53. Toward the Academy (4)
53. Toward the Academy (4)
The Hellhound Incident.
It was a cliché that appeared at least once in any game or novel set at an academy.
The event followed a pattern so common it was practically worn out: monsters suddenly bursting out in a supposedly safe school, and the protagonist defeating them or holding out.
An event so stale it was clearly just meant to make the protagonist look good, but now that it had become reality, my head was spinning.
Hadn't Karina healed everyone at the end of that event so no one died?
So what had happened this time?
With the priests in the Theology Department around, it wasn't that treatment was impossible, but compared to Karina, who was a human elixir sprinkler, the theology students were more like healing potion misters. Their power would barely sustain the injured, let alone heal serious wounds.
Thinking about how the academy's situation had also gone to shit gave me a headache.
This was bullshit.
This was fucking bullshit!
Just give me one thing at a time!
If both sides got screwed up at once, what the hell was I supposed to do? If things were going to be like this, they should have at least given me one or two genuinely broken Skills. Or handed me a legendary artifact.
I forced down complaints I couldn't voice aloud, cut a piece of the steak in front of me, and bit into it. As expected, meat was the best when you felt like crap. Quality meat was even better. Of course, getting really good meat in a place like this was probably hard, but it was decent enough.
"Yohan, let me have a bite too."
"...Here."
"Ah~"
I cut the steak into a size Millia could manage and held it out to her. Millia glanced around furtively like a kid about to do something bad, then used both hands to pull off her head, bit the steak off the fork, and reattached her head to her neck.
...No one had seen that, right?
Feeling like an accomplice, I looked around. Fortunately, everyone was busy talking among themselves and seemed not to have noticed Millia's bizarre behavior. It probably also helped that our table was tucked away in a secluded corner.
"Couldn't you have just asked me to hold my arm out farther?"
"Heehee. 'S yummy."
She really ate with gusto. I spooned up some of the soup I'd ordered with the steak. Eating a mild meal after all those brutally salty preserved rations eased the tightness in my chest a little.
"Nobody's going to snatch it from you, so eat slowly."
"But it's so good..."
Making a gloomy face like that made me feel like the bad guy. Millia seemed to have grown dejected after remembering the past, so I pushed another piece of steak into her mouth. No matter how gloomy she felt, she apparently couldn't give up meat; she opened her mouth without hesitation and ate it.
"I wanna eat steak next time too!"
"Alright. You can eat as much as you want, so don't make that face."
"Ghot it."
"Swallow your food first, then talk."
"Mm!"
...I felt like I understood how parents felt raising a kid.
I looked away from Millia, who was devouring her food with gusto, and stared out the window. Countless people passing by on the street. But sightseeing wasn't exactly my objective. I gazed vacantly outside and listened to the sounds around me.
"...I heard Timmy and Madeleine haven't been getting along lately."
"No wonder. Someone apparently saw Madeleine with Henry..."
"I knew that bastard Henry would pull something like that..."
...I didn't exactly come here to eavesdrop on love and war.
Still, maybe I'd listen just a little longer.
I tuned in to the trivial gossip filling the restaurant.
That was when I briefly let my guard down.
A group of suspicious-looking men caught my eye. They wore the same kind of clothes I'd occasionally seen while traveling with the expeditionary force. People gave them a wide berth, clearly unnerved by them. That was only natural when they were openly radiating such an ominous air. Weren't the guards doing their jobs? Why were bastards like that allowed into the village...
...Or were they more than the guards could handle?
"Fucking bastards..."
"Huh, why? What's wrong?"
Millia turned to look in the same direction as me. Then she covered her face with her hair as if trying to hide and pressed herself against the wall.
"Th-they didn't see us, right?"
Persistent bastards, like leeches. I stood up. It didn't look like we had any time to rest.
----------------------------------------
Arrive at Kalon Academy.
Distance: 50km
Reward: 1 Trait Point
We'd started moving again without proper rest, and now the academy was right before us. Maybe thanks to our swift decision, we hadn't run into any followers of the Cult of Halphas in their suspicious garb. If we'd dawdled, we'd probably be fighting for our lives against them right about now. A horrifying scenario just to imagine.
"Ugh, I'm tired."
"Hang in there a little longer. We're almost there."
"Lenin, hang in there!"
"Yeah, yeah. And my name's Reni."
Reni chuckled and pulled Karina's arm, which was about to loosen, back against her. Karina's slightly slumping body pressed snugly against Reni's again. The sight of her large chest squashed against Reni's armor looked uncomfortable, but since she couldn't control her body, it couldn't be helped. I deliberately averted my gaze and met Reni's sharp glare.
"Yohan, even so, looking at Karina like that is... kind of inappropriate, you know?"
"...Sorry."
"No. I understand how you feel too."
That tone, as if she knew men inside and out, was a little strange. You were a virgin who had never even dated all the way to the ending in the game. Had my thoughts shown on my face? Reni cleared her throat and looked at me with an awkward expression before speaking.
"But don't look at me like that either."
"What kind of eyes?"
"Well, it looked like you had been through a lot, Reni. I was only giving you an encouraging look."
"Then me too!"
Millia stared intently at Reni from atop the saddle as it bobbed up and down. Reni looked dumbfounded by her behavior, then gave a small laugh and turned away. Having successfully defused what could have become an awkward mood, Millia bent her head backward to look up at me. With her neck twisted at a bizarre angle like something from an old anime, she suddenly shouted at me.
"Yohan, you've had it rough too!"
"We'll talk about all that after it's over."
"Okay!"
Millia smiled brightly and lowered her head to face forward. I rested my chin on the crown of her head and stared at the road stretching endlessly ahead. Over the long journey, we had settled into a pattern like this: we rode while keeping watch, relaxed our exhausted bodies with a little small talk, then continued down the endless road.
It was a fairly boring cycle, but it was better than nothing.
Occasionally easing the tension like this dulled the nerves sharpened by the grueling forced march, even if only a little. Nothing was more dangerous to a party than everyone becoming overly sensitive.
When everyone was on edge, a single wrong word could drive a crack through the party. In that respect, Millia served as an excellent buffer. Put simply, she was like a human capybara. You could practically see people's wariness melt away whenever they talked to her.
"Yohan, Yohan, what do you want to do when we get to the academy?"
"First, I'd like to find a job."
My Status Window listed me as nineteen, almost as if it were threatening me to enroll, but was I crazy? Me, become a student? I had no desire to go through school life all over again. Frankly, I was probably stronger than graduates of the combat departments, so what would be the point of taking their classes? Still, the General Studies Department might not be so bad.
Because I lacked knowledge about this world.
There were plenty of things I'd forgotten over ten years, so I wanted to sit in on a few General Studies lectures to refresh my memory. Maybe I could sneak into a class sometime. It seemed doable enough.
"What kind of job will you do?"
"...Who knows."
Could I use the money I had left to build a workshop and make things? I had no idea whether my slapdash item-making would be competitive, though. Just thinking about how I was going to make a living gave me a headache.
Ah, I didn't want to feel the agony of job-hunting all the way out here.
As I was dwelling on those bitter thoughts...
"...Reni."
"Persistent bastards."
"They're persistent!"
So they'd followed us all the way here after all. From atop my horse, I glared at the group of cultists racing toward us in the distance.
One, two, three, four... About ten of them, roughly?
But I couldn't know whether there were really only ten.
Because those bastards, somehow or other, were dragging monsters around with them. In practical terms, we should assume there were three or four times as many. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than enormous flying monsters revealed themselves in the sky.
Wyverns?
Fuck.
They were really going all out this time.
Judging by how quickly they were gaining on us and the half-dead state of their horses, they'd catch us soon if we kept fleeing. I placed the reins into Millia's hand, which was still clutching my clothes.
"Yohan? Why are you giving me the reins?"
"You remember Reni teaching you how to ride, right? Don't panic. Hold the reins and keep your legs tight against the saddle. If you're really scared, lean forward and hold on."
"What are you talking about?"
"It means I have to hold them off now, so you need to handle the horse."
"M-me?"
"You can do it. Haven't you watched me ride?"
"Well, yes, but..."
"You can do it. Don't be scared."
"...Okay!"
I took my feet out of the stirrups and twisted my body to glare at the enemies behind us.
Cultists charging with crossbows.
Wyverns with flames flickering at the corners of their mouths.
I could feel their resolve to kill us, even if it meant burning the plains to ashes.
...Fine. We would settle this here, you goddamn bastards.
"Craft."
And so began a chase that might be our last.