Chapter 4. Flight and Service (6)
Chapter 4. Flight and Service (6)
"Wait, where did that phone come from? You didn't have it when you came in here."
Knowing Ria's personality, it wouldn't be strange if she'd smuggled it in, but I'd already read the original novel, and there were plenty of parts I remembered on my own.
In the original, Ria had grumbled endlessly about how the convent didn't even allow phones. And the Saintess was hopeless with machines. She'd never even properly held a smartphone since she was little.
Given the circumstances, Ria's father had probably thrown her into the convent as punishment, so of course he would have confiscated anything like a smartphone.
And getting hold of a smartphone inside wouldn't have been easy, either.
Yet now Ria was actually holding a smartphone in her hand. It was a bit old and not the latest model for a Hero's daughter to be using, though.
I hadn't seen her using one separately until now, had I?
"I borrowed it."
"From who?"
"From Lee Si-yoon."
Huh.
So if she asked to borrow it...... he just lent it to her. Of course he would, with that personality. The kind of personality that made readers call him a pushover.
The Saintess had a bit of a pushover streak too, but Lee Si-yoon was far worse. Then again, it was precisely because of that personality that the heroine-rescue episodes could happen.
"I said I wanted to buy him some chicken or something, and he readily lent it to me."
"......When are you going to give it back?"
"Ah, I'm going again tomorrow. There's that princess business too."
"Ah......."
As if she thought I wouldn't know how to use a smartphone, Ria fiddled with the phone as she answered.
"Hm?"
But something was a little strange.
In the original, I'd never once seen the information that the Elf heroine was a princess. It had come up several times that she was a noble, and it had been spoken as if deliberately emphasizing that.
......Well, it didn't seem important right now.
Thinking back, Lee Si-yoon had been positioned a bit farther away at that time. His grade was still low, and in the first place, the reason he'd come along with us wasn't so much his skill as that, among the people I was close to, he was about the only one who could be assigned as an escort.
It must have been for my psychological stability. Holy Power and Magic are generally heavily influenced by the caster's mental state, after all.
And the other party was a princess, too.
The Hunters exchanging words near the Gate had been talking to each other in low whispers, and as soon as the word "princess" came up, the Hunter next to the one speaking had jabbed him in the side. There was a good chance Lee Si-yoon hadn't heard.
Normally she should have received treatment and returned to her own world, but whatever had happened beyond it, the Gate had vanished.
......Setting aside whether she could return to her original world or not, she must have thought it better to hide her identity as much as possible while stuck in this world.
Good. Thinking about it this way, the situation fit together a little better.
Just as I was nodding to myself—
"I ordered."
"Boneless fried?"
"One whole fried chicken, and one seasoned too, just in case. And since I was ordering anyway, cheese balls and fries too...... Hey, how do you know about boneless fried and all that?"
"......Did you think I'd lived here without ever having a single piece of chicken?"
The Church runs on about 80 percent donations and 20 percent government tax support. As long as tax money is being used, it can't be completely free from public scrutiny.
Occasionally, there are people who file complaints after seeing nuns or monastics ordering delivery food.
But even so, wouldn't it be pitiful to feed growing children nothing but Church food? Priests or the Mother Superior often buy outside food like chicken or hamburgers for the children with their own money.
Or when we went out for volunteer work, the adults from the volunteer organization we worked with would buy it for us, or the older nuns and monastics who received activity allowances would buy it.
When I told her this with my shoulders squared as if boasting, Ria answered with a deflated expression, "Is that so......."
Why? Was she a little disappointed that she couldn't say something like, "Ah, so this is 'chicken'"?
But the look Ria gave me next seemed like one reserved for something pitiful, and I couldn't quite read that emotion.
*
Chicken has a pretty strong smell to begin with.
Then again, there’s hardly any delicious food with no smell at all. Smell is a major part of flavor, after all.
So Ria and I chose to eat outside.
Ria had said we'd go out to the Church's backyard, climb over the wall, pick up the chicken, and bring it back to eat—but I was still a little surprised when she literally vaulted the wall and came back with the chicken set.
"Why? How did you think I'd get over?"
"I thought you'd boost me up from below, or something."
"At our heights, would either of us even reach the top if the other boosted?"
We looked up side by side, and both of us shook our heads.
Well, Ria was a Hero Candidate. She'd been good at bounding around in the original too. In a fantasy world, you needed at least that much physical ability to fight the kinds of things found in fantasy.
Carrying the chicken, we went somewhere a bit more secluded. We both knew the corners of the Church grounds where even the building's windows couldn't easily see. We'd wandered all over the Church cleaning, after all.
Click.
I turned on the small flashlight I'd brought, and Ria turned on her phone's LED.
We laid the two devices down to light up the area around the chicken, and opened the box.
"......Ah."
The smell was so intense. In a good way, that is. The healthy food from the Church had included meat and fried dishes too, but nothing this aggressively caloric.
As for health, sure, what the Church gave us was nutritionally sound—
"Wait."
Suddenly Ria closed the box. Then she quickly ducked down and covered the light from the smartphone and flashlight.
I wasn't stupid enough to actually say, “Why?” out loud.
"......."
Step, step.
Footsteps sounded.
It was the sound of someone approaching this way.
Could it be the Mother Superior? Or the night patrol on duty? Either way, if we got caught, we'd get an earful.
I didn't particularly want that in the middle of the night—
Thud.
But the footsteps didn't continue; they cut off midway.
"......Ugh."
And then came the sound of someone groaning in pain.
"Ugh, I was following a delicious smell and fell....... If Father saw this, what would he say......."
It was a voice I'd never heard before.
Ria and I blinked.
Stranger than the voice was the term she used for her father.
Father?
In the darkness, Ria and I looked at each other.
Then we slowly rose from our spots, each picking up our flashlight and smartphone.
We went toward where the sound had come from—
"......Ah."
What was there was an Elf.
Her hair was tousled as if she’d just woken up. Her golden locks were a tangled mess—whether naturally curly or simply wavy and mussed from sleep, I couldn’t tell. And—
A pair of heterochromatic eyes looked up at the two of us.
"......."
Ria and I looked at each other with baffled expressions.
Then we silently looked back down at the Elf.
*
In this world, Elves are almost all vegan.
Ah, not for ideological reasons, of course. The Elves of this world simply dislike meat.
In the novel, it was said to be because of the smell.
Just as some humans can't eat meat with a strong pork or beef smell, Elves have sensitive noses and don't eat such meat— or so it said, which made me wonder if the smell of grass was fine, then.
The Elf had apparently been recovering in a deep sleep like me, woken partway through, and was wandering the building for a moment to get a sense of her surroundings when she unconsciously followed a smell drifting in through a window left open for ventilation and ended up here.
......And naturally, the smell that Elf had followed was not the smell of fried chicken.
"It's so good......."
Starved for who knows how long, she was shoving fries into her mouth with tears streaming down her face.
......Aren't fries from a chicken place cooked in the same oil as the chicken? Is that much okay?
Or maybe she was so hungry that she'd reached the point of not caring about that much smell. I had a friend who didn't eat kimchi, but he ate it while he was in the military.
Seeing her eat so desperately, we just slid the whole container of fries over to the Elf. We had cheese balls anyway, and enough chicken to eat a whole one each.
Chomp chomp.
......Hm.
Did I eat like that when I had instant noodles?
Feeling a bit self-conscious for some reason, I ate my chicken in small bites without opening my mouth too wide. It was delicious. Normally, I might have shed a tear or two myself.
But no matter what, the Elf next to me was too distracting.
It was the same for Ria, who couldn't even think of teasing me as usual and just stared at the Elf.
Only after she'd eaten nearly all of the fairly large serving of fries by herself did the Elf, as if finally sensing our gazes, startle and lift her head.
"......."
Silence.
A silence far heavier than the one that had hung between Ria and me earlier settled over us.
The Elf slowly lowered her hand, then raised her head stiffly.
And placing one hand over her chest, she spoke.
"......My name is Glaria, of the kingdom’s noble blood and the direct line of House Sharle. As your guest, I am honored that you shared such precious food with me."
Ah, right. That was definitely her name.
......So that meant she really was a princess?
"......Hey."
Ria spoke, looking at Glaria.
"You've got grease on your fingers."
"Gasp!"
At Ria's words, Glaria flinched in surprise and quickly pulled her hand away.
But the grease on those shiny fingers had already been smeared all over her clothes.
"......."
Another awkward silence settled over us.
What are you going to do about this atmosphere, Glaria?