I, Who Couldn’t Be Honest, Tell You (2)

Ceres, moving alone without an official position, didn’t need any special procedures.

Although there was little impossible for Ceres with her overwhelming wealth, her mood was consistently bad.

“Where have those idiots gone?”

Ceres grumbled while drinking water, sitting atop a two-humped camel.

The Hero and Saintess were clearly in the church territory, and she had distinctly seen them both wasting time in the church territory like novices, not knowing what to do.

But when Ceres returned to the church territory, what greeted her was a church territory in turmoil, and the reason was that the Hero and Saintess had disappeared somewhere.

‘Alevian, is that damned woman really planning to turn against me?’

Although she said she would take a different path, Alevian wasn’t particularly remarkable.

Alevian’s role was merely gathering necessary information, so the range of what she could do alone was very narrow.

Alevian gathers information, and Ceres makes and executes plans based on it.

That was the role distribution between the Observer and the Director, and at least that was working well.

So even if Alevian said she would take her own path, Ceres thought she would soon return as there wasn’t much she could do alone.

Ceres was certain of this.

But without Alevian, Ceres was also quite uncomfortable.

Even now, Ceres had clearly made a wasted trip.

“Tsk… She’s probably meddling unnecessarily somewhere again.”

The Hero is stupid and the Saintess is weak-hearted.

The Saintess does have some backbone at times, but her nature doesn’t change.

It was unexpected that they succeeded in killing Damian, and even surprising that the Saintess used a miracle to kill Damian—

But that’s all there is to it, and those two actually have no other role on this stage Ceres has prepared.

The lead is Ceres, and the supporting role is Yona.

“First, I need to clear up the immediate issue…”

Since the beastmen messed things up, it was time to placate Yona again.

Those stupid fellows failed, so Yona must be making a fuss, and Ceres would have to placate her again.

There are still four Grand Dukes left.

Two are the lowest rank and useless minor deities so they don’t matter, but the other two are of a different caliber, and especially one of them needs to be absorbed by Yona.

And if the remaining one absorbs Yona—

“How should I placate her this time…”

Just thinking about it gives her a headache.

She’s a grown adult physically but with the intelligence of a child, so placating her shouldn’t be too difficult, but it’s still annoying.

Ceres sighed deeply once more and grabbed the camel’s reins.

“St-stay together, you say. Yona, that’s…”

Alec looked up at Yona with wide eyes.

It was such a shocking statement that he thought he might have misheard, and Yona’s face that Alec looked up at was bright red, so it probably meant what Alec understood it to mean.

“It’s exactly as I said.”

“Wait, wait a moment, Yona, so that means—”

“I-I don’t know, you stupid idiot.”

Yona stepped back quickly before Alec could say anything.

Thanks to this, Alec’s hand that tried to grab Yona’s wrist grasped at empty air.

Before Alec could say anything, Yona walked straight towards the door.

Without looking back, Yona quickly opened the door and left, followed by Alec’s belated cry.

“Yona! W-wait! Let’s talk, let’s talk!”

“Sh-shut up, you baldy!”

Yona didn’t look back at Alec until the end.

Although Yona didn’t look back even until the moment she slammed the door shut, this time Alec clearly saw.

He clearly saw that the tips of Yona’s ears were bright red as she left.

Yona who slammed the door shut and left.

Alec who blankly stared at her retreating figure.

At that moment, the door opened slightly.

Through that gap, Yona poked her head out and spoke to Alec with her still red face.

Unable to meet Alec’s gaze directly.

“Y-your head. It suits you well. Keep it like that from now on. Th-then, I’m busy so I’m off!”

The door slammed shut again.

Alec just stared blankly at this scene.

A complicated feeling that he couldn’t put into words—

Alec sat on the bed and covered his face with his hands.

“What on earth is this…”

He had followed Yona for three years.

Around the time when the sense of alienation from being under a ban and the pain of being expelled from the cathedral he had devoted himself to began to subside.

The Yona he met around that time was also a light for Alec.

Yona who seemed foolish, thoughtless, and as a healer, recklessly ran around everywhere not knowing the value of her own life or able to distinguish right from wrong. Although Alec thought how long could she survive like that, that’s why he followed Yona.

There was the reason of love at first sight, but also because she seemed somewhat precarious.

And it didn’t take long for those feelings to turn into romantic love.

A beautiful but mentally unstable healer.

That was also the phrase describing Yona.

Beyond the three years of following her, until now when the anomalies surrounding her finally occurred, Alec did everything he could for Yona. And finally, the fruit of that labor touched his hand—

‘This can’t be a dream.’

Alec grinned and pinched his cheek. The sharp pain clearly proved this wasn’t a dream, and Alec couldn’t hold back his laughter.

He had been rewarded.

Yona’s flushed face, and her shy appearance unable to meet Alec’s gaze directly, was the best reward for Alec.

Alec couldn’t hide his smile at this more than sufficient, overflowing reward that made all his hardships until now seem trivial.

• Let’s stay together.

  ‘I must be crazy, really…!’

  As she hurriedly walked down the corridor, Yona kept replaying the words she had said.

  Although they were words blurted out in a moment of overwhelming emotion, Yona didn’t regret saying them. Those words perfectly represented Yona’s current feelings, and were also an expression of gratitude—and confession of another emotion—to Alec who had been devoted to her until now.

‘What should I do, what should I do.’

But she couldn’t help feeling embarrassed, and Yona’s face was burning up crazily. Her face, heated up so much that she couldn’t hide it even if she tried, was representing the feelings she now harbored for Alec.

‘How can I face that baldy now…’

What would have happened if she had stayed there?

What would have happened if she hadn’t hurriedly escaped and stayed there?

It wasn’t difficult to imagine the answer.

Maybe, maybe—just like when she fell into Catsi’s illusion, like that—

“Oh? It’s the Saintess.”

At the sudden voice, Yona raised her lowered gaze to look ahead.

At the far end of the long corridor of the imperial guest house stood a nun with milk-white hair—Serade.

The nun who had been moving together with them until now due to having the same hair color and being a fellow healer.

Serade was mumbling something while looking at Yona.

“You…”

“Ah, don’t misunderstand. I wasn’t looking for you, Saintess. I was just wandering around.”

Who said what?

As Yona was thinking to herself, Serade strode over. Serade, who had been chewing on a piece of jerky, approached Yona, swallowed the jerky, and looked at her.

Yona was tall for a woman, taller than Serade. Because of this, Serade had to look up at Yona’s face from a relatively low position, and as she peered at Yona’s face, Serade’s face slowly broke into a smile.

“Your face is extremely red, you know? Did something good happen… Oh, oh my.”

Come to think of it—Serade trailed off and looked behind Yona. The direction Yona had come from—Alec’s room was there. If Yona had come out of there with her face bright red and walking quickly—

“Um… Did you come out after having a g-good time…?”

“N-no, that’s not it?!”

“Oh, oh… You startled me. But if you come out of Alec’s room with your face that red, anyone would misunderstand.”

“N-nothing happened…?!”

“But you did come out of Alec’s room, right?”

“……”

Seeing Yona trembling without being able to answer, Serade grinned.

Honestly, Serade found this situation too amusing.

It might be a bit unfair to Sekti, but there are people who suit each other, and at least Sekti didn’t suit Alec. If you were to ask who suited Alec when standing next to him, it would be Yona, and definitely not Sekti.

“Did you finally receive a confession?”

“…N-no, I didn’t.”

“Oh come on, why deny it? I’m an expert when it comes to romance between men and women. From the looks of it, you seem to have received a confession, but seeing how flustered you are, it seems you haven’t answered yet. How about I give you some advice? My consultation fee is expensive, but I’ll do it for free this time.”

Yona wasn’t ignorant of men’s psychology.

But conversely, Yona was ignorant of women’s psychology.

Yona hadn’t received a confession, but had made one herself.

And Yona had left without hearing the answer to those words.

It should have been properly conveyed, but no matter how much Yona, who was well-versed in men’s psychology, thought about it, she was a bit doubtful whether Alec had properly understood those words. Because Alec was stupid and dense, there was every possibility that he had taken it literally as staying together as comrades.

At this moment, Serade, who claimed to be an expert in love, appeared before her—normally, Yona would have told her to stop talking nonsense and get lost, but right now, Yona was also in a situation where she wanted to grasp at straws.

“…Th-then, for a moment… some time… please…”

And so she gave in.