Field Trip (1)
I had to spend a good while persuading Phoebe as to why pillaging during the Field Trip wasn't actually a bad thing.
We were supposed to act as a party, after all — and you can't force someone to go along with something they haven't been convinced of, can you?
If it had been Vishy or Avery, I'd have just barked, "Like I care what you people think!" But Phoebe wasn't the type, and the last thing I wanted was to earn her hatred by doing something rash.
"So it's a necessary evil, meant to sharpen the students' practical skills."
'Yes. Exactly right!'
"You really are slow on the uptake, you scatterbrained scrub of a saintess. I've been telling you that the whole time, haven't I?"
Since the number and strength of the monsters in the forest had natural limits, it was difficult for the academy to give students as much combat experience as it wanted under normal conditions.
That was why they stirred up discord among the students — to force them to gain more realistic, battle-hardened experience.
In this very moment we might look like a pack of villains, but if we sat back and did nothing, we'd only end up handicapping the other students instead.
Joy chimed in to help me hammer the point home, and at last Phoebe nodded her head in acceptance.
"I apologize, Lady Aln. My thinking was too shallow — it never occurred to me."
'It's fine.'
"It's fine. I never expected anything from a scrub saintess anyway."
That pointless little addendum made Phoebe's eyebrows twitch, but there was nothing to be done about it. The curse demanded its tribute.
"But Lucy... so we're not doing anything right now? Are we resting?"
'No...'
"No. There's something else we need to do."
A true veteran never wastes a single empty hour. I'd already drawn up a plan long ago for exactly this moment.
'We...'
"We're going to meet the master of this forest."
Even if only to clear the quest that that pathetic excuse for a Chief God had handed me, I needed to lay eyes on the creature at least once.
"The Lord of the Forest? Why?"
'Because the blessing that being grants is incredibly useful.'
"Because the blessing that face-obsessed fox gives out is incredibly useful."
Just as she had when clearing dungeons, Lucy Aln led the party through this forest as well.
Her command was so adept it rivaled that of a hunter who had lived in these woods for decades, and not a single member of the party thought to doubt her.
So it was that they were making smooth, steady progress toward the forest's depths when Lucy suddenly stopped walking, tilted her head up to peer at the sky through the canopy of leaves, and let her arms droop.
"Let's take a break before we move on."
At those words, her party members all blinked in unison.
Everyone here had cleared dungeons at her side before. They all knew exactly how much Lucy loved a forced march.
Nobody had collapsed from exhaustion — and yet the word rest was coming out of her mouth?
"You're not the real Lucy."
While the others stood exchanging uneasy glances, unable even to rejoice at the promise of a break, Frey spoke up.
"Hah? What nonsense are you spouting now, scrub swordswoman?"
"Lucy never says let's rest. And even when she does, it's only when someone's about to collapse, and she says it like she's been forced into it. She never does it when things are going this easy."
Joy and Phoebe, both of whom had been run into the ground by Lucy before, found themselves nodding along before they even realized it.
Rest, from the girl who would sling an unconscious body over her shoulder and keep the forced march going? Something was deeply wrong here.
Watching them, Lucy let out a long sigh and answered in a tone that made her irritation plain to any listener.
"Fine. If that's what you want, I'll drag you along the ground until you crawl—"
"Yay! A break! I love breaks so much! Let's rest right now!"
"Honestly, I could use a break too."
"M-me as well."
Just as the situation threatened to boil over into something unnecessary, Joy shouted in a panic, and Frey and Phoebe, reading the room, hastily followed her lead.
Lucy glanced back and forth between the three of them with an expression of distinct displeasure, but said nothing more.
"Move aside, you scrubs."
Instead, she began pulling one item after another out of her Sub-space Pouch.
Had she perhaps learned camping from the Aln family's knight order? Every step of her preparation was impossibly practiced and smooth.
Watching Lucy conjure a proper resting place out of her Sub-space Pouch, Phoebe caught herself marveling.
She was the same during our last dungeon run. Lady Aln really is extraordinarily thorough. Far more capable than any girl her age has any right to be.
Is this what it means to be loved by Armadi?
Ever since that dungeon expedition, Phoebe had thought about Lucy constantly. In the heat of that first encounter she had been too overwhelmed by unfamiliar emotions to notice — but now that her anger had cooled, the things she'd missed back then were coming into view, one by one.
Ordinarily, a person who blasphemes a god is either someone who doesn't believe the god exists, or someone who worships a different god.
Armadi is the lord of all gods except the Evil Gods, so short of outright worshipping an Evil God, no one had any grounds to blaspheme her.
Which meant that anyone cursing Armadi fell into the former category. Only someone who denied the goddess's very existence could bring themselves to insult the lord of all gods.
Had the blasphemer been an ordinary person, Phoebe would simply have shaken her head at the tragedy and moved on. How could one not pity someone who denied the existence of a god who so plainly existed, ranting and raving that they alone were right?
But Lucy was different.
There was no possible way she didn't know the gods were real. This was a girl who had heard the voice of the divine countless times.
Her discovery of Ruel's Mace. Twice now, her lifting of the Curse of Agra. Hadn't all of it come through divine revelation?
For someone like that to deny Armadi's existence was simply impossible.
And if it wasn't denial, then she had to consider the opposite.
How could words of blasphemy spring from the mouth of someone who knew a great being watched from above? If one truly feared the wrath of an all-knowing, all-powerful god, how could the lips move so freely?
The reason, as Phoebe saw it, was this: because Lucy was certain that this much would never provoke the goddess's anger.
Phoebe herself sometimes played mischievous pranks on Joy under the guise of moral instruction. She hated hurting other people's feelings, yet she could tease Joy with a clear conscience for one simple reason — she knew Joy wouldn't truly get angry over something so small.
Lucy must have reasoned the same way, Phoebe thought. Because she knew Armadi's mercy would not crumble over anything so minor, she could fling her blasphemies out with utter confidence.
But how could a mere human measure the breadth of Armadi's mercy? How could anyone plumb the patience of a god who so rarely reached a hand into the world?
Phoebe knew the answer. Because Lucy was Armadi's Apostle.
Ever since she'd heard the story of Lucy's true nature from the Apostle of the Evil God, right up to this very moment, Phoebe had wrestled with the question again and again. And the conclusion was always the same:
No matter how much she tried to deny it — no matter how hard she searched for evidence that it couldn't be true — Lucy was, unmistakably, loved by Armadi and stood close at her side.
By now she was halfway to accepting it outright.
And so Phoebe observed Lucy's behavior at every opportunity. She wanted to know what it was about this girl that drew a god's attention.
What she saw each time differed in the details, but it could all be summed up in a single word: Lucy was competent.
In her studies, in combat, in dungeon clearing she displayed overwhelming ability, and her gift for commanding others was so sharp it brought to mind a seasoned general.
That was it. Setting aside her poisonous tongue, there wasn't a single area where Lucy Aln fell short. It wasn't a question of which one trait had caught Armadi's eye — every part of her was astonishing enough to do so.
So astonishing that Phoebe could hardly believe this was the same person who had once been called a delinquent menace.
A normal person couldn't change that much in a single year. Even with Lady Aln's lofty talents, someone who did nothing for fifteen years could hardly become the continent's foremost divine wielder in one.
Armadi's blessing must surely have driven her transformation.
Having reached that conclusion, Phoebe decided to focus not on Lucy's present, but on her past. If her change had begun with her selection as Armadi's Apostle, then there had to be some earlier reason she'd caught the goddess's eye.
'Lady Aln never used to be like this, you know.'
Joy, who had frequented society gatherings and crossed paths with the old Lucy many times, said that the girl of the past had been an entirely different person. The coarse speech was exactly the same — but everything else, she claimed, was unrecognizable.
'Lady Aln back in high society was genuinely terrifying.'
As Joy described the Lucy of old — a hedgehog monster of a girl who went about skewering everyone with barbed words — Phoebe couldn't help but gasp at every new detail.
Because if everything Joy said was true, it was a miracle the girl's head was still attached to her neck.
'If it weren't for Count Benedict Aln's reputation, disasters would have broken out long ago.'
Watching Joy laugh as she said it, Phoebe thought: no matter how she turned it over, she could find nothing in the Lucy of the past that would have caught Armadi's attention.
Her heart wasn't kind. She performed no good deeds. She possessed no remarkable abilities. She wasn't especially devout, either. Try as she might, Phoebe could find no reason whatsoever for a goddess's interest.
There was only one thing the Lucy of the past shared with the Lucy of the present.
'Gyahaha♡ Flipping your belly over that easily, loser wolf?♡ Puhuhu♡ Scrub♡ Weakling♡ Worthless♡ Male reject♡'
The manner of speech.
Whoever the target, she would ignore them with naked contempt, taunt and provoke them until their blood boiled — a register so vulgar it was impossible to believe it came from a noble daughter.
What if.
It was an impious thought, but what if — what if Armadi actually liked that manner of speech? What if she liked the sight of someone sneering down at others, calling them scrubs?
Everything she'd learned from scripture said that could never be. Yet lately Phoebe found herself less and less able to trust the words written in the holy book.
An Apostle of Armadi who by scripture should never have existed — never could have existed — had appeared right before her eyes. So wasn't it possible that other passages had been wrong as well?
Then... in order to earn Armadi's interest, would I have to say things like "sc-scrub" or "w-worthless..."
No. No, that's not it. There's no way Armadi would enjoy hearing words like that from my mouth. That's right — there must be something else, something I don't yet understand.
Barely hauling her thoughts back from the brink, Phoebe slapped both her cheeks hard and let out a long, slow breath.
To think it's come to this — I'm actually entertaining blasphemous ideas now.
I really am an idiot. Just as Lady Aln says.
It was then that a rustling from the bushes nearby reached her ears.
What is that? I don't think anyone else has moved.
Turning her head without thinking, Phoebe spotted a white fox peeking its face out of the undergrowth.