The Lie
What had Dorothy just said?
I couldn't answer. I only stared at her where she stood in front of me. There was no chance I had misheard. A moment ago, perfectly clear, she had asked why I lied.
"......"
I bit down on my lip. I didn't know how I was supposed to answer. With Arien I could have feigned indifference and talked my way around it, claimed I simply didn't know — but telling the same lie to the Dorothy standing right in front of me would have meant nothing at all.
Dorothy already knew Lieben was living at the Academy as a professor. She had even drunk with him once, and that evening, when she was left drunk outside the Cathedral, I was the one who went and collected her. Insisting I knew nothing would only make me look ridiculous.
And yet I couldn't tell the truth either. That I didn't want Arien and Lieben to meet. That only moments ago I had looked Arien straight in the face and lied to hide it. I didn't even know how to force words like that out of my own mouth.
Dorothy watched me fail to speak, and after a moment she stopped pressing for an answer. Instead her eyes shifted, as if she were turning something over, and then she looked at me again.
"Hmm."
"...Why?"
"Saintess."
"Yes."
Dorothy tilted her head a little.
"You like the Pathfinder?"
"No, what— what are you..."
The words burst out before I could stop them. They came louder than I had meant, and the instant I realized how I had reacted, I clamped my mouth shut like a child caught stealing.
"......"
My eyes met Dorothy's. Her face was as blank as ever, and yet somehow her eyes seemed wider than they had a moment ago.
And then, a beat later—
"For real?"
"......"
"Oh."
Only then did I understand. She hadn't asked because she knew. She had simply been poking, on a whim.
"...Dorothy."
"Mm."
"You were just asking?"
"Mm."
"......"
"But it was real."
Until a moment ago I had been so tense at the thought of Arien finding out that my whole body had gone rigid. Realizing I had been caught so absurdly, by a single sentence from Dorothy, that tension seemed to drain out of me all at once. In the end I let out a long sigh and covered my face with one hand.
"Haa..."
"So that's why you lied?"
"......"
"The Hero's not allowed to meet the Pathfinder?"
Again I couldn't answer at once.
It wasn't that they weren't allowed. If anything, I knew better than anyone that I had no right to wedge myself between them. Arien and Lieben had been together long before I ever knew him. They had loved each other since childhood, precious enough to share a pair of matching necklaces. After the war Arien had searched for Lieben for months, and through all that long stretch of time Lieben had never thrown his necklace away. What right did I have to keep two people like that from meeting again?
But I didn't want it.
That one thought refused to change, no matter what reasons I piled onto it or how hard I tried to persuade myself.
When I gave no answer at all, Dorothy seemed to understand well enough from that alone, and she didn't ask the same question again. She thought for a moment, then said, with a face that couldn't have been more indifferent:
"Then I'll help?"
"...What?"
At the unexpected words I lowered the hand covering my face.
"Help with what?"
"Keeping them from meeting."
"......"
This time I truly couldn't grasp what she was saying, and I only stared at her face. The person who had said it remained as expressionless as if it were nothing.
"How?"
At my question Dorothy held up one finger.
"Old man knows the Pathfinder's at the Academy too."
"......"
Then she raised a second.
"Pathfinder's subordinate's at the Academy too."
"What did you say...?"
Without meaning to, I leaned forward. Dorothy blinked, as if she couldn't see why I was so surprised.
"Didn't know?"
"This is the first I'm hearing of it."
"Drank together before."
"With whom?"
"Pathfinder's subordinate."
"......"
My thoughts began to race. The Headmaster knew, of course. He was the one who had brought Lieben to the Academy himself. If Arien went to him and asked about the Pathfinder, he had no particular reason to hide it. That alone was dangerous enough, and now there was someone else here besides — a subordinate who had served with Lieben in the same Vanguard Unit.
Arien had searched for Lieben for months. She had come to me only a little while ago to ask where the Pathfinder was. She was not going to give up and leave the Academy simply because I claimed not to know. If she decided she had learned nothing from me, she would start seeking out other people and asking them.
And then—
A day, at most.
No.
If luck ran against me, she could learn before today was out that Lieben was living right here at the Academy as a professor. And in that same moment, she would learn that what I had said a little while ago was a lie.
"......"
My chest drew tight again. There was still so much I wanted with Lieben. Just once, I wanted to kiss him. Someday I wanted to whisper that I loved him while we called each other by name. I wanted to take his hand and walk the streets with nowhere to be, to spend with him the ordinary hours of ordinary lovers — time so commonplace to anyone else that it wouldn't even seem special.
Only now.
Only now, at last, had I managed a single step closer to his heart. I didn't want everything to end already.
I was afraid of Arien finding Lieben, but what frightened me more was Lieben learning the whole truth. That from the day the war ended I had known everything and still never told Arien. That today, when she came to me again, I had lied a second time and said I didn't know where he was. If he learned all of it, how would he look at me?
He would be disappointed, surely. He might even despise me. He might never again smile and talk to me as easily as he did now. I didn't want it to end that way.
...Then, for now, did I have to take Dorothy's help?
"...How."
I barely managed to open my mouth.
"How would you help me?"
Dorothy answered at once, as if she had been waiting.
"Just send both of them on leave for a bit."
"Both of them?"
"Mm."
The Headmaster, and Lieben's old subordinate. If I could make just those two — the people Arien could go to this very moment and learn the truth from most easily — step away from the Academy for a while, I could buy at least a little time. Of course I didn't think that alone would let me hide it forever. In the end Arien would find Lieben someday, and when she did, everything I had done would come to light as well.
But a few days.
No.
If I could buy even a single day more.
"......"
Only after my thoughts had run that far did something strange occur to me. I looked at Dorothy.
"But, Dorothy."
"Mm."
"Why are you helping me...?"
Dorothy tilted her head a little.
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why..."
I was so dumbfounded I couldn't go on for a moment.
"Arien is your comrade too."
"Mm."
"I'm your comrade, yes, but Arien fought beside you just the same. There's no reason for you to go out of your way to help me keep the two of them from meeting."
Only after hearing that did Dorothy lift her gaze, as if she were truly considering the reason for the first time.
"Hmm..."
She pondered for a while, then looked at me again.
"This seems more fun."
"...What?"
"Observation's a mage's chronic disease."
It was an utterly shameless answer. And with those words, a smile began, little by little, to surface on Dorothy's face — a face that hadn't so much as changed with the Demon King standing before her. Her eyes curved, the corners of her mouth lifting, like a child who had just found a new toy she liked.
Looking at that face, the thought came to me by instinct: I should not accept this person's help. Nothing could possibly go right if I took aid from someone who looked at people's feelings like an amusing spectacle and slipped herself into other people's relationships.
And yet I couldn't refuse. I had already been walking the wrong road since the day the war ended. The day Arien showed me the necklace and said she would find Lieben, I could have told her right then that the Pathfinder was the Lieben she had been searching for. I didn't. And today I had looked straight into the face of the Arien who had come to me in trust, and lied once more. Accepting Dorothy's help on top of all that would not suddenly change the path I had already walked.
"...Then."
I bit my lip, then slowly let it go.
"Please."
"Mm."
Dorothy nodded, as if she had been waiting.
"Going, then."
"...All right."
With that she turned, without a shred of hesitation, and walked out of the Cathedral. I watched her back recede, and in the end I didn't stop her.
Creeeak.
The sound followed her out, and only after Dorothy was gone and I was alone in the Cathedral again did I slowly turn my gaze toward the altar.
I knew what choice I had just made. I knew it was wrong.
Even so.
Just a little longer.
I wanted to stay at Lieben's side. Truly — just a little longer.