He Ran Away
He ran away.
At the entrance to Anton Village, on a road that offered a clear view of the place, Juhan was deep in thought.
…It should be fine if I just leave, right?
For the foreseeable future, he didn't expect to have any more business in Anton Village.
The issues related to the metal plates seem more or less resolved, too.
Of course, if he came across another metal plate—or some other object of unknown origin—he'd have to come back and show it to Carlton. But for the moment, there was nothing left for him to do here.
Besides, there was something else he wanted to check.
Now… all I need to confirm is whether the bell still reacts to me.
Whether the bell would respond to Juhan—or whether it wouldn't.
That was something he simply couldn't verify in Anton Village as it was now. Which meant, ultimately, that he would have to travel somewhere that actually had one.
They said that any village of a certain size has a bell in its cathedral.
His destination was already decided.
A city that wasn't far from Anton Village, and one he both strongly suspected and had been told would have a bell.
Poltable.
It was the very city where Karun was known to be operating.
After confirming in Poltable whether the bell reacted to him, Juhan planned to head straight for the Holy Kingdom.
But…
There was just one problem.
What am I supposed to tell Estelle?
Estelle—the woman with whom he had, quite unintentionally, become entangled. She was a descendant of the Hero and the legitimate daughter of House Valter. Simply abandoning his connection with her and walking away felt like more of a burden than he was willing to carry.
It's not as if I'm throwing away this identity of "Juhan" entirely, so I have to settle things somehow before I leave.
He pressed hard against his temple without realizing it. He couldn't even figure out where to begin the conversation.
There's no way she's just going to let me go.
Originally, he'd planned to bring up the Saintess and say, I have to go to the Holy Kingdom. After yesterday's conversation, though, that idea had been thoroughly discarded.
She'd probably just ask what that had to do with anything—and start grilling me instead.
It was truly beyond his comprehension. What on earth had he done to make her so determined to drag him north? When they'd first met, he'd only meant to get a rough sense of what a so-called descendant of the Hero was capable of.
He never could have imagined it would lead to this.
Juhan sat perched near the village entrance, groaning under the weight of the problem, when—
Footsteps approached without the slightest hesitation.
"Hey, Juhan!"
"…"
Needless to say, it was Estelle.
"What are you doing out here? I've been looking for you forever."
"…What am I doing? Just thinking."
"Thinking about what? Me, by any chance?"
"…"
"What, no?"
The first thought that hit him the moment he saw her was: Does this woman literally have nothing better to do? At this point, her entire daily routine seemed to consist of nothing but hunting him down.
"Want to go grab a meal together? Looks like Baron Anton put some real effort into the preparations today."
"…"
Juhan watched her quietly. For some reason, he couldn't shake the feeling that Estelle was keeping him under surveillance.
Wasn't she? She gave the impression of letting him roam freely near the village—and yet she was constantly tracking him down to make sure he was still there.
Perhaps that was why.
"Estelle."
"Hm?"
He found himself asking before he could stop himself.
"Is it really okay for you to just wander around like this?"
Wandering around aimlessly like this, doing nothing in particular, spending her time looking for him—was that really fine?
"…"
But no answer came right away. Instead, Estelle simply stared at him as though the question itself were strange.
"Of course it's fine. Why would you even ask that?"
"…"
Her answer was so brazenly confident that, for a moment, he completely forgot what he'd meant to say next.
"Didn't I tell you? Even if I just sit here doing nothing, these people still have to pay me. So hanging around with you all day isn't a problem at all."
"…"
She left the rest unsaid—something about how he seemed uncomfortable with it—and then, without ceremony, took his hand.
"So. We're going to eat together, right? Shall we go now?"
"…"
Juhan looked down at the hand holding his right. In that moment, as he took in her answer and the full shape of the situation, something clicked into place.
Alright.
He finally knew what to do.
I'll run.
Leave Estelle behind in Anton Village, pass through Poltable as quickly as possible, and flee to the Holy Kingdom.
No matter how he looked at it, this wasn't a problem he could solve with words. The instant he told Estelle he intended to go to the Holy Kingdom, he'd be digging his own grave.
So Juhan simply smiled.
"Yeah. Let's do that."
"Oh? Really?"
And it was he who took her hand first, tugging her forward as if urging her to hurry up.
"…Huh."
"Come on. Let's go."
Estelle looked down at the hand that had so casually taken hers, then lifted her gaze to the back of his head with a peculiar glint in her eyes.
"I'm looking forward to it. Let's go eat already."
Of course, Juhan had no way of noticing that look. He was already walking ahead, her hand in his.
And he wasn't exactly free to survey his surroundings, either. His mind was occupied with a single thought:
There's no way she'll come after me.
He'd arrived at that conclusion by piecing together Photon's words and everything Estelle herself had said so far.
Photon's insistence that she needed to return north soon. Baron Anton's careful inquiries about whether it was really all right for her to stay. Estelle's own claim that she was remaining here purely out of generosity.
Every single one of those points suggested the same thing: Estelle needed to get back north as soon as possible.
And so Juhan walked on with a spring in his step, as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders—
while Estelle hummed a soft little note of satisfaction, thoroughly pleased with how things were going.
Hand in hand, the two of them made their way toward Baron Anton's manor.
The next morning.
He told me to come find him at the Verhart Baronry.
On a road with Poltable's walls already in sight, Juhan was recalling his previous conversation with Karun.
The fact that he hasn't come looking for me first suggests he's busy with something.
He didn't want to show up unannounced and miss him entirely. With that thought, he slowly lifted his head and took in the city's entrance.
I guess that's what you get with a city of this size. Comparing it to Anton Village would almost be an insult.
The first things to catch his eye were the heavily disciplined sentries and the city walls, which stood far higher than he'd expected.
"…"
He stood there a moment, quietly looking up at Poltable's fortifications—then spun around to check behind him.
She's not following me, right?
The entire way here, he must have glanced back dozens of times, searching for any sign of Estelle.
Fortunately, there was none. Not the faintest hint of pursuit.
By now she would almost certainly know he was gone. And yet she hadn't come after him…
Did she just decide to let me go?
When he made it clear he didn't want something, Estelle had always been surprisingly willing to accept it. Maybe this was more of the same.
Settling his thoughts, he walked closer to the walls—and soon found exactly what he'd been looking for.
A cathedral.
A spire rose high enough to be visible even over the fortifications. And hanging beneath that spire was a single, familiar bell.
The thought of actually standing before it sent a faint tremor of tension through him.
Let's go in.
But there was no hesitation in his step. He had a small measure of confidence, after all.
The source of that confidence—
a low, resonant hum—
was the Divine Power that still lingered in a corner of his mind.
At the very moment Juhan was entering Poltable—
Clang, clang, clang!
"Whew. This thing's a lot more complicated than I expected."
Carlton had set the metal plate aside for the moment and was working on Estelle's bracelet. He'd heard from Juhan, after all.
He said he probably wouldn't be able to stop by for a while.
The way the kid had put it, he almost sounded like someone about to leave for good—that he wouldn't be able to visit as often from now on. Not that he'd said he was never coming back.
If he found any more metal plates, he'd bring them over right away. That much he'd made clear.
So, well. That means I can finally get around to finishing all the work I've been putting off.
Carlton had already completed every analysis that fell within the range of his abilities. Anything further could be handled in whatever spare time he had left.
Right. First I'll finish fixing this, and then…
Clang, clang!
He cleared his mind and tried to focus on the bracelet under his hammer—
which would have gone perfectly well, if the workshop's front door hadn't exploded inward as though something had detonated against it.
BOOM———!
"G-Gyaaaah!"
The door shattered into fragments that came flying into the workshop. Carlton let out a strangled scream, clamped both hands over his head, and flattened himself against the floor as though begging for his life.
His heart hammered wildly in his chest. For a moment, he was genuinely convinced he was about to die.
But something was wrong. No matter how much time passed, nothing further happened to him.
No one grabbed him. No one even spoke.
W-What?
Puzzled, Carlton carefully raised his head—
and found a familiar woman's face looking down at him with a completely blank expression. He hadn't sensed her presence at all. She was already standing right in front of him.
As he stared up at her in silence, she was the one who spoke first.
"You know, don't you?"
An abrupt, context-free question. Carlton could only gape and echo it back.
"…K-Know what?"
He had no idea what she was talking about. Surely she hadn't found some secret mechanism he'd hidden in that bracelet—something no one was supposed to know about?
But then Estelle continued, and the words that followed left Carlton so utterly lost that he could only sit there wearing the stupidest expression of his life.
"Where is he? My husband."