power and create tiny points—Circles. You gather them lightly, as if dabbing small dots onto a pure white canvas with a brush.
Then you arrange those Circles at regular intervals. The Circles become linked by each strand of magic power and begin to interact with one another. That is Force.
"Alright…."
Time to turn a completed Force into a spell. With only one Force involved, this would be a 1 Circle spell. I focused a little, reshaped the Force, and constructed it into a single magic circle.
[Explosion]
With a soft pop, the spell left my hand and burst in midair. Despite the name [Explosion], it wasn't particularly powerful—just a light sound like a balloon popping.
"Oh."
It worked. The fact that I'd succeeded just by copying what I'd seen made me realize just how carefully Letisia had demonstrated every step yesterday.
Honestly, a 1 Circle spell was the absolute basics of magic, and something this low-level was laughably weak compared to my magic power stat of 100.
A magic power of around 100 was roughly the level of a 3 Circle mage, so failing would have been the strange part. The hidden piece that had let me obtain that much magic power all at once really had been something special.
"Still, I pulled it off…."
"……Amazing."
"It's nothing special—WAAAH!?!"
I screamed in surprise. I had no idea when she'd gotten there, but the thief was right beside me, clapping her hands in admiration.
When the hell had she come in…? No, I hadn't even heard the door open.
For a moment I remembered how worried Letisia had been about me ever since she'd spotted Kael. If even the thief could move this silently… an assassin wouldn't be any different.
I really could have died without a mouse or bird knowing.
I felt a fresh wave of gratitude toward Letisia.
Ah, but….
I'd just screamed. What if the thief heard that shriek, spun up every paranoid delusion imaginable, and started crying?
Contrary to my fears, though, the thief didn't cry. She simply tilted her head and spoke.
"……Magic power… when did you get that?"
"Uh…?"
"……You didn't have it before."
What magic power would a mere porter have had? Of course the thief would find it suspicious.
"Well…."
I've already been found out by four people….
I explained the whole story to the thief. She listened, then nodded as if she understood.
"……Allen, you're kind."
"I just figured it was time I started pulling my own weight properly…?"
"……There are a lot of people who never think that way."
Was that so?
Well, she had a point. Just look at group projects—the world was full of people who would do anything to contribute half a person's share, or even zero, and freeload the rest of the way.
Thinking about it like that, the thief's words might be right.
She gazed at me quietly for a moment, then spoke again.
"……Did you see where Letisia went?"
"…Aria came looking for her a bit ago? Seemed like they were over in this hallway."
"……I see."
Apparently she hadn't run into Letisia and Ser-Aria on their way back. The thief let out a small breath of relief, then looked at me—like a child who wanted something.
"…?"
I met her eyes, wondering what was up, and she spoke casually.
"……Kind Allen… you didn't forget that you promised to go to the library with me today… right?"
"…Of course not."
I actually had forgotten. Just remembered this second. Calling someone like me "kind Allen"… that nickname was way too heavy.
Still, so she wouldn't get disappointed and start crying, I added something.
"I promised to give you a name, after all."
"……Yeah."
I stood up. At this point, magic practice would have to wait for next time… I needed to take care of what I'd promised first.
"So when are we leaving, by the way?"
"……Either this evening or tomorrow morning."
"I'd rather leave in the evening…."
"……Why?"
"Ah, well…."
No. If I told the thief, her fragile nerves might send her into a panic.
I deliberately kept the story about Kael from her. I needed some kind of excuse instead.
"The palace just feels… uncomfortable somehow…?"
"……Huh?"
"I guess I've gotten used to the inn."
"……I see."
Honestly, of course the palace was more comfortable for me too. The difference in facilities was ridiculous—how could it possibly be uncomfortable?
"Anyway, shall we head to the library?"
"……Yeah."
Ser-Aria brought Letisia back to Erinn. Erinn, who had clearly said she would go look for Letisia herself, had somehow ended up back in her own room.
"Erinn, I found her!"
Erinn looked at Letisia arriving with Ser-Aria and said,
"Where'd you run off to~?"
"She was sleeping in the hallway! Puhaha!"
"The hallway?"
When Erinn asked again, Letisia answered as if they'd already coordinated their story.
"I woke up a little early yesterday because the alcohol hit me sooner than usual… I thought I was heading for the women's rooms, but I must have gone to the men's side instead."
"It's a good thing there weren't any guests there—that could've been a disaster!"
"I know. I really need to be more careful."
"…Hmm~?"
Erinn spoke.
"Letisia."
"Yes?"
"You don't have to lie."
"……Excuse me?"
"…Ah?"
Not only Ser-Aria but Letisia as well stiffened slightly. Erinn simply watched the two of them.
"You were with Allen, weren't you~?"
"…!"
"W-wait a second, Erinn. That's a misunderstanding…."
"What misunderstanding?"
Letisia and Ser-Aria had gone completely tense. The fact that Erinn knew Letisia had spent the night with Allen meant she was almost certainly under a serious misunderstanding.
We're in trouble….
How do we even explain this….
But their worries turned out to be completely unnecessary. Contrary to expectations, Erinn let out a light little snort of laughter.
"Why are you two so wound up~? The loser asked you to teach him magic, right~? So you two snuck off first without telling anyone~♡"
"…You knew?"
"Puhuhu♡"
At Erinn's mischievous laugh, Letisia and Ser-Aria both exhaled in relief, as if a weight had been lifted.
"You don't seem to have much to say about me teaching Allen magic."
"I already told the loser he could do whatever he wanted for two months~."
"Is that really okay?"
Letisia asked.
"You want Allen to stay somewhere safe, don't you?"
At Letisia's question, Ser-Aria also looked at Erinn with mild curiosity. Erinn seemed to consider something, then smiled as if she found it amusing.
"That dummy doesn't look like he has any intention of giving up♡"
"…True, his focus yesterday was pretty impressive."
Letisia agreed with Erinn's assessment, then brought up one more thing.
"Ah, Erinn. There's something I need to tell you."
"What is it~?"
"Yesterday… one of Hero Orlando's party members was in Allen's room."
"…Who?"
"Sir Kael."
At the name Kael, Erinn's expression hardened slightly, and she said,
"Why."
"Judging by how he ran the moment he saw me…."
"…Ha."
The corner of Erinn's mouth twisted upward. Seeing the change in her expression, Ser-Aria and Letisia both spoke in mild panic, as if trying to restrain her.
"Erinn, you should leave it at a warning. Nothing's actually happened yet, so we don't have the justification…."
"Of course it'd be better to make things clear, but still—you can't half-kill him…!"
"…What are you two even talking about~?"
Erinn still didn't hide that chilling smile, and spoke in a slightly menacing voice.
"Why would I need to lift a finger when I don't have to~?"
"Pardon?"
"I just have to use Orlando's personality~ Then I won't even need to get involved myself~?"
With that, Erinn walked past the two of them. As she left the room, she added,
"I'll be back, so go find Freya—she's probably still wasting her time searching the garden right about now~♡"
"Ah, right! Freya was supposed to check outside!"
"So Freya is still looking for her…?"
"Puhuhu, yep♡"
After Erinn left, Letisia and Ser-Aria pictured Freya diligently searching the garden. Then they looked at each other.
"We should go quickly…."
"Yeah, puhaha!"
I visited the royal library again with the thief. The librarian told us we couldn't re-enter the inner section, but I explained that we'd come for the general area this time, so it was fine.
"……What kind of books should we look at?"
"A dictionary of names? Or maybe something like an encyclopedia…."
"……Books with a lot of proper nouns."
"Yeah, that kind of thing."
She caught on quickly.
I split off a little from the thief and we each started scanning the shelves. The library was so vast that even searching separately would take a long while.
The two of us quietly began flipping through books. After an hour of silently leafing through volumes, I decided this wasn't working and headed for the language section.
There was an extremely thick-looking book in the language stacks. Curious, I pulled it out, but it was only thick—there wasn't a single character I could recognize, so it was no help.
I put the thick dictionary back and this time pulled out something a little thinner. The moment I opened it, somewhat familiar letters appeared.
Latin script?
It was the alphabet I encountered most often through English, so of course I recognized it. The notation style did look closer to old Roman letters, though—dots over lowercase o's and the like….
I flipped through roughly and spotted a familiar word.
Lux.
The Latin word for light. It was one of the names I'd considered before when trying to name the thief. I'd discarded it because it kept making me think of a certain game character, though….
I was about to discard it again when I noticed an entry that listed related words and words with associated meanings. I looked through them.
And something suddenly caught my eye. I flipped straight to the page with that word's explanation, found it, confirmed the meaning, and thought for a moment.
"…Thief, come here a second?"
I called her over.
"Clara."
"……Huh?"
"How about Clara?"
The word I'd found was clarus.
It meant "bright" or "shining," and was originally used as a masculine given name. The feminine form of that word was Clara.
Even if her skin wasn't white because she was a half-dark elf, her hair and eyes clearly shone brightly—it suited the thief well, I thought. Even in darkness, that silver hair and those golden eyes always seemed to gleam.
"……What does it mean?"
I was the one who had said a name should have special meaning. Of course I needed to explain the reason.
"It means bright."
"……Bright? But I'm… dark, aren't I?"
The thief said,
"……My personality is like this, and my skin is dark…."
There she went again, thinking only of the negative. I wondered when this chronic habit of hers would ever get fixed.
Maybe I should give her something that might fill even a little of that self-esteem.
Then every time the name was called, she'd remember that, and it might help restore a bit of her extremely low self-worth.
"I was thinking about how your hair and eyes shine brightly."
"……My hair?"
"Yeah. Gold and silver—both of them are incredibly sparkling colors. And…."
I continued,
"Even when we fight, thief, I always thought your figure shone. Your performance was incredible, wasn't it?"
Especially in the dungeon—I'd been really surprised. I never expected someone in the thief role to pull off that much.
"……Clara."
The thief repeated the name to herself. If she didn't like it, of course I was ready to look for something else.
"…Clara."
But she seemed to like it, murmuring it once more. Then she looked at me and said,
"…My name… is Clara?"
"If you're okay with it…."
The thief, who had been quietly watching me, lifted the corners of her mouth just a little.
"…Yeah. Clara. I like it."
As she said that, the thief was smiling softly. I stared blankly at that smile for a moment before coming back to myself a beat late and speaking.
"Ah, I'm glad you like it."
"…Then call me Clara from now on."
"I will."
I said,
"Cla…ra."
A strange feeling came over me. Was it because it was a name I had given her?
Or….
"…Yeah, Allen."
Was it because of that pure, radiant smile she gave when I called her name—because it was so beautiful?