Call Me Livia
"There's something I want to ask you before we go into the village."
Walking beside the Hero, I had been watching her with my heart in my throat, terrified she might stumble or lose consciousness at any moment. She had probably noticed. Unable to use mana, her body in wretched condition, she was already breaking into a cold sweat just from walking this far — and still she followed me without a single word of complaint. Offering her my arm had been an option, but she had insisted she could walk on her own, so I had let it go.
"Asking you for a favor in a situation like this makes me feel pretty guilty, though."
"A bit late for that, isn't it? What is it?"
"I want you to change how you address me."
"How I address you? ...Ah. You mean that."
"Huh? You got it from that one sentence?"
"Calling you 'Hero' in a place like a village could cause a serious incident. Even if we're only passing through, there's no need to go looking for trouble."
The Hero looked at me with a faintly surprised expression.
Had I been an idiot in her eyes all this time? I didn't consider myself a genius, but I couldn't recall doing anything particularly stupid while traveling with her. Or maybe I just had the kind of face that looked stupid.
"Was I wrong?"
"No, you're right. ...Well, then we should settle on a name. 'Olivia Reinhardt' won't work either. I'm famous as the Hero Olivia Reinhardt."
"How about Livia, then?"
"Livia?"
"It's from Olivia. Livia."
"..."
Had I been too careless with it? Was she about to get angry?
The thought had barely formed when Olivia gave a weak little laugh.
"Not bad. No one's ever called me something like that before."
"Is that so? Then please don't move for a moment."
"What are you doing?"
I reached toward her, and she flinched, shrinking back on instinct. She clearly had an aversion to being touched. I didn't think it was in her nature — more likely something closer to trauma, born of betrayal. But rejecting me outright would have been its own kind of awkward, so she simply stayed there, tensed, and did nothing.
If she so much as struck me with that trembling hand, I might go tumbling across the ground as a corpse. Tsk. The thought was a little frightening.
Light shimmered from my palm as my hand drifted slowly toward her hair.
"Huh? This is..."
"Hero... no. Miss Livia, your hair color is far too conspicuous. I've never seen white hair like that on anyone but you in my entire life."
"...It's a Reinhardt family trait."
"All the more reason we were right to change it."
Her snow-white hair darkened to black — the same color as my own.
"Black..."
"Elvenheim is in the east, and in the eastern countries, that hair color is the most common."
"That's true. ...You really are kind."
"I like to think I've always been kind to you, Miss Livia."
Had I ever treated her poorly, even back in the party days? If anything, it wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say I'd been the kindest member of the party. I wasn't the type to congratulate myself, but I had pulled her out of danger more than once, and I'd been the one who shared all manner of information and knowledge with her. Honestly, when I'd been banished, I'd told myself it was inevitable — and I'd also thought she was an ungrateful woman.
"Yes. You were always kind. ...I just never knew it."
"...I'm glad you've realized it, even if it's late."
She was curling into herself far more than I'd imagined. I preferred her with a little more confidence. It seemed the thick mask she'd worn — the one she'd kept on through betrayal, injury, and nearly dying — had finally shattered. The composure to play the strong Hero, the perfect Hero, no longer rose from anywhere in her heart. Perhaps she simply no longer had the luxury.
As a person, I could say I preferred the Hero as she was now. But how should I put it? I didn't enjoy being insulted, yet that was a separate matter from this — seeing her so utterly stripped of confidence was hard to watch, too.
Come on. I'm not a therapist.
If she had wounds, and if those wounds were of the heart, there was little I could do to address them. I could almost say there was nothing I could do at all. All I could do was pray that she would find a way to heal those wounds herself.
Breathing hurt.
No wound I had ever taken had hurt this much. I could feel the God of Death Poison gnawing through my body, intent on killing me. Lois called it a "poison," but he had also assessed it as a corruption that ought to be classified as a "curse" — and I agreed with him now.
Had my companions — Alex among them — hated me enough to leave a curse like this behind, enough to kill me with it? I had believed I was playing the Hero's role properly. But perhaps no one had thought so. Perhaps no one had ever been grateful to me at all. Perhaps none of them had even considered me a Hero.
Then what had I been doing it all for?
"Miss Livia, the carriage is ready."
"..."
Your existence throws me into confusion all over again. You protect the Hero who was supposed to do the protecting. You stand beside me — the one who cast you out — in this moment when I have no one left.
If some ulterior motive, some dark intent, had flickered in those eyes of yours, I could have let myself be stained black by it and been at peace. But you didn't. And that confuses me more than anything.
"Why do people help other people?"
"Well... perhaps because someday, they'd like to be helped in return."
"..."
"No one accomplishes everything alone. Even you, Miss Livia, must have received someone's help when you were a baby. That's how you survived those years and grew strong. It's the same principle."
"I don't understand."
"That doesn't sound like something the person who saved and helped more people than anyone else in this world should be saying."
That's right. I had saved many people. I had helped them. Most of my not-particularly-long life had been spent saving and helping others, and the title of Hero — along with the power that came with it — had changed the very unit by which lives could be measured in that short span. I had even slain the Demon King and saved the world itself. As a result, I could say with pride that among all the people currently living, I had saved the most. That was the Hero named Olivia Reinhardt.
"But I didn't save them because I wanted to. ...I saved them because I had to become a Hero."
"You saved them all the same."
"..."
"Does the reason even matter? Miss Livia, when you fight a criminal, do you interrogate them about why they committed their crimes before you act?"
"If it's a monster, there's no room for questions. If it's a human, I'll ask their reasons — unless the crime is particularly grave."
"Exactly. Just as killing someone is a crime and an evil act regardless of the reason, saving someone is a good deed and an achievement — regardless of the reason."
"..."
I fell silent. Perhaps the silence bothered him, because Lois looked at me.
"And you don't have to be a Hero to save people. ...Just as I've saved you now. Well — 'saved' might be a bit of a stretch, given the current state of things."
"Then... is a Hero unnecessary?"
I asked it of Lois, hesitating — but it was a question I was asking myself. If ordinary people could think that way, if they could save others on their own, then why did Heroes exist at all — beings whose purpose was to save and preserve lives? Were they truly meaningless, hollow things — needed only as assassins to kill the Demon King?
"...Lois?"
Lois dropped to one knee before me, meeting my eyes as he spoke.
"But still—"
"You're ill right now."
"I know."
The God of Death Poison, or whatever it was, had sunk its teeth deep into my body and was killing me. I wasn't sure it should even be called an illness — but I was certainly in pain. Lois gave an awkward little smile, as if to say that wasn't what he'd meant, then climbed into the carriage first and held out his hand to me.
"Illness doesn't necessarily mean a physical one. A fever of the heart — being chained to the past, unable to let go — that can be called an illness too."
"...Are you saying that's what I am?"
"I know you worked harder than anyone. Of course, I wouldn't say I'm fond of you as a person — but I remember the countless achievements you've made, and the effort behind them."
"..."
Lois spoke to me as calmly as if he were reading from a book. That voice was somehow reassuring, as if it were ringing directly inside my head. I took his hand almost without thinking and climbed into the carriage. Then he said:
"I don't want to watch someone like you meet a tragic end."
"Is that why you're helping me?"
"Yes."
"I don't remember ever treating you well."
"Neither do I."
And yet he was helping me anyway. I had always attached a reason to helping people: because I was a Hero. Now that I was no longer one... could I still help someone? Could I still have that kind of heart?
"You'll only end up owed by me."
"Think of it as the world returning the grace you showed it. It may fall somewhat short as payment for all the lives you saved, but..."
"..."
The people around me had always been busy with praise. There had been no shortage of those who recited my achievements. But their ulterior motives had been far too easy to see, and I had never felt their vain, empty words were worth listening to.
"We'll be off, then."
"Mm."
A rattling. The cry of a horse, and the carriage began to move. In that uneven swaying — laughable as it was to say so with a body like this — I felt something I could only call peace.