13. The Three-Year Leap (2)
Two days had passed since I made my bet with Alice, claimed my wish ticket, and secured a date with her.
Which meant, in other words—
Today was the day of our date.
"Ugh, why am I so nervous?"
It's not like I'd never had a girlfriend before...
Come to think of it, back in high school studying had left no room for dating, and by the time I got to university, the arson incident had put an end to any such possibilities.
"Huh? This is actually my first date."
What good was romantic experience if I had none of the dating kind?
"First things first, let's get dressed."
I opened the closet to find it crammed wall to wall with clothes—every single one of them the outfits I'd asked to have prepared before the date.
The moment the household staff learned I was a 'Successor,' they'd had zero reservations about preparing everything for me.
"Hmm... what should I wear?"
Thankfully, since this world was a game, even clothes from Earth were apparently fully stocked here.
My choice was a pair of light blue jeans.
Definitely nothing like skinny jeans—proper denim trousers. For the top, I layered a cotton tee under a shirt for a clean look, then added a brightly colored knit vest as an accent. And of course, with a light cardigan draped over top in case it got chilly, the outfit was complete.
"Hmm. Not bad."
I'd worn this style pretty often back on Earth, so it felt comfortably familiar.
"A weapon... do I need one?"
I glanced at the Sword of the Azure Sky as I said it and decided it didn't matter. As long as I was acknowledged as the sword's master, I could summon it anytime I wished.
Besides, walking around in this outfit with a scabbard at my hip would be a little ridiculous, wouldn't it?
I finished my preparations and headed toward the entrance of the mansion, where Alice was already waiting, fully ready. She'd clearly put real care into her outfit; she looked no different from a university student back on Earth.
No—if anything, her fashion sense was the superior one. She wore a slightly rumpled blouse with blue skinny jeans, plus a pink knit cropped cardigan against the chill.
And no sword, of course.
"Wow, you're dressed pretty nicely, don't you think, Noona?"
"Huh?"
Only at my comment did she finally turn around.
"You're late! Hyun!"
"Excuse me? I came out exactly on time."
Our appointed hour was eleven in the morning. It was currently ten fifty.
Ten minutes early, and I'm late?
"If you come out after me, that's late!"
"Who does that?"
"This place. I'm the lord here."
"Pulling rank is dirty."
"Then you do it too."
Trading utterly pointless banter, we made our way out of the mansion.
This world really doesn't even bother hiding the fact that it's a game.
Medieval backdrop, modern Earth fashion everywhere.
'How does that make any sense?'
Now that I looked at it, I seemed to have fallen into a pretty strange place.
"Well, well—out on a date with me and you've still got eyes to spare for other things, huh?"
"Haha, sorry..."
But the sense of dissonance was enough to make my eyes wander on their own.
And so, leaning on each other, Alice and I began our itinerary—a day best described as an inspection, but read aloud as a date.
Being the lord of the territory, Alice seemed to know its local specialties inside and out. When she took my hand and led the way, the sounds of the streets drifted around us: customers haggling over prices with shopkeepers, a merchant insisting we try vegetables he'd grown with his own two hands, children chasing each other around with their toys.
It was a relief.
That this everyday life could be reclaimed.
If we had lost the battle against Asmodeus, none of this scenery would exist right now.
As I followed where Alice led, a suggestion reached my ears.
"Let's try cloud."
"Cloud?"
"Yeah."
Looking closer, I could see people spinning something round and round and eating whatever came of it.
Oh—cotton candy.
Apparently here they called it "cloud" instead of cotton candy, but still.
"Sure, let's try it. I've never had it before, so it's fascinating."
On Earth, of course, I'd eaten plenty of it—but here I was simply an orphan-born Successor. Knowing what cotton candy was would be absurd.
"Right, right, let's do it. I've never had it either."
"You haven't, Noona?"
"Where would I have found the time? Do you know how many people and demons were out to get me in that span? I barely had hours enough for work—how was I supposed to go outside?"
So she's saying she hasn't had a single day of fun since becoming lord?
Is that even possible?
"Noona. From now on, come out with me like this sometimes."
At my suggestion, Alice's eyes went wide, and she looked back at me. After a moment, she nodded with a delighted smile.
"Yeah. Let's!"
Eventually the line dwindled down until it was our turn. The shopkeeper, mid-spin of cotton candy, looked at the two of us and beamed.
"Well, well! A pair of young lovers, hmm? I'll have to make this one pink!"
At those words, Alice and I both jolted and flushed scarlet. We scrambled to deny it, but it was too late—he was so focused on his spinning that he apparently couldn't hear a word we said.
Cotton candy really should be harder to make.
Leaving the unshakable misunderstanding behind us, we came face to face with an enormous pink, heart-shaped cotton candy.
"One...?"
As I voiced my confusion, the shopkeeper turned to us with a sly grin.
"Share a cotton candy and see how far you get~ A man ought to have a bit more nerve than that~"
If any of the vassals or anyone else had heard that, he'd have been dragged off for insolence on the spot.
Do these people even know? That we're the lord and lady ruling this territory, and that I'm one of only four Successors on this entire continent?
Probably not.
Still, cotton candy is delicious.
With that thought, I tore off a piece and popped it into my mouth.
Less sweet than the stuff back on Earth, though.
Alice, holding the cotton candy alongside me, had a face redder than a ripe apple.
She's got zero resistance to romance, huh?
Grinning, I started to tease her.
"Noona. Your face is super red."
Alice startled at my words and twisted away, trying to hide her face.
"D-don't look! My face is NOT red!"
Hiding it didn't make what I'd already seen disappear, you know.
Suppressing the laughter bubbling out of me, I took her hand naturally and we walked on.
We polished off the cotton candy in no time, and as we looked around afterward, a shop with a rather peculiar sign caught my eye.
Spike throwing?
On closer inspection, it seemed to be a game where you hurled pointed-but-squishy rubber toys at a target.
While I was studying it, Alice noticed where my gaze had landed and steered us toward the stall.
"Let's go!"
Her smile was so radiant that I could feel every man nearby turning to look at her.
That's unsettling...
Slightly put out by their stares, I gave her hand a little tug.
"Walk slowly. What if you trip?"
Alice answered my smooth deflection without missing a beat.
"I'm not a little kid! I'm four whole years older than you!"
"Which is exactly why you should be careful. My dear Noona."
The disappointment on the faces of the surrounding men was plain even to the naked eye.
Huh? Why did I feel so bothered earlier, anyway...?
Thinking about how she'd grown up enduring those kinds of stares since childhood must have been what soured my mood.
If commoners looked at her like this, how must the fellow nobles regard her? At worst, bad—at best, no better.
No matter how high the rank of the family that serves the Divine Beasts and guards humanity against the demons, there would always be nobles casting covetous glances her way. Even in my own case, once the imperial family acknowledges me as a Successor, I'm promised a status of duke or higher.
Ugh, whatever. I'll just protect her. It's a date—enough with the dark thoughts.
Shaking my head to scatter the musings, I followed her into the spike-throwing stall.
"Welcome, welcome! Oh my! A young couple, I see!"
So we look like a couple here, too.
We each paid three coppers, and the owner handed us ten spikes apiece.
"Go on, throw! See the numbers marked on the target? Whoever racks up the higher score wins~!"
Ah, it's darts.
The target was an exact replica of a dartboard.
Just as I was about to hurl my first spike at the target—
"Hyun! Let's bet."
"Again?"
What could our dear head of the house possibly want this time?
"My wish ticket. I want one too."
"Fine. Let's do it."
So that's what you were after, my lady.
And so our wager for a wish ticket began.
First was Alice's turn.
Whooosh!
Bull's-eye!
Huh?
20 points ×2?
She scored 40?
My head filled to bursting with question marks as my own turn arrived. I took aim, snapped my wrist lightly, and threw. The spike flew true and planted itself squarely in the 20-point ring.
20 points!
Then it was Alice's turn again.
Bull's-eye!
????
No way. How is this possible?
"Noona, be honest with me. You've done this before, haven't you."
At my question, Alice just stared blankly back at me as if I were speaking nonsense.
"What? No? This is genuinely my first time?"
There was nothing more to dig out of her—she truly sounded like she'd never played.
From then on, Alice and I kept throwing, but she kept landing dead center or close enough to double and triple her score again and again. And when every last spike had been thrown...
"This doesn't make any sense...?"
I had lost—by an absolutely crushing margin.
"Hehe, I woooon."
"Noona, are you SURE you've never done this?"
Alice nodded earnestly at my question.
"Really, never. But Father always said I have a good sense for the snap of the wrist and the right angles of a swing in combat. It's probably because of that."
Using combat instincts at a dart stall is just cheating.
But a loss was a loss, so I conceded the wish ticket to Alice.
"Still, a bet's a bet. Here's your wish ticket."
"Yes!"
Beaming brightly, she began steering our course toward the evening portion of the date. Thinking this wasn't so bad either, I followed her lead without complaint.
Beyond that, we watched a circus performance, sipped drinks we fancied from a beverage stall while lending an ear to her laments about her workload—a string of dates fit for lovers, one after another.
By the time evening had fully arrived and we'd finished dinner, it was finally time to head back.
"It's getting dark."
"It really is. Pretty dark out, huh."
There had definitely been a sunset when we sat down to eat. By the time we emerged, the last traces of it had vanished.
Alice drew me along.
"One last stop."
With those words, and nothing more.
She didn't speak a single word for the entire walk. Was she disappointed that today's date was coming to an end? Or if not—what was she thinking about right now?
The night had deepened enough that I couldn't make out her face.
Without letting go of each other's hands, we climbed the hill. As we neared it, Alice ascended and beckoned me to follow.
"Oh..."
The hill was fairly tall, but from the top, the night sky was breathtakingly beautiful. Below, people began gathering and seemed to be preparing something. Soon a voice rang out from the foot of the hill.
"The final event of the Cumul Territory! The fireworks display begins now!"
At the announcement, the workers scattered and, in what felt like an instant, vanished from sight.
We weren't the only ones here to watch the fireworks. Other spectators were gathering one by one as well.
And as we waited a short while—
BOOM! Crack-crackle!
A single firework tore through the night sky and bloomed overhead. Then, as if the others refused to be outdone, the rest of them raced one another to set the darkness alight.
As I stood watching the display, I felt Alice, at my right side, tug gently at my cardigan. Her face was flushed—whether from the fireworks embroidering the night sky or something else, I couldn't say.
"Hey."
"Yes, Noona?"
"Before long, the Tide of Corruption is going to crash down on this place."
"It will. The signs are showing up one after another."
"Yeah. Another report came in today, too. Three high-tier demons infiltrated a territory under Mystik's jurisdiction. Haji, the one in charge there, personally sortied and took down all three."
"Demon incursions have been getting pretty frequent lately."
"Exactly. Which means the Tide of Corruption is drawing closer and closer to us—and somehow, that scares me a little."
As she said it, Alice shivered, a tremor running through her whole body.
"I've fought plenty of battles, and I have plenty of combat experience... but the Tide of Corruption. I've never once deployed for it."
Come to think of it, that was true.
When Alice was a child, Sirius must have taken the field in her place without exception. True, Sirius fell in a Great Demon subjugation instead of a Tide—but even then, the demon numbers would have been significantly thinned. She would have been fifteen at the time.
So this will be her first deployment.
As commander-in-chief of the Tide of Corruption.
When I simply watched her in silence, Alice kept going, her gaze never turning to me.
"The Tide of Corruption guarantees nothing. Not the safety of the territory, not the lives of the vassals, not even whether you or I live or die. Whatever it may be."
Bitter, but true.
Who could presume to predict a war? No one can promise anything on an unpredictable battlefield. If someone truly could, they'd have to be a divine being on the level of the Four Divine Beasts or the Four Perils who knows all things under heaven—or a fool who knows nothing and runs their mouth all the same.
"So I don't want to die without ever having done anything."
My eyes flew wide open.
"Why would you die, Noona?"
"I told you just now—nothing can be promised. So... if I died without ever using my wish ticket, I think I'd regret it."
"Noona..."
"The wish ticket I just won. I'm using it now."
I nodded.
"Go ahead. Tell me, Noona."
"Do you remember what I said two days ago?"
Out of nowhere—something from two days ago.
"What did I say?"
"That you don't want to get married."
Ah. Right. She'd fussed at me about how I'd forced marriage on her.
I nodded and answered her.
"Yes, I remember."
"I still feel the same. I don't want to marry. But I have to. That's why I called you out here."
At the implication that there was someone she wished to continue with, something in my mind snapped taut. But I didn't let it show. For the sake of continuing her family line, it had been an unavoidable choice for her.
"Hyun. Could you... be with me?"
That one sentence was more than enough to lift my fallen gaze back to her.
"I truly don't want to marry, and I don't want to die alone. And yet there was no one beside me. All that time I was walking through the dark—"
Alice faltered, then gathered her emotions and pressed on.
"You appeared. I appeared in that cave in the sky, and there you were—the one who raged on my behalf, who protected me."
"And you're the only person I ever told my entire past to."
"That's who you are, Hyun. I don't know how long this feeling will last. But before the Tide of Corruption comes, I wanted to say it, no matter what. Because this might be the last thing I ever say."
Then, after a pause and a deep, steadying breath, Alice opened her mouth.
"I like you. From the day I first told you my past until this very moment—I have always liked you."
What kind of expression was I wearing right now?
My feelings for her—were they the affection between master and disciple?
Or simple reverence for someone I looked up to?
And if not even that—was this the feeling between a man and a woman?
At last, recognizing what my own heart was telling me, I opened my mouth to answer her.