The Dependable Warrior
My days had taken the shape of pure repetition.
Eight in the morning. Yusia woke me. It was a rule that had to be kept without fail—irregular sleep, she insisted, was poison.
Once I was up, she gathered me into her arms and carried me to the bath, where she washed me herself.
"Yusia, I can wash on my own."
"Hold still. You have to be washed properly."
"Nyaat!"
When I was clean, it was time for breakfast. I ate what Yusia had made with her own hands and listened to whatever she chose to tell me: that monsters had been appearing more often lately; that the imperial household was presuming, quite above its station, to put pressure on her; that Fren was adorable again today.
After breakfast we walked together. The estate was vast, and a stroll through its halls swallowed the time before I knew it.
When the walk ended, study began. I followed the books Yusia read aloud and took in whatever knowledge they held. The lesson was short, and then lunch arrived, prepared by the estate's maids.
"Fren, say ah."
"A-ah."
Seated beside me, Yusia fed me by hand. With the maids waiting on us it was mortifying, but she insisted on the ah.
After lunch came teatime. As she had told me before, Yusia, Kailin, and Aphron took turns by the day, each sitting down with me in turn.
Only once teatime was over was I granted free time—free in name alone, since it never extended past my own room. That was when I turned over plans of escape, and when a plan was ready enough, I sometimes put it into motion. In the early days those attempts often carried me beyond the estate. Lately, they almost never did.
When that brief freedom ended, I ate dinner, listened to Yusia read, and drifted off to sleep.
"Fren."
"Yes?"
"You're our companion."
"Ah. I know."
"Good. So we'll be together forever."
Words that bordered on obsession sent a chill to the marrow—and yet, somehow, I slept soundly all the same. However it had come to be, once I fell asleep I never woke until somewhere near eight in the morning. I never stirred in between.
On its face it was an excellent life, and in truth it was. I was hardly in a position to complain. Set royalty aside, and almost no one lived as I did. But beneath all that luxury lay something else: a renown I had come by under a hollow name, and a hero gone mad, circling me without end.
Behind Yusia, the thirty dead rose again in my mind.
"Ngh."
A thin cut opened across the back of my hand with a soft skritch.
"Hngh. Pain never does get familiar."
The wound was deliberate—something to have ready for when I met the others. These days I wasn't even attempting escape, so Yusia had caused no particular incident. I had decided to manufacture the conflict myself, and plant the impression that she was handling me roughly.
Of course I would never say outright that Yusia had given me the wounds. But as the marks multiplied day by day, Kailin and Aphron would come, little by little, to suspect her. A short while wouldn't be enough. Someday, though...
"Fren, may I come in?"
"Y-Yusia?"
This was supposed to be my free time. She knocked, and I hurriedly hid the dagger.
"P-please, come in."
"All right. What's this."
Yusia frowned. Then she caught up the hand I had just cut and lifted it.
"Hurt yourself carving again?"
"Ahaha. Yes."
If my self-harm were ever found out, I might have my arms and legs bound for days. So I had prepared an excuse. On the table beside me, half-carved blocks of wood lay scattered.
Yusia stroked my hand, her face sorrowful.
"I wish you wouldn't do things like carving."
"But I want to."
"Then I wish you wouldn't get hurt."
"Th-then what brings you here?"
"Hah."
She looked at me with open displeasure, then spoke.
"Aphron's come to see you."
"Aphron?"
"He says he wants to talk. He hasn't been able to make teatime lately, so I gave him special permission."
Now that she mentioned it, teatime these days had been only Yusia and Kailin.
"Are you all right, talking with Aphron?"
"Of course."
"Good. You may come in, Aphron."
"You have my thanks."
Step. Step.
A giant appeared, tall enough that I had to crane my neck to look up at him. What he wore was heavy plate capable of stopping even the blow of a massive monster. His hair was cropped short and blue, and the deep green of his eyes, though small, was unmistakable.
Aphron Betroll. The warrior of the hero's party.
"Then enjoy your time. Be finished before dinner."
"Understood."
Yusia left us. Aphron stood calmly and looked down at me.
"W-would you like to sit here, first?"
"Fren."
"Yes?"
"I shall sit on the bed. Do not trouble yourself over the dirt. I scoured the armor clean with Clean before I came."
"Ah. All right."
I sat on the bed beside him. He had a fondness for soft places like this.
Once seated, he kneaded my cat ears. Surely he hadn't come just for that?
While I was still wondering, he spoke again.
"How have you been keeping of late?"
"I-I've been well."
"Nothing that discomforts you?"
"A soft bed, delicious food, and Yusia looking after me—what could possibly be uncomfortable?"
"I see. That is well."
And then he went back to kneading my ears. Strange. Aphron liked soft things, but he almost never fiddled with a companion's body like this. If anything, he used to scold Kailin to stop sucking on my ears. Why was he doing this now?
"Now and again, I remember the day we first met you."
"The first time?"
"Yes. A miserable season. For you, and for the rest of us."
His hand stopped dead.
"You were so small I thought you might come apart, and you are still so small that it pains my chest."
"Ugh."
Unfortunately, my height had barely changed from five years ago. I had grown all of two centimeters, to something like 145.
"Even so, small as you were, you always did your utmost. You would shove spoils larger than your own body into your pack, then pitch forward before you managed a single step."
"That's a shameful memory."
"Even so, you were a precious companion to us. In those days, the Sword of Trust could not obtain so much as a single porter."
That much was true. No one would sign on as porter to a party that had been stuck at D-Rank for two years. Put another way, I was a porter so wretched I had been glad to walk into even a place like that.
"You cannot know, Fren, how much we depended on you."
"P-please don't say things like that."
"I am in earnest. Had you not been with us, the Sword of Trust would have collapsed long ago."
Don't give me that bullshit, Aphron... I barely swallowed the words.
As I had thought before, the Sword of Trust had grown at a terrifying pace right after I joined. Even without me, they would have become a proud hero's party.
"And so, what I wish to tell you is this."
Aphron stopped kneading my ear. Then he lifted my skirt.
"Hyaaak?! Aphron?"
Don't tell me what I wish to tell you meant he wanted to pin this small body beneath him? More than that—I was a man to begin with!
My head was spinning when a sharp pain suddenly climbed my thigh.
"Aagh!"
"As I thought. There is a wound here as well."
What he had pressed was a cut I had carved into my thigh some time before. The excuse, of course, was the carving knife. I hadn't meant to show it yet to Aphron, not when we were only just meeting again...!
Wait.
As I thought?
"Aphron? How did you know about the wound on my thigh?"
"When you moved, the motion of that leg differed, if only slightly."
"You noticed from that alone?"
I hadn't noticed at all! As expected of the hero party's warrior—did one simply have to possess an eye like that?
Still, it was a relief he hadn't heard it from someone else. If Yusia had spoken of it first, anything I said would lose its force. For now, I would blame the carving knife.
"Carving's been a hobby of mine lately. You can see it over there, can't you?"
I pointed at the table strewn with blocks of wood. But Aphron looked only at me.
"Believe in your companions."
"What?"
"You are our companion. There is no need to lie."
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"It was not the carving that hurt you, was it. Yusia? Did she inflict these wounds upon you?"
"..."
He regarded me gravely. I dropped my head at once.
It actually goes like this?
No—if he misunderstood me this way, that was perfect! I had originally meant to begin by showing the wounds to Kailin, but if Aphron already thought this, the plan would leap forward. The small problem was that I wasn't ready to perform in earnest. No. Don't think about that. An opening has to be taken when it comes.
I shook my head.
"No."
"No?"
"Yusia would never do something like that to me, would she?"
I let my eyes waver, just a little.
"Like you said, Aphron, Yusia is a companion too."
I clasped my hands and fidgeted with my index fingers.
"I really did hurt myself carving. I... I really did."
I let the end of the sentence trail off, half-swallowed.
"Thank you for worrying. But I'm all right."
"Fren."
"Ah! The other day Yusia gave me some wonderfully fragrant tea! Teatime's already passed, but won't you have some with me?"
I stood with exaggerated motion.
Aphron watched me trot off for the tea leaves, pity in his eyes.
Good. He would think nothing except that I was making excuses. Playing pitiful as a child, so my stepmother wouldn't beat me, had taken far too well.
"Here."
"...I shall drink it with thanks."
"They say this tea comes from the Taten Region. Have you had it before?"
"I have not."
"Oh—then it might not suit your taste."
"Tea that Fren has brewed could not fail to suit me."
Aphron took a sip and offered a faint smile.
"Indeed. When Fren brews it, it surpasses even tea of a far finer grade."
"Ehehe. Thank you. But, Aphron."
"What is it?"
"So why did you come today?"
"I merely wished to tell you something."
His green eyes shone clear.
"That you have companions upon whom you may rely."
So saying, he went on sipping his tea.
Why was it? He was unmistakably a member of the hero's party, one who had agreed to lock me away. And yet, when a companion spoke to me like that, my heart seemed to grow warm.
Aphron came out of Fren's room. As he went down the corridor, Yusia, who had been waiting, stopped him.
"Aphron. Did the talk go well?"
"It did."
"And were you satisfied?"
She looked at him with a faintly fed-up eye. Aphron smiled, soft and unhurried.
"Satisfied. My thanks for not healing the wounds, Yusia."
"You and Kailin both. Haah."
"The wounds upon that tiny body. They were sweet. Sweet enough to savor."
"If Fren ever learns of that, she'll despise you."
"Then I need only see to it that she never learns."
Aphron smiled.