Chapter 314: Bread and Dagger (12)
Chapter 314: Bread and Dagger (12)
The gist of the Saintess’s question was simple.
She wanted to know who the sender of the "Love Letter from the Future" was.
This was a topic we had already danced around several times.
The first time was when the existence of the "me" from the future was revealed. Back then, Reto had to explain his existence with every ounce of his being. In the process, the "Love Letter from the Future" naturally came up.
The letter was the catalyst for everything. It was impossible to discuss subsequent events without mentioning it.
Fortunately, things were chaotic back then.
Between surviving a brush with death from a Dark Priest’s raid, the revelation of my future self, the truth about Lia, and the secrets surrounding the Percus family—it was a mess.
No one had the luxury of fixating on a "love letter." Thanks to that, the matter had been swept under the rug.
But today was different.
Another incident was looming, but the Saintess still had plenty of mental bandwidth. It wasn't strange for her to focus on the "love letter" now that it had resurfaced.
Besides, wasn't I the one who brought it up?
No one else could see the "Love Letter from the Future." I couldn't even disclose its contents. Any attempt to leak information to others resulted in a distortion of the message.
However, I could reveal its existence.
Just as Reto had found out in the past, the Saintess had now learned of it as well.
It was a mistake to come clean about everything earlier. In the process, I had mentioned the newly arrived letter, and it seemed to have piqued the Saintess’s long-dormant curiosity.
And in a rather dangerous way, at that.
The Saintess’s eyes, devoid of their usual light, were terrifying. Her chilling voice sent an unseasonable shiver down my spine.
I remembered her being like this once before, a long time ago.
It was back when we were preparing for the Hunting Festival. When I was with Celine and Seria, the Saintess would suddenly start acting territorial toward them.
She wasn't being serious back then.
I realized that now, the truth sinking into my very bones.
Staring into the Saintess’s hollow pupils, I broke into a cold sweat.
"W-Who sent it, you ask?"
I spoke the words hoping she wouldn't press further. Of course, the Saintess had absolutely no reason to grant that wish.
She wore a thin smile.
She was still beautiful—breathtakingly so. I just couldn't tell if my breath was hitching because of her beauty or because of that eerie look in her eyes.
The Saintess asked again, her voice enchanting yet sharp.
"Yes. Who... no, which bitch sent it?"
By the end, she didn't even bother hiding her true feelings.
Even if I knew who sent it, the atmosphere made it impossible to answer. I felt like if I spoke a name, an assassin from the Holy Kingdom would be paying someone’s room a visit by tonight.
Actually, I would have hesitated to answer even in a much friendlier atmosphere.
Because it was embarrassing.
How could I confess that there wasn't just one sender?
While they might have come from different futures, the situation was ripe for misunderstanding. Five different women all claiming to be my "fiancée"? Just imagining myself explaining that made me dizzy.
And I certainly couldn't tell the Saintess, of all people.
As I remained silent, her smile began to fade. Just as her face was about to settle into a bone-chillingly expressionless mask, I managed to squeeze out a desperate counter.
"......Who do you think sent it?"
It was a simple idea. Answering a question with a question.
But the effect was beyond my expectations.
The pressure the Saintess was exerting on me vanished instantly. Her eyes blinked rapidly, looking dazed.
"Who... do I think sent it?"
"Yes. Who do you think... no, who would you want it to be from?"
As the words left my mouth, the nuance of the question shifted slightly. From "Who do you think sent it?" to "Who would you want it to be from?"
The latter was far more effective against the Saintess.
Her pale pink eyes began to tremble violently. After stammering for a moment in silence, she suddenly burst into a low laugh.
"Hehe, ahaha... Ahahahaha!"
It was a sudden reaction. Unable to fathom why she was laughing, I looked at her with a puzzled expression.
Then, looking into her eyes, I realized.
Ah, she doesn't know either.
Her pink eyes were spinning.
She took a heavy step forward, then suddenly scrambled back to put some distance between us. Her face, having regained its senses, had long since turned beet red.
Fanning herself with her hand, she stammered out excuses.
"W-W-Why are you asking me that?! I'm not interested! Not... not even a little bit! I don't care who sends you love letters! It's none of my business! Hmph!"
For someone who didn't care, she seemed awfully invested.
When my gaze turned skeptical, the Saintess, perhaps feeling guilty, raised her voice even higher.
"......I said I'm really not interested!"
If she insisted, I had nothing more to say. I shrugged and threw out a joke.
"Is that so? I was quite interested, because—"
It was then that a sharp shatter echoed through the air.
The Saintess, who had been waiting for my next words with a fluttering expression, snapped her head around. The sound had clearly come from the direction of the examination room.
Her expression crumpled instantly.
Whether it was because she didn't get to hear the rest of my story or because she was worried about the patient, I couldn't tell. Either way, a look of disbelief crossed her face.
"Impossible. There's no way she's awake already..."
It was a line that cropped up frequently after an incident. And it was usually followed by something even more meaningless.
I signaled for the Saintess to stay back, then kicked open the door to the examination room.
Inside, a girl was holding a broken vase, glaring at me warily. Seeing her wrapped in bandages across her face and arms made me feel a bit sorry for her.
I told you to listen to me earlier.
The elf girl let out a terrified hiccup the moment she saw me. Unconcealable fear spread through her blue eyes.
She must have lashed out the moment she woke up because she was scared. But for a severely injured person who had just regained consciousness, her behavior was a failing grade.
I raised my voice to scold her.
"Hey! You shouldn't be moving like that right after being hurt—!"
I would have finished the sentence if I hadn't spotted something.
My mouth slowly drifted shut, and my expression hardened in proportion.
The elf girl was growling at me, baring her teeth.
The very teeth that I had smashed into bloody bone fragments earlier.
Teeth only grow twice in a lifetime. Even with the miracle of divine power, regeneration involves a process of growing and emerging. No matter how fast it was, teeth couldn't regrow in just a few hours.
Was an elf's physical structure that different from a human's?
But I had never heard such a thing when learning about other races. Furthermore, hadn't the Saintess, who had seen an elf before, just said it?
That there was no way she should be awake yet.
The scales tipped toward the conclusion that there was something wrong with this elf girl.
As my expression grew grim, the elf girl became even more terrified. She pointed the broken vase at me with both hands, but lost her balance and fell onto her backside. Even then, she kept pushing herself backward with her feet.
Not that there was anywhere left to run.
With tears welling in her eyes, the elf girl screamed.
"D-Don't come any closer! You monster... You, you people ruined us!"
That was absurd to me.
Letting out a hollow laugh, I retorted.
"Ruined you? You're the monster here... What's with that regenerative ability?"
"Shut up!"
She screamed through her tears.
I froze mid-stride. I felt a raw, desperate sincerity in that frantic cry.
"Y-You people made us like this... I knew it, we never should have trusted humans..."
The elf girl began to sob.
I let out a deep sigh, feeling troubled.
The reason I had forced her to surrender during our previous fight was because I thought dialogue would be impossible otherwise. I figured that if I just knocked her out while she was hostile, the result would be predictable.
But I had miscalculated. A single forced surrender wasn't enough to establish a dialogue.
"Sniff, ugh... I-I will never give in to you—"
"Yeah, sure."
Thud.
The moment I kicked off the ground, I was already standing in front of her.
Startled, the elf squeezed her eyes shut and lunged with the broken vase. Perhaps thanks to some training, her form was quite decent. There was enough power behind it that an ordinary person wouldn't have escaped serious injury.
Yes, if I were an ordinary person.
I kicked the vase without hesitation. Shards of glass scattered in every direction.
In the opening, I drove my foot straight into the girl's chest. The elf tried to resist by crossing her arms, but it was futile.
Thump.
Stomped right in the solar plexus, the elf girl clutched her chest and groaned.
"Guh, ugh... Aaaaaagh!"
Listening to her cries, I asked a single question.
"Hey. Do your teeth grow back again?"
The elf girl looked up at me as if I were talking nonsense. It was almost impressive that her spirit hadn't broken yet. It was as if she had forgotten she was in the heart of enemy territory and that I was a member of the Empire that had been at war with the elves for a long time.
I gave her a faint smile.
"Then that's a relief."
Immediately after.
Whack!
My foot slammed into the elf girl's temple.
She lost consciousness before she could even scream. The impact was so great that two of her newly grown teeth were knocked clean out.
Once it was over, the Saintess cautiously approached from behind me. I thought she might be angry at my brutality, but she seemed more interested in the elf girl's physical condition.
"......Her regenerative abilities are overactive. This isn't in the realm of divine power."
"Then what is it?"
"Magic, or alchemy... I suspect it's something like that."
New testimony.
I stroked my chin with a hum, then hoisted the unconscious elf girl over my shoulder. I stuffed her back into the sack I had brought her in.
As soon as I slung the sack over my shoulder, the Saintess’s flustered voice followed.
"I-Ian! Where are you going!"
"She's just going to heal herself anyway because of that regeneration, right? I finished her with one blow, so I don't think she needs any more treatment."
With that, I gave a slight eye-smile and raised my hand. It was a parting gesture.
"I'll come see you again. I have some things to consult you about regarding the North..."
I was already struggling with the Saintess’s obsession with the "love letter." Now that such a perfect excuse had presented itself, there was no way I wasn't taking it.
While the Saintess stood there dazed, I quickly made my way out of the Sun's Sanctuary.
I could hear her shouting behind me.
"I-Ian! But what about that confession from last time—!"
"Let's talk about it next time! And it's really not a big deal!"
That last part was the minimum loyalty I owed my friend Yuren. Even though he apparently told me to run away and leave him behind during the Corpse Giant incident.
I was just too kind for my own good.
Carrying the blood-stained sack, I sprinted like the wind. Passersby could only stare at the bizarre sight with blank expressions.
A short while later, I arrived at Emma's workshop and tossed the sack down.
Emma, who had been pacing around worried about me, widened her eyes. I had appeared out of nowhere and dropped a mysterious sack. It would have been stranger if she wasn't flustered.
I said with an awkward smile, "Open it. It's... a gift."
Wait, "gift"? That sounded a bit wrong.
But before I could take the words back, Emma hesitantly moved to open the sack.
Before long, her horrified gaze turned toward me. The look in her eyes was so accusatory that I hurriedly explained to clear the misunderstanding.
"T-That's Avian! The person who scammed you!"
Emma looked back and forth between me and the elf in the sack.
After a moment, she covered her mouth, tears welling in her eyes.
"Oh my god, Ian... Why did you turn Mr. Avian into a fragile girl...?"
What on earth were you planning to do?
I could practically hear the unspoken words. In my frustration, I had no choice but to raise my voice.
"......I didn't do it!"
It seemed Emma had a very distorted perception of me.
All I had done was collapse her nose, punch her until her teeth flew out, and then carry her here in a sack.
For how I'd treat an enemy, I was being quite merciful.
Probably.