Journey (3)
In the end, I decided to go with him. I truly hated the idea and it irritated me to no end, but when he declared he would follow us even if I refused, I had no choice but to agree that we would travel together.
Having him trail along behind us would have been far worse; at least if we moved as a group, he might prove useful somehow.
We passed through the city gates and began walking slowly along the road. A quiet silence settled over us. He looked ready to speak, hoping to break the awkward atmosphere, but the moment we quickened our pace he closed his mouth and simply followed.
We kept up a brisk walk for about two hours without stopping, then finally took a short rest.
“Are we resting now?”
“Yes.”
Was it because the effects of the holy magic had faded? Looking at him, I felt a faint prickle of fear. It was still within what I could endure, so I held it down… but it was severe.
Part of me wanted to cast a fatigue-recovery holy spell and keep moving, yet continuing like this felt too awkward, so I decided we would rest.
“Ahem… might I ask you to introduce your older sister?”
Sister? I glanced at the woman standing beside me. Emma was staring at him with open hostility.
“Uh, well…”
“Emma.”
She quietly stated her own name.
“Emma, is it? I am Maximilian von Meyer.”
He offered his hand with perfect courtesy. It was clearly meant as a handshake, yet Emma made no move to take it. He looked down at his outstretched hand with an awkward expression.
“Emma…”
Since we had already agreed to travel together, we could not keep sniping at each other forever. And he was a noble. I at least had the option of revealing my identity if things went badly; Emma did not.
“It’s quite all right. I forced my way into your journey, so of course you would be angry.”
He said it was fine, yet his face had stiffened slightly. We simply set our packs on the ground and sat down to rest. Everyone present possessed real strength, so we recovered our breath in no time.
Honestly, it was unfair. Not only were they powerful, their recovery was absurdly fast…
“Everyone seems to have caught their breath. Shall we set out again?”
The moment I spoke, Emma began gathering the luggage. I reached for my own bag, only for the young master to step forward.
“Allow me to carry that for you.”
He was trying to do something no one had asked of him. Apparently he considered it some sort of manners.
“I must decline.”
I rejected his hand and slung the bag over my own shoulder.
“But—”
“You said you were our guard, did you not? May I ask how you intend to protect us while burdened with luggage?”
He looked startled by my words. Heavy packs inevitably slowed a person in an emergency. The bag he carried was small enough to drop with one hand; ours were large enough that they had to be worn on the shoulders and were quite heavy besides.
“I… see your point.”
“And I am not fragile.”
I rose smoothly without so much as a stagger. What else was I supposed to do with the overflowing holy power the goddess had granted me? I wrapped it around my body and used it to reinforce my flesh.
Emma likewise lifted her pack as if it weighed nothing. The young master stared at us with blank eyes. It must have looked absurd to him.
We continued for a long while without further conversation and reached a modest village before the sun set.
“Will we rest here?”
“Yes. There’s no need to camp out if we can avoid it.”
We could easily have pushed farther, but that would have meant sleeping outdoors for certain.
“A wise decision. Unless circumstances leave no other choice, camping is best avoided.”
Hearing him state something so obvious was simply tiresome.
We chose a cheap inn close by. A proper establishment was never going to exist in a village this small anyway.
He took one look at the shabby place and frowned.
“Are we truly staying somewhere like this?”
“Of course.”
“Could we not find better accommodations?”
It was true that a finer inn might exist nearer the village center…
Even so—
“I was told it takes a full month to reach the capital from here.”
“Yes, roughly that long.”
“Which is why we are saving money.”
He looked at me as though the thought had never occurred to him.
“Young master, you have never known what it is to be short of coin, have you? We are different.”
I spoke firmly to the man who could not lift his head.
“We will spend the night here. You are free to seek another inn.”
“Ah—no, I was mistaken.”
I ignored him and stepped inside, paying ten silver for a single room. The chamber the innkeeper showed us was an absolute wreck. The door barely hung on its hinges, and there was no bed at all—only a bare space large enough for a person to lie down. The floor had not even been swept; dirt and stones still littered it.
“They could at least have hung a proper door.”
Under normal circumstances I would have been too uneasy to sleep, but this was no time to be particular. I set my bag in a corner, pulled out the sleeping roll, and spread it on the floor.
“That’s ready. Shall we eat?”
Emma nodded. We paid the innkeeper two silver and received dinner: two bowls of thin soup whose ingredients were a mystery, and a single hard rye loaf.
“A waste, but we’ll have to eat it.”
I did have jerky and dry rations in the bag, saved for camping or truly desperate moments, yet using them here felt wrong. I split the bread with Emma. It was hard, sour, and tasteless, but dunked in the soup it became just edible.
We finished the bread and drained the soup; that was dinner. The young master watched us eat and frowned.
“Is that enough to fill you?”
“Yes. This is how we usually eat.”
When I lived with my master I had eaten reasonably well, but back in the village our meals had been much like this. On rare days when we foraged something extra the table grew a little fuller… but those days were few.
“I… see.”
Apparently the gap between the commoner’s life he had imagined and the reality was wider than he expected.
“We plan to sleep early. What will you do?”
“Already?”
“Yes. If we mean to leave at first light, we need the rest.”
There was nothing to do at night anyway.
“Understood…”
Looking unconvinced, he headed for the room next door. I roughly blocked our doorway with a plank that barely deserved the name “door,” then cast a spell.
It was an alarm ward—an array laid on the floor that would sound the moment anyone stepped on it. Duration was roughly ten hours. Pouring in extra holy power could stretch it further, but there were limits.
“Safe enough with this.”
“Magic?”
“Mm. An alarm spell.”
Even if someone entered the room, we would know at once. Once the sun went down, sleep came quickly. We had pushed our bodies hard with the long march.
“Good night, Emma.”
“You too, Yuli.”
Emma and I climbed into our sleeping rolls and slept.
I woke the next morning feeling thoroughly rested.
“Ugh… my back…”
After so many nights on soft beds, sleeping on bare floor left my spine aching. No one had tried to enter; the alarm ward remained undisturbed. I erased the magic from the floor and pushed the plank aside.
“Should I let Emma sleep a little longer?”
I packed my own roll first, straightened my clothes, and finally slipped on the robe my master had given me. Ready.
I had planned to sit on the floor and stare blankly until Emma woke, but the young master appeared.
“You’re already awake?”
“Yes.”
I had expected a noble to sleep late, yet as a knight he had risen early after all.
“I was about to move my body a little. Would you care to join me?”
Together, he meant?
“I have to watch over Emma.”
I glanced at my still-sleeping sister.
“I see. Understood.”
He withdrew with a faintly disappointed look. Not long after he left, Emma woke and we prepared to leave. Once ready, we gathered our packs, went downstairs, and ordered breakfast. It was identical to the previous night’s meal.
“Meager, but it can’t be helped.”
We needed to save every coin; even this was something to be grateful for. While we ate, the young master sat nearby and ate the same food. The expression on his face was… telling.
“Is this the sort of bread commoners eat?”
“There are many days we can’t even manage this much.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Sometimes a single bowl of soup is the entire meal.”
I tipped the bowl and drank the last of the soup.
When I said it was time to go, he hurriedly finished what remained on his plate. I felt a twinge of guilt, as though I had been bullying him.
We left the inn and walked straight out of the village, setting a hard pace. After a full day together I no longer felt fear or trembling when I looked at him.
“If we keep moving briskly, we should reach another inn by nightfall.”
He spoke with a bright expression. Was that really something to look forward to? For a noble, that shabby inn must have been pure misery. And he still intended to follow us?
“We have no intention of staying anywhere expensive.”
“Yes, I know. Still, a roof that keeps off the rain is better than nothing, isn’t it? Camping is far more dreadful.”
He went on to recount his own experiences of sleeping outdoors—standing night watch, being plagued by insects and animals, even being attacked by monsters in the dark—and laughed as he spoke.
We had lived through all of it ourselves, so we could only nod in agreement.
“That’s true enough.”
“So a little discomfort is something I can endure.”
He talked without pause the entire time we walked. How he found so much to say was a mystery… yet the endless chatter did make the tedious travel less boring.
Even Emma seemed worn down by his relentless conversation; she began answering his questions now and then.
When the sun stood directly overhead we decided to rest in a patch of shade.
“You’re not eating lunch?”
“We have dry rations, but we’re trying to save them.”
I had no intention of going hungry, of course.
“I see…”
I rose to search the nearby woods for anything edible. Mushrooms or fruit would have been perfect…
While Emma guarded the packs I scoured the area, yet found nothing. The odds of food lying free beside a well-traveled road were low to begin with; any that had grown would already have been picked by other travelers.
“A shame…”
I had hoped for at least a few mushrooms or some fruit…
I returned empty-handed and dejected, only to find the young master smiling brightly and holding out his hand.
“Fortune favored us.”
In his grip was a rabbit of decent size.
“A r-rabbit?!”
“Yes. I searched the other side and happened upon it.”
He suggested we roast it then and there. When I asked whether he knew how to dress it, he only laughed awkwardly. Seeing that, Emma took the rabbit and set to work with swift, practiced hands.
I left the magic tools packed away and instead conjured water and fire with magic to help with the cleaning and roasting.
Without a single seasoning the meat carried a faint gamey smell, yet it was still a welcome change.
One rabbit split three ways did not amount to much, but it left us feeling solidly full.
“Ahem. Thanks to you, we ate well, young master.”
“In that case, would you call me by my name?”
The moment I offered thanks, he made that sudden request.
“That’s a bit…”
“I truly don’t mind. I would rather you used my name.”
“I’ll… think about it.”
I scratched my cheek and dodged a clear answer. Catching the rabbit was kind of him, but calling a noble by name for something so small felt excessive. For a commoner, dropping honorifics was no simple matter.
Still… if he himself said he did not care… perhaps it would be all right…?