Cleaning Up (2)
The atmosphere inside the carriage froze in an instant.
Scarlet, so massive that Yona had to crane her neck just to look up at her, strode forward until she loomed directly over her, and divinity began seeping out from behind her visor like a hazy breath.
"U-uh, um, th-that is..."
Yona trailed off and took a step back, though her eyes stayed fixed on the morningstar strapped across Scarlet's back.
At the moment it looked like an ordinary mace, its spikes retracted, but the instant Scarlet drew it, those spikes would no doubt come bursting out in a spray.
"Speak, Miss Yona. How is it that you know of that particular trait of a lich—that it is a being of the life aspect? And that tattoo on your arm—what, pray, is that? A script that looks deeply ominous at the very first glance, if you ask me."
Scarlet bent slowly at the waist to peer down into Yona's face.
Her gleaming eyes bored through the visor, staring hard at Yona's face as cold sweat trickled down it.
"What do you think you're doing, Sir Paladin?"
And with that, Alec yanked Yona firmly behind him and stepped forward, shielding her with his body.
Alec's face was anything but pleasant.
The sight of Scarlet, so obviously intent on persecuting Yona, made his stomach twist into knots.
Yona might be stubborn as all hell, but she was still a girl.
Only Alec knew her true nature.
And besides, for someone she'd met today—a Paladin no less, from the very same cathedral—to hound his comrade like this, well. The whole tableau left a bitter taste in the mouth.
"Stand aside, adventurer. Information on high-ranking demons is known only to those within the Church itself. I have a need to know how Miss Yona came by such knowledge. As a Knight of the Crusade Special Task Force, that is."
"You're the one who should move, Sir Paladin."
Alec drew his hammer and growled low in his throat.
An adventurer could never afford to be cowed—not anywhere, not by anyone.
Wasn't it a trade that lived and died on pride alone?
Show weakness even once, and people would start looking down on you immediately. That was what it meant to be an adventurer.
Besides, the hand clutching the hem of Alec's clothes right now—Yona's hand—was trembling like a leaf.
To hand her over with an Ah, I see, then—? The very idea was laughable.
Kayak came around to stand behind Alec.
His axes were warped this way and that, their teeth long since gone, but propping up Alec's pride mattered more than that.
And protecting Yona mattered far more still.
Kayak bared his teeth and growled, as though chewing each word before spitting it out.
"Yona is clergy-born too, Sir Paladin. She's the one who rescued Rubina and brought her all this way—did the work your own cathedral was supposed to do."
James, too, quietly stepped forward, shielding Yona behind his bulk.
"Well now, seems the good Sir Paladin can't tell his arse from his elbow. If Miss Yona heard it at the cathedral, what of it, I'd like to know?"
James bared his molars in a sardonic grin.
His eyes weren't smiling at all—the fierce set of an orc's gaze stayed exactly as it was.
"Big sis, big sis..."
Rubina, who had been sitting beside Vigrind picking crumbs off her cookie, came pattering over in a rush and clutched at Yona's sleeve.
Yona, face gone white and drenched in sweat, looked down at the girl and forced a smile.
"Now, let's stop here, Sir Scarlet."
Having watched long enough, Ludwig rose from his seat and spoke.
Scarlet flicked a glance at him, but that was all.
Her gaze remained nailed to Alec—or rather, to Yona cowering behind him.
"That's enough, Sir Scarlet. Yona may be a Healer, but she was raised within the cathedral from childhood. Besides, it was I who told her about the possibility of a lich."
At that, the atmosphere turned strange in an instant.
Ceres had never told Yona any such thing—but there was no need to say you never told me that here and now.
"...You might have mentioned it sooner, Elder. I shall question you regarding the leak of classified information at a later time. Now then—as for the tattoo on her arm."
"It's just a tattoo. Some old victory incantation that gets passed down among adventurers, that sort of thing."
"And how would you come to know of it, Elder?"
"Because I'm the one who inked it on her."
Lies poured out of Ceres's mouth without a drop of shame.
But it wasn't as though Yona could tactlessly step in here with Actually, that's not true, so she kept her mouth shut.
"...Is that so?"
And with that, Scarlet turned away.
Or rather, she tried to.
And in that instant, Alec's hand clamped down on her shoulder.
"Asking questions is asking questions—you can hash that out with her and Elder Ceres yourselves. But you owe Yona an apology first, wouldn't you say?"
Alec's face was a mask of fury.
Blood-red with rising rage, his hand stayed locked on Scarlet's shoulder.
"A Cathedral Knight is supposed to act like one, but wearing that tin can over your head, I guess you can't see past your own nose. Don't you think you ought to apologize to Yona first? If you can't tell front from back, I'd be happy to pry that tin can off you myself."
"...How insolent. Break something playing like that, and you won't manage so much as a proper apology."
"Before anything breaks, I can crush that tin can of yours flat."
"You've no sense of heaven or earth at all, do you."
"I'd say I'm better at it than you, at least. Even a fool knows that when you've done wrong, you say 'I was wrong' and apologize first. If even a scrawny little adventurer knows that, how does the high and mighty Sir Paladin not? Or—"
Alec curled his lip up into a grin.
"—does your cathedral simply not teach that sort of thing?"
"Why, you—!"
CLANG!
CLANG!
It happened in an instant.
Before Yona—who now stood frozen with her face gone deathly pale—could so much as cry out to stop him, Scarlet swung her mace at Alec.
But at some point Alec had already drawn his shield, holding it up over his head, and the mace slammed into it and stopped dead.
What was more, Alec's hammer, at some point in the exchange, had already crashed into Scarlet's side.
That was how the two metallic rings came to sound, one after the other, and the atmosphere inside the carriage was spiraling toward its worst.
"Well, well. So your might only works against the slow-moving dead, does it? Looks like shieldwork is my win, I'd say."
Alec grinned and taunted her again.
To be fair, without a Blessing or any such thing, and fighting anything other than the undead, a Paladin's strength did tend to lose a bit of its shine—but even so, Alec was moving fast enough to look downright strange.
And only Kayak and James noticed what that meant.
"You damned—!"
Scarlet was raising her mace a second time when—
"Stop. Stop this at once."
A voice like carved ice split the two apart.
Ceres's voice, saturated with mana, carried a compulsion with it, and thanks to that, the two combatants burning hot with battle fury were able to cool somewhat.
"Just what do you think you're doing in someone else's carriage? Sir Scarlet—I told you I informed Miss Yona. So what is the meaning of this? Adventurer or not, Healer or not, Miss Yona is a woman who received her education within the cathedral. Push this persecution any further, and I will not stand idle either."
Ceres's voice was as cold and cutting as a frostbitten wind.
In her glaring eyes, anger blazed white-hot.
Clear as day, this whole mess had been born of Scarlet's hair-trigger reaction, and so the blame fell squarely where it belonged.
"Apologize to Miss Yona. Otherwise, I shall send a formal letter of protest to His Holiness the Pope. Not as senior elder of the Carpithia branch, mind you, but as Regent of Carpatia Port. I will make absolutely certain His Holiness knows precisely what discourtesy you, Sir Scarlet, committed against Miss Yona—the savior of Carpatia Port."
Scarlet rumbled low in her throat and lowered her mace.
Alec shrugged and returned his hammer to his belt, stowing the shield away as well.
Then he turned around, bent at the waist, and brought himself level with Yona's eyes.
"Yona. It's all right."
"Ah, aah... y-yeah..."
Before she knew it, tears were welling up in Yona's eyes, which had been shaking uncontrollably just moments before.
Her tears shimmered on the verge of spilling over, and Alec brushed them away lightly with his finger, managing a smile.
"So easily frightened—what good's a man like that? Don't cry, Yona. I told you I'd protect you, didn't I?"
Scarlet offered her apology to Yona in a voice thick with reluctance, and Yona, for her part, accepted it just as grudgingly.
They considered ending the escort right then and heading straight for the Community, but Rubina's situation weighed on them too heavily for that, and so, with no better option, the carriage turned toward Semek.
First priority: finding out exactly what had happened in Semek—what had occurred, how, and whose scheme had set it all in motion.
Besides, Ceres had secretly spirited Yona and the other adventurers away to deliver a profound apology, and once again she'd come asking for their help—hardly something they could refuse outright.
And so the carriage rolled on toward Semek.
Night had already fallen, dinner was finished, and it was time for everyone to turn in.
Yona and Alec had climbed up onto the roof of the carriage and were sitting side by side.
"...What was that about?"
Her voice had calmed back to its usual register, but her tone had not.
Yona's voice was flat and sunk deep, and Alec, who had been gazing up at the stars, turned to look at her.
"What about what?"
"You. You're weak."
"Wh—where'd that come from? Pick a fight with me, why don't you."
"N-no, it's not a fight."
"I know, I know."
She meant to ask why he'd gone and picked a quarrel with someone like Scarlet, obviously.
Alec wrinkled his nose.
He wondered for a moment whether she truly didn't understand—but if it was Yona, then yes, she was probably genuinely asking.
She wasn't the type to size people up and probe at them for her own advantage, the way quick-witted sorts do. She just wasn't built that way.
"...I just. Felt like it, is all."
"'Felt like it,' and that's your whole answer?"
"Hey—if I don't protect my own comrade, who the hell's going to? You're stating the obvious."
Yona didn't answer.
She just kept gazing up at the night sky, silent, offering nothing at all.
Alec, who'd half expected her to say something, waited a good long while—and when she still said nothing, he simply went back to watching the stars.
"...Hey."
"Hm?"
Alec had been drifting toward sleep when Yona's voice reached him. He rubbed his eyes and turned back toward her, and there she was, grinning crookedly at him.
"Thanks."
"For what now?"
"For protecting me."
"Yeah, well. You ought to be."
"Next time, I'll protect you. I swear it."
Yona bared her teeth in a mischievous, boyish grin.
Alec wasn't about to be outdone, baring his own teeth in a bright smile of his own.
Bright as it was, there was something hopelessly awkward about that smile.
"You know—you've always been protecting me, all along. To me, you're a far better comrade than any Saintess, better than any priest."
"Is that so? Real sweet talker tonight, aren't you, my little blockhead."
Yona scrambled to her feet and plopped down beside Alec.
When she settled into a cross-legged seat, her bare legs flashed through the side slit of her nun's habit, and Alec—once again—pulled the hem of the habit down to cover them.
"How do you manage to make everything that comes out of your mouth so damn pretty, you blockhead?"
Yona's hand reached out and patted Alec's head.
The feel of it was still perfectly, impossibly smooth.
'"What was it he said—prickly? Like some second-rate hero,' she thought.
She loved this feeling.
Only now did Yona's heart finally settle at ease.