Chapter 53

Chapter 53

Scar

We were able to arrive at Priscilla’s house quickly.

Fortunately, Priscilla was awake.

Since she could not sleep deeply to begin with, perhaps she had been awake all along.

After letting us into her house, Priscilla immediately placed a clean cloth on the bed, laid Eisel on it, and began checking her condition.

“External injury to the abdomen... The wound is shallow, but...”

Priscilla muttered while lifting Eisel’s clothes and examining the wound.

The wound on Eisel’s stomach had a rather peculiar shape.

It was a wound that looked as if something sharp had grazed her, and the area around it was being dyed dark red.

[ This... seems to be poison. ]

Sierra, watching from beside me, spoke meaningfully inside my head.

“Divine Clear.”

Soon, Priscilla placed her hand over the wound and began treatment.

—Ssssss.

The dark-red poison, which had been spreading through the whole body from the wound, slowly shrank back.

But the speed was a little slow.

It was because the poison had spread through her body more than expected.

“Hmm... It looks like treatment will take a little while, so could you wait outside for a moment?”

““...””

At Priscilla’s request, Yuri and I closed the bedroom door without complaint and came out to the living room.

“...”

Yuri’s face as she came out of the bedroom was marked with no small amount of shock.

“What happened?”

At the question I asked quietly, Yuri seemed to retrace her memories with her gaze on the floor, then soon opened her mouth.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I came out before dawn to take a short walk. Then I found Eisel collapsed behind the dormitory...”

“...And you hurried to find Medical Officer Priscilla. You must have found the wound on her abdomen then too.”

“Yeah...”

Yuri affirmed my words, then lay her body on the sofa and stared blankly at the ceiling.

“I don’t know what happened, but it didn’t look like a wound she got inside the academy. Zeto, do you have any idea?”

“...I wonder.”

I answered Yuri that way, but it was not as if I had no idea at all.

It seemed certain that Eisel had gone outside the academy and fought an unknown enemy.

A dark-red poison whose type I did not know.

No matter how much I searched my memories, I could not recall any enemy Eisel fought who used that kind of poison.

“What on earth did Eisel fight?”

It was a night when my doubts only deepened.

***

Recently, there had been many times when I needed to close the distance with Zeto.

The Potion of Charm was nothing more than a meaningless drink, but even so, I did not want to let another woman drink it.

In this round, I also did not want to see Priscilla carrying the heavily drunk Zeto, which had become the opportunity for me to learn that he was weak to alcohol, on her back to her house.

I wanted to stop all of it.

The things I wanted to stop were not only demons.

I had already known that after Zeto defeated the lycanthrope in the Labyrinth, Reina would summon him.

I was able to visit the tavern Reina and Priscilla frequented before Zeto and naturally join the instructors’ table.

However, because I grew nervous waiting for Zeto, drinking had become my mistake.

I got drunk, and all my plans went wrong.

Thinking about it now... perhaps it was fortunate that my plans went wrong.

If the same thing had repeated twice, no matter what, Zeto would have suspected me.

Even if our relationship had narrowed greatly, to Zeto, I was not someone with whom he had a long bond.

I was a regressor.

All the memories I had with Zeto from the previous round had vanished, leaving nothing behind, but when I saw Zeto’s unchanging smile, I seemed to mistake it for those memories still existing.

It would not be strange if Zeto found me burdensome.

I should have built things step by step from the beginning, but the impatience remaining in one corner of my heart made me overreach.

After my memory blacked out at the tavern and I awoke in the bed where I had been lying with Zeto, my mind became complicated.

I was able to hide it... but many thoughts came and went.

That day, the moment I opened my eyes, I could see Zeto’s pale skin.

It seemed Zeto had undone his shirt in his sleep.

That sight was quite stimulating to me, but...

...Zeto’s “flawlessly clean” skin bothered me.

In the previous round, there had once been a time when I happened to glance at Zeto’s abdomen.

At the time, Zeto had been drenched in sweat, perhaps because he had been exercising.

When he casually used his clothes to wipe off the sweat, his abdomen was fully revealed.

In that moment, I discovered one “scar” on Zeto’s abdomen.

Curious, I asked Zeto about the scar.

“Ah, this scar...? Who did it?”

At the time, Zeto seemed somewhat reluctant to talk.

“...A long time ago, I ended up facing a certain vampire, and it happened then.”

When I asked if it had been dangerous, he said it had not.

Since Zeto had the “necklace,” it seemed a vampire was no issue at all.

“Revenge? Haha... Are you going to kill a vampire who is already dead all over again? A trait... I’ll only say that he had a tail with a peculiar shape....As for the scar, well, it cannot be helped. Is it very ugly?”

I found it outrageous that a mere vampire had carved a scar into his body, but... I could not regress because of a scar.

I did not know when the scar had been made either.

But the abdomen I was able to check by chance this time was clean and maintained white skin without a single flaw.

In other words... there was no scar.

That meant someday after this day, Zeto would meet a “vampire.”

The current Zeto had already obtained the “necklace” in the Labyrinth, so he would not have much difficulty facing a vampire, an undead.

However, I did not like the thought that a scar would be carved into his abdomen this time too.

A vampire with a peculiar tail.

I immediately went outside the academy to find him.

Perhaps because he had been hiding so tightly, it took time, but in the end, I found him.

According to the information, he had settled in a strange building called a “laboratory.”

—Crackle!!

Sparks rose from my hand.

—Thud!

Then the chimera collapsed, unable to endure the strong current applied directly to its head.

I immediately stepped over its corpse and opened the door behind it.

The door opened, and a room filled with flasks and various miscellaneous tools that seemed to be used for research entered my sight.

In the middle of the room, I saw a man’s back.

Near the man’s buttocks, there was a “tail of peculiar shape.”

Judging by the circumstances, it seemed he was the one who had made the chimeras here too, so was that tail also from some monster?

After hearing my footsteps echo through the room, the man turned his back.

“Not a subordinate, but a woman... What are you? Is it already mealtime?”

The man swept his dark-red hair back and said that.

Perhaps because he had been in the middle of research, he looked distracted.

“Varsium...”

I quietly called his name.

Pale skin.

Dark-red hair.

The sharp fangs unique to vampires that showed when he spoke.

Even that strange tail swaying behind him.

It was definitely the high-ranking vampire Varsium.

At my call, Varsium waved a hand near his nose, inhaled deeply, and soon opened his mouth.

“Haa... a virgin? I do not particularly like ‘food’ that knows my name... Perhaps I should warn my subordinates.”

“There need to be subordinates left to warn.”

I said this to Varsium while preparing for battle.

“He dies here.”

***

Fortunately, the treatment did not last very long.

After a short while, perhaps because Eisel had regained consciousness, I could hear Priscilla and Eisel talking inside the room.

I could eavesdrop on their conversation through “Keen Senses,” but all it amounted to was Priscilla explaining the situation.

Should I say it was just like Priscilla?

She did not interrogate Eisel separately.

I heard Priscilla’s voice saying she would not ask what had happened, but that Eisel should not overdo it too much.

With those words, Priscilla’s footsteps came toward the door.

Then Priscilla opened the door, came out, and approached us.

“It was a poison I had never seen before, so it took a little longer. It is truly fortunate that it was not a dangerous poison. It seemed to only cause fainting... The poison has all been removed, and though a scar remained, the treatment is finished.”

Priscilla said this while holding her neck as if tired.

“Thank you for treating her so readily despite the late hour, Medical Officer. Is Eisel awake?”

Yuri asked Priscilla, swallowing her worry.

“Yes, she just woke up, so go in. You should at least hear her say thank you, shouldn’t you?”

Only after Priscilla’s following words did Yuri’s face brighten.

Yuri had also been very worried inside while waiting for Eisel.

I was not extremely worried.

After all, the one treating her was Priscilla.

To begin with, Eisel, as a regressor, should know Priscilla’s skill well too, so there was a high possibility she had intended to receive treatment from her.

“The problem is that she collapsed before she could even get close...”

When Yuri and I entered the room where Eisel was, I saw Eisel wearing an indifferent face.

“Eisel! I couldn’t even sleep because of you!”

Suddenly, Yuri flared up in anger at Eisel.

“I don’t know what you’re doing out there... but please be careful and don’t get hurt. It feels miserable when you’re hurt.”

At Yuri’s following words, Eisel smiled bitterly and opened her mouth.

“...I heard from Medical Officer Priscilla. Thank you. I’ll repay you someday.”

“I didn’t do it because I wanted repayment, okay? Just don’t get hurt!”

Yuri glared fiercely and got angry, and Eisel laughed at this.

“...Thank you too, Zeto.”

After a slight pause, Eisel stopped laughing and spoke to me.

“I did not really do anything. I am glad the treatment seems to have ended safely.”

I shrugged as I answered Eisel.

If frequent battles continued, it would be stranger not to get hurt.

Rather than whether she was hurt or not, I was more curious about whom exactly she had fought.

The fact that a scar remained meant it had been an attack that interfered with divine power.

“There are far too many enemies who could make such an attack.”

Demons, who could be considered Eisel’s main enemy right now, had that trait to begin with.

There were a few demons who used poison, but... she should not have faced those people right now.

Besides, the type of poison was different.

The question did not resolve easily and was sinking into a labyrinth.

“What kind of guy did this to you?”

Yuri asked this as she sat on a chair beside the bed.

Eisel seemed to consider it for a moment, then opened her mouth.

“Just... a bandit.”

“A bandit...? There’s no way there is a bandit who can wound you.”

“I must have made a mistake.”

“So did you take him down?”

“I killed him.”

“Killed...?”

“I killed him. Properly. So he would never hurt anyone again.”

Eisel’s rather firm words continued, and with Yuri’s reluctant answer, their conversation came to an end.

Yuri’s eyes had grown round, perhaps because she was shocked by Eisel’s words.

Naturally, Yuri must have noticed it was not merely a bandit, but Eisel’s answer when she said “killed” was so sincere that it came from her heart.

“At least it is fortunate she killed him...”

Eisel had been exceptionally strong since the placement exam, so it seemed she had not lost.

Still, judging by the fact that she was wounded, I thought it must have been a close opponent.

She was overdoing it.

“Even if I ask more here, it does not seem she will tell the truth...”

...In any case, I had decided to put some distance between Eisel and myself.

I thought there was no need to continue chatting warmly, and that it would be better to withdraw around now.

“Huh, you’re leaving already?”

Yuri voiced a question as I moved my feet to leave.

“Miss Eisel woke safely, so I am going back to the dormitory and sleeping even a little....Miss Yuri, could you look after Miss Eisel a little longer?”

“Zeto, don’t leave me alone with her like this!”

Leaving Yuri’s whining behind, I did not forget to express my thanks to Priscilla, then immediately came out of the house.

In any case, I simply wanted to reach an ending where everyone could be happy.

I glanced once at Sierra, whose eyebrow was raised, then moved my feet and slowly headed toward the dormitory.

Outside, for some reason, it was chilly.

***

“...Eisel. Did something happen between you and Zeto?”

Yuri was asking me with her eyes wide.

Yet in my field of vision, only the place Zeto had left entered my eyes.

From the beginning, this had not been something I did in order to receive Zeto’s recognition or praise.

That would not have been possible either.

I had not killed Varsium for him.

I had killed Varsium only for myself.

I thought it would be better for a scar to be carved into my body than into his abdomen.

I killed Varsium and obtained a satisfying result, but my heart was empty.

What remained to me was only a scar carved in the same place as Zeto’s from the previous round.

I could not hold onto Zeto, who said he was leaving to rest, and complain, asking why he was leaving already.

I had been wounded as I pleased, and fortunately, the treatment went well.

Just as he always did, Zeto did not interrogate me separately about what had happened.

That was as far as it went.

To him, it was only a matter of this level.

Through this incident, I personally confirmed the distance between him and me.

All of my one-sided approaches had been meaningless.

I had never once thought about how he would receive them.

Zeto entered the room and left without a single smile.

I could faintly feel it.

He was keeping his distance from me.

“I need to... come to my senses.”

He was not Zeto from the previous round.

The current Zeto was a different Zeto.

I had to acknowledge that.

That... hurt a little.

“...Nothing happened.”

I answered Yuri, who had been staring at me endlessly, in a weak voice.

Nothing happened.

Nothing had happened between Zeto and me.

The times I had sat before a campfire and chatted with him about every little thing.

The time we had talked after graduation about what places we wanted to travel to, and I said I wanted to go see the sea.

The time he promised me he would definitely take me to the sea.

The time he stood before me while I had collapsed, blocking the enemy in order to protect me.

All of it was something that remained only in one corner of my memory—something that had “never happened.”

So nothing had happened.