Chapter 2. Encounters and Opportunities (2)
Chapter 2. Encounters and Opportunities (2)
It had only been three days since I'd first come face-to-face with the protagonist.
And until three days ago, Ria had been training me steadily.
"Oh, come on! It's heavy! You don't! Have to! Lift it!?"
That was probably what I was shouting at Ria back then.
Sweat was pouring off my body like rain, and a few nuns nearby were giving us a wide berth as they stole glances at the scene. Many of those kids were the ones I didn't get along with, and naturally, smirking sneers were playing at the corners of their mouths.
To their eyes, Ria probably looked like she was giving me some proper discipline.
Well, to be fair, that wasn't an unreasonable read.
Because what I was holding was a big riot shield.
No matter how much fantasy is mixed in, no matter how much this is a world where monsters and Hunters run wild, the foundation is still the modern era.
The swords those Hunters swing are also made from all sorts of light and sturdy alloys thanks to the power of modern materials engineering. This is a world where something stamped out by a press at a major corporation with a huge budget, or machined from a solid block of steel using CNC methods, is far sturdier than anything a craftsman could make by hammering away.
Naturally, the scabbards of those swords get rails for attaching practical accessories, or some innovative technology gets developed that lets you draw the sword with less effort—that sort of thing.
It wasn't that craftsmen didn't exist in the fantasy sense, but those cases involved handling special materials imbued with Mana rather than mass production.
And thanks to that, the sword Ria was swinging was mercilessly sturdy too. It was a training sword with no edge at all, but that thing was probably also one of those "light and sturdy" products.
But here's the thing.
"Then why is the shield so damn heavy!?"
I shouted that, full of indignation.
"Of course it's heavy. It has to block a sword from every direction, so it obviously has to be thicker than a blade, and that thick steel plate has to be able to cover your body reliably."
The shield I was holding was a riot shield, the kind police carry when facing protesters.
But the material wasn't plastic or anything like that. It only looked like a modern riot shield, and only the paint job was tactical black—the contents were just a steel plate.
"I, I clearly said I wanted to learn marksmanship......"
"If you're holding a gun, obviously you need to carry defensive gear to cover your body too."
"No, people with rifles—"
"You don't have a rifle license."
Damn it!
"And if you held a smaller shield, you couldn't block my attacks at all, could you? You already tried it, so why are you saying that?"
That was true, actually.
When I grumbled that this thing was heavy, Ria had actually gone and gotten a smaller round shield. It was at least a little lighter than this one, but it couldn't block Ria's sword at all.
It was only at this size that I could barely, just barely, block Ria's attacks.
What made it even more infuriating was that Ria wasn't even swinging her sword with real intent. Well, if she had truly come at me seriously, I wouldn't even be standing here.
Some corner of my mind understood that this training method was actually fairly reasonable, and that just made me more annoyed for no good reason.
Getting taught by Ria was already annoying, and on top of that, I couldn't even come up with a counterargument!
"......If you're really that frustrated, how about wrapping that Holy Power around your body? Your stamina would recover a bit, and more importantly, all the sore spots would heal in an instant."
Even without bruises, the places that had gone red from being hit could be described as "injured." That kind of pain, and the small damage done to the body, would heal cleanly if I used Holy Power.
But here's the thing—I was someone who had decided not to use this power, at least not on myself. Naturally, I had no intention of using it just because training with Ria was a little tough.
When I gritted my teeth and glared at Ria, she let out a little snicker and raised her sword again.
"Well, fine. That kind of grit is decent enough. Then one more—"
Grrr.
Ria's little snicker at me was even more annoying. Now she had this expression like a master looking at her disciple.
Fine.
Today, somehow, no matter what it took, I was going to land at least one effective hit on Ria's body.
Even though my body was so drained that I couldn't even hold a weapon in my other hand and was barely managing to hold up the shield......!
Just as I had steeled my resolve and was tensing my legs to spring forward—
"Wounded! We have wounded!"
I heard someone shouting that as they ran toward us.
I immediately flung the shield aside and sprinted toward that voice with everything I had. I heard Ria calling after me from behind, but there was something more urgent than that.
......It was absolutely not because I wanted to escape training.
*
As proof of that, I ran as hard as I could even though my legs genuinely felt like they were about to give out.
It was a good thing Ria came up beside me and grabbed my arm midway—otherwise I probably would have either tripped once along the way, or tumbled down the stairs while descending into the basement. One of the two.
The moment I went underground, the first thing I noticed was the awful smell of blood.
It wasn't that I'd never smelled anything like it before, but this time it was especially bad.
It was only after I stood before the patient on trembling legs that I understood why.
Usually, the patients who came here didn't just have deep wounds—they often had something strange layered on top of them. That was why they ended up coming to me after ordinary treatment failed.
But in this case—
I knew it was a terrible thing to think in front of a patient like this, but I couldn't help thinking it anyway.
This patient was truly lucky.
There wasn't a single intact spot on his arms or legs. Flesh had been torn away in chunks all over, and on his right arm, the broken radius was fully exposed.
On his right leg, the flesh above the knee had been savagely ripped away, revealing severed muscle tissue and white bone, and his left arm and leg were in nearly the same condition.
His stomach and chest also had deep holes, as if something had burrowed into them.
His face was simply unrecognizable. It looked as if some large beast had bitten his entire face and shaken it around.
But whether this should be called coincidence or not, his limbs weren't completely severed. He was even still breathing. Under normal circumstances, no matter how much Holy Water you poured on him, he'd probably only survive for a few minutes at most.
But he was alive. For him to have been brought before me in that state—that really was "lucky."
Beside him, a woman around our age was kneeling and sobbing. She had injuries, but not to the point where she needed treatment before the man.
Maybe she and the man—injured beyond recognition—were very close. Either way, the woman was still holding the blood-soaked man's right hand.
Without needing to ask anything more, I immediately knelt down beside the man.
With my hand placed on his chest where the bone was exposed, I closed my eyes.
And then, as always—
I know you're there, and I have no intention of denying that much, so please, I thought, let this person live.
As always, a bright light filled my vision.
"......Ah!?"
I heard the woman holding the man's hand gasp in surprise, and the companions who had brought the man here also made startled sounds, but there was something I needed to check before that.
At least I checked the areas his torn clothes had exposed clearly enough to see.
Honestly speaking, I had already rolled around on the ground enough to exhaust my whole body, and I had used up so much energy running here that I didn't have the presence of mind to think about anything other than checking the remaining wounds.
Both arms that had been on the verge of severing, both legs that had lost a great deal of muscle. And the stomach where the internal organs had been visible, the face where the bone had shown through—only after carefully checking all of it did I rise from my spot.
"......Ah."
Only then did the woman look up at me.
Normally, I would have said something about God, even just for appearances, to put her at ease.
And I would have waved my hand to scatter the light that kept shining on my face.
"......Anna?"
But before I could even wave my hand once, I felt my vision slowly darkening. Ria, beside me, called my name with some urgency.
Seeing my body falling backward, the Priest and the Mother Superior also hurried toward me. I felt someone catch my back with their arm.
It was only after seeing my hands trembling violently that I remembered—I always got quite exhausted whenever I called upon Holy Power on a large scale. Whenever that happened, I would always hurry back to the dormitory, wash up, and sleep to replenish my stamina.
That was my last memory of that day.
......So, in other words, at that moment I had truly used up every last bit of stamina I had—and didn't have—and passed out on the spot.
Ah, shit. Even thinking back on it, it was still kind of embarrassing.
Anyway, that's how it was.
Usually in harem stories, there's often a heroine who sees the male lead naked—
And conversely, there are also moments where the protagonist sees a heroine naked.
But I went even further than that: before the main story even began, I ended up seeing what was beneath the protagonist's bare flesh.
Well, the girl next to him saw it too, so it wasn't like I was the only one who saw.
If we're strictly going by order, I guess I was a little later?