The Final Act of Damage Control

"Traitor Aiden! Hand ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over the wench!!!"

"And then die!!!!"

Three barbarians came bursting out of the forest, practically tearing it apart. Every last one of them was a hulk towering well past two meters, and the moment they laid eyes on me, they started growling like beasts.

"Aiden! You abandoned the tribe! You've sided with the lowlanders! Die!!!"

"She's mine! That wench gets offered to the Great Chieftain! I'll be the one who becomes the Great Warrior!!!"

I pressed a hand to my temple and heaved a deep sigh. 'Somebody let me clock out already, goddammit.'

The bandits had only just been dealt with. The lady had barely been kept alive, and the carriage was half-shattered—one step shy of being written off entirely. And now these dimwitted bastards who supposedly shared my blood had popped out of nowhere ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to tangle the whole mess up even further.

"Hey. You three."

At my call, the men skidded to a halt, axes raised high.

I readjusted the greatsword slung across my shoulder and went on, dry as dust.

"Did you know that extra work right before quitting time makes people furious? In any world. That's just human nature."

"What kind of nonsense!!! You talk too much, traitor!!!"

"Next Great Chieftain my ass—you lot need to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠repeat your socialization training from square one. Your projection isn't bad, but the content is seriously lowbrow."

I stole a sidelong glance at Roselyne. She was trembling like a leaf, clutching the hem of my clothes.

"Sir Knight……."

"Step back for a moment."

Before the words had even left my mouth, the biggest of the three came charging, axe swinging.

"DIEEEEE!!!"

The fight didn't drag on.

"It'd be embarrassing to even call it a fight."

Turning them into ground meat took less than two minutes. The vulgar roars that had been ringing through the forest had long since dissolved into damp little whimpers.

Careful not to get a drop of blood on me, I gave my clothes a few brisk brushes. 'Man, I'm dog-tired. Seriously.'

A heavy stillness settled back over the forest. The tension drained out of Roselyne all at once, and her knees started to buckle beneath her.

On pure reflex, I slipped my hands under her arms and held her upright.

"Don't sit down. This ground isn't a place to rest—it's a contaminated zone where blood and dirt have churned into mud."

"Ah, ugh……."

"Breathe first, slow and even. If hyperventilation sets in, this gets even more of a hassle. And don't cry. If you cry, you can't be a good girl now, can you?"

I settled her against a carriage wheel, then climbed into the ruined carriage. Anything worth salvaging had to be salvaged.

"Water flask, cloak, spare bandages…… ah, and torches. Nice."

Bundle in hand, I came back to Roselyne and snagged her pale wrist in a quick grab.

"Ow……!"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

She rose to her feet, held fast by my rough grip.

"Pain is a good sign. Means the sensation is still alive in there. You can move. The ligament isn't torn clean through."

"Gently…… please, a little gently……"

"It's enough to walk on. The only question is whether you walk while bawling or walk while sucking it up."

Holding Roselyne's gaze, I lectured her—mixing in not one shred of tender comfort or sympathy.

'Kids are supposed to grow up strong. That's just how it works.'

If I needlessly coddled her at a moment like this, she might end up depending on other people for everything, from one to ten. As someone whose profession in his past life had been teaching, that was conduct I refused to tolerate. Never mind that, at present, I was nothing more than your generic Barbarian Extra.

But something about the look in Roselyne's eyes was off. She wasn't looking at my face—her breath caught as her gaze darted back and forth between the engraving on my right arm, my bloodstained hand, and the greatsword.

"……You truly are not a knight, are you?"

I clicked my tongue on the inside.

"How many times do I have to say no? Knight is an honorary title. I'm just an unlucky bastard who got dragged out here on a nighttime field trip."

"But…… your speech, your conduct. You are nothing like the barbarians I know."

"Your question is wrong from the very premise. Your error rate is far too high. Just process me as an ordinary person with a good physique."

The problem was that the more I denied it, the stranger the light simmering in Roselyne's eyes became. A normal person is supposed to retreat—oh, I suppose not, then—and that's that. This lady's face, however, was visibly drifting down the opposite track: could there be some special reason he's hiding his true identity?

In other words, Roselyne had failed, completely and utterly, to process me as a barbarian. Instead, entirely on her own authority, she had begun reinterpreting me as some kind of "fallen noble warrior."

'I am NOT one of those!!!'

I had just gathered our things and was about to stand when a peculiar sense of wrongness flickered through my head.

"……Hold on."

Memories of the original novel, The Lady Is Consumed by Loneliness, swept across my mind.

At this point in the story, Roselyne was supposed to be broken a hell of a lot worse than this. She should have been brutalized by the bandits, dragged off by the barbarians, her self-esteem trampled into the dirt—left carrying the wound that served as the starting point of the tragedy. Because that was the only way the salvation narrative completed itself when Ruines appeared to rescue her.

So what about the Roselyne standing before me right now? Shaken, yes—but far more intact than she had any right to be. She was on the verge of shattering, sure, but she hadn't shattered yet.

'…In the original, there was no reason whatsoever for me to even be involved here.'

'If anything, I was the one meant to be dealing out that tragic wound… This is fucking dangerous!!!!!!!!'

Thoughts about violating one child-and-youth protection statute or another came flooding through my skull again, and cold sweat traced a line down my spine.

'Don't tell me it's already come off the rails. Did I just kick over the entire storyline?'

The orbit of the world itself was bending out of shape. I hadn't simply saved one young lady—I had wedged my own name, forcibly, into the very heart of the original's tragedy.

And a variable like that would, one day, tighten around my throat… or rather, get my head lopped clean off by Ruines.

The instant that realization hit, my top priority flipped. No longer 'I saved her'—now it was 'I need to pry her off me, and fast.'

I reached the most level-headed conclusion available to me.

'Time to run.'

"Point me to the road and you can make it back from here. Everything past this point is your territory. I'm out."

"You……? You're leaving now?"

"The mess is cleaned up. I'm declining all overtime. Head due south from here and you'll hit the main road."

The moment I stepped back, the color died out of Roselyne's face. She didn't cling to me or wail. If anything, she grew quieter.

"Are you…… leaving me behind?"

"My role ends here."

"On my own…… I can't make it back from here. If anyone else appears……"

Roselyne's voice shivered to pieces. The breath she had only just managed to steady was unraveling all over again. The fear pooling in her eyes ran deeper and darker than anything she had aimed at the barbarians. The mere fact that I was leaving was enough to send her spiraling into instability.

'This is insane. This isn't student counseling, and it sure as hell isn't overnight guardian duty.'

I swept our surroundings one more time. Leftover bandits could still be lurking out there, and I couldn't rule out a pursuit party closing in either. Above all, visibility in a night forest was at its absolute worst, and Roselyne was in precisely the condition to get swallowed up again the moment she walked alone.

One conclusion remained.

"……Tonight only. Just for tonight."

"Really?"

"Don't get the wrong idea. This isn't protection—it's post-accident follow-up. I'm walking you as far as the road. That's it, nothing more. I'm not your escort, so think of me as a temporary safety officer at best. If you want to live, don't fall behind—and cut back on the questions."

Roselyne's eyes turned soft in a stranger way than ever before.

"Yes, Sir Knight……."

"Not a knight."

I took point, and Roselyne followed a pace behind, matching my footsteps. A temporary companionship, purely to get us out of the night forest—exactly that and nothing else, I told myself, as I did nothing but issue briskly practical instructions.

"Watch your footing. Keep the noise down. If you think you're about to fall, tell me in advance. Passing out from holding it in just makes everything more of a hassle."

"……Yes."

"Get your breathing under control first. Panting like that, you'll be spent in no time."

Every time I glanced back mid-march, I felt that strange gaze on me. Roselyne was staring blankly at the engraving on my arm, at my bloodstained knuckles, at the broad expanse of my back. I assumed it was fear and exhaustion, but her expression didn't look like it was only that, and it raised the hairs on my neck just slightly.

'This was a mistake.'

I bit my lip, eyes fixed forward. The instant day broke, I was peeling her off me—no exceptions. Original derailed or not, if I got tangled up with her any deeper than this, it was all over.

Grrrrowl.

Hm.

First things first: that sound had not come from my stomach.

I turned my head back and found Roselyne clutching her belly, trudging silently along behind me.

"You hungry?"

"……"

Her face flared scarlet.

"…A little…"

'A little, my ass. Her expression had rotted straight through to the core.'

For a moment, I dug up a memory from my past life. In that life, our school lunches ran on a bring-your-own packed-lunch system.

With that scene in mind, I brought Roselyne to a halt and rummaged through my bag. Out came barbarian-house-special dried jerky.

"This is…?"

"Teacher— no. I'm on a diet right now."

But don't let the word jerky fool you, and whatever you do, don't picture that sweet, salty stuff engineered with modern technology. This was far too tough and chalky to deserve the name. All it left behind was a salty whiff of smoke—no fat, no moisture whatsoever.

Put simply: it was leather. Leather. Imagine gnawing on rawhide, chew by gristly chew.

Roselyne stared at the jerky dangling from my hand for a long moment.

"…You're giving this to me?"

"Suit yourself if you don't want it."

"N-no, I do…!"

She snatched the jerky up in a hurry and took a cautious bite.

"……"

Her expression locked solid on the spot.

'Definitely not a flavor that would ever, ever grace a ducal table.'

"Not good, huh?"

At my tossed-off question, Roselyne held her tongue for a moment. Then, with the jerky clutched tight in both hands, she gave the tiniest shake of her head.

"…No."

"Don't lie. Your face has already frozen over."

"It is not delicious food."

Even as she said it, she didn't set the rest down.

"…But still."

She lowered her gaze, careful and hesitant.

"This is a first for me."

"A first for what."

"…For someone setting aside a portion just for me."

Roselyne took another tiny bite of the jerky. It was still tough, and it presumably still tasted like garbage—and yet she chewed slowly, the way one handles something rare and precious.

"…So it's fine."

'Fuck.'

I was, at this very moment, surrounded.

"That barbarian wretch!!! How dare he abduct Lady Roselyne!!!"

"Seize him this instant!!! The man will be escorted under guard to the Leonhardt Ducal Mansion!!!!"

'Fuck.'

How in the hell had it come to this?