The Familiar Weight I Haven't Felt in Ages
The carriage lurched hard—maybe a wheel had caught on a stone—and my eyes snapped open.
I ran a comb through my hair, still a wreck from how hastily I'd packed and bolted, and looked out the window. In the distance, a magnificent castle gate loomed, enormous even from here.
"Oh. Nice timing."
"You're awake? I was just about to wake you."
The coachman's good-natured voice drifted back from the front of the carriage.
"We'll be at the gate soon. How would you like to handle this? If you've got something to prove your identity, I can take care of the inspection for you."
"Ah, thank you, but that's alright. Someone's supposed to come meet me at the gate."
"Is that so? Then I was being nosy for nothing."
With that, he turned his attention back to the horses.
Outside, the sun was still high. We'd been due to arrive in the evening, but whether he'd been pushing the pace for my sake or not, we'd reached the capital far earlier than expected. Well, if nobody's come to meet me yet, I can just call for them.
After cresting a few more hills, the carriage rolled up to the castle gate without a hitch. Up ahead, two armed sentries stepped into the path and brought us to a halt.
"Halt!"
Neeeigh—
The coachman reined the horses in slowly, and the carriage eased to a stop before the gate.
"State your identity."
"Ah, I'm just an ordinary coachman. I agreed to take a customer as far as the capital. She'll be getting off shortly."
The two sentries found his manner puzzling, but they didn't drop their guard. Their eyes stayed locked on the carriage door.
A moment later, the door creaked open, and a girl with ash-colored hair stepped slowly out.
"Wh-what...?"
They were the lowest of the low among the kingdom's soldiers, but there wasn't a citizen alive who wouldn't recognize the girl standing in front of them. The Goddess's proxy, acknowledged by the temple priests and the Goddess herself. The Saintess.
And she had just climbed out of an ordinary, shabby carriage.
The instant they realized who she was, the sentries dropped to one knee and scrambled to pay their respects.
"W-we greet the Saintess!"
"Ahh, that's enough. Save that kind of ceremony for the fussy High Priest. Anyway—can I go in?"
Noah was supposed to come pick me up, but I'd blown past the arrival time I'd sent ahead. It'd be faster to just go find him myself.
"O-of course! It is an honor to meet you, Saintess!"
"What's with you guys..."
Ten years of this Saintess treatment and I still can't get used to it. Soldiers, priests—they all make such a fuss. I just happened to be born with a bit more holy power than most people. What's the big deal?
As I walked toward the gate under the sentries' escort, a familiar figure came into view in the distance. A military uniform that marked him as a kingdom army officer, decorated with enough medals to make his rank unmistakable.
The sentries saw him and snapped a salute with voices that didn't lose an ounce of volume compared to when they'd greeted me.
"Sa-salute! Sentry Aidel and one other, nothing to report on watch! We greet the Commander of the Kingdom's 3rd Army!"
"Mm. Salute. You've both worked hard."
"Hey, Noah... ghk!"
I'd been about to greet an old acquaintance when a sharp iron fist came crashing down on the crown of my head.
"You've been causing every last bit of trouble you could find, haven't you."
"Ow, that hurts..."
"Stop pretending it hurts. I know you let me hit you on purpose."
"Whether I let you or not, it still hurts, okay? Putting real force into a punch against a lady? You're a disgrace to the military."
"Lady, my ass."
Noah turned his head away coldly, without a shred of guilt or apology. But I knew how much he'd suffered over the stunts I'd pulled lately, so I had no intention of complaining further about a man who'd let me off with a single punch.
"I'll take this walking disaster off your hands. You've both done well. Don't get yourselves hurt."
"I-it's an honor! Salute!"
I gave a light nod to the two sentries, who held their salute and kept staring until the very end. Then I walked into the capital with Noah's hand clamped on my shoulder.
A short way past the gate, the commercial district opened up around us—people chattering, shops packed tight, the whole street buzzing.
"Has it been five years? Since you last left the capital."
"Yeah. Heln hasn't changed a bit."
Five years, and the familiar scenery of the capital hadn't shifted at all. Street vendors hawking tasty snacks. Tiny shops tucked into every alley, and the high-end commercial districts occupying the much larger buildings in contrast.
"Well, even if a Demon King has been born, nothing changes without a real battle or an invasion. Peace like this isn't a bad thing, of course—but the stalemate has dragged on so long that the citizens' anxiety is growing by the day. That's a fact."
"That's exactly what I've been saying."
"I haven't heard the full story, but from what I've gathered, it almost feels like Hero Kyle has been deliberately avoiding combat with the Demon King's forces lately."
Stretch that interpretation far enough and you could even call it treason. But no matter how much I disliked Kyle, I had no reason to go that far.
"...He's a guy I can't stand a single thing about, but at the very least, he wouldn't betray humanity. That's what I think, having watched him from right beside him."
"Is that so? Well, if you say so—you, who spent ten years watching him closer than anyone—then I suppose that's how it is."
"Wait. Hold on. Where are you taking me?"
I'd been following along naturally in his grip when suspicion and a sudden sense of threat hit me at the same time. A path I could never forget, even after five years. Follow this route from the castle gate and there was only one possible destination.
Noah saw me shrink back and wore a sly grin unlike anything in his usual repertoire, as if he found my predicament delightful. His hand tightened so I couldn't slip free.
"Where else? We have to stop by the temple first, don't we?"
"C-can I go somewhere else first? Please? I need to mentally prepare..."
I put strength into the arm he was holding and struggled hard to wrench myself out of his grip.
"You think an excuse like that is going to work after the mess you've made? Hmm?"
"W-wait. Just wait—"
But no matter how much a Saintess's strength differed from that of an ordinary girl, I couldn't easily break the grip of a seasoned soldier who was putting his full strength into it.
"Nooooo—"
"No what."
And so the Saintess's pitiful cry was quietly swallowed up by the noise of the crowd.
"I ended up coming here first after all."
A magnificent statue of the Goddess. Enormous buildings that called ancient ruins to mind, standing in solemn rows. This was the most sacred and noble place in the kingdom—the site dedicated to the kingdom's primary deity. Noah and I stood before the Temple of Aria.
"There's a saying that it's better to take the beating first, isn't there? And did someone as scary as you really just go and do something without thinking about the consequences?"
"O-of course I expected this. That's why I clenched my teeth and held out all this time..."
"Hah... What's done is done. There's no going back. Just go in. Go in there and get it over with."
With that, Noah turned around. I watched his back for a moment—he somehow looked relieved—then made my way toward the temple entrance, where massive pillars stood in rows, and the enormous garden beyond.
"..."
A vast garden of neatly tended lilies, swaying in the gentle breeze. In the center of a place where I shouldn't have been able to sense anyone's presence at all, I quietly lifted my head and looked somewhere.
"I'm here. Raphael."
"Hmmm."
Click. Click.
A bizarre metallic sound, like something striking something else, drifted through the quiet garden. The moment I finished speaking, a middle-aged man in a black priestly robe stepped out from behind a pillar where no presence had been felt at all.
"I figured after ten years of doing nothing but healing in the Hero's party, you'd have gone completely rusty... but you've actually gotten sharper. I like it."
"Rusty, my ass."
The atmosphere between us was far too sharp and heavy to be called a conversation between a priest and a Saintess.
"So what's going through your head, disciple? Suddenly deciding to leave the Hero's party."
The man in the black priestly robe—Raphael—shrugged and walked slowly toward the center of the garden where I stood.
"It's exactly as I told you. If things keep going like this, I have no confidence we'll be able to kill the Demon King even if another ten years pass."
"Well, that may be true. But in a situation where the Demon King isn't showing himself for unknown reasons, are you saying you'll go find him and kill him yourself? You, alone?"
"If the Demon King isn't coming out, then we have to go find him. That's all."
"Hah! The Demon King was a monster I myself couldn't guarantee victory against during the first invasion fifteen years ago. Do you have the skill to make that possible?"
The brief exchange closed the distance between us to less than twenty meters. In an atmosphere so heavy it felt like we could clash at any second, we stared each other down like a tiger and a lion, neither yielding an inch.
"At least it's better than wasting time like this."
"Heh. Heheheh!"
Raphael was startled, just for a moment. Unlike himself, who was growing older by the day, I had been chosen by the Goddess and was in the prime of my life—but at some point, I'd developed a presence that didn't lose to his own.
He said nothing more. Continuing to talk no longer held any meaning between the two of us.
Raphael pulled something from his waist and tossed it toward me. It struck the stone-paved walkway with a heavy metallic clang, bounced a few times, and came to rest at my feet.
"Quitting the Hero's party means you no longer intend to fight as a Saintess, I take it?"
"..."
My gaze settled on the silver something lying at my feet. How long had it been since I'd last seen my beloved weapon?
Back in the days before I was chosen as Saintess, when I lived under Raphael and learned all sorts of things from him, I had never once taken this weapon off my body. I picked up the short, compact musket—forged from silver, the metal that could hold holy power more purely than anything else in the world—with a grip that still knew it by heart.
"It's been a good ten years since you last touched that, hasn't it? Let's see what you've still got."
The moment those words ended, Raphael charged at me with tremendous speed, giving me no time to prepare.