Departure
“Hmm….”
I half leaned over the railing and looked out.
As I watched the heads bobbing on the darkening sea, Daun slipped an arm around my waist.
“Careful. You’ll fall if you’re not.”
“Okay.”
If I did fall, I wouldn’t get hurt anyway, but there was no need to be cold to someone who was worrying about me.
It wasn’t as if we were complete strangers, after all.
Still….
The sea was closer to black than anything I’d call blue, and with all that long, seaweed-like hair floating on the surface, it felt eerie.
And now I understood why Daun had said that.
“They really are ugly.”
“Gasp… That’s too much….”
“Too much?”
“It means you’re being way too harsh.”
“…Was I?”
“Of course! Even if they’re monsters, saying they’re ugly to their faces is hurtful. It’s true, but….”
“I feel like that part hurts even more.”
And wasn’t Daun the one who called them ugly first?
When I turned to look at her with that in mind, she seemed to realize her mistake and quickly averted her eyes.
Truthfully, there were plenty of monsters more hideous than sirens.
Even more if you included demonic creatures and dimensional beasts.
And yet sirens still looked grotesque somehow because they were so eerily human.
There was always something deeply unsettling about a poorly made imitation of a person trying to pass itself off as human.
I felt like there was even a term for that, but I couldn’t remember it now.
After staring down at the faces twisted here and there, scales clinging to them in patches, I lost interest and pulled my body back inside the ship.
Along with Daun’s hand, which was still around my waist.
I ignored her disappointed face.
“Their voices might be nice enough, but with faces like that, anyone who came for the singing would probably scream and run the other way.”
“Didn’t you just say I was being too harsh?”
“Well, yeah… but it’s true. If it were me, I’d never want to go anywhere near them.”
“Hmm. Fair enough.”
It was funny how she went right from scolding me to spouting all kinds of appearance-based discrimination, but I agreed with her.
Those fishlike teeth and those glinting, razor-sharp fins would probably snap anyone out of their trance, even if they’d been about to throw themselves into the sea under the spell of the song.
“A siren’s song is infused with mana that seduces people… Anyone afflicted by it forgets even themselves and follows only the song mindlessly….”
“Huh? But we’re fine.”
“We should be.”
I pointed at the ring glittering on Daun’s finger.
“Do you know how much that magic tool cost? If it couldn’t even block a siren’s attack, I’d have turned the bow around and run straight back to Valtora.”
And then I’d have grabbed Brondein by the collar and hammered him straight into the floor.
But judging by how well it was holding off the magi so far, I didn’t need to do that after all.
“Did you know about sirens too, Kana?”
“Yeah. But this is my first time seeing one in person.”
Sirens were sea-dwelling monsters.
It was only natural that they had nothing to do with someone like me, who lived with her feet planted firmly on land.
“Mm-hm! Kana is closer to the ground than other people, after all.”
“…I’ll ask before I hit you. What exactly does that mean?”
“…Eh? You’re going to hit me? Really…?”
Daun acted like a complete idiot most of the time, but she was undeniably beautiful.
To have a gorgeous woman kneeling there, looking up at me with those pitiful eyes while she acted cute like that….
I shook my head at the sight of her shrinking back.
Then Daun let out a sigh of relief.
“I won’t hit you. I’ll throw you into the sea.”
“Eh.”
Cute my ass.
Since she seemed to be babbling nonsense under the siren song, wouldn’t it be proper to send her over to them?
At my added remark, Daun peeked back out over the side of the ship.
The sirens were still circling around the vessel, as if urging her to come closer.
One of them met Daun’s eyes.
“….”
….
Sirens were hostile toward humans.
So it wasn’t strange for them to stare at people with open hostility.
Shaaa!
“Eek?!”
Even taking that into account, the siren’s hostility toward Daun was on another level.
Startled by the creature’s menacing wave of its arm, Daun jerked her neck inward like a turtle….
Or at least she tried to.
My hand was still on her, and she lurched so far over the railing that her whole body pitched forward in a rush.
“Aaaah! Kana is trying to kill me!”
“Your friends are waiting. Go on.”
“I was wrong! I was wrong, so please spare me!”
“Huh. I thought you liked the sea better than land?”
I’d taken her for someone who liked the sea, since she’d said I was closer to the ground, but why was she acting so terrified now?
The moment I stopped tormenting Daun, half teasing and half sincere, she sighed in relief—and the sirens, who had been waiting for their prey to fall into the water, looked disappointed and drew back their arms.
…What was that supposed to mean?
Did you seriously think I’d actually toss Daun into the sea and wait for it?
The world had truly lost its mind.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go now, or else….”
I drew my sword.
The sirens scattered at once.
I hadn’t even attacked them—I’d barely threatened them properly—and yet they fled in perfect formation like a swarm of ants. Daun let out a low, impressed breath.
“That was so charismatic….”
I had been about to swing my sword if they didn’t leave willingly, but I awkwardly slid it back into its scabbard.
…If they ran off that quickly, it made it look like I’d done something awful.
When I hadn’t done anything at all.
It was nice not having to move around unnecessarily, but the strange, nagging feeling in my chest made me rub the hilt of my sword absentmindedly.
They still hadn’t gotten out of range. Should I do it now…?
“Kana, you’re not thinking something bad, are you?”
“No.”
I denied it immediately, but Daun didn’t seem inclined to believe me.
…It was the truth, so why wouldn’t she trust me?
Feeling unjustly wronged for once, I pouted.
“Monsters that harm humans are bad, so this would be a good deed, not a bad one.”
“Th-that’s true, but… if you say you’ll spare them and then attack out of nowhere, that’s just sad. It also goes against the spirit of fair play….”
“…Fair play? This isn’t a match.”
“N-no… I don’t mean we should duel properly or anything, just that my conscience would be bothered by it….”
“Your conscience gets bothered by all kinds of nonsense. And I never said I’d spare them.”
I hadn’t said I wouldn’t attack them if they came back willingly.
So I wasn’t violating any kind of agreement.
“…Really?”
Daun tilted her head, half doubtful, but she seemed to accept my explanation.
“That makes sense….”
“Of course. Unlike someone else, I don’t talk nonsense.”
“That’s Kana for you! …But who exactly is this ‘someone else’ Kana’s talking about?”
“Atisha, there’s something I want to ask you.”
“Hello? Kana? Why are you ignoring me?”
“Mm… what is it…?”
“Helloooo~? Can’t you hear me~? Ka— whuff!”
“Hey, seriously.”
She was so irritating.
I shoved Daun’s face out of my way and kept talking to Atisha.
“Did sirens always live in this area?”
“No idea…. They don’t usually come out this far…. Or do you want to hear about when I first came here…?”
“When was that?”
“Probably well over ten years ago….”
“Then never mind.”
People said ten years could change a mountain and a river.
Unless we were talking about a monster as long-lived and powerful as a dragon, I didn’t think something as middling as a siren would have stayed in the same habitat for ten years.
So hearing about Atisha’s journey to the Ardeena Continent probably wouldn’t help much.
“But why do you ask all of a sudden…?”
Sirens living in a sea thick with magi, where even fish could turn into demonic creatures.
“I was just curious.”
Wasn’t it strange that they chose to live in a place like this?
There couldn’t possibly be anyone making a living by fishing here, and with so much magi around there were probably few marine monsters left, which meant finding prey must be difficult. So why stay here instead of moving north or south?
Especially if it meant risking contamination by magi.
Atisha answered my question without much concern.
“Well… maybe they were just passing through….”
“Hmm, I guess.”
That was possible too.
Thinking the sirens had set up a nest here just from a brief glance was probably a bit of a stretch.
I’d been through so much of this and that lately that maybe I’d become too sensitive.
“…Pfft! I think that’s a good thing! Being cautious and prepared can’t hurt!”
Daun said that as she stood on her tiptoes and, in a cowardly abuse of our height difference, shook off my hand.
“…Well, sure.”
“Huh? That’s all you’ve got? I backed you up and that’s how you respond….”
“I never asked you to back me up.”
“Eek! Give me back my effort!”
“…Since when is that even something that takes effort?”
“Of course it does! What was it again—taking someone’s side is basically a form of guarantee, so you have to be more careful with those words than with any others! If enough of those stack up, you’ll get burned badly one day!”
“Hmm.”
No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t see a one- or two-sentence remark carrying that much weight.
I’d asked because I wanted to know what on earth she was talking about, but as expected, it was nonsense.
As I was deciding to ignore her like always, a good idea suddenly came to me, and I deliberately let my eyes droop.
“…So you’re not going to take my side anymore…?”
“…Ugh! T-this ambush… you little temptress… how underhanded!”
When I looked up at her like that, Daun clutched her chest, staggered, and collapsed in a heap.
Monster of nonsense: slain.
I stood triumphantly atop Daun’s fallen body and gave a satisfied nod.
“You two really are something else….”
Atisha’s exasperated mutter, delivered as she watched us with utter disdain, was just the cherry on top.
—