To the Infula Church Territory (1)
"We depart for Infula tomorrow morning. Even if we pursued them now, I see no reason to believe we could stand against whatever it is—a lich, a vampire, anything—with our strength alone."
Not long after Yona and Alec returned, Ludwig and Vigrind came back as well. While everyone waited together, Ceres finished her statement with firm finality the moment they were all seated.
"I'm well aware of what Sir Scarlet might be thinking, but I have no desire to die like a dog in a place like this. If you wish to pursue them, do so alone with the Crusade Knights, Sir Scarlet. As for us, we leave for Infula the moment the sun rises tomorrow."
Ceres shut her mouth firmly, as if to say she would entertain no further objections.
Scarlet, who had been sitting on the seat until then, remained silent for a long while before giving a quiet nod.
"Then we shall return to the Church Territory together. That seems for the best."
It wasn't that Scarlet felt no regret. But the fact remained that this whole affair with the undead had begun five days ago. If the true culprit were still lingering in the area, they would surely have shown themselves by now to face their pursuers, and a battle would already have been fought.
Yet when they reached Semek, not a single trace of life remained—only a hollow village wrapped in utter silence, emptied of everything.
The Crusade Knights had combed the area on patrol and inspected every corner of the graveyard. Not a single corpse was left behind, and there was no trace of any magic to be found there either.
Viewed that way, this was clearly not the work of a lich. By process of elimination, it must be a vampire's doing—and vampires were, as ever, maddeningly difficult to track. Even if a pursuit began right this moment, there was no reason to think it would yield anything of value.
I should go to Infula and dispatch word to every cathedral. If that blood-mad bastard is out there, it'll raise hell soon enough.
That was the conclusion Scarlet reached after running the calculations. She was not so shortsighted as to force the issue beyond this point.
Besides, there was someone else she wanted to investigate more closely.
Something is definitely wrong with her.
From behind her helmet, Scarlet's gaze fixed on Yona—the adventurers lounging on the back seat, chattering among themselves as if none of this had anything to do with them, and standing out among them, the woman with the dull white hair.
Scarlet had seen it clearly. On the day she had stood against the undead, when the healer had unwound her Holy Shroud to mend her companion, a tattoo had covered the whole of her right arm. The color had been too faint to make out the details, but it was undeniably writing.
Dense letters covering her from shoulder to fingertip—who in their right mind would believe that was inked by choice? And so Scarlet had been watching Yona carefully ever since. There had to be a connection. She knew not yet what relationship this woman held with the heretics, but there was one—Scarlet was certain of it.
And perhaps she was even tied to the Dark Cabal, those wretched villains rampaging across the land. With every passing hour, Scarlet's suspicion of Yona only deepened.
"Anyway, Rubina—the Infula Church Territory is a wonderful place. You live well there, and I'll come visit now and then to play with you, alright?"
Rubina rolled her big black eyes up at Yona, gazing at her long and hard. Sleep hung heavy on her eyelids, but she rubbed her eyes to chase it away and listened to every last word Yona said.
"Is it... a place where nothing scary happens?"
By "scary things," she could only mean what had happened at Carpatia Port. Yona broke into a grin and nodded vigorously.
"Of course not. The people there, well—they really, really like... uh... yeah, they love helping people who are suffering and having a hard time."
That was the answer Yona had arrived at after racking her brain over how exactly to explain it so a child would understand.
"But Sis, I'm not suffering or having a hard time anymore..."
That answer went down in glorious flames, sunk by a single offhand remark from a blushing Rubina. Not that Yona could have taken her along to the Wizard Community again, either.
Because at the Community, she was going to receive the magical procedure and become a man again. If the person Rubina had been calling "big sister" up until that very moment suddenly became her "big brother"—Yona could only imagine the shock.
"But if you say so, Sis, then that's what I'll do. If I'm good and behave there, you'll come back for me, right?"
"Yeah. That's right. As long as you're good—really good—and obedient, and you get along with your friends without fighting."
"Okay! Then that's what I'll do!"
Rubina flashed a bright smile, and looking at her, a corner of Yona's heart—her conscience, in other words—gave a series of painful pricks.
"And Mister James, once we reach Infula, you'll be heading back to your village, right?"
"Aye, I suppose that'll be how it goes. The little ones are starting to miss me, y'know."
"You don't say you miss your wife, though?"
"...I do miss her. O-of course I do."
Leaving behind James, who for some reason had turned his head slightly to dodge her gaze before finally managing an answer, Yona looked over at Kayak. His destination only happened to lie in a similar direction—the North Cantasia River sat just beyond the Community, after all.
"Lizard, what about you?"
"As I said, I make for the North Cantasia River. I can accompany you as far as the Community."
The river lay past the Community anyway—which meant Kayak planned to travel with them the whole way. Yona let out a breath of relief.
"Speaking of which—Alec, you're coming with me to the Community too, right?"
"Obviously."
Kayak's gaze shifted to Yona.
"I asked Alec."
Only then did Yona register that the answer had just come out of her own mouth. She let out a boneheaded "ah," waved her hands frantically, and shook her head.
Alec, for his part, just stared at her with a blank expression.
"N-no, that's not what I meant."
"...Then what did you mean?"
"I-I'm the one going, so obviously this shiny-head wouldn't stay behind... th-that's what I meant. That's it. Nothing else."
"I cannot begin to fathom what this 'nothing else' might be. Human females truly are beyond understanding."
"No, that's not—!"
The misunderstanding only deepened the more she tried to untangle it, and Yona's face began to flush red. In her head, she'd already known Alec's answer. Why, then, had it come flying out of her own? Trying to explain it only made her feel like she was sinking deeper into quicksand.
"H-he's got a reward coming! One I promised to give him, that's why!"
At that, Kayak looked at Alec again. But Alec had no idea what Yona was talking about either. A reward? He'd never agreed to receive anything. He'd stepped up out of simple goodwill in the first place.
Well—goodwill, and maybe something a little more, something a little more personal than that, but regardless. In any case, Alec had no clue what "reward" Yona was supposedly planning to give him.
"...What reward? I don't recall agreeing to receive anything of the sort."
Yona's brain spun into overdrive. She had never promised any reward. But if she just said she was going with Alec... no, wait, hadn't Kayak already known about—
No, he hadn't. Kayak had joined at the Adventurer's Guild, so he couldn't know about any conversations she and Alec had had before that. Which meant she needed some suitably tempting reward—something that would make Alec sound eager to follow her. Something like...
Ah.
"My b-breast kneading voucher, obviously!"
In an instant, a dead silence fell over the carriage. The fallout from the words Yona had just blurted out was enormous.
Ceres wore the expression of someone wondering what manner of madness had just been spoken. Vigrind looked openly contemptuous. Ludwig's face was frozen in an awed ohhh.
And Scarlet showed no expression at all.
"That thing..."
At the end of the long silence, Alec finally forced the words out.
"...Didn't you already use it?"
Every expression in the carriage deepened at that. Ceres's face morphed into pure incredulity. Vigrind was glaring at Yona as though she'd witnessed something profoundly disgusting. Ludwig stared at Alec with an expression that practically begged—what is it, I have to know.
"A r-refill... no, wait, that's not it. Th-that one got, uh, used because of, you know, circumstances beyond my control... a-anyway, a new one was issued! A new one! Got it?!"
Scarlet-red in the face, Yona flailed and scrambled to slap a justification onto the situation. From where Alec sat, the situation was doing anything but calming down—useless, needless misunderstandings were compounding by the second—but one thing was absolutely certain.
From Alec's standpoint, there was no reason on earth to refuse.
"Got it. So we're traveling to the Community together. Fine."
"Y-yeah! That's it! That's exactly it!"
"Okay, got it, so stop yelling. Everyone's staring at us."
Only then did Yona snap back to her senses and look around. And she registered, all too clearly, the decidedly un-normal gazes of the people watching her.
Breast kneading voucher. Already used once. And now being given again.
Yona understood better than anyone what effect this three-line exchange had had on everyone present. Even if she said, "...No, actually, that's not what it sounds like..."
She knew perfectly well that the words would never land, never stick. She herself knew exactly what it sounded like.
"Ah, um. Well then. Miss Yona?"
Ceres cleared her throat lightly a few times before carefully addressing her.
"First of all... that is to say, even for the clergy, there's no celibacy rule as such, you see? And Miss Yona is a Healer rather than a priestess, so such regulations apply to you even less. Does that make sense?"
At Ceres's words, Yona's head drooped all the way down. She had absolutely no idea how to clear up this misunderstanding.
Would it even clear up, this misunderstanding? Maybe it would be better to just let them all think whatever they wanted.
But that thought didn't last long either.
"Which is why, Miss Yona... I do think that, well, the idea of worrying about children later might be, perhaps, a touch dangerous. That is merely my opinion, of course."
"That's NOT what it is!"
I have to fix this. I absolutely have to. This could not go on, Yona thought.