Ch.149Exam (5)

I did it.

Though it didn’t go according to my initial plan, I somehow managed to pull it off through squeezed-out wit, deception, and help from Pia, even if it was a complete mess.

Belatedly, pain spread throughout my body.

It hurt from my pierced shoulder and the sharp fragments lodged in my back, but more than that, the muscle pain throughout my body was savagely intense.

My legs trembled without rest.

I’d never moved so vigorously in my life, never fallen from such a height, and this was my first time fighting so intensely, so it was no wonder.

It hurt terribly—it should have been unbearably painful—yet somehow I felt elation in my heart.

I felt hot blood rushing through my veins, coursing from my heart throughout my body.

As that burning heat rose to my head, I pinned Silvia beneath me and couldn’t help but shout.

“I did it!”

I couldn’t contain myself.

The emotion bursting forth was too overwhelming for me to handle.

A sensation I’d never felt before.

A miraculous victory against an opponent who seemed impossible to defeat, throwing everything I had at them and overcoming a difficult battle with a bit of luck.

The joy of struggle, like the satisfaction of solving a difficult problem multiplied several times.

So this is what it feels like.

I raised both arms high, intending to cheer once more.

“Arggghh!”

But all I could do was scream from the sharp pain in my pierced shoulder.

“Ash, are you stupid?”

Pia, who had already returned to her little girl form, approached me slowly and spoke.

As Pia gently waved her hand to the side, small winds blew in and pulled out the sharp earth fragments embedded in my back.

The stinging pain that pricked my back was enough to instantly cool my overheated head.

“Ugh, it hurts… be gentler, please.”

“Shouldn’t there be something you should say first?”

Pia spoke curtly as she turned the fragments back into soft earth and tossed them to the ground.

I slowly moved away from Silvia’s body and collapsed beside her, looking up at Pia.

Seeing Pia’s flushed cheeks, she seemed to be in a good mood despite her grumbling.

Well, Pia’s goal had been to give Silvia a taste of her own medicine, so she had perfectly achieved what she wanted.

The ground, completely overturned, was bumpy and uncomfortable to lie on, but at the same time, it felt more comfortable and cozy than any bed in the world.

No, it’s not that it felt comfortable—I think I might fall asleep at any moment.

I forced my eyes open as they kept trying to close and said:

“Hah… haha, Silvia. Did you see? I did it. Right?”

“…”

But there was no answer from Silvia.

“Silvia?”

What? Could Silvia be hurt much worse than I thought?

Anxiously, I turned my head toward her.

Silvia was staring blankly at the sky.

I wondered if something was wrong, but fortunately, seeing her chest rise and fall at a regular pace, there didn’t seem to be any major issue.

Still, her blank expression bothered me, so I carefully spoke to her.

“Silvia… what’s wrong?”

“…”

Silvia continued silently staring at the sky, then slowly turned her head to look directly at my face.

Her expression was deeply tinged with a mix of complicated feelings, questions, and bewilderment.

“…Silvia?”

That’s when it happened.

“What are you two doing?”

A voice that belonged to neither me, Silvia, nor Pia—

A somewhat low, husky, rare but very familiar female voice came from the distance.

Silvia and I hurriedly raised our heads to look in the direction of the voice.

“Covered in blood, tearing up the ground, and just lying there—what are you doing?”

Chestnut-colored hair, slightly longer than when I last saw her.

Golden eyes embedded like jewels in a resolute expression, with anger simmering deep beneath the surface of determination.

Carrying a backpack even larger than her armored torso, with loads of baggage in both hands and on her belt, Sister Alice was approaching, looking down at us.

*

“Sis! Nothing ser—ow…”

“Don’t get up, stay lying down.”

As I tried to rise, groaning in pain, Sister Alice shook her head and approached slowly.

Standing at my head, she lowered the backpack she had been carrying onto the ground.

Though she set it down gently, the backpack made a heavy thud like a large piece of metal hitting the dirt.

Just by looking, I could tell it was no ordinary weight.

Sister Alice slowly came to my side and lightly placed her hand on my blood-soaked shoulder.

“Silvia, you can heal yourself, right?”

“…Yes.”

“…Hmm?”

Sister Alice briefly wore a surprised expression.

“Um… what’s wrong? Am I badly hurt?”

“No, that’s not it, why? Does it hurt a lot?”

“Your expression looked a bit surprised.”

“Because I am surprised.”

“…So why?”

Sister Alice instantly removed her hand from my shoulder.

Just from her touch on my shoulder, not only the puncture wound but also the cuts on my back and the twitching muscle cramps subsided immediately.

She grabbed my hand to help me up and said:

“I’m surprised at how much your body has changed since I last saw you.”

“I’ve been working hard.”

“I can see that. What kind of training are you doing to end up covered in blood like this?”

“No… today was a bit special… Come to think of it, you said it would take about a month. Has it already been a month?”

“No,”

“You didn’t say anything, but you came back pretty qui—”

“It’s been much longer. It’s already been six weeks since I left here.”

I looked at Silvia with wide eyes.

Silvia shrugged as if she hadn’t known either.

By now, the wounds on her body had also disappeared completely.

“I was actually worried that I was late and you might have left already, but I guess that was unnecessary.”

“When you live in the forest for a long time, you lose track of time.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t know either until I experienced it.”

As Silvia slowly got up, Sister Alice lifted the sprawled backpack with one hand and said:

“Let’s go inside and talk. I need to hear what you’ve been doing.”

“Perfect timing. I have something to brag about.”

“I have a lot to tell you too.”

*

“…”

“…”

As the flickering campfire scattered crimson light chaotically, Alice and Silvia sat in silence.

Silvia was pulling the blanket back up to Ash’s shoulders after he had kicked it off in his deep sleep, while Alice was organizing the numerous items she had brought.

The many bags and pouches that had covered her body like a second layer of armor over her actual armor naturally contained items not just for Alice herself.

After sorting through the items for a while, Alice handed a bundle of them to Silvia and said:

“We’ll have to check tomorrow if anything’s missing, but this should be enough for our journey.”

“A portable whetstone… flint, spare shoes… potions? You brought quite a variety.”

“I brought armor too. It’ll need adjustments… but we can do that tomorrow.”

Alice slowly raised her interlocked arms and stretched.

Silvia looked at the items Alice had given her and held up a black bottle.

“What’s this bottle?”

“Oil for weapon maintenance. There’s an oil-soaked cloth inside.”

“Is it linseed oil?”

“…”

Alice silently glared at Silvia.

It was a natural question since the oil they used during their hero party days had been premium linseed oil, but it was an unreasonably luxurious item to obtain in the ruined outside world.

To Alice, who already viewed Silvia unfavorably, her question sounded like an unreasonable complaint.

As if reading Alice’s thoughts, Silvia quietly nodded and muttered:

“I suppose such luxury items wouldn’t be available in this situation.”

Ash had rambled on about his duel with Silvia today before nodding off to sleep.

Naturally, he hadn’t gotten to talk about his training before today, nor had he heard Alice’s story.

Even with the help of holy power, the fatigue of an intensely active and injured body doesn’t easily disappear, and fierce battles are mentally exhausting. It wasn’t strange that Ash, unaccustomed to combat, fell asleep so quickly.

Alice, who had been silently watching the sleeping Ash, slowly opened her mouth.

“So?”

“So what?”

“From what I saw today, Ash seems to have accomplished something, so why do you look like you’ve eaten dirt?”

“…”

Silvia firmly closed her mouth and shut her eyes.

Alice spoke to her:

“…Not satisfactory enough?”

“…”

“Well, you’re the Hero, so of course you wouldn’t be satisfied. You even rejected me back then, so I can imagine. But right now, we—”

“No.”

Silvia spoke with her eyes closed.

Her eyes, not gently closed but tightly shut with all her might, were visibly trembling.

“I… tried to defeat Ash… sincerely.”

“…”