Chapter 10. Stubbornness and Arrogance (16)
But, surprisingly enough, I wasn't trembling in fear all that much.
"Come to think of it, it's not really that strange."
I said as I ate the breakfast Ria had prepared for me.
"Holy Power isn't my own strength—it's the power of that being up above. When you're calling upon power from a completely different dimension, especially a different dimension that exerts such immense force upon this world, it'd be absurd for there to be no risk at all, right?"
"......."
"And the way I collapsed after using Holy Power is the same. Normally, Holy Power is a force that can heal the injured, but the person who uses it, well, th-that......."
"......."
Hm.
Let's just quietly eat some bread.
Ria was glaring at me like she wanted to kill me, so I obediently ate the toast she had generously spread with jam. Quite a few breadcrumbs fell onto the small table set on the bed, and onto the blanket, but Ria didn't make much of a fuss about it.
Well, sure, I suppose the people who manage this place would clean it up, but still.......
How terrifying.
"Um, Ria."
"What."
Crunch, crunch.
The bread she had toasted right beside me with a toaster she'd brought over had a perfectly crisp crust. ......A toaster, though. Dwarves really do think the same way we do. Bread made from wheat that has to be cultivated outside the caves must have been expensive even for a Dwarf, so the fact that they served it to me like this suggests they truly are treating me with the utmost hospitality.
And besides, this bread wasn't simply the factory-made sandwich bread I knew. It had been made thin from the start—
.......
Well, let's stop with the escapism here.
"......Are you angry?"
When I asked that, Ria's hands stopped moving. Ria, who had been spreading jam that was definitely not strawberry but was delicious nonetheless, stayed still without saying a word for a while, then started moving her hands again.
"No."
She seemed angry, though. Her attitude could only be described as extremely angry.
And looking at the amount of bread piling up in front of me right now, I felt it even more. As if she were trying to sort out her thoughts, Ria was toasting an excessive amount of bread and stacking it up in front of me.
"......."
Let's just quietly eat some bread.
Fortunately, I was quite hungry, so in the end I was able to eat all of it.
The fact that I only worried about whether Ria had eaten breakfast after I'd finished everything is a secret I can't tell anyone.
*
Ria, still deep in thought, remained far quieter than usual even after that. I'm not such a fool as to tease Ria tactlessly here and set off a massive explosion.
After finishing the meal, I followed Ria out of the room.
Dwarves do have the concept of buildings and open spaces. But in the end, all of those places are still inside caves. My lodgings were quite nice, but precisely because of that, the line between whether the place I stepped out into was a hallway or a street was blurry.
People were passing through the fairly wide space, and when they saw me, they quickly stepped aside. The atmosphere was similar to what I had seen right before losing consciousness.
Some people seemed afraid of me, while others looked up at me with something like reverence. Given the height difference, looking up was only natural, but their eyes seemed to shine a bit excessively.
And Ria didn't say a single word to me about how that situation had come about.
Still, I could guess. There must have been an incredibly intense light shining down.
An incredibly intense light that wiped out every last trace of that Mana.
Before I knew it, heavily armed Dwarves and the Knights Order had fallen in around us. The way they surrounded and protected us the entire way to see the princess was different from when I had first arrived here.
Perhaps it had been the king's command.
Thanks to that, perhaps, I headed not to the princess's room but to the king's audience chamber. It wasn't that I had chosen to go there—the troops surrounding us had naturally escorted us to that place.
The Dwarf King seated on his throne, and the princess seated in a place below him.
The two of them rose from their chairs to greet me. I felt like a hole was going to open in my stomach.
"Truly, truly, thank you."
The first words the king spoke when he opened his mouth were those.
"Oh, yes."
And that was the only reaction I could manage upon hearing such sudden words.
"I apologize for not being able to meet and speak with you directly at first. As king, there were simply too many sensitive matters to discuss."
"Oh, no, I learned this and that thanks to the princess."
Though I learned a bit too much, which made things quite uncomfortable.
"As for the compensation for this matter—"
"......Please discuss that with the Order."
I said that much, then hesitated for a moment before adding,
"Ah, but may I ask one favor of the princess?"
"Yes, please speak."
The princess, who was nearby, smiled gently as she spoke.
I hesitated for a moment.
It was true that I had come here for this, but I wondered whether she would actually do it if I asked so openly.
But even so, I couldn't just let it pass without saying anything.
Calling it 'compensation' felt a little awkward, but there was something I wanted them to cooperate on.
"The research on the Gate—I was hoping you could share it with us as well."
The princess looked at the king. The king nodded.
As if they had known all along that I would ask for that information.
"Since the Saint—"
"......Saint Candidate."
"Ah, right, of course."
The princess chuckled softly, then corrected herself.
"Thanks to you, Sister, after driving out that Mana we've had some breathing room for a while. At the very least, there won't be any sudden ceiling collapses causing Mana to engulf us."
And on top of that, the reason to kidnap the princess had also disappeared. In truth, the princess's knowledge was probably more important than the Mana up above.
A clue for research on the Gate.
A tremendous amount of Mana had been stored inside the princess's body. Whether that was the result of inheriting the strengths of both races as a Dwarf-Gnome half-breed, or whether she was simply a talent in whom royal blood had blossomed most fully, I couldn't say.
But that Mana must have certainly been 'beyond standard.' In the novel, after the story had completely ended, when talk about the Dwarf princess came up, related setting details had appeared.
The information about Gate research had come up in the process of investigating the remaining records. It had all appeared only in passing—but Glaria had requested and taken it, saying it would be a clue for returning to the world of the Elves, whose Gate had closed.
And now, I had been able to skip some of those intermediate steps.
If the princess came over to our world and devoted herself to research, it could be studied even more safely. Glaria could handle Mana as well, and above all, we had a relic in our possession that could store that amount of Mana without needing to keep it inside a Dwarf's body.
The people at the research institute would probably welcome the news with open arms.
"Yes, I will cooperate with you."
"I'll do my best to make sure the results of the princess's research don't harm the Dwarf Kingdom."
"I believe you would never do such a thing, Sister. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have risked your life to save our world."
The princess bowed deeply to me as she spoke.
"Once again, truly, thank you."
The sight of the king and princess showing me the tops of their heads side by side looked just as awkward as ever, no matter how many times I saw it.
*
And so I escaped from that burdensome gathering.
There was still a little work left to do. It seemed the Dwarves were planning to hold a grand feast before we departed.
They would probably scramble to greet me. Unlike the welcome party, where they had kept their distance because my Holy Power made them uneasy.
"Anna."
As soon as we returned to the room, Ria spoke to me, and I flinched in surprise.
Had she finally sorted out her thoughts?
If Ria told me not to do saintly things or whatever, how should I respond?
No, of course, I wasn't a real Saint, but anyway, there was still much to do with this Holy Power. I had no intention of losing both my hands, but since things had turned out this way, I wanted to do as much as I could.
I don't have the conceit to think I'll save the world, but I do have the stubbornness to protect what I want to protect. Just as I insist there is no God even if it kills me.
That's right.
I had prayed, but I'd been planning to apostatize immediately anyway. Being saved was enough.
And hadn't that being up above said it too? That there was no need. It's official, then, isn't it?
Light fell upon my face, and Ria and I both simultaneously waved our hands to dispel it.
"......What is it?"
When I asked after composing myself a little, Ria stared at me for a moment before opening her mouth.
"Let's dance. You and me."
"......What?"
"At the farewell party."
Ria looked straight at me as she spoke.
"Looking at your situation right now, Dwarf nobles are definitely going to line up to talk to you."
"......That's true."
"So let's just suddenly break into a dance or something."
"Dwarves......."
Ah, they did dance, didn't they. Though it was more of a dance battle than social dancing. And it was done by middle-aged men with bushy beards.
"I'll make sure you can keep moving around and dodging them."
Ria said it with utter confidence.
"Then we won't have to bother with complicated conversations, right?"
"......What kind of plan is that."
What kind of operation is that.
But I couldn't stop a grin from forming at the corners of my mouth.
Ria, too, was grinning just like me before I knew it.
.......
In the end, I went along with Ria's plan.
Throughout the farewell party, we spun and danced our way around, diligently avoiding the Dwarves who tried to sidle up to us.
Glaria, as well as Han Yu-ri and Lee Si-yoon, watched us with dumbfounded expressions, but before long Lee Si-yoon had been caught by the two of them and was spinning around, dancing with them in turns.
We didn't share the story about that being up above.
I was a little glad about that.
Because it felt like a conversation just between the two of us.