Chapter 42

Chapter 42

I Warned You, Right?

My original plan had been to return to Cordia as quickly as possible once the Council ended.

There wasn't anything else for me to do here anyway.

And if I stayed around, the Saintesses of the other Orders would only pile more stress onto me.

But that plan fell apart.

Because Leonid was lying in the healing room.

His wounds had been treated, but he'd lost so much blood that they said he needed one or two days of rest.

We had another long journey ahead of us.

So it'd be better to let him rest properly for two days.

Thanks to that, my stay in Septimoa had been extended against my will.

‘God, I want to get out of this shitty place already.’

I'll just hole up inside the Western Palace.

I'd already wandered around Septimoa plenty with Clarice.

I had no interest in walking around building connections with people from other Orders.

And most importantly, I had no idea what Kael might try next.

Judging by how he'd acted back then, he didn't look like someone who would easily give up on cutting Cassian's head off.

So right now, I'm staying beside Cassian.

More precisely, I've made Cassian stay beside me.

I temporarily shoved him into the empty position of my escort knight.

Calling him an escort is generous.

I'm the one actually protecting Cassian.

Isn't this completely backwards?

Kael probably couldn't move around freely anyway, and it would take him quite a while to recover.

Did I really need to spend my own time doing this?

Various thoughts came to mind.

Still, I didn't have much to do aside from personal training, and I'd promised to teach Cassian swordsmanship.

So I decided not to complain about it.

“Hmm...”

Resting my chin on one hand, I watched Cassian swing his sword in the training ground.

After waking up, eating breakfast, and doing some basic conditioning, I'd told him to practice the downward slash, diagonal slash, and thrust I'd taught him last night.

And my impression after watching Cassian train was...

‘Ambiguous.’

Seriously.

Ambiguous.

His stance hadn't improved even slightly from yesterday.

Of course, I only taught him the basics last night.

It would be stranger if he'd already improved noticeably.

Ordinary apprentice Holy Knights weren't much different from Cassian either.

Just growing accustomed to the basic motions took forever.

You might look down on apprentices, but every one of those bastards had been called a genius in their hometown.

You could ask:

It takes even talented people like that a long time to build their fundamentals?

My answer would be yes.

The basics aren't something you establish that easily.

But this bastard is a Hero candidate.

Shouldn't he be improving by leaps and bounds unlike ordinary people?

‘No. Being a Hero candidate doesn't automatically make someone a genius.’

Besides, this bastard...

He's completely ruined himself by learning nothing but shortcuts without ever laying down proper fundamentals.

In some ways, that's far more troublesome than a blank slate.

Even so, he's at least managing to imitate the motions somewhat properly.

So he probably isn't untalented.

Don't judge everything by my standards.

I'm a perfect genius who mastered the spear's fundamentals in less than a week.

(Of course, I'd been swinging sticks around in back alleys before that.)

But I'm not one of those irritating bastards who looks at a beginner and asks, ‘Why can't you do this?’

“Haa...”

Even so, I couldn't stop myself from sighing.

The demon threat was right in front of us.

And the Hero who should become one of our strongest assets was only now learning how to walk.

Either way, I'll have to keep drilling these basic movements into him for a while.

“Saintess, there you are.”

“Huh? Eh? Old man?”

I jumped at the old man's voice suddenly coming from beside me.

I'd been so deep in thought that I hadn't noticed him approach.

Ah.

This is bad.

Yesterday had been one hell of a day.

And one of the things I'd done was kick down the chairman's office doors, storm inside, and throw the unconscious Kael across the room.

I hadn't run into the old man since then.

More accurately, I'd been avoiding him.

Because there was definitely going to be an artillery barrage of nagging.

“There is something I need to say regarding yesterday.”

“Uh... Yeah. I figured.”

Cold sweat slid down my back.

For a moment, I considered running.

Then I gave up on the idea.

Running now wouldn't improve anything.

We had to travel back together anyway.

If I ran, I'd only make the old man angrier.

Better to take the beating today than spend the entire return journey being nagged.

Of course...

I'd need to prepare for my ears to hurt for nearly half a day.

“I will begin with the conclusion.”

“Okay...”

“You did very well.”

“Huh?”

I stared at the old man with a stupid expression.

Because something completely unexpected had just come out of his mouth.

For a moment I wondered whether he was being sarcastic.

But there wasn't the slightest sign of that.

“You said I did well?”

I asked again, wondering whether I'd misheard.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

What was the reason?

I'd fully expected the old man to scold me for what I'd done.

“Our Order's Hero candidate nearly died, and Vice-Captain Leonid was severely injured. Is that not the situation?”

“Right.”

“If we had responded with nothing but a verbal warning, or merely tried to extract concessions, the other Orders would certainly have begun looking down on us. We needed to respond firmly to some degree.”

Ah.

I understood what the old man meant.

If we'd handled it too softly, the other Orders might've thought:

‘Oh? So we can mess with them and just toss them a few coins afterward?’

That kind of thing.

“Of course, kicking down the chairman's office doors while all the Archbishops were gathered, throwing a blood-covered Hero into the middle of the room, calling the chairman a ‘lizard,’ and even grabbing him by the collar was somewhat excessive.”

“...Uh-huh.”

I'm not being scolded right now, am I?

I hadn't felt a single shred of shame about what I'd done.

But hearing someone else list every single thing I'd done made me shrink back for some reason.

“Still, the impact was undeniable. Rumors are already spreading quietly that a mad dog lives in the Eris Order, and therefore one must not touch us carelessly.”

“...That mad dog is me?”

“Do I truly need to say it?”

“...”

Hmm.

How do I put this?

Why do I somehow feel both pleased and subtly insulted at the same time?

“So what happened in the end?”

“Nothing disadvantageous to us. Disciplinary action against you was discussed, but it failed after a majority opposed it. Kael, Hero of Justitia, will be confined for the time being. The finer details will be discussed later.”

“Oh? That's good.”

“Yes, it went well. But the next time you intend to do something like that, please give me some warning first. I genuinely thought my heart was going to stop.”

“Ah, sorry about that. I kind of lost it in the moment.”

“It is fine. I consider it admirable enough that you did not immediately stab Hero Kael to death.”

...Why do I feel like he thinks incredibly poorly of me?

Even I'm not reckless enough to stab another Order's Hero to death.

The old man lightly ignored my aggrieved stare and turned toward Cassian, who was swinging his sword.

“Cassian's sword posture has improved considerably. Have you been teaching him, Saintess?”

“Somehow, yeah.”

“Have you taken a liking to him?”

“It's not like that. He's been showing that he's changed, so I'm simply treating him accordingly.”

I answered with a pout.

“I see. A Saintess and Hero are inseparable existences, so that is a good thing. I have many matters left to handle, so I shall be going.”

“All right. Don't overwork yourself, old man.”

“Ah, Saintess.”

The old man had started turning away when he stopped and looked back at me.

“Yeah?”

“One of the reasons we came to Septimoa was to examine Cassian's condition, was it not?”

“Right.”

I'd mentioned it to the chairman.

But given the current situation, I didn't know whether that would still happen properly.

I'd cursed him to his face, and I didn't exactly feel good about entrusting Cassian to that suspicious old lizard either.

“I have asked Saintess Jailin of the Veritas Order to handle that, so there is no need to worry. She should arrive shortly.”

“...!?”

“I expected her to refuse, but surprisingly, she accepted quite readily.”

“Waaait!”

I practically screamed as I shot to my feet.

“What is wrong?”

The old man tilted his head.

Cassian, who had been training in front of us, stopped swinging and looked over too.

I opened and closed my mouth several times, then slapped a hand against my forehead.

Wasn't this like being so afraid of ghosts that you crawled straight into a tiger's mouth?

“There was seriously nobody else, so you handed him over to that insane mad scientist? We'd be better off mummifying Cassian and donating him to an ancient history museum.”

“Even so, no one is more knowledgeable regarding curses and sorcery than Saintess Jailin, is there?”

That was true.

Jailin was a genius.

A once-in-a-generation prodigy who had successfully fused mana and divine power—two forces once thought impossible to mix.

She had uncovered the structure of countless curses and sorceries and refined the systems of both sacred arts and magic.

But perhaps as the price of that genius...

Jailin was completely insane.

She was the kind of person who couldn't feel satisfied unless she dismantled, analyzed, and researched everything she saw on the road.

Wait.

Maybe that personality was why she became a genius in the first place?

“Yeah, that part is true.”

Either way, if Cassian truly had some connection to demons, nobody was better suited than Jailin to uncover it.

Hm?

Wait.

That line just now wasn't mine.

And it wasn't my voice either.

I turned my head.

A short body characteristic of the dwarf race.

Hair so long it passed her ankles and dragged across the ground.

Hollow black eyes that seemed ready to suck you in, with heavy dark circles beneath them.

Skin pale as a sheet of paper.

Jailin, Saintess of the Veritas Order, had somehow appeared beside me.

She sat there swinging her legs and waving.

“Hiii, Trixie? Calling someone an insane mad scientist right in front of them is pretty rude, don't you think?”

Seeing Jailin speak in that languid voice made my eyes squeeze shut.

Still, this was fine.

As long as you handled her properly, she didn't cause headaches like the other Saintesses.

Sure, she constantly whined that she wanted to study my body.

But whenever that happened, all I had to do was hand her some other interesting toy.

She'd immediately get distracted dismantling and analyzing it, which made her relatively easy to manage.

“Ah, wait. Maybe you're right? I am kind of insane. Hehe.”

“Or maybe it's not insanity, but genius?”

“Yeah, yeah! Exactly! I'm a total genius!”

...Watching her answer her own questions, she seemed even worse than usual today...

Judging by those unfocused eyes, maybe she'd been inhaling too much mana herb.

The old man had apparently dumped the ticking time bomb named Jailin onto me and vanished like smoke.

Nothing I can do.

Let's finish this quickly.

“Cassian! Stop training and come over here!”

I called him while pressing against my throbbing temples.

Cassian came trotting over like a puppy.

Then he saw Jailin beside me and visibly flinched.

“Say hello. This is Jailin, Saintess of the Veritas Order. And Jailin, this is our Order's Hero candidate.”

“Greetings. My name is Cassian of the Eris Order.”

Cassian bowed politely.

“Ooh? This is your Hero candidate? You want me to take his body apart?”

“Right... Wait, no! Who told you to take him apart? I asked you to examine his condition.”

“Isn't that basically the same thing? Hmm... He looks normal enough on the outside.”

Jailin stroked her chin while carefully looking Cassian up and down.

“Examine my condition? Is there something wrong with me?”

“When I beat you up in the audience chamber, demonic energy leaked from your body, remember? That's why I'm having Jailin examine you. Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

Come to think of it, I'd decided all of this without asking him first.

He would've had every right to be offended.

Instead, he reacted calmly, almost as though he'd been waiting for something like this.

“Fine. I'll do it. But there's a condition.”

“...What is it?”

What kind of condition was she about to demand?

It definitely wasn't going to be easy.

An inexplicable sense of dread made my voice tremble slightly.

“I'll give you two options. Choose one.”

“Go ahead.”

“First, let me study your body.”

“Are you insane?”

“Still no?”

“I don't have a hobby of entrusting my body to a mad scientist.”

“I swear it won't hurt.”

“Yeah, fuck off.”

‘I swear it won't hurt’ was practically another way of saying ‘It's going to hurt like hell.’

I'd learned that truth painfully every time I visited a dentist in my previous life.

“Tch, so prickly. Then the second option. Lend me Astra, the Holy Spear.”

“...No.”

“Then I won't examine the beanpole either.”

“You little—”

“If you want something, shouldn't you give something in return?”

She wasn't wrong.

What could be more shameless than asking for a favor completely free of charge?

Our Order could pay her money.

But the problem was that Jailin wasn't someone who moved for money.

“No other condition?”

“Nope.”

“Ugh...”

Fine.

Well...

No choice.

Sorry, Astra.

“Astra.”

Astra appeared in a white flash, and I grabbed it.

“Heeeh... No matter how many times I see it, that's such a gorgeous spear. No wonder the old guys in our Order drool whenever they see it.”

Jailin stared at Astra in admiration.

Well, Astra was a divine weapon personally forged by Goddess Eris.

For dwarves obsessed with crafting things, it was a weapon guaranteed to make their eyes roll back.

“But Astra can't be used by anyone except me. Is that okay?”

“I'm not trying to use it as a weapon. It's for research, so it doesn't matter.”

“...No, I mean you probably can't even lift it.”

“Huh? I know I stay locked in a laboratory all day, but are you seriously underestimating a dwarf's strength? Give it here.”

Dwarves were naturally strong.

But this wasn't really a question of physical strength.

“I warned you, right?”

I placed the spear into Jailin's pale outstretched palm.

I still kept one finger lightly touching Astra.

“What? This is totally manageable. It's actually lighter than a normal spear.”

“I mean... I'm really taking my hand away?”

“Go ahead.”

I removed the finger touching the spear.

And at that exact moment...

“Ggghk!?”

Unable to withstand Astra's weight, Jailin immediately face-planted into the ground.

“Uwaaa... The world's spinning...”

Those spiraling eyes.

That's a visual gag you only see in comics and anime.

It can actually happen in real life?

“...I told you that you couldn't lift it.”

I scratched my head while staring at her.