Aftermath (2)
"Yeah. You blocked it brilliantly." Even Gwanggeom delivered the confirmation kill.
"No, this doesn't make any sense. If it was Gwanggeom, maybe, but the Saintess against Pector?" It was the hero, Eugene. What was he so upset about this time? It seemed he felt inferior even to me, stuck in Olivia's body.
"Maybe it's because I have a completely different foundation from a certain hero who just lounges around somewhere, stuffing his face."
"Gwanggeom-nim. Let me say it again—I'm not weak. It's that the mage Noah was unreasonably strong."
Hey, why the hell are you pinning that on me?
"Even so, the mage self-destructed along with the Demon King, yet the so-called hero got defeated by one of the Four Heavenly Kings and missed the chance to drive Pector out quickly, didn't he?"
Yeah, if it had been me, I would have stopped him then. In the end, the hero had only gotten in the way. He couldn't even buy time.
"In the first place, it's only been a few years since I started operating as a hero. No matter if I received the Holy Sword's blessing, how could I possibly stand against the Four Heavenly Kings—who have rolled across battlefields for decades—in such a short time? Please think about this logically."
When he whined like that, it wasn't entirely wrong. The starting points between the hero and the Four Heavenly Kings were clearly different. To them, the hero was probably still just a kid throwing a tantrum with youthful bravado. Nothing more, nothing less.
The problem was that anyone chosen by the Holy Sword grew at an accelerated rate. If Eugene had trained with real determination for five years, he might have at least surpassed me in pure physical ability.
"In the first place, Noah was the abnormal one. That crazy bastard went and defeated all the Four Heavenly Kings by himself, so the hero party seems to have mistaken themselves for being strong."
No, that's your fault, you idiot.
I wanted to argue every single point, but it would have been a waste of breath, so I gave up.
"That's enough." As the mood grew rather heavy, Claire stepped in. Since I was involved, she seemed angry too. "If we're being precise, isn't it also true that the unrestrained Four Heavenly Kings launched indiscriminate attacks because of that?"
Well, I had no comeback for that part either.
Gwanggeom gave me a strange look. Eugene was the one running his mouth—why was he staring at me? I had nothing to do with it.
"What?"
"Never mind. Anyway, since I saw it with my own eyes, we'll end the discussion here. Now we will split the troops. One unit will remain stationed in Karhem to secure public order, while the rest will return to Ashtar with the main force. Command of the participated battlefield is granted to the Seven Stars. Since Gwanggeom has arrived, he will assume leadership of the Ashtar army, which had been under the command of a young lady who isn't even the next head of the family."
And as for me—
"My lady. Please speak with me privately before we depart."
"Uh, wait, just a second."
I was dragged off by Claire. Was I about to suffer the same fate as Seria?
"My lady. Why would you do something so dangerous? You are a noble daughter. The young lady of the Ashtar family, no less. Do you not understand what kind of house Ashtar is? A family so powerful it could be called the second imperial household. How could you rush in to save the prince!"
Claire grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
"It wasn't because of that guy. And weren't you the one who said we couldn't abandon the prince?"
Was she changing her tune now? I hadn't taken Claire for someone whose words could flip so easily. Her front and back were completely different.
"We cannot abandon him, that's true. But there is such a thing as moderation. The meaning is that if it becomes impossible, at least make a show of trying. The minimum requirement is that Ashtar made an effort to save him. That's all that needs to be visible."
In short, saving him or not didn't matter as long as it looked like we tried our best. So that was the line they wanted to draw.
"My lady. In any case, you must never do something like this again."
I had used the lightning stake and ruined the taste in my right arm. If that got discovered, it would be dangerous. Suddenly the pain hit me. Even with a body strengthened by Mana Fusion, moving the clouds like that had been insane. And it hadn't been ordinary lightning, either.
"I get it. I understand, so stop."
After nagging me for a long while, Claire finally sighed and softened her expression.
"Still, you have an excellent subordinate."
"Subordinate?" I hadn't raised any subordinates. Even the younger sister I used to push around had run away from the Land of Destruction.
"I mean Lady Seria. I never expected her to keep her mouth shut even while enduring Ashtar's torture. At the end she even declared to me, 'I choose death!'"
"Oh, really?" Was this Seria's sense of loyalty? No. The fact that she listened to me so well meant she had something to gain from me.
"Just how did you two build such a close relationship without me knowing? Considering the academy period, it hasn't been that long."
Ah, so it connected back to that. I couldn't forget that Claire was my mother's agent. The assassination guild was skilled with information too. There was no way to link Seria's relationship with Noah to one with Olivia.
"Ah, haha. It just sort of happened. They say women's friendships run deep, right? We exchanged letters often and talked a lot."
I had to make some excuses here.
"There is no such thing. Women's friendships are the ones that break easily. Especially among noble young ladies in your position."
She said that so casually. Well, looking at Ella and Cyria, it seemed true. They were practically romantic rivals, yet the moment they tried to yield the hero to each other, they immediately started fighting again. Seeing that, it made sense. It was said that when a noble family's position became dangerous, the other young ladies would cut contact immediately. I didn't know about that level. Looking at the original Olivia, all her followers had abandoned her the moment her engagement with Aslan fell through.
"Anyway, there's that."
"You must have your own circumstances, my lady. In any case, there must be no repeat of this."
She backed down first in the end.
"I said I understand."
"I'll stop here. The rest was all endured by Lady Seria."
Just what had she done to Seria? I'd heard Ashtar's torture techniques had grown even stronger after absorbing the assassination guild.
"Ah, by the way. Do I have a habit of rubbing my wrist when I tell a lie and get fidgety?"
Everyone had their own little habits, but Olivia? Since I was consciously aware of it now, I wasn't doing it, but I was still curious about Olivia's mannerisms.
"The young lady doesn't have any such habit?"
"Huh?" I didn't have that habit?
"Anyway, the carriage will be ready soon, so I'll leave this here. Preparations will be quick, so it's best if you come out shortly. The knights will take down the tent."
Claire left the slumped Seria behind and walked out.
I had a feeling Gwanggeom had noticed something. Or maybe he was just trying to mess with me. Either way, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
It would be best to carry the unconscious Seria, but I couldn't hold back my curiosity. I shook her first.
"Seria, you okay?"
"Ugh... Mother, Father... they're flickering before my eyes."
This looked dangerous. Seria didn't have parents. If she was seeing them, it was probably a hallucination or a vision of her dead parents.
"You don't have parents! Snap out of it!"
I slapped her cheek as I spoke. With a crisp smack, Seria finally came to her senses.
"Wow, when you say it so suddenly, it really wakes me up."
"Seeing something that doesn't exist is abnormal."
Parents who weren't there suddenly appearing. A corpse reviving. Such things didn't exist. There were ways to resurrect using black magic, but either the corpse itself would be brought back or an entirely different being would revive in its place.
"No, that's not what I meant. Ha. Never mind. But I can't get up. Please help me."
"Aren't you just acting spoiled?"
When I tried to help Seria stand, she couldn't stay upright and collapsed again.
"As if. That woman Claire toyed with my body so much. It was absolutely horrific, you know?"
"Fine. I'll carry you."
It wasn't like I couldn't do at least that much. I hoisted Seria onto my back. My body had become quite small after taking over, but carrying Seria wasn't difficult.
"Oh, is that okay? With the weight of my chest, it must be hard."
"Breast weight means nothing to me. It's certainly inconvenient when fighting, but carrying you like this doesn't cause any problems."
I could make my chest smaller if I wanted. I hadn't paid much attention to the body, but in battles using Swordmagic, it did cause some discomfort.
"Oh, that's a relief. Ah, and while you're at it, when we get on and off the carriage too."
"You sure ask for a lot."
"But why do you look so dead?"
Ah, I almost forgot.
"It's because Gwanggeom said something about my hand habit."
"Hand habit?"
I wasn't sure if it could be called a hand habit. Still, Seria might know.
"The habit of rubbing my wrist when I lie."
"Oh, as expected of Gwanggeom-nim. He even knows that."
Seria sounded impressed.
"What are you talking about? Claire said I don't have anything like that."
"Ah. What could that mean? It means Gwanggeom-nim knows Noah-nim's habit."
He knew my habit? Did I have such a habit? Well, setting that aside, Seria was originally a sly woman, so that was fine, but the fact that even one of the Seven Stars knew was strange. So had this incident just been a high evaluation?
"How many times did he see it?"
"Didn't you two interact quite a bit with each other?"
"Did I?"
Among the Seven Stars, I had the most contact with him. But had I been that close with Gwanggeom? Well, we had exchanged information regarding the imperial and kingdom armies' training.
"I don't know about the Seven Stars, so that's something Olivia-nim has to recall herself."
"Wait, no matter how I think about it, it's not normal to confess each other's habits to that extent."
"Then Gwanggeom-nim must be a pervert. Or maybe he liked Noah-nim. Despite how he looks, I've heard he has never had a man he liked until now."
She was getting strangely excited. Come to think of it, women did like romance talk.
"So you are a woman after all. To be spouting such nonsense."
It was probably something he learned while training. We had kept the exchanges appropriately professional. It was possible to learn about each other in the process.
"Aren't you curious, Olivia-nim?"
"Why would I be? Why would the person in question need to know?"
She was really talking nonsense. Anyway.
Gwanggeom knew my identity. This wasn't something I could just overlook. Even earlier when talking about the Four Heavenly Kings, he had subtly made eye contact with me.
"In any case, Gwanggeom-nim definitely knows."
Yeah, he probably did. We hadn't been enemies, after all. At least when necessary, he was the type to make cold judgments. The things he said in front of Eugene and Claire earlier hadn't carried any personal feelings.
"Well, let's think about Gwanggeom later."
"By the way, what did you do with the prince's group?"
"Gwanggeom dragged them along appropriately."
Aslan, Railer, and Shariel had been carried to the Ashtar camp by Karhem's guards under Gwanggeom's orders. Even until then, they had been lying there comfortably.
"You just handed them over to Gwanggeom?"
"As if I would."
She still didn't know me at all. While carrying Seria on my back toward the carriage, I told her what had happened in Karhem. Especially the part where I beat Aslan—I explained that in great detail.