Chapter 37
Lina had arrived in the capital. 'Hazel is a virgin?' Unless my personal virgin detector had suddenly broken, that was the only conclusion I could draw. I began dredging up memories of Hazel de Butler one by one.
She'd been the daughter of an ordinary shopkeeper when she became the count's concubine, and by then, the old Count Butler was already a decrepit geezer. In the end, he'd taken her as a concubine but never touched her—a fact that, upon reflection, didn't seem entirely impossible. Even if he couldn't get it up, there was no reason to deny himself the sight of something beautiful.
Come to think of it, the count's family heir, his youngest son, had been born to the count's proper wife, so there was no reason Hazel wouldn't be a virgin. Still, everyone assumed she wasn't because of the raw sensuality she exuded and the rumors that spread from it.
"Um, ex-excuse me. H-Hero, sir. Is this horse... yours by any chance?"
Hazel, her chest half-exposed and her face a picture of misery, asked me that. Since the perverted unicorn was my horse and there was no point sticking around to watch the fiasco any longer, I approached her slowly.
Without hesitation, I slapped Talion across the cheek.
Smack!
"Hiiing!"
Talion glared at me like I'd wronged him, but when I let out a hint of killing intent, he slunk back to his spot on his own. The stablehands and soldiers who'd been gawking gave me resentful looks for some reason, but I ignored them and extended a hand to Hazel, who had collapsed in shock.
"Are you alright?"
"...Y-Yes, I'm f-fine. Th-thank you... Kyaa!"
Hazel grabbed my hand to stand, but she hurriedly clutched at her slipping dress and plopped back down. Even for a herbivore, Talion's relentless chomping with those huge teeth had torn her clothes to shreds. She desperately tried to cover her chest, but her massive breasts looked too much for just two hands.
"Milady, here..."
Finally, one soldier who'd gotten his fill of the show fetched a large cloth from somewhere, and Hazel took it to cover herself. Even though it was ragged and filthy, she wrapped it around her chest without a second thought. With the dirty rag draped over her fancy dress, she straightened her clothes and bowed to me again.
"I-I'm so sorry for the i-indecency."
She stammered it out, and I nodded naturally in response. Technically, it was my horse Talion who'd started the whole mess, but she didn't seem inclined to hold it against me.
'Is this really Hazel de Butler?' I frowned slightly at the woman who seemed a screw loose. She looked nothing like the Hazel in my memories.
The Hazel I remembered was the wickedest of bitches, the one who'd bolted the gates shut against the refugees' desperate pleas for salvation and turned a blind eye.
"Shall we go, milady?"
At the words of the soldier escorting her, Hazel bowed to me once more and climbed into her carriage. I stood there watching it depart for a good while.
***
"So, you met the Emperor?"
"Yeah."
"Impressive, our hero."
"...I'm not as grand as you think. The Emperor, I mean."
I said it to Lina, who was playfully toying with my cock like it was a joke. She nodded lightly to my words, showing little interest in the Emperor herself, and brought my cock to her mouth.
The reason Lina and I were like this was simple. When we arrived at the house the saintess had prepared for old man Ghetto, he and Lina's family were already there. Ghetto and Lina's dad had gone out to sightsee the capital they'd never seen before, leaving us alone—and naturally, we'd explored each other's bodies like old times.
After one intense round, Lina was now messing around with my cock just like this. Even as she played, she asked about everything that had happened to me with the curiosity of a girl, and I answered her questions as best I could.
"Then, you'reh shtayin' hereh for a whiwe?"
I chuckled at Lina managing a question even with my cock in her mouth and nodded.
"Probably."
"For real?"
Delighted by my answer, she spat it out and grinned broadly. Of course, her hand kept busy stroking me up and down.
"Yeah. There might be trouble on the border, but the Emperor doesn't want me leaving."
"Trouble? What kind?"
I gave her a rough rundown of the situation, and once she'd heard it all, Lina stopped her playing and looked up at me quietly. The pleasure I'd been feeling cut off, and I gazed at her curiously.
Noticing her oddly downcast expression, I asked, "What's wrong? Something up?"
"...Well, if you go, you can help those people, right?"
She asked it with a serious look. I pondered her question for a moment before nodding. As I'd said before, my best efforts wouldn't guarantee the best outcome, but if I had the will, I could help them right away—that much was true.
'No chance of getting stabbed in the back like last time.'
In my first timeline, I hadn't saved the refugees because I'd been a fool. I'd trusted Hazel, the lady of the manor, and the nobles under her. Thinking they'd want to save as many as I did had been my biggest mistake.
But I wasn't that naive anymore, and I figured there had to be a way to save the refugees if I tried.
"Then shouldn't you go?"
"..."
I couldn't answer Lina's question easily. Sure, I could save their lives, but my feelings toward them weren't great.
Images of the refugees blaming and cursing me when things went south flashed before my eyes again.
"Don't worry about it. They'll handle their own fate."
After wrestling with it, that's what I told her. My deal with the goddess was to take down the Demon King—not to save every soul on the continent. It was an impossible goal anyway, and not worth my time.
"Allen."
"Yeah?"
"As you know, I was born and raised in Kalein Village."
I watched her silently. Calling me by name instead of "Hero" suddenly made her look deadly serious.
"You wouldn't know, but when I was really little, Kalein got hit by monster raids pretty often."
I widened my eyes slightly at that—it was news to me.
"The nice uncle next door vanished one day, or the big sister I played with just... disappeared. At first, I didn't get it, but as I grew up, I figured it out naturally. They were dead."
Lina recounted her childhood flatly. According to her, Kalein wasn't originally an imperial village. It was a slash-and-burn settlement founded by the destitute, people who'd fled human cities.
But they hadn't gotten it easy. The people of Kalein had fought tooth and nail against the forest's original monstrous owners to build their village. Sure, imperial knights—or even regular soldiers—could've wiped them out in under an hour, but to them, it was a life-or-death struggle.
'That explains why Kalein folks saw me that way.'
Her words helped me understand the villagers' clannish wariness of outsiders a bit better.
"So?"
"...When I was really young, I used to wonder why no prince on a white horse or cool hero ever came to save our village. Of course, I never dreamed a real hero would show up in Kalein."
"..."
"Allen. This might be overstepping, but I think people with power should have some sense of responsibility. Not that we can force it. What seems trivial to them can be life or death for weaklings like me."
I stared at Lina's face as she spoke with a faint, powerless smile. Of course, one speech from her wasn't swaying me. I'd already learned what pouring my life into that "responsibility" brought.
But it did stir something in me, just a little. Not for those cursing refugees when things soured, but for Lina's sake—saving them might not be so bad. Like she said, it might really be no big deal for me.