Perfect
“So you’ve come back after all.”
Oskar shrugged, and the red fur of his cloak swayed with lazy ease.
“Did you take that much of a liking to the South?”
The joke drew a bitter smile from me.
As if I stayed because I liked it.
I never expected things to turn out like this either.
The moment talks with the Holy Knights wrapped up, I planned to head straight back. Vacation was nearly over, after all.
“Well, this whole affair came out of nowhere, but for me it worked out rather well.”
“I imagine so. Julian’s house has been thoroughly ruined this time.”
“That’s a fine result, but I never wanted them brought down in such a fashion. There’s nothing fair about it.”
I had expected him to rejoice over the unexpected windfall, yet Oskar spoke with open dissatisfaction.
Ordering me to take Julian’s head is fair play, but annihilation by a third party isn’t? Becoming a man among men is harder than it looks.
“Then what exactly are you calling a good thing?”
“My soldiers have begun to feel a far sharper sense of purpose about marching on the Royal Capital. How could they not? They’ve seen the enemy with their own eyes.”
That made sense enough.
An enemy known only from books and rumors never quite lands. Watching a neighboring domain get smashed to pieces by that same enemy is another matter entirely. Reality brushes the skin.
“Beyond that, they’ve come to trust you. With you among us, they believe we stand a real chance even if we climb to the Royal Capital and face the Death God Cult head-on. Hardly surprising—you wiped out every last one of those undead by yourself.”
Even as he said it, Oskar’s face remained sour.
“It galls me. I spent a lifetime making soldiers believe in me and follow me, yet with you a single day seems to have been enough.”
“It’s only thanks to Your Grace inviting me in the first place.”
“No need for false modesty. That’s simply the truth.”
Oskar propped his chin on his hand and continued.
“However the path was walked, morale has risen. That’s why I called it a good thing.”
Even at one remove, seeing the undead had changed Oskar’s men. Ordinarily they would have flinched or hesitated. That they hadn’t was, in its way, very much like them.
He claimed the soldiers trusted me, yet if Oskar himself had not led from the front, they never would have come to Julian’s domain at all.
He’s the one playing at modesty.
“It finally feels as though the preparations are complete. Soldiers, weapons, transport, and now morale as well. Everything is ready. We are ready to fight.”
“Yes. I’m truly grateful.”
“When do you plan to set out? If the timing lines up, we can travel together.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I won’t be returning straight to the Royal Capital.”
“Why not?”
Why? Because my usual sphere of activity has never been the Royal Capital—it’s the marquisate.
I needed to see Veronica again, and I intended to thank her for sending not only the Silver Knight but Blash himself. She still didn’t know my true identity; persuading the knight order couldn’t have been easy.
When I mentioned the marquisate, Oskar nodded without hesitation.
“Is that so? Then at least as far as there. I’ve already hired a train; I’ll give you a free ride. Money hardly means anything to you anymore, I suppose.”
“Yes. I’ll take you up on that.”
With that settled for another day, I went to the meeting place and found Blash.
“Why are you alone?”
Yesterday the massive suit of armor that had stood beside him was nowhere in sight, so I asked.
“Hm? I thought Lord Daywin already knew!”
“Knew what?”
“The student you spoke of yesterday—Veronica, yes?”
“That’s right.”
Did I even give her name?
“I met her yesterday!”
“Veronica… came here?”
“Yes. You didn’t know? I assumed of course you would!”
“I didn’t. Or rather, I never expected her to come back.”
“How could she not? When her patron falls into danger, of course she returns.”
Normally, yes. But Veronica was no ordinary person, and that wasn’t her nature either…
“She’s speaking with Kaine right now about spirits. People who handle the same kind of spirit seem to understand each other somehow! I couldn’t follow a word of it, so I came out alone!”
Blash announced with great energy that he had become a third wheel because he couldn’t join their conversation.
“I see. Understood.”
“You look deep in thought.”
“No. I was only wondering… if she came back, why she didn’t come find me right away.”
“Chances to meet Kaine are rare, so she must be trying to snatch some last-minute instruction before we leave. No need to feel too put out!”
“I never said I was put out.”
“I understand completely.”
“I never asked you to understand either.”
“Children that age never do as one expects, after all.”
Perhaps thinking of Chris, Blash squeezed his eyes shut.
The Chris I met in my previous life gave off the unmistakable air of an ace. How did he change so completely under this kind of treatment?
Children never go according to plan. And before you know it, they grow up overnight.
“Come to think of it, how is young Laward faring?”
“Why that brat all of a sudden…?”
“That brat…? No special reason. You said ‘children,’ and he simply came to mind.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure he’s managing on his own.”
“I… see. You’re so careful with Ester and Veronica, yet with Laward…”
I must have shown the favoritism too plainly; Blash gave me a look of pure disbelief. Then his expression shifted as if he had suddenly understood.
“Ah! You place true faith in Laward alone!”
No. I simply don’t feel like wasting brain capacity on him.
“We found traces of the Death God Cult.”
Just like that, while we were still exchanging news and small talk, he cut straight to the real business.
“In a foreign sewer, no less.”
Foreign. Something about that rang a bell.
The Holy Knights have already reached that far? They’re certainly moving far faster than in my previous life. Both the Death God Cult and us.
“We saw people who had been turned into statues.”
Statues. Of course that, too, summoned a nightmare.
“I believe the Death God Cult left them there deliberately. So the knight order would discover them and sow conflict between the two nations. Do you know anything about this?”
How could I not? It’s the work of the Death God Cult’s Medusa. Planting poison deep and letting it spread slowly is the specialty of that serpent, Ballad. He coils in secret and waits for the moment to hunt his prey. If the Fox was the strongest, Ballad was the worst. Blash, Kaine, and I myself—three generations of knight commanders passed through, and still we never managed to kill him.
“I don’t know much.”
But I couldn’t tell Blash everything as it truly was.
In the previous life we killed only one of the four executives—the Fox. Even that single kill demanded countless sacrifices. Blash would know that better than anyone, yet now it has become a story only I remember. I locked myself in the punishment chamber for a full six months researching how to fight them, finished the method, and still, after the Nine-Tailed Fox, we could never kill another executive. We were simply too late.
“However.”
When I continued, Blash lifted his head in ready response.
“It’s clear they are different from ordinary fanatics.”
For now I could only play ignorant and drop hints.
“Was there anything else suspicious?”
“Suspicious…”
Blash scratched his chin, combing through his memory.
“Ah. According to Kaine, the statues are made of nothing but ordinary stone. Not some special ore—just rock. Kaine confirmed it, so there’s no mistake.”
“I see. They didn’t move, did they?”
“Move? What do you mean by that? I just told you—they turned to stone. They became statues. How would they move? It’s the opposite of moving; they stopped completely.”
“Strange.”
As Blash said, Medusa’s magic turns life into stone. Petrification. But that is not the end of it.
“The Death God Cult’s purpose is to make corpses move. Not simply to kill by every means available.”
The moment I spoke, Blash’s eyes widened a fraction.
“Are any Holy Knights still at that site?”
“Unfortunately no. They’re on their way back now.”
“Recall them. We need to confirm whether those statues are still in the same place.”
Blash slowly nodded.
“And you said a sewer?”
“Yes. An underground waterway.”
“Did you check under the water?”
“Under the… water? What do you mean?”
“Sewer water is filth; without a proper search you would never have seen anything. And it would have been pitch-dark as well.”
“That’s true. Without magic we wouldn’t even have been able to see ahead properly.”
“You need to check under the water as well. Undead have no need to breathe; they can last indefinitely underwater. And being stone already, the conditions are ideal, aren’t they?”
By the time I finished, Blash had caught on; his expression darkened in an instant.
“They don’t sink, after all. Because they’re stone.”
“Veronica.”
“Hyaak!”
She had been slowly closing the inn’s front door; she started so hard the door slammed shut. I would have to claim the wind had done it.
“H-how did you even find me?”
“The Sil—Kaine told me.”
“I… see. You scared me…”
“Why have you been avoiding me?”
“W-what are you talking about? Avoiding? I never did.”
Veronica smoothed the dress she was wearing as outdoor clothes and started walking at a brisk clip. She headed in the opposite direction, as if trying to shake me off.
“So? What is it?”
She asked with her back still turned.
“What do you mean, ‘what is it’? It looks like you came back because of me, yet you’ve been dodging me for days, so I came to find out why.”
“I… I never avoided you.”
She walked faster. I lengthened my stride to match.
“What’s the reason? I don’t think I did anything to make you hate me.”
“I’m not avoiding you.”
“Veronica, I have magic that can tell when someone is lying. I’d rather not use it on you.”
“Why would you even have something like that…”
I have deranged magic that can tell whether someone’s had their first time; this is nothing. Strictly speaking it isn’t a separate spell—I just make use of a spirit.
“Isn’t that the kind of thing you use when you torture people…?”
“Which is why it would be better to speak before it comes to that.”
“See? See? Even the line sounds practiced.”
“Is it because I made you travel so far? I know it wasn’t easy. I’m grateful.”
“There’s no way it’s something like that.”
“So you admit you were avoiding me.”
“Ah.”
“Even if you avoid me, we’ll still have to go back together. There’s still the final term left, isn’t there?”
“H-hmph. Why do you act like it’s only natural that I’d go back with you?”
“The seat beside me has already become your reserved place.”
“Reserved place…!”
For some reason Veronica’s face brightened.
“You thought of me like that…?”
“Grand Duke Oskar suggested we travel together. I could hardly leave you behind, so I told him you’d be sitting next to me.”
“What? So that’s all it was.”
Tap. Veronica kicked a loose pebble rolling in the road.
“…I was surprised you were still alive.”
“I never planned on dying.”
“But you talked like it was dangerous.”
“Because it actually was dangerous at the time. I wasn’t sure whether I could seal them off or not.”
“So ‘dangerous situation’ was decided by whether the domain would fall, not whether you would die?”
“? You’re stating the obvious.”
“Then what about your life?”
“I…”
“Honestly, please value your own life a little more…”
“Hm? No, I can run away whenever I decide to.”
“……”
“Why so quiet?”
“I was expecting some heroic line about putting civilians ahead of yourself…”
“As if. I was going to try, and if it didn’t work I’d cut my losses.”
“Of course you would. That’s the kind of person you are. Ha, how did I end up with someone like…”
“Like what?”
“Nothing.”
In the middle of her rapid walk, Veronica stopped right where she stood. Not to kick another pebble.
“Hey. I… thought it might be the last time.”
“Did I look that weak?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I just had regrets left.”
“Regrets?”
“There were so many things I wanted to ask. Why you help me, why you go this far for me. Lots of things. I mean, we’re only tied together because of the boss, right? A forced connection.”
That was true. At the beginning, yes.
But that was something Veronica had misunderstood. That had been the second time. The second time I went to find her. She believed we had met by chance, yet I had sought her out twice.
“If you died while I still had so many questions left, I’d never know anything. I’d have to live the rest of my life knowing nothing. Alone.”
She put a little extra force on the word “alone.”
“But on the train ride back, my thoughts shifted a little. Because a train is… like you said… a memory we share.”
It had begun on a train, and they had parted on a train.
“Maybe that’s why it suddenly hit me. Ah, there was something more important than the answers I wanted. Why did I only ever think about getting answers to my questions? There should have been something more important.”
Veronica turned around with an awkward smile and looked at me.
It had been a joke, but she had once said she only ever moved forward, like a train. And that, like a train, she never looked back.
The same Veronica who had declared it so confidently had, inside that train, regretted it. She had looked back after all. While the train rolled forward, she had stayed behind in thought—not on a future me who might be dead or alive, but endlessly on the past me who had definitely been alive.
“Come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever said thank you.”
Veronica had been so busy chasing answers to her questions that she had never managed even that common phrase. She had never gotten the chance, and I might have died. On the way back she must have thought exactly that, and cried quietly alone the way she was doing now.
When you look closely, she’s the easiest woman in the world to read. That much, at least, you can trust me on.
“Come to think of it.”
I followed her words.
“You never did.”
I said it dryly. She wiped her tears and forced a smile.
“Yeah. So I was going to say it, but I just couldn’t work up the courage. That’s why.”
She left unspoken the part about avoiding me, and slowly—very slowly—bent at the waist.
Srrk—
She slid her slender left leg behind her right and bent her knees just a little. Then she spread both arms with elegant care and lightly lifted the hem of her dress.
“I, Veronica…”
Had she practiced the pose alone afterward?
“…will never forget this grace until the day I die.”
Today, Veronica’s etiquette was perfect.