Chapter 69. If It's Fate and Not a Coincidence
Chapter 69. If It's Fate and Not a Coincidence
And so, once the contest had ended, the situation reached its present state.
"This is a sham!!"
Refusing to accept her defeat, Atel directed her seething fury straight at Heira.
The crowd could only watch in bewilderment.
No one here had ever imagined that she—who had always cultivated the image of a lofty and untouchable champion—could unravel so wretchedly.
"There's absolutely no way some brat who just barely earned her adventurer's badge could pull off such impossible skill!!"
"U-Um, Miss Atel? I understand how you feel, but just now, anyone watching would say that you..."
"Shut it! You think low-rank trash like you gets to look down on me?!"
Atel barked down even the words meant to calm her, refusing to listen.
Her bloodshot eyes made it plain that she had lost all reason.
"Maggots like you should just know your place and crawl! Not try to climb up by pulling pathetic little tricks!!"
"A trick...?"
The crowd stared at Atel with bewildered expressions.
Heira was just as taken aback.
"I just... shot the arrows exactly the way you told me to..."
The rage before her lay completely outside her comprehension.
She had simply loosed her arrows according to the rules Atel had laid down—so why was the woman this furious?
"You..."
Yet even that innocent demeanor struck Atel as nothing but insolence.
"This goddamn bitch—are you treating me like an idiot?!"
Unable to contain her rage, Atel raised her hand and swung it straight at Heira's cheek.
A slap driven by blind, reasonless fury.
The arc of that hand was plainly visible to her, but even so, Heira resolved to accept it without protest.
'I don't understand this... but still, there might be something I simply don't know.'
Yes—she knew next to nothing about human society, after all.
Was she not in a position where she would have to live among them from now on, and search for a "new home" in their midst?
'...Yes. Because I don't want to be alone anymore.'
If someone like her was to find a new place to belong, she felt she first needed to understand humans better...
-Smack!
But contrary to that thought, the sound of flesh being struck did not ring out from Heira's cheek.
Heira caught on at once.
In that instant, a shadow had thrust itself between her and Atel.
'...Who?'
Yes—someone had stepped in and taken the blow in her stead.
A man with blonde hair and bronze skin.
The moment her eyes took in that figure, Heira felt an eerily familiar sensation wash over her.
"...You."
The man—who stirred such a sense of recognition—stood before Heira and addressed Atel in a quiet voice.
"What exactly do you think you're doing to my woman?"
A menacing air.
And yet, for some reason, that voice felt familiar to her ears.
'I...'
It was no mere illusion.
Senses refined over a hundred years far surpassed those of any ordinary human.
'I know this person.'
The moment that conviction sharpened the sense of familiarity, her heart began to pound.
It was then that Atel, belatedly grasping the situation, turned her glare upon the newcomer and stepped forward.
"Your woman? Hah. What's this? Not only do you suddenly show up and block my hand—you're actually covering for this girl?"
She seemed to have regained enough awareness to realize she had lost control and swung her hand, but that was a trivial matter to Atel.
She was still an S-rank adventurer, and the man before her looked like nothing more than a vagrant who didn't even possess proper equipment.
"By the looks of you, you're some pack-mule from a third-rate party. Do I have to spell out just how insolent you look, puffing up and baring your teeth when you don't even know your place? I'm an S-rank adventurer! Someone powerful enough to stand at heights you worms can't even dream of reaching!"
She must have been well aware that her opponent's strength was several leagues below her own, yet her imperious attitude had only grown more vicious than before.
The man's eyes sharpened dangerously at her demeanor, but Atel simply snorted and dismissed it as laughable.
"What are you glaring at me for?! Get the hell out of my sight, right now!"
Had she lost all awareness of how she now appeared to the crowd?
No—perhaps she raged precisely because she was aware.
Having already lost a contest against someone she had looked down on, the only way left to protect what remained of her pride as a high-ranking adventurer was to throw her weight around like this.
"...Hoo."
Faced with that unsightly spectacle, the man exhaled a deep sigh and quietly made ready to turn his back on the scene.
Whether that came from the forbearance of swallowing his anger,
or from relief that the situation could be brought to a close one way or another was impossible to tell—but whatever the case, he had just seized a chance to leave this place smoothly.
"Let's go."
As if that alone were enough, the man took hold of Heira's hand and moved to leave.
"Ah..."
The moment her hand was grasped, Heira let out a soft exclamation and faltered.
But that faltering lasted only an instant.
The sudden action had bewildered her, but the familiarity she felt the moment their hands touched swiftly quelled that confusion.
No—it went beyond that, and even felt comforting.
As if they had once—or perhaps more than once—pressed close together and intertwined.
'...Could it be?'
As though immersing herself in that sensation, Heira put a gentle strength into her small hand.
By the time she followed him out of the archery range and onto the street, that texture had grown even more vivid.
'Could it really be him?'
The sensation she had been feeling since waking early that morning grew sharper, and in this moment, the unfamiliar-yet-familiar feeling began to merge with a familiar warmth.
-Thud, thud.
The moment even her heartbeat, born from that, grew clearer, Heira clutched her chest and fixed her gaze upon his back.
'Not coincidence...'
As if chasing the afterimage of memories that did not exist.
'If it's not coincidence, but fate.'
Chasing solely the lingering trace of erased memories.
Harboring the modest hope that he might be able to satisfy the sense of incompleteness she had felt since early morning.
"Um..."
She tried to give voice to that feeling once they had stepped into an alleyway.
"I'm sorry."
But before she could even speak, the man came to a halt and immediately offered an apology.
Even bowing his head to her with careful courtesy.
"...Huh?"
"I don't know the full details, but... well. You were in the middle of a contest with that S-rank adventurer back there, and trouble broke out—isn't that right?"
To Heira, who could not grasp his actions, the man offered a cautious smile and continued his explanation.
"It varies from person to person, but S-rank adventurers tend to have immense pride, so they frequently get into trouble with the people around them. I stepped in because I thought things would escalate if it went on any longer—but even so, I did stop it without asking your consent first."
"No, it's fine, that's..."
"And what's more, even if it was just to steer the situation naturally, I went and said something as thoughtless as calling you 'my woman'—I'm sure that must have put you in an awkward position as well."
At those casually spoken words, her body flinched and stiffened.
'My woman...?'
Yes—he had definitely used those words about her.
At the time, the atmosphere had been so urgent that she had overlooked it, but looking back now, it was something that could easily be considered rude.
After all, a complete stranger had defined her relationship to him in such a manner.
"...It's fine."
Even recognizing that, Heira did not take his words badly.
"I didn't really, think of those words as something bad..."
No—she actually thought she had liked them.
To the point where, if it were possible, she even felt a desire to turn those words from a lie into the truth.
"Ah, is that so? That's a relief, then."
But such thoughts were only Heira's private feelings.
No sooner had he heard that affirmation than the man turned his back to Heira and prepared to step out of the alleyway.
"Well then, I'll be taking my leave."
"...Huh?"
"The trouble's more or less settled, and you've said you're all right. I pray the rest of your day is peaceful..."
So saying, the man moved to leave the alley without a moment's hesitation.
Was it just her imagination that his farewell felt so hasty?
'Leave...?'
No—whatever the case, the man she had found herself concerned with was about to leave.
As though this encounter would be their last, and she would never see him again.
'I thought I'd finally found him... and now he's going to leave, just like that person did...?'
In the distant past.
And in the moment the image of someone she could no longer see was projected onto him—
'I don't want that.'
Heira rushed toward him and clutched the hem of his clothes, bringing his steps to a halt.
For the first time in her life, she was stopping someone of her own volition.
"W-Wait!"
Even so, Heira could not shake off her desperate heart.
She did not know why, but her instincts screamed that it had to be this man.
She could not erase the pressing urgency—the feeling that she did not want to let this man, in whom she sensed the lingering traces of erased memories, simply walk away.
"Um... by any chance, do you not need a companion?"
Faced with such a desperate utterance, the man, who had maintained his silence, answered without meeting her eyes.
"...No, I'm fine."
"I'm—I'm good with a bow."
Still, Heira spoke in a rush.
As if determined to hold him back by any means, not wanting to let him leave this place.
"Whatever I aim at, I can hit. I've hunted dangerous beasts many times, and I know how to find my way through a forest. I can sense presences, I learned to cook, and also..."
"No, I don't really have any need for companions at the moment."
"Anything else you tell me to do—I'll do it all."
Heira let the words tumble out without a moment's judgment.
But even realizing that, she had no regrets.
Her voice, which sounded as though she might cry at any second, proved as much.
"Whatever you say—I'll do anything you say, so please..."
Please, don't leave me alone again.
Just as she was about to spill out the sorrow accumulated over so many long years—
"You'll do anything, you say?"
Before those remaining words could leave her lips,
the man at last turned back toward Heira and met her eyes.
"Yes... if you'll let me go with you, then anything..."
"Truly?"
He posed the question again in that same steady manner.
Along with it, the gentle smile he had worn until now vanished, and a chilling severity gradually settled over his face, backlit by the sunset.
The moment those cold, dry eyes fixed upon her, Heira instinctively understood what they signified.
"Truly..."
Do not speak such words lightly.
As if warning her that if she answered wrongly here, something she would truly regret would come to pass.
"Can you do absolutely anything I tell you?"
At that frigid voice, Heira found herself faltering in spite of herself.
But her mind was already made up. It did not matter that this was all far too sudden.
If she was permitted to stand at his side, then she wanted to go with him. Never before in her life had she felt this way about anyone, and so Heira even sensed something like fate in their meeting.
"Yes, truly... Mmmph—!"
That firm resolve was rendered meaningless by something that sealed her lips shut.
Startled, Heira looked down at whatever had closed over her mouth.
Lips—and a tongue pushing through the gap between them.
'What... is this?'
This morning, something had probed inside her mouth using fingers, but what she felt now was on an entirely different order.
Intense. Stimulating. Scorching. More than anything, she could even feel something of the other person entering deep inside her.
As she lost herself in that fervent energy, the inside of her head turned pure white, and a hazy memory slowly began to surface.
"Hahh!"
Soon, her head was pushed back as the grip roughly came away.
The man who had plundered her lips looked down at her and spoke, his voice frigid.
"...You remembered now, didn't you?"
Yes—she remembered everything.
The strange sense of familiarity she had been feeling all along was never an illusion.
It was true. The man standing before her was the main character of those erased memories.
"Then let me ask you again."
When she looked up the instant she caught on...
the man who had violated her body and mind harshly narrowed his eyes and quietly issued a warning.
"If you say you'll follow me, I'm going to make you feel a humiliation unlike anything you've ever experienced in your life."
If she had sensed fate in what was merely a coincidental encounter—
"Even so, do you really intend to follow me?"
—then whatever came next would become nothing short of a "twisted bond."