2. Alcohol
The moment the victory parade began, Sieghart was bubbling over with excitement like a little kid — hulking frame and bulging muscles be damned.
He looked for all the world like a child at a theme park for the very first time.
"It's the heroes who slew the Demon King!"
"The saviors of the Solios Continent have arrived!"
"Thank you so much for all you've endured on our behalf!"
The crowd waved with all their might, roaring their cheers at the carriage we rode in.
Sieghart, clearly delighted by the sight, waved right back with a beaming grin.
"Carniel, isn't this fun? Why the long face?"
He went on, as if my expression genuinely baffled him.
"We've more than earned the right to be treated like this, you know."
"Stuff like this makes me cringe. I hate it."
"Sure, you've gotten plenty of the genius treatment, but this is your first taste of the hero treatment! Live it up — this is the moment!"
"No thanks. By all means, 'Hero,' do enjoy my share for me."
Sieghart. The male lead of the romance-fantasy novel I'd transmigrated into, and the Hero to boot.
Even if I'd been the one to slay the Demon King single-handedly, Sieghart had every right to be the protagonist of this moment.
So I hunched myself into a corner of the carriage. Watching a friend smile like that was enough for me.
Once the parade ended, we made our way to the royal palace. There to greet us with bright smiles stood Valter von Fernia, King of Fernia, along with a throng of nobles.
"We welcome the heroes returned triumphant from striking down the Demon King."
"Your Majesty."
Sieghart and the rest of the Hero Party bowed before the king. I followed suit, just enough to pass.
"The banquet shall commence shortly. Before it does, I would hear of the journey you heroes endured to fell the Demon King."
Sieghart's eyes lit up.
"Where would you like me to begin, Your Majesty?"
"From the very beginning."
Like Odysseus washed ashore on the isle of Scheria, Sieghart began laying out everything that had happened, piece by piece.
"...Leaving the legions in Carniel's hands and facing the Demon King alone was no easy feat, I must say."
"To face the Demon King alone — such courage! Truly befitting the continent's savior, blessed by the Goddess!"
The nobles hung on his every word, breath held, gasps of admiration rippling through the hall. Sieghart told the tale vividly, as though he'd single-handedly resolved every last thing himself. He'd said he was welcome to take the credit, so I saw no reason to correct him.
Every so often, though, mid-story, he would steal a glance at Ardel — gazing at her the way one might look upon Princess Nausicaä. It was plain to anyone with eyes that he was smitten.
But.
Ardel showed no particular interest in Sieghart. She kept her eyes glued to my face instead.
"This is so boring — let's sneak out and have some fun," she mouthed.
Sitting through a story I already knew was, frankly, unbearable. Feigning a trip to the privy, I slipped quietly out of my seat — and before long, footsteps sounded behind me.
It was Ardel.
"Carniel!"
"What?"
"What do you mean, 'what'? We're finally seeing each other after forever! A whole year and more, if you count!"
"A year isn't that long."
"How is a year not long?! Do you have any idea how much I missed you this whole time?!"
"I haven't seen my family's faces once in the five years since I entered the Magic Tower. Going a year without seeing someone is a perfectly normal occurrence."
"Not seeing your family and not seeing me are completely different things!"
"...Aren't family more important, though?"
"Don't talk back. If the princess says so, then it's so."
"...F-fine."
Ardel pushed her lips out in a pout. Maybe it was because we hadn't seen each other in so long, but she was even more fussy and clingy than usual. Well. I didn't mind. I'd spent the past year sleeping beside demon corpses with the stench of blood in my nose — an atmosphere befitting a proper romance fantasy was therapeutic by comparison. Ardel and I traded stories of everything that had happened as we waited for the banquet to begin.
Lunaelin, the party's elf archer, came marching over with her brow furrowed.
"What exactly is your plan — to waltz in when the banquet starts? You're still wearing those ragged old robes, no less. The bare minimum of decorum, if you please."
"All that matters is that I show up."
"And you call that an answer?"
"I wasn't even going to come in the first place. Me showing up out of guilt is a monumental leap forward, if you ask me."
Bragan, the party's dwarf hunter, clutched his belly and let out a booming laugh.
"Real men like us need only the one set of clothes! What cause is there to squeeze ourselves into something uncomfortable, eh?"
"Exactly, old-timer. You've said precisely what I wanted to say."
"Hahaha! In our kingdom, no one says a word if ye come to a banquet in nothing but a robe. Everyone knows comfort is king!"
"Dwarves really are the most reasonable folk around."
The other party members sighed and shook their heads as Bragan and I carried on.
Then Sernel, the party's priestess and leading candidate for the next Papacy, approached me gingerly and lowered her voice.
"Carniel, I heard you were with Lady Ardel just now. Is that true?"
"Yep."
"I-I see...!"
Sernel shot a nervous glance at the guests around us.
"Lord Sieghart's face has been dark this whole time."
"Indigestion?"
"...N-no."
"You sure?"
"That is not the problem. I think it is because you and Lady Ardel have been spending so much time together. You did promise to bring Lord Sieghart and Lady Ardel together, did you not? Surely you are not thinking of breaking that promise..."
"Oh, come on. What now?"
"..."
"We were just two friends talking. What's the issue?"
Sernel fixed me with a gravely serious look.
"Carniel, I serve the Goddess through love itself. I know every face that love can wear."
"..."
"Love can be as warm as spring sunshine one moment — and colder than the cruelest depths of winter the next."
Then she added, with a look heavy with meaning:
"So you must always be careful."
In a quiet corner of the hall, the remaining party members — the spirit summoner and the alchemist — were chatting among themselves.
The world I'd transmigrated into was a romance fantasy gone mad with love, liable to commit any manner of outlandish act. Sernel's warning nagged at me. After all, I had made a promise to hook Sieghart and Ardel up.
So I resolved to run a little side quest of my own at the banquet. It was time to become the thread that tied the two of them together.
Had she been taking secret lessons in tracking magic from the court wizards? Since way back, Ardel had always somehow managed to sniff out me in hiding — and tonight was no exception.
So.
I glued myself to Sieghart's side in the banquet hall. Just as I'd predicted, the stage set itself naturally: Sieghart and Ardel, face to face.
"I hear the new play that just opened is supposed to be amazing... Shame there's nobody to go see it with..."
"M-me! Carniel, I love watching plays!"
"Oh, that's right. Sieghart, you said you were really into theater, didn't you?"
Hook cast, I clutched my belly.
"Weird. Why does my stomach keep hurting...? Did I eat something bad...?"
And off I shuffled toward the privy, slyly vacating the seat — effortlessly engineering a moment for the two of them to talk alone.
Perfection itself. No notes.
In the original novel, Ardel and Sieghart had been more than star-crossed soulmates; they'd loved each other so desperately they couldn't live without one another. The scene where Sieghart hurled his life away to the Demon King to save Ardel could wring a tear even out of a cold-blooded bastard like me.
Right now, though, things were different. Sieghart and Ardel were barely more than faces to each other.
By the original script, Ardel was supposed to attend the banquet held in the Kingdom of Helicion. They were meant to meet there and fall for each other at first sight. I still don't know why, but Ardel never went. And so the fated first meeting that the original had scripted simply... vanished.
Now I finally understood why Mom and my sister binged their dramas every single day.
Watching the well-matched pair laugh and talk together, I felt a smile tug at my lips without my permission. I had, after all, saved the world from annihilation. I wanted to rest easy for once — and with my first banquet in ages, I wanted nothing more than to drink myself happy.
Beftting the continent's second-greatest kingdom, the hall was stocked with liquor both pricey and delicious. I deactivated the spell I kept running to break down alcohol, and drank myself to exactly that pleasant, golden point of tipsy.
Sleep now, and it'd be the best sleep of my life.
The banquet was in full swing, but I began quietly preparing my exit. The moment I stepped out of the hall and made for the room the kingdom had set aside for me — Ardel came stalking over, scowling to high heaven.
"Why do you keep ignoring me?"
"Me?"
"You keep running off mid-conversation!"
"Not at all, I assure you."
"You've been doing it all day!"
"I'm fairly certain that happened exactly once today."
"Eight times. You did it exactly eight times!"
"...Why are you counting?"
The truth was, every time I tossed out my hook and fled, Ardel came trotting back within minutes. I'd hurry straight to Sieghart's side, cast the line again, then bolt once more. She kept returning to me — and each time, her stretch of time alone with Sieghart grew a little longer.
So. Naturally, I assumed everything was going swimmingly. Then why, all of a sudden, was she furious with me? Had I done something wrong?
"You're trying to set me up with Lord Sieghart right now, aren't you!"
"Who can say."
"Don't play dumb! Do you take me for an idiot?"
"If you hurl a fireball at ground frozen solid by blizzard magic, does the ice melt — or does the flame freeze over?"
"...How am I supposed to know that?"
"By my standards, not knowing makes you officially an idiot."
"...Y-you—! Ugh!"
Ardel balled her fists and hammered away at my arm. Maybe it was that I'd spent a year being attacked by demons, but getting pummeled by small, squishy fists stirred no feeling of pain — only one of pleasure.
...Was that really why it felt good?
It had to be the booze.
Honestly, I couldn't say for sure.
"You promised to spend the whole day playing with me!"
"Princess, I don't recall making any such promise?"
"You did too!"
"When?"
"Just now."
"And when, exactly, is 'just now'?"
"I-I told you I did! If you want the exact time... now, what was the exact time again...?"
"Do I truly need to remind you that lying is bad?"
"I-It's not a lie! You really did say that to me!"
She was being extra unreasonable today. Ardel fidgeted for a moment, then—
"This is pricey liquor I snuck out of the royal cellar, just so I could drink with you."
She held out a crystal glass filled with something that looked like red wine.
Maybe it was the drink, but Ardel's face, caught in the moonlight streaming between the windows — that childishly innocent smile, so at odds with her elegant finery — looked lovelier than ever that night.
A monstrous hangover. My head felt like it was being cleaved in two. I vowed, then and there, never again to drink just because the mood moved me.
...Why am I in Ardel's room?
This was not my room. She was forever seizing my hand and dragging me off to play, so the layout had long since burned itself into my memory.
...And why are we both in the bed...?
Beside me, Ardel lay fast asleep, breathing soft little breaths.
Shit. What the hell? What in the actual hell was this situation?
No matter how hard I racked my memory, not a single thing after Ardel handed me that glass would surface. ...Don't tell me we did it in our drunken stupor?
I pulled back the covers. We were both still in our underwear. Too ambiguous to say it happened. Too ambiguous to say it didn't... was it ambiguous...? To any observer, it was the picture-perfect setup for assuming a pair of hot-blooded young people had shared one very heated night—
"I heard someone was looking for— ...Carniel?"
Sieghart opened the door and walked in. First he saw Ardel, sprawled there in nothing but her underwear. Then his eyes met mine — sitting up in exactly the same state of undress.
You absolute lunatic — you never made that face even facing the Demon Race, and now you're wearing it at your friend?
And that evening —
I found myself standing trial.