Chapter 91: The Lord is With Us (12)
Chapter 91: The Lord is With Us (12)
Golden hair, blood-red eyes, and skin as white as snow.
With her sharp nose and pupils that radiated intense color, she was a captivating woman. Her beauty was so striking it felt less like a product of genetics and chance and more like a masterpiece carved by a master sculptor.
She was a Northern beauty, looking as if she had stepped right out of a painting.
Her name was Delphine Yurdina.
Her slender jawline and sharp, upright eyes seemed to speak of her fierce temperament. It was the appearance of a noble lady who had always been haughty and self-assured.
But now, the dignified composure she had always maintained as the successor of a prestigious family was nowhere to be found.
If anything, "lethargic" was a more fitting description. Her mouth hung slightly open, devoid of strength, and her eyes were dazed. That was the state of Senior Delphine as she faced me.
For several seconds, she stared at me with pupils that had lost their light. Only after some time did emotion slowly begin to return to her.
The first emotion to flicker in those blood-red eyes was surprise.
It was followed by a thick, murky sediment of shame, fear, and despair. Her eyes, which had once flowed with a honey-like languor, were now filled only with pain.
As if she could no longer bear it, Senior Delphine abruptly turned her head away.
The sound of her gnawing on her lip was loud enough to reach my ears. In a voice that trembled with a hint of moisture, she asked me, "…Why are you here?"
I remained silent for a moment. To be honest, I didn't have an answer to give her.
I couldn't think of a plausible excuse. After all, there was only one thing I wanted to ask.
I simply wanted to hear the full story of what had happened between Senior Delphine and 'me.'
But no matter how I looked at it, this wasn't the right atmosphere to bring up such questions. It was impossible to ask directly, and it seemed better to try and lead the conversation naturally.
Though, seeing the way Senior Delphine was treating me, I wondered if that was even possible. The emotions she showed me were entirely negative.
It was troublesome. It would have been nice if we were on terms where we could share a laugh and some small talk, but it seemed she and I had already traveled too far down a divergent path for that.
I asked back in a voice laced with a sigh.
"Are we not even on terms where I can visit you in the hospital?"
"…That’s right."
Her voice was trembling violently. Senior Delphine’s shoulders shook with faint spasms. When those crimson eyes turned toward me again, I had no choice but to shut my mouth.
Before I knew it, tears had welled up in her eyes. It showed just how resentful and ashamed she felt.
The Senior Delphine I knew never showed her tears to others. She was an iron lady who worshipped strength and despised appearing weak.
In other words, those tears were proof.
Proof that Senior Delphine had been shattered to pieces.
Only someone whose pride, identity, and everything else had been ruthlessly trampled upon could make such a pathetic face.
Her voice, as she pleaded with me, almost sounded like a prayer.
"Did you come to mock me? Did you want to see what kind of state the person you crushed is in?"
"No, I think there’s a misunderstanding—"
"Then why? Are you afraid I’ll forget my place again and try to take revenge?"
Delphine let out a hollow, bitter laugh. But the sound was nothing short of mournful. A single trail of a tear rolled down from her moist eyes.
Clutching the blanket tightly with her fists, she trembled for a long while. She tried to glare at me sharply, but the moment our eyes met, she flinched and cast her gaze downward.
Perhaps finding her own behavior even more miserable, Senior Delphine quickly wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
As she struggled to suppress her sobs, she looked like a fragile young girl. Soon, words began to spill out of her in a murmur.
"…Don’t worry. I have no intention of doing that anymore."
With that, Senior Delphine turned her gaze away. It seemed she didn't want to admit the fact that she couldn't even bring herself to face me.
"You smashed everything, didn't you? My pride, my self-esteem, all of it… Now, I don't even have any pride left to reclaim."
Had she really been defeated that catastrophically?
It was a story I didn't remember, but seeing the tormented look in her eyes, I could understand her feelings, if only a little.
Until recently, she was a woman who wouldn't bow her head to anyone. To think that she now couldn't even meet my eyes and was trembling with her shoulders hunched in intimidation.
Senior Delphine seemed resentful of her own dripping tears; she bit her lip and wiped her eyes over and over. Yet, the tears wouldn't stop falling.
For someone who had lived her entire life in victory, the shock of defeat was that severe.
I crossed my arms and fell into thought for a moment.
What should I do? Tapping my arm with my finger, I asked her.
"Does it hurt that much?"
"Of course it…! A-Ah, it hurts."
Senior Delphine tried to glare at me in a surge of emotion, but the moment she met my eyes, she tucked her tail like a frightened puppy. The most she could do was mutter softly while avoiding my gaze.
Still, perhaps because she was a woman with a strong inner core, she didn't seem completely broken like Senior Elsie. She still had enough courage to glare at me when provoked.
It was just that her courage didn't last long; her ruby-like eyes trembled with fear.
It was then that my gaze caught Senior Delphine’s arm.
Looking again, her arm was completely wrapped in bandages. Her neck was the same. I couldn't tell about her lower body because it was covered by the blanket, but it was highly likely she had sustained injuries all over her body.
They were serious enough that she hadn't been able to leave the Concentrated Healing Room for days. Considering that my own arm had been fully healed in a single day, it was a reasonable deduction that all her limbs had been pulverized.
It was understandable why she was shocked. It must have been hard to suffer such a gruesome defeat.
At the very least, it was rare for the successor of one of the Empire's Five Great Noble Families to suffer such a loss. Especially when she was in her final year and on the verge of graduating at the top of her class, only to be humiliated like that by an Academy junior.
She probably wanted to die. She was someone whose self-esteem had always pierced the heavens. It was only natural that the greater the fall, the harder it was to bear.
Yes, I understood it intellectually.
And yet, I strangely disliked the current Senior Delphine.
Why did it feel so unpleasant to see her acting like a tragic heroine, with her eyes red and tears streaming down?
The answer came to me before long.
With a hint of irritation, I asked her back.
"Then why did you do it?"
"…?"
Senior Delphine’s eyes turned toward me blankly again.
She probably hadn't expected comfort or sympathy, but she clearly never imagined she would be scolded to her face. That was the world she lived in.
In the Yurdina family and the Academy, she must have enjoyed a status no different from a queen. If she showed even the slightest sign of being displeased, the people around her would have scrambled to fix it.
But I wasn't like that. My relationship with Senior Delphine was already warped beyond repair; there was no need to maintain empty formalities.
That was why my next words were filled with undisguised sincerity.
"You didn't care at all when you were bullying Seria. Do you know? Seria cries whenever her mother is mentioned. And yet, as her half-sister, you went ahead and led the bullying just because you wanted to win?"
"T-That’s…"
Senior Delphine opened her mouth as if she wanted to argue, but soon, finding nothing to say, she hurriedly avoided my gaze. Heat began to rise in my head.
"Don't act like a victim and blubber just because you got hit a few times when you didn't care about Seria's tears. And about the Hunting Festival—weren't you the one who stabbed your juniors in the back after they were exhausted from hunting demonic beasts?"
"I-It wasn't just 'a few times'…"
Senior Delphine murmured as if she were truly aggrieved, but her timid whisper failed to move me in the slightest.
Instead, I simply scowled and asked back.
"…If it wasn't 'a few times,' then what was it?"
At my cold question, Senior Delphine shrank back even further and hastily lowered her gaze.
She still seemed to have much she wanted to say. But every time she saw my eyes burning with a faint heat, she was overcome with terror and had to look away.
Watching her, I let out a hollow laugh internally.
How much could she have possibly been hit?
At most, she probably took a sword wound to each limb; that was far from enough.
It would be a different story if she had been tortured until she was minced meat. But even Senior Elsie, whose cruelty was second to none, wouldn't commit such a horrific act.
In other words, the possibility of Senior Delphine having suffered such a fate was slim.
Convinced of this, my mouth continued to fire arrows made of words.
"Twice. Exactly twice! Do you think you're the only one who's ended up in the Concentrated Healing Room? I've lost many times too. There were plenty of times when I couldn't win no matter how much I struggled. And yet, you're making such a fuss over losing just twice?"
"N-No… it’s not the defeat, it’s what happened after—"
"Enough!"
I shook my head forcefully, cutting her off. When I took a strong stance, she faltered and couldn't continue. It was a relief that she had a somewhat submissive side.
"I don't want to hear excuses. It seems you need a mental overhaul, Senior Delphine."
With that, I strode toward her. As I reached into my coat, Senior Delphine’s face began to turn pale.
She immediately pulled the blanket over her head. A trembling cry leaked out from underneath.
"D-Don't… I-I said I wouldn't challenge you again! I even got on my knees!"
But my footsteps didn't stop. Thud, thud. I walked until the distance between me and Senior Delphine was negligible.
She must have felt my presence more keenly than anyone. Her screams continued.
"Is it because I was arrogant again? I-I was wrong… I-I won't do it again, so please… anything but being made into minced meat, please…!"
My hand, which had been rummaging inside my coat, slammed down on the table next to the bed.
As if that were a signal, Senior Delphine let out a piercing scream.
"Kyaaaaaah! S-Save me! Please save me! P-Please, just don't take my sword away from m—ah…?"
But no matter how much she screamed, no violence was visited upon her body. After trembling under the blanket for a while, Senior Delphine eventually peeked out with a bewildered look.
Her ruby-like crimson eyes were revealed. Her gaze slowly drifted toward the table next to the bed where my palm had struck.
There sat a single document.
It was the list of orphanages I had received from the Saintess.
Senior Delphine, who had no idea what it was, stared at me blankly. I looked back at her and asked.
"Your next internship dispatch is open, isn't it?"
"Y-Yes… f-for now, but…?"
It was annoying that she was using formal speech out of sheer terror. However, pointing that out would only make her condition worse, so I simply stated my business.
"Then let's go together."
To Senior Delphine, whose expression became even more incomprehensible, I made the proposal once more, firmly.
"Spend two weeks with me."
The look on Senior Delphine’s face upon hearing those words was, how should I put it…
She looked like a Magic Department graduate student who had just been told that the thesis they had spent months on had been put through a shredder.