Light and Shadow (2)
"But I want to be a healer..."
"What are you even saying? Do you have any idea how bad of a job healing is?"
"I want to be like you, big sister."
"I told you, I'm not your sister."
"But you are my sister, though."
Alec watched Yona and Rubina carry on what struck him as the strangest, most utterly pointless argument in existence, and let out a small sigh.
It had already been two weeks since they left the village with Rubina in tow.
Taking along a ten-year-old who was small even for her age thanks to years of going hungry, they had worried the whole way that the girl might collapse at any moment.
But that worry had turned out to be for nothing—Rubina kept up surprisingly well.
Kayak, pretending not to care at all, was quietly taking frequent rest breaks to look after her, too.
It was only with Yona that Rubina seemed locked in a quarrel every single day.
"A priest, you have to become a priest, I'm telling you?"
"I'm going to be a healer."
"Healers have it bad."
"I want to be like you, big sister."
"I told you I'm not your sister."
"But still—"
Watching the argument drag on endlessly even as they walked, Alec finally couldn't take it anymore and cut in.
"...Yona, this conversation is never going to end. Whether she becomes a priest or a healer isn't something Rubina gets to decide just because she wants to."
It depended entirely on how the Day of Discernment went.
No—before that, nobody even knew whether Rubina had any holy power at all.
And yet the moment Rubina said she wanted to be a healer, Yona had flown into a snit and was now squabbling on equal footing with a ten-year-old.
"Come on, the kid walks away from a comfortable life and insists on becoming a healer of all things..."
"That's because you went and said all that stuff."
"How was I supposed to know it'd turn out like this?"
In the end, Yona kept wriggling off the hook.
It had happened just last night, when they'd cleared out a pack of gnolls. Apparently Yona's performance had left quite an impression on Rubina.
"This guy right here? He's a healer. A super capable healer. That lizard-head mister, that pig-face mister, and this bald mister can all fight with their minds at ease, because this guy heals everything."
She'd puffed out her chest and bragged with such pride, and that was how it had come to this.
Rubina's dream for the future was now to become a healer.
"...Yeah, okay, that one's on me. It really is on me."
"Glad we agree."
Bickering all the while, they kept walking, until James, leading the way with a map in hand, stopped and called the party together.
"There's a small city just past that hill. How about we rest up there and head straight for Carpatia afterward?"
"Sounds good. We can all get cleaned up—and wash the kid, too."
At Yona's words, Kayak and Alec both nodded along.
Rubina's cheeks were slightly puffed out, apparently sulking over how violently Yona had vetoed her plans.
What was more, she was now pointedly walking hand in hand with Alec instead, and Yona sighed at the sight.
There was a reason she objected so fiercely.
Granted, nothing could be settled until the Day of Discernment, and even then only if Rubina turned out to have holy power in the first place—but the girl had the kind of momentum that, if she ever did become a healer, would send her flinging herself into the adventuring life before the week was out.
It wasn't as if being a healer had nothing but drawbacks.
Their growth rate set healers decisively apart from—and above—priests. It made sense: priests were pinned to their cathedrals, drilled and trained among their own kind, but no amount of formal training could be more desperate than the lessons a healer learned running the field with their own two hands.
On top of that, healers could use holy power far more efficiently.
A priest couldn't pick out just the injured part and heal it alone.
To put it in extreme terms: if you scraped yourself on a rock, a priest had to perform a full-body mend, while a healer just had to press a hand to the spot and it was done.
Which meant a priest burned through holy power far faster than a healer.
In other words, when it came to stamina and endurance, the healer had the edge.
Party members preferred healers over priests, too. With a healer glued to your back ready to cast the instant anything went wrong, it simply felt steadier than having a priest around.
But what good were all those advantages for?
Priests looked down on healers as beneath them.
And that was exactly why Yona couldn't bring herself to let Rubina become one.
"So why do you want to be a healer, anyway?"
Alec's voice drifted over.
Yona, too, pricked up her ears and waited for Rubina's answer—not out of generosity, exactly, but because something in her felt like she had to hear it.
"Because... if I'm a healer, then like you, big sister... I can fix people who are hurting, right away..."
"...Huh."
It was a maddeningly hard answer to argue with.
Yona opened her mouth to bark that priests could do just as much of that as they pleased, then barely swallowed it at a look from Alec.
"All right, all right, let's move. Three days or so and we'll be in Carpatia."
At James's shout, Alec scooped Rubina up into his arms, and Yona quickened her pace as well.
*
"A pleasure to meet you, Lord Ludwig. Ah—perhaps 'Lord Hero' would be more fitting?"
Ludwig was caught off guard by the abrupt visit.
Her snow-white hair shimmered, brimming with luster, and her red lips glowed vividly despite not a trace of makeup—striking, to say the least.
On the whole, she was very—
...Alevian, was it?
Yes. She looked an awful lot like that elf.
And she was every bit as beautiful, too.
"My name is Ceres Olkamain."
The woman bore a resemblance so uncanny it might have been the same person, greeting them with a smile brimming to the edges, while Bishop Paléo, standing between them, added an explanation for Ludwig's benefit.
"She is the Regent of the Grand Duchy of Carpatia, and also the Senior Elder of the Carpatia branch of the Heavenly God Church."
"Ah."
Regent, elder—honestly, he had little idea what any of that meant.
But one thing Ludwig understood clearly enough: this was someone important—whether she sat in high places or not he couldn't quite say, but regardless, she was a very formidable person indeed.
"And this is Saintess Vigrind. The Heavenly God descended in person to choose her."
"Oh my."
The woman's eyes curved into perfect crescents.
So this was what an unreserved smile looked like.
Watching Ceres, Vigrind privately decided that she must be a good person.
"It's been how long since such a thing happened? The Heavenly God descending in person to choose a Saintess—truly a momentous blessing for our church."
"She has not yet received formal ordination at the Infula Holy See, so it cannot be officially proclaimed... no, no. Please, everyone, sit. This is no occasion to be standing about."
Only after Bishop Paléo finished speaking did Ceres take the first seat on the sofa.
Though she ranked alongside Bishop Paléo, Ceres—as a guest of the Senior Elder—had one extra claim to precedence, and so only after she sat did the bishop, Ludwig, and Vigrind all settle onto the sofa as well.
"I was the one who suggested waiting, because it seemed only right that you meet Elder Olkamain before departing for Infula."
A warm, kindly chuckle rippled through the room.
It had already been nearly two weeks since they arrived at Carpatia Port.
Even leaving immediately from here, the journey to Infula would take another two weeks, so while Ludwig and Vigrind had both been eager to set out a day sooner, Bishop Paléo had asked them to wait a few more days, saying there was someone he wished to introduce. And so they had simply been waiting.
And that someone had turned out to be Ceres Olkamain.
They hadn't been idling, of course—the two had made the rounds of introductions within the cathedral, meeting everyone they needed to meet, and had already stamped their faces into no small number of memories.
"How merciful the Heavenly God is. To pour such abundant concern even upon lowly creatures like us, that we might prepare for the calamity to come—how could we ever repay such grace?"
At Ceres's words, Bishop Paléo nodded along.
"And such a stately, dignified Hero besides, and that overwhelming holy power of hers... truly worthy of the name Saintess. Saintess Vigrind."
"Y-you flatter me."
Yes—this is it.
Vigrind found herself thoroughly taken with this regent-slash-elder called Ceres Olkamain.
Back in Evian, she had never been more than the second-best, forever trapped beneath the shadow of one Yona—but the instant she left that place behind, here was someone who recognized her true worth.
And even called her the very sort of person fit to be a Saintess.
"Come to think of it, Lord Ludwig, Lady Vigrind—you seem to have done no traveling outside at all since arriving in Carpatia."
"That's correct. As neither of them has received formal ordination yet, it would be rather a burden to announce them on a grand scale at this stage, you see."
"In that case, hmm—"
Ceres seemed to consider something.
Her deliberation did not last long, and soon she smoothed her smile back into place.
"Then, shall I extend an invitation to my estate? After all, you've come all the way to Carpatia Port—I really do think you ought to experience a proper full-course seafood meal."
"Oh my."
Seafood.
She must mean fish.
Ludwig might have had his chances, but Vigrind had never once eaten seafood in her life.
Evian sat deep in the interior, where a person had no occasion to even see a fish. Her entire knowledge of the sea amounted to hearing that it was a place where living things breathed underwater.
"However... that might be..."
Bishop Paléo looked somewhat troubled.
It wasn't a bad offer, and refusing the proposal of the Senior Elder of the Carpatia branch would look poor form besides.
But the Hero and the Saintess had not yet received formal ordination.
They hadn't even been publicly proclaimed.
Was it proper to let such a pair go gallivanting about on private errands? On that point, Bishop Paléo couldn't quite convince himself.
"But really—if the Saintess of the Heavenly God Church were to admit she'd never so much as tasted seafood, wouldn't that be the true embarrassment? And we'll pair it with Carpatia's pride, our wine, on top of that. What do you say—"
Ceres turned to Bishop Paléo.
Her eyes brimmed full to overflowing with a blooming smile.
"That is, how I see it."
Bishop Paléo hesitated for a moment.
But in the end, blocking even this seemed a step too far.
It wasn't as if Ceres had said anything untrue—far from it.
Then, three days hence. I shall send a carriage for you. Please make your way there.
With those parting words, Ceres took her leave.
"Have you ever eaten seafood before, Lord Ludwig?"
Walking through the garden outside their lodgings, Vigrind asked him.
Marlene was landlocked too, but he had left Marlene behind and come all this way, so she thought there was a fair chance he'd tried it at least once.
"Of course, many a time. I've even seen a whale as big as the sky."
"A whale as big as the sky?"
What a joke. Did he take me for a complete fool?
Vigrind said as much, scowling.
But Ludwig's face was so utterly serious that she found herself wavering.
"...A whale that truly is that big actually exists?"
The sea was impossibly vast, wasn't it?
Maybe it really was possible.
So Vigrind thought.
"That was a joke."
At the sight of Ludwig's crinkling, laughing face, Vigrind devoted a long moment to imagining bringing her palm down across his back with every ounce of strength she possessed.