White Night
By the time they left Ordo, they had only had two horses. By the time they left the Holy Kingdom, there were three.
It was a natural change, one that came with the party growing from two to three.
Daeun wouldn’t have minded riding with Canaria, but…
No. To be honest, she would have preferred that to riding separately, so when Canaria suggested buying another horse—
“Do we really have to buy a whole other horse? Canaria’s light, so couldn’t I just ride with you? We could save the money.”
—she had said that.
“No. It’d be uncomfortable.”
But she had been sunk by Canaria’s firm refusal.
As the leader, the purse holder, and the mascot of the party, Canaria had spoken; as nothing more than Pack Mule A, Daeun couldn’t very well argue.
In any case, that was how they’d set off, each of them riding their own horse.
Only now that Daeun and Canaria were sharing one, there was inevitably a horse left with nothing to do.
“Wow, they’re really smart….”
And Daeun, watching the horse follow after the owner it had carried even though she wasn’t holding the reins, was reminded that horses were highly intelligent animals.
“Oh my…!”
Celine, riding alongside them, turned to look back at Daeun and curved her eyes into soft crescents.
“She’s asleep….”
Canaria had closed her eyes tightly, leaning against Daeun’s body.
If she listened closely, she could hear tiny, steady breaths every time the cape rose and fell.
Daeun lifted a hand, about to stroke the girl’s hair, then paused and lowered it again. Instead, she relaxed the tension in her body a little more, letting Canaria lean in as comfortably as possible.
“Yes. She didn’t get much sleep last night, so I guess she was really drowsy.”
“Ah… yes, that’s true. She was tossing and turning all night. Children are always sleepier to begin with, so she must have been exhausted.”
“Haha. I suppose so.”
Daeun knew Canaria’s age and knew that she wasn’t actually a child, but every time she looked at her face, she still found herself forgetting.
Perhaps it was because she hadn’t been able to eat or sleep properly as a child, but Canaria’s small frame and youthful face made her look far younger than she really was.
And even aside from that, there were moments when her behavior itself felt childish.
Stubborn, pretending to be blunt, but secretly quick to sulk; mischievous enough to play little pranks whenever she felt like it….
And then there were moments like this, where she would lean on someone she trusted.
What would Canaria have been like if she had grown up in a normal family?
Daeun found herself wondering that from time to time.
“You must be tired too, Celine. Should we get down and rest for a bit?”
“I’m all right. Thanks to Edel’s grace, I can recover from this much fatigue very quickly. See? I think my complexion is better than it was before, isn’t it?”
“Ah, yes, it does seem that way.”
“Canaria-sama probably isn’t that tired, either. She must have simply drifted off because Your Body’s embrace is so warm.”
“Warm….”
What if her voice woke Canaria up?
Keeping her tone low as she whispered with Celine, Daeun’s expression turned faintly strange.
Daeun was confident in her own body.
She didn’t especially like working out, but she knew very well that for the sake of her health—and for travel, which was one of her hobbies—she had to exercise.
So she had kept at it consistently for years, and as a result, she had a lean figure with pleasantly defined muscle and no excess fat.
And yet—
She glanced over.
“Big….”
“Pardon?”
“Ah, no. Nothing.”
Compared to Celine’s body, she couldn’t help losing confidence.
That particular part is….
For a moment, Daeun had been distracted by Celine’s gentleness, and now she looked down at her own chest.
It was by no means small—in fact, it would have been fair to call it larger than average—but it still didn’t come close to Celine’s.
Wouldn’t Celine’s lap be warmer than mine?
As Daeun thought that, a soft purring breath reached her ear.
Would Canaria get that big once she grew up too?
…A well-endowed Canaria.
Daeun pictured a fully grown Canaria in her mind.
A beautiful young woman with pink hair flowing softly around her shoulders and an expressionless face.
Her features might seem cold because of that expression, but her gentle eyes made her look almost innocent.
The kind of face that would make anyone—one hundred out of one hundred people—turn back to look.
And beneath that face, long, powerful limbs and a voluptuous chest….
The moment she imagined that much, the image on the canvas seemed to melt and distort like watercolor spilled by rain.
She tried again, lifting the brush of imagination once more, but the same thing happened.
She painted, and the painting blurred.
By the time she had repeated that three times, Daeun realized it was hopeless and put the brush down with a neat little nod.
Hm. Yeah, that’s impossible.
It wasn’t that she wanted Canaria to stay exactly as she was forever, but it couldn’t be helped if she couldn’t imagine it easily.
She was just too used to the way Canaria looked now. It definitely wasn’t because her imagination was lacking.
“Hm?”
As Daeun skillfully shifted the blame away from herself, something caught her eye.
Just like White Night, there were other regions across the Ardina Continent with special traits attached to them.
Some were places where the sun never set for twenty-four hours just like this one, while in others, the night continued without end….
She had never visited all of them, but Daeun planned to one day, so she knew the general details.
And unlike the dark of night, daylight made it easier to see, which was why White Night regions were fairly popular among players.
After all, very few people enjoyed hunting while lugging around a torch.
So meeting people in a White Night region wasn’t rare, but the man walking toward them from the opposite direction was different.
Even players who indulged in what people jokingly called the “veteran-player look”—those who deliberately built bizarre, off-putting characters—usually showed some restraint in Silia Online.
Unlike other games, where you could simply delete an ugly character and make a new one, or create another altogether, each player only got one character in Silia Online.
If you deleted it because you didn’t like it, that was the end of it.
There was no second chance.
Of course, even so, there were still people who enjoyed being “special” in their own way.
“…His left arm.”
A shabby-looking man was walking toward Daeun.
Where his left arm should have been, only an empty sleeve remained, fluttering in the wind.
He looked like a native of Silia, so what sort of story had brought him to wander White Night alone?
Curious, Daeun turned her horse slightly to the left to avoid him.
Thud.
“…Huh?”
Didn’t things like that happen sometimes?
When you met someone on a road that wasn’t especially wide, and the two of you stepped the same way to make room for each other, only to end up awkwardly blocking one another again.
At first, when the man moved left in response to her horse’s direction, Daeun thought this was one of those cases.
But when the same thing happened twice more in a row, she had to abandon that thought.
In a situation where colliding with the man seemed inevitable if she kept going, Daeun reined the horse to a stop, and the man stopped at the same time.
That was the moment she knew it hadn’t been a coincidence.
“Do you need something from us?”
Keeping her distance so she could run if he lunged at them, Daeun asked.
It was a cautious move, made because of the sword hanging at the man’s waist.
“No.”
The man answered in a rough voice.
“Then would it be all right if we passed?”
“No.”
“…Why not? Didn’t you just say you had no business with us?”
“I did. I have no business with you.”
Reiterating Daeun’s words, the man drew his sword.
The old blade, worn down by time, was chipped like the rest of his ragged appearance, but it still carried a sharp, dangerous edge.
His eyes held something Daeun couldn’t tell was hatred or reverence.
Following that gaze, she realized its endpoint was the girl in her arms.
No way….
As if to confirm her suspicion, the man’s gruff voice rumbled out again.
“After I lost my comrades and my left arm to a demon, I came to realize something. The power that decides human fate isn’t a god, nor some worthless stroke of luck. Only strength determines one’s own fate—and the fate of others.”
His voice remained calm as he spoke of the past.
“After that, I wandered the continent and devoted myself to the sword. I wanted to decide my fate with my own hands. Then I heard a rumor that a girl with pink hair had defeated a pack of ogres and a Dimensional Beast. When I heard that rumor, I sensed at once that the devil had appeared again, so I began to chase after her.”
And here we were, meeting like this once more.
Daeun, who had quietly listened, opened her mouth as soon as he finished.
“You’re from the Empire?”
“I was, once. Now I’m just a wanderer.”
“You came looking for Canaria to take revenge on her…?”
“No.”
“Huh?”
She had assumed it was revenge, of course—but apparently, he hadn’t come for that at all.
At the unexpected answer, a slightly stupid-sounding sound slipped from Daeun’s mouth.
“I came to prove it. That my fate is in my own hands.”
“Fate, prove it… You don’t really seem like the romantic sort.”
“This is truth, not romance.”
“Ah, I see.”
So he had indeed come to fight Canaria, but it didn’t seem like he was lying when he said it wasn’t about revenge.
Honestly, Daeun didn’t really understand what the difference between proving something and taking revenge was, but she could tell that the man believed what he was saying in his own way.
If it had been a simple matter of revenge, he wouldn’t have bothered blocking their path and talking; he would have rushed them the moment he saw Canaria asleep.
What should I do…?
Celine, who had met Daeun’s eyes, gave a troubled smile too.
She seemed concerned, but not especially inclined to stop the man.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“I suppose so, but….”
As Daeun sighed, a heavy weight suddenly settled at her waist.
At first it had only been frightening, but lately she had grown very used to it.
The sword.
I’m scared of fighting. I hate getting hurt, and I hate hurting someone else even more.
Because she knew pain, Daeun was sensitive to the pain of others as well.
That was why she disliked fighting.
“…But still.”
Hesitation flickered in Daeun’s eyes, then hardened into resolve, and the faint tremor in the hand holding the reins stopped.
“Could I try proving that too?”
“…You?”
The man’s brow twitched upward.
“I’m curious.”
“You don’t look like you’re at that level.”
“Wouldn’t you have to test it to know?”
She wanted to go with Canaria, not hide behind Canaria’s back.
Maybe no matter how many monsters she killed and how much she leveled up, she still wouldn’t be able to reach Canaria.
But even if that were true, she didn’t want to give up.
Canaria told me to count on her.
Of course, that favor probably hadn’t meant, “fight in my place.”
So this was her own resolve, and hers alone.
“If that’s what you want.”
Perhaps sensing her determination, the one-armed swordsman shrugged a single shoulder.
Once she got down, it was only natural that Canaria would wake.
Daeun called to Celine.
“Celine. Could you look after Canaria for a sec—”
“—There’s no need.”
At the familiar voice coming from her arms, Daeun lowered her head.
Canaria had already opened her eyes and was looking straight at her.