EP.108 Memories
“So, what exactly did you want to do…?”
Rubbing my sore wrist, I momentarily glanced to the side.
The figure that caught my eye was Dawna, a nurse with her face red and cupped in her hands, curled up like a tiny insect.
The bold demeanor she showed just moments ago was nowhere to be found in her pitiful state.
While I felt glad to finally meet the Dawna I knew, the question of why she had acted so strangely also arose in my mind.
“What was that earlier? Were you imitating the Hero?”
“Q-quiet down…”
Her voice was so soft it seemed to struggle to be heard over an ant crawling.
From the way her words broke apart, it was clear her throat was probably a bit strained.
Once, she had sung beautifully even while tightly bound, but now that she had loosened a few buttons, she immediately looked faint—that was suspicious.
However, given that she had a mind many times more complex than others, it wasn’t unusual for her to sometimes leap ahead in logic.
For now, I decided to wait patiently until she gathered her thoughts.
“…..”
“…..”
After some time had passed, unable to endure the awkward silence that seemed endless, I finally spoke up first.
“Just sitting here reminds me of old times.”
Dawna’s dark pupils, which had been hidden behind her fingers, cautiously turned to me.
Though it wasn’t a significant movement, it was enough for me to confirm that she was willing to listen.
After a few clears throat, I continued.
“Back in our academy days, we often skipped classes and ended up hiding together in secluded corners like this. You do remember how wild you were back then, right? You just blurted out you’d grant me the right to know the secrets of making friends. Haha, even noble ladies raised in greenhouses wouldn’t say things like that.”
“Uuuh…”
The small gap between her fingers closed tightly.
I could understand her feelings perfectly.
Being forced to unearth a dark past she wanted to bury must have been indescribably dreadful.
Had the roles been reversed, I might have been burying my face in a pillow, flailing my legs just like Dawna was now.
Her talent for handling magic was so outstanding even the elders of the Magic Tower were left speechless, but not even her brilliant talent could hide her quirks.
A prodigy undoubtedly destined to be inscribed in history someday.
The sight of swarms of ants gathering to suck the nectar of her talent was a spectacle in itself.
I had once been one of those ants, so I still vividly remembered the day Dawna had jumped ahead in her studies—the quirks of her personality were still fresh in my mind.
On the day Dawna entered the academy as an advanced student, I made a wrong move and casually invited her to lunch, resulting in a year-long magical curse that turned an unnamed classmate’s armpit hair pink; I could confidently claim it rivaled even the wails of a century-old mandragora.
Thus, it was entirely natural for Dawna, who committed such heinous acts as if they were daily occurrences, to be ostracized among her academy peers.
Even I, who had the closest relationship with her, had taken quite a bit of time to realize that her behaviors were just misplaced expressions of embarrassment.
Of course, it wasn’t time I spent willingly.
The unwanted attachment formed when she relentlessly clung to me as I tried to escape.
A misguided relationship born from her hasty judgment that I had plenty of friends while I was scrambling around trying to curry favor with empty-headed noble youths.
“Back then, it was just the two of us here all the time. Now it’s completely chaotic, right?”
“Uuuh…”
The way others looked at me back then—those searching gazes morphed from pitying that poor lab rat to viewing me as a completed homunculus was a bit bewildering.
However, I didn’t have to endure that discomfort for long, as I soon dropped out of the academy.
So when I unexpectedly ran into Dawna while adventuring with the Hero, my heart sank at just how much time had passed.
The little girl who barely reached my waist had suddenly grown up to my chest, a reminder of time’s relentless flow.
Once I saw her face, she suddenly zapped me with a lightning spell to my face; the subsequent memories were quite hazy, but her tearful expression of joy at our reunion still remained clear in my memory.
Since Dawna became our comrade, that absurd incident had become a frequent topic of humor in our party.
“Do you have something on your mind?”
“…..!”
After easing the atmosphere with some trivialities, I slowly opened the main topic.
With the connection we shared, I could easily sense she was holding worries she couldn’t easily share with others.
“Looks like you still have the habit of wiggling your toes when you’re troubled.”
“W-what?!”
Like she had been pricked by a needle, she suddenly shot up from her curled position.
Seeing her desperately searching for her toes with trembling eyes was laughable, but I knew that laughing would ruin the consultation atmosphere, so I bit back my chuckle.
“Y-you’re watching a 20-year-old girl’s toes that closely! R-Regis! Don’t you have any shame?!”
“No, I remember you said curiosity is essential for growing your mind.”
Clang! Her loud voice tugged at my conscience, but perhaps because of her strained throat, her outburst only evoked my pity instead of intimidating me.
“Come on, just speak freely. What’s awkward between us, right?”
“…..uh!”
As she tightly gripped a nearby pillow, the intent to hit me with it was suddenly halted.
After slowly placing the pillow on the bed, her tear-filled eyes stared up at me, looking like she was raising a white flag.
“R-Regis…”
Upon hearing that moist tone, I paused urging her and settled into a more attentive posture.
This may take a while, so I made sure to sit comfortably.
“Y-you…”
Just then.
With both hands tightly clutching the blanket, Dawna hesitated for a long moment, and just as she seemed ready to speak—
Bang!
“R-Regis, Priest—!!”
The sudden noise of the door slamming open was accompanied by a hurried voice charging into my consciousness like thunder through dark clouds.
“Marianne, Sister?”
The identity of the visitor bursting into the private room was none other than Sister Marianne.
Drenched in sweat, her clothes and hair clinging to her skin, she looked as though she had just run a marathon, focused solely on regaining her breath.
Her pale face seemed to foreshadow how grim the news she carried was.
“I’m sorry for interrupting while you’re hospitalized! B-but! Ugh! Ugh!”
“Calm down! Speak slowly! Dawna, hold on a moment!”
“U-uh, okay…”
After seeking permission from Dawna, I hastened to Marianne.
The sudden act of covering her mouth and starting to sob made me sense that something was seriously wrong.
“Ugh! Ugh! T-the Saintess! Ugh!”
“The Saintess…?”
That name echoed in my thoughts, pushed aside after the wedding uproar.
Come to think of it, ever since that day, due to various circumstances, I hadn’t even seen the Saintess’s face, let alone attended to her.
Could it be she stirred up more chaos in my absence?
Just as that calm worry wrapped around my mind—
The news Marianne delivered with her trembling lips twisted my heart immediately into horror.
“Ugh! The Saintess! S-Sister! The Sister!”
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