“—You’re in the way.”
“Eh? Guwaaaaah!?”
A violent wind erupted.
The two Explorers who were bothering Nifl were blown toward the request board. As they fell to the floor with a grand crash, the parchment that had been posted fluttered through the air above their heads, and splinters from the board scattered around.
“Stop exposing such a pathetic sight. It’s embarrassing as a fellow Explorer.”
The source of the sudden wind—the wind magic—was a single young man, Aleu-Carry. With his blonde hair fluttering in the wind, he looked down at the fallen duo and snorted.
His gaze immediately turned to Nifl standing beside him. After a glance at the beauty peeking through her swaying hood, he let out a bothered sigh.
“Are you hurt?”
To his somewhat reluctant question, Nifl lightly shook her head.
Aleu replied with a short “I see,” appearing uninterested. However, Nifl’s gaze did not leave him.
Noticing this, Aleu stole a glance at the Explorer tags hanging from the necks of the two fallen men.
“Hmph, are they around Level 2? Rookie Explorers should stop bothering girls around here.”
Aleu spoke with enough volume to be heard by the onlookers who had gathered at the commotion.
His words caused the buzzing of the crowd to spread further.
“Rookies…? Those guys are Level 5!”
“Apparently they were messing with that girl.”
“Ugh, they got what they deserved.”
“Besides, who is that guy?”
“I think he’s the one who registered as a newcomer at this branch recently. The one who broke the record for reaching Level 3 the fastest…”
“So he’s that ‘Promising Rookie,’ huh… Not bad.”
Hearing the clamor of the onlookers, Aleu muttered with a puzzled face. It was a small whisper, just loud enough for Nifl to hear.
“There’s no way these guys are Level 5. The magic I used was just a basic spell… they shouldn’t have been blown away so easily with such weak mana.”
Having said his piece, he sent his gaze toward Nifl again, and she seemed to be watching him just as before.
Aleu curled the corner of his mouth pleasantly, then immediately changed his expression to hide it and declared:
“No need for thanks. I just couldn’t stand seeing it as a fellow Explorer.”
“…………Yes.”
Her voice was transparent, softly striking Aleu’s eardrum. Aleu wanted to hear it once more and asked as if it were nothing.
“Are you alone?”
As he took a step closer, his eyes met the ones swaying deep within her hood.
He was captivated. Her beauty was far too unrealistic. His heart pounded at the illusion of being sucked into those dignified eyes that didn’t even try to hide their coldness.
It was exactly the same impulse he had felt a short while ago when he faced Hresvelg in the city.
—This is the stirring of fate.
Reflecting on how his life began to change the moment he took Hresvelg’s hand, Aleu reached that conclusion. He believed without a doubt that she was his next destiny.
No aversion appeared in her eyes. On the contrary, Nifl’s action of not looking away from him made his heart leap once more.
A young man who saved her from troublesome Explorers. In her eyes, surely he must appear charming.
The moment he thought that, her body, which he hadn’t noticed before, entered his sight. Feminine lines could be glimpsed even through the robe.
A woman with more charm than his childhood friend back home, Laika, who had left him behind.
His heart, which had been racing from acting like a hero, surged with excitement once again.
“If you’d like… how about a drink—”
“Excuse me.”
However, what she uttered was a chilled voice that felt like pouring cold water over Aleu. A gaze that felt like bottomless cold froze Aleu in his tracks.
“—Goodbye.”
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.GITHUB.IO
The words she spoke as she passed him were ordinary words of parting.
In that instant, Aleu’s hair was tossed by a light breeze.
A microscopic wind spell had activated from his own body. Naturally, it wasn’t by Aleu’s will, but by the mana of the spirit assisting him.
(Tsk, acting all high and mighty just because she’s got a pretty face, ignoring the debt of me saving her. Hresvelg… is something wrong?)
When he asked Hresvelg, who had taken the form of a tiny sky-blue sphere of light…
(…………Nothing~)
Hresvelg replied not with the high, bright voice she used when teasing Aleu, but with the voice of a gloomy, sulking child.
As he hurriedly turned his eyes toward her back, she had joined a large man and a small beastman dressed in the same cloaks as her.
He thought he had misseen. But there was no way.
There was no way she could mistake them.
In terms of actual time, it hadn’t been that long. But they had shared those days—the most brilliant days of her history.
Hresvelg turned her hollow eyes blankly toward her—toward Nifl.
(Ah… Nifl-chan, she’s moved on. She’s given up.)
A brilliant dark history. One she never wanted to remember again.
You said we’d be together. Then you disappeared on your own.
You said you were counting on me. Then you worked hard all by yourself.
You said you’d be right back. But a hundred and eighty years have passed.
I hate you. I hate you… I really, really hate you.
That’s why I don’t want to remember.
Because seeing everyone’s faces makes me remember, I chose to be alone.
After becoming alone… days of just enduring solitude began.
Then, she began to miss the others, starting with her.
That’s why she thought of disappearing.
Tormented by an irredeemable desire for destruction, Hresvelg’s brakes had long since broken.
That was the resignation felt by everyone who, like her, despaired over his whereabouts.
Among those Eight Precepts, it was Nifl who was supposed to have sworn the most loyalty to him.
The sight of her, whom she never expected to encounter in a place like this, gave Hresvelg an enormous shock.
She had noticed Hresvelg. She likely realized the presence here the moment she saw the wind magic Aleu released.
If Nifl were still searching for “him” without giving up, she absolutely would have spoken to Hresvelg.
What are you doing there? she would have asked.
But she didn’t do that; she only said goodbye.
Hresvelg was forced to face the truth. That enough time had passed for even her to give up.
I will wait for him until this body rots away. That was supposed to be the choice Nifl had made.
Nifl was acting with two others of the Eight Precepts.
(Gar-chan… Gurba-Grandpa, they’re together.)
She wanted to fly out right now and touch them.
But if she did that, she would never be able to leave again.
For the rest of her life, she would have to face the sense of loss gnawing at her core while remembering the days he was there.
(Has everyone… forgotten…?)
Words filled with envy.
(Has everyone… forgotten him?)
And then, a contradictory, irrational anger.
(Doesn’t it hurt? After touching such kindness… knowing happiness… and then being thrown away…! ……—Hel-kun, can you really forget him that easily?)
Her mind was already a complete mess.
Leaving the guild, the three and one animal entered a back alley to avoid the commotion.
They huddled together, hiding in the shadows as if escaping the orange light shining in from the street.
“Phew… human voices are so grating to my ears, I can’t stand it.”
Nidhogg, finally poking her face out from Nifl’s cloak, literally stretched her wings and stuck out her tongue in disgust.
“I apologize. I didn’t intend to cause a scene.”
“No, I was holding Garm and couldn’t go to mediate. It is I who should be ashamed.”
“No, thank you for looking after Garm, Gurba-sama. So Garm, what about that strange mana?”
“Yeah~… I think the source is near that place… down below, maybe~?”
“Down below?”
When she repeated the question, Garm tilted her head vaguely.
“Below the guild… but that’s the first floor; there shouldn’t be anything below that.”
“In that case, it would be a basement, but…”
“Oh? Shall we go blow that place up?”
“Be quiet, you useless dragon.”
Nifl sighed and squished the little dragon Nidhogg’s face into her chest.
“Mugh, gugugu!”
“Stop suggesting dangerous things. The Corpse King will have a headache. Do you understand?”
When she said that much, Nidhogg, who had been flailing her limbs, went limp, popped her face out with a “Pwah!”, and surrendered herself to Nifl as if she had given up.
“That loyalty to The Corpse King alone is worth praising.”
“……Only for the sake of my King.”
“If you’re going to say that, he is our King. He is by no means yours alone.”
Pouting her lips, the little black dragon stuck out her tongue, exasperated by the troublesome word-policing of the self-proclaimed Right Hand.
“Hey, um… everyone.”
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