Chapter 270
Chapter 270
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 270
Chapter Title: Autumn's Entrance #6
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The wide wooden board I received from Juno's priestess, Arma Mandel, had a single scroll pinned flat to it with nails.
It was covered in tiny script, and the content was roughly as follows.
『While having a wife, have you ever transformed the neighbor's wife into a sow and raped her? O / X』
『While having a wife, have you ever raped a princess trapped in a foreign land and gotten her pregnant? O / X』
『While having a wife, have you ever pretended to be another man's wife’s husband and raped her, getting her pregnant? O / X』
『While having a wife, have you ever raped nymphs and made their lives hell? O / X』
What the hell is this?
I couldn't help but frown and doubt my own eyes. What kind of chart is this? Does it even mean anything? Is there anyone who could circle an O here?
At least not me, so I marked X's with a fountain pen on all of them.
Out of the total 30 questions, every single one got an X.
"All done? Hand it back, please."
When I returned it to Juno's priestess, Mandel, she glanced over the scroll this way and that before nodding.
"As proxy for the almighty Juno, I judge that this barbarian cannot be said to have cheated."
"What!? What do you mean? If this isn't cheating, then what is...!"
Luna cried out as if truly shocked. In response, Juno's priestess Mandel said,
"Of course, there are a wide range of views on cheating. Our Juno priestesses are still debating various theories to broaden the scope. The hardliners try to apply 'if it hurts a woman's feelings, it's cheating,' but that way, you could even pin the sin of infidelity on a husband sneaking a piece of meat."
"B-but Hassan really did cheat...."
"Hmm, Samaritan Hassan. One of the most famous adventurers in this city, right? So you're Hassan?"
"More or less."
"But from what I know, the Samaritan Hassan is single. Are the two of you lovers who have promised fidelity going forward, by any chance?"
At the priestess's question, Luna and I looked at each other's faces. Soon, Luna bowed her head slightly, wiggling her protruding toes in her sandals as she mumbled,
"W-well, something like that-"
"And what is the young lady's name?"
"Luna Noxdoty."
"Hmm, Luna Noxdoty. Sounds familiar somehow. Wait here just a moment-"
Juno's priestess Mandel clicked away on her heels and left the room.
Luna and I sat facing each other at the table on the terrace in that corner of Juno's temple. A cool breeze swept away the cold sweat of tension from my forehead, making me feel a bit better.
Turning my head slightly, I could see the wide, beautiful garden I'd glimpsed on the way in. Children were playing there.
Compared to other temples, there were a lot of kids here. Was it doubling as a daycare?
"Now you're it...!"
"Ah! That's cheating!"
"Crying won't help...!"
And before I knew it, Paranoia had gone out to the garden and was playing tag with the little ones. Clumped together like that, she looked no different from a child no matter how I squinted.
That's when Luna, who had been sitting at the table like me, gazing at the garden, spoke up.
"Paranoia seems to like it here."
"Playing with the kids like that, you can't tell them apart."
"Well, yeah. Nymphs are cursed to remain children forever."
"Yeah?"
Cursed to remain children forever—
It wasn't entirely unfamiliar. The innkeeper's wife, the nymph Echo, was the same. And Paranoia too—when I'd grabbed her wrist, she'd borne the curse of stunted growth.
Was it not a personal curse, but one on the nymph race itself?
"Of course, the nymphs' curse is mostly men's fault."
"Why?"
"Because men kept messing with nymphs and committing impurities, and the suffering nymphs' prayers kept rising to the heavens, until Juno, unable to bear it, pitied them and laid the curse."
Pitying them by cursing them instead of blessing. It was hard for me to grasp, but common sense in this world differed from what I knew.
"So that's how all nymphs ended up looking like children. Of course, no one knows if it's true, since it's just an old tale."
"I see."
When I first met her, she seemed like a young pubescent girl, but once the curse was lifted, the innkeeper's wife Echo was indeed a voluptuous, seductive married woman.
Thanks to that, the Nymph Wing Inn's sales had skyrocketed, and as a bonus, the innkeeper was tearing his hair out over men hitting on his wife.
If every nymph wandering this world was like Echo, problems would erupt everywhere without surprise.
That's part of why I hadn't lifted Paranoia's stunted growth curse either.
Hmm, I see.
As I nodded in that realization, I suddenly noticed Luna and I had fallen silent again. It wasn't all that rare for us to sit like this without talking.
Even as lovers living together with feelings for each other, we couldn't burn the whole day focused solely on one another.
Luna and I had often quietly enjoyed each other's company in the same space, immersed in our own tasks.
But back then, the silence felt comfortable, like a warm blanket settling warmly on our shoulders. Now, it felt a bit unfamiliar.
After greeting every morning and night together, spending a few days or weeks apart had carved some gap between Luna and me, perhaps.
No, it wasn't 'perhaps'—it must be why.
The glass orbs that were Luna and I had collided intensely toward each other and cracked.
No matter what you patch over those cracks to fill the holes, the glass orbs wouldn't be as pretty or perfectly round as before.
"Hassan, lost in thought again."
"Uh—yeah."
"Still the same, huh."
"I've lived that way my whole life. Probably always will."
"Maybe it's all the recent hardship, but your eyes look even deeper now. Like an abyss."
"Yeah?"
I stroked my face.
Stubbly beard and a noticeably gaunt face met my palm.
Lately, several people had commented that my face looked hollowed out, so clearly my condition wasn't great at a glance.
But what could I do?
Separated from Luna, living apart, I hadn't even known where my meals went, and my will to live had died down a lot.
I finally understood the mindset of friends who'd turned into shut-ins after breaking up with girlfriends.
Someone once said,
Love is a reaction of hormones and chemistry.
The process of those love-altering hormones returning to normal felt utterly depressing.
It had sounded plausible back then, but experiencing it myself, I wondered if it could really be dismissed as mere hormonal action.
It felt like my world—my life itself—had shattered.
Amid that, thuggish bastards raided my inn, tomatoes flew at me—it was no wonder my face darkened.
Had Luna suffered like me?
Glancing at her face, aside from the puffiness from crying earlier, Luna looked as radiant as ever.
Luna spoke.
"While you were gone, I kept reading the newspaper you made for me."
"Yeah?"
"At first, I was so mad I wanted to gather up everything related to you and throw it out. But as I did, I started seeing things. And once I started reading, I couldn't throw it away."
I recalled the newspaper I'd made for Luna.
Something like a shabby, clumsy letter that I'd slaved over all night hoping she'd like it—and it seemed to have turned her heart even a little.
"So I missed you so much I cried my eyes out every day. I hated Hippolyte, and you a ton, but I just bawled anyway."
"..."
"I still hate Hippolyte. So I'm using her for all she's worth. Anyway, it was so hard for me. I'd never been through anything like this, no one to ask. But if you'd been living happily without me, that would've hurt even more."
I turned my head silently. Clouds drifted leisurely across the sky. People chattered, sharing pleasant conversations. Everything flowed peacefully.
But those people must have swayed like reeds in various winds at times too.
From afar, did we look like an ordinary couple enjoying a peaceful moment? Sure, a pink-haired and black-haired foreigner pair wasn't exactly ordinary, but still...
I opened my mouth.
"Sorry."
"Hassan, I want you to suffer more. You should go through not sleeping every night like I did."
"I'm already suffering plenty."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"...I see."
Luna seemed genuinely pleased to hear I'd been suffering a lot.
Not that I'd intended it, but maybe it gave her some subtle sense of vindication.
"I want you to suffer more because of me. I'll curse you with that."
"Curse?"
"Yeah! A really terrifying curse. Now, whenever Hassan sees me, you'll feel guilty. And you'll think about treating me even better from now on, and say you can't live without me."
"What kind of curse is that?"
Wondering what curse that could be, I looked at Luna's face. A breeze from somewhere tousled her twintails.
Luna grabbed her hair, smoothing it back as if to hold it in place, and smiled lightly. Smiling, she said,
"—The curse of forgiveness."
Indeed.
Yeah, that makes sense.
*
*
*
Juno's priestess—whatever her full name was—returned quite a while later.
I'd thought she'd prepared something grand, but her hands were empty as she came back to our table.
Mandel said,
"So, did the two of you have a good talk?"
"Yeah. Probably."
Luna answered with some vigor. Seeing that, Mandel replied with a satisfied look.
"You're not married yet. The issue you're dealing with is something even our Juno temple can't touch. And most problems resolve through conversation."
Perhaps Juno's priestess Mandel had deliberately left us alone, knowing we'd have a deep talk.
Come to think of it, couple's counseling programs often just had people talk to each other.
Conversations you might have plenty of normally, but surprisingly, people hide and bottle things up inside. Without a special place or chance like this, they keep it buried until it explodes.
In that sense, this woman seemed to have some wise insight. Mandel—what was her name again. Arma Mandel. Right. She added a few more words.
"This garden is full of lotuses that Juno cherishes. These special lotuses have the effect of calming the mind and soothing emotions. That's why it's also called the Garden of Conversation."
"I see."
"Anyway, I'm glad it seems resolved. If you're pleased with my service, when you two eventually marry, I'd love for Arma Mandel to give the benediction."
"Sure!"
"And if a similar issue arises after marriage, come together then. I'll cut right to it. Crush it too, if needed."
I suddenly felt a chill in my groin. I hoped never to have reason to come back here.
At that moment, Mandel said,
"Since you're here, how about a reading on your marriage fortune? Normally it'd be 1 silver gratuity, but your karma is so unique, I want to divine it myself. On the house."
"Divination? I love divination!"
Luna, steeped in voodoo, couldn't resist things like fortunes or readings.
Probably because her mother, the goddess of night Nox, handled dark, ignorant superstitions. And free? Irresistible.
And so Luna and I ended up at some odd table for a reading. It seemed to use cards, like tarot.
Mandel, now draped in a white cloth like a veil over her head, shuffled the cards and said,
"People possess one of the Five Elements as their attribute. Fire, water, wood, metal, earth. These five are the main attributes for people."
Like Pokémon?
"First, let's divine young lady Luna Noxdoty's attribute. Pick one card from these lined up here."
Luna was Chikorita, so grass—er, wood type. As I thought that, Luna flipped one card.
There was a truly massive tree drawn on it.
"Wood? My attribute is wood?"
"Indeed. Wood thrives with water and fire. And it's countered by—"
"Metal and earth?"
At my question, Mandel's expression under the veil seemed a bit surprised.
"You know the Five Elements theory, Samaritan?"
"A little."
You couldn't avoid learning about these attributes studying quack traditional medicine at the health center.
The herbs, acupuncture, and massage varied by attribute, though I didn't know the details. Did I even have one that fit?
With that in mind, it was my turn to draw. As I reached out, Mandel stopped me firmly, like slamming the brakes.
"Wait, Samaritan. You need to draw two cards."