Farewell...?
Farewell...?
I somehow managed to calm Charlotte down, and we parted ways.
If today had been a weekday, I would have been late without fail—but luckily it was Saturday, so I made my way back to the dormitory at a leisurely pace.
It was two in the afternoon. The kind of hour when a person ought to be out and about, full of energy. For some reason, though, I was utterly exhausted.
"Ugh... my stomach feels queasy."
The alcohol still hadn't fully worn off. My insides felt heavy and bloated, and after sleeping so poorly I was clearly short on rest.
"On the weekend, at least, I can rest however I like... haah."
I let my body sink onto the bed like a scrap of paper caught in a breeze.
About two hours of sleep should do it.
Just two hours...
"Eheh... this is completely screwed."
When I opened my eyes, the world outside had gone pitch black, as if some spell had been cast over it.
"It's... two in the morning. Haah. I sure slept like a rock. Damn it."
What made it even more infuriating was how completely refreshed I felt.
At this rate my entire sleep schedule was going to collapse... now what?
"If I just lie back down like this... there's no way I'll fall asleep."
After sprawling out that hard, if I managed to doze off again just by lying down, I wouldn't be human anymore—I'd be a bear.
"Hmm... in that case... ah, this is good."
I stuffed the garlic bread I'd bought last time and completely forgotten about into my starving stomach, chewing as I thought it over.
"If I go to the training grounds and wear myself out, wouldn't I get sleepy?"
Whenever I trained hard and followed it with a shower, my body always turned limp and heavy. If I used that in reverse... I might be able to fall back asleep before the sun came up.
"Not a bad idea for something I thought of right after waking."
I needed to get to the training grounds before it got any later.
I tossed the last piece of garlic bread into my mouth, rinsed it down with water, changed into training clothes, and sprinted straight for the grounds.
There was no real need to run, but I figured if I pushed myself a little harder on the way, my body might tire out that much more. So I ran without looking back.
And so I arrived at the training grounds.
I had been certain no one would be using them at this hour of the night. My prediction was wrong.
"Isn't that... Lady Elis?"
Elis was using the training grounds alone.
A flicker of gladness rose in me and I started to raise a hand to call out—then she pressed a button.
Level 8 Puppet Swordsman training will now begin. Trainee, please take care not to sustain injury.
A Level 8 puppet swordsman was equal to a four-star swordsman. In other words, if you approached the training carelessly, you could get seriously hurt.
I was about to step in and stop her, calling it too dangerous—
A blue great scythe bloomed into existence in her hand.
It was not the blue people usually pictured, though.
Far from the clear blue of an open sky, it looked instead like gazing into the depths of the sea.
A moment later Elis's great scythe met the puppet swordsman's blade.
Clang!
".....!"
Then, as if the sound of the two weapons colliding had taken visible form, a blue wave surged outward and swallowed both Elis and the puppet swordsman.
The blue current streaming from the scythe, and the blue ripples born of clashing steel.
Curious about the true nature of both, I quietly activated Nature Realm.
"......This."
It was an aura I had felt before.
The same one she had released earlier, when she was using the single-person training room next to mine.
Sorrow.
Sorrow was spreading across Elis's battlefield, drowning it.
"Lady Elis... you fight remarkably well."
The ability to summon weapons was one thing, but Elis's own combat sense was outstanding in its own right.
She used the scythe's long reach to control distance and attack from a one-sided advantage, and when the enemy closed in she decided without the slightest hesitation whether to block or evade.
Even if she had never appeared directly in the game, the title of a nation's princess clearly meant there was almost nothing she couldn't do.
Something else caught my eye as well.
As the battle wore on, the sorrow-waves born from weapons meeting naturally grew more frequent.
And the more those blue ripples of sorrow swallowed the puppet swordsman, the more often it hesitated in its attacks on Elis—almost as if it were being eroded by grief and faltering.
In contrast, the blue of Elis's great scythe only deepened.
As the sorrow pouring from the scythe grew denser, Nature Realm let me look more closely into it.
"......?"
Her sorrow, to my surprise, was directed at me.
Like the grief that rises when you think of someone you are about to send away, her sorrow originated from me.
The blue scythe growing ever deeper in color, the puppet swordsman beginning to hesitate in its movements. Just as the match seemed ready to be decided—
"......Pathetic."
Her blue great scythe scattered into the air like a midsummer night's dream.
But the training was not over.
The puppet swordsman swung its sharp blade toward the now-disarmed Elis.
In that instant a red aura surged up from her body.
".....Fire?"
No. That was not fire.
The red aura blooming from every part of Elis flickered like flame, yet something about it felt distinctly wrong for fire.
At the same time a red gauntlet formed over her fist.
She lightly slipped past the puppet swordsman's sword and—
Thud-bang!
—drove her fist into its face.
A red wavelength burst outward from Elis's gauntlet and the puppet's face.
The word that best described that red aura was—
Rage.
Elis pressed the puppet swordsman with dazzling footwork.
She tracked its blade with her eyes, dodged with the absolute minimum of movement, and used that same motion to snap a kick into its head.
Another red wave expanded with the blow. As those red ripples began to envelop both of them more and more often, further changes set in.
The puppet swordsman swung faster and harder, like a vengeful spirit blinded by fury—yet its movements became crude and simple in exchange.
Meanwhile the red gauntlets wrapping Elis's fists and arms only grew denser in color.
As the rage she poured out intensified, I looked more carefully into it through Nature Realm.
To my surprise, Elis's rage was aimed at herself.
As if furious at her own powerlessness, her rage opened its jaws wide, ready to devour her from within.
Thud-bang!
The even denser gauntlet smashed into the puppet swordsman's jaw and snapped its head violently to the side.
Level 8 training has ended.
And so Elis won.
Yet in stark contrast to that victory, her face was twisted with something far from triumph.
I could not simply stand there and watch. I stepped forward slowly and spoke.
"Wow—somehow I ended up getting to see Lady Elis fight. That was incredible."
".....Shion?"
Elis, still catching her breath with a contorted expression, saw me and her eyes flew wide.
"Haha. I don't know how many times I've said this already, but what a coincidence in the dead of night."
"How long have you been watching?"
"Hmm, from the moment you started cooking that poor puppet swordsman over there with the blue great scythe?"
".....So you saw everything."
Elis narrowed her eyes and glared at me.
"I had no intention of peeping, but Lady Elis fought so splendidly that my gaze was stolen before I knew it."
"You really do have a way with words. What are you doing at the training grounds at this hour?"
"I took too long a nap and when I opened my eyes it was two in the morning. At this rate my whole schedule would be ruined, so I came to wear myself out a bit and try to sleep again."
"That's such a you reason."
"Haha, I'll take that as a compliment. What about you, Lady Elis? You never used to keep training this late."
"......That's true."
Elis let out a long breath and spoke.
"I started thinking things couldn't go on like this. So I decided to cut my sleep a little and train instead. And at this hour of the night there are no people around, so it works out perfectly."
Cutting even sleep to keep training... that bothered me more than a little.
"Lady Elis. Revenge is important, of course—but so is your health. I understand the urgency you feel, yet watching you push yourself this hard is painful for me."
"......."
"And please don't worry so much. You have a capable helper like me, don't you?"
I flashed a thumbs-up and told her to take it a little easier, but Elis's expression did not brighten at all.
If anything, it grew darker.
"You... even in a situation like this, you worry about others first."
"Pardon?"
"Mm. It's nothing."
Elis shook her head as she answered.
Then she stared down at the ground for a long while. At last, as if she had made up her mind about something, she lifted her eyes to meet mine and spoke.
"Shion."
Unable to hide the tremor in her eyes, she placed a hand on my shoulder, patted it once, and said:
"Thank you for looking out for me all this time."
Then Elis forced a small smile and bid me farewell.