“No, Noah!”
I picked up Noah, who was collapsed on the floor.
Fortunately, she was breathing, but blood was gushing from her nose and mouth.
I immediately infused her with divine power to heal her.
Still, Noah’s body continued to pour out blood.
Again. Again. Again.
I constantly infused her with divine power.
But Noah’s condition showed no signs of improvement.
“Noah… Noah! Shinnoah!”
“Miss, calm down for a moment. More of those monsters will be coming.”
“Right now, I look calm…”
“She’s not dead. And it’s not life-threatening either. She’s just sleeping, so please calm down.”
“She’s bleeding this much… and you say it’s okay?”
“I assure you.”
“Then, why is Noah like this…?”
The one-eyed man, who had only laughed foolishly until now, was looking at Noah and me with a serious expression.
“Hmm… for now, it’s better to have fewer eyes watching, right?”
The man turned around and drew his sword.
“My lords. I have a secret to discuss, so can you please move somewhere else?”
I could hear the murmur of the knights.
“Or I can send you away. How… should I send you away?”
The man slowly walked towards the knights.
“I’ll count to exactly 5. Since my lords said you’re a bunch of uneducated adventurers, I have no idea how to count. So I’ll just count as I was taught. One.”
Thud-thud-thud
“One.”
The man raised his sword.
“… I will retreat.”
The highest-ranking knight responded while grinding his teeth.
“Ha ha ha! You’re speaking clearly! Must be because you’re well-educated? Then, please leave quickly. I can’t wait because I have no patience.”
As soon as the man’s words ended, the knights hurriedly started to scatter.
“Whew, that’s tidy. Now, shall we continue our conversation? Miss… um, since Noah is sleeping, let’s call her shaman. Do you know how Shaman Noah sees things?”
“… Yes.”
“Then it’ll be quick to explain. This happened because of the sensitivity Noah used.”
“What do you mean by that…?”
“Shaman Noah knew that a swarm of monsters was coming before even I or the bald guy did. You know that, right?”
“Well… yes, that was the case.”
“Even though it was quite a distance.”
“Uh…?”
Noah had said earlier that she could only sense about 30 meters. The monsters were at least 30 meters away.
So…
“Hmm… I don’t know how to explain this for the shaman to understand, but to put it simply, Shaman Noah forcibly expanded her sensitivity. This is the side effect.”
He pointed at Noah’s blood as he continued.
“I know someone who’s not blind but sees the world through sensitivity.”
“Yes…”
“When that person was with us, they acted as our detector. But every time they did, they complained about how tired they were.”
“But what does that have to do with…?”
“One day, we couldn’t see where the monster we were supposed to subjugate went. So I told that person to use their detector and find it. As we kept scratching at the surface, they got so heated that they forcibly expanded their sensitivity.”
The one-eyed man smirked as he looked at Noah.
“It took 5 seconds. To find a monster 200 meters away, just 5 seconds. Then that person passed out, pouring blood like Shaman Noah is now. But that was in an open field. No creatures, no buildings, just an ordinary plain. Do you understand what this means?”
I looked around.
The sight of numerous structures and buildings in the ruins caught my eye.
The exact opposite environment of an open field.
“The amount of information taken in through sensitivity is different?”
“Correct. It’s good that you understood all at once. The amount of information entering your skull was on a different dimension. Sure, you could think that person was lousy, but that person was of the same platinum rank as me at the time.”
“…What?”
I raised my head to look at the man in front of me.
He seemed like an unremarkable guy, someone you’d see in the neighborhood, but platinum…?
“Heh, I know I might not look trustworthy because of this appearance, but anyway. That person was quite something too. However, even they wouldn’t have dared to do something crazy like forcibly expand their sensitivity. They were trembling just thinking about it. And I can feel a bit of sensitivity too, but here’s the thing.”
The man closed his eyes and ground his teeth.
Suddenly, blood started flowing from his nose.
“Cough! Did you see that? This is what happens when I use just a tiny bit! It hurts like my skull is about to crack. But Shaman Noah does it like it’s no big deal. Ugh, it hurts…”
The man spat the blood from his mouth and continued speaking.
“Moreover, she continued fighting despite such insane behavior. Of course, it was due to my mistake, Heinzel’s, and that bald guy’s too, but I’d hope you can understand? There were unavoidable circumstances.”
Those unavoidable circumstances were probably the knights of Erden.
And the reason we had to fight them was likely… due to a commission.
The commission we received from Alrba.
The client was probably Hermila. The content was… protecting Noah.
In the end… if we trace it back, it all leads to me being the cause.
Noah being like this was all… because of me.
“And the most important thing is. That.”
The man gestured towards a collapsed wall.
“Right now, you’re saying that Noah brought that wall down?”
The man nodded.
“Hmm, you know there are exactly 10 Masters in the world, right?”
“Suddenly, what are you…?”
“Do you know?”
“…I know of them.”
Masters.
The realm all knights and adventurers dream of.
Though I had never seen one, I knew the rumors well.
When Masters fight each other, hills are cut down and oceans are flipped, they say.
Of course… I don’t believe it at all.
If beings like that existed, the monsters would have been wiped out long ago.
“I’ve seen a Master only once in over 40 years of my life. But, you know, that person swung their sword just once and the castle wall crumbled. It was a fallen nation’s wall, but still.”
Hearing the man’s words, I gazed again at the collapsed wall.
“So… how did Noah bring that down?”
“That, I don’t know either. But just once. Just once, they swung it and the wall collapsed, just like that Master did.”
“No way… so does that mean Noah is a Master?”
“Hmm, I don’t think that’s it, but… she’ll probably reach Master level soon.”
I looked down at Noah in my arms.
Her noticeably smaller frame.
So light.
Her arms, too slender to wield a Great Sword.
With this body… she endured pain that even platinum rank adventurers find hard to bear and somehow carried on fighting.
To protect me.
No, that’s not it.
Honestly, I don’t think she went through all this just to protect me.
What am I to her?
She doesn’t even know I’m a shaman.
We haven’t known each other for long.
And that makes it all the more confusing.
I couldn’t understand why she was pushing herself this hard.
What did she want so badly to live through this struggle?
Me, who knows nothing.
Me, who cannot understand anything felt frustrating.
“By forcibly expanding her sensitivity to take in an overwhelming amount of information while breaking down walls, she wielded a weapon that can no longer be called a Great Sword and killed at least a hundred monsters. That little kiddo.”
I hugged the collapsed Noah tighter.
“Why, why did you go this far?”
“Perhaps it’s an obsession. Some painful memory in the past created this obsession. I have it too… and so does that bald guy, we all have something like that. But it seems Shaman Noah’s is quite severe.”
I had expected something like this after seeing Noah kill the monster.
The expressions, words, and atmosphere she transformed into were enough to make one believe she was an entirely different person.
Maybe… that’s Noah’s true self.
My head was in a mess.
My stomach churned, and I felt like tears would burst out any moment.
The more I learned about Noah’s hidden side, the more I felt my choices were wrong.
I felt so ashamed that I had run away from important responsibilities.
Noah, who was asleep in my arms, only made me suffer more.
“For now… I understand. The situation is over, so I should lay Noah down comfortably.”
“I can carry her—”
“No. I’ll do it. Just… please stick to your duty and protect us.”
“…Heh, you’ve got a good sense. But protecting the shaman from the knights who came to escort her… is quite ironic, isn’t it? Don’t you think?”
“That… I’ll explain later. Noah comes first.”
The man readily nodded and walked ahead.
“I’ll guide you to a good place. It’ll be perfect for resting.”
The place we originally were wasn’t bad, but I didn’t refuse the man’s words and followed along.
Wherever Noah could rest comfortably, it didn’t matter to me.
“Oh, by the way, I guess the shaman doesn’t know my name? Shaman Noah knew mine.”
After a while of walking, the man turned to me and spoke.
Noah knew this man’s name?
“Yes… I don’t know.”
“Ahem. In that case, let me formally introduce myself. It’s still a greeting, so it’s better to use honorifics, right? Hehe.”
The man sheathed his sword and placed his right hand on his chest, bowing slightly.
Then he spoke in a serious voice.
“I am Lucci, a platinum adventurer. Among adventurers, I’m called ‘One-Eyed Lucci.’ But… you can just call me Lucci or Uncle… I’d appreciate any of it.”
“One-Eyed Lu… Lucci?”
“That nickname isn’t one I particularly like, so how about just calling me Uncle, Shaman…?”
“Ah, okay… understood.”
“Hmm. Then shall we go again?”
Lucci resumed walking.
The survivor of Hablon, whom Noah spoke of.
He was walking steadily in front of me.
And Noah knew this man.
I looked down at Noah nestled in my arms.
I had hidden my identity as a shaman from Noah, but…
It seemed Noah was hiding something from me too.
We weren’t “that” close yet, but…
Still.
I wanted to get a little closer.
Once I gather my thoughts, I should have a deep conversation.
My story.
Noah’s story.
Everything, all of it.
