Ascension Ritual
“Wow….”
Daeun let out a low exclamation of awe.
“Should I call this a spectacle?”
Her gaze, fixed on the mountain-like pile of demon beasts’ corpses, shifted to me.
“What do you think, Kana?”
“...Why are you asking me?”
“If you want to know what a work is trying to say, the most accurate thing is to ask the artist, right? What if you interpret it however you want, only for them to say, ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all’?”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
That wasn’t a work of art, and I wasn’t the artist, so what “meaning” was she even talking about?
“Besides, is there really anyone who’d look at that and think it’s a piece of art?”
“Kana. Even if something looks meaningless to our eyes, if the artist is trying to say something through it, then it can still be called a work of art.”
“I’m telling you, I’m not the artist.”
What “trying to say something,” exactly?
There was no way someone as hopelessly distant from art as I was had anything like that hidden inside them.
If I had something to say, I’d rather say it directly. I wasn’t the type to hide it behind some roundabout, polished, and—if I were being generous—cultured method. If I were being honest, it was just irritating.
I felt the same way about appreciating art, too.
When was it again…?
Ah, right. It was when I’d been invited to a noble’s banquet.
“This is a work I’m very proud of.”
“Hmm….”
“I spent more than a hundred gold coins acquiring it!”
“...That expensive?”
“Yes! Even you, in all your ignorance, must have heard of the name Fernando, surely? This is the tenth masterpiece by Master Fernando himself. To obtain it was nothing short of heavenly luck…! It was only possible thanks to the grace of Goddess Edel!”
“There’s no way a god would bestow grace just for buying a painting.”
“Just buying a painting? What on earth do you mean by that?! You can’t buy this even if you have all the money in the world!”
“...Fine, fine. Setting that aside, you called me here just to show me this?”
“Yes. Isn’t it magnificent? ...Ahem! I-I mean, if you’re interested, I could even explain the piece to you personally~?”
“I’m fine. I’m not that interested.”
“...You are impossible! Hmph, never mind! I’m a very busy person, too, you know?! I even made time for you out of consideration, and this is how I’m repaid…!”
Was she the daughter of a count’s family, or a marquess’s?
Anyway, it had been a banquet hosted by a noble around my age, and she’d been bragging that she’d acquired a priceless masterpiece for me to see.
But to me, who had never even heard the name Fernando before, her rambling had meant very little.
So when I reacted with all the enthusiasm of a cold stone, she’d fled with a face I couldn’t tell whether was sulking or about to cry.
The word “fled” felt a little odd, but her hurried steps were impossible to describe as anything else.
For the record, when I got home and told Dad what had happened at the banquet, he said to me,
“...You really should try to be a bit more delicate.”
And with that, he’d worn a look on his face that was impossible to describe—one I remembered all too clearly.
The point of that story was that I had absolutely no interest in works of art.
If someone had brought me a famous sword instead, I might have shown a much stronger reaction.
“Something like that happened, huh.”
After the short flashback, I lifted my head.
Demons were moving busily around the heap of monster corpses.
What they were doing now was extracting Magi from the remains.
That wasn’t something the rest of us could help with, so we simply stood there and watched them work.
We’d come this far. There was truly no turning back now.
Not that I’d ever intended to turn back in the first place, but….
If I had to compare it to something, yes, this was like meat placed over a fire.
Once the meat is already halfway cooked, you can’t exactly take it back off the flames.
“Uh, um…. That is a very Kana-like comparison….”
“A Kana-like comparison?”
“I mean, there are other comparisons you could have used, but you specifically went with meat. It really makes clear how much you love meat.”
“...What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s just cute.”
“You call everything cute.”
There was certainly plenty to be called cute.
I took Daeun’s teasing in stride, as usual.
The conversation settled for a moment.
No matter how talkative Daeun was, she couldn’t speak twenty-four hours a day, so moments like this were bound to come up.
And usually, Celine would have jumped in as if she’d been waiting for her cue—but today, she was silent too.
When I glanced at her, her face was tight with strain.
“Nervous?”
“...Yes. This is my first time being entrusted with such a weighty duty. When I think that if I make a mistake, Lady Kana will be in danger, I can scarcely calm myself…. Was it very obvious?”
“Yeah, very. If someone saw you now, they’d think you were the one performing the ritual, not me.”
“Is Kana not nervous?”
“Of course I’m nervous.”
Was I not a person? Why wouldn’t I be nervous?
At my answer, Daeun’s mouth dropped open.
“Kana gets nervous?!”
“...If that’s what you thought, why did you even ask?”
“N-no, it’s just… hearing it out loud is so surprising….”
“What’s so surprising about that?”
“Well, I just can’t imagine Kana looking nervous. Even now, you say you’re nervous, but your face and behavior don’t look like it at all.”
People usually freeze up, sweat, fidget, or can’t keep still, Daeun said.
There was only one thing I could answer to that.
“I can stay calm because I’m used to it.”
How many times had I stepped forward with my life on the line?
I’d been unbelievably nervous the first time I went to the battlefield, too.
I don’t remember it clearly, but maybe I’d even trembled like there was an earthquake.
But when something like that repeats once, twice, dozens of times, you eventually grow numb to the stimulation.
And the fact that I’d become strong enough that ordinary situations no longer threatened my life certainly helped.
“And I’ve told you this before. I don’t plan on dying here.”
“Kana. Do you know the number one final line young men say before they die? ‘It’s fine, I won’t die.’ No one who dies in an accident ever thinks they’re going to die. Accidents always come at unexpected moments. You have to be careful, all the time—careful, and then careful again!”
“...Ugh, you’re nagging.”
Chatter, chatter.
As if I didn’t know I had to be careful—why was she noisily reciting something everyone already knew?
By the time Daeun finished, I lowered the hand I’d had over my ear.
“If anyone saw you, they’d think you were my mother.”
“...I think it would be lovely if I had a cute daughter like Kana, but for now, could you just call me your older sister? If you say I have a grown daughter, I’ll sound far too old!”
“Grown….”
I nodded.
“Yeah, I will.”
“What, what? You liked that ‘grown’ part that much?”
“...No.”
“Oh, come on. The corners of your mouth are practically hooked around your ears.”
“...!”
I reflexively put a hand over my mouth.
My lips were set in a straight line, without the slightest movement.
I hadn’t looked in a mirror, so I couldn’t be certain, but I knew my mouth wasn’t lifted nearly as much as Daeun claimed.
Having the corners of your mouth “hooked around your ears” meant you were smiling that widely, after all.
When I shot her a sullen glare, Daeun broke into a broad grin.
“See? You did like it. If you weren’t embarrassed, you wouldn’t have checked. Caught you!”
“I checked because it was absurd, not because I was embarrassed. There’s no way I was smiling that much.”
“Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Kana laugh out loud. I’ve seen you smile or give a little chuckle now and then, but not much else. What about you, Celine?”
“No, I haven’t. If even Lady Daeun hasn’t seen it, how could I have?”
“Hmm….”
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Well, if you can laugh sometimes, then I suppose it’s not that you can’t laugh at all….”
“Shall I use a healing Holy Magic spell?”
“Oh, that’s a great idea!”
“...?”
Huh.
I’d only said it offhandedly, but apparently I’d opened the door to a full-blown debate.
It wasn’t a joke—Celine’s holy power actually washed over my body once.
The warm sensation wrapping around me was so absurd that I could only stare, and while I was standing there in stunned silence, Daeun and Celine began whispering to each other with very serious faces.
...This was really ridiculous.
“Do you really have to smile like that? Like Lady Daeun said, it’s not as if you never smile at all.”
There just hadn’t been any reason to smile like that.
“That’s true, but... I’ve known Kana for quite a long time already. Does it make sense that not once in all that time has there been something worth laughing about?”
“It seems to me that Lady Kana’s threshold for feeling emotions is simply too high. Even apart from laughing, I haven’t seen her openly display emotions to any noticeable degree very often.”
“Ah, not exactly. When something displeases her, it really shows. Like when she’s dissatisfied with my swordsmanship, or when vegetables show up on the dining table….”
“Aha, I see. As expected, Lady Daeun knows Lady Kana better than I do.”
“Heh. We’ve spent enough time together, you know. If Celine tries a bit harder, you might even reach my level. Kana is surprisingly simple.”
“Yes. Then I’ll have to do my best.”
“...Hey, you do know I can hear you, right?”
I wasn’t some tree on the roadside. Was it really okay to say that stuff while I was standing right there?
Unable to restrain my exasperation, I spoke up, and Daeun clicked her tongue and wagged a finger at me.
“If we say it where you can’t hear us, then it becomes gossip. Gossip is bad.”
“Wow. That is the most perfectly reasonable nonsense I’ve ever heard.”
Daeun seemed to possess the ability to make everything she said sound like utter nonsense to the listener.
Otherwise there was no explanation for why something like that felt so bizarre.
Even the sun rising in the east sounded like something I’d question if Daeun said it.
“Actually, reading Kana’s emotions isn’t all that hard….”
“...?”
“Is that so?”
“You can kind of tell, you know. Things like, ‘She’s in a good mood right now,’ or ‘She’s in a bad mood, so I shouldn’t poke her’... that sort of thing. For the record, right now you’re bewildered, but not actually in a bad mood.”
“That’s just ridiculous.”
“Okay! I’ve decided!”
Daeun clenched both fists.
“From now on, my goal is to make Kana burst out laughing!”
“So you’ve finally decided to change careers and become a bard. Good choice.”
Even if it was true that everyone had to decide their own path, it was only natural to feel pity when you watched talent being wasted.
And so I applauded Daeun for realizing her own aptitude.
“Huh? Bard? What’s that—”
“That’s enough fooling around.”
A voice from beside us cut Daeun off.
Yustina, who had been moving busily this whole time, now stood at our side.
“The extraction work is finished.”
“That was pretty fast.”
“All that remains is to withdraw the barrier. Once that is done, there will be no turning back, so if you mean to change your mind, speak now.”
Turn back.
All at once, Daeun placed a hand on my shoulder.
Her hand was trembling faintly.
She’d been acting as if nothing was wrong all this time, but it seemed she hadn’t been able to hide her nerves to the very end.
I was the one who was about to undergo the ritual, so why were the others even more tense than I was?
But did Daeun know?
“No.”
That slight tremor was, in its own way, helping me steel my resolve.
I had to move forward, so I couldn’t step back.