White Night
“Asie.”
“…”
“Asie!”
“Ah, m-master! When did you get here?”
“When do you think? I’ve been here for ages, you fool!”
Asie, who had been lost in a daze, snapped back to his senses at Brondein’s bellow.
Brondein clicked his tongue as he looked at him, but there was a knowing expression on his face, too.
“You like that little lady that much?”
“If you call her a little lady, I sound like some kind of creep. And if you really think about it, there isn’t even that big of an age gap between us… No, wait. More importantly, how do you know about that, Master?”
“You’ve been fidgeting and trailing after her like a lost pup. How could I not notice? Even now you’re still moaning around like a dog that needs to pee.”
“A dog that needs to pee…?”
He thought it was a very dwarven comparison, but it had still hit close enough to sting that Asie couldn’t bring himself to deny it.
“If that was the case, you should’ve just gone ahead and confessed. Like a man, huh? A grown male ought to be bold—”
“I did.”
“...Huh?”
“I confessed. Three times.”
“...”
Once during the Grasis days. Once on the day they reunited a few days ago. And once on the day she left.
The result of those three confessions was written plainly on Asie’s dejected face.
What on earth had been missing?
Asie let out a sigh while looking at Brondein’s nicely packed muscles.
“W-well... hang in there. The world’s not made of that one girl, you know.”
He hadn’t expected to find out he’d been rejected already.
Realizing he’d added yet another wound to his student’s heart, Brondein awkwardly patted Asie’s back.
Asie felt the rough hand thumping his back and sank into thought.
She’s going to the Demon Continent, Laxia.
He had never seen Laxia himself.
To begin with, if someone without any real achievement in cultivation or martial skill went there, they would be poisoned by Magi and die in a matter of minutes.
Still, he had learned through ancient texts and other records just how dangerous Laxia was, so when Cana said she was heading there, he had no choice but to try to stop her.
Can’t you not go?
He wasn’t saying it because he loved Cana.
Even if the person he was speaking to had been just an acquaintance rather than the object of his one-sided love, Asie would have said the same thing.
He knew very well that Cana was strong.
But there was no guarantee her strength would hold in the very heart of Laxia, where Magi overflowed like a tidal wave.
There simply wasn’t enough record to judge that.
Why?
Why? Because you’re walking straight into a slaughterhouse! Of course I’m going to worry.
...Is that so?
She looked as though she didn’t really understand what he was saying.
Whether she didn’t understand the word “slaughterhouse,” or didn’t understand why anyone would worry, he couldn’t tell.
Either way, it was frustrating all the same, and just as he was about to speak again, Cana’s tiny mouth opened first.
Even so, I have to go.
As always, her words were calm—but they carried an iron-hard resolve.
Had Cana ever shown such stubborn determination about anything other than matters involving Garid?
After thinking it over for a moment, Asie came to the conclusion that she hadn’t.
Even her hatred for the Empire, the way she bared her teeth at the imperial court mage, had ultimately been born from Garid’s death.
And so, hearing that voice, Asie could no longer bring himself to keep trying to stop her.
...I see.
How could he hold back a child who carried not despair but hope; not hatred for someone, but anticipation for the future?
Then I’ll be waiting, so go carefully.
Unable to hold Cana back in the end, Asie gave his farewell as though he were indifferent.
If only he had been stronger, at least he could have said something like, Let me come with you.
He had never hated his own weakness more than he did in that moment.
“But... Master.”
Asie suddenly spoke to Brondein, who was trying to comfort him with clumsy words.
“What now?”
“Have you ever... been in love?”
“...”
“...”
“...”
The forge fell silent in an instant.
Their answerless silence turned the atmosphere between them solemn.
“...Let’s get back to work.”
“...Yes, Master.”
That was the end of the two men’s conversation.
In the heavy quiet, as Asie picked up a hammer and followed after his master, Cana’s final words came back to him.
“Don’t wait for me”... What on earth did she mean by that?
“You little brat! What are you standing around for? Get in here already!”
“Ah, I’m coming! I’m coming!”
Muttering over that strangely meaningful remark, Asie hurried into the smithy at the sound of his master calling him.
* * *
“...It’s bright.”
I squinted as I looked up at the sunlight pouring down on me.
It wasn’t as vicious as the midday sun in summer, but it was still bright enough to make me wince.
I like cloudy days better than clear ones.
I’d rather stretch out under the sun than mope around getting rained on.
Of course, that only meant I preferred one relatively more than the other. It didn’t mean I especially loved that kind of weather.
If someone asked, “Which do you prefer, cloudy or clear?” I’d pick clear. That was the extent of it.
So the sunlight beating down on me right now wasn’t exactly welcome, but it wasn’t exactly unwelcome, either.
...That would have been true, if this situation had been normal.
“What time is it?”
“Huh? Let me see...”
Daeun fussed with her watch.
Listening to her, I looked back up at the sky.
In summer, the sun rose early and set late.
The same was true in Silia, this world different from Earth, but...
It wasn’t summer now, and even if it had been, the sun should have been down at this hour.
So why was that sun still hanging above my head?
“...”
“Cana. I know you don’t like the sun, but... you can’t just charge at it, okay? It might look close, but it’s insanely, insanely far away.”
“...I know that.”
What exactly did Daeun think I was capable of?
I was starting to think I’d need to set aside some time soon for a serious conversation with her.
“Ugh, I’ve suddenly got chills...!”
Daeun shuddered all over.
“It’s not even cold out, so why...?”
As she said, the weather was very warm.
So warm, in fact, that it wouldn’t have been strange to simply lie down and take a nap.
But as I had already said several times, this wasn’t daytime—it was night. So if I slept now, it wouldn’t be a nap.
“Oh, this is your first time seeing a white night, isn’t it?”
“A white night?”
Some hazy memory from my past life told me I’d heard the term before.
I couldn’t remember why, but wasn’t it the name for a phenomenon where the sun refused to set even at night?
Was there such a thing in this world too?
Tilting my head, I heard Celine speak with a gentle smile.
“It means... the goddess Edel.”
Her words were as clumsy as Daeun’s had been when we first met, but I could still understand what she meant.
“You’re saying this phenomenon is happening because of Edel?”
“Um... yes, that’s what I heard.”
I asked Daeun to confirm it, but she didn’t seem to know the details herself and answered rather uncertainly.
Was it the aftermath of fighting a Dimensional Beast?
Or was it a phenomenon Edel had created on purpose?
Whatever the reason, it seemed clear enough that this was something brought about by Edel.
No wonder I’d felt something strange ever since we entered this area. So this was why.
I stopped glaring at the sky and started unpacking our gear instead.
It was a little odd setting up camp when it was as bright as daytime, but...
Only the surroundings were bright. The actual time was later than when we usually set up camp.
At this rate, I had no idea whether I’d even be able to sleep properly.
With a shrug, I gathered firewood to make a campfire.
* * *
And the result was that I didn’t sleep properly.
“...”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not okay.”
My body was fine.
The body of a Master wasn’t so fragile that missing a day or two of sleep would cause problems.
But my mind was another matter.
It wasn’t like I was so sleepy I thought I’d die from not sleeping for a few days or anything dramatic like that.
How should I put it? I just... hadn’t slept properly when it was time to sleep, and that left me in a pretty awful mood.
With sunlight stabbing through my eyelids, how was I supposed to sleep?
If I were feeling impulsive, I would have stormed straight over to Edel and asked why she’d made something like this.
“Did you sleep well, Celine...? Oh, you didn’t sleep well, did you.”
Celine’s eyes, as she packed away her sleeping bag, were also dark with fatigue in a way they usually weren’t.
She must not have slept properly either, yet her manner toward Daeun was still as gentle as ever.
“How embarrassing, but yes, I did not. And how about you, Ms. Jeonyi?”
“Ahaha... I’m a little dull when it comes to that sort of thing.”
“I envy you.”
Unlike the two of us, the reason Daeun was perfectly fine was obvious.
She was an Earthling.
Unlike us, who were really trying to get some sleep, she only looked as though she were trying to sleep.
Thinking that made Daeun’s cheerful little grin look annoyingly smug, so I poked her in the side with my finger.
Thuk.
“Kyah?! W-why’d you do that all of a sudden?”
“Hmph.”
That was her punishment for being the only one to enjoy a perfect night’s sleep.
Daeun, ambushed in an instant, stared at me with a bewildered face.
Seeing that dazed expression made me feel a little better, and I curled my pointed index finger back in.
I knew that me not sleeping and Daeun sleeping just fine wasn’t her fault.
So what I’d just done was pure pettiness.
“Why is Cana acting like this?”
Daeun still looked completely lost.
It was only a bit of spite, so it would’ve been stranger if she understood it.
“You’re just grumpy because you didn’t sleep properly, right? I-is that it? You do look kind of irritated...”
Daeun seemed to be talking to her viewers.
While I was pretending not to hear the parts I definitely could hear and deliberately looking elsewhere, she suddenly gasped.
“?!”
“Gotcha!”
Long arms wrapped around my waist and lifted me up in one smooth motion.
Daeun, who had scooped up my body as lightly as if I weighed nothing, set me down on her horse.
“You’re tired, right? Today, ride with your big sister. It’d be bad if you dozed off and fell off the horse.”
“I’m not—”
I wasn’t tired enough to doze, and even if I fell asleep and slipped off the horse, it wouldn’t be enough to hurt me.
Before I could argue, Daeun sprang up into the saddle.
Much more steadily than the last time she’d mounted a horse, she settled herself and pressed her body close against my back.
“Doesn’t this remind you of when we first met Celine?”
“...It does.”
At her soft, amused voice, I gave a small nod.
It hadn’t even been that long ago, and yet it already felt like something from long before.
Back then, I’d been holding the reins. Now, it was Daeun holding them.
The warmth I’d once found unfamiliar at my back now felt comforting.
So much had changed in such a short time.
I thought that, rather absently, and let myself lean lightly into the warmth behind me.
...Just closing my eyes for a little while should be fine.