Don't Look For Me
Simon returned to the arena, still basking in the pleasant afterglow of victory.
And then—
"……Lethe?"
Lethe was gone.
He hurriedly scanned the stands, but there was no sign of her anywhere.
"Excuse me. Coming through."
Simon pushed through the crowd at a quick pace. They had agreed on a place to meet if anything happened—the seat attached directly beside the arena's mana screen.
But there—
"……"
only a neatly folded note remained. Simon rushed over and unfolded it.
Congratulations on your win.
And from now on, I'll be moving on my own. Don't look for me.
"You idiot……!"
Muttering those words, Simon bolted out of the arena.
The clamor of countless spectators, the cheers of students fresh from victory, the overlapping arguments about the match just concluded—it all tangled together into an indistinct din.
Buzzing—
He couldn't make out a single sound clearly. Everything felt dizzying. And of course, nowhere in that noise was Lethe's voice.
"Hah… hah…"
Outside the arena, Simon frantically looked around. Where could she have gone? Why did she leave?
His pace quickened with every step. Running blindly ahead, he came upon a park crowded with people.
"Ah!"
There was Kazhan, conducting an investigation nearby.
"Kazhan!"
"?"
Kazhan, notebook in hand, spotted him as well. Simon closed the distance in a single bound, dropping to one knee and gasping for breath. Kazhan wrapped up his conversation with the person he'd been speaking to and came over.
"What's wrong, Simon? Why are you alone?"
"Lethe—!"
The moment the name left his mouth, Simon caught himself and hastily corrected it.
"No, the Saintess has disappeared! This note—……!"
Rustle.
Kazhan skimmed the note and let out a small sigh.
"Reckless, even after her own senior already got burned for it."
"Do you have any idea where she might be?"
"As far as I know, she hasn't returned to Professor Grelion's cave."
With that answer, Kazhan handed the note back to Simon.
"Th-then! Surely someone's keeping watch from a distance, right? Even just her general location—……!"
"Simon."
Kazhan shook his head and pointed at Lethe's note.
"Judging by this, I'd say she doesn't want you coming after her."
Thud!
Simon felt his heart lurch.
"She told you not to look for her. So what's your reason for doing it anyway?"
"Well, that's…."
"Other agents are tracking her location, if only from a distance. If a problem arises, we'll receive a separate report."
According to Kazhan, Lethe had been making threats before dawn, before Simon even arrived: I will never trust a necromancer. If you surveil me one more time, I'm abandoning this cooperation and taking the Saintess of the Harvest back to the Holy Federation.
Needless to say, the agents couldn't simply stop their surveillance after hearing that, but out of respect for her wishes, they had pared down the watch personnel considerably.
"I'll look for the Saintess on my own as well. But—"
Kazhan started walking off down the forest path.
"if she wants to patrol alone, I believe respecting that wish is the right call."
"……"
Simon, lost in thought, slowly clenched his fist.
Simon didn't give up. He stubbornly combed the island for Lethe, focusing on places she might be, places she might like, and crowded areas—but she was nowhere to be found.
Still, it wasn't entirely fruitless.
Simon took the tip and went to the building the informant had pointed out. It turned out to be the Dark Dynamics Department dormitory.
……If I get caught, it'll be a disaster.
Relations between departments turned viciously hostile during the Dark Festival. Wandering into another department's dormitory uninvited was playing with fire.
I'll only borrow it for a moment! I'll return it right away!
Simon slipped on one of the vests laid out nearby—spare garments belonging to his minions—and, playing the part of a servant, entered the dormitory. True to the Dark Dynamics Department's deep coffers, every facility was lavish and gleaming.
He was looking around in admiration when he spotted the dorm supervisor checking the notice board in the lobby. He struck up a conversation with her. Unlike the Summoning Department's supervisor, she was warm and good-natured, and even knowing Simon was from another department, she politely pretended not to notice.
"Ah, the girl with the ash-gray hair? Not today, but she was here yesterday—came and went."
"Yesterday?"
"Yes. How funny."
She smiled pleasantly.
"Yesterday, that girl was looking for a boy with blue hair. And today, that very same blue-haired boy comes along looking for her."
"……"
Hearing the supervisor's account, Simon moved on to the next lead, gradually following Lethe's trail. And of course, the trail's final destination was the Summoning Department dormitory.
The dormitory was quiet—students hadn't returned yet. Simon climbed up to his own room.
Come to think of it, how did Lethe find my room so precisely?
He slid open the window she had come through the night before. Because dust had gathered on the sill, faint footprints still remained where she had stepped the day before.
Simon flung the window fully open and looked outside.
"Ah."
Lethe's footprints were stamped on the windows of nearly every floor of the building.
She had apparently located the Summoning Department itself, then searched her way across window after window, room by room, until she found his.
A bitter smile tugged at Simon's lips.
You idiot.
Before he knew it, daylight was fading. Simon looked up.
Star Weaving.
She would patrol Roke Island during the day, but once night fell, she'd climb the mountains to perform Star Weaving. If he could find a suitable spot for the ritual, he might be able to meet her there.
His mind made up, Simon leapt out the window.
The sun had fully set, and the night sky had risen. Stars glittered overhead.
And—
"……"
on a high mountain slope, a girl sat in the grass, hugging her knees, gazing blankly out at the night lights of Roke Island below.
Simon! Simon! Simon! You were amazing, like always! You were all I watched the entire match! Great work, President!
Here, Simon was someone else entirely. He was a hero, and around him thronged so many people—people who cherished Simon, and whom Simon cherished in turn.
But me?
She drifted apart from all of it. Unless she were born again, she could never be woven into that culture, that world, those people's lives. She was someone who had no place there—someone who had only stopped by briefly because of the peculiar circumstance of fanatics slipping in.
My chances of meeting that man Gahen are slim, I know—but I suspect you're in a similar position yourself.
That was right. This world was split in two. Coexistence was impossible. The present ceasefire was nothing more than an unstable peace born of neither side being fully certain it could erase the other completely.
But—
that strange boy had thrust his face into her territory without warning, and she had gone and let herself imagine things. He had adapted so well. He'd earned the Inquisitors' recognition; he'd even made friends on this side. He could probably live out his days as a Priest without any trouble at all.
It was nothing more than childish selfishness, but for a moment she had even wondered—what if he lived here, on her side?
But she mustn't be mistaken about it. Simon was happy here. Simon's happiness and joy lived here. Simon would raise his sword for the people of this place, and he would gladly lay down his life for it.
They are my enemies. And Simon is my enemy too.
Hah.
It felt like sinking into a mire of emotion. Her wavering, directionless fingertips closed around empty air.
Endure just until tomorrow, then go back. Don't look at Simon's face again.
For her own sake. And for the sake of everyone on her side. This was the right judgment.
Lethe slowly closed her eyes.
Rustle—
Footsteps. The sound of grass being trodden underfoot. Lethe turned around.
!
Her pupils dilated. The emotions that had rippled like dying embers surged up again, and her heart pounded.
"……"
A boy was walking toward her, leaves sticking out of his hair in a messy tangle, his clothes smeared all over with dark grime. His exhaustion was plain to see, yet he approached as if nothing were amiss.
She had left without a word, so he had every right to be furious.
But Simon said nothing. He didn't shout, didn't vent his irritation. He simply walked over, calm as ever, and plopped down beside her. Then he pressed his palm flat against the grass, tilted his head back, and looked up at the night sky.
"……"
"……"
Silence settled between them.
This was not the place where they had performed Star Weaving before. She truly had not wanted him to find her. But he had—probably having searched every high place on this sprawling island of Roke.
For a while, the two of them simply stared up at the night sky, saying nothing.
"Why did you come?"
At last, Lethe's mouth opened. Simon turned toward her and smiled wearily.
"I was worried."
At that single, utterly sincere answer, she bit her lip lightly. It felt as though her frozen heart was melting, soft and slow, like spring snow.
She mumbled something as if about to say more, then gave a small shake of her head and spoke quietly.
"I told you…… not to look for me."
"If you're alone, you're in danger."
Lethe averted her gaze and murmured, her voice barely audible.
"I'm…… sorry."
It was the first time Simon had ever seen her apologize so candidly, and it caught him off guard. Then a faint smile crept across his face.
"As long as you're safe, that's all I care about."
They lapsed into silence again—a slightly more comfortable quiet than before.
"……"
Then Lethe let out a soft sigh, narrowed her eyes, and glared at Simon.
"Wh-what?"
"Shut up and lie down."
Lethe shoved Simon square in the chest with a solid thump! Simon toppled over with a startled gulp of air, and she grumbled in a sulky voice.
"How can one person be so sloppy? You're bleeding and scraped all over."
Simon gave a baffled look—then finally, belatedly, noticed the state of his own body. Cuts from tree branches, scraped knees, even the bruise from when he'd tumbled down the hillside.
Lethe sat down beside him and brushed his tousled hair aside. Then she pressed her two hands together and laid them over his wounds.
"Switch back to Priest mode for a moment."
Simon nodded and reined in his jet-black energy, and she cast her white magic.
Great Healing
Vrooom!
Bathed in white light, the wounds began knitting closed little by little. She even pulled a first-aid kit from her subspace pocket, disinfecting Simon's cuts and wrapping them in bandages. The way she patched him up so briskly, in practically no time at all, was a reminder—this was what a true Priest looked like.
"All done."
Lethe made a sharp hmph sound and delivered a stinging smack to Simon's back. He scrambled upright and readjusted his posture, and she settled properly into place beside him.
"Th-thank you."
"Mm."
"……"
"……"
"Simon."
"Yeah?"
Lethe fixed her luminous golden eyes on him.
"We're enemies, aren't we?"
Simon closed his eyes.
"Would someone heal an enemy?"
"I'm asking you seriously."
Lethe said, her voice low and insistent.
"We're fated to fight each other. While we're still students, something like tonight can be forgiven. But once we graduate—once we're adults. The day I become a full-fledged Saintess, and the day it comes out that you're a Legion Commander…"
"……"
"We'll have to kill each other. Or we'll be dragged into events where we kill each other's friends and the people we hold dear."
She gazed at him steadily.
"That's fate. So we should—"
"That's not fate or anything else. That's just what you believe."
Simon said it with an easy smile.
"Even after we're grown, we'll meet like this. We'll greet each other's friends, talk and laugh together, heal each other when we're hurt. I believe days like that are coming."
Simon looked at her with a serious face.
"For now, rather than worrying about the future, let's put our hearts into the present. And let's work even harder so that kind of future never has to arrive."
"……"
"I think we're already doing well. Just like how we're trying to stop a war right now."
After a long pause, Lethe finally rose to her feet with a soft smile. She brushed off her robe and looked Simon straight in the eye.
"I'll be beginning Star Weaving now. Watch my back."
Simon stood up as well.
"Leave it to me."