White Night
For several days after leaving Valtora, Daeun’s mood stayed stubbornly sky-high.
“Hehe.”
She grinned every chance she got—while riding, while eating, even right before bed.
With her gaze fixed on the ringed hand she kept lifting into view, there was no way not to notice, even if I’d wanted to pretend I hadn’t.
“Kana, did you know? The meaning of a ring changes depending on which finger you wear it on. For example, a ring on the ring finger of your left hand means a ‘token of love,’ so wedding rings always go on the left ring finger.”
“Hmm….”
Come to think of it, Earth did have those kinds of meanings, didn’t it?
Customs… or superstitions, maybe.
Either way, I had no idea whether Silia had anything like that.
I wasn’t interested in that sort of thing in the first place, so of course I wouldn’t know.
“What does that one mean?”
“Huh? This?”
Daeun broke into a mischievous smile.
The ring on her left index finger flashed as if it were smiling along with her.
“It’s a secret!”
“…?”
…What?
I wasn’t that curious, so it didn’t really matter, but somehow I felt like I’d lost to Daeun, which was irritating.
Even if, in practical terms, this wasn’t the kind of conversation where anyone actually won or lost.
“It seems she really loves it.”
“Of course. It’s the first gift Kana ever gave me!”
“Hehe, that’s the fifth time you’ve said that already.”
“Ah….”
I didn’t know what Celine had said, but Daeun gave an awkward laugh and quickly hid her hand at the sound of it.
There weren’t any people around, and even if there had been, there probably weren’t many who could look at the ring on Daeun’s finger and immediately realize it had been made from a Dragon Orb.
They’d probably just think, Wow, that’s a really luxurious, beautiful ring.
And if they were bad people, that thought would be followed by, I should steal it! or I should kill her and take it!
…Though, was it even possible to take something from Players?
Back when I lived in the mountains, I’d cut down more Players than I could count, but I never once saw them drop anything.
That meant I couldn’t exactly ask Daeun about it, either.
So I swallowed the question and decided I’d ask Edel the next time I saw her.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The Laxia Continent lay beyond the western sea.
So it was a given that, in order to reach Laxia, we’d have to go back to the place we’d set out from—the territory that had once belonged to Grasis.
Of course, smart people had since proven that this land I stood on wasn’t flat, but round.
That meant if you set sail east from the eastern edge of the Ardina Continent and kept heading east, you might eventually reach Laxia.
At least, I’d never heard of anyone actually arriving there that way.
Then again, how many people had even seen Laxia with their own eyes?
Without knowing how long the journey would take—or even how to set the course in the first place—we couldn’t just go charging off into the sea.
Our goal was to reach the Demon Continent, not to pioneer a brand-new shipping lane.
And no matter how much we went around asking for a ship to Laxia from the eastern sea, there was no chance anyone would volunteer.
To the people of Ardina, the Demon Continent called Laxia was basically a land of death.
“Huh? Isn’t that true of the west too? If you just think about public perception, the west should be worse, since they fight with monsters more often, right?”
“Yeah. That’s true.”
Daeun had a sharp point there.
As she said, the farther west you went, the worse the reputation of the demons became.
“Then wouldn’t it be impossible to find a ship even from the far west? No one’s going to volunteer to walk into a death trap. Tsk, that’s too bad, but I guess there’s nothing we can do about it, huh?”
With a smile blooming all over her face, Daeun said,
“There is someone.”
“…Huh?”
“Someone willing to walk into a death trap.”
She pointed at me, Celine, and then herself—
three in a row.
The flowers of her smile withered in an instant.
Well, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
For Ardinians, merely approaching a demon village was enough to be affected by Magi, so going to Laxia, the demons’ homeland, was basically suicide. Anyone in their right mind wouldn’t want to go.
Even if we did manage to get a ship, wouldn’t most people die during the voyage anyway?
They probably wouldn’t even know the route to Laxia.
“…I guess so?”
Color returned to Daeun’s face.
“But we’re still going.”
“…I guess so?”
It was the same words as before, but the emotion behind them was worlds apart.
You’d think we were being marched off to the slaughterhouse.
“If we don’t have a ship, we can just run.”
“…Where to? Across the sea?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you ev—”
All at once, Daeun stopped as if something had just occurred to her.
“No, if it’s Kana….”
She muttered to herself, then snapped her head up.
“—It might be possible! But I’m absolutely against it! I never want to go through that experience again…! One bout of seasickness is more than enough!”
“Isn’t seasickness the same whether you’re on a ship or not?”
“It’s different! It’s completely different!”
Daeun shouted herself hoarse, as if she might throw herself flat on the ground, and only quieted down after I told her I was joking.
It wasn’t that I’d changed my mind because of her adamant refusal.
It was just that, if we really crossed that way, we might have a miserable time coming back….
Yes. That was all.
“….”
“…Kana? Why the sudden face?”
“Hmm?”
“N-no, it’s just that you looked so serious I thought something had happened.”
Serious face?
I didn’t think I’d made one.
As I blinked blankly, Daeun scratched her cheek too.
“Was it just my imagination?”
“How silly. Anyway, I don’t want to do it that way either, if it’s going to be so hard.”
“Gasp…!”
“…What?”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Kana say something is hard.”
“Hard is hard.”
If my hand slipped and I lost it, I’d have to dive in and fish it back out.
And if I gripped too hard so I wouldn’t lose it, I might crush it by accident.
I had plenty to worry about too.
I tilted my head for a moment.
Now that I thought about it, it wasn’t really hard so much as annoying.
“…Ah, so that’s what you meant by hard. That makes sense.”
I had no idea what exactly she’d figured out, but the way she nodded showed she’d found an answer of her own.
“But then what do we do? Sure, you can buy a ship with money, but you probably can’t buy a captain with money too…. Kana, can you steer a ship by any chance?”
“Of course not.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Can you steer a ship, Celine?”
“Mm, no. I’m sorry I can’t be of help.”
“Ah, no, not at all. I can’t either, after all.”
Daeun startled and bowed her head to Celine.
Watching that, a playful urge suddenly rose in me.
“You’re mean, Tteoni.”
“…Kana doesn’t even know what Celine said! If you want to understand, study hard!”
“Mm….”
Daeun’s hand ruthlessly ruffled my hair.
The pink strands wobbling all over my face were bothersome, and before I knew it, I let out a faint, complaining sound.
Daeun, having turned my head into a complete bird’s nest, began smoothing it down again.
“So… Celine can’t steer a ship either. Got any good ideas?”
She phrased it like a question, but her tone made it clear she was convinced I had a solution.
I rose to the occasion.
“I told you before. If Ardinians going to Laxia, the demons’ homeland, is basically suicide—”
then all we had to do was make sure they weren’t Ardinians.
Daeun’s eyes widened.
“Wait, you’re thinking of hiring demons?”
“Yeah.”
Quick on the uptake, these ones.
I liked that. One sentence, and they already knew where I was going.
“The demons would know the route to Laxia. They’d also be able to endure the Magi.”
Even if they’d come to the Ardina Continent because they couldn’t withstand Laxia’s Magi, they were still a race that lived with Magi, so they’d be able to handle the time it took to dock and disembark.
Wasn’t that exactly what people meant by suitable personnel?
“Uh, well… the plan does sound plausible, but….”
“But?”
“Would the demons really listen to us? I don’t think they’d like Ardinians much either…. What if they think we’re planning something shady with Laxia?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
According to what Edel had told me, they wouldn’t be able to refuse our proposal.
Like Daeun worried, they might not trust my word—or Daeun’s.
But if Celine said it, they would definitely believe her.
Celine was a nun serving Edel.
Not just any nun, either, but an apprentice saintess at that.
“…What does being a devotee of the Edel Church have to do with demons believing us? Oh, is it because the Holy Kingdom mediated during that racial war?”
“It’s the other way around. They didn’t trust the Holy Kingdom because it mediated for them; they accepted the mediation because they trusted the Holy Kingdom.”
“Huh?”
Everything in Silia had been made by Edel’s hand.
In a world where gods truly existed, that was accepted as common knowledge.
Maybe that would change someday after centuries passed and Edel’s descent vanished from everyone’s memory and records, but that time wasn’t now.
And the demons themselves knew they had been created by Edel’s hand.
“If you’re talking about faith alone, the demons might be even more devout than the Holy Kingdom.”
If not, they wouldn’t still be living in Laxia all that time.
“Wh-what?”
Daeun still looked completely baffled.
“I don’t know what you mean, but are you even allowed to say that?”
She sneaked a glance at Celine.
Even though she clearly hadn’t understood, she still seemed worried about offending her.
Well, she had said it in front of an apprentice saintess of the Holy Kingdom, so it was natural enough to think Celine would be upset if she’d heard it.
But if Celine had heard me, she wouldn’t have minded.
“It’ll be fine.”
She knew the story behind the demons too.
By then I was starting to find the whole thing annoying, so after that I clamped my mouth shut.
Anyway, once we got to Laxia, she’d understand what I meant. There was no need to explain everything in painstaking detail right now.
What was that called again?
Sp….
No, it definitely started with an S, but I couldn’t quite remember it.
I twisted a lock of hair around my finger and thought about it, but in the end I gave up cleanly when it still wouldn’t come back to me.
“…What is it? Huh? What does that mean?”
Unlike me, Daeun couldn’t let it go so easily, and clung to me in protest.
When my mouth still wouldn’t open, she puffed out her cheeks in a sulk, making it very obvious she was annoyed.
She seemed to be trying her best not to meet my eyes, but I could still feel her stare hitting me plain as day.
Honestly, who was treating whom like a child here?
I sighed and shook my head from side to side.