Delicious!
The flickering, burning flames hold a strange power over those who watch them.
Arciel sat staring blankly into the campfire.
The fire, which cleared her mind of all thoughts, felt like something she could watch until dawn without ever growing tired of it.
But the leader of this two-person subjugation squad, who had already been stuck in the snowy mountains for days, was growing incredibly restless.
"Hey, Tigria."
She called out to the mage, who was scribbling something with a quill on the other side of the flames.
When Tigria merely glanced up in response, Arciel let out a deflated sigh.
"Never mind."
Tigria resumed her writing, and Arciel returned her gaze to the campfire and the pot hanging over it.
Inside the pot, soup was bubbling away.
Soup was the only dish the Saint actually knew how to cook properly.
Strangely enough, because the shield knight was a noble, Lucy was a pure soldier, the mage was... well, a mage, and Nydrian was content just foraging for berries and grass in the forest, Arciel had initially been put in charge of the cooking.
At first, the party members had praised her food, but eating nothing but soup for over a week quickly became a torment. Arciel, too, found it exhausting to build a fire and boil soup when she was already worn out from battles and training.
That was how the porter had ended up being recruited.
He was someone who worked incredibly hard and did his job perfectly—aside from fighting.
He cooked a wide variety of meals and took care of things on his own the moment anyone showed the slightest hint of fatigue or discomfort. He was a truly capable party member.
Arciel shook her head.
It was useless to think about such things now.
In their very first battle, the Hero's party had watched the soldiers accompanying them die in vain. Furious, they had fought with savage intensity.
But when the dust settled, what Arciel and the others saw was the porter, trembling behind a small shield.
Surrounded by the mangled, shredded corpses of the soldiers, the porter had let out a sigh of relief just to be alive.
Overwhelmed by disappointment and disgust, the party members had hurled criticisms at him.
"Those soldiers were terrified too, but they laid down their lives for their families."
Hearing Arciel's words, the porter had hung his head in shame.
From then on, their treatment of the porter grew harsh.
The only saving grace was that despite everyone's irritation and sarcasm, the porter had eventually adapted—aside from his initial reckless behavior—and faithfully carried out his duties.
It was only much later that they learned he was a civilian, but even then, Arciel had protested to the Imperial Princess.
"This is the Hero's party! How could you assign us someone who doesn't even know how to swing a sword?!"
Back then, they had been too swept up in endless battles to think, but now that things had settled down to some extent, she finally had the breathing room to look back.
In the flickering campfire, Arciel caught glimpses of her past regrets—and her anxiety for the future.
"Why did the porter save Lucy?"
She hadn't even realized she was going to say it.
Drawn in by the strange power of the flames, the words had slipped out on their own.
"He was a guy who didn't even know how to fight."
That is affection.
Tigria wanted to chime in with that, but remembering how absurdly Arciel had behaved last time, she kept the answer to herself.
By coincidence, Tigria had also been thinking about the porter.
"What do you think of the porter?"
"...Are you talking to me?"
"Only Arciel is here besides me."
It was the first time the mage had initiated a conversation.
Though surprised, Arciel found herself at a loss for how to respond.
"Well... a guy who was useless for anything but chores went and caused a massive incident?"
"Is that all?"
"Of course that's all. It's not like we fought back-to-back. He was just the guy who handled the food, the camp, and the chores."
"By any chance, was there anyone named Rin in the neighborhood where you grew up?"
"That name is incredibly common. And no, there was no one by that name in my neighborhood when I was a kid."
Tigria accepted this easily.
Since Rin had also said they were merely acquainted, it must have been a passing connection.
"Speaking of childhood, it makes me think of home."
"Where is your hometown?"
The mage was acting strange today.
Tigria, who usually only spoke of detections or in clipped, robotic sentences, was actually asking the Saint about her hometown.
Arciel wondered if it was because they were alone.
Arciel shrugged.
"Gutter Alley. It's a slum a bit away from the capital."
The Holy Kingdom was reluctant to reveal that the Saint came from a slum.
It would have been fine if she were the daughter of some ordinary citizen, but Gutter Alley was, true to its name, a dead-end place where the dregs of society gathered.
Girls sold their bodies once they came of age, while boys relied on their muscles or underhanded wits to survive.
And the adults lived by exploiting these children.
"Never heard of it."
"Well, almost no one knows about it. It's the Empire's dirty secret, their ultimate sewer. They keep it hidden pretty well."
"Did you have close friends when you were young?"
"Friends? Well, one bitch was a realist who couldn't back up her own weight, another was a haughty, pretentious fake who managed to escape, and then..."
Arciel pictured a certain man.
A man with messy hair and a scrawny frame, but who knew how to wear a warm smile.
Though she had mocked him for being weak, he had dedicated himself to the gang, comforting them and always drawing Arciel's eyes to him.
Leaving him behind on the day she was chosen as the Saint, forced and rushed by the Holy Kingdom, was a painful, bitter mistake.
"Arciel! There's no hope here. We need to clear everything out and find a new home!"
A memory suddenly flashed back to when Labin, her rival at the time, had cornered her.
Disliking how Labin sounded like a politician giving a speech, Arciel flipped her off.
"Eat shit."
"You crazy bitch...! Just swallow your pride for once. If we join forces, our crew will never have to starve or get sick again!"
"The bastards who used to bleed us dry have already destroyed themselves."
With her back against the wall, Arciel raised both fists and took a stance in front of the crowd of enemies.
"If we go out into the world as gutter trash, we'll just get treated like gutter trash. We stay here, and we rebuild this place. We're going to become better people."
"We can't get better here!"
"If the people get better, the place gets better! If we leave like this, we're just pickpockets, thieves, and thugs!"
What followed was the usual routine.
Labin's gang rushed in, and Arciel beat them down with her fists.
The only difference from their usual fights was that Arciel was facing them alone.
She should have listened to Lee.
He had begged her not to go around by herself.
"Boss! It's Arciel's gang! They're flanking us!"
"Rina must be trying to play smart again. Take half the guys."
"What about you, Boss?"
"No one else can stop that bitch anyway."
"Don't lose!"
Labin chuckled, drawing her daggers.
Arciel wrapped cloth around her knuckles.
"Cheering you on, huh? Good lackeys you've got there."
"Yeah. I might not boast about them, but they're nothing to be ashamed of."
"Well, I'm proud of my crew."
"Oh, speaking of which."
Labin stuck out her tongue and raised her pinky finger.
"Hand Lee over to me. Do that, and we'll leave quietly."
"..."
"Whoa, look at that glare. I'm about to piss myself."
"I didn't know you had a thing for weaklings."
At that, a vein popped on Labin's forehead instead.
"Weakling? You crazy bitch."
Screeech!
She scraped her daggers against each other, producing a grating sound and showering sparks.
"There's no man stronger than Lee. You know that, so don't say shit like that just to get under my skin."
"Tsk..."
"Besides."
A hint of madness began to creep into Labin's eyes.
When Labin made that face, she was going all out.
It seemed the provocation had hit a nerve.
"Among the men who would actually embrace trashy, broken bitches like us, Lee is the absolute best. Isn't that right?"
"..."
"What? You don't agree? Then I'm taking him."
Crash!
As mentioned before, Arciel had no patience.
Her sideways punch left a deep crater in the wall.
Picking up a piece of the crumbling debris, Arciel's eyes looked far from sane.
"Just try it."
Words were unnecessary.
It would be decided by whoever crushed the other's skull first.
The moment both held their breath and took a step forward—
"Oh, freeze right there."
Rina and Arciel's gang appeared atop the collapsed buildings.
Aiming crude, makeshift bows and arrows at Labin's gang, Rina's mocking laughter rang out from among them.
"Just as planned."
"What? I thought you guys were flanking us from behind?"
"That was just a decoy."
Despite falling into a trap, Labin remained completely relaxed.
It wasn't because the one who appeared was Rina, the half-baked tactician.
"If you're here..."
Before Labin could finish her sentence, Arciel realized what she was targeting.
She tried to block their escape in a panic, but Labin's gang retreated swiftly.
"Fire!"
Rina commanded grandly, but the poorly made arrows lacked power and fell limply to the ground.
"How was that? Since the Boss kept wandering around alone, I drew up a counter-strategy."
"Rina! Where is Lee?!"
"Lee? I had him act as the bait."
"You idiot!"
"Y-You dare call me an idiot?!"
She wanted nothing more than to smack her hard, but even if she was a pretentious show-off, Rina was still a member of the gang Arciel had taken in.
She always tolerated her comrades at least once.
True to her creed, instead of hitting Rina, Arciel threw herself in pursuit of Labin's gang.
"Boss, where are you going?!"
"To save Lee, you idiot!"
"Calling me an idiot again...!"
The battle that followed after chasing Labin was nothing short of brutal.
Breaking their tacit agreement to minimize casualties, Labin and Arciel clashed in earnest.
Daggers grazed Arciel's forearm, and fists slammed into Labin's ribs.
"Arcieeeeel!!!!!"
The victor was Arciel.
Leaving behind Labin's sorrowful scream, Arciel returned triumphantly to the hideout, leaning on Lee for support.
"Are you okay, Boss?"
"Lee, I told you to call me Arciel."
"You got hurt because of me."
"Because you were in danger."
"Rina said Labin wouldn't hurt me anyway, so I was the perfect bait. It was all calculated."
Despite Lee's defense, Arciel glared at Rina.
Rina couldn't understand why she was being treated this way.
Just as Lee said, she had assessed the risks, designed a plan to minimize them, and succeeded. Yet, the foolish Arciel was giving her the cold shoulder.
Ultimately, unable to bear the injustice, Rina began to tear up, prompting Lee to quickly step in and comfort her.
"Rina's plan worked perfectly today. It was amazing!"
"What's the point? That gorilla keeps calling me an idiot."
"The Boss just hates seeing any of us get hurt."
"Even though she stands at the very front lines despite being the Boss!"
"Hey! You used a comrade as bait...!"
"Now, now, everyone calm down."
As Arciel snapped back, Lee pacified both of them at once.
"We're really lucky today. I managed to steal some bread from Labin's side."
They had probably let him steal it on purpose.
Labin's gang didn't dislike Lee either.
"And as it happens, I recently made some jam."
Lee showed them the basket he had been hiding behind his back.
"Tada! Jam sandwiches with potatoes!"
"Sandwiches!"
Arciel and Rina cheered in unison.
It was hard to get proper food in Gutter Alley.
Yet Lee always went out of his way to find edible plants and tried to make fresh meals for the gang.
"It's not even anyone's birthday today..."
Overwhelmed with emotion, Rina couldn't finish her sentence.
Ever since they first tasted the sandwiches Lee made, they had become the official birthday feast for Arciel's gang.
"We won today, didn't we? Instead of fighting, we should be celebrating our victory!"
Lee handed out the sandwiches to the gang.
When it was finally Arciel's turn, she quickly reached out, but Lee just held onto the sandwich.
As his steady gaze silently pressured her, Arciel grumbled.
"Fine, I get it."
Reluctantly, she walked over to Rina.
"Rina."
"...What is it, Boss?"
"Using Lee as bait was a bit much... but thanks to you, we won today."
"Hmph... I'll avoid bait strategies in the future."
Only after the two of them reconciled did Lee smile brightly and hand over the sandwich.
The entire gang took a bite of their sandwiches at the same time.
And they shouted:
"Delicious!"
That sandwich had been so sweet.
Arciel stared into the campfire with a faint smile.
But the mage wouldn't let her lose herself in memories.
"And?"
"Huh?"
"Besides the realist and the show-off, who was the other friend?"
"Ah."
Though annoyed at being dragged out of her memories, Arciel answered honestly.
"There was one. A cute guy."
"Cute? Is it an unrequited love?"
"W-What?!"
"I read in a book that when a woman calls a man cute, it is a level beyond simply liking him."
"Where on earth is there a book that says that?!"
"It exists."
"I never even said it was a guy!"
"Is it not?"
"He...! Damn it, yes, he's a guy."
To the completely defeated Arciel, the mage asked another question.
"What did he look like?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"By that logic, ninety percent of all conversations in the world are useless chatter."
"Hearing that from you feels really weird."
"So, what did he look like?"
"Hmm..."
Uncharacteristically fidgeting, Arciel pictured him.
The person who still made her heart ache with a faint flutter.
"He had messy black hair and a naturally slender build. But despite that, he was surprisingly strong. He always said hygiene and a good place to sleep were important, so he'd clean up and make our beds soft. Unlike most slum dwellers, he never spoke roughly. Yeah, I liked that about him. Oh, and he was a great cook! Once in a very long while, he'd make us jam sandwiches with potatoes...!"
Before she knew it, Arciel was babbling about him without pause.
Full of life and joy for the first time in a long while, she looked exactly like the bright, cheerful Saint everyone expected her to be.
Staring quietly at the Saint, the mage sketched a quick drawing of her face in her notes.
And beneath the drawing, she wrote a title.
"Ah~ I miss Lee. I want to eat the sandwiches he made!"
"Here, a jam sandwich with potatoes."
They were in luck.
Labin had kept the sandwich ingredients on hand at all times, looking forward to the day she would meet Rin again.
Combined with Lucy's pleading after coming down the snowy mountain without eating any proper food, Rin had reluctantly made the sandwiches for the first time in a long while.
"This is it! This is the one!"
"It's literally just potatoes and jam, though."
Embarrassed by Labin's over-the-top excitement, Rin handed a sandwich to Lucy as well.
"I don't know if it'll suit your taste."
Contrary to his worries, Lucy was deeply moved.
A proper meal made by Rin.
During the Demon King subjugation, she had just eaten his food without ever realizing how grateful she should have been.
Furthermore, Rin had made this sandwich specifically for her.
She couldn't wait another second.
Both Lucy and Labin bit into their sandwiches at the same time.
And they shouted in unison:
"Delicious!"