A New Misunderstanding
"Damn it, deal with him, now!"
The leader of the pursuers barked the order desperately, hand flying to his sword.
Or rather, he tried to draw it.
But before he could—
KWAAAAAANG!!!
His two subordinates went hurtling past him, flying backward through the air.
As if that weren't enough, the woman who had appeared so abruptly was suddenly standing right in front of the lead pursuer.
She hadn't said a word, but her eyes made everything clear.
Draw that sword and you die.
His own death would arrive long before that blade ever cleared its sheath. It was the feeling of being prey cornered before some massive predator.
He searched frantically for a way out of this and opened his mouth to speak, but—
"How dare you…."
Her lips parted first.
Her eyes blazing like fire, she fixed her gaze on the last pursuer standing and continued.
"How dare you raise a blade against my teacher?"
"W-wait, there's been some kind of misunderst—"
His desperate plea never reached its end. Those words were the last thing he would ever remember.
And so, silence returned to the alley once more.
Then Elina turned back to Sian.
"It's you, Teacher!"
The cold, expressionless face she'd worn while dealing with the pursuers had vanished completely. Like a dog greeting its master, she came bounding over with pure, unguarded delight.
Her expression was so radiant that if she'd had a tail, it would surely have been spinning a full 360 degrees.
She didn't spare so much as a glance at the woman lying unconscious on the ground. She simply came to Sian's side and wrapped him in a hug.
"Hehe, it's been so long, Teacher!"
"Yeah. It really has."
Elina nuzzled her face against his chest to show how much she'd missed him.
Back in the day she'd merely been a kid who followed him around a lot, but at some point she'd started clinging to him like this. Probably ever since her parents passed away and Sian had looked after her for a while.
Wait, hold on a second.
"Did you wipe blood on me?"
"Hehe, you caught me."
Elina had smeared the blood that had splattered across her face while taking down the pursuers onto Sian's gear.
She stepped back a single pace with a mischievous grin.
"So what are you doing in this village, Teacher?"
"This is the closest thing to a proper city around here. I came to sell some herbs. What about you?"
Why on earth was she—the woman who should be off battling Calamities—in a place like this? A cold thought flickered through him: surely a Calamity hadn't appeared nearby, had it?
"I was thinking of visiting a village for the first time in ages, and then I smelled you!"
"Smelled… me?"
Had becoming S-rank sharpened her senses to superhuman levels too? Every time he saw her, Sian couldn't help thinking she resembled a golden retriever.
It didn't hurt that her hair was platinum blonde, either.
"Teacher, I beat another Calamity recently!"
"…That's, uh. Impressive."
He genuinely did think it was impressive, but at the same time it felt like news from an entirely different world—something that simply didn't register. For Sian, who had to risk his life against anything even slightly stronger than a goblin, the word "Calamity" belonged to a story from another universe altogether.
Perhaps it was because he'd never once laid eyes on a Calamity-class monster himself.
He was mulling this over when Elina suddenly tilted her platinum-blonde head toward him.
"……"
He knew exactly what that meant. Reaching out, Sian began gently stroking her hair, pat-pat.
"Hehehe."
Elina beamed with unmistakable satisfaction.
To think an adventurer capable of slaying Calamities could be so delighted by something this trivial. How humble, he thought.
"Oh, Elina. Come to think of it, I might be moving away soon."
He hadn't told anyone yet, but he figured he owed her the news. He was practically her uncle, after all—if he just picked up and left without a word, she'd be hurt.
At his words, Elina's eyes went round.
"Huh? Why?"
"Ah, well, it's just…."
How was he supposed to explain that he was moving to escape the strange people who kept showing up demanding to be trained?
And one of them had come on Elina's own recommendation, no less. If he wasn't careful about how he phrased it, it might sound like it's your fault I'm leaving.
While he was busy agonizing, Elina—having apparently jumped to some bizarre conclusion—asked a very odd question.
"Is it… too much for you? I do clean things up every now and then. Should I come more often?"
"……?"
What was she talking about? Clean up what?
The only thing Elina ever did when she occasionally visited the village was rest at the lake cabin Sian had built before heading off again.
"No, I'm fine. I'm still just thinking about it. If I do end up moving, I'll send you a letter."
"Okay! If it's what you want, Teacher, that's fine with me!"
Elina beamed brightly and leaned back into his hand.
She had her scatterbrained moments, but she was always so cheerful. It was hard not to like that about her.
When the head-patting ended, she looked a little wistful, but she soon stretched and spoke up.
"Well then, I should get going!"
"Huh? You're not even going to stop by the village?"
"It's fine! I got to see you, so I'm good!"
Was she really too busy to spare even a moment for the village?
"Then at least take this with you."
Sian handed her the snacks he'd been planning to give the village kids.
It seemed a pitiful gift for someone who protected the world, but it was all he had to offer right now.
"Really?! I'll enjoy every bite!"
Elina accepted the snacks with a look of genuine delight.
Then, whether she'd completely forgotten that a mysterious woman was still lying unconscious because he'd been busy talking with her, she paid it no mind whatsoever and simply vanished.
"And gone like a storm."
She caused a ruckus every time she showed up, but he couldn't say it was an unpleasant one.
Having murmured this to himself, Sian remembered the collapsed woman and looked back down the alley.
"Well… doesn't look like any serious wounds."
She'd simply collapsed from exhaustion and minor scrapes; there didn't seem to be any need to carry her to the temple.
A single emergency potion would do the trick.
Potions weren't exactly cheap, but…
"…Well, I did make a decent amount today."
Helping someone when he had the means to spare—that was simply how Sian operated. And she fit the criteria perfectly.
She was lying right in front of him.
He'd earned a tidy sum for his herbs today.
And he'd just bought an emergency potion, so he had a spare on hand.
In a way, you could say this person in front of him was simply lucky. If the herbs hadn't sold, if he hadn't bothered buying the potion, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to perform any good deed at all.
Once her body recovers… what happens next isn't my problem.
He had no idea who was chasing her or why, but there were surely circumstances involved. He had no intention of getting tangled up in them.
Though honestly, he was already tangled up in them.
Sian pulled the emergency potion from his coat and carefully tipped it into the woman's mouth.
As the liquid slid down her throat with a swallow, her breathing gradually began to steady.
Her brow furrowed slightly, and her tightly closed lashes trembled.
A sign she would wake soon.
Well, my work here is done… time to head home…
The moment he rose to leave, the woman's eyelids slowly lifted.
And golden eyes were revealed beneath them.
Silver hair and golden eyes? That's an unusual combination.
Despite having been an adventurer for quite a while, he'd never seen anyone with that pairing.
I think I heard once that silver hair is inherited only by certain bloodlines…
At first, her unfocused golden eyes drifted hazily through empty air.
"Ugh…."
With a small groan, her blurred vision slowly began to sharpen.
Meeting Sian's gaze, she tried to piece together her situation through the fog in her head, but extreme fatigue and exhaustion left her mind unable to function properly.
She lay there dazed for a short while.
"……!"
Then, remembering her pursuers, every hair on her body stood on end.
She scrambled upright and scanned her surroundings frantically—and
"……!"
in that instant, her heart nearly stopped.
All three of the pursuers who had been hunting her lay sprawled on the ground.
It was only natural that she found it hard to believe.
They were the Blood Sword, an assassin organization that was the most famous name in that particular trade.
The leader of the three who had been pursuing her possessed skill enough to assassinate even an S-rank adventurer—and yet all three of them, him included, had been put down.
And in a single strike, no less…
Swish.
Her eyes swept rapidly over Sian.
To grasp the situation more precisely.
He's carrying a sword… was it him? Or—
A master strong enough to casually dispatch the pursuers without even drawing his blade? No—the pursuers weren't exactly specialists in fair, frontal combat, but surely they weren't that weak. She was still turning the thought over when—
"…!"
What caught her golden eyes was Sian's gear.
More precisely, the bloodstain on his chest.
He'd wiped it, but blood doesn't come out perfectly—not completely. The traces were still there.
That's… his blood.
Sian was unharmed, and the scattered marks around the alley made it clear the blood belonged to the pursuers.
Come to think of it…
Just for a moment—when she'd collapsed in the alley and briefly regained consciousness—she had a faint memory of glimpsing this man.
Perhaps it was the potion taking effect, but as time passed her head cleared, and her once-scattered thoughts began to fall into order.
While I was unconscious… this man fought off my pursuers and… saved me?
And yet a question still remained.
From the whirlwind of questions swirling in her mind, she spoke the one that burned most.
"…Why?"
"Hm?"
"We've never even met…."
She stared at him with those clear golden eyes.
Sian met that gaze—which felt just the slightest bit heavy—and thought.
She's asking why I'd help a total stranger?
It was a fair thing to be suspicious of, he supposed. A medieval fantasy world was bound to be a rough place.
But even faced with that question, there was only one thing Sian could say.
"It wasn't any real trouble, so I just helped. Walking past would've left a bad taste in my mouth."
"It wasn't… any trouble?"
She murmured it as though she couldn't quite believe him.
Her reaction, in turn, left Sian puzzled. All he'd done was feed her a potion—what was so hard to believe about that—
"Ah."
It was only at that point that Sian finally realized something had gone very, very wrong somewhere.
From the moment Elina appeared until the moment she left, the woman before him had been unconscious the entire time.
And the pursuers were lying defeated all around them.
And finally—there was the blood Elina had wiped onto his chest.
Wow. So it can actually come together this perfectly?
Even Sian himself was dumbfounded by just how exquisitely the pieces had aligned. He figured he ought to at least try clearing up the misunderstanding, so he gave it a shot—but
"Then who was it?"
"…They're gone now."
"…Then I'll go with that."
It seemed the misunderstanding had already set in stone.
From Sian's perspective it was deeply unfair, but from hers, it was impossible not to believe. The same man was there when she closed her eyes and when she opened them—and in between, someone else saved her and then vanished? She'd have asked what kind of lazy, convenient plot twist that was supposed to be.
In the end, Sian gave up on persuading her.
Whatever. I don't care. She's not my problem anymore, so even if she's got the wrong idea about me—
He turned to leave with that thought, but the woman caught his sleeve.
"Where are you… going?"
"Home. I'm going home…."
"May I follow you?"
"……"
At her words, a grim premonition settled over him: this misunderstanding is only just beginning.