Hero, Where Does It Hurt?
“Ugh… fuck.”
Ciela spat out a thick curse and buried her face in both hands.
An indescribable shame had come crashing over her.
The reason was absurd.
She had drunk the Saintess’s bathwater, yet her Holy Power hadn’t increased at all.
If even a speck of it had grown she might have found some consolation, but it had literally risen by zero, leaving Ciela nothing more than a young man who had drunk the Saintess’s bathwater.
I’m not actually going to get smited for this, am I?
Even Ciela, who was far from devout, could not stop the self-loathing, guilt, and sense of sin from flooding in.
Drinking the water another woman had soaked her body in—if someone called her a pervert, she would have no defense.
At least with hand-flower tea she could invent some excuse.
Under the crushing weight of self-reproach and regret she soon began to rationalize, the same way she had once soothed herself that her Holy Power was only millet-sized because she simply wasn’t pious enough.
…Right now I’m naked, so I’m not Ciel—I’m Ciela, aren’t I?
In that case she was no longer a man who had drunk another woman’s bathwater; she was a woman. And just like that, a measure of psychological calm returned.
Women hold hands and go to the bathroom together, don’t they?
Then surely this much was fine? She’d even heard that nuns secretly sucked and licked each other…
Come to think of it, while she had stayed with the Order she thought she recalled stories of nuns who had been driven out for exactly that.
She had never seen it herself, but it had to be true.
Ciela was not in her right mind.
Rationalization complete, she cupped water from the wooden tub and wet her face. Her cheeks still burned, so the lukewarm water felt deliciously cool.
She clamped her lips shut tight, terrified any of it might slip into her mouth.
She clenched so hard that her neat six-pack stood out in sharp relief.
The chilled holy water traced her slender nape, slid down over her breasts, lingered along her thighs, then mingled with the holy water already pooled on the floor.
Having finished her rationalization and settled her heart, Ciela wiped down a body that was now all too familiar.
Even though the soft feminine lines were unmistakable, the firm muscle revealed how hard she had trained all her life.
Despite constant violent outdoor activity, her pale breasts made plain just how tightly she had always bound them.
The red marks left by the bandages were still vivid.
“Haa…”
It was only natural that Ciela felt a sense of liberation. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all that she thought of herself as someone else in these moments.
An excuse, of course.
She silently finished washing herself.
The body that grew more mature every year as she approached adulthood by this world’s standards was… troublesome.
As a child, living as a boy had been easy. It only got harder with time.
…There were times I wondered if I really needed the bandages.
Whatever experience she had lived through then, she clearly did not want to recall it; Ciela quickly finished washing and dried off.
Then she pulled back on the things she had shed like a cast-off skin.
She stepped into trousers that sat a little oddly thick at the crotch and wound the bandages Marcus had procured tightly around her breasts.
At first even wrapping them alone had been a struggle, but with the flexibility she had since developed it was no longer difficult.
The softly swelling silhouette was compressed into the shape of swollen muscle. Ciela layered clothes over it.
The upper body that had looked almost delicate shifted, however subtly, into an inverted triangle.
That, too, was a problem. In childhood it had barely shown, but year after year her hips widened and the layers she had to wear only multiplied.
That she still managed to present a masculine figure spoke to both her stubbornness and her skill.
Yet it was not purely a good thing. It had also been the reason those bastards she called “the Cartel” had taken a dislike to her.
Well, it hardly mattered to her. The problem had been out of her hands from the very beginning.
Just the pilgrimage… if the pilgrimage ends properly, everything will be solved.
Thinking that, Ciela returned once more to being Ciel, tidied the surroundings, and stepped outside.
Outside, the Saintess lay curled up on the bed, breathing softly in sleep; the whole day’s riding must have exhausted her thoroughly.
The way she slept, utterly ignorant of the world… what could one even call the feeling it stirred?
Ciel was, right now, a vigorous young man, so how could she leave herself so completely defenseless?
Does she just not imagine that sort of thing could ever happen?
Given the pure-hearted density of a Saintess’s brain, that possibility was not zero.
Let’s just decide she trusts me.
Ciela sighed inwardly and drew the blanket over the Saintess, who had not even covered herself.
She is pretty, though.
Looking down at the peacefully sleeping face while tucking the blanket in, she felt her cheeks grow faintly warm.
The young man who had drunk the bathwater and finished his rationalization only moments earlier had come roaring back to life.
She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, sat on the floor with her sword leaned against her body, and closed her eyes once more.
Sleeping in discomfort was something she did all the time; it should have been nothing.
Somehow, though, sleep did not seem likely to come easily.
It felt like punishment for coveting the bathwater.
“Hero, does it hurt?”
Ciela felt a throbbing ache in her head.
She could hardly say, “I just became a young man who drank bathwater and couldn’t sleep,” so she made something up.
“I simply had trouble sleeping because the bed was different.”
“You were sleeping on the floor. Was that why?”
“A little? That’s why I said we needed separate rooms.”
The longer the exchange went on, the more her conscience pricked her. She had thought the thing long since worn away to nothing, yet apparently a few sharp edges remained.
Strictly speaking it had nothing to do with the sleeping arrangement and everything to do with her mind.
The Saintess seemed quite bothered by it. For someone usually so taciturn to speak this much…
“You should sleep in the bed too, Hero. It’s big.”
“…Let’s drop this subject.”
At this rate the conversation will never end, Saintess.
Please stop being so pure, Saintess.
Fortunately, once told to stop, the Saintess did not press further.
The small flurry of noise quickly settled. The two of them had a light breakfast at the inn and once more set out on the pilgrimage road.
Leaving the village behind, they rode together again.
Time flowed swiftly; before long the sun was setting.
“It looks as though we’ll have to camp tonight.”
“Mm.”
Ciela scouted a decent spot, unloaded the packs from the horses, and pitched a small tent.
Honestly, it could not be called spacious. When they lay down their shoulders would touch, and Ciela would not even be able to stretch her legs fully.
“Weren’t we supposed to have separate rooms…?”
“…When camping there’s no choice. Besides, I’ll be sleeping outside anyway, so it’s no problem.”
The Saintess seemed to have meant no dig; she simply nodded.
Ciela let out a quiet breath of relief.
Thank goodness our Saintess didn’t seem the type to hold grudges.
Is she even human to begin with?
Well, it didn’t matter.
Ciela took out some jerky, handed a piece to the Saintess, stuck one in her own mouth, and lit a fire.
The nights around here were not especially cold, but it was best to be prepared for the unexpected.
And, while she was at it, to boil some water.
Whatever else she might compromise on, boiling water was a point of personal pride. She roughly knew it was better to drink it boiled, so there was no reason not to.
While she chewed the tasteless jerky and made efficient preparations, the Saintess simply stared at her in a daze.
Ciela had never expected the Saintess to be of any help with this sort of thing, so it didn’t irritate her.
If anything, having her “help” and then get hurt or ruin something would only be more tiring.
Before long the preparations were finished and water was bubbling merrily in the little pot.
The Saintess, who had been watching quietly, rummaged for something and called out.
“Hero.”
“What is it?”
“This.”
It turned out to be dried flower petals—the same sort that had floated on her palm the night before.
Of course they were different petals, yet the association was uncomfortably vivid.
Ciela’s face twisted of its own accord. The Saintess, no fool, noticed at once and tilted her head.
“You don’t like flower tea?”
“Ah—no. I like it. I’ll brew it right away.”
“Mm.”
Just how much do you like flower tea?
Ciela ladled warm water into a bowl. There were cups… but she had deliberately chosen a bowl for a reason.
What if the effect only worked when the tea was held in the hands?
If she was going to keep drinking from her palms, then a cup was a creature that simply should not exist.
Cups…
Maybe it was better to pretend they didn’t have any… except she had already been told to drink from a cup… hmm.
We’ll do it this way for today.
Saying something that hadn’t been there suddenly appeared was more natural than claiming something that had been there was now gone.
And so the Saintess and Ciela shared flower tea poured into multi-purpose bowls.
…No sense of Holy Power increasing.
Looks like it only works with bathwater. But then why did the bathwater do abso—ack, aagh, stop! Stop!
Why did the memories one most wanted to forget linger the longest?
Ciela gulped the tea down in big swallows and set about throwing whatever was on hand into a soup.
The order of things felt completely reversed, but what could she do when Her Holiness was a flower-tea addict?
Eating soup whose flavor could only be described as “what even is this” made her long for her previous life.
That previous life where three-minute clicks had delivered delicious food invented by scholars.
I want ramen.
Wondering if she was the only one suffering, she glanced at the Saintess, who was eating the soup without a word of complaint.
Whether it actually suited her palate or she was simply enduring it in silence was impossible to tell.
Ciela only felt as though she herself had become a sulky child.
No—was this somehow her fault?
It left a bitter taste.
Still tasting that bitterness, Ciela finished the post-meal cleanup, closed the tent flap, and said quietly,
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Is it okay if we don’t sleep together?”
“I’ll be sleeping outside.”
The Saintess did not ask a second time.
One could hardly call her cold. The second question had already been the same as the first.
Having quarantined the Saintess inside the tent, Ciela took out the artifact issued by the Order.
There was no way they would send the Hero and Saintess off alone without any safety measures.
At this rate wouldn’t it just be better if we traveled in a whole group?
Apparently this was how it had always been, so what could she do?
If they died horribly out here, who would take responsibility?
Having fewer people was more comfortable for Ciela… yet she could not shake the impression that something about the whole arrangement was stubbornly rigid.
She drove the artifact into the ground.
A soft light unfurled into a small dome that blurred the presence of the two of them and the horses.
Most things would pass by without realizing anyone was there.
It was meant more for things other than people, but one never knew.
Ciela sank down at the tent entrance and closed her eyes.
I hope nothing happens.
If nothing happened, they would reach the first destination soon enough.
The thought of arriving at that commemorative first destination left her feeling strangely moved. The road ahead was still long, but wasn’t there a saying that beginning was half the battle?
Just as she used to stand night watch at the training camp and imagine what she would do after discharge, Ciela began to sketch out her future.
When the pilgrimage is over… maybe I could try something like a food stall.
Until recently she had never had the leeway to think of such things, but after everything was finished it might be possible.
Kimchi jjigae, spicy pork stir-fry, bulgogi—let’s go.
How exactly to make them she left to her future self, but just imagining it made her happy, and that alone felt good.
Then the pure-hearted Saintess floated into her mind.
She never showed any particular drive of her own, so she clearly had no future plans.
Left alone she would simply sit inside the Order drinking flower tea; getting close enough to win some support and taking her along… might not be so bad. What fun would that be otherwise?
A business would need a great deal of money, after all—two birds with one stone.
The Saintess looked as though she had no thoughts on the matter right now, but if she ever tasted something like bulgogi her eyes might just light up.
And if they did end up going together…
The Saintess… hmm.
She could wait tables or something. It would suit her rather well. People always said a pretty part-timer brought in customers, and her looks were more than passable—perfect.
How to make any of it real she had no idea, but imagination was free, wasn’t it?
With those blasphemous daydreams for company, the night deepened.