Moonlight and Whiskey
I stepped into the room and checked on Sister Mary once more.
Seeing her breathe evenly in her sleep, I figured there was no need to worry further. I changed clothes, kicked off my shoes, and climbed into bed.
"You held up well…"
Honestly, the exhaustion from our forced march had hit me hard. I'd pretended I was fine, but without proper rest it had been rough — I'd only managed by forcing myself through with Holy Magic.
The bed was hard, but the sheets made it comfortable enough.
My eyes were already drifting shut; I could barely hold on. I'd meant to wait until sis got back before sleeping… but I didn't think I could last.
"Sis… sorry."
I stopped fighting it and slipped under.
I slept deeply, only waking when nature called.
"Yaaawn…"
Outside, the sun was sinking low on the horizon.
"How long did I even sleep?"
At least ten hours, by the look of it. On the way back to the room, I worked the stiffness out of my body.
Even for how tired I'd been, that felt like too much sleep…
When I went back in, I found both sis and Sister Mary there. I had no idea when she'd come in, but sis looked exhausted too — she was out cold.
Sister Mary, though… that worried me a little. She still hadn't eaten, just kept sleeping. I hoped she was all right.
The moment she woke up, I was going to make her eat first thing.
But even after sleeping that long, I was still drowsy…
I sat in a chair intending to wait for the others to wake, but sleep came flooding back. We still needed dinner, though……
I forced myself to stay awake. Fighting it off eventually did the trick — I snapped out of it.
"Hah… my body feels so heavy."
Had I pushed myself that hard? Thinking back, it hadn't seemed that bad…
I couldn't figure out why I felt so weighed down. Since I was up, I offered a prayer and took a bath.
Feeling refreshed after washing up, I returned to the room to find sis awake.
"You're up?"
"Mm…"
Oh for heaven's sake — she was still half-asleep.
"Sis? Want to get dinner?"
"Dinner?"
"Yeah. We missed breakfast, but let's at least eat dinner together."
"Okay……"
Sis lumbered out of bed.
"Go wash your face and wake up properly."
"Mm…"
Was Maximilian still asleep? It would be nice if we could all have dinner together… I went downstairs with sis once she'd woken up a bit.
With the Academy closed and most adventurers gone, the inn was sparsely occupied.
"What do you want to eat?"
"Dunno…. Think the Young Master's still asleep?"
"No idea."
She sounded completely uninterested. After a moment's thought, I asked the innkeeper and found Maximilian's room.
"Young Master Maximilian? Are you still resting?"
I knocked and asked if he was awake.
"I'm up."
An immediate answer came from inside, and the door opened.
"Did you rest well?"
"Yeah, more or less… Would you like to join us for dinner?"
"I'd be glad to."
We had dinner at the inn. We'd earned some money and were starving, so we paid extra and ordered more meat.
"Ugh, I'm stuffed."
"Yes, truly full."
After going so long without a proper meal, it was genuinely satisfying.
"Has Miss Mary still not woken?"
"No, but her condition has improved a lot."
"That's a relief. What do you plan to do from here?"
"We'll have to wait for Mary to wake up first, right?"
In the meantime, I should spend some money and brew up some Fram. It was a dangerous item, but there was no telling when we'd get tangled up in something this big again. Having only one this time had been especially frustrating. If we'd had even one more Fram, Sister Mary wouldn't have had to push herself so hard, and the rest of us wouldn't have suffered as much either.
"And I think I'll put together some Fram while we wait."
"Your secret weapon."
"Yes. If we'd only had one more Fram this time…"
I let the sentence trail off. It was already over, but the regret still lingered. I wanted to make sure it never happened again.
"Please don't overdo it."
"I won't…"
It was already too late to get anything done today anyway. The three of us talked about this and that, but the answer always came back to the same thing: wait until Sister Mary woke up. There was no point in the three of us making plans when we had no idea when she'd come around — we couldn't move on anything without her.
Stuffed with meat and feeling lighter for it, we headed back to the room.
I quietly opened the door — and froze at the sight that greeted us.
"Mary?!"
Sister Mary was sitting up. She was far from normal. Her eyes were vacant, and she didn't even register that we'd come in.
"Mary!"
I moved closer to check on her. Whether she couldn't hear me or simply couldn't respond, she gave no reaction.
First things first, I laid her back down on the bed. Looking closely, I saw her fingers twitching and her lips moving faintly.
"I understand. Just lie still for now."
Whatever she was trying to say didn't matter. I carefully settled her down.
Sister Mary closed her eyes again, and the movement stopped.
"Thank goodness."
Sis gave my shoulder a couple of pats.
"Yeah…"
If Sister Mary had died from this, the bitterness would have gone beyond a bad aftertaste — I would have been disgusted with myself. Losing a comrade so easily… it would have been more than hollow. It would have been pathetic.
We took a little time to care for Sister Mary's body. We wiped her down with a damp cloth and changed her clothes. Of course, I wasn't the one who did that!
Even if I currently had a woman's body, my mind was still a man's! There was no way I could freely touch a grown woman's body. So I left that part to sis and just assisted from the side.
Only….
Well…… what my eyes happened to catch was unavoidable. No matter how used I'd gotten to a female body by looking at my own, someone else's was a completely different matter.
And unlike mine, Sister Mary's body was voluptuous — curves in all the places that counted… I couldn't help where my eyes went. I mean, when there's that much surface area, how are you supposed to look away completely?!
"Good night."
I said it while watching Sister Mary breathe evenly. I held her hand for a moment too. Please, just wake up without any trouble….
I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep.
It wasn't that I was particularly worried. I'd simply… run out of sleep by this point. The rebound from sleeping too much that morning.
Back then I hadn't wanted to open my eyes, only sleep, and everything had felt exhausting — but the longer I stayed awake, the clearer my mind became.
"I was sure I'd sleep well…"
But I just couldn't!
"And sis is sleeping just fine…"
Sleeping that soundly after already sleeping so much… if that was a talent, it was a real one.
I got out of bed and went to the window. Opening the wooden shutters, moonlight flooded the room.
Looking out at the hazy moonlight, I felt a quiet sense of atmosphere settle over me.
Sitting quietly in the moonlight, my mood suddenly lifted. On impulse, I perched myself on the windowsill.
As my body leaned out into the open air, it felt as though the moonlight was washing over me.
"My, sitting on the ledge like that — isn't that dangerous?"
A voice came from above all of a sudden. A familiar one….
"Young Master?"
"Yes, it's me."
He hopped down from above and planted one foot beside me.
"What are you doing out here?"
What was he doing at this hour? It was a bit early for bed, sure… but why was he outside?
"W-well, that is…"
He seemed a little flustered. In the dim moonlight, I couldn't read his expression.
I reinforced my vision with Holy Power, and even in the faint moonlight I could make out his features.
At his waist….
A leather-wrapped bottle. Larger than I'd expected, with what looked like a cork stopper.
"Is that what I think it is at your waist?"
I didn't know exactly what it was, but it was something he didn't usually carry. That had to be the reason, right?
"Haha, caught red-handed."
He laughed freely and held out his hand. After a brief hesitation, I took it.
Then he yanked me in, scooped me up in one arm, and leapt into the air.
"Kyaaah!"
The sound that came out of my mouth was so absurd I could barely believe it was mine — and when I opened my eyes, we were on the roof.
"Y-y-y-you should say something before you do that!"
Even when I snapped at him, he just kept smiling.
"My apologies."
He didn't look the least bit sorry….
"So what is it, then?"
I was annoyed and irritated, but I held it in. He wasn't someone I could beat in a fight anyway… and he wouldn't do anything terrible to a comrade, would he?
Maximilian smiled gently and pulled the object from his waist.
"It's liquor."
Liquor….
"I haven't had any in a while, so it crossed my mind."
Ah… as a wealthy noble, he'd probably lived a life where he could drink whenever he wanted. But traveling with me, he'd been living almost ascetically — so maybe he was craving a drink.
"Is that so?"
My interest evaporated instantly.
"Would you like to try some?"
Hmm? Now that was a slightly more interesting offer. This was liquor purchased by a noble. It wouldn't be ordinary stuff.
Surely it wasn't the kind of cloudy beer or grain liquor commoners drank.
"Hmm… just one sip, then?"
"No glasses, so just drink from the bottle."
He pulled the cork and held the bottle out to me. After a brief moment of hesitation, I took it and drank.
"Ugh!"
The liquor inside was brutally strong. And he'd just told me to gulp it down!
Coughing, I shoved the bottle back at him.
"What is this?!"
It was a kind of liquor I'd never tasted even in my previous life. Sweetness mixed with some kind of charred aroma.
"It's whiskey."
Ah……
"Not to your liking?"
"For me — cough — it doesn't agree with me."
My stomach felt heavy and unsettled. It was a completely different kind of burn from anything I'd drunk as an adventurer or back in the village.
"Hahaha!"
Whatever amused him so much, he laughed heartily and took a drink himself.
"It is rather strong."
He drank in long, deep gulps. Barely pausing, barely speaking.
"D-drinking like that isn't good for you."
Drinking straight liquor with no food — what was he thinking?
"Hah… I truly regret it."
"Pardon?"
"My own arrogance."
Ah….
That, I understood completely.
"I thought that becoming a knight, gaining power, meant I could protect people."
I'd thought the same — that once I had Holy Power, I could at least protect the people by my side.
But in this last battle, I'd failed at exactly that. I hadn't been careless, yet I'd still ended up caught by an undead and put in danger — and Sister Mary had pushed herself past her limits to protect me.
Maximilian was probably in a similar place. He'd taken on the Death Knight alone, but in the end he hadn't been able to stop it properly. He'd even mistimed a dodge on a dangerous attack and put both me and Sister Mary in harm's way.
We'd only been lucky that the Death Knight had stopped attacking when it did…. If it hadn't? I'd thrown up a defensive spell in a panic, but it wouldn't have held.
"I was arrogant, it seems."
And that was why he regretted it…. I kept quiet.
"I want to grow stronger. And I want to protect everyone."
But it wouldn't be easy. He was already a superhuman who'd transcended ordinary humanity — Knight Class. Growing stronger from there was a hard road.
Was that why Sister Mary's situation weighed on him so much….
I felt much the same, and somehow it made my chest ache.
"H-hang in there."
I buried my own feelings and tried to comfort him.
"Yes. I will."
He smiled faintly and took another drink. I watched him for a moment, then quietly returned to the room.
"Mary…"
Please wake up soon.