7. The Man from Marlene
The man who introduced himself as Ludvik—Lud, for short—said he was on his way to Evian.
He claimed he'd gotten lost on the road there, wandered around, and eventually collapsed. Yona eyed him with deep suspicion.
Still, come on. For someone who supposedly collapsed in the middle of a forest, he looked far too healthy. He said he'd gone days without food, yet he didn't look the least bit gaunt, nor had his energy faded in any noticeable way.
He didn't have a single injury either, so Yona supposed that was that.
"Do you know of a place called Marlene?"
"Marlene?"
Carlson, Miscot, Irene, and even Viola all shook their heads, while only Yona gave a small nod of recognition.
"You mean the place where the Heavenly God descended, right?"
"Well remembered. I come from Marlene."
Marlene, of all places.
Yona dug through her memories of nun training. Marlene—a city famous as one of the Four Cardinal Ruins. That it was past tense owed to the fact that it was now famous for entirely different reasons.
The place where the Heavenly God had descended long ago. The land where the God's descendants had settled and lived. The ground where the Heavenly God defeated a false god and preached the true faith. Never had she expected to hear Marlene's name out here, so far from where it had earned its renown.
"I used to work as an adventurer back in Marlene. And, well, I made it all the way to Gold rank, as it happens."
Gold rank. That meant he was quite formidable, at least on paper. There wasn't a single person of Gold-rank caliber in all of Evian, after all.
"And yet you call yourself the Hero."
"That I do. I am the Hero chosen by the Heavenly God. She has told me the Demon King will soon awaken, and that he will rise again by using the demons scattered across the land as his stepping stones."
Right. If that were really the case, wouldn't the Heavenly God have descended upon the grand cathedral herself and delivered the prophecy, rather than picking some Hero? The more Yona looked at him, the more the man seemed a few stones short of a chapel.
"But Hero or not, you're free to believe me or not."
Lud grinned. His hair—which was inexplicably clean and tidy for a man who claimed to have been lost in the wilderness for days—swayed gently, echoing his laughter.
"Now then, here's my adventurer's badge. Look—see? It says Gold rank right there."
Yona's party crowded around the badge Lud held out. Sure enough, the name Ludvik was engraved alongside the Gold-rank insignia.
"Do you believe me now? That I'm a Gold-rank adventurer?"
"...Can't say there's much reason not to. Not with the badge right there."
Carlson wore an expression of grudging admiration. Ooh, big strong warrior gets impressed by a big strong warrior. Shocking, Yona sneered inwardly.
"So then, Mr. Mighty Hero Gold-Rank Adventurer, what business brings someone as important as you all the way out to a backwater like Evian?"
Something about this whole thing left a bad taste in Yona's mouth. The word "Hero" was already nonsense on stilts, and this spear-swinging adventurer who'd crept up behind her with his weapon angled crookedly across his back simply rubbed her the wrong way. The reason, perhaps, was her wrist—which still throbbed with a faint, dull ache even now.
At her question, Lud smiled again. A wide, easy smile that showed every tooth, the kind of grin that could brighten the day of anyone who saw it.
"I came to collect you."
"...Sorry, what?"
The surroundings fell silent in an instant. The path had already been rustling with the party's passage through the underbrush, but the moment everyone stopped walking, it went dead quiet.
"...You came to collect... me?"
When a dumbfounded Yona pointed at her own nose, Lud nodded briskly, as if the answer were obvious and hardly worth repeating.
"The Heavenly God has said that a Saintess shall appear in this Evian. So I came to bring her back. The Heavenly God is never wrong, you see—we've met already, haven't we?"
Yona was speechless.
"...Why on earth would I be a Saintess?"
"The moment you poured your holy power into me, I knew. Ah, what a warm and tender feeling it was."
No, that's just what healing does, you absolute walnut.
"I'm not a Saintess or a priest. I'm just a Healer. A Healer."
"No, you are without question a Saintess. I'd stake my life on it."
Lud's smile didn't waver one bit. At this point, it was actually Yona who was getting flustered. What possible basis did he have for this unshakable conviction that she was a Saintess?
"Hey, you lot, say something. He's calling me a Saintess."
"Uh, uhh. Go on, go on. Carry on."
"Carry on my ass, you bastard! ...And Lud, what exactly are you basing this on?"
"Is it not obvious? That masterful handling of holy power—and besides, look at that goddess-like beauty. If that's not a Saintess, what is?"
Yona's face began to crumple at an alarming rate. Watching her, Miscot's eyes sparkled with delight at having fresh material to tease her with.
"I used to be a man, damn it! Stop treating me like a woman!"
Startled by her roar, a flock of birds burst from the trees and scattered into the sky.
Yona, Lud, and the rest of the party made it back to Evian a little past noon.
"What's going on? What's all this?"
A long line had formed in front of the Adventurer's Guild. Adventurers were milling about in thick clusters, and up on a platform, Mary was shouting herself hoarse.
"Beats me. What is that?"
As they drew closer, Mary's voice grew clearer and clearer.
"Come ooon, even if you sign up right now, Viscount Cartein has promised double—double—the standard pay!"
Even so, the adventurers around her hesitated, each one hanging back.
Yona walked up to the one head that gleamed conspicuously among the crowd and smacked it with a crisp, satisfying thwack.
"Ow!"
"Shock therapy. For your hair follicles."
"You crazy witch... hey, at least warn me before you hit me!"
Alec gave Yona a slow once-over—the first time he'd laid eyes on her in thirteen days. She didn't look any worse for wear.
"That's my business. You're the one who took so long getting back. Anyway, what's she yelling about?"
"They're putting together another subjugation force."
"Subjugation force? For the Catacombs?"
"Yeah."
Thankfully, Viscount Cartein's knightly order had come out of it unscathed. That was why the subjugation force had been reassembled so quickly—but when it came time to actually recruit, the adventurers were refusing to sign up. A bunch of loudmouths losing their heads—sometimes literally—was all part of adventurer work, but nothing mattered more than your own neck. Word had spread far and wide that a hefty chunk of the last subjugation force had been killed or maimed. No ordinary payout was going to fill those ranks now.
"Very well—two and a half times pay! And that's my final offer!"
The moment Mary's voice rang out, the crowd went still. So quiet you could almost hear someone swallow. In that silence, someone tapped Yona on the shoulder, and she turned around.
"Oh! Teacher!"
Aize stood there beaming. Dressed head to toe in the full vestments of her office as a priestess, she had pushed her way without a hint of distaste through the sweat-stinking, grimy crowd of adventurers to greet her student.
"Yona, dear. Did the commission go well?"
"Ah—yes, yes. We just got back, actually. But what brings you here, Teacher...?"
Aize reached out and patted Yona's head. Her hand, stroking the poor girl's hair—little more than a lone crop of it these days—was endlessly gentle, endlessly tender... and then, little by little, her grip began to tighten, until at last Yona let out a long, pained groan.
"T-Teacheeeer... it hurrrts...!"
"It's meant to. Now—where is your veil?"
"...Oh."
She'd forgotten to buy a new one. She'd gotten her Holy Shroud and skipped merrily on home, completely forgetting the matter of replacing her veil.
"I-I lost it... OWOWOWOW!"
"A nun—losing—her veil! Is that—what—I—taught—youuu!?"
"I'm s-sorry! Ow, ow! Owowowowow!"
Aize, who had seized Yona's head with the force of someone about to pop it like a grape, finally relaxed her grip and let go. Only then did Yona clutch at her scalp, wailing theatrically.
"Sister Vigrind and I are to purify the Catacombs together. That's why I'm here."
"That scarlet-headed... I mean, Sister Vigrind, you say?"
"Yes. She's right over there."
At the tip of Aize's pointing finger stood that insufferable priestess with her blazing red head. Yona could just picture her thoughts: Why on earth should I be here, of all places? Why should I have to feast my eyes on these filthy, sweating, disheveled wretches? That supercilious look in her eyes said it all.
"...Why you, though, Teacher? You've got all the little ones down there to look aft... OWOWOW!"
"We watch our language, don't we?"
"Ah! Ow! The, the little p-priestess... OWOWOWOW!"
"Language."
"There are lots of my f-fellow clergy down there, Teacheeeeer!"
Aize dusted off her hands as if nothing had happened. Alec, watching her with eyes full of terror, took a single step back. The person who could grab the great Yona like she was picking up a kitten. Terrifying.
"It seems to be important business, so—I'd like you to come along. Will you?"
At that soft, warm tone, Yona's lips twisted. This is basically no choice at all, isn't it.
"I guess I'm going... Hey, Alec. You're coming too, right?"
"...If you're going, then I'm going."
Quite a large number of names had already been written onto the subjugation force's roster. For adventurers, their lives were forfeit the moment they took the job anyway, so if the pay was generous enough, it was a gamble worth walking into.
"Eh, whatever. As long as I don't die, it's fine."
"That's the spirit."
And so, Alec's and Yona's names were added to the roster as well.
"Next, please?"
Mary sat at the registration desk and called for the next person. No answer came—only a long shadow falling across her desk from above.
"...May I help you?"
She looked up—and found herself facing a brown-haired man she had never once seen at the Evian Adventurer's Guild before.
"Ludvik. Gold-rank spearman."
Lud flashed that easy grin of his, and his adventurer's badge landed on the desk in front of Mary with a casual flick, rolling to a stop.