The carriage headed towards Cemetery Village Semek.
Not too fast, but not too slow either.
When asked, “Shouldn’t we hurry? What if we miss the culprit who overturned Semek?” Ceres lightly snorted and replied.
“After all, it’s been a few days since the chaos erupted. If there are any traces of magic remaining, the culprit will either be a lich or a necromancer. If the traces are strong, it’s a lich; if weak, then a necromancer. If there are no traces, it’s probably a vampire. Detecting magical traces is no big deal for me. As long as it’s not a vampire, we should be good to go.”
No one could argue with Ceres’s words. They weren’t wrong; it had been a few days since the incident, so rushing now wouldn’t change much.
“So, we’ll just recover our stamina while going. Does anyone have anything urgent to do?”
Ceres said this with a grin, leaving everyone silent. Scarlet didn’t show any signs of dissatisfaction, though her expression was anything but clear; it was likely she felt some kind of way about it, yet she didn’t voice any complaints either.
“Hey.”
“What is it, crazy healer?”
Yona felt a shift in her title from ‘weird healer’ to something less flattering, so she rolled her eyes and took a deep breath.
The afternoon sun was quite pleasant. As they were expecting to arrive at Semek by evening, Ceres suggested they take it easy. Vigrind and Yona climbed up on the carriage, looking out at Medial Plain.
It had become a day that hardly sufficed to be described as “transitioning into winter.” By morning, it had gotten cold enough for frost to form, and Yona had just pulled a cardigan from her backpack and wrapped it around Rubina.
Then, while basking in the sunlight atop the carriage, Vigrind suddenly joined her and sat down next to her.
Yona was half-lying down with her legs stretched out, supporting herself with her arms. Vigrind sat nearby, kneeling neatly with her skirt tucked.
Both were priests, but they certainly looked quite different.
“…Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For, you know, healing me. With your blessings and everything.”
Vigrind fell silent for a moment at Yona’s words. The reason for her gratitude was pretty obvious. They were rivals who could barely stand each other; however, she didn’t want her to die.
Vigrind was the only one left from the orphanage besides Yona, and although they had parted ways on the Day of Judgment, they had promised to look out for each other as long as they both became priests or healers.
“…I didn’t want to see you die. That’s all there is to it. I had no other intentions.”
“Anyway, I almost died, so I’m just saying thanks for saving me.”
“Well then, I accept that gratitude.”
And then, there was silence again.
Amidst the quiet girls sitting side by side, only the wind blew by without a word.
Cold, and even colder wind.
With the harvest long over, dried leaves rolled about in the empty fields.
A few birds were darting around in between.
Yona stared at the birds quietly and suddenly spoke up.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“What do you mean?”
It was back when Yona was still in the Cathedral training to be a nun, before she fell out with Priest Vigrind.
Since she was a nun, she sometimes went out for volunteer work, and there was a time she visited a small settlement of firewood gatherers near Evian.
That village had been badly hit when wild kobolds attacked, leaving many injured and destroying most of the homes and barns. The problem was, in the middle of that chaos, Vigrind suddenly collapsed.
Yona and Sister Aege, the supervisor at the time, were startled and hurried to lift Vigrind to help him rest, but after a while, he quietly opened up about something he had never shared before.
He said his hometown had disappeared, just like this.
The memory of his hometown vanished, exactly like this scene.
The barn that used to be filled with joyful children playing had crumbled into ruins,
The house where his mother was preparing meals and his father chopping firewood now lay in shambles, just remnants left behind,
And the mill where he used to play hide and seek with friends had only the foundation stones remaining.
As soon as he saw the settlement of firewood gatherers, those memories surfaced, and Vigrind had looked like that.
Yona remembered that expression.
“Well, aren’t you going to be okay?”
“What if you collapse again?”
“What do you want me to do about it? If it happens, it happens. And I’m also a Saint, you know… though I do think it’s a bit too much.”
“What’s too much about it? The Goddess must have made you a Saint for a reason.”
Yona wore a nonchalant expression.
Hiding her concerns about Vigrind, she turned her gaze back to the plain.
“I really don’t get what’s going on. A Hero appears, you become a Saint, and then demons show up. I can’t tell if this world is falling apart or what.”
“If we knew that, we wouldn’t be human. They say a calamity is approaching, so we need to stop it. That’s the only thing we should be sure of, isn’t it?”
“It’s easy for you to say.”
“If you think too hard about it, it only gets harder. Don’t you know that, you scatterbrained Healer?”
“It’s only going to get harder if we think too much about it. Don’t you know that, you crazy healer?”
“Even if I’m crazy, I’m still doing better than you, Mr. Short-Growth.”
“…I’m in my growth period!”
Vigrind’s voice became sharp.
*
The carriage finally entered Cemetery Village Semek just as the sun began to set.
The dimly lit village looked surprisingly intact.
“What would the dead do by knocking down buildings? It’s not like they can eat them. If they get blocked, they just go around.”
Ceres’s nonchalant words actually made a lot of sense.
After getting off the carriage, they decided to break into groups to look around the village.
Scarlet gathered the Holy Knight Brigade members, giving them orders and dividing them into six groups of four to spread out.
“Can’t we just stay here?”
“Are you scared?”
“I-It’s not that I’m scared.”
Yona was scared.
And it was understandable, considering the fresh memory of the battle with the undead where she was ambushed by ghouls.
The pale eyes, those claws digging into her side, and how they broke her ribs… The chilling sounds of her bones snapping still echoed vividly in her mind, making her want to stay with Rubina in the carriage if possible.
“If you’re scared, what can you do about it?”
“It’s not about being scared… I should be protecting Rubina! Right?”
Rubina was indeed a major concern.
Given the timeframe, they should have arrived at the Infura Church Region by now for her orphanage admission, but things kept going awry, resulting in Rubina being in this mess.
Thanks to that, Rubina had to stay in the carriage, and Yona’s insistence on protecting her was fairly persuasive.
Of course, if Yona’s face hadn’t looked so terrified while saying that, it would have been even more convincing.
“I think it’s better to just stay here. But it feels a bit off to leave Yona and Rubina alone, so I’ll stick around.”
James shook his dagger sheath and smiled.
Though he was an archer by trade, his arrows were all gone, rendering the bow useless, and after having fought at close range to save Kaiyak, he wasn’t in the best shape.
“With this one, I could still manage to fight. If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve brought another dagger.”
Thinking about James’s words, Yona recalled the hunting knife strapped to her thigh.
The hunting knife that Vigrind had blessed when she was attacked by the ghoul.
The hunting knife that Priest Vigrind had bestowed upon him.
Just as Yona was about to use the knife, her hand froze.
‘…This was given to me by a baldy.’
She hesitated to leave her fingerprints on it.
Moreover, just in case, she should have a weapon to protect herself in emergencies.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Yona decided to say nothing about the hunting knife.
“I’m keeping an eye on Rubina. I’ll be back soon.”
Alex waved his hand.
Then he walked over to Ceres and Kaiyak, who were waiting.
“Ugh, why did I even mention mana traces…”
Since there was no mage besides Ceres who could detect mana traces, there was nothing to be done.
And so, the hero Ludvik decided to team up with Priest Vigrind, who could sense the demon’s magic, and they vanished into the darkness.
“Yona, since you’re a healer, you can’t sense magic, right?”
“I can sense it, but it’s just a bit lacking. The divine power just circles around in my body.”
“Sis, what’s divine power?”
At Rubina’s question, Yona hesitated, unsure how to answer.
Should she say it’s a power given by the Heavenly God? But wouldn’t that lead to another question about who the Heavenly God is?
What should she say then? Just a higher-up, perhaps?
Though those thoughts lingered for a moment, they were effectively resolved by James.
“Rubina, divine power is the strength to help those who are suffering and in pain.”
His big and sturdy hand gently ruffled Rubina’s hair.
“The strength to help those who are suffering? So, you helped me because you thought I looked troubled?”
Rubina looked straight at Yona with her dark eyes.
Truthfully, it was a bit of a fickle thing, but it wasn’t that Rubina didn’t look like she was struggling at all.
Had she not locked eyes with Rubina when returning from the chief’s house to their lodgings.
Had it not been for Rubina’s scream before that.
Maybe she would have saved Rubina anyway.
“Sis?”
Yona looked down at Rubina.
Seeing her reflection in those black eyes, Yona couldn’t help but smile faintly.
“…Yeah. You really did look super troubled and distressed, so I helped you. So be nice to your sister, okay?”
“Okay!”
Rubina beamed a bright smile.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.
