Interlude: On the Continent (4)
Dieta did not particularly enjoy romance novels.
The hero’s head was a flower garden; he won the affection of everyone around him without any real effort; and the process of falling in love itself was far too contrived. A prince who somehow knew the moment danger struck and appeared like a ghost to save the day?
As if anything like that exists in the world.
Was the world that easy?
She was the sort of thoroughly bothersome person who could never simply enjoy fiction as fiction and always ended up forcing reality onto it. It wasn’t only romance novels; she didn’t particularly like reading novels at all.
Therefore, the fact that she had thoroughly read every romance novel currently popular in the empire over the past four months was… by no means a matter of her taste or hobby. It was a purely commercial act grounded in a rigorous business plan.
“Lady Dieta, do you know the novel How to Seduce That Merchant Guildmaster? Looking at you, Guildmistress, this novel suddenly came to mind! The male lead is the master of a great merchant guild. I wonder how it would look from the perspective of a fellow guildmaster!”
Platinum Tower Lord, Cypria Gachevska.
Her hobby was reading romance novels. To keep pace with conversations with her, Dieta had thoroughly read every romance novel. She had stayed up all night for a few of them, but it was never by her own will.
It was solely so that talk with the Platinum Tower Lord could flow smoothly—not for any silly reason like being curious about the next volume. Absolutely not. She swore it on gold coins.
Ha. A man who’s the master of a great merchant guild doesn’t even weigh profit and loss and just hands over his liver and gallbladder whole? Third-rate. No merchant like that could exist in this world.
Even as she found the content absurd, Dieta found herself opening the next volume as if bewitched. When she immersed herself in a novel like that, there were times when a single line would strike home with a sharp thunk… and for Dieta, the following sentence was precisely such an example.
A proper sense of distance between a man and a woman further matures the relationship and nurtures a tender longing.
Reading that sentence, she absolutely did not think of Najin and herself. In Dieta’s own estimation, she was not the sort of reader who, while reading a novel, thought This is totally my story…. It was simply an impressive line, so she had written it out separately and stuck it on the table in her office.
And now.
Dieta mulled over that sentence as she slowly drew a deep breath. A full four months! Plenty of time for tender affection to take root. But one thing she had overlooked was that the tender affection had sprouted in herself first.
Four months. A full four months.
Unable to hear his voice or see his face for four months, Dieta had gone past yearning into outright restlessness. Was I not good enough? Didn’t he say he’d drop by often? There were times when she would look up at the sky with a heavy heart.
And so four months had passed, and now they were reunited.
At the sight of Najin smiling so brightly and expressing his delight, Dieta felt relief and, at the same time, took a fatal blow. Perhaps because it had been so long, the destructive power was extraordinary.
“Hic.”
To stop the hiccup that escaped without warning, Dieta gulped down her coffee. Having barely steadied her breathing, she patted the sofa opposite her.
Originally there had been some distance between the two sofas, but a few minutes before Najin arrived, Dieta had thought, Isn’t the distance a bit too far…? and had grunted as she dragged it forward.
As Najin sat on the sofa, Dieta wordlessly looked him over. His aura had changed a great deal in the time they hadn’t seen each other. She couldn’t say exactly how, but it felt as if he had matured a little more. The atmosphere surrounding him had shifted.
“Then shall we hear it?”
Dieta made a show of sipping from her empty coffee cup as she spoke.
“Just what sort of things have you been getting up to that you managed to gain two stars in a mere four months?”
“So.”
Dieta blinked.
“If I didn’t mishear you—you clashed with a four-star constellation and a six-star constellation, and as if that weren’t enough, you fought a duel against an eight-star constellation and won… and then you even landed a hit on the Revelry Emperor, a ten-star constellation? On the battlefield of the stars?”
Stripped down to the essentials, that was correct.
If one dug deeper there were any number of points that needed careful qualification, so Najin added a few remarks to Dieta’s summary.
“The first was half a dead man already. The second had lost her reason and grown weaker because of a Fallen Star. And the third didn’t use sword-qi at all.”
“Still—those are the kind of giants who only show up in fairy tales. Once you pass five stars you’re a Transcendent, aren’t you? So you fought consecutive battles against Transcendents?”
“To be precise, they were people who had once been Transcendents.”
Dieta’s pupils wavered. What on earth was this man talking about? She had steeled herself to accept even the most outlandish story, yet this was a scale that left her imagination far behind.
“And on top of that—about two weeks ago, when there was that large-scale movement of the stars, you were mixed up in it too? No, ‘mixed up’ doesn’t cover it. From what you’re saying, it sounds like you were the cause…”
“I did play a large part in drawing the Revelry Emperor to that place.”
Not only had he faced four-star, six-star, and eight-star constellations in succession—he had also been present on a battlefield where a ten-star constellation and dozens of others had descended.
“Mmm…”
Dieta’s head tilted of its own accord. Her hair slid down with the motion. She stared blankly at Najin with a thoroughly dumbfounded expression.
I don’t think this man is the type to lie…
This was the scale of a myth. No matter how much Dieta trusted Najin, this was a story hard to believe.
Yet the two stars Najin had obtained in the short span of four months stood as supporting evidence for everything he said.
“Hey, Najin?”
“Yes.”
“Do you happen to have spare lives? Or is there some constellation that will come running the moment you’re in danger? What on earth did you trust to do something that reckless—haa…”
How did she know?
While Najin privately startled, Dieta pressed her fingers to her forehead as if her head were throbbing.
“You really somehow managed to survive.”
Even on the Continent, Najin was famous for throwing himself into danger without a thought for his own body—but out in the Outer Land he was acting as if he truly possessed several lives.
Dieta chewed her lip hard.
She let out a short sigh and rose from the sofa. As Najin blinked up at her, Dieta bent at the waist and leaned her face in close to his.
Then she stretched out her arms and cupped Najin’s face in both hands. Holding his chin, she turned his head this way and that—and when she saw the scar half-hidden by the hair at his temple, her face crumpled.
She rang the little bell. The secretary who came running at once received a murmured instruction from Dieta. Not long after, the secretary returned, set down an expensive potion and a first-aid kit, and vanished again.
“Move over a little.”
Dieta patted Najin’s thigh with her palm. When he shifted aside, she sat down right next to him, took gauze from the kit, and soaked it in the potion.
“Turn your head. Like this.”
“I’m fi—”
“I’m not fine. Me.”
Even if Najin possessed superhuman regenerative power, the wounds he had taken fighting Transcendents had left scars. Looking at them, Dieta bit her lip hard.
She had prepared for the possibility that something like this might happen, yet she had never truly expected to use it. Erasing scars belonged to the realm of expensive potions and alchemy; Dieta had chosen the former. A potion that cost hundreds of millions of gold per bottle—yet she emptied it without the slightest hesitation, down to the last drop.
“You’re going to drive me insane, you know that? Really.”
“Isn’t that expensive?”
“Is the price the issue right now?”
Without realizing it she had recited a line the male lead of How to Seduce That Merchant Guildmaster would have said, but at that moment Dieta felt no embarrassment. Her thoughts simply hadn’t reached that far.
“There.”
Having somehow managed to erase the scar, Dieta let out a long breath and glared at him.
“I can’t exactly tell you not to push yourself—but you still have to get proper treatment, don’t you? I know your recovery is good, but scars remain. Scars.”
She grumbled a little longer, then shook her head.
“Fine. It’s not as if you can get proper treatment out in the Outer Land. Just drop by the Continent every few months and get treated. If you come to the capital I’ll call in capable alchemists for you.”
Najin almost said that ordinary injuries healed without leaving scars, that scars like these only remained after battles against Transcendents—then closed his mouth. Saying that would only bring down a scolding of “Just what are you doing out there?”
“I’ll try.”
Then Najin gave a bitter smile.
“I’m always grateful.”
While she had been examining the wound the distance between them had closed; their eyes met. Dieta blinked, then sucked in a startled breath. She shot up from beside him and returned to her original seat. Her ears were faintly red.
“I… missed you for four months.”
With her ears still flushed, Dieta twirled a strand of hair by her temple and spoke in a voice that almost disappeared.
“What about you? Did you think about me at all?”
Najin said nothing; he simply drew out the ring he wore around his neck and showed it to her. When he closed his hand tightly around the ring, Dieta looked down at her own finger. The finger that always wore its matching ring. Even in the middle of work the sudden warmth would startle her, yet she never took the ring off her body.
Najin pointed at the ring and smiled faintly.
“Is that answer enough?”
“……Have you really never dated before?”
It was more than enough of an answer.
The warmth she had felt through the ring over the past four months had already answered for him. Dieta fanned her heated face with her hand and changed the subject.
“How long do you plan to stay on the Continent?”
“I need to recover, and there are things I have to do, so I was thinking of staying about two weeks.”
“Make it three.”
“Pardon?”
Dieta said,
“There’s a banquet I’m supposed to attend in about twenty days, and I still don’t have a partner. You do it.”
She could have found a partner any time she wished, yet Dieta had left the place at her side empty. She had originally planned to attend alone… but if Najin was here, there was no need to go alone, was there?
Dieta smiled mischievously.
“Only a new star shaking the entire empire right now would be worthy of filling the seat beside me.”
I’m an expensive woman, you know.
Watching her tease him like that, Najin laughed.
“Yes. Gladly.”
At that unhesitating answer Dieta silently cheered inside, but—fortunately—she did not let the cheer escape her lips and embarrass herself.
“That’s all, then.”
“Yes. See you again.”
After a little more light conversation, the moment Najin stepped out of the office Dieta buried her face in the cushion on the sofa and thumped the armrest with her palm. She simply could not contain the joy.
Oh my god, oh my god…! The ring! I’m so glad I gave him that ring……!
Replaying the image of Najin smiling as he showed her the ring, Dieta finally could not hold it in any longer and let out a cheer.
“…….”
Standing outside the office, the guardian knight Pasion firmly closed the door so that the sound would not leak out and cause a disaster.
The day after he arrived in the capital.
Najin stood before a certain tower.
Five towers rose high as if guarding the imperial palace. Because they were the dwelling places of the five pillars that supported the empire, this area was normally as heavily guarded as the palace itself.
But there was one exception.
This tower alone had no guards of any kind.
The tower that hung seven stars at its peak.
If one were to name the single most powerful existence in the empire, the being who lived here would almost certainly be mentioned first. And so this tower needed no guards. Its master was the one who protected it.
Imperial First Horn, Gerd.
To speak with him of the First Horn, Najin had come to the tower of the Imperial First Horn. There were things he had to tell—and things he had to hear from—the old man who supported the empire.