Complex Emotions

She couldn’t easily say she was fine despite the concerned gaze of a child much younger than herself.

She knew that thanks to the child taking a risk, not even a small scratch had appeared on her “precious body,” as someone had put it.

She knew she had been protected by a shield more insignificant than any shield she had ever seen.

“…No…”

She was not fine at all.

Really, she wasn’t fine in the slightest.

Her heart was still beating excessively fast, and it was unclear whether her kidnappers had been completely defeated.

To make matters worse, her legs had gone weak, and it seemed they would need time before they could function properly again.

What had been welling up from deep within her chest for some time now was a different kind of embarrassment than what she had felt over the past few hours.

Being saved by a child she had once found cute, once yearned for, and once found annoying sparked a truly wide range of emotions.

“…Well, please bear with it a little longer.”

But regardless of her condition, the blue gaze that turned once again toward the crushed sedan.

The shield, more shabby than any shield, raised once more toward the kidnappers who were still unconscious inside the smoking vehicle.

She unconsciously relied on it yet again.

“Phew…”

After taking a deep breath, she merely watched the small figure taking a few steps forward.

Not even a few seconds later, again.

–BOOM!!

An enormous impact sound and vibration reverberated throughout the area.

Almost simultaneously, the crushed black sedan soared high into the sky and flew far away.

Faced with another surreal scene, the gears of her reason didn’t just creak but stopped completely.

However, not long after, one small hand was gently extended from the small shadow that had returned.

“Don’t force yourself and get up slowly.”

Soft, small fingers without a single callus.

Slowly, intertwining.

Instead of asking more questions, she silently grabbed them and stood up.

Come to think of it, even if she asked about what the child had just shown, it didn’t seem likely that she would get a straightforward answer.

From the small back that began to walk one step ahead, she heard a voice that had become noticeably anxious for some reason.

“I’ll get… scolded. Yes, I’ll definitely get scolded…”

She couldn’t quite understand what the child was saying now.

No, she couldn’t understand or comprehend what had been done or how in the first place.

However, just one thing.

For some reason, she seemed to understand the meaning of the careful request she had heard just before opening the back door of the arcade.

“Can we say that those men… were taken down by Saint Unnie?”

She slowly nodded toward the youthful face that glanced up at her.

Either way, she could no longer define the child standing beside her as a cute cat.

Now that she had belatedly realized that the child possessed a strange and powerful strength that didn’t match their harmless appearance, it didn’t seem like there would be any benefit in refusing the request of a child whose outside and inside were 180 degrees different.

Even if she refused the request, the child probably wouldn’t harm her… but how should she put it? It felt like she no longer needed to force herself to use polite speech, which she had to do until now.

“…Thank you for saving me…”

As her reason gradually returned, it was instilling manners as it firmly suppressed the emotions in her chest.

The fact that the soft hand still touching hers had been enduring so much all along.

The gratitude she expressed without being told to was also an extension of that.

To be precise, it wasn’t everything, but she couldn’t deny that it constituted the largest part.

“Oh? Where did you go without me?”

“Ah, that, well… the, the bathroom.”

“Bathroom?”

“Yes. I was afraid to go alone, so I went with Saint Unnie.”

Only when they met Iji, who had been waiting for them in the middle of the still noisy arcade, did her pounding heart begin to regain its original rhythm.

Right after, she unnecessarily poked the waist of the person who had no idea what had just happened.

“Was the game that fun? So much that you didn’t even notice I went to the bathroom?”

“B-but Saint, you were also enjoying yourself tremendously!”

“Am I the same as you?”

In the end, she had to postpone telling the truth for a little while.

If Iji found out that she had almost been kidnapped while he was distracted, he would obviously blame himself severely.

Anyway, because of her promise with the child, she couldn’t speak honestly about everything.

For now, since the child had taken the initiative to say they had gone to the bathroom, she figured the child had something in mind.

In other words, right now she needed to match her story with the child’s.

“Then… I’ll also go for a moment.”

And so, right after Iji’s shadow disappeared beyond the bathroom door.

She carefully asked the child, who was somehow sweating a little, what they planned to do next.

But the answer that came back from the child also ended with a question mark for some reason.

“Th-that would depend on Asha Unnie rather than me… don’t you think?”

When she found out that kidnappers had appeared around me, she probably wouldn’t just sit still. At this not-quite-a-mutter to herself, she unconsciously thought that might indeed be the case.

Although they were men who had appeared to kidnap Daina herself, not the child, it was true that the child beside her had also been in considerable danger.

Even if she somehow deceived others into thinking the child wasn’t in much danger, this city, Erda, was clearly the headquarters of the Lunatic Guild.

This meant that not only those kidnappers but also those related to them would soon be pursued by Lunatic.

No, regardless of what happened to the kidnappers. In the worst case, they might be confined to the guild headquarters for a while because both she and the child were considered to be in danger.

“But we can’t just pretend that what happened earlier didn’t happen… Tana will probably find out about this too…”

The child’s laments continued for quite a long time afterward.

Nevertheless, the conclusion they ultimately reached was, “Hmm, I don’t know.”

“For now, I’ll try to make it sound as insignificant as possible. Saint Unnie, please don’t say anything until tomorrow morning.”

The voice didn’t contain much certainty, which made her anxious for no reason.

But what could she do at this point?

It wasn’t like she had come up with any other suitable solution.

The only thing she could do right now was to hope that the child would handle it well.

She knew it was ridiculous for a full-grown adult to rely solely on a child, as someone might say, but there was no other way.

Above all…

–Flinch.

‘…Huh? Why am I reacting like this?’

For some time now, vague sensations of unknown cause had been felt throughout her body.

Especially whenever she made eye contact with the child, something deep within her chest would momentarily ripple. Her heart would start beating slightly faster again. Her breathing would start to become heavy again. The inside of her body would start to feel slightly itchy.

“Hmm? What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing… It’s nothing.”

Instead of raising any objections to the child’s words, she found herself averting her gaze from those round eyes for no reason.

Additionally, her two ears had turned slightly red at some point.

The embarrassment or humiliation she had felt earlier when she was saved by the child was already nowhere to be found.

Only an inexplicable ‘fondness’ toward the child remained, captivating her mind.

“Um, Saint? The car has arrived… aren’t you getting in?”

She hadn’t even noticed Iji who had returned to her side, let alone the arrival of the vehicle that had come to pick them up.

Even after getting into the car with slight confusion, she simply couldn’t take her eyes off the child.

It was only after returning to the guild headquarters and laying her body on the soft bed of the guest quarters that had been prepared in advance that she truly realized something was wrong.

‘…Well, please bear with it a little longer.’

The image of the child passing by as she sat helplessly on the ground.

The scene of the child instantly sending the kidnappers’ vehicle flying far away and then returning to extend that small hand kept playing on repeat.

The highlight was, of course, the moment when she touched that soft hand.

‘Don’t force yourself and get up slowly.’

The short fingers that slowly intertwined from the fingertips were much softer and warmer than she had thought.

Then her slender fingers unconsciously began to move slightly toward the inside of her palm.

Though all she could grasp was air, for some reason, she felt like she could sense the touch of the child’s hand again.

What filled her chest was a complex emotion that couldn’t be definitively explained with any word.

In the end, she fell asleep only after becoming tired from recalling memories with the child for quite a long time.

–Ding.

[Due to the title: Protector’s effect, the power of the good deed performed by entity named: Lua has risen dramatically.]

[Saint Daina’s affection has risen to the maximum level.]

“…Ah.”