Listen to Me
"How old are we?"
That was Kenna's very first question.
It was a bizarre thing to ask out of nowhere.
"I'm twenty-five, and you're twenty-four."
"Four years ago... I really came back four years into the past."
Four years ago? What in the world was she talking about?
"What's going on right now? We aren't married yet, and we're on our way to gather the Holy Relics, right? Where are we headed? How many times have you died?"
Kenna bombarded me with questions in a breathless rush. Where was I even supposed to begin? Why was she asking things like that?
"Uh, well, we're on our way to the first kingdom... and what do you mean, died? Look at me, I'm not dead."
I managed to stammer out an answer after stumbling over my words.
"Thank goodness." Kenna stroked her chest in relief, letting out a long, shuddering breath.
Worried that something might have happened to her back in the Desert Boundary, I searched my memory. But there was nothing. At most, half her body had briefly crossed into the sands. It didn't seem like that alone could have done anything to her.
Grrrk.
At the sound of teeth grinding, I raised my head. Kenna was glaring fiercely at our archer and alchemist.
"Why art thou glaring at us with such eyes?" Ershin asked, her tone dry and haughty.
"Stare all you like, Kenna-ssi, but my eyes are set only on my craft," Golgotha replied with a mild, pleasant smile.
Our party members brushed it off nonchalantly, but Kenna was never someone to confront people like that. Whenever she felt uncomfortable, she would hide behind my back. Was the problem not the desert, but those two? What had they done to make her look like that?
If those two were the problem—if they had laid a hand on her... My own jaw tightened in anger. Still, they were comrades on this expedition; it wouldn't be too late to pass judgment once I heard her out. Only after taking several deep breaths did I manage to settle my churning thoughts. I resolved to ask her again when the two of us were alone.
The sky deepened to twilight. We lit a campfire deep within the woods, each sitting in one of the four cardinal directions around the flames. By the time we finished our meal and post-dinner drowsiness crept in, the archer to my left was already sound asleep, and the alchemist across from me had wandered off somewhere.
With our day's journey at an end, I drew my longsword to maintain the blade. Beside me on the right, Kenna flinched, her shoulders jerking as her face froze in fixated terror upon my weapon.
A sudden wave of déjà vu struck me, prompting me to look back through my memories. Did I see that often back when I served as a knight...?
It brought back the times I had visited knights who had returned alive from ferocious battles. In the hospital ward, where no enemy could possibly lurk, the faintest scrape of metal would make them bolt upright and lash out in a frantic panic. Kenna's trembling silhouette overlapped eerily with theirs.
No, that can't be it. This expedition was her very first time stepping beyond the kingdom's borders. Shaking my head to clear the thought, I resumed sharpening the steel. Even so, the deep unease in Kenna's eyes drew my gaze back to her again and again.
"Ow."
The whetstone slipped, and blood welled up and dripped from my index finger. To think I would make such an amateur mistake. The edge was so sharp that even a moment's lapse in focus resulted in a clean cut. Even in a rush, I couldn't just leave a naked blade lying around where someone else might get hurt. Intending to stop the bleeding first, I moved to slide the sword back into its scabbard.
In that split second, Kenna lunged forward and grabbed the sword with her bare left hand.
And not by the hilt, but straight across the razor-sharp edge of the steel.
Fresh crimson poured from her palm, soaking the ground below.
"Kenna, let go! Let go right now!"
A cold chill shot down my spine. Panic flooded my chest; I had to pull the blade away immediately. I tugged backward, but she gripped it with terrifying strength, and the sword didn't budge an inch. The harder I pulled, the tighter her fingers clamped around the blade, as if refusing to let it be taken.
"Gah! What in the—what madness is this?!"
Startled awake by my shout, the archer to my left rushed over and strained with all her might to pry Kenna away. Yet her petite frame wasn't enough to budge her. Kenna refused to let go, and the dripping blood quickly pooled into a crimson puddle on the dirt. At this rate, her fingers would be sliced straight to the bone.
In the end, I let go of the hilt.
The released blade whipped through the air, splattering drops of red in every direction before clattering noisily onto the dirt near the faint outer ring of the firelight.
Her left hand was completely drenched in blood, a mangled mess of crimson. Yet Kenna paid it no heed. Squatting directly in front of me, she drew my bleeding index finger into her mouth and began to suck on it. With soft, wet sounds, her dainty, vivid lips twitched rhythmically around my wound.
"Give me your hand. Quick."
With my finger still tucked between her lips, she obediently held out her mangled left hand. Her brow twitched in pain. Gouts of red welled across her slashed palm, another deep fissure running straight through the joints of her fingers. If the blade had cut even a fraction deeper, the damage would have been permanent.
Watching the relentless bleed, my mouth went dry as dust, and my own unblemished palms throbbed in phantom sympathy. If only we had one of the alchemist's potions to stem the bleeding right now. I scanned the dark trees, but our resident pyromaniac was nowhere in sight.
"Where did Golgotha wander off to at a time like this?!"
"I shall drag that wretched fool back this instant!" Ershin yelled, darting off into the woods between the trees.
Given the complete absence of any sound, he must have walked quite far. We couldn't afford to sit here and wait for them to return. The thought of Kenna's delicate, lovely hand bearing gruesome scars made my heart ache. I had to do something.
Ripping off the hem of my shirt with a sharp tear, I wound the cloth tightly around her wounded hand. The fabric soaked through with red in an instant, droplets pattering onto the dirt below. Despite how tightly I had bound it, the bleeding showed no signs of slowing, fraying my nerves to the edge. I tore off another strip of cloth and cinched it hard around her wrist, tight enough to cut off circulation. Only after confirming that the crimson drops had stopped falling did I finally let out a ragged sigh.
Why on earth had she done that? My heart was still hammering against my ribs, refusing to calm down.
"Why did you grab it?" I managed to ask, swallowing a dry lump in my throat.
"Because whenever you suffered even the smallest scratch... you drew your sword."
It made no sense. If I were critically wounded and had to amputate a limb, that would be one thing, but there was no reason to draw a sword over a simple nicked finger. No matter how many times I chewed over her words, they remained baffling.
Seeing that my index finger had stopped bleeding, Kenna returned to her spot on the right side of the campfire. Staring down at her blood-soaked palm, she began to chant an incantation.
"Sanguine meo vulnera sano et curo."
⟨ Heal the Flesh ⟩
It was a spell I had never heard before. Her staff emanated a deep crimson light, and the blood splattered across the dirt began to shine with a brilliant white radiance. Soft, cotton-like motes of white luminescence floated into the air, gathering together before settling onto Kenna's hand, where their glow gradually faded.
When she unraveled the makeshift bandage, an unblemished, perfect palm was revealed.
I had never seen healing magic like this. The healing spells I knew of were only useful for minor scratches on fingers; none possessed such astonishing potency. That was precisely why parties needed an alchemist in the first place—and even with potions, a wound this severe was bound to leave permanent scars. It was powerful enough to leave anyone wide-eyed with awe. I couldn't help but wonder just how far its restorative powers reached.
"Can magic like that even regenerate severed limbs?"
"Only for the two of us. I won't ever cast it on anyone else."
Kenna nodded and offered a soft, bashful smile. Even if it was capable of doing so, she had no intention of ever using it on the archer or the alchemist. Her words sounded almost possessive.
Looking at her miraculous healing magic brought back memories of when we fought orcs earlier today. The spells Kenna used to cast had easily recognizable names like Fireball or Ice Spear. But today, every spell she uttered was a bizarre, incomprehensible incantation.
"Hashimorilinia."
When that strange chant had failed to trigger, I had looked over at her, only to see her clicking her tongue with a troubled expression, muttering, "Tsk, has it not been discovered yet?"
"Atasisrak."
⟨ Boil the Brain ⟩
And that one had boiled the orc's brain to a crisp, dropping the beast dead in a single strike. It seemed she had learned these fearsome spells from somewhere unknown.
"I know the future, so please... please listen to me."
Kenna's plea drifted softly into my ears. She was looking up at me with wide, upturned eyes.
"Is it like a prophecy?"
"Let's just call it that for now."
A prophecy. I had never seen one come entirely true; most were nothing more than grand, vague proclamations about the fate of the world. Still, if Kenna was speaking of it, it felt like something specific to the two of us. Besides, she had no reason to lie to me. Swallowing hard, I waited for her next words.
"I won't let you die over a hundred times on this expedition."
Her voice was laden with crushing gravity. If a person died, that was the end of it—so what did she mean by not letting me die a hundred times?
"Can't you explain it to me?"
"I'm going to change the future where you keep dying. And I'm going to stop you from becoming the Hero, too."
"What's with this 'Hero' talk? You're speaking as if I have some kind of revival ability."
Kenna gave a silent nod.
Wait. Then what happened in the desert... did I really have my head cut off and die? If I truly possessed the power to resurrect, wouldn't it make more sense to take advantage of it?
"About Ershin and Golgotha," Kenna spoke up, breaking into my deep contemplation.
She had glared murderously at the two of them earlier today. What in the world had happened? If they had done something to Kenna, I would beat them to a pulp. Holding her trembling hand in mine, I waited for her to continue.
"Ershin was always cruelly blaming you for everything, and Golgotha swept you into his maximum firepower no matter where you stood on the battlefield."
She spoke with deadly seriousness, but beneath it lay a gaze simmering with deep-seated resentment.
"Is that... from the future?"
"Yes."
I pictured the faces of our two companions.
Ershin, the archer whose tiny frame belied a sharp, squawking tongue whenever the slightest thing displeased her. And Golgotha, the alchemist whose neat hair and polite demeanor hid a man utterly mad for explosions.
Wait... doesn't that sound exactly like how they are right now?
In fact, it sounded so entirely characteristic of them that I couldn't help bursting into laughter.
"Hahahaha!"
"Why are you suddenly laughing? I'm telling the truth!"
Frustrated, Kenna knitted her brows and shook my shoulders. She seemed to think I was laughing because I didn't believe her. In truth, it was quite the opposite. Kenna pouted, her lips jutting out.
"Neither of them ever cared how you felt inside."
"Alright, alright. I'll keep it in mind."
I had laughed so hard that tears welled at the corners of my eyes. At least they hadn't done anything to harm Kenna, so there was nothing I needed to worry about. Relieved, I was just about to lie back and rest when Kenna grabbed my arm, as if she still had more to say.