Chapter 60

Chapter 60

On the Airship (End)

The heat of the sauna did not even allow one to breathe comfortably.

It had been a long time since I had felt this stifling sensation every time I breathed.

“You didn’t take off the blindfold...?!”

Yuri, sitting beside me, suddenly raised her voice.

“Ah, this is waterproof in its own way...”

To answer Yuri’s question, I pointed to the blindfold and turned my head without thinking.

Thanks to that, Yuri’s dizzying appearance entered my sight once again.

The distance between us was extremely close.

So close that I could not tell whether what touched my face was her breath or the heat of the sauna.

“A-ahh. So it was an item imbued with magic...”

“...It is not that valuable an item.”

Yuri and I, both colored by embarrassment, quickly turned our heads forward.

The reason I knew the “blindfold” was waterproof was that even when blood splattered on it, none had stained it.

A cloth imbued with waterproof magic was probably not that unusual either.

When washing, I had no choice but to remove it because I had to wash my face, but the sauna was an exception.

More importantly...

“...This is dangerous.”

I had sat beside Yuri without thinking much, but right now, she was tremendously stimulating.

I should have sat a little farther away.

“Student Kaen is a little late...”

“She is.”

In the end, with no other words to exchange, the two of us were looking for Kaen.

Around the time Yuri and I were having such a conversation,

Kaen entered the sauna room at just the right moment.

“I-I’m late...!”

As she said this, Kaen’s lips looked a little glossy, perhaps because she had drunk water as Yuri had said.

With every step Kaen took, the towel swayed.

She was just as dangerous.

“Uh, uh... um...”

Kaen did not immediately sit down, and standing in the middle, she looked carefully back and forth between Yuri and me, as if wondering where to sit.

Every time her gaze turned to me, her eyes gradually widened.

Since Yuri was sitting at the far end, practically the only seat left was beside me.

It would be good if she sat quickly... but seeing her stand right in front of me, precariously covering her body with a single towel that looked as if it might burst, was not easy to endure.

“Uuuh...”

At last, after deep agony, Kaen let out a strange sound and sat beside me.

Then she put a little distance between herself and me.

With that, all three of us had gathered in the sauna.

““...””

Only then did I realize that Kaen and Yuri were not especially close.

After all, Kaen and Yuri only knew each other by name.

In this fresh combination that could be extremely awkward, the only connection was me.

Was it because of that? The two on either side of me were silently watching me.

I could feel their gazes, their pressure.

It seemed better to bring up something.

However, there was not much to say.

I could not find any particular common topic between Kaen and Yuri.

In the end, some useless words that did not really matter slipped from my mouth.

“About the contest... Then is Miss Yuri participating too?”

“Is there a reward if we win?”

“Reward, you say...”

I answered Yuri’s sharp question and trailed off.

“There is none.”

The sauna itself had been Kaen’s excuse to begin with.

In other words, I needed Kaen’s help.

“Ah, I think it will just feel good...!”

Kaen, picking up my words, shouted loudly and wrapped it up.

Hearing this, Yuri burst into laughter.

“...Pfft, that is not wrong. It would feel good....Zeto, my last victory did feel a little uncomfortable anyway.”

“Haha, did it?”

Well, judging by Yuri’s reaction, it seemed we had somehow glossed over it.

After that, the contest where “winning would feel good” began.

I planned to go along with them suitably and leave before reaching my limit.

It was not because I could not endure the heat.

It was because the towel wrapped around my lower body did not seem especially reliable.

As time flowed, the heat caused sweat to bead on my body.

In the middle of that, I kept feeling Kaen openly glancing at me.

When I turned my head toward Kaen just slightly, she reacted.

“Um... Student Zeto, I heard you ate mandragora this time... Your b-body is amazing...”

“...Mandragora probably has little to do with the body, no?”

Then came Yuri’s answer, who had been glancing at me less than Kaen had.

“I-is that so...! I do not know elixirs very well... Anyway, as a fellow swordsman, I envy your... your m-muscles, I suppose...!”

Perhaps embarrassed, Kaen scratched her head with a foolish expression.

Because of that, her long twin tails lightly touched my body.

Had she been intoxicated by the heat?

Kaen seemed unable to come to her senses.

Since earlier, she had been soaked in sweat and only saying strange things.

When I glanced slightly at Kaen, she was lifting and lowering the towel covering her chest in an attempt to fan herself even a little.

At that moment, Kaen asked a completely out-of-nowhere question.

“...Come to think of it, Student Zeto, how do you examine your own body?”

Kaen, who asked me that... had her towel soaked with sweat, and although only slightly, it was becoming see-through.

It had surely been a thick towel.

I glanced at her like that, then turned my head forward and opened my mouth.

“What do you mean by examine my body?”

“Whether you gained m-muscles... things like that...?”

“I can tell if I touch it.”

“Then when examining someone else’s body...”

“...If I touch it, I can know in more detail. Though I do not know if I would ever need to examine someone else’s body...”

“Ahaa... I seeee...”

Kaen, whose curiosity had been resolved, dragged out her words.

“She does not seem to be in very good condition.”

Sweat was running down beneath Kaen’s chin, and her face had turned completely red.

Her breathing was also a little rough.

Was Kaen the weakest against heat among the three of us?

Even I was not that bad.

By comparison, when I glanced slightly at Yuri on the opposite side, I saw not a single drop of sweat.

Perhaps the Clementine family of flame was not called that for nothing.

Just as Yuri herself had said, she was strong against heat.

At last, Yuri lowered her head, looked at Kaen’s face, and spoke to her.

“Student Kaen, seeing how red your face is, perhaps it is already becoming difficult for you to endure? You may leave now.”

Was it because she wanted to win the contest where “winning would feel good”?

Yuri was teasing Kaen.

She truly was... competitive.

At Yuri’s voice, which contained a slight sneer, Kaen hurriedly retorted as well.

“Th-that cannot be. Student Yuri’s face is red too...!”

“M-me? I am not hot at all...!”

“Then why is your face red...!”

“That is...!”

Before I knew it, the two had pressed close to my body and were leaning slightly forward in front of me, facing each other and bickering.

Every time they pushed me little by little and opened their mouths, a dizzying sight entered my eyes.

“This is... my limit...”

I pushed away Yuri and Kaen, who had been fiercely competing, hurriedly stood, and looked at them as I opened my mouth.

“...This is as far as I go.”

““...””

At my declaration of giving up, Kaen and Yuri’s mouths slowly opened.

“Was that too sudden?”

Whatever.

If I stayed here any longer, something extremely embarrassing seemed likely to happen.

I turned away in a hurry and left the sauna room.

This much should count as going along with them for a suitable amount of time before leaving.

It probably would not look too strange.

“...That was close.”

After leaving the sauna room, I pointlessly worried about the towel below and headed straight for the shower room.

***

In the end, the contest ended in Yuri’s victory.

After showering and changing clothes, I saw Yuri dragging out Kaen, who was panting and unable to come to her senses.

I waited until they showered and came out, then handed them drinks I had bought nearby.

After all, I was the one in last place.

Kaen and Yuri, receiving the drinks from me, looked drained.

Since they had endured in the sauna for quite some time, it made sense.

“Perception... that... lets you feel forms too, right...?”

Kaen, who had accepted the drink and downed it all at once, suddenly asked a question about perception, but Yuri, standing beside her, answered in my place, “Of course...”

I did not know what Yuri and Kaen talked about inside the sauna, but it seemed Yuri had decided to speak casually to Kaen.

I whispered to Kaen that, regarding information, I would come find her personally after we arrived in the North, then parted from them.

When I returned to the cabin, as soon as I opened the door, Sierra leapt out of the cursed blade and hugged me.

However, her eyes were narrowed.

[ Disciple, so did you enjoy the sauna...? ]

At Sierra’s following words, a chill ran down my spine.

Listening to Sierra, the situation seemed unavoidable, and since one could not very well wear a sword when going to the sauna, she had not bothered to come out.

In any case, Sierra could move based on the cursed blade.

She said I had returned far sooner than she had expected, then smiled brightly and stroked my head.

While stroking my head, she lost hold of me, pierced through the airship, vanished, and then popped back to where the cursed blade was, making me burst into laughter.

The setting was that I could sense Sierra’s demonic energy through perception, so she did not think my laughter was strange.

[... ]

Instead, perhaps embarrassed, she clung to my arm and stroked me even more fiercely without saying a word.

Perhaps because the bed was so luxurious, I slept comfortably.

[ Good morning, Disciple. ]

Drawn by Sierra’s soft voice as she leaned against me, I raised myself from the bed and immediately prepared to go outside.

I was currently walking around various parts of the airship.

I was digging through my memories of where items were located in the airship and picking them up.

While picking up items, one thought occurred to me: was I perhaps stealing things someone had dropped?

If so, did that mean every player in the game was stealing?

But because they were in such inconspicuous places... I decided to think that whoever picked them up owned them and let it pass.

They were not valuable items anyway.

The final place I arrived at was a special place even on the airship.

It was a place that could be called the lowest floor of the airship, reachable only by climbing down a ladder.

“Was there something... here too...?”

I did not clearly remember the locations of minor items.

As I climbed down the ladder with Sierra hanging from my back, still half in doubt, what entered my eyes was... platinum blonde... Eisel.

“Ah...”

Soon, a short sound slipped from Eisel’s mouth as she found me.

Her face said she had not expected me to come here.

Because I had not seen her face for quite some time since boarding the airship, that Eisel felt unfamiliar.

Since this too was coincidence, should I talk with Eisel for a bit?

We had not spoken much at all recently, after all.

We would arrive in the North soon, but there seemed to be enough time for a conversation.

***

During the mock battle, I had seen Zeto collapse while spraying blood with my own eyes.

It had only been illusion magic, not reality.

Even so, that sight had struck me with no small shock.

I was afraid even to set my eyes on Zeto.

After that, whenever I saw Zeto’s face, I kept remembering the scene of him bleeding and dying.

Thus, I had intentionally avoided Zeto over the past few days.

It was because I could hardly face him while in my right mind.

I was afraid tears might flow down without my realizing it while facing him.

When I lowered my head deeply, I saw clouds below the glass floor where I sat crouched.

The lowest floor of the airship, not widely known. It was the place where I had brought Zeto from the previous round.

This peculiar room, its entire floor made of transparent glass, allowed one to feel the sensation of flying freely through the sky like the airship.

But it held little meaning for Zeto.

The words I had said to him at the time, when I tried somehow to explain the special sight, mood, and emotions I could feel, rose clearly in my memory one by one.

The conversations I had with him here were still vivid in my ears.

I was still remembering him and yearning for him.

I had been staring blankly at the clouds passing beneath my feet, sunk deeply in recollection.

—Clang, clang.

The sound of someone descending the ladder came.

“Who is it? There should not be anyone who would come to this place...”

Could it be a staff member?

Since we were almost at the destination, the North, it did not seem likely that a busy staff member would come here.

Then the sound of someone descending the ladder grew louder.

“Ah...”

At last, I could see him.

Because I had never expected him to climb down here, a short sound slipped out of me.

“Zeto...”

He completely stepped off the ladder and brushed off his hands.

After hearing my voice, Zeto’s head turned toward where I was.

Soon, he opened his mouth.

“Miss Eisel, so you were here.”

“Uh... yes...”

My head had gone completely blank, so I could only give a short answer.

This was not the first time I had run into Zeto like this.

But right now was different.

Perhaps I should call it the “first time” since this round began that I had encountered him unintentionally.

Had meetings with this kind of feeling not continued often in the previous round too?

He had always approached me naturally like this.

“What is this place?”

“I wonder... More importantly, how did you end up here?”

At my question, Zeto approached me and smiled.

“When it is somewhere I am wandering for the first time, I cannot feel satisfied unless I go wherever my feet take me.”

“...”

Because Zeto’s following words overlapped far too much with words he had spoken in the previous round, I could not open my mouth for a moment.

Right...

That was how it was...

It was Zeto’s habit.

“That sounds like... quite a troublesome habit.”

The words that slipped from my mouth without thinking were the exact same answer as in the previous round.

“Haha, right?”

Even his following laugh.

Everything was the same as the previous round.

For a moment, I could not tell whether the situation unfolding before my eyes was an illusion of old memories created by my own delusion, or reality actually happening.

It was an extremely strange feeling.

“I had not run into you on the airship, so I wondered where you had gone. You were in a place like this.”

Zeto, who naturally plopped down beside me, said that.

The smile on his lips felt like warm sunlight, just as it always had.

I stopped staring at him and lowered my head deeply.

...Even though I knew that if Zeto approached me, he might be in danger.

His unchanging kindness was something I could not possibly push away.