Chapter 399: Oh No, They Won't Be At... (Patreon)

This chapter is 2-in-1 (399 and 399.2/12 Side Story) so I don't lose track of the numbering

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Chapter 399: Oh No, They Won't Be At...

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Lefiya still wanted to go down to the flower fields at the foot of the mountain and "play" to her heart's content. So the Elf girl decided to sneak over there in the dead of night.

Isagi and Riveria both admired the girl's enthusiasm.

It was already close to midnight. To be fair, in Orario this hour wasn't really late. For some adventurers, the small hours were just the beginning of the day. Whether they were drinking at a tavern or splurging in the Pleasure Quarter, the good life was only getting started.

But in this little town, everything was hushed.

Even the streetlamps along the road down the mountain had gone out. Isagi and the two Elves walked by the faint light of the stars and moon of late summer.

Most people who came here were probably either recuperating or traveling. And not the noisy kind of travel, either, but the kind where you go looking for stillness of the soul. So after nightfall the whole town quickly put out its lights. Only the sanatorium on the mountaintop, because it had patients to look after, stayed brightly lit through most of the night.

In fact, Riveria had left the sanatorium long ago, after saying goodbye to Eina. The patient needed rest, after all. However much she had to say to the maid she'd grown up with and hadn't seen in so long, she couldn't keep her talking this late.

Since then, the Elf woman had been sitting on a bench outside the sanatorium, lost in thought. That lasted until Lefiya came by with a late-night snack.

After the two Elves had eaten, they stayed on the benches a good while longer, chatting about all sorts of aimless things.

Lefiya was very interested in Her Highness's past travels around the world. She wanted to do the same someday. Probably after everything is over, Lefiya thought. Once the Black Dragon has been defeated and the exploration of the Dungeon is more or less done, I'll travel the world! And I'll drag Isagi along with me. He did say he was interested, too. After all, he'd been in this world for quite a while, so it was only right that he got out and saw the sights.

So, whether she wanted to learn from Riveria's experience or simply to hear stories of faraway places, Lefiya listened quietly as Riveria talked about the past.

Riveria, though, wasn't sure any of it would be useful. When all was said and done, those were things from several decades ago… The thought brought a faint blush to her cheeks. To an Elf, a few decades were nothing much, but in many places they were more than enough for dramatic change.

And so the two of them talked until deep into the night.

Now and then, Lefiya also spoke of her homeland. Riveria had never been to Wishe Forest, so she was curious about this "oddball" among the Elven people. Mostly, though, what the Elf girl told her about was running wild through the forest and making friends with butterflies, little rabbits, squirrels and piglets. It sounded a bit childish, if she was being honest.

But the thing Lefiya could never forget was—

—

Before long, they reached the flower fields at the foot of the mountain.

The lights were out here, too. When night had first fallen, the Magic Stone streetlamps had glowed with a warm light, but now they had all vanished. In their place, a thin layer of hazy, pale glow lay over the outlines of the rolling clusters of blooms. Set against the bright, many-colored radiance of the flowers themselves, it gave the scene a strangely otherworldly feel.

It's beautiful.

Lefiya dragged Isagi along, and Lady Riveria too, and they quickly crossed the broad expanse of flowers to the spot she'd had her eye on since the daytime. It was a slope behind the town. A green meadow ringed by flower fields stretched down and away toward the distant woodland. A small river ran through it, shimmering a faint blue, especially lovely beneath the night sky.

"Charge!"

The Elf girl broke into a run. Just as Isagi had expected in the daytime, she charged straight through the flower field and pounced, headlong, without a second thought. And she took him and Riveria down with her.

The three of them rolled over and over through the flowers and grass, tumbling a long way down the slope to the sound of the girl's giggling, delighted laughter.

This girl…

In the darkness, Isagi could just barely make out Lefiya's happy, charming face right in front of him. The three of them were in a thorough tangle, limbs mixed up with limbs. Isagi and Lefiya obviously didn't mind. The problem was Riveria. For a princess, this was far too mortifying!

!!!

How unseemly!

And yet, for some strange reason, she didn't want to get up. A sort of "might as well make the best of it" feeling was stirring inside her. Riveria's emotions were rather complicated at the moment. So she said nothing, simply pretended not to know a thing, and began to "admire" the beauty of the late night on her own.

Lefiya was like an energetic puppy, having run wild all over the forest since childhood. Riveria, as a member of the royal family, had never been allowed to do anything so improper. Royalty had to keep up appearances at all times. So she had truly never lain this freely in the grass and flowers, gazing up at the night sky.

Tonight's sky wasn't a bright one. There was no full moon hanging overhead, no dazzling spread of stars. If anything, it was rather gloomy. Thick clouds had been gathering and were nearly smothering the already dim stars and moon.

Soon the sky darkened even more. It looked like rain—

No. It had already begun to rain.

Riveria felt a touch of coolness on the tip of her nose, and then fine threads of rain began to fall on her cheeks.

Oh!

But almost at once, she heard Lefiya beside her begin to chant a spell. A barrier spell. In moments, a small emerald glow spread out around the three of them, shutting the falling rain out completely.

The girl had cast it just in time. The rain, so slight a moment ago, suddenly came down hard. A dense curtain of rain began to patter down, so abruptly it almost felt like an illusion.

Ah…

The silent night was drowned in rain all at once. And yet it gave an impression of utter, perfect quiet.

How lovely.

The sigh came from the depths of her heart. Riveria blinked and, little by little, began to truly enjoy the stillness.

Only…

Faint sounds started to drift over from beside her. Very, very soft ones, as if the girl were whispering secrets to the boy. Riveria, of course, knew about the relationship between Lefiya and Isagi.

So…

Her little heart, which had been on the verge of settling down, instantly went on alert.

They aren't going to do something right now, are they?!

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Chapter 12: An Evening Night Amidst the Flower Fields

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Isagi and Lefiya, of course, weren't doing anything strange.

But—

under such beautiful scenery, in such a silent wilderness, at a moment when the two of them were holding each other so close.

No.

Actually, the position Isagi and Lefiya were currently in would be better described as "tangled."

Like two balls of yarn wound completely around each other.

Riveria, who had originally been part of the group, had already been "kicked out" — though not by any deliberate action of the boy or the girl, who honestly hadn't had the spare attention to do such a thing.

It was the woman herself who, feeling embarrassed, had quietly withdrawn on her own.

So the current situation wasn't complicated at all.

In truth.

Lefiya had already sunk somewhat into the moment — beginning to ignore everything around her, with almost nothing but the boy in front of her — and now, basking in warmth, feeling his body heat, she murmured on in a soft voice, telling him things.

She was still talking about her childhood.

An Elf girl's life was, in truth, quite "simple" — after all, even with her long lifespan, she was still only in her teens. Among the Elves, she might not even count as a child yet.

And within those dozen-odd years.

Life at the [Academic District] had taken up a large portion of the girl's existence.

Those, too, were days well worth remembering.

But.

What she was talking about now was from her true childhood — the time when Lefiya really had been a child, darting through the forest like a restless young animal.

She used to make her way along the trees, crawling into hollow, fallen trunks using a body small enough — impossibly small, thanks to her young age — that only she could manage it.

Then she would crawl and crawl, crawl and crawl, passing through one hollow trunk after another, through a stretch of fallen woodland, until she arrived at a certain place—

the very center of Wishe Forest, where the Sacred Tree stood.

In Elven tradition.

no one was permitted to approach the Sacred Tree carelessly, for it represented, in a certain sense, "faith" and "divinity."

Of course, there was another reason as well.

The Sacred Tree, being an extremely rare "material," had often been the target of theft and even outright plunder since ancient times.

Because of this.

the Elves not only completely barred outsiders from approaching the Sacred Tree, but were extremely strict even with their own kind.

In some traditional Elven settlements.

an ordinary Elf who approached the Sacred Tree might even be put to death.

But.

Wishe Forest had no such rules — it was a place utterly different from other Elven villages.

For a thousand years, the Elves here had maintained good relations with the outside world. Of course, there had been times of deception and even plunder, but they never let that turn into hatred toward all outsiders because of it.

Precisely for this reason.

hardly anyone from the village ever came around the Great Holy Tree.

Because they had simply grown used to it.

A place one could visit anytime, ironically, becomes a place most people never bother to visit at all.

This made the area around Wishe Forest's Great Holy Tree feel oddly "natural" and "untended."

No man-made shrine stood there;

no scholar's tower rose there either;

and there certainly weren't any guarding soldiers.

The massive Sacred Tree simply stood there naturally within a stretch of woodland, surrounded by tender green grass and vast fields of flowers.

Sunlight filtered through the branches and leaves, scattering down in fragments from overhead.

It wove together with the warm glow radiating from the Sacred Tree, until the whole scene became dreamlike.

When Lefiya was little, she loved lying there — sometimes drifting off into a hazy sleep, sometimes suddenly thinking of far, faraway places and adventures.

Perhaps.

it was from that very time.

that the Sacred Tree had already chosen her — which was why, when she left her hometown, that great ring had appeared. It had been the Sacred Tree's farewell to the girl.

In fits and starts.

Lefiya told these old stories.

There was no order to any of it, just the girl speaking whatever came to mind, disjointed, without logic, even without any particular meaning.

The girl simply spoke, and Isagi simply listened. That was all.

And that alone was already enough.

Both of them could feel a certain contentment in it.

And amid such warmth, with their bodies entangled together, certain things naturally began to happen.

Isagi could at least feel that, right now, his left hand seemed to be pinned beneath the girl's body.

Its range of motion was limited.

About the best it could reach, barely, was her back, so it simply lay there quietly against her — though every now and then, perhaps because of the warmth, he'd shift its position slightly, or move it a little, drawing out a soft, clingy little sound from her.

Her senses seemed to have grown sharper.

Perhaps it was because her slender body was curled up so tightly against him that her pointed Elf ears happened to catch the warm breath he exhaled—

Isagi suspected this might be deliberate on Lefiya's part.

Girls who'd gained a little experience were remarkably good at finding such positions.

People, after all.

instinctively seek out the most comfortable posture while sleeping — that was only natural.

As for the other side.

his right hand had much more freedom of movement.

That was natural too — when one hand gets pinned down, the other is bound to be deliberately "set free."

In contrast, the girl tended to curl herself up even more, soft and yielding, not stopping any of his movements at all — which was also a kind of unconscious instinct, like searching for the most comfortable position while asleep.

So.

under these circumstances, his right hand naturally began to move on its own.

This caused the girl's originally steady breathing to grow ragged, even producing strange, hoarse little sounds.

This was the truth behind what Riveria had just overheard from nearby.

In truth, it wasn't anything much.

Just something perfectly normal that happens at times like this, and nothing further occurred — after all, both Isagi and Lefiya still had their common sense intact.

But, perhaps to girls with enough experience.

this really was nothing at all.

Just an ordinary bit of intimacy that happened now and then in daily life.

But, to Riveria standing nearby, it was far, far too stimulating—

an Elf woman over a hundred years old who had never once experienced anything like this. Not that she didn't understand it — it was precisely because she understood that she naturally assumed something like that was about to happen next.

"!!!"

Under the night sky.

the woman deliberately turned her back to the boy and girl, refusing to look — but that only made her hearing grow sharper, along with every other sense.

Even though there was some distance between her and them.

she could still make out those unbearably faint sounds coming from behind her!

It even made her unconsciously wonder whether some invisible giant hand was...

"Ahem, ahem—"

She tried this clumsy method of reminding the two of them that she still existed nearby.

But.

it did no good.

Because their perceptions had come completely unaligned — as far as Isagi and Lefiya were concerned, they weren't doing anything at all — but as far as Riveria was concerned, something quite momentous was about to happen... no, was already happening, and it was utterly dreadful!

The Elf woman, restless and anxious, simply closed her eyes.

But the more she did.

the darkness only made her earlier imaginings more "terrifying" and more "real."

The woman even recalled something from earlier — no, more precisely, just moments ago — the teasing words of her attendant Aina Tulle.

Having grown up together since childhood.

the two of them were mistress and servant in name, but sisters in every practical sense; there was no need to elaborate on how close they were.

And now, a woman who was already a wife and mother of two children — one already an adult, the other soon to stand on her own — found herself facing her "big sister," who had absolutely no real experience of such things.

Naturally, she'd be teased for it.

What's more, being someone unusually sensitive to matters of this kind, she had already seen through it — her "big sister" already had someone in mind, in a certain sense.

One could tell just from the impossibly complicated look on her face, and in her eyes.

So, that only made the whole thing more amusing.

Riveria's feelings right now were genuinely complicated, but the woman didn't feel lonely at all — instead—

Huff...

Huff...

Huff...

...

The originally quiet, fresh rainy night had, for some reason, grown a bit stifling.

Darkness fell in an instant.

The heavy rain seemed to swallow up everything at once, devouring what little light had remained, leaving no trace of where it had gone.

Everything before her eyes turned to pure black.

Even the faint pale-green glimmer of the magic barrier grew distant and uncertain.

All she could do was feel her way forward, then instinctively shift her body, sensing the presence of others still nearby.

It felt as though there was no going back now.

Riveria thought this to herself — or perhaps she could simply run back through the rain; for an adventurer, that shouldn't matter at all.

Or, could she just sleep here for the night?

Like camping out.

But that was obviously out of the question — if someone happened to come here for an early morning jog or something tomorrow and saw the three of them sleeping there, it would be more than a little embarrassing.

So, after quite a long while.

once Lefiya had fallen asleep, Isagi tentatively called out Riveria's name.

The boy knew the woman was awake at this point.

That was probably thanks to his long experience judging when a girl — or a goddess — was only pretending to sleep.

So.

almost by instinct, Isagi was certain Riveria wasn't actually asleep.

And indeed, that was exactly the case.

"Let's head back."

"Mm..."

The woman let out a sound so cloyingly sweet that it even startled her.

It was enough to make Riveria jump at herself.

She quickly covered her mouth.

But it didn't matter much, since Isagi was already used to girls making such sounds, so he simply didn't think much of it.

Even so, Riveria remained extremely tense — this, perhaps, was one of the things people could never truly understand about each other.

She kept the barrier spell active.

For Riveria as she was now, maintaining a thin magical shield around herself and the boy, to keep off the rain and such, was an effortless thing.

It could even block out the night wind, which had grown rather cold.

Which made her wonder.

could this same technique hold off the ice and cold winds deep within the Dungeon?

If so, maybe she wouldn't need to bring a Salamander Wool after all?

She tried, as best she could, to steer her thoughts back onto proper track, but it was hopeless — Riveria found herself unable to avoid dwelling on those "strange" matters.

The woman's heart was uneasy.

With the boy, the two of them gradually made their way down the mountain and back up into the little hillside town, and through the pitch-black dark, back to the inn where they were staying.

The two of them, of course, had separate rooms.

Isagi carried Lefiya back to her room, laid the girl down on the bed, and prepared to go wash up.

Riveria, returning alone to her own room, seemed to let out a breath of relief — while, at the same time, feeling a small, quiet sense of disappointment inside.

She had, more or less, come to understand.

what Aina Tulle had meant by "take the initiative a little."

That subtle atmosphere, it seemed, really could be shattered by nothing more than a single outstretched hand — or even just a look.

In this moment.

Riveria seemed to have grown up quite a bit.

It really had happened in an instant — something she had originally been completely unable to grasp, entirely beyond her comprehension, had, just like that, naturally etched itself into the depths of her mind, becoming "common knowledge she now thoroughly understood."

Even.

the woman now found herself feeling somewhat regretful.

After all, given how things stood now, there was surely no way anything could follow from this, was there?

Almost unconsciously, she walked into the bathroom in the dark and began to rinse off.

As the warm water sprayed down from the showerhead, striking her body, the searing sensation immediately loosened up her previously tense muscles.

It also let the woman's thoughts begin to slow.

Thinking it over seriously, she concluded that there was truly no chance of any follow-up now.

After all, she could hardly go knock on the door across the hall, could she?

And what would she even say?

That would be far too embarrassing!

This must be what Aina Tulle meant by, "once the moment slips away and is missed, it never comes back" — so that was it, so that was it!

Or maybe...

maybe the boy would come knock on her door instead?

The thought made Riveria's mood suddenly turn rather "uneasy."

On any ordinary day, the thought of such a thing would only have made her feel angry and disgusted — some man forcing his way into a woman's room in the dead of night at an inn couldn't even be called "human," but rather "trash" and "scum" of society!

But it was different now.

That was just how the woman's mind worked — for the same matter, different people held different standards.

If Isagi really did come knock on her door right now.

For instance.

his room's bathroom might have no hot water — a common enough occurrence at small-town inns — so he'd need to borrow her bathroom instead.

Or, alternatively.

even though it was already very, very late, the boy might not feel sleepy, might even be hungry, and would ask if she wanted a late-night snack — though all the taverns and restaurants in the little town were surely closed by now, the inn did have a kitchen, and the two of them could go make something simple together.

Or, yet again.

the boy might simply be unable to sleep, and suddenly think of something serious — something about their adventure, about the campaign against the [Black Dragon], and want to come discuss it with her...

For any of the above.

no matter the reason, Riveria would almost certainly let Isagi into her room.

Though she had no idea how things would develop after that, perhaps it would simply happen naturally, on its own...

...

The woman tossed and turned, thinking it over all night in her bed — but unfortunately, once she'd returned to her room that night, nothing more happened at all.