Chapter 2. Encounters and Opportunities (4)
Chapter 2. Encounters and Opportunities (4)
And so, after filling my stomach in the middle of the night, I returned to my room and slept soundly.
A young body really is nice. In my past life, I surely would have gone to bed feeling bloated and uncomfortable.
Or, if not that, maybe my body had been unusually exhausted because I had used a special power, just as Ria had said.
"Good morning......."
Well, even if I had slept well and woken up, the morning wasn't exactly refreshing.
It was March, but it was still a bit early to say spring had fully arrived. Yellow forsythia had bloomed, but it was still the season when the sun didn't properly rise at dawn, and since I was especially weak in the mornings, waking up before the sun had even risen was a bit miserable.
Summer would be hot, but at least the morning sun would rise early, so waking up would be a little easier.
Anyway, the weather in this country was troublesome—whenever it seemed fine, some unpleasant detail would start catching my eye.
"Good mor— pfft!?"
Ria, who had been receiving my greeting after getting up, made that sound as if she had been ambushed.
"......Why?"
Isn't bursting into laughter the moment you see someone's face first thing in the morning usually a breach of etiquette?
Wondering if I had drooled in my sleep, I touched my face with my hand, and Ria, apparently understanding that this wasn't exactly pleasant for me, somehow steadied her breathing and stopped laughing.
"G-go to the bathroom."
At Ria's words, I staggered up from my spot and headed to the bathroom.
And then I looked in the mirror and was horrified.
My face was completely swollen.
It seemed the problem was that I had eaten too many carbohydrates before sleeping last night. Right, that was why my eyes had been so hard to open.
......And Ria had seen this face head-on.
Maybe I should cut back on late-night instant noodles from now on.
I thought that as I let out a deep sigh.
*
While I was showering, I forced myself to wash my face with cold water to bring the swelling down a little—unfortunately, it didn't go down completely—and after finishing my morning routine, Ria and I followed the Mother Superior toward the infirmary.
I didn't have professional medical knowledge, but after seeing patients all this time, I had developed something of an eye for it.
Unless the patient was contaminated with Mana, or had some unusual organism inside the body like that parasite I'd seen once before, a single treatment was enough. This patient in particular hadn't been afflicted by anything unusual; he had simply suffered a lot of deep wounds.
After I'd passed out, I heard the other witnesses' accounts properly. Apparently, while they were patrolling beyond the Gate, an enormous Monstrous Beast—that was how the witnesses described it—had suddenly appeared, and a Hunter with little real combat experience had ended up like that.
As it happened, another female Hunter who had known the male Hunter for a long time had been beside him, and he had desperately thrown himself in front of the Monstrous Beast to protect her.
Again and again, and again. Until not a single part of his body was left unharmed.
Until higher-ranked Hunters arrived and somehow drove the Monstrous Beast away.
Fortunately, the place where the Gate appeared was near Bukhansan. If it had been on a mountain ridge, he would have died from excessive bleeding before getting here, but fortunately, they had been near the car and were able to come quickly.
"......Huh."
Wait a moment.
This story—I felt like I had heard it somewhere before.
I didn't mean that the people here had told me.
A high-grade Monster suddenly bursting out of a low-grade Gate and slaughtering the nearby Hunters, or an unmanageable Monster lurking deep beyond a Gate that had been judged low-grade—those were tragedies that happened from time to time. And a Hunter couple in love entering one together was, of course, something that could happen.
But even taking that into account, this story was familiar.
A protagonist who threw himself into harm's way again and again for his childhood friend, his body becoming covered in blood. And then a Saintess healing that protagonist—
"Anna?"
"Ah, yes."
I had unconsciously stopped walking, and the Mother Superior, who had been walking ahead, was looking at me with a puzzled expression.
Ria, who had been walking beside me, was the same.
"Why? Is something wrong?"
Ria asked.
"No, it's not that."
I shook my head.
Right. That's how it would be.
Probably...... hmm, it wouldn't be. I had no real basis, but I wanted to think it wasn't.
The man's face, with its skin nearly peeled off, obviously couldn't be identified, but amid all that chaos, I faintly remembered the woman.
Unlike in the novel, her hairstyle hadn't been a ponytail.
So, well, it wouldn't be.
Wasn't that right? A web novel heroine's hairstyle normally doesn't change until the novel ends. That hairstyle is treated as a kind of "attribute," so of course it wouldn't change.
At this point in the story, the heroine near the protagonist was not the straight-haired heroine.
Of course, the novel did mention once that even before the main story, the protagonist had already owed his life to the Saintess heroine, and that the childhood-friend heroine had been nearby, and that the protagonist had thrown himself into danger again and again to buy time to save her—and that the childhood friend, who actually had a Hunter Rank one level higher than the protagonist, had been injured and could do nothing but watch. It was mentioned!
And because of that, the protagonist came to trust the Saintess's abilities completely and could leave the rear to her! Although he kept giving off this infuriating impression that he trusted the Saintess more than his childhood friend!
But the novel's main story began at the transition from autumn to winter, didn't it? There was still plenty of time before then...... plenty of time, I believed!
"Uh...... are you okay?"
Ria asked me with a serious expression. The Mother Superior was also looking at me with a slightly worried expression, perhaps because she had heard something from Ria.
"Sister Anna, if you're tired, you may go and rest. Yesterday's wounds were serious by ordinary standards, but there were no signs of Mana contamination."
"Right. If you're tired, why not just go back to your room and rest?"
"Ah, no."
I shook my head and declined.
"I have to confirm what needs confirming."
That's right.
I had to confirm whether those two people I had encountered yesterday were the protagonists of that novel I knew.
They probably weren't. I wasn't exactly a Saintess either, only a Saintess Candidate, so it was probably nothing—but unless I confirmed what was going on, I had no way to know how events were actually unfolding.
I took a deep breath and moved my feet.
The Mother Superior and Ria, who had stopped in slight bewilderment, belatedly followed after me.
Bang.
When I opened the infirmary door and entered, I saw the nearly empty rows of beds, just as always.
The only patients occupying beds were the two at the very far end.
One was a woman, one was a man.
The woman still had straight hair. Good. Then, I'd set that aside for now.
"Ah, Sisters—"
Perhaps intending to greet us or express his thanks, the man lying at the very end raised himself up and smiled brightly at me.
Around him, as always, the nuns and the Priest who were there to protect me had already arrived and were standing by.
But this time, I didn't keep my distance or hide. I walked steadily forward, passed silently by the nuns and the Priest, who were flustered by my uncharacteristic behavior, and stood in front of the man.
Perhaps because the whole sequence flowed so naturally, the people around me didn't even have time to express their bewilderment.
"Hmm."
I stared intently at the man's face.
Compared to yesterday, when his facial bones had been nearly visible, it was almost believable that he was a completely different person.
Fair, smooth skin. A face that looked like the result of the Being Above trying desperately to express handsomeness through a human face.
But the male lead's face I knew was an SD. So that alone wasn't enough to tell.
Black, shining eyes—check.
Hair that was also black and glossy—check.
"Hmmmm."
"Um, Sister?"
Seeing me lean in close and tilt my head, the man let out a bewildered voice.
Good. His manners were also good, unlike some previous patients. He didn't try to grab me or anything.
I stepped back and spoke.
"Excuse me, Brother. Would you mind pushing your bangs back like this?"
"Huh? My bangs?"
"Yes. It's extremely important."
Unlike in a novel, real hair moves easily. A ponytail or side tail stays put once tied, but bangs or the hair at the sides can be blown around by a mere breeze.
"Uh......."
Seeing me touch my own bangs, the man moved his hand awkwardly.
Frustrated by that, I reached out and styled his bangs with my hand.
"Wha—!?"
The woman lying in the next bed let out that sound, but that wasn't what mattered right now.
"U-um, Sister!?"
The man was also extremely flustered, but I somehow tousled his bangs and managed to create a hairstyle that was slightly disheveled yet subtly neat.
And then I took a deep breath in, and let it out again.
"Brother, may I ask your name?"
My voice trembled slightly as I asked.
"Ah, well......."
The man rolled his eyes around nervously under the gazes pouring in from around him, then answered with a slightly bashful expression.
"It's Lee Si-yoon. It's embarrassing that this happened on my first mission, but for now, I'm a Rank 7 Hunter—"
The explanation that followed didn't reach my ears.
His appearance and name were enough.
As I pressed a hand to my forehead and staggered backward, Ria quickly supported me.
Ah, so that's how it was.
So the incident yesterday was exactly that incident mentioned in the novel—
Maybe I had ended up in the role of pushing aside the childhood-friend heroine I'd supported so fervently.
......That was how I came to encounter that man, the protagonist Lee Si-yoon.