Chapter 85. I Want to Be with You.
Chapter 85. I Want to Be with You.
"Everyone leaves me."
That was the first thing Ymir heard when she stepped into Heira's tent the night before.
The voice had been thick with desolation.
Heira had always been quiet, but those words carried a darker, heavier weight than anything Ymir had ever heard from her. Enough to make her wonder how someone could change so drastically in the span of a single morning.
"...I want to be with them."
Yet those words, too, had been spoken only because there was a truth behind them — a longing carried on the wind.
Ymir didn't know the full story, but she chose not to dismiss that raw desperation. She gave the girl her quiet, undivided attention.
"With everyone... I want to stay with everyone."
A girl who had lived several times longer than Ymir herself, yet whose voice sounded as if it might shatter at any moment.
"What should I do?"
A girl who, even after more than a century, still had not found an answer to her own predicament.
"To keep Dave from leaving... what in the world am I supposed to do?"
A girl whose long, hollow years had left her no choice but to be all the more cautious in seeking that answer. The urgency of it.
"...And after hearing all of that, you just walked out?"
"Don't expect comfort from me. I let her use my lap as a pillow until she fell asleep. That was the best I could offer."
If she had let the wrong word slip and made things worse, the responsibility would have fallen not only on her but on the entire party.
Besides, Ymir couldn't bring herself to treat Heira as a complete stranger anymore.
That was precisely why she had summoned Serika for a private consultation.
"Anyway, based on what that girl told me, I've pieced together a theory. It sounds like she's been nursing a wound left by the loss of the family she once lived with."
"If she was separated from her family..."
"Not just separated. They left for a place she can never follow."
Being part of this hero party had gradually begun to fill the void left by that loss.
A single month may be too brief to form deep attachments, but for someone carrying an empty space where her heart should be, the equation changes entirely.
Especially since her origins were far removed from those of a normal elf.
I figured she wasn't an ordinary elf, but to think she was actually raised by human hands...
She hadn't stated it outright, but the clues were undeniable.
Elves are supposed to be protected by their own kind for two to five centuries after birth.
Yet here was an elf barely past her first hundred years, far too well-adjusted to human customs.
She might have been unfamiliar with society at large, but that only proved her life so far had not been untouched by humans.
In short, this child was separated from her people shortly after birth for some reason and raised among humans.
Most likely, her homeland was torched in a battle with the Demon King's Army, or she fell victim to slave traders operating outside the law.
Severed from her kin, the child was raised by human hunters and spent her life among them, honing the skills of a hunter herself.
To lose the people she saw as parents — and to a short-lived species that couldn't even reach a century... It's no wonder a young elf couldn't endure it.
Some might argue that elven sensibilities are intrinsically different from human ones, but that trait is less an innate emotional deficiency and more the product of centuries of conditioning.
In early childhood, an elf is surrounded entirely by beings who have endured eons. As they spend those formative centuries together, young elves naturally learn how to bury their feelings beneath the passage of time.
The result is a composed, unhurried bearing — but also the emotional fortitude to face the inevitability of separation from other races.
Heira, however, had never received that education. She experienced loss before any of those lessons could take root.
She had spent her time alone, never learning how to bear that pain, and ultimately descended into human society to bury it under the weight of centuries through her own will — searching for new companionship.
And then, at the end of that search, she foresaw the man she had chosen preparing to leave her side...
...This situation is turning into a real headache.
Having pieced together her conclusions since the previous night, Ymir pressed her fingers to her brow and voiced her exasperation.
In summary, Heira was just as fixated on Dave as Serika was.
Two members of the same party, both fixated on the same man.
And that man was intent on leaving the party before long. Could she really endure the chaos that would erupt afterward?
"......."
No — in Heira's case, the fallout would probably be nothing worse than a deep melancholy. That wouldn't cause a major disaster.
Her real concern was the young woman standing blankly before her right now. Ever since she heard Dave was leaving, Serika looked as if something in her mind had snapped — just standing there vacantly like a ticking bomb that could go off at any moment, and no one would be surprised when it did.
"...Are you okay?"
"When you ask if I'm okay, what exactly are you referring to?"
At least she answered right away.
Relieved that the atmosphere was calmer than expected, Ymir scratched the back of her head and pressed on.
"Heira aside... I'm talking about Dave leaving the party."
"......Well, it can't be helped. It was always meant to be a temporary arrangement."
The bitter smile that accompanied her words made it clear she had been bracing for this all along.
That was only natural.
The hero party was destined to stand on the front lines of humanity, in direct confrontation with the Demon King's Army.
Once they began their full-fledged activities, countless eyes would be upon them. They would have to become idols to the masses.
A mere porter who lacked the necessary strength could not openly remain within their ranks.
That Dave would eventually leave the party was a fact Serika had been mentally repeating from the moment she first brought him aboard.
"Still, all he's doing is leaving the party. It's not a complete farewell, is it?"
She could keep her composure because she had reasoned his departure wouldn't sever their connection entirely.
"We'll be running around like mad, but we can still exchange letters. And there will be rest periods — I could arrange to meet him privately during those."
"...You little brat."
"And once we truly defeat the Demon King..."
As she envisioned the days she'd spend with him and a faint smile began to form, Ymir — who had been taking this matter seriously — cut directly to the part that still gnawed at her.
"Do you even know where that guy's hometown is?"
"......Huh?"
"I asked if you have any idea where he's from."
The question was sharpened by repetition.
Serika wondered why she was asking, but Ymir's grave demeanor unsettled her far more.
"...No. I only know there's a dungeon near his hometown."
It was as if that question had deliberately skewered the very thing Serika had been trying not to dwell on.
"What about his family?"
"......."
"Have you ever heard who taught him the skills he uses, or who he spent his time with before joining this party?"
"......Why are you asking me those things?"
Her demeanor — which had been merely bitter moments ago — crumbled in an instant.
She managed to force a smile, doing her best to feign composure. But a stiff upturn of the lips could never hope to still the churning inside her.
"I'm telling you to be careful."
But this was not something that could be overlooked.
She was the Hero, and the Hero had to be a champion for all.
"The man has barely said a word about his personal life. Given the current circumstances, if he simply leaves the party and deliberately covers his tracks..."
Even if she was a woman before she was a hero, if she let her personal feelings blind her to something this crucial, everything could be thrown into ruin.
"......If that really happened, do you honestly think you could handle it?"
Serika's fist clenched tight at the question that kept digging into that same raw wound.
Yet the emotional outburst Ymir had braced for never came.
For Ymir, who had been gathering mana in case Serika lashed out on the spot, this restraint was genuinely unexpected.
"I......."
After that long silence, Serika finally spoke, directly facing Ymir.
With a candor that conveyed the honest truth of what she would do if — against all odds — that scenario truly came to pass.
***
And then, later on, once the tents had all been packed away.
"Um... Master..."
Heira approached me cautiously.
Even though I hadn't given her any specific orders since the night before, Heira had taken the initiative to come to me and hand over an item.
The vibration patch used in her conditioning — and its controller. With her own hands.
"I thought you might need it, so I kept it safe."
"......."
I took the items and silently studied her complexion.
Her eyes trembled with anxiety, and she swallowed to wet a throat gone dry.
She had personally brought me the very tools of her torment, and yet Heira was already trembling, imagining what was about to happen.
"......Didn't you hate it?"
Hadn't she burst into tears, saying she couldn't bear to endure something like that in front of the others?
If that were the case, the better course would have been to stay put until I, at the very least, issued a direct order.
"I don't... hate it."
Still, Heira spoke to me nonetheless.
"If you wish it, Master... I'll endure it to the end."
Without flinching from my gaze. Meeting my eyes directly.
Those eyes were trembling precariously, but the fact she didn't look away meant she had steeled herself for a great deal.
"...Why go that far?"
I couldn't understand this side of Heira.
Just one night.
What reason could she have to try to stay by my side, overcoming even the sadistic urges I directed at her, all for the sake of that single rapturous night?
"I want to be with you."
That's what Heira told me.
Her fear was clear to see, but on this one point, she answered without hesitation.
"I just... want to be with you. With you..."
"......."
"......Is that not allowed?"
Perhaps because I didn't answer right away,
she soon spoke again in a voice tense with unease, carefully probing my expression.
"I just... we met, even if it was by chance... So is it wrong for me to want to stay by your side for that reason alone?"
As if she feared my departure from her side more than whatever punishment awaited her later.
Yes — that's why she had willingly handed over the very device that tormented her.
"Eep...!"
Realizing that, I reached out, and Heira flinched instantly.
It was only natural she'd expect abuse, but my hand landed not on her body — but on her head.
"......Get some rest today."
"What?"
"I said, take the day off."
Stroking her hair in this state, I accepted the reality of it.
No matter how much I threw aside, no matter how much of my heart I tried to kill,
I was still nothing more than a profoundly weak man myself.