One Moon, One Moon (3)
Lizard Den — the place where Lizardmen lived, and so it was named.
The very settlement where the Lizardmen, who worshipped not the Heavenly God but the Water God, had made their home for untold generations.
It was also the destination Yona and Alec had set for themselves.
"Got everything packed?"
It was right before they stepped out of the inn, just as they were leaving the Wizard Community behind.
Yona stared at Alec with a sour expression as he stepped out of her room. "…What?"
"No, it's just — what's gotten into you all of a sudden, Baldy?"
"What do you mean, me?"
"Since when have you ever looked after me like that?"
"Ha."
Alec couldn't help but laugh it off awkwardly.
There wasn't a single trace of embarrassment on Yona's face as she fired off the question out of nowhere.
All this time, Alec had been looking after everything for her — from the food she ate to every little thing besides — and the absurd part was that Yona herself had never noticed, which was exactly how this moment came to pass.
He could hardly snap back, I've been taking care of you all this time and you never even noticed— Doing that would only have Yona bristling at him, demanding since when, and it would turn into a whole tiresome mess.
Clearly, quietly looking after her like this did nothing.
He had to make it visible.
She needed to understand just how much he had been caring for her all along — that it was because of Alec that she had made it this far alive.
Alec resolved himself all over again.
"That's what I'm doing from now on. Happy?"
"Good grief… Fine, yeah, I've got everything. Let's go."
Yona slung her bag over her shoulder and swept her gaze around the room, turning only her head.
They hadn't stayed all that many days, but plenty had happened in this room, and it had been fairly comfortable besides. Such a room — Yona gave it one slow, complete look around, then gave Alec's back a couple of pats and broke into a grin.
When they came down to the first floor, Alevian was waiting to see them off.
The moment Yona laid eyes on that elf with his forever-hazy, oddly unsettling gaze, her face stiffened — but the look didn't last long.
"Off you go now, our pretty one?"
"Yeah. We have to. Any longer and we'll just burn through money for nothing."
"You should've taken it when I offered, then."
One hundred and twenty gold coins — that was how much Alevian had scraped clean out of Yona's hands, down to the very bottom of her purse.
Having blown through every last one of them, Yona's pockets now held nothing but a small handful of silver.
Truly, if not for Alec, Yona would have had no choice but to scrape together some kind of work right here and save up more money somehow.
Which was why Alevian had offered to give her some gold.
Not that Yona had refused—
"It's fine. I've got Alec."
Yona answered in a careless, offhand tone, glancing up at Alec from the corner of her eye.
At that look — right? I'm right, aren't I? — Alec smiled and gave a small nod.
"So our baldy's basically hired our pretty one, has he?"
"Oh come on, hired? We're comrades, comrades."
"What kind of comrades split their money? If she's taking your coin, that's an employment relationship."
"Ah…"
At Alevian's words, Yona found herself temporarily unable to answer.
Because, come to think of it, that wasn't exactly wrong either.
"Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about. I'll get in touch with Ceres, so stop by on your way back from Lizard Den. By then, an answer from Ceres may have come through as well."
"We'll do that. Yona, let's hurry. Any later and we won't make much distance before we have to camp."
Alec cut in, interrupting Alevian mid-sentence.
As if they truly needed to rush, he had a firm grip on Yona's wrist.
"Huh? Ah — yeah. Let's go. Alevian, we'll head out first, then. See you later."
"Of course. Safe travels."
Alevian waved, and Yona waved back.
So did Alec — but after only a brief wave, as if they really couldn't spare another moment, he set off at a brisk pace with his grip locked around Yona's wrist.
◆◇◆
There was no telling what manner of magic had been worked on it, but the moment one rounded the entrance, the Wizard Community looked like nothing more than an ordinary village again.
Step fully outside and glance back, and the enormous, towering mage structure was nowhere to be seen — just a humble little town of a few two-story buildings, and nothing more.
"It really is something."
"That's why they call it magic. Come on, hurry up."
"Hey, hey — why the rush? You're going to rip my arm off."
And yet, even as she complained, Yona didn't shake off Alec's grip on her wrist — no, on her hand, now.
Somehow, naturally, it had simply come to be that way.
Yona stared down at Alec's hand, wrapped around her own.
Hands were fine, weren't they?
Honestly, a hand was really nothing at all, right?
She'd let him grope her chest, and compared to that, a hand was hardly—
Chest.
The thought sent a ticklish heat welling up from somewhere deep in her gut all over again.
That feeling, like a fever blooming under her skin.
"…What're you smirking about?"
"Nothing."
Alec grinned, showing his teeth.
Yona glared at him with a look of pure displeasure, then gave a contemptuous hmph and pressed her lips into a pout.
"Let's just get moving. You're the one who said we couldn't afford to be late."
"Right. Let's go."
The road to Lizard Den was by no means close.
It was farther even than the distance from the Infula Holy See to the Wizard Community, so there was real need to hurry.
"If we walk it… wow, this is going to take more than five days on foot."
Yona spread the map across her palms and measured the distance with her fingers.
Infula Holy See to the Wizard Community — and then the Wizard Community to Lizard Den.
Seeing that the second leg was the longer of the two, it looked like another long, hard march ahead of them.
"Keep walking and you'll get there eventually. There are villages along the way, so we can rest at one and move on. Besides, time's the one thing we've got plenty of now."
"What did you just say? Hey — I need to get this tattoo erased fast. You heard it ruined the ritual, and you're telling me to take my time?"
Alec laughed at Yona's narrowed, furious eyes.
He understood. Of course he did.
How could he not?
But Alec knew a truth he could never bring himself to tell her.
That time was on his side.
Even if Yona never learned it, that much — that one fact — Alec alone knew.
◆◇◆
The road to Lizard Den wasn't particularly complicated.
Follow the shoreline of Lake Cantasia straight on, and a small town called Cantatien appeared; pass through Cantatien and keep going, and there it was.
"But we shouldn't head straight for Lizard Den the way it's marked on the map."
Walking the lakeside road, Yona spoke to Alec, who was a few paces ahead.
She remembered.
Kayak had said, clearly, that his tribe lived near the North Cantasia River — but on the map, Lizard Den sat along the southern bank of the Cantasia. There was almost certainly a difference.
"Still, going to Lizard Den is the better call."
"Why?"
Alec disagreed.
Even granting everything Kayak had said, his opinion was that Lizard Den was the better choice — and that put him at odds with Yona.
"Look how big Lake Cantasia is. You really think the North Cantasia River feeding it is going to be small? What if we trek all the way up there and can't find them? Even if it's Kayak's tribe, we have no idea how big it is. If we go charging off blind and come up empty, we're in serious trouble."
"Hmm… you've got a point there."
"It's smarter to go to Lizard Den and ask them to bring Kayak to us. He said himself they wouldn't treat us poorly once his name came up, remember?"
"That's true."
Yona nodded, tearing off a strip of the dried meat she was carrying.
Alec's reasoning did hold up.
A place called Lizard Den would have plenty of Lizardmen living in it, so if they went there and said they were looking for Kayak, someone would surely guide them.
Rather than wandering blind through the unfamiliar North Cantasia River country searching for them, this was probably the better way after all.
The Lake Cantasia that spread out behind them was beautiful.
For all that it was a lake, Lake Cantasia was so vast a single glance could not take it all in —
vast enough to cradle, along its shores, both Cantatien and the Wizard Community, and the towns of Nordmunt and Finplera besides.
Water so coldly blue it ached to look at, so deep its bottom vanished from sight — a lake so immense one might mistake it, at first glance, for the open sea.
The light of the sun, just beginning its descent into the west, glittered endlessly across the surface.
Sunlight beginning to take on the gold of evening stitched fine, silk-thread shimmer across the water, and fish that leapt now and then with a small splash sometimes made a fine meal for the waterfowl hovering above.
Nameless grasses packed dense along the shoreline — tall enough to reach the waist — paid no heed to their own height, swaying in great rolling waves whenever the wind came through.
The place where the wind ran free.
The place where wind and lake met and became one.
A lake so beautiful it seemed to touch the sky itself.
And along that shore, Yona and Alec were walking.
Even as she walked, Yona kept glancing back at Lake Cantasia again and again.
Wouldn't it have been nice to have come here as a tourist.
Not this — not the kind of life where she risked her neck every single day — but a life of leisure, where she could wander wherever she pleased, taking in scenery like this at her own pace.
Well, how would it have been? Nice, obviously.
That was what impossible daydreams were.
That longing, to feast on something even in imagination because you know it can never be.
And so it was an empty thing.
"It'd be nice if the two of us came back here to have fun someday."
Yona flinched at the words.
She hadn't been thinking the two of us — but the moment Alec said something close to it, it startled her for no reason at all.
"Why'd you jump like that?"
To Alec, who was peering into her face, Yona shook her head as if nothing had happened.
"It's nothing. Let's go."
The road was flat, and quiet.
◆◇◆
"You went and pulled off something magnificent, I hear."
"Oh, I did. And I have absolutely no intention of letting you have your way and simply walk away from it."
Alevian was glaring at the silver-haired beauty smirking at her from beyond the crystal ball.
Whether or not she read the feelings behind that glare, Ceres did not drop her smirking expression for an instant.
"Did you really think I wouldn't know about your plan? Honestly — careless then, careless now. Some things never change."
"That's my line, Ceres. Your little scheme? I already know all about it. I know Berbaria has taken root in her, too. Some adjustments may be needed here and there, but in the end, Yona will go exactly as I intend."
"Will she, though? Who's to say, really? Whether your plan proves right or mine does — no one can know that yet. Besides, before long, that beast-kin nation will begin to move as well, won't it?"
"…None of your concern."
"It's not that it isn't your concern — it's that even knowing, you can't do a thing about it. Isn't that the more accurate way to put it?"
Alevian fought down, with every ounce of will she had, the urge to hurl the crystal ball across the room.
Provoking Ceres now would gain her nothing.
She had never imagined a web spun this fine, this dense.
She had no idea how Yona had blundered into it — but with the water already spilled, there was nothing to do but revise the plan as she went and push forward regardless.
"Do what you can, then. I can't say how much you'll manage to interfere — but I won't be sitting idle either. If anything, Yona will only come to lean on me more. No — in fact, I'd say she's already leaning on me more, wouldn't you agree?"
Alevian could not bring herself to say no.
Were it not for the body bound to this place, there was much she could have done — but with circumstances so uncooperative, even she had no other answer, and that was the plain truth.
"…Should I send Yona to you, then — or would it be better if you came here?"
"Hmm, I'm rather tied up with Semek myself. Going in person would be difficult. We may as well meet in Infula — it would be good to see your face after so long, after all."
"Fine. Then that's settled."
"Understood. I'll set out for Infula before long. Until then, then."
Alevian clenched her fist tight.
At the motion, the star-shaped magic circle that had been spinning round and round above her palm shattered with a crystalline crack, and in the same instant, Ceres's image floating within the crystal ball winked out.
"…That wretched bitch."
Alevian swore under her breath.
It was a rare thing, indeed.