Four Legs
If one were to name the person in the Hero's party who had slain the most monsters, the vast majority of the Capital's citizens would answer with the Hero. Yet any veteran adventurer with multiple dungeon raids under their belt would pause for a brief moment of thought before inevitably replying, "Dawna!"
"Dawna!" Apis's sudden roar sliced through the air.
High in the distant sky where the ground seemed like a hazy memory, the pair skillfully rode a silver-maned griffin infamous for its savage temper. They were currently flying toward the Capital.
"I told you until my throat was raw not to mess with magic tools while flying because it distracts you! Want me to drop you right now!?"
"Haa, that again. Instead of praising my ingenuity in making productive use of travel time, you busy yourself with criticism. Apis, it seems you would benefit from widening your perspective on worldly affairs somewhat, would you not agree?"
"What? You wanna die?"
The reason these two—who shared a rivalry so perfect it might have been painted—had temporarily left the party for separate duties was simple. With the Hero and Victim caught in an unexplained dungeon disaster and now secretly recuperating in the monastery ahead of the Grace Bestowal Ceremony, the only ones capable of filling the nearly month-long void the Hero's party had spent searching for the missing priest were the two of them.
Unlike Apis, who had volunteered for the role so the Hero and priest could enjoy some private time together, Dawna had been forcibly dragged along without knowing the full story. She clearly found the arrangement distasteful, yet she understood in her mind that someone had to do this work. So while she made her displeasure obvious, she never refused.
"Judging by all that chatter, it seems both your body and mind have fully recovered."
"Hmm? Ah, are you referring to the aftereffects of the dungeon disaster? Naturally. The curse that seeped into me was never particularly strong to begin with. It must have been thanks to Victim shielding me with his own body. A truly rational decision, if I do say so. The permanent loss of my exceptional intellect would constitute an enormous loss to the history of the human race, after all."
"Yeah, sure, whatever you say."
Her tone was utterly indifferent, as if the topic wasn't even worth engaging. Apis appeared to let Dawna's self-admiration slide off like water, but the thick vein pulsing on her forehead revealed her true irritation.
"It was fortunate indeed that we managed to complete our entire quota before the Grace Bestowal Ceremony. Of course, that achievement can be attributed entirely to me. We were lucky the recently regenerated dungeons were all low-grade affairs teeming with nothing but small fry. To one who has mastered large-scale annihilation magic, the number of enemies is no longer a threat worth considering. Ah, of course, even calling them small fry is only from my perspective."
"Yeah, you're so amazing."
Apis answered Dawna's lengthy speech with pure sarcasm, yet she could not deny the truth within it. Even low-level monsters could become a serious threat when gathered in force. The reason this basic truth did not apply to the Hero's party was due in large part to Dawna's overwhelming contributions.
The supreme realm said to be nearly unreachable even for mana-rich elves. Large-scale annihilation magic. Dawna's shocking practice of erasing swarms of monsters resembling locust clouds that blanketed the sky with nothing more than a single syllable of incantation was less subjugation than massacre. No, it was fair to call it extermination.
"Speaking of which, Regis is truly cold-hearted! Skipping party duties for a whole month! While we—no, while I—am out here breaking my back, he gets to lounge around happily in the Capital!"
"Having been appointed the Saintess's personal guardian priest, do you truly believe he could be relaxing at a time like this? I am certain he is suffering every bit as much as we are."
"That is not the point at all! What I cannot forgive is that he kept the monumental news of becoming the Saintess's exclusive priest a secret from us until now! And that brazen attitude of his—thinking he can brush everything aside with a single apology and no proper show of sincerity! Regis really is just like he was in our Academy days, so casually indifferent about everything!"
"There you go again..."
Apis let out a deep sigh, as if her teeth were aching. The fact that Lazis and Dawna had been classmates at the same Academy was one of those so-called heroic tales Dawna brought up at every opportunity. The story claimed that the passive Lazis, who struggled to mingle with his fellow students, had been graciously befriended by Dawna—the Madonna of the Academy—who took pity on him. Though its truth was highly suspect, Dawna's unshakable confidence combined with Lazis's own testimony had long since turned the tale into accepted fact within the Hero's party.
'Y-yes, that's right... I really did receive a lot of help from Dawna back then...'
'See! Even Lazis agrees!'
'Something seems fishy...'
Lazis's suspicious habit of avoiding her eyes bothered Apis, but knowing how much he hated discussing his past, she chose not to press the matter further.
"Fine, whatever—just put that magic tool you're holding back in your pocket first! I absolutely refuse to have it explode behind me like last time and slam headfirst into the ground!"
"Haha, no need for concern! What I am repairing now is not one of those dangerous varieties!"
"Repairing?"
When Apis turned without thinking, a very familiar object filled her vision. God's Right Eye. The crystal orb magic tool engraved with the detection spell formula Dawna had designed herself. The very tool the Hero had accidentally shattered weeks ago now sat fully restored in a clean sphere, though faint cracks remained.
"So that's what you were fiddling with... Just how little do you have to do that you've been painstakingly reassembling something smashed into thousands of pieces all this time?"
"Haha! Tenacity! Sheer tenacity!"
Dawna threw her head back and laughed, taking Apis's exasperated words as a compliment.
"Now then! In celebration of its perfect restoration, I shall test its operation immediately! Yes! First, let us see what the Hero is doing right now!"
"Hey! How do you know what she's doing? Don't just spy on her whenever you feel like it!"
"Why such a fuss, Apis? It is broad daylight. She is surely training or the like. Is she not?"
Just as Dawna deftly sidestepped Apis's protest and began pouring mana into the crystal orb—
"I also want to bite and suck with the priest in a cramped space!"
⟨ SCRYING ORB ⟩
Ting. A sinister vision and voice suddenly flickered within darkness as deep as a black pearl. Like someone violently yanking an appliance cord from its socket, Dawna urgently severed the circulating mana and held her breath.
Had it been only the voice, her reaction might not have been so extreme. But the crystal orb's angle happened to be aimed at the lower half of the Hero, sending Dawna's imagination hurtling in a very unfortunate direction.
Legs. There were four legs.
What was more, the upper portion of the image carried the Hero's plaintive voice and the occasional groan of a familiar man.
"Hey, this... this can't be..."
"Th-this appears to be the result of me connecting the mana circuit slightly incorrectly and projecting an entirely different scene... I shall reactivate it at once!"
It was no mistake. It could not have been a mistake. No one knew that better than Dawna herself. Yet she could not fully accept the shocking truth before her eyes, and so she committed an error she would never normally make—misjoining the perfectly repaired mana circuits of the crystal orb.
"You set my heart burning like this and then refuse to take responsibility! How cruel! Are you toying with me, priest? Is this what they call 'having one's fun'!"
"May I put it in my mouth just once?"
"I'll only bite it gently with my teeth!"
"Then at least! J-just the tip! Can't I at least lick the tip?!"
"How much! How much must I offer? Very well! I won't ask to bite or lick! If you would simply allow me to smell its surface! In return, I shall donate all the assets I intended to return to society—everything!—to you, priest—"
⟨ SCRYING ORB ⟩
Crack! At that moment, the crystal orb—overloaded with far too much mana—developed an ominous fracture. This, too, was a mistake the usual Dawna would never have made.
......
......
A heavy, murderous silence tangled the air between them. The atmosphere grew thicker and heavier with every passing second.
"Hero... nim... don't... please..."
"Just a little... J-just a little more..."
"Slurp... Haa..."
"Ugh... ngh..."
With those sticky, intertwined sounds of a man and woman as the finale, the crystal orb soon shattered completely. At the same time—
Crack.
The sound of something delicate snapping inside them quietly merged with that ominous emptiness.