Frail Little Beauty
Blink.
...A familiar ceiling.
Though if you could call a ceiling I’d only seen for a single day familiar, that was saying something.
Why am I here?
As I groped through my foggy mind for answers, the pain that had already been buzzing away at my skull tightened its grip all at once.
“Ah, right... I remember.”
Still, I had succeeded in dredging the memory back up.
I’d grabbed hold of Crumo’s shadow, then collapsed in an utterly unglamorous heap from the backlash of the blessing. Judging by the fact that I had no memory after that, I must have blacked out and only now come to.
So that was why my head hurt so much. My consciousness had been forcibly cut off and then dragged back again; no wonder.
Maybe lying there for a few hours had helped. I did feel better than I had before I passed out.
Even if my body still felt like it was being torn apart.
I forced my unwilling limbs upright and headed toward the source of the commotion.
“You’re awake!”
Daeun’s face brightened instantly.
The moment I took a step back, Daeun, who had been rushing toward me as if she might leap into a hug, froze and halted in place.
“Does it still hurt...?”
“I’m not exactly fine.”
There was no need to lie.
The moment I said it, Daeun’s face, which had been glowing just seconds before, darkened at once.
Apparently she couldn’t quite bring herself to touch someone who was hurting, because she started circling me in a flustered panic, coming and going all around me.
“Then shouldn’t you be lying back down instead of standing here? What if it gets worse! C-come on, hurry back to bed and rest properly. Even if it’s stuffy, you have to stay under the blanket.... Okay? Good girl....”
...
I watched her with the expression of someone observing a particularly strange specimen.
Pfft.
“Hey, enough.”
When a machine malfunctions, you hit it until it works.
Fixing Daeun wasn’t any different.
After a flick to the forehead, Daeun clutched her head and clamped her mouth shut, and I nodded in satisfaction at the sight.
Maybe I’m actually talented in this area.
I could probably make a living doing this later.
Daeun rubbed her head and groaned, then sprang upright.
“No violence!”
“Sorry. I’ve spent my whole life making a living off this.”
“...Saying it like that leaves me nothing to say! That kind of sudden sucker punch is cheating!”
Daeun tore at her own hair in frustration.
The way her fine strands were being ruffled and snagged between her fingers made my heart ache a little....
—No, not really.
I’d only been watching Daeun do this kind of thing for a day or two, and besides, she was obviously exaggerating on purpose. No need to worry about it.
“You’re awake....”
“Atisha.”
Atisha greeted me.
But....
“You seem a little far away.”
We hadn’t exactly been close to begin with, but Atisha was plainly keeping her distance from me now.
I couldn’t dismiss it as my imagination, either, because she was obviously watching my expression as if she were gauging my mood.
The test was simple enough: I took one step forward, and Atisha retreated two.
...What?
When I narrowed my eyes and glared at her, Atisha’s face turned flustered in a way that was completely unlike her.
“I-I thought the Magi might touch you....”
“Ah.”
So that was it.
I’d thought she was afraid of me and didn’t want to come near me, but that wasn’t it at all.
If I said it that way, I might sound like some infatuated adolescent lost in a daydream, or like I was full of myself.
But from someone like me, who had genuinely dealt with similar things more than once, I didn’t think it was strange to have that thought at all.
I offered what amounted to a needless excuse to no one in particular.
“It’s fine. I’m in rough shape, but that much Magi won’t affect me.”
“Really...?”
“I wouldn’t lie about that.”
Judging by the wary look she gave me, she seemed to think I might be sparing her feelings to avoid hurting her.
But like I said, there was no way I’d go out of my way to do something bothersome for someone I wasn’t even particularly close to.
“That’s right, that’s right! Our Kana would never go to the trouble of doing something that considerate! She’s definitely thinking, ‘There’s no way the Magi some nobody like you is spouting could possibly affect this body.’”
...
Daeun, who had briefly recovered her faculties, malfunctioned again.
Apparently I hadn’t hit her hard enough, and she’d broken down again almost immediately.
I wondered how hard I’d have to hit her to repair her without shattering her completely.
As I flexed my fists, Daeun caught the murderous intent and bolted.
To my surprise, her ridiculous antics actually worked; the suspicion in Atisha’s eyes began to fade.
“I envy that....”
“...Envy what?”
“That you can withstand Magi....”
My gaze fell to Atisha’s broken horn.
Atisha missed Laxia.
If her horn had never broken, she likely wouldn’t even have come to this Ardina Continent.
And yet, she didn’t seem to regret the horn being broken.
There was pride in having protected something precious at the cost of that horn.
And for someone who had pride, comfort would only be disrespectful, wouldn’t it?
Especially from someone clumsy like me.
“If you try, I think you can.”
“Do you really think so...?”
“I do.”
I hope so.
Atisha gave a faint smile.
“Thank you.... Because of you and Journey, the number of casualties was greatly reduced....”
Thanks to me, Crumo’s shadow had been killed.
And thanks to Journey, who had been running around tirelessly to help with the rescue, they’d been able to keep the number of victims down.
That was what Atisha said.
“Hmm.”
So Daeun had been doing that much.
I had wondered why she’d been standing up against the shadows, but it seemed her rescue efforts had been quite a thorn in their side.
“You said you were looking for a ship to Laxia.... I’ll prepare the best one for you....”
“As long as it doesn’t sink, I’m fine.”
“I can’t treat a benefactor that way....”
“Well... do what you want.”
I peeled myself away from the doorframe I’d been leaning against.
“Don’t we have something to do right now?”
“Something to do...?”
Click.
“Pest control.”
I lifted the sword in my hand.
“You said monsters were swarming, right?”
“You heard that...?”
“Wasn’t that the point?”
“Sorry.... I guess I was speaking a little too loudly....”
“...You’re really a different person from yesterday.”
No, there was no need to go all the way back to yesterday.
Even compared to this morning’s Atisha, the difference in her demeanor now was unmistakable.
Seeing someone change so quickly, I figured she really must have been genuinely grateful, not just politely mouthing thanks.
“It’s my responsibility, so I’ll finish it.”
If it had just been ordinary monsters, I would have left the whole thing to them and not bothered. But this time, I couldn’t exactly pretend I knew nothing.
Because the reason monsters had come swarming here was me.
“What do you mean?”
Snap!
“Agh!”
I delivered divine punishment to Daeun’s head, who had forgotten her karma and was sneaking back into the conversation.
“Do you know why exceptionally dangerous monsters always hang around near a dragon’s lair?”
Even the strongest monsters should know that if they pissed off a dragon, they’d stop being a monster and start being a corpse.
“Because they’re territorial?”
“More than their lives?”
“Hmm, guess that’s wrong. So what’s the answer, Professor?”
There wasn’t a shred of disappointment on Daeun’s face at having gotten it wrong.
At this point, maybe she really was enjoying herself.
The answer came not from my mouth, but from somewhere else.
“Because of mana... right...?”
“Right.”
I nodded at Atisha’s tentative question.
Maybe, as Daeun said, there were some monsters so territorial that they wouldn’t migrate elsewhere. But the biggest reason was the mana dragons gave off.
Pure mana, utterly free of corruption.
Mana like that kept flowing out, so the monsters were willing to endure the danger and settle down there.
Like humans, monsters needed mana as the driving force of life and the means by which they grew stronger.
“And this ring holds dragon mana.”
To be exact, it wasn’t mana that was contained in the ring but a dragon, though the result was the same either way, so there was no need to correct myself.
“I was going to tell you earlier, but....”
“But?”
“You know why.”
Why I couldn’t say it.
Daeun made a face of sudden realization.
Looking back, I really had used too much power.
I hadn’t been feeling great, and before I knew it, I’d just....
I had also been a little desperate.
Against someone like that, I probably could have killed it with my own strength alone, without even needing to activate the blessing.
...Or maybe the damage would have been worse if I had done that.
Thinking about that made me feel like my choice had probably been the better one. Still, it didn’t change the fact that I’d drawn on Grasid’s power far too heavily.
With a long sigh, I staggered toward the door.
“H-hey, where are you going?!”
“I told you. It’s my responsibility, so I—”
“No way!”
Yap!
The moment that tiny battle cry rang out, my body lifted clean off the ground.
A familiar scent, a familiar touch closing in all at once.
Daeun, carrying me in a princess hold as though she’d never once hesitated, strode into the room I’d come from.
Then she laid me on the bed and pulled a suitably thick blanket over my head, all the way to my hairline.
“Mmph.”
I’d been so blindsided by the smooth, seamless way the whole thing happened that I couldn’t even find a place to object. Only after a moment did I come to my senses and poke my head out from under the blanket.
“What are you doing...?”
“Leave this to us and act like a patient should—rest!”
“That’s right.... We’re not so weak that we need to borrow your hands for something like this....”
Atisha, who had followed after us, said something similar to Daeun, and Celine, standing behind her, nodded as well.
I stared in disbelief at the three of them, united in their efforts to stop me.
“What are you even talking about?”
“Ahem, cough!”
I tried to ignore them and sit up, but Daeun glared and shoved me back down with a hand that pressed over me like a mountain.
“See? Even with my puny strength, you’re falling right back down. Kana needs to rest and recover.”
?
Even in this state, I was pretty sure I could take down several people of Daeun’s level without breaking a sweat.
Whether I looked baffled or not, Daeun lifted the blanket I’d thrown off and tucked it back over me.
This time, only my eyes were left peeking out.
“Anyway! We’re handling this ourselves, so Kana just stay put and rest quietly! If you get caught trying to sneak out, I’ll pat your butt! Scary, right?”
...
Honestly, unbelievable.
The fact that she was trying to threaten me by widening her eyes was so absurd I couldn’t even speak.
I wasn’t a child to begin with, but even if I had been, I still didn’t think that kind of threat would scare me.
Watching the three of them draw the curtains shut and head out after telling me to rest in peace and quiet, I finally let the strength drain from my body.
If you come begging for help later, I still won’t help you.
Yeah. Absolutely not.
I nodded to myself and made the vow.
...
Still.
...Well.
It didn’t feel all that bad.
I pulled the blanket up over my head.
“...It’s hot.”
If it was this hot, it was definitely because of the blanket I’d stubbornly wrapped myself in.
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