Chapter 2

Alcohol

As the victory parade began, Sieg was excited like a little child, despite his large build and muscles.

He looked like a kid visiting an amusement park for the first time.

“They're the heroes who killed the Demon King!”

“The saviors of the Solios Continent have arrived!”

“Thank you so much for everything you've done for us!”

People waved their hands vigorously and cheered toward the carriage we were riding in.

Sieg seemed to enjoy the sight, waving back with a bright smile.

“Carniel. Isn't this fun? Why do you look so sullen?”

He continued as though he couldn't understand me.

“We deserve to be treated like this.”

“I hate cringey stuff like this.”

“You may have been treated like a genius plenty of times, but this is your first time being treated like a hero. Enjoy the moment!”

“That's enough. Sir Hero can enjoy my share too.”

Sieghart.

The male lead and hero of the romance fantasy novel I had been transported into.

Even if I had killed the Demon King all by myself, Sieg deserved to be the protagonist of this moment.

I sat crumpled in a corner.

Just watching my friend smile was enough.

_____________

After the parade ended, we headed to the royal palace.

When we arrived at the palace, countless nobles, including Walter von Fernia, the King of Fernia, greeted us with bright smiles.

“I welcome the heroes who have returned after defeating the Demon King.”

““Your Majesty.””

Everyone in the Hero's Party, including Sieg, paid their respects before the king.

I followed along well enough.

“The banquet will begin shortly. Before that, I would like to hear what sort of journey the heroes went through to defeat the Demon King.”

Sieg's eyes sparkled.

“Where would you like me to begin?”

“I would like to hear it from the beginning.”

As though he were Odysseus arriving on the island of Scheria, Sieg began recounting everything that had happened one by one.

“...Leaving the corps commander to Carniel and fighting the Demon King alone wasn't as easy as I expected.”

“To have the courage to face the Demon King alone. As expected of the continent's savior blessed by the Goddess!”

The nobles held their breath as they focused on his story, exclamations of admiration coming from all around.

Sieg vividly told the story as though he had personally solved everything.

I'd told him he could take credit for my accomplishments, so I didn't bother correcting him.

Glance.

In the middle of his story, Sieg kept looking at Ardel as though he were gazing at Princess Nausicaa.

It was obvious to anyone that he liked Ardel.

However.

Ardel showed little interest in Sieg.

She kept looking at my face.

She mouthed, ‘This is boring. Let's sneak out and play.’

Listening to a story I already knew was rather boring.

Pretending I needed to use the bathroom, I quietly rose from my seat.

Not long afterward, I heard footsteps behind me.

It was Ardel.

“Carniel!”

“What?”

“What do you mean, what? It's been forever since we've seen each other! We haven't seen each other for more than a whole year!”

“A year isn't that long.”

“How is a year not long?! You have no idea how much I missed you!”

“After I entered the Magic Tower, I didn't see my family's faces even once for more than five years. Sometimes you don't see someone for a year.”

“Not seeing your family and not seeing me are completely different!”

“...Isn't family more important?”

“Don't talk back. If the princess says so, then that's how it is.”

“...R-right.”

Ardel pouted.

Maybe because it had been so long since we'd seen each other, she seemed more whiny than usual.

Well. I didn't dislike it.

All this time, I had been looking at demon corpses and smelling blood.

An atmosphere befitting a romance fantasy world was healing to me.

I waited for the banquet to begin while talking with Ardel about everything that had happened.

_____________

Lunaelin, the elven archer and a member of the Hero's Party, approached me with a frown.

“How can you show up right when the banquet starts? You're even still wearing that shabby robe. You should at least show some basic courtesy.”

“As long as I attend, isn't that enough?”

“You call that an answer?”

“I wasn't going to come at all, but I felt awkward enough to attend. That's already tremendous progress for me.”

Bragan, the dwarf hunter and another member of the Hero's Party, grabbed his belly and roared with laughter.

“Real men like us only need one set of clothes! Why bother dressing up uncomfortably?”

“Exactly, old man. You said exactly what I wanted to say.”

“Hahaha! In our kingdom, no one says anything even if you come to a banquet wearing nothing but a robe. Everyone thinks comfort is best!”

“Dwarves really are reasonable.”

The other members of the Hero's Party sighed and shook their heads as they listened to Bragan and me talk.

Sernil, the priestess of the Hero's Party and a leading candidate to become the next Pope, cautiously approached me and whispered in my ear.

“Lord Carniel. I heard you were with Lady Ardel the whole time until just a little while ago. Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

“I-I see...!”

Sernil glanced around at the people nearby.

“Lord Sieghart hasn't looked very happy for a while.”

“Indigestion?”

“...N-no.”

“Are you sure?”

“That's not the issue. I think it's because Lord Carniel and Lady Ardel are too close. You said you'd help bring Lord Sieghart and Lady Ardel together. You're not planning to break that promise, are you...?”

“Oh, that's all.”

“...”

“We were just talking as friends. What's the problem?”

Sernil looked at me with a rather grave expression.

“Lord Carniel. As one who serves the Goddess through love, I know every aspect of love.”

“...”

“Sometimes it can be as warm as the spring sunshine, but sometimes it can become colder than the harshest winter.”

Sernil added one more sentence with a meaningful expression.

“So you must always be careful.”

In one corner of the banquet hall, the remaining members of the Hero's Party, the spirit mage and the alchemist, were quietly talking among themselves.

______________

The world I'd been transported into was a romance fantasy world where people went mad with love and could commit any bizarre act imaginable.

Sernil's advice bothered me.

And I'd promised to bring Sieg and Ardel together.

So I decided to undertake a little quest of my own at the banquet.

It was time to become the link that connected the two of them.

Maybe she had separately learned tracking magic from the court mages, because Ardel had always been strangely good at finding me whenever I hid.

So.

I stuck right beside Sieg in the banquet hall.

Just as I'd expected, it naturally created a situation where Sieg and Ardel came face-to-face.

“I heard the new play that just came out is really fun... I wonder if there's anyone who'd go see it with me...?”

“M-me! Carniel, I really love watching plays!”

“Oh, right. Sieg, you said you were really interested in plays, didn't you?”

After introducing the topic, I grabbed my stomach.

“Why does my stomach keep hurting? Did I eat something bad...?”

I subtly stepped away as though heading to the bathroom.

Naturally giving the two of them time to talk alone.

‘This is absolutely perfect.’

In the original novel, Ardel and Sieg were more than a match made in heaven. They loved each other so much that they couldn't live without one another.

Even a cold-blooded person like me had shed a few tears at the part where Sieg threw away his life to save Ardel from the Demon King.

But things were different now.

Sieg and Ardel merely knew each other's faces.

According to the original story, Ardel should have attended a banquet held in the Kingdom of Helicion.

They should have met there and fallen in love at first sight.

I didn't know why.

Ardel hadn't attended the banquet.

As a result, the very first meeting that had bound them together like fate in the original story had disappeared.

‘Now I understand why Mom and my sister watched dramas all the time. They look that good together.’

Watching the well-matched man and woman smiling as they talked made me smile without realizing it.

I'd prevented the world from being destroyed.

Now I wanted to relax for a while.

And since it had been a long time since I'd come to a banquet, I wanted to drink and get drunk.

As expected of the continent's second-greatest kingdom, there was plenty of expensive and delicious alcohol.

I disabled the magic that broke down alcohol.

I got pleasantly tipsy, just the right amount.

‘If I sleep now, I'll be out like a light.’

The banquet was still in full swing, but I slowly prepared to leave.

Just as I was about to leave the banquet hall and head to the room the kingdom had prepared for me.

Ardel approached me with a thoroughly sulky expression.

“Why do you keep ignoring me?”

“Me?”

“You keep running away while we're talking.”

“Not at all.”

“You've been doing it all day.”

“I think I only did it once today.”

“Eight times. You did it exactly eight times!”

“...Why were you counting?”

The truth was, whenever I introduced a topic and slipped away, Ardel would come back to me before long.

I would immediately head over to Sieg and introduce another topic.

Then run away again.

Ardel kept coming back to me, but the amount of time the two spent together gradually grew longer.

So.

Naturally, I thought things were going well.

But.

Why was she suddenly angry at me?

Did I do something wrong?

“You're trying to set me up with Lord Sieghart right now!”

“Who knows.”

“Don't pretend you don't know! Do you think I'm stupid?”

“If you throw a fireball onto ground frozen by Blizzard magic, will the ice melt? Or will the flames freeze?”

“...How would I know that?”

“Then by my standards, you are stupid.”

“...Y-you!”

Ardel clenched her fists and started pounding my arm.

Maybe because I'd been attacked by demons until recently and was now being attacked by small, soft fists, I didn't feel pain so much as a strange sense of pleasure.

...Was that really why it felt good?

I was probably just feeling good because I was drunk.

I wasn't sure of the exact truth either.

“You promised you'd spend the whole day playing with me!”

“Princess. I never made that promise.”

“You did!”

“When?”

“A little while ago.”

“When exactly was a little while ago?”

“Y-you did! Exactly when was it... when exactly was it...?”

“Do I really need to tell you that lying is bad?”

“I-I'm not lying! You really said that to me!”

She's being especially unreasonable today.

After hesitating for a moment, Ardel.

“This is expensive alcohol I secretly took from the royal storage because I wanted to drink it with you.”

She handed me a crystal glass filled with a liquid resembling red wine.

Was it because I was drunk?

Ardel's face illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the window.

Her childishly innocent smile, out of place with her elegant attire, looked even prettier than usual today.

____________

A horrible hangover.

My head hurt like it was splitting apart.

I vowed never to drink again just because I'd gotten swept up in the atmosphere.

‘...Why am I in Ardel's room?’

This wasn't my room.

She had so often grabbed my hand and dragged me around to play that I'd naturally memorized the layout of her room.

‘Why are we in bed together...?’

Ardel was sleeping soundly beside me.

Fuck.

What?

What the hell is going on?

No matter how hard I searched my memory, I couldn't remember anything after Ardel handed me the glass.

...Don't tell me we did it while drunk?

I pulled back the blanket.

We were both still wearing our underwear.

It was ambiguous to say we'd done it.

But it was also ambiguous to say we hadn't... Was it really ambiguous...?

If anyone else saw us, this was exactly the kind of situation that would make them misunderstand and think a hot-blooded man and woman had spent a passionate night together...

“I heard you were looking for me... Carniel?”

Sieg opened the door and came inside.

First, he saw Ardel lying there in her underwear.

Then his eyes met mine as I sat there, likewise dressed only in my underwear.

‘You lunatic, why are you making a face at your friend that you didn't even make while fighting demons?’

And that evening.

I was put on trial.