Just Until Evening
“I didn’t call for you, though.”
“No.”
“…….”
The answer came out almost automatically after only a fleeting moment of thought. From the start, sending her away had never been off the table for Juhan.
“Why? Because of what…?”
“What do you mean, ‘because of what’? At this rate I’m about to become a kidnapper.”
Juhan already hated noise and attention. Dragging around some noble young lady whose identity he barely knew for another full day? It wasn’t even the kind of problem worth second-guessing.
“When morning comes, people will start looking for you.”
“That’s…”
“Honestly, we’re already a little late.”
He pointed down the hill toward the village below.
“Let’s go back. Right now.”
“…….”
Of course no answer came. Ria simply stared at him with a sulky expression.
“…Then how about a deal?”
“I already said no.”
For Ria, this was the first time she had ever stepped out of line. She had finally expected to blend in among ordinary people as just another woman. Yet this man was already trying to send her back.
“Just one day. Only today. Please show me around the village.”
“Look…”
“I won’t ask for anything more.”
How desperately had she wanted this? She was now turning eyes full of pure longing toward Juhan. Not that it changed the answer he had already decided on.
“Still no.”
“Please. Just one day.”
“Why should I?”
Even if he sent her back right now, she didn’t seem the type to go around spreading information about him. The conversations they had already shared were enough for him to guess that much. And if things truly started going wrong, he could simply leave this village behind.
“No…”
He was still refusing flatly when a sudden thought brushed through his mind.
Wait a second.
Come to think of it, this woman… she looked like someone of pretty high status.
The woman pleading in front of him right now was, by his estimation, someone of considerable rank. Someone of that standing would certainly have useful connections.
And she probably knows all kinds of information too.
Information he wouldn’t easily be able to reach himself. If he could gain a connection in exchange for simply hanging around with her for a day, it would be a profitable trade.
Hmm…
Perhaps because Juhan had suddenly gone quiet mid-sentence and started thinking, Ria seized the opening without missing a beat.
“Not even a whole day. Then just until this evening.”
“This evening…”
Her request was only that he keep her company until tonight.
“How about it? That’s fine, right?”
“Hmm.”
“If you ever want something later, just say so. I’ll help however I can within what I’m able.”
Once the request had been scaled down that far, Juhan began to think it was a deal he could accept. Of course, there were still a few points that needed to be clearly settled first.
“All right. We’ll do it that way.”
“Really!?”
“On one condition.”
Juhan’s demands were simple.
“First of all, if we get discovered while walking around together—”
“I’ll say I forced you to come with me. Don’t worry about that part.”
“…Yeah. There’s more, of course.”
First: she would shoulder all the risk.
“Don’t wander off on your own, and never do anything I tell you not to.”
“Of course.”
Second: absolute obedience to his control.
The conditions could have felt rather heavy-handed. Yet Ria only nodded her head vigorously, as if none of that mattered to her in the slightest.
Does she trust people too easily, or does she just see the world through rose-colored glasses?
Not that it was any of Juhan’s concern. If anything, it worked in his favor. The only remaining problem was the clothes she was wearing.
“Then first we need to do something about that outfit.”
It was decorated far too lavishly. If she walked around the village like that, she would be caught in no time.
“Ah, don’t worry about that.”
“?”
As if telling him not to concern himself with it, Ria began rummaging through her pocket.
Click.
A soft shaaa— followed.
What… what is that?
The moment she pulled out a small device and pressed a button, the clothes she was wearing transformed into something entirely different in the blink of an eye.
“How’s this? Enough, right?”
“…….”
Juhan was briefly speechless at the unexpected sight. Ria now stood there in an ordinary dress you might see anywhere. The luxurious garments from moments before had simply vanished.
“What is that?”
“This? A conversion-type magic tool.”
“Things like that exist?”
To Juhan’s curious question, Ria only nodded, as though it were some everyday item she always carried around. To him, it didn’t look that way at all.
No matter how I look at it, that thing looks insanely expensive.
He reached the conclusion in an instant. This woman might be far wealthier than he had even imagined.
She pulled her hood deep over her head. Now she looked every bit the ordinary village woman. At the very least, walking around inside the village no longer seemed like it would cause problems.
I’ll just hang around with her for a bit, get what I need, and that’ll be that.
As Ria kept urging him to hurry down, Juhan rose from the tree stump he had been sitting on.
Thud.
“Oh? You dropped this.”
“Huh?”
Ria’s soft hand caught him. She told him he had dropped something.
“Ah, thanks.”
What she held was his Wood Plate adventurer registration plate with his name written on it. Juhan thanked her and reached out to take it back—then froze when he saw her expression.
She was staring fixedly at his adventurer plate.
“So you really are an adventurer?”
“Well, yeah. Gotta do all sorts of things to make a living.”
He nodded. There was no particular reason to hide it. Ria, however, seemed to find it unexpected.
I thought he’d be at least Iron Plate…
The rank was far lower than she had expected. Given how he had seen straight through her holy relic in an instant, and everything else he had shown so far, she had assumed he would be Iron Plate at the absolute minimum.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.”
The words cut off shortly with no further explanation. Juhan didn’t think much of it and let it pass.
“Then let’s go.”
With that, they began descending the hill. The village wasn’t far, so it didn’t take long to arrive.
“Hey, move that out of the way!”
“Hurry! Hurry! We need to open the shop—there’s no time for this!”
The village was already bustling with people greeting the morning. The ordinary, everyday scenery of a village: people coming and going, shops slowly opening, children who had just woken up running around outside. Ever since settling here, Juhan had seen this same sight every single day. It stirred nothing in him.
Ria, however, was different.
She walked along slowly, taking in her surroundings. Juhan followed a step behind, keeping watch.
And so her tour of the village began.
“Wow… that looks delicious.”
She paused for a while in front of a bakery, watching the bread being baked.
“That looks fun. I want to try it too.”
She murmured to herself while watching children play with their toys, as if she wanted to join in.
Clang! Clang!
“Oh…”
She even stopped to watch the work going on at a small blacksmith that sold common farming tools. Ordinary people’s everyday lives—things she could have seen anywhere—held her gaze as though they were something wondrous.
“Is it really that interesting?”
“Yes. This is the first time I’ve ever walked around without any worries.”
Ria’s village tour continued. It was around eleven in the morning when Juhan first sensed something off in the air.
Something’s strange.
For some reason, a fair number of soldiers were moving about busily. And it wasn’t ordinary patrols. They kept sweeping their eyes left and right as they moved, as if searching for someone.
In front of shops, at alley entrances, at every crossroads—soldiers stood in pairs or threes. The atmosphere was shifting in a way that could no longer be dismissed as imagination.
…It’s because of her, isn’t it.
Guessing the cause wasn’t hard.
“Wow!”
The woman crouching up ahead, looking at something with sparkling eyes—she was the reason.
It almost feels like every soldier in the village has been mobilized.
Just how high-ranking was she? Judging by the steadily increasing number of soldiers, it was only a matter of time before she was found.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
It seemed the time to make a decision had arrived.
“Come over here for a second.”
He grabbed her hand.
“…….”
They ducked into a narrow alley. Then he spoke to her, telling her they needed to decide now.
“The search is getting more intense by the minute.”
“What? You promised you’d stay with me until evening.”
“That’s starting to look impossible. They’re checking every single face of every person who walks by.”
This wasn’t a problem that could be solved by erasing his presence. The search was growing so thorough that it felt as though every living thing that walked on two legs was being scrutinized.
“Besides…”
Just as he was about to say something more to Ria—
Tadadadak!
“Hurry! Hurry!”
“Check every alley on the east side too!”
“It’s one woman! We don’t have clear features, so keep every possibility open!”
A mass of soldiers thundered past the alley where Juhan and Ria were hiding, shouting as they went.
There are even Holy Knights mixed in.
Holy Knights were among them as well. This was clearly no ordinary missing-person search.
Don’t tell me they don’t even know exactly who they’re looking for and are just searching blindly?
There was something strange about it. Even while combing the area, they kept shouting only about “a certain woman” without ever naming anyone specifically.
Meaning she’s someone of such high status that they can’t easily reveal her identity?
So the woman standing right in front of him, tilting her head as if nothing were wrong—was she truly of such noble blood that her disappearance couldn’t even be openly announced?
“Of all times…”
“As if things weren’t bad enough with the incident in Poltable recently—this whole area’s been a mess.”
“They said they were doing magic beast extermination work, right? And that some of the beasts that escaped have even come down near the villages.”
The area had long since been flooded with Holy Knights and soldiers. Hiding in this alley had its limits.
Shit. Looking at how this is going… if we get caught, I won’t be able to walk away clean either.
No matter how much Ria insisted “this man has nothing to do with it,” he doubted they would simply let him go.
We can’t hold out here any longer.
Juhan made his decision. He let out a short breath and spoke to her.
“Then for now, let’s get out of here.”
“Get out? Of the village?”
“If we try to keep the promise of staying until evening, we’re both going to end up caught and dragged off.”
In the end, he decided to leave the village entirely.
At this point it’s not even hiding anymore—we’re basically already inside a net.
He took hold of Ria’s wrist again. He called up every mental map he had built by wandering every corner of the village in the past days—the flow of the alleys, the less-trafficked exits, the directions the soldiers were moving.
“This way. Not the main gate.”
Ria didn’t answer. She simply looked down at the hand that had taken hers once more.
The two of them began moving quickly along alleys where fewer eyes would fall on them.
“…!”
“…?”
In the distance the soldiers’ shouts still layered over one another, but Juhan paid them as little mind as possible while he moved.
The main gate’s already sealed, and forces are gathering at the east gate. So that leaves…
They would have to flee toward the western forest, where the land was still only half-cleared. No matter how he thought about it, that direction offered the highest chance of success.
And she’s keeping up better than I expected.
Even though he was running at a good pace, Ria matched his stride far better than he had thought she would. Whether it was because he was holding her hand or not, he couldn’t say—but either way.
He kept running, holding onto her. Honestly, somewhere in the middle the thought Should I just ditch her? had briefly crossed his mind, but it felt like a waste after everything he had already done.
Bit by bit, Juhan and Ria were leaving the village behind.
How long did they run while holding their breath? Eventually Juhan realized he could no longer hear the soldiers’ shouts or the clatter of Holy Knights’ metal armor.
The surroundings had grown quiet, as if none of it had ever happened. At some point they had slipped out of the village. A silent forest with not a soul in sight.
“…….”
Only the sound of the wind drifted through the place where Juhan had safely arrived.
“This should be far enough…”
He let go of Ria’s hand. She looked at him for a moment, then turned her gaze to take in the surroundings.
It was a quieter gaze, different from the curiosity she had shown inside the village.
“There’s a place this peaceful…”
“Forests are always like this when there are no people.”
Juhan answered shortly. Ria, of course, kept looking around as if even that reply were fascinating.
She lightly stepped on the grass underfoot. She placed a hand against a tree trunk. Like a child facing a completely new landscape, she was exploring every corner of the forest.
“This is amazing too.”
“What is?”
“The fact that there’s no one here at all.”
He didn’t answer. Juhan simply shrugged as if to say, Is that so? He was thinking she was a woman who found an awful lot of things interesting.
A peaceful stretch of time passed. No one tried to force their way between Juhan and Ria. Only the chirping of insects in the grass and the soft calls of small birds filled the air. At some point even Juhan, who had slightly lowered his guard, was appreciating the scenery alongside her. Ria, who had been quietly watching him, soon asked a curious question.
“So… what are we going to do now?”
What next? Did he have some plan? There was nothing grand. He had simply intended to stay here with this woman until evening, as promised.
“What do you mean, what next? For now, until evening…”
Just as his answer was about to continue—
“…Huh?”
Juhan suddenly closed his mouth, having sensed something.
It was an extremely minor change. Nothing more than the fact that the birdcalls and insect sounds that had been present until a moment ago had stopped. Even so, Juhan pushed himself off the tree he had been leaning against and looked in one direction.
Whooosh—
Rustle, rustle.
“What’s wrong?”
Perhaps she had sensed something odd in his behavior. Ria tilted her head and started walking toward him.
Juhan raised a hand slightly, stopping her from coming any closer.
“Ria.”
“Yes?”
“Get behind me.”
Before she could even understand what he meant, it revealed itself.
Kuuung—
Kuuung—
Vibrations like heavy boulders slamming into the earth rolled through the forest. Juhan’s eyes narrowed little by little.
And what began to appear in those eyes was…
“A magic beast.”
Shaaa—
Pushing the trees aside as it emerged, a single enormous wolf-like monster revealed itself.