Chapter 7. Favor and Calculation (2)
Chapter 7. Favor and Calculation (2)
After hearing Ria's adorable little fit of pique, I accepted her opinion and consecrated her sword once more.
Now it was no longer merely a consecrated sword, but a magnificent Holy Sword that any believer would covet.
Though, as for the sword's actual design, it still looked like nothing more than a mass-produced item rather than a Holy Sword.
Every time I placed Ria's sword on my lap and demonstratively swept my fingertips along it, Ria trembled with fury, her shoulders quivering, but even so, she couldn't bring herself to actually get angry.
She goes around touching other people's cheeks like that, yet the moment her own cheek gets touched, she gets all flustered.
It felt good, like I'd secured a means of attack.
That said, I couldn't use it often. I had to read the mood to pull it off, and above all, if Ria got too used to it, the attack would lose its meaning.
Ria was sitting cross-legged on the bed, elbow propped on one knee and chin resting on her hand, glaring at me, but by now she wasn't really scary anymore.
In the original, Ria had even thrown Lee Si-yoon to the ground and climbed on top of him at one point—
"......."
Hm.
My mood suddenly sank.
Even though the fact that Ria would never do something like that to me was obviously something to be immensely grateful for, my mood strangely plummeted.
"......Huh?"
When my expression suddenly went cold, Ria tilted her head.
Well, whatever other worries I had, at the very least, this was one worry I would never tell anyone about.
Let's suppose you have a friend of the opposite sex. You don't exactly think you want to date that friend outright, but still, that friend is incredibly friendly to everyone around them, and though they have a slightly peculiar side, they're a kind and good-hearted person. On top of that, they're incredibly pretty with a great figure.
'She's kind of an oddball, isn't she? She doesn't seem very girly, does she?'
That was probably how all her male friends saw her.
The girl is the same. She goes through life not really treating the guys around her as men.
Then, one day, she suddenly brags that she got a boyfriend.
That boyfriend would almost one hundred percent be an incredibly handsome and good guy.
Only then do the people around her lament, ah, I should've at least confessed once. It's not that they'd had some grand, overwhelming desire to date her, but the reason they hadn't confessed wasn't because she was four-dimensional and brash—it was because, for some reason, she wasn't the kind of person who'd date someone like them.
"......."
No, is that a bit different?
Because I'm not an 'opposite-sex' friend, but a 'same-sex' friend.
I shrugged my shoulders, then got up from my spot and walked over to Ria.
And handed her the sword.
"Will this do?"
"Uh, uhh....... Thanks?"
Ria took her sword and tilted her head with a bewildered expression.
She has no idea what ridiculous worries I've been having because of her.
If she ever found out, how would she react? Would she be disgusted to learn that the person she'd been spending time with actually had those kinds of proclivities?
Hm, I don't know. If this were a Japanese light novel, maybe there'd be one heroine among the cast who suspiciously had a lot of physical contact with the heroine.
Somehow, if it were Ria, I feel like she'd plant a fist right in my head.
I turned back around and headed toward my desk.
Then I opened the drawer and took out a small pouch from inside.
Inside, there were lots of little chocolates, each individually wrapped in foil.
"Here."
"Huh?"
When I held it out to Ria, she took it reflexively and answered.
"I consecrated each one. They won't be as good as that chocolate from last time, but you'll be able to use them like a healing potion."
"......."
Ria blinked blankly.
"Take one out and eat it whenever you need it."
"Uh, no, I get how to use them."
Ria looked at me with a bewildered expression.
"When did you make these?"
"Whenever I had spare time. When you go in to wash up, I don't have anything to do by myself anyway, right?"
These chocolates were also from Ria. I'd carefully unfolded the foil so it wouldn't tear, infused Holy Power into them, then wrapped them back up.
"What about you?"
"Pardon?"
"Yours. Didn't you set any aside for yourself?"
"You'll protect me, won't you, Ria?"
"......."
Ria's mouth fell open.
"Besides, I'm someone who knows how to use Holy Power directly. It's better for the person who's actually at risk of getting hurt to be carrying them all."
"Ah, yeah."
Ria answered reflexively at my words.
No matter how much my escort has grown, the person right by my side is naturally Ria. I don't want to change that. Because she's one of the few people I can fully trust.
"Hey."
When I sat back down on the bed, Ria called out to me in a truly rare, cautious voice.
"There really isn't anything where your life would be in danger, right?"
Maybe because I'd prepared so thoroughly, Ria seemed a bit uneasy.
"I'm just preparing for the worst."
......Right.
It's not an academy story, but wasn't this a novel about crossing through Gates in the first place?
On top of that, nearly every civilization that appeared in that novel had a conflict on the verge of erupting, and it always happened to erupt just when the protagonist's party visited.
Even if the period of my visit has been moved up, I can't afford to let my guard down.
"......Got it."
In the end, Ria didn't seem to fully understand, but she definitely tucked the chocolates away.
*
Our schedule with the government was coordinated, and it was late May, nearly June, by the time we came to visit the Gnome Civilization Sphere.
The Gnomes are fundamentally a people who have adopted a republican system.
In other words, the Gnome nation was a republic. That didn't mean it was the same as South Korea, though. The Gnomes didn't have a separate president, after all.
The tribes united to form a nation in order to survive, and because of that, they've adopted something like a council where one representative from each tribe is elected and gathered. Since the novel didn't provide any explanation beyond that, I didn't really know exactly how it worked either.
However, no matter what kind of council it is, there's always a leader.
"Our Gnome Tribal Federation sincerely welcomes Saintess Candidate Anna."
The person standing at the very front was, how should I put it.
If one of those Gnome figurines that people in Western movies often set up in their front gardens were dressed in early 20th-century bourgeois capitalist attire, it would look exactly like this.
His stocky height came up to about my waist. A shaggy beard grew on his chin, and in the middle of his whitening hair, whether from hair loss or not, the scalp beneath showed through quite a bit.
"......I am Anna. Thank you for inviting me."
I answered while giving a slight bow.
"I heard that the Gate from Anna's church to our country is quite far away. You must have had a difficult journey, so please take today to rest at your leisure, and how about we have our proper discussion tomorrow? Ah, but there will be a welcome banquet this evening. We would be honored if you would attend and grace the occasion."
The Gate hadn't been that far. About three hours by car.
Still, there was no need to jump straight into the main topic. Both sides needed a way to get a read on each other.
The Gnomes especially would want that.
"Thank you for your consideration."
I answered politely.
The Gnome leader nodded like a gentleman, then escorted me at a slight distance.
He seemed to understand well what kind of existence a 'nun' was, so I thought I really couldn't let my guard down.
.......
No, well, I'm not sure how much it matters whether I let my guard down or not.
*
"The room's...... small."
"For Gnomes, this is extra-large."
There were two beds, but they were practically touching, as if they'd been squeezed in by force. If someone had bad sleeping habits, one person encroaching on the other's bed would be nothing.
On top of that, the furniture was all subtly small, though still usable for us.
It couldn't be helped. Not every Gnome has seen a human. They must have estimated, thinking, 'They're about this tall, so making it this size should work!' so a subtle margin of error was unavoidable.
I quickly unpacked.
"Anyway, a welcome ceremony, huh."
"We're nuns, so we'll just attend in the same clothes we always wear."
"Well, I know that."
Was she thinking of throwing something on over her habit again?
If I were a Saintess, there would have been separate clothes for a Saintess, but that wasn't the case yet.
"Are you going to dance?"
"......."
I'd been tidying my luggage, and I raised my head to stare at Ria with a dumbfounded expression.
Maybe because she thought she'd been on the losing end against me these past few days, Ria was looking at me with a strangely excited expression.
"......Don't."
I warned her.
"Why? There's no rule saying nuns can't dance, is there?"
"......."
Isn't there?
Uh, maybe not. I wasn't sure.
"And social dance is good to know. You'll be able to use it somewhere."
"What kind of lunatic asks a nun for a social dance?"
That, at least, I could say with certainty.
And social dance, of all things. What is this, the Middle Ages?
"They're Gnomes, aren't they?"
But seeing my expression, Ria shrugged.
"Besides, the clothes they were wearing made them look like people from around the early 20th century. Or maybe the late 19th? If their civilization is similar to that era, they might do social dancing."
"......."
Huh, no, that can't be right.
Definitely, in the novel.
Seeing my blank expression, Ria giggled.
"......Anyway, no one's going to ask a nun for something like that, okay?"
"We'll see about that."
Even when I said it with a straight face, Ria just kept grinning.