Chapter 7. Favor and Calculation (9)
Chapter 7. Favor and Calculation (9)
Just because Ria wielded a sword didn't mean she couldn't use Magic at all.
She couldn't fly through the sky like some Wizards, but she could at least kick off the empty air and run.
And on top of that,
Cr-r-rack!
Beneath Ria's feet, ice froze with every step she took. That was because Glaria and Han Yu-ri, running split apart on either side, were creating the ice under Ria's feet.
......Those two are practically superhuman too. Ah, well, though in this world, Hunters were beings that couldn't have existed in the world I lived in to begin with.
Even in that situation, Glaria and Han Yu-ri were looking at each other as if conscious of one another.
The arm of the Monstrous Beast—so enormous I couldn't even begin to guess what to call it—was frozen with ice just the same. They had made a path in advance so Ria could set her feet down.
Bang!
I blew off the head of one of the monsters sprouting from that arm and ejected the magazine from the slide-locked gun.
"Your shooting's improved a lot."
"......You sure know how to strike up a conversation in a situation like this."
At this point, I didn't know whether to be amazed or dumbfounded.
When I glanced down for a moment, the lake's surface was freezing over without pause—not quite to the extent of the ground beneath Glaria, Han Yu-ri, and Ria's feet, but still.
Among the knights, and among the Hunters too, there were Wizards. Some had even lit fires in the middle of the lake, blocking the monsters rising from below.
Perhaps because dumping consecrated sand in by the sackload had worked, even from this height I could see the lake bubbling and boiling. It was soon dyed black, but between the blackness, clear water mixed with sand was visible.
It's working—
Just as I was feeling a little relieved, far away, at the far edge of the lake, a bright light was visible.
Not light falling from the sky like what was happening to me now, but white light rising from the ground toward the sky.
At first I thought it was the power of Sophie, who was there with them, but the person visible in the distance had the figure of a man.
"......Lee Si-yoon?"
Ria, too, saw that figure and muttered, seeming a little flustered.
"......."
Chocolate.
Yesterday, I had given Han Yu-ri two pieces. To the others—the other people going with me—I had given one piece each.
Just as I'd thought, Han Yu-ri had apparently given one to Lee Si-yoon as well.
So the Saintess's power really was the key to Awakening after all? Certainly, in the novel, they'd said his body received Holy Power well. Though I hadn't known exactly what that meant.
"Ria."
"Ah, right."
Crunch.
The thing that had been frozen solid from shoulder to arm shifted a little.
Beneath our feet, the ice was cracking.
"You remember the dancing, right?"
Ria looked at me and grinned. One hand was still wrapped around my waist, but my feet were touching the ice just like Ria's.
"I'll lead, so follow."
"Ye-es—!?"
Before I could even answer, Ria ran across that arm.
No, if it's like this, then lead or not, I'm just being dragged along......?
But without even a gap to voice that question, Ria pulled my waist close with one arm and moved as if dancing, spinning round and round.
Monsters bursting through the ice with a sound like shattering glass were neatly crushed underfoot as Ria leaped lightly up. She kicked some away lightly, and for those thrusting their upper bodies out entirely, she simply struck them down lightly with her sword as she passed.
The ice that had been pure white was now filthy with black liquid. So many people had trampled over it that it had become as grimy as snow melted and mixed with dirt.
I gave up on shooting monsters with my gun long ago and decided to focus on prayer instead.
I closed my eyes and entrusted my body to Ria's hands.
Right. Fear aside, I trust Ria. The strength of the hand Ria had wrapped around my waist tightened and loosened, but she never once lost hold of me.
Without even my toes slipping, I leaned on Ria.
The sunlight beat down hot from the sky, and beneath my feet it was cold. On top of that, shards of ice kept spraying against my face.
But through all of it, Ria's body heat alone stayed constant.
It was a little vexing, but just having Ria pressed right against my side calmed my heart somewhat.
"Kk."
......I did bite my tongue a little when she suddenly leaped high, but well.
My vision brightened.
It wasn't only because of the hot sunlight.
When I opened my eyes, white vapor was overflowing from my hand. It looked exactly like very cold ice melting, but the sensation of those crystals in my hand was not cold at all.
I looked toward Ria.
A pair of red eyes was looking straight at me.
As if she trusted me. Without wavering.
I turned my head again.
Before I knew it, we were flying high up.
We must have risen quite a bit when Ria leaped earlier. Even in that situation, without touching Ria's body at all, I didn't fall.
How reassuring that fact was.
A huge Mana Orb—around that beast's eye, spears had formed again, but—
"Where do you think you're going!"
I heard Glaria shout loudly from far away. Then I heard the sound of something being chanted, and a thick wall of ice formed in front of the spears.
Crash!
Seeing the spears blocked by the ice wall, Glaria whipped her head to the side as if annoyed. There, Han Yu-ri, floating in the sky just the same, was grinning.
......While I wasn't looking, they'd oddly gotten in sync. Well, if I said that to either of them directly, both would get incredibly angry.
Conversely, if those two looked at me and Ria and said something like that, what answer would I give?
I don't really know.
But strangely, I didn't think I'd get angry.
I'd pretend to be angry, of course—
Ria kicked off the empty air, leaped up, and twisted her body. My body turned slightly, into a position good for swinging my arm.
I gripped the Holy Power Crystal tightly in one hand.
And then, I hurled it with all my strength at that eye.
......Ria had told me I had talent. To me, who no matter how hard I tried could never become the best at anything.
Probably, even this throwing skill would lag endlessly behind some nun belonging to the Church.
But, somehow.
I kept turning Ria's words over in my mind. Was it that much of a comfort that someone like Ria had said such a thing to me?
Anyway.
As expected of someone who's a heroine.
Crunch.
The monster moved its arm to block that thing falling from the sky like a teardrop. Perhaps because Han Yu-ri had frozen it further while I had my eyes closed, the outer part of that arm—which looked like little more than bone and hide—shattered and rained down.
But that did nothing to stop that one small crystal.
"Anna."
Seeing the crystal pierce through its hand, Ria called my name quietly.
"You trust me, right?"
"How many times are you going to ask?"
I asked back, dumbfounded.
Ria grinned.
Ah.
Somehow, I felt like I knew what Ria was about to do.
It wasn't because I'd read it in the novel, and it wasn't because we'd made some kind of signal between us.
Ria's expression. The hand gripping the sword, and the strength entering the arm supporting my waist. Somehow, seeing those things, I predicted Ria's next action.
Whether my intuition had sharpened, or whether Ria was being that considerate of me.
Or else—whether I had simply become able to trust.
Ria nodded, then hurled me upward toward the sky with all her strength.
This time, I didn't scream.
In the blue sky, there was a being that, though not the sun, shone its light only toward me. It was too high to see, but—
I reached out my hand toward that being.
......Because every time I leave things to it like this, it does help sometimes.
The Being Above sent down light, as if answering me.
For just a moment, I felt my body float up weightlessly. Without Ria supporting me, without Glaria or Han Yu-ri using Magic, entirely by my own power.
Was this the power called miracles that I'd read about in the novel?
I clenched the power gathered at my fingertips.
And then I turned my body and looked down at Ria.
Ria, who had thrown me up with all her strength, was falling downward with her sword pointed below.
Toward the monster shrieking with a huge hole in its hand and its eye half burst open.
I threw the crystal of power in my hand at Ria's back.
Tap.
That power, falling as if shot like an arrow, was completely absorbed into Ria's body without bouncing off.
Somehow, even seeing only her back, I felt like I could see Ria grinning.
Just as I trusted Ria, Ria must have trusted me.
That neither of us would ever let the other get hurt.
Thunk.
I saw Ria's sword lodge itself in the monster's eye.
Pop!
The monster burst apart starting from its head. Black Mana spread out in all directions. As if, under normal circumstances, it could have rained down over this whole area and contaminated everything.
But that wouldn't happen.
The already-consecrated sword poured out the Holy Power that had flowed through Ria's body to its fullest. Enough to burn away and purify every bit of the Mana before my eyes—
"......Huh?"
But through my mind, which should have had everything end cleanly like that, a very short phrase flashed past.
—Not yet.
"......Not yet."
Without realizing it, I repeated the words aloud.
The scene of Ria pulling her sword back out and leaping up from the monster's body as it split in half painted itself vividly before my eyes. Even though I was this far away.
What drew itself in my head next was a black spear piercing deep through Ria's body.
Because even if the Mana Orb had burst, the lake was still there. That black spear was connected from the abyss of that lake. The monster's body, the Mana Orb—they were merely part of the lake—
"......Ah."
But that vision—that Precognition—vanished from before my eyes in an instant.
"No."
I muttered that.
From the sky, intense light was still falling. Toward me alone.
—How?
"......How?"
I repeated the words that rose in my mind without realizing it—
What do you mean, how? Obviously, I have to save her.
Right. I can heal all sorts of wounds. Even someone who's bled to the brink of death. Even someone so severely poisoned they could stop breathing at any moment.
But 'instant death' is the one thing I can't do anything about.
There's no way to save someone whose heart has completely vanished.
No matter how much power I have, Ria's body is still just a person's.
But—
"......I'm not, am I?"
I know.
I don't know if the original novel's Saintess was like that. But for a long time now, I'd actually been thinking that maybe such things didn't matter.
Right.
I was a being who, in my very early childhood, appeared out of nowhere in this world.
In my vague memories, I don't know what I did or what I said. But the Being Above must have had a reason for placing me there in that form.
It wouldn't have said nothing at all.
"Right? I'm just a being that appeared out of thin air."
Whether I was created from nothing, or whether someone 'sent' me.
I came here with some purpose.
Connected to that being.
—Really?
Really, was it all right? That being was asking me. Was that all right?
It was such a sincerely worried question that I laughed without meaning to.
"Really."
This time too, I said it.
"If you tell me to pray, I'll pray."
That much, at least, is sincere.
"Please, let me."
I trusted Ria.
Ria, too, trusts me.
"Repay that trust—"
As I fell, I clasped my two hands together.
"Please, help me."
And then, the scene before my eyes changed.
In an instant.