Episode 9 – The Knight and the Little Brother (2)

The Knight and the Little Brother (2)

What are the conditions for a comfortable sleep?

Of course, harmonious elements must come together, and if the headrest is hard, it’s safe to say that you’ve had enough sleep for the day. A garment with the first button wrongly fastened is bound to ruin it, and how dreadful it would be if the back of your head feels cold when you lie down in bed, hoping for a comfortable sleep. According to my theory, my current condition could be considered the worst for sleep.

The back of my head feels as cold as if it were filled with ice. A chilly wind sweeps over every corner of my body. The cold seeping into my torn and crumpled wounds is unbearably sharp.

It might feel like this if you made a pillow out of stone and covered yourself with a thin blanket.

“Ah, it’s so hard… and cold…”

When I open my eyes, the ceiling is a heavy ash color. It’s unfinished concrete. It looks like dusty powder could fall at any moment. I tried to quickly sit up, but I couldn’t.

My arms were completely shattered.

I realized this when I tried to sit up with my broken arm. The arm supporting my upper body weakly gave way, and my rising head fell back down.

– Bang!

A sharp pain in the back of my head wakes me up. Who thought of making a bed out of a rock? And even crazier, who thought of giving it to a patient? I don’t know who it is, but I need to have a word with them later.

Ignoring the throbbing sensation in my head, I look around. There are several hard-looking beds. It’s a heavy-looking place. The white snowflake pattern that adorns the stuffy room is the only proof that this place is not a prison, at least.

So, where are the other people? As this curiosity filled my head, I managed to sit up.

I can’t use my arms, but my legs are fine. If my legs were also shattered, my return home would have been indefinitely postponed. My hands are weak, but this is not too bad.

I slowly straightened my clothes and prepared to escape from this place. I’m in pain, but I have to deliver the letter as soon as possible. I can’t rest as much as I want.

More importantly, where is Lumen?

Snowflake pattern. The only group in Frontis that uses such a symbol are the Snowflake Knights, to which Lumen belongs… so she must be nearby. But that’s not the problem.

Aliana, at least, has some sense, so she stopped at pinning me to the ceiling. But what happens after Lumen finds out about the hero’s death is likely more than I can handle.

I could bear the small rebellions of the princess, a greenhouse plant, with the frail and pitiful body of a porter, but it’s not enough to stop the small rebellions of a knight who has lived every day on the battlefield.

If Lumen goes wild, I’m as good as dead. To block a power that can send a high-level monster to the afterlife in one shot, I need to bring at least my master for safety.

…Well, worrying about that is useless. No one will know until I face it directly.

Even if Lumen goes wild, there will be other knights nearby, and a laid-back person like Lumen is unlikely to be greatly disturbed by the death, so there won’t be a big problem. Surely, she won’t go crazy and stab me, right? Hahaha.

The priority now is to find Lumen. To do that, I need to leave this place.
That’s when it happened.

“Are you up~ Flan?”

A woman appeared as the heavy iron door opened. Her voice was pure but tinged with a hint of impudence. Her golden hair, made even brighter by the reflection off her white armor, and her expression, reminiscent of a princess’s escort knight.

Her face gave me a sense of déjà vu.

“Nico? What are you doing here?”

The woman, Nico, Nicola’s younger sister, responded with a sly smile. She had left home to become a knight around the time we were heading to the Demon King’s castle, and we hadn’t heard from her since. I didn’t expect to find her in Frontis.

“Do you know how worried Nicola was when you disappeared?”

“Is that all you have to say after such a long time?”

“Uh… um… Have you been well?”

Nico began to poke my side with a dissatisfied expression. I wish she’d stop jabbing me with her iron-gloved hand. My arm was the most severely injured, but the rest of my body wasn’t exactly in peak condition either.

“…Congratulations on becoming a knight.”

“Too short.”

“Anyway, where’s Lumen?”

I asked with a naturally smiling face. For some reason, I felt that if I didn’t change the subject here, something annoying would happen. It was just a baseless paranoia, but if I wasted any more time, I might never be able to return home. And since I changed the subject so smoothly, there shouldn’t be a problem.

“…The vice-captain?”

That was a close call.

“Yeah. Vice-captain, or perhaps it’s more familiar to call her Lumen? Anyway, she didn’t go out on a mission, did she? I have something urgent to deliver to her.”

“You came all this way just for that? The Demon King is dead, you could move a bit more leisurely. And if you had come with the Hero who has nothing to do, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

Nico clung to me with a slightly flushed face. The faint scent of flowers flowing from between her cold armor tickled my nose. Does she not realize she’s wearing armor? I wish she’d stop pressing on my injured arm.

“Yes, yes, I see. But why are you up? You should be resting for a few more days to fully recover.”

“Lumen… I mean, I really have something urgent to deliver to the vice-captain. I can get my arm properly treated by the priest later. I need to put out the urgent fire first. And… never mind.”

There’s no need to tell her that the Hero is dead. Nico and the Hero weren’t close, but it’s better to be careful.

“One thing’s for sure, she’s off today.”

“Really? That’s good.”

I gently pushed Nico away and started to walk outside.

Suddenly, my strength drained away. It was because Nico had grabbed my frail arms.

“Ugh… wait, wait, Nico!”

“…You’re in such pain. Just lie down, I’ll call Lumen.”

“Arm, arm, arm… let go of my arm first.”

Nico didn’t let go of my arm, leading me back to the spot where I had originally been lying. I was unable to resist, as she was pressing right on the spot where my bone had protruded. I was dragged all the way to the hard bed.

“Why are you so strong? Did they give you some sort of elixir in the knight order?”

“…They wouldn’t give something like that to a mere trainee knight. Stop talking nonsense and just lie down.”

My bent waist, due to the faint pain, is forcibly straightened. I felt like a fish on a chopping board, thrown onto the icy stone floor.
But wasn’t I seriously injured? Why do I have to be uncomfortable on this hard bed?

“There, there. Just lie down comfortably. Your belongings are over there, on the shelf by the window. You can take them out when Lumen comes.”

Who could possibly lie comfortably in a place like this? If there was someone, they must be slightly off their rocker.
Or a corpse that wouldn’t feel discomfort.

There was a small shelf in the place Nico pointed to. It looked small, but it seemed to hold everything I had brought: a few letters, a dagger, and some tools.

“Hold on.”

With the situation settled, my curiosity that had been suppressed flared up again.
I called Nico, who was about to leave the room in a hurry.

“Where are the man and the… elf woman who were brought in with me?”

Nico leaned against the door and tilted her head.

It was an unexpected question. A seriously injured person worrying about other injured people. Especially people who were just acquaintances.
It had nothing to do with delivering the letter, but it wouldn’t hurt to know about the life or death of the person who had practically saved me.
It would be a bit uncomfortable if someone I had just met died.

It’s not a big reason.

“I’m not sure exactly, but the man who was brought in with you is receiving intensive care from the priest due to severe bleeding.”

Well, he had fought dozens of beasts and spewed a tremendous amount of blood from his neck. Without healing magic and only receiving first aid, he would die if he lay here.
But it seems he’s still alive. That’s a relief.

“And, …there was no elf from the beginning? Only two of you were brought in. Are you mistaken?”

“What did you say?”

What Nico said was shocking. There was no elf. What does that mean?
Surely the elf woman, Latia, who said she was working as a mercenary with Benten, was in the carriage.

Unless I was hallucinating, the elf should have been at the scene.

…Come to think of it, I couldn’t find her among the corpses of the beasts. I didn’t even see her clothes, so she couldn’t have been eaten by the beasts. Where did she go? Even if she ran away, she couldn’t rule out the possibility of encountering the nearby monsters. If I think about it, did she die? It’s not heartbreaking, but I should mourn.

“So you should lie down properly until she comes, okay~? If you wander around again… you know?”

Nico glanced at me, who was silently nodding, and then left the room.

Thump, thump. The sound of retreating footsteps faintly echoed. The room once again filled with silence. The landscape of Frontis, visible through the window, was blanketed in layers of snow.

The trees, the buildings, even the weeds fluttering in the wind were being robbed of their color, buried under the relentless snow of Frontis.

It wasn’t comfortable, but as I lay on the stone bed and watched the falling snowflakes, I felt a sense of novelty.

Even such a small respite is necessary in life. No matter how important it is to deliver the letter and return home, if I die, I can’t go back. So, when I can rest, I should rest thoroughly.

Lumen was also supposed to be brought by Nico. There’s nothing to worry about right now, so I should get some sleep. My arm hurts, but I can sleep. If Lumen is of the rank I think she is, it will take her some time to get here, so it won’t be a problem if I sleep for about an hour. It’s a bit cold, but that doesn’t matter.

Lumen.
As far as I know, she is the woman who cut off the hero’s arm. If Troka’s words are to be believed, she was one of the better ones amongst the seven. I wonder what she’s really like.
With that thought, I closed my eyes.

And immediately, the sound of metal clashing came from the direction of the iron door.

“Your name was Flan, right?”

There stood the owner of the letter.
The woman who had cut off the hero’s arm, and the knight known as the strongest in the north.
Lumen. She was standing there, flaunting her majestic armor…

Wait a minute. Why is she like that?

Lumen’s appearance was quite different from what I had imagined.

Where had the fiercely image of her driving away the monsters gone? An old top that blatantly revealed her cleavage, long pants that were frayed at the hem. Her hair tied up casually and food smeared around her mouth. Her originally mysterious and powerful aura was nowhere to be found, and she was showing a completely relaxed face.

Only her pink hair was exactly the same as the Lumen I had imagined. She casually threw the crumpled iron door onto the empty bed and dusted off her hands.

“Nice to meet you, Flan.”

Then, she waved her hand, which was smeared with some strange sauce, as if she was happy to see me.
Her hand fluttered like a piece of cloth, and her face was strangely bland. I wonder if anyone would recognize her as the revenant Knight who had been guarding the north.

What would happen if this Lumen found out about the hero’s death?

Suppressing such curiosity, I greeted her.