SG! 25: A CONFUSED PAIR

The next day, we departed from Telaberan as scheduled, starting our journey to the imperial capital.
Though this time we were going by carriage. It was a far cry from our trip here. Though we remained silent, the carriage rolled on, and there was nothing we had to do in particular.
To put it bluntly, it was a lot of spare time.
With nothing to do, I ended up thinking about a lot of things.

Calling our path to Telaberan a ‘journey’ would be rather generous. It was more like panicked flight.
We couldn’t even guarantee there’d be anything to eat, or anywhere to sleep.
Days of nothing but enduring the fear and anxiety.
It already seemed unbelievable that that was our reality only a few days ago.
Thinking about it, quite a lot had happened since we arrived in Telaberan.

Meeting Leon, and being taken to the estate.
Eating food the average person would definitely never have the chance to touch.
Sleeping under a roof.
…Becoming a slave again.
Guibenague.
Going sightseeing through the city.

Thinking about it, those days, those times — if Leon hadn’t found us, that future would never have been.
I didn’t have a clear idea of just what, exactly, happiness was. But if someone were to ask me, I might say that it was those few days I spent at the estate.
That was how gray my world was until the day I met Leon.
To live for living’s sake. Days of that, and nothing else.
Running forward in desperation today, knowing nothing of tomorrow. I couldn’t admit I was tired, but neither could I bring myself to say ‘Help me.’
Now, I thought — that was truly a bitter way to spend each and every day.
Ahh, I didn’t want to go back to those days anymore.

— Is that really how it is?

In the middle of my thoughts, something that rejected the idea bubbled up from the depths of my heart.

Is that really how it is? Was every day full of bitterness, and nothing else?
Did I hate it that much? Desperately clinging to life every day?
No, not at all. I liked living that way.
Never knowing what tomorrow would bring, putting everything on the line, and living in the moment.
Yeah, I enjoyed those days of excitement.

I didn’t hate them, not in the least.
But now, I was experiencing of a different way of life, one that wasn’t all bad either.
It was difficult to leave, but I probably wasn’t cut out for this life.
Even if it wasn’t so bad now, I would definitely fester.

“……”

I suspended my train of thought.
For some reason, my thoughts were rather incoherent. I sighed heavily.
And so I threw myself down on the seat of the carriage, which even came with cushions.

In front of me, I saw Palmira, dozing off with the precious shortsword she bought in her hands; and Aira, who was awake but with her mind elsewhere, leaning against the wall.

Aira had been in this state ever since the incident yesterday.
She was thinking about something with a single-minded earnestness. I mean, with that look, there was obviously something troubling her.
During lunch yesterday, she seemed to be without a care in the world, but she’d been like this since last night. She wouldn’t eat, not even dinner.
Compared to the usual Aira, there was something rather unsettling about her now. To cut straight to the point, she was close to the way she was when the slavers had her.
However, what I saw in her eyes wasn’t the lifelessness they had then, but a strong sense of purpose.

What that was, I had no idea.

Naturally, I spoke to her.
Her response was [Could I ask you to wait a little while longer?].
It wasn’t like she wasn’t talking to me. She wasn’t rejecting me either. ‘Wait’. Not until when, just ‘wait’.
If she had refused, I would’ve gotten angry with her. Like she and Palmira told me that day, ‘Rely on me’.
But Aira said to wait.
Then I would wait. Because that, too, was a sign of her trust in me.

The carriage rolled to a stop, and there was a knock at the door.
I didn’t know for sure, but it was probably Leon. ‘Yes,’ I replied, opening the door, and surprise, surprise, it was Leon.

“We’ll be making camp here today. You must be tired after your journey here. There’s dinner, so feel free to come outside.”

Smiling as always, he politely invited us outside. ‘You must be tired’ — is there anyone here lesstired than us? I wondered, but I suppose it was just like him to say that.
Like the day we met, Leon was on horseback, but that should at least be more exhausting than being jolted about in a carriage. Leopard may have been here, but Leon was the company commander.

However, on the other hand, I knew for a fact there were people even more worn out. The soldiers, naturally. They got here on foot. And each of them carrying their own equipment, to boot.

When I thought about that, I felt genuinely apologetic.
No matter how I looked at it, we were pretty much being treated like princesses. But unlike princesses, we didn’t take it for granted at all.

That said, if they told us to walk, we’d be just as screwed. I knew that today, in just one day, the company marched a distance that surpassed the bounds of common sense. They’d definitely march off without us in the blink of an eye.

I got out of the carriage, but as quickly and inconspicuously as possible.

Palmira and a troubled Aira seemed to share my feelings, quietly setting foot on the ground outside. Well, Leon had attendants waiting at the side, so it was all for nothing.
Unlike my time in that windowless slave wagon, I already knew it was evening.
When we disembarked from the carriage, the sun was already on the verge of sinking below the hill on the other side of the river. Before long, the curtain of night would fall.
It was the same view we saw when we came here, but, precisely because of that, it pulled at something deep inside.
When the thought occurred to me — ‘We floated down that river’ — I nearly burst out laughing without thinking.
What were we thinking?

“By the way, dinner today is the same as everyone else’s.”

Everyone was milling about busily, setting up camp, preparing dinner, and so on. Leon invited us to sit on the chairs around the fire, which his people had seen to first.

“You wanna show off outside, huh.”

Leon responded to my slight jab with an [I do like that sort of thing]. He honestly seemed a bit embarrassed.
The unexpected thump in my heart plunged me into wordless worry.

–

–

Dinner was modest, but everything was filling and richly seasoned. So this is what army rations are like? But Aira thought they were a little on the heavy side.1

After dinner ended, a somewhat casual atmosphere settled over the camp. I stood from my seat and made my way alone to the dry river bank. Aira had said earlier that she would go rest before returning to the carriage. Palmira had already vanished somewhere after finishing her food.

Right now, each of them had their own things to think about. So I decided to leave them alone.

Still, the river wasn’t all that far from the highway. Before long, the bank gradually began to increase in height, and in the end it was still a bit of a walk.
Despite the distant hustle and bustle at my back, I felt the tranquility of the night breeze as I stepped out onto the riverbank.

Looking across the river from where I stood, I could see the stars twinkling above the hill on the opposite side.
A overwhelming brilliance of stars, reflected in my eyes.
If I crossed the river, maybe I’d able to go to that world full of stars. They seemed that close.
The fantastical sight seemed to draw in my soul.

“…Hmm.”

I cleared out those uncharacteristically poetic sentiments with a sigh. Then, I sat myself down on one of the slightly larger rocks on the riverbank and looked up at the stars. They beckoned me, twinkling as they always did.
As I watched them, I began to speak to the empty sky.

“Honestly, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know.”

Or rather, there wasn’t a single thing I was sure of.

“But for that very reason, I end up imagining all sorts of things. For instance, that this body of mine isn’t my own. Among other things. Like the idea that my body didn’t turn into a woman’s, I became something else.”

I’d told Aira and Palmira about it, this theory born from my gut instinct.
But still, even that was no more than ambiguous conjecture.

Come to think of it, the Aira back then had her usual strange thoughts about it, huh.
Remembering it made me giggle.
But she also said something I hadn’t thought of.

Recently, Aira hadn’t been herself.
I decided to wait, so that was what I intended to do. But honestly speaking, I hoped she would return quickly to the way she used to be.

I didn’t much like the alternative.
Of course I thought it was selfish of me.

“Isn’t that actually [Chris]? …Just who in the world is she? When I think about it, I don’t know a thing about her.”2

I didn’t know a single thing.
And that was the truth. Even if I became her in my dreams, in the end, I still didn’t know who she was.

I could, of course, speculate as much as I liked.
For instance, she was at least a child of status. She was well off — that was a fact.
Considering that estate, and the fact that she was examined for magical aptitude, that alone I could say for sure.
Then, there was the fact that she could use magic. Or she had the aptitude for it. She was probably really gifted.
She might have hated it, but the fact that she could use magic was important.
Why? I wasn’t clear on that either, but I could do it too.
From that point of view, the hypothesis that I was hijacking her body took on an increasing sense of reality.

…However, in that case, something wasn’t quite right.
I still didn’t have a clear understanding of what magic is, but absorbing the invocation stone, the appearance of that circle — my body definitely wasn’t normal.

If I had to say… yeah, it was almost inhuman.

Right now, those dream-memories had reached the moment when she learned of her magical aptitude. Whether she pursued the magus’s path or not, I didn’t know.
But I believed something happened between then and the point at which I possessed her.
I didn’t know what, but it was probably something big.
Right now, though, I couldn’t even begin to guess what it might be.
But I did have an idea about who would know.

“Hey, just who exactly is Chris? — Leon.”

–

–

I didn’t turn around to ask.
If I turned around and he wasn’t there, I’d be pretty embarrassed. But I was confident that the presence behind me was Leon’s. No rhyme or reason to it.

” — Aren’t you Chris?”

After a few seconds’ silence, I heard Leon’s voice come from behind me — matter-of-fact, without his usual humor.
That was too obvious an answer.
Yeah, I was Chris. But I was [Chris], too.

“Having fun playing word games, Leon?”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

With the sound of footsteps, the presence behind me grew larger, and he fell into line beside me. He placed his hand on my shoulder.
His behavior made me uncomfortable.
Apart from the time I snapped and attacked him, Leon had never once taken the initiative to touch me. He was very much grounded in the gentleman’s, or knight’s, code of conduct, so I thought of it as part of his character.
Strange as I found it, I didn’t brush him off. Because I could feel a slight shiver from the hand he had on my shoulder.
So it wasn’t that I was asking if there was something wrong. It was just that matters concerning him were weighing heavily on my mind, so I decided to tolerate it.3
Hmph, I snorted, and stared into space. Leon did the same.
Somehow, I knew even without looking.

“……”

Time passed without a word.
At times, Leon drew in his breath to say something, then shut up again.
Though I was naturally suspicious of Leon’s unusual behavior, I didn’t say anything either, just looked up at the stars with him.
Somewhere in my heart, I wanted to do so, and there was something comfortable about following those feelings.

“…Mind telling me sometime soon?”

Difficult as it was, I shook myself free of that impulse and spoke with deliberate brusqueness.
As if those words had brought him back to his senses, Leon removed his hand from my shoulder.

“I suppose…”

Leon seemed to be considering something as he lightly shook his head.
Concealing that fearful vulnerability was all it took to restore his original attitude. Something about it made me feel lonely, but I ignored it as best I could and looked up at Leon.

“I’m fine with telling you, but it will prove troublesome, you know?”

Leon’s old smile was back on his lips.
It was like he’d thrown a switch. In that case, there was hope.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I said before that she’s [dead, but hasn’t died]. Ordinarily, that would be impossible, but it is possible for the world I’m in. In other words, if you come to know more than this, you’ll be putting one foot in that world… That’s what I mean.”

Cleverly said. At the same time, I thought it certainly did seem like trouble.

What Leon was saying, in other words, was that I wanted to talk about confidential matters regarding the nobility, or possibly the nation itself.
Sure, there were things in this world better left unknown. Knowledge, in the hands of those unqualified to possess it, had occasionally strangled the careless.
On the flip side, [Chris] was a person who was better left unknown.
But still.

“I… should have the right to know.”

It was long past overdue.
I was sure this business with [Chris] wasn’t something people should know. Ordinary people, that is. I had no doubt that if I were simply an adventurer, I would be better off dropping it on the spot.
But now, I was [Chris].
I wanted to know about myself. Who had any greater right?

“True, you may have the qualifications. However — ”

Grinning widely, Leon seemed to be enjoying himself as he went on.

“I have no obligation to tell you.”

“What the hell did you just say!”

He really seemed to be having fun. That very fact infuriated me, and I advanced on him.
His tone was cheery, his words could only be described as ‘dickish’, and there was no way in hell I’d let him get away with it.
4 At the crucial moment, he shut his mouth out of some bullshit reason.
Thoroughly pissed me off, I moved to grab him. I reached out for his chest.

“…I’m sorry.”

His voice spilled from his mouth.
And for a moment, it distracted me. In the next, I found myself caught in Leon’s grip.

–

–

“Wh–What’re you…”

This was too much; my thoughts couldn’t keep up. What is this? What’s he doing to me?
I looked up at Leon, but with the moon directly at his back, I couldn’t see his expression.
What does he want to do, no, what’s wrong with him? More than angry or embarrassed, I was confused by his bizarre behavior.

“Let’s — move on to negotiations here.”

Leon said, his voice devoid of emotions, his arms still restraining me.
Those were the same words he said back then, when he asked me to become a slave. He knowingly used the exact same words. Exactly the words calculated to push me away.

It was a contradiction. Deliberately driving me away with his words, it felt like he was trying to preserve his balance.
Having slipped so far from control, he was protecting himself.

For the first time, I feared Leon.

He was on the very edge.
If he fell on this side, what would become of me?5
I should push him away right here, right now.
But, for some reason… for some reason, I also felt like I couldn’t do that to him. He seemed so frail.
I was contradicting myself, too. Filled with emotions I neither expected nor wanted, I bit my lower lip.

“I’ve made this request before, but… I want you to act as a substitute.”

‘Substitute’. For a moment, I was confused. Before I could ask myself what the hell he was talking about, I remembered the talk about the sham marriage.
I thought that was just a lead-in to something else, but apparently not.

Even so, ‘substitute’. Deliberately, ‘substitute’.
Compared to that day, when he just came right out and said, ‘Please marry me’, it felt awfully half-assed.

“If you accept, I’ll tell you about her.”

What he called a negotiation, his tone made it sound like a plea. The words belonged the usual Leon. But like an actor who couldn’t get into character, his emotions faded in and out as he spoke.

“Will you — accept?”

In the end, just a little, even his voice trembled.

—-!

Suppressing the emotions seething within me, I struggled to break free of Leon’s arms.
I wrenched myself free with unexpected ease and immediately put some distance between us.

“~~~~~~!!!!!”

I opened my mouth to shout at him… When the words wouldn’t come, I shut it, trembling all over.
Rage. That was rage, without a doubt.
But unable to figure out just what made me so angry, I kicked at the ground. The rocks on the riverbank scattered, clacking more loudly than I expected.

” — Alright already!”

Even I didn’t know what I was saying.
But I yelled, a confusion of emotion.

“…Eh?”

“I said ‘alright already’! That substitute thing!”

I swung my arm down to point at Leon. Taking a deep breath, I spat out,

“I’ll be your goddamn substitute!”

I felt like there was more to be said.
Like ‘Protect me from this world of nobles I don’t really understand’.
‘While that’s going on, take care of Aira and Palmira’.
No, more importantly, ‘teach me properly’.
And yet, that was what I emphasized.
When it came to myself, I didn’t know what was what anymore.

“I’m going to sleep!”

Right now, I didn’t want to see Leon’s face.
I immediately turned on my heel and climbed up the riverbank, leaving him behind.
There was no way I’d look back.
I knew that if I did, no matter what expression he had, I wouldn’t be able to keep a lid on my emotions.