Arriving Home
After crossing blades with my father, I slipped out of Basago Fief by a roundabout route.
As I rode quietly along the forest path—
“…Haa.”
I felt heat rising through my body.
The wounds were turning septic from metal poison, it seemed.
I remembered the potion Erbel had given me earlier and rummaged through the pocket of my robe.
“…Damn.”
Only then did I discover the hole torn through it.
It must have been slashed open when the swords carved into me.
The potion was probably still sitting neatly in the stable.
Nothing for it.
I would just have to hold on until I reached home.
“Hyaah—!”
I tightened my grip on the reins and spurred the horse harder toward Decarabia Fief.
Following the same road I had taken before, I finally arrived at Decarabia Fief.
In the end, it had taken roughly two days to return with the Release Artifact in hand.
Half a day to reach Basago Fief.
Five hours to secure the Release Artifact from the national treasury.
A full day to make it back to Decarabia Fief.
The return trip had dragged on so long because of the metal poison.
I had expected the symptoms to ease with time, but instead my condition only worsened.
Somehow I managed to keep the horse moving until I reached the front of the house, teetering on the edge of collapse.
“!!!”
My eyes met Estia’s as she peeked out from a window.
It’s morning, yet she isn’t taking her usual nap.
I tied the horse in the yard and headed for the front door.
Creak! The door flew open and Estia burst out, throwing herself into my arms.
“Argent!!”
“Mister!”
“Misterrr!!”
Erbel, Mirca, and Maris came rushing out after her and pulled me into a group embrace.
They had clearly been waiting with such desperate longing that every one of them had tears welling in their eyes.
“I’m back.”
I stroked their heads and told them I had returned.
“D-don’t do that to me.”
When I reached out to pat Erbel’s head as well, she jerked her face away and refused.
Once the reunion settled, we stepped inside, and the house’s distinctive sweet fragrance washed over me.
Must be because I was gone for a while.
With the only man of the house absent, the place smelled pleasantly of perfume.
In contrast to the peaceful atmosphere indoors—
“Mister smells really strongly of blood…”
Maris murmured that the scent of blood clinging to me was intense.
“Argent. Didn’t you say you wouldn’t fight?”
Erbel shot me a look that clearly asked whether I had gone and killed someone again, just like always.
Ordinarily I would have claimed the blood wasn’t mine.
This time was different.
More than nine-tenths of the blood soaking me was my own.
“…Argent? Are you listening to me?”
Erbel’s eyes narrowed as she stepped closer.
“Here.”
“Huh? This is…”
“The Release Artifact I showed you before.”
I pulled the Release Artifact from an intact pocket and handed it to Erbel, then shrugged off my robe.
The moment the robe hit the floor, the ruined clothes beneath were fully exposed.
Festering wounds showed through the torn fabric.
Erbel and the girls, who had always assumed I would come back unscathed, instantly fell into something close to panic.
“Hey, hey!! What the hell are these wounds!?”
Erbel scrambled to fetch the medicinal herbs she kept stocked in the house.
“Ah… aah…”
Estia’s legs gave out and she sank to the floor.
“I told you… not to get hurt…”
Mirca pounded her small fists against my thigh.
“……”
The light in Maris’s eyes gradually dimmed.
“It’s not bad enough to kill me, so don’t worry. Just a few scratches.”
I tried to reassure them that the injuries weren’t life-threatening.
A sharp sting flared across my back.
“What do you mean it’s fine…? This? This looks fine to you?!”
Erbel, frustrated beyond words, smacked me on the back and dragged me toward the bathroom.
“Take it off.”
“….”
“Hurry up. Strip. How else am I supposed to put medicine on or heal you?”
Stripping in front of four women made me self-conscious, but their gazes were far sharper, so I obediently removed my upper garments.
“The wounds…”
My torso was so riddled with injuries that words failed.
“—Heal.”
Erbel tried recovery magic before applying the herbs.
As expected, the healing spell had no effect at all.
“I can’t even live like this…”
In the end Erbel, unable to contain her frustration, dabbed the herbs onto the wounds while tears welled in her eyes.
“…Give me some too.”
Starting with Estia, who took a share of the herbs, the other girls began gently rubbing the medicine into my wounds as well.
“Just who the hell…”
I had never seen Erbel look this angry before.
I must have caused her that much worry.
“Tell me. Who did this to you?”
“…I was asking my father for permission to marry and ended up like this.”
I offered a half-joking, half-serious quip to lighten the heavy mood.
“You’re joking at a time like this?”
“Ghk!”
Smack!
Erbel rapped me squarely on the crown of the head.
“Mister… does it not hurt…?”
While I rubbed the stinging spot, a flat, emotionless voice reached me.
“It would be a lie to say it doesn’t hurt… but it’s bearable.”
“……”
Maris’s hands, still applying the herbs, went still.
“I’m sorry…”
“You have nothing to apologize for, Maris.”
The wounds on my body were in no way her fault.
If I had simply steeled my resolve a little more firmly, I never would have been hurt at all.
I stroked her pink hair, and the girl caught my hand, pressing it against her cheek.
“….”
The unique anesthetic effect of the herbs loosened the tension that had been coiled through my body.
A drowsy languor settled over the room, and my head began to nod.
I hadn’t slept a wink during the two-day journey to Basago Fief.
On top of that, I hadn’t gotten a proper night’s rest in the past two weeks.
Looking at it that way, the sleep crashing over me was inevitable.
“If you’re tired, sleep.”
Erbel pulled my drooping face against her soft chest.
“The Curse Seals still…”
“We can take care of the Curse Seals after you wake up, can’t we?”
Her words eased the last of my tension, and I finally closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes after what felt like only a short rest, I was lying on the sofa.
My upper and lower body were wrapped in bandages like a mummy, for good measure.
“You’re awake?”
Erbel, sitting on the living-room floor writing something, spoke up.
“Where are the kids?”
“Sleeping in the bedroom.”
“….”
I pushed myself upright and sat properly on the sofa. Erbel’s gaze locked onto me at once.
She was clearly worried about me moving around when I hadn’t recovered at all yet.
“I’m fine. This much rest is enough.”
“And then you’ll collapse again?”
“Then you’ll help me, won’t you, Erbel?”
“…Honestly. You’ve got a smooth tongue.”
While we traded idle banter, my eyes drifted to the stack of papers covering the desk.
It seemed Erbel had finished the formula while I was resting.
“Here. Take it.”
She tossed the Release Artifact back to me.
“…Why are you giving this back?”
“I extracted the release formula that was inside. Now it’s just an ordinary gem.”
Looking closely, the once-brilliant light had vanished.
Just as she said, once the formula was removed, it had lost its power as an artifact.
I pocketed it anyway, thinking it might prove useful someday.
“Argent.”
Erbel rested her chest against the desk and spoke in a low voice.
“Once we remove the Curse Seals and go to the Magic Kingdom… what are you going to do?”
What would I do after lifting the Curse Seals and heading to the Magic Kingdom…
“I’ll look after the girls until they come of age… and after that, I’m not sure.”
Aside from the plan to stop the war, nothing further came to mind.
From the beginning, saving the girls had been my only goal.
“Looks like you really don’t have any plans.”
“…I’ve got nothing to say to that.”
A strange atmosphere settled over the living room.
“Um… ahem. Argent?”
Erbel’s face flushed bright red as she hung her head and mumbled.
“Th-thaat… well, you see…?”
It was obvious what she wanted to say.
I rose from my seat and walked toward her.
“Wh-wha? Argent?”
She flustered and tried to edge backward, but I was faster, catching her by the shoulders.
Erbel had helped me all this time without asking for anything in return.
She had risked her life smuggling herself from the Magic Kingdom into the Empire.
At some point she had settled into the house and quietly taken on the household chores.
As the mage-scholar who had developed the Curse Seals, she certainly felt a heavy sense of responsibility.
But if she hadn’t harbored some measure of goodwill toward me, she never would have gone this far.
“Close your eyes.”
So I decided to repay, however inadequately, the kindness she had shown me.
Fwoomp—.
While I held her, Erbel kept her lips foolishly pursed.
“…?”
Thinking I was about to kiss her, she cracked her eyes open to check the situation—
“?!!!”
—and only then realized she had completely misunderstood.
“U-uugh…!!”
She shoved me away in a fluster and covered her face with both hands.
“Ughk!! Kiiigh!!”
She made a strange, muffled racket, clearly trying to swallow her mortification.
Perhaps because of the noise—
“Hauum…”
“Mister. Are you okay now?”
“Yawn…”
—the girls, who had been deep in their afternoon nap, woke up.
“….”
The children were all awake, and the formula for releasing the Curse Seals was complete.
At last, the long-awaited moment to remove the Curse Seals had arrived.