6. Much Ado About Nothing - 02
6. Much Ado About Nothing - 02
She wanted to be helpful.
She wanted to be a source of strength for someone. She wanted to be of use to someone. That was the sole Divine Command embedded deep within Aria's very being. Even Aria herself did not understand why she carried such feelings in her heart. She had simply... known. She had known it naturally ever since the day she opened her eyes upon his bed. This body had always held an earnest wish—to be of help to someone else.
And then she had found him. The one person to whom she wanted to devote her whole heart. The one person to whom she wanted to give her entire body as strength.
"...Lord Kain."
From that moment on, Aria had longed to be of help to him. She had wished to become his strength—his, the one who cherished a wretched, nameless girl who had wandered in from who knows where. But Aria's wish went unfulfilled. Because Aria was good for nothing. At the most critical moment, she had been nothing more than an obstacle he had to look after.
"...Ah."
Yes. In the end, she had been no help at all at the moment it mattered. He had told her so himself. That she would not be of any help. That therefore, he could not bring her with him.
It had hurt, and it had saddened her. But more than either, her heart had brimmed with frustration. If only—if only she had been as strong as the women he had met in the Capital. If only she had been as useful as they. Then she could have followed him at that moment. He would not have objected to her coming with him. She could have been his strength. Such thoughts seized hold of Aria's mind.
She wished to acquire the power to be of help to him. She hoped to become just as powerful as those women, so she too could become his strength. ...And at the end of it all, the day would come when she could stand beside him with her head held high.
And so Aria chose magic. Aria's teacher had told her: if she devoted herself to magic, in less than a year she would possess the power to look down upon any ordinary mage. He was certain that once she became that strong, Kain would see her differently too.
But her teacher had been wrong. Because in a mere ten days, Aria had already surpassed the realm her teacher had spent his whole life reaching—and was now stretching her hand toward the distant heavens beyond.
Of course, she had not reached such a realm overnight. Before he had departed for the Capital, Aria had received the fundamentals from her teacher and absorbed a wide range of knowledge related to magical scholarship. Karl, for his part, possessed a talent for teaching, and Aria's own extraordinary aptitude had made such achievements possible.
Yet even taking those factors into account, no one could deny that Aria's rate of growth was an aberration unprecedented in all of history. Fast—far too fast. The way Aria mastered magic with terrifying speed almost looked less like learning it and more like recollecting things she had merely forgotten.
...But Aria herself was steeped in dissatisfaction. She was slow. Far too slow. At this pace, she would not make it in time. A few days from now, he was scheduled to leave the Estel Duchy for a place that was practically enemy territory. This time, she absolutely refused to let him go alone. This time, she had no wish to be left outside the danger yet again, merely waiting for him. So she had no time. She had to become stronger as quickly as possible—so she could be his strength.
"....."
She closed her eyes. Her consciousness sank deep within. Aria's body remained on the earth, but her spirit, immersed in meditation, had reached a distant beyond. She turned her gaze upward. Into Aria's eyes poured vast knowledge not yet permitted to humankind. She stretched out her hand. It did not reach. Regrettably, she was still lacking. At her current realm, she could not yet attain what lay beyond.
[...Ah, ngh...]
But she could not give up at this point. She could not retreat. She was that desperate. She stretched out her hand again. Uncaring that it would not reach, uncaring that she would be repelled, she stretched out her hand once more. And at last, her hand touched a fragment of truth.
Wooong—
In that moment, Aria felt her mental world expand in scope. She realized the wall that had barred her path had collapsed. Yet at the same time, this was her limit. Attempting to grasp anything more than this would put a strain on her body. That she could not bear. Causing him worry was something she would rather die than do. Her consciousness rose back up from the depths of her mental world. Slowly, she opened her eyes. And when she opened them, she realized her master was standing right in front of her.
"...Lord Kain?"
Never for a moment had she imagined he would visit the place of her training. Aria wore a stunned expression. Kain gave her an awkward smile.
"Sorry, Aria. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was worried, and I came to check on how you were doing, but it seems I've been a nuisance."
At Kain's apology, Aria's face flushed bright crimson. She hastily waved her hands, as if to insist such a thought had never crossed her mind.
"N-no, no, no! It's fine. Truly. Yes, really. There's no need to worry. Yes, truly."
As she spoke, Aria involuntarily took a step back from Kain. Because she had spent the entire day doing nothing but immersing herself in magic. This was markedly different from when she normally attended him by his side. At those times, she always bathed herself meticulously to conceal any body scent that might arise.
But now was different. From the break of dawn until this very moment, she had not touched so much as a single drop of water. If Kain were to catch her scent and furrow his brow, Aria was certain she would faint on the spot.
"...No, you've done nothing but sit in meditation all day. What on earth are you fretting about...?"
"My teacher understands nothing."
Karl regarded Aria with slightly exasperated eyes, but she breezily ignored his gaze. For Karl—who had closed out the fresh bloom of his youth without ever once holding a woman's wrist—understanding the glass-delicate heart of a woman was perhaps an impossibility to begin with.
".....?"
Watching this scene in silence, Kain tilted his head as though he could not make sense of it at all. Knowing none of the circumstances himself, understanding this situation was all but impossible for him.
Taking advantage of Kain's bewildered expression, Aria swiftly employed magic. She enveloped her entire body with a layer of mana thinner than a sheet of paper, then momentarily reversed the flow of air between him and herself. With this, she could consider the risk of her scent reaching him safely eliminated. She then proceeded to refract the light around her hair so that her dry, lackluster locks would appear at least somewhat lustrous. The light refracted by Aria's mana would deliver a distorted image to Kain's optic nerves.
The entire process took a mere 4.7 seconds. It was an artistic movement that could rightly be called the pinnacle of mana manipulation—the kind most mages could not even dream of imitating. ...And to Karl, it was a sight that seemed like nothing but sheer waste of talent, one that drew an involuntary sigh. He had never once taught her such things, yet he could not even guess when she had learned it.
'...Was it all needless worry?'
He could only find his earlier self—the one who had solemnly issued a warning to the Young Duke—utterly pathetic. The version of himself that had thought such a girl might become a threat to the world now seemed a fool. The possibility that she would endanger the Young Duke himself was more than ample, but Karl had no wish to concern himself with that. That was for the Young Duke to handle himself; it was not his place to meddle.
"Old man, what's with that face?"
"...Nothing at all, my Young Duke."
Of course, Kain—who lacked the ability to perceive mana—remained blissfully unaware of what had just occurred before his eyes, and thus his face still wore a clueless expression. Well, even if he had perceived it, nothing would have changed.
As Karl was sighing inwardly, Kain recalled that he had something to say to Aria.
"Come to think of it, I forgot to offer you my congratulations. I saw everything that just happened. I may not know the details, but you've undoubtedly achieved something, haven't you?"
Kain spoke to Aria in a gentle voice.
"You did well, Aria. Truly."
"...Ah."
The moment she heard Kain's praise, Aria's face brightened. She was happy. The fact that he had told her "you did well" made her happier than achieving the accomplishment itself, happier than surpassing the wall that had blocked her path. A sense of pride swelled within her. Contentment. Happiness flooded through Aria's chest.
"...Lord Kain..."
Before she knew it, Aria had taken a step toward Kain. The thought that he had acknowledged her filled her mind.
Of course, she knew she was still sorely lacking. Yet she could do nothing about the heart that hammered so furiously in her chest of its own accord. Aria's face flushed crimson once more, but in a different way than before.
Perhaps she had earned the right. Perhaps she was no longer a burden he always had to protect, but had become someone with the right to stand beside him on equal footing and gaze upon the same horizon.
...And at the end of that path—though it was something a lowly girl like herself ought never to dare even dream of—perhaps.
Perhaps.
"...Aria? Are you alright?"
"...Y-yes!"
Kain's worried tone made Aria let out a shrill cry before she could stop herself. For an instant, she had been convinced he had seen through her impudent imaginings.
"Are you feeling unwell? Your face is burning up."
So saying, Kain unhesitatingly brought his hand to Aria's forehead. The gesture was utterly free of self-consciousness, as though he were treating a younger sister rather than a woman.
...And that action of Kain's instantly dampened Aria's spirits.
He did not seem to see Aria as a woman. He treated her with far too much ease. That was not a bad thing in itself, but the knowledge that he was not even aware of her as a woman plunged Aria into despair.
"...I'm not feeling unwell at all. So please remove your hand."
"Oh? R-really?"
Aria's tone came out cold before she could restrain it. Kain reflexively withdrew his hand from her forehead. He could not quite grasp what was happening, but he had at least caught on that the situation was veering in a strange direction.
"....."
She hated this. She hated it. She truly hated it.
If it had been the Imperial Princess of the Capital standing here now, or that cleric whose only notable feature was her over-large chest, Kain would absolutely never have acted this way. At the very least, he would not have offered such unselfconscious skinship as he had just shown Aria. Far from skinship, he would have been keenly aware of them as women and would have hesitated to even approach them casually. That fact gnawed at Aria's nerves even further. This could not go on. The mere thought of being forever treated as a child in his eyes was intolerable.
So she had no choice. Extraordinary measures were required here. It pained her heart a little to have to say these words to him, but considering the more distant future, this was an absolutely necessary step.
"Lord Kain."
Aria smiled brightly and spoke to Kain in a perfectly clear voice.
"I would like you to refrain from touching a lady's body so freely from now on. I am grown now, after all."
At Aria's cold, frost-laden declaration, Kain unconsciously shrank back. Her words did indeed carry a point, and so Kain meekly acknowledged his own fault.
"....I'm sorry, Aria."
Offering his apology to Aria, Kain could not hide the doleful note in his voice—thinking to himself that sweet, innocent Aria had unquestionably entered a rebellious phase.