episode_0160

Arvina’s Circumstances

“Is that so…. Sigh…. That fool… he ended up sacrificing his life to save someone, didn’t he…” “…” “…”

After I explained everything that happened in the Kriton region without omission, Tess sighed deeply, as if he had expected Rascal to meet such a fate. At that, we, who had been able to continue our journey thanks to Rascal, sympathized greatly with Tess’s reaction and wore bitter expressions. But I still had to say this…

“But the demon named Cecilia had also suffered greatly in the world, which is why she did such things, Tess… Cecilia, in truth, was originally…”

“You don’t have to say it, Zeke. Didn’t you just explain that demons were originally good? That’s enough…. Sigh… still, that Rascal… he ended up saving someone and dying, just as he wanted… That foolish fellow… I told him to live longer and save more people, but what was he in such a rush to leave first…”

As Tess, who had grown fond of Rascal while spending time with him in prison when they were captured in Lobdom, continued to lament Rascal’s death, I thought it best not to say anything more and remained silent. And Aria, as if she thought the same as me, simply bowed her head slightly and wore a bitter expression. Because we were involved in Rascal’s death… As we grew somber recalling Rascal’s death, Tess let out a deep sigh and spoke to me.

“Sigh…. Still, I’m grateful you came and told me this now, Zeke. If you hadn’t come here, I would never have known of his death. Sigh… But Rascal’s death aside… you two must have suffered the most… Zeke, Black Saintess.”

“…I was able to endure it. But… Aria… suffered a lot… Ugh?!”

When Tess, still bitter about Rascal’s death, realized that we too had suffered greatly at the time, I tried to explain that Aria had suffered more than I. But suddenly, Aria covered my mouth and smiled at me, I was greatly flustered but immediately understood Aria’s actions. Ah… Aria also had a very hard time with Rascal’s death, indeed… Well… though it was more shocking that she had hurt me than his death itself… As I understood her actions, Aria, as if she had read my mind, suddenly shook her head and explained to Tess.

“It was certainly difficult. It was an event that shocked me so much that my heart still pounds when I recall it. But after that incident, it wasn’t difficult. Thanks to Zeke-nim encouraging me, forgiving me, and being with me, I was able to get back on my feet. That’s why I always think of the incident in Ogfoslia as an event that gave me great shock and great realization.”

“…It was a bad thing, but there was also realization…”

“Hmm… I knew Aria Unnie felt a little more mature than before… So, can you tell us what else you saw!? I came to ask about that!!”

When Karina, acknowledging that Aria had matured a bit, asked us to tell her what had happened, I remembered my promise to Karina to tell her about our journey in detail later, and turned my head to Aria. Aria also turned her head to me, and facing each other, we smiled brightly, took out the exploration book from our backpacks and told Karina and Tess everything that had happened in the Kriton region. About demons, about Merzel, about elves, about the World Tree, about Karijan, about the Kroa Spring, and about the Trahan that I possessed.

“So Zeke Oppa’s greatsword changed… To receive the elves’ trust… As expected, Zeke Oppa is amazing…!!”

“That’s true, but the Black Saintess is also amazing. Even if she has weakened, to dispatch such a large Alraune…”

“Aaaah…!! As expected, Black Saintess-nim is amazing…! Ugh!”

The moment Arvina was about to praise Aria again, Karina struck Arvina’s head with the shaft of her spear, knocking her unconscious, and Aria, seeing that, wore a satisfied expression, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. So much did you despise Arvina, Aria… Well, she had suffered a lot from her earlier…

“Ahem… Let’s continue the rest of the story tomorrow, Oppa. By the way, it would be a big problem if the Village Elder goes berserk until tomorrow… We can’t keep subduing the Village Elder like this.”

“Sigh…. If that happens… Hmm… I understand. Aria and I will somehow resolve it. But the Village Elder, she’s really alright, isn’t she…?”

“Hmm… whenever she’s like this, we take her home, and by the next day, she returns to normal. So don’t worry. Good night, Zeke.”

“Good night, Zeke Oppa! And Aria Unnie too!”

To prevent Arvina from bothering us again tomorrow, Karina and Tess went outside to take the unconscious Arvina home, bidding us good night. At that, Aria, perhaps a little tired from being tormented by Arvina just now, plopped down on the bed and sighed, and I, seeing Aria, let out a chuckle and lay down beside her, saying.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you struggle so much because of a person.”

“Sigh… If I hit her, it felt subtly wrong, and if I didn’t, it also felt wrong… Since there was nothing I could do, it was truly frustrating… Ugh, she was a really unpleasant beastman.”

“I was surprised too, seeing you so flustered for the first time… Hmm… what is this unsettling feeling.”

As Aria chastised Arvina, I somewhat agreed with Aria’s opinion. However, recalling Arvina’s appearance from earlier, I felt something unsettling. What exactly is this uneasiness… Is it because of Village Elder Arvina’s empty-looking eyes? Or her actions…

“In that case, I should hug Zeke-nim from the side so he won’t feel uneasy…!!”

“….!! Ugh… Ah?! D-don’t hug me suddenly, Aria!!”

The moment I was trying to figure out the source of the unsettling feeling I got from Arvina, Aria suddenly hugged me and pulled me down onto the bed, I was greatly flustered. Aaah!! Why is my heart pounding so strangely even though Aria just hugged me as usual?! And so, without knowing why my heart was pounding more than before, I fell asleep in Aria’s embrace as if I had fainted. Sigh… okay… well…. I’ll figure out the reason if I think about it later…

“…!! Zeke-nim. Someone is outside.”

“Ugh…? Ugh… What is it, Aria… It’s still far from morning…? Someone’s outside?”

Just as I was deeply asleep, Aria suddenly woke me up and said someone was outside, and reached for the staff next to her, which greatly flustered me. Then, when I heard someone knocking on the door, I realized there really was someone outside, and Aria and I were dumbfounded together. And so, reaching for the door together and opening it, we were startled to see Arvina outside, bowing slightly, smiling, and politely clasping her hands as she waited for us.

“….!! You’re the one who tormented me yesterday…!!”

“….I am truly sorry about yesterday. Now that my mind has calmed down… I only feel shame…”

“….But what brings you here, Village Elder…?”

As Aria was startled and made a contemptuous expression, Arvina, not losing her smile, apologized to us for yesterday’s incident, and I asked Arvina what brought her here. At that, Arvina bowed her head a little further and quietly spoke to us.

“I would like to invite you to my home… Please believe me, I only wish to speak with you…”

“…”

Something was strange. At Arvina’s demeanor, which was completely different from yesterday’s, we couldn’t help but be considerably flustered. While yesterday she had been reckless and seemed mentally disturbed, her current appearance was polite… Perhaps because Arvina gave off such an aura, we were flustered but readily accepted her invitation, and so we followed Arvina toward her home. But… something was strange. The beastmen of Kartun lived in bright, sunlit places, but the direction Arvina led us was a dark forest where light barely entered. At that, Aria, greatly flustered, warned Arvina.

“If you are leading us into such a gloomy forest to do something to Zeke-nim, I will absolutely not stand idly by.”

“Please don’t worry, Aria-nim… It’s just that I alone live in a forest like this…”

“Hmph… Could that be a lie…? Wait… what did you just call me…?”

When Arvina called Aria by her name instead of Black Saintess, Aria and I definitely felt that something was strange. Her somewhat gloomy appearance was the same as yesterday, but the current Arvina felt… even more gloomy. Now that I think about it, Karina had said yesterday that the Village Elder remembered everything from when she went berserk and felt shame about it, didn’t she…? But… this feels like a different kind of gloominess, separate from that… With such flustered thoughts, we followed Arvina and arrived at a certain cabin, and when Arvina opened the cabin door…!!

“Ugh… My… what’s this smell…? Wait… this smell…”

“….Could this be…”

“….I’m ashamed. To make my guests smell blood like this… I apologize…”

“…”

Apart from Arvina apologizing for making us smell blood, I was greatly flustered to see that Arvina’s house, visible beyond her, was extremely dark. Now that I think about it… all the windows are blocked with wooden planks, aren’t they…? Is that why the interior is so dark…? The moment I was flustered by how much darker the interior was than I expected, Aria emitted light from her staff, illuminating the interior. At that, the condition of the interior… was so severe it left me speechless.

“Wh-What in the world is all this… Clothes are scattered on the floor in disarray… no, not just clothes, but other items too…”

“Zeke-nim… Look… those red stains on the walls and floor… It’s blood…”

“What…?”

Arvina’s house resembled a space that hadn’t been tidied for a long time. Dust had piled up so thickly that it would stick to your hand if you ran it across a surface, there were signs of damage in various places, and as Aria said, there were bloodstains scattered here and there. As we were greatly appalled by the interior of her house, Arvina bowed her head and slowly walked inside, saying.

“I apologize… for not tidying up my house to welcome guests…”

“Aren’t you the Village Elder, Arvina? The beastmen your house…”

“I have a separate office in Kartun, Aria-nim. All the beastmen think that’s my home… So… inviting someone to my actual home like this is probably… 10 years… no, it might be even longer.”

“…What do you mean…!! Wait, you… give me your hand.”

“What’s wrong, Aria… Ah…?!”

As Arvina said it had been 10 years since she last invited guests to her home, and slowly took out a chair from the room, Aria noticed something and urgently snatched Arvina’s hand. At that, curious why Aria was acting like that, I went closer to Arvina, and I couldn’t help but be greatly appalled by Arvina’s physical condition, which hadn’t been visible yesterday. What… why is she so thin…

“….Are you… eating properly, Village Elder…? No… Th-This… What in the world is this…”

“….Ah… The ability has been dispelled… Otherwise…”

“I dispelled it… What is this physical state?!? How in the world are you able to stand?!”

Arvina’s physical condition was the worst imaginable. She must not have been eating properly, as her entire body was quite emaciated. But wait a moment… what did Aria just dispel…? The moment I was greatly confused by Aria’s words just now, Arvina’s emaciated body suddenly began to return to its original state. And as I was appalled again upon seeing that, Arvina looked at her hands and spoke.

“I can restore my body with the energy… the aura I’ve accumulated until now… Eating, you say…. It has been quite a long time since I last did…”

“….Village Elder… What in the world do you want to tell us…? And what exactly is that physical condition?!”

“Indeed…!! After causing such a commotion yesterday… Why have you suddenly changed so much?!”

Arvina’s condition was inexplicable, to the point that even Aria was greatly flustered. And as if she herself knew her condition was severe, Arvina simply wore a hollow smile, dragged two additional chairs from the room and placed them around the table in the living room, then spoke to us.

“…..This story, perhaps… even the beastmen of Kartun wouldn’t know… No… it might even be a story they couldn’t possibly know…”

“…Is that perhaps the same reason why the Village Elder clung to Aria yesterday…? And you want to explain that to us…”

“….Yes…. Ah… I apologize, everyone… You’ve come all this way… And I have nothing to offer you…”

“That’s not the problem right now, Village Elder… What… what exactly do you want to tell us…?”

As Arvina forced a smile and apologized for having no snacks to offer us, we, greatly flustered, sat in the chairs Arvina had brought and prepared to listen to her story. At that, Arvina sat in the chair placed opposite us, and as if deep in thought, kept her mouth shut and said nothing, only fiddling with her fingers. Then, as if having made up her mind, she stopped fiddling with her fingers and opened her mouth to speak to us.

“I… well… I haven’t told this story to any other beastman… But… I felt that I could tell this story to you all… That’s why I invited you here… Ah…! I am truly sorry for yesterday’s incident… I… I lost my mind again… I committed a great offense against you all… especially… against Zeke-nim…”

“Yesterday’s incident… Aria, can you still not forgive the Village Elder?”

“Of course…!! She tried to kill Zeke-nim… But now that Arvina-nim, our former adversary, is showing this side… My anger just vanished. She’s showing a completely different side from yesterday, what’s the reason? Is it because of that berserk state or something?”

“…”

When Aria showed genuine concern for Arvina, I instinctively knew this situation was not ordinary at all. If Aria was concerned about someone to this extent, it meant Arvina’s condition was quite severe right now… As we genuinely worried about her, Arvina bowed her head slightly and spoke to us.

“Tess and Karina probably think I couldn’t control something again and went berserk. And they’ll probably think I’m obsessed with power…”

“Indeed, both of them explained yesterday that the Village Elder was like that… Could it be that wasn’t the case…?”

“…Half of it is true…. Half of it… Because it’s true that I was obsessed with power… And this reason is directly related to why I clung to Aria-nim… And this… is also related to my life for the past 10 years…”

“…Huh?”

As Arvina explained that her actions yesterday were related to her obsession with power and her past, I instinctively knew that this was a very serious and heavy matter, not something that could be easily dismissed. At that, Arvina slowly opened her mouth again and explained to us.

“Thirteen years ago… when I was 21 years old, I became the Village Elder of this village.”