Chapter 321 – The Winter Dancer.
“Oh yeah, did Rachel do such a hard job?”
Diana straightened her sulky shoulders and moved on. Even though her sanctuary was destroyed, the name given to her as a saint did not let go of Diana. Even now, she and her knights had to look at the map, check out the divided procession and the point where they would join, discussing where to go tomorrow.
“Still, I’m glad you talked to Lord Kayaba.”
Before she set off in earnest, she recalled the image of him who had embraced her. As children, they weren’t particularly bad friends. Rather, it would have been better if it had been better. At that time, there was also a common theme of Master, so it was the same with Rachel, Boas, and Arun. However, the time was shorter than expected. Around an hour or so after a year or so. Together with the rebels, they were able to regain control of the holy land from the harpies, but in the process Master died along with Bargazzet. Because of that, they went wrong.
But it was just an occasion.
“Abner…”
Diana recalled the image of a paladin adorning her body with purple-dominated decorations. If it wasn’t for Kayaba, she shuddered at the thought that she would have been leading the procession with him. She sighed as she thought what else she might have done if she hadn’t reunited with their master before then.
“Ah, the door.”
She opened the door of her own carriage and tried to enter, but she realized it was locked from the inside. Because she came late to discuss the future, there was no guarantee that the children inside her would be awake. However, there was no possibility that someone would come in on their own to leave it open, so I couldn’t let it open.
“Are you back?”
As Diana was contemplating what to do, a girl’s voice came from inside her carriage.
“Have you not slept yet?”
“Huh, can I sleep now?”
“Now, wait! Open the door, though!”
“What can I do?”
The door opened soon after she was taken aback by the playfulness in her girlish voice that could be felt beyond her door.
“Hee hee, I just couldn’t sleep.”
And Diana laughed bitterly at the sight of Erica sticking her head out and pulling her black hair out. When I entered the carriage like that, I saw the inside of the carriage decorated like a small room and Usher sleeping in one of the beds.
“Isn’t Usher still waking up?”
A dark cloud hung over Erica’s expression, which seemed bright at her question. Diana went over to check on him, but she seemed to be fast asleep. The problem was that it seldom woke up in that state, though.
“It’ll be fine. They say it’s because of motion sickness.”
“Huh.”
Even after hearing her words, Erica could hardly hide her worry, but her words. If she was just sick or injured, she could have been cured with Diana’s magic, but the doctor who examined Usher said she was just suffering from stress and severe motion sickness. Even if she did wake up from time to time, it would have been better to let Erica sleep because she would see her sick after eating her food. Diana vaguely guessed that the reason she continued to sleep was to escape from her emerging memories.
“Why is Diana taking care of us like this?”
When I turned to Erica’s voice, the innocent gray light of her moonlight was looking at her with her doubts.
“You could be alone. It’s inconvenient.”
Diana shut her mouth. Certainly she could have used this carriage alone. However, she had instead put in another bed so that they could stay here.
“Because I think it’s my fault that this happened.”
At Diana’s words, Erica’s gray light flickered.
“But it’s because of Nehemoth that Verdi became like that.”
“I can’t believe that Nehemoth…”
It seemed to be the name of the demon of the Tsushima era that attacked them. Certainly, it was an unexpected disaster. She tried to get as far away from the being as possible, but eventually Belka died before she could get out of the area of influence. But the cause was Diana.
“If I hadn’t ordered Rachel, she wouldn’t have come to her shrine.”
Because I thought I had to take responsibility for it myself. Diana, along with memories of her past, remembered her conversation with Krikaliev on the eve of the fall of her shrine.
“Doesn’t Master resent me?”
She remembered his words that she was confused because she had become her golem’s body, so she asked him as he entered the room. She did something she shouldn’t have done because she just wanted to fool around with wanting to see her master again. She summons an alchemist who studies golems, and orders her to entrust the remains of the golem and bring him back to life. It was because she handed over the reason for her suffering to a girl called the Beginning Witch.
“To the point of resentment. Although the body creaks a little, it’s a flaw.”
He actually said it as if it was no big deal.
“It’s not too bad. I made quite a few new friends and met you guys again like this, right?”
He will not know how big the words were to Diana.
“I just wish I could have been with Master a little longer.”
Meetings with him were always sudden, loud, and brief. She barely managed to see her again, but he left again like an overnight dream. She was finally able to hold herself all in, and she didn’t want to shirk responsibility. Because that was his teaching.
“…”
Erica looked at Diana like that and sat down next to Usher.
“Erda, is it really okay if I teach this to Usher?”
The girl asked in the air as if muttering, but her voice was scattered in the moonlight without anyone receiving it.
“…Not having wedges is really inconvenient.”
In Erica’s hand was a necklace of blue beads resembling the night sky.
“What kind of wagon is he in so he can’t even see his nose?”
Reuben went out to eat breakfast, but no matter how much he looked among the breakfast rations, he couldn’t find the girl either. Seeing that he came to his carriage yesterday, it obviously means that he was in the same procession, but the fact that he was not seen at all in the distribution where everyone came out was a reason for the ghost to mourn.
“But how did you come to know where I am in the wagon?”
Now that I think about it, it was strange that he came to know where he was even though he was in a different carriage than the first one. Still, he looked around for a while as he ate, just in case the girl came to get his rations, but he couldn’t find the girl. In the end, he didn’t get any harvest and returned to the wagon just in time for departure.
“Hey, haven’t you thrown it away yet?”
Joab and his friends gathered at the center of the carriage to see if they were doing something, and they saw that they were collecting the things they had brought last night.
“No, no matter how you look at this, you’re alive?”
“I can’t even move.”
“Wait a minute.”
Joab rolled one of them out and struck it down with his shoe as hard as he could.
-Kikiiik!
“What, what?!”
Then, along with the sound of something thick and hard being crushed, I saw the thing that hadn’t even moved screaming with a sound like opening a rusty door as it struggled. I got goosebumps just looking at it blankly. As if encountering something that should never be interacted with, my body stiffened from the moment I heard that scream. Whether or not he knew his feelings, it rolled over in pain over his body, which had been trampled on by his shoes, and soon lost its shape and spread out.
“It melted.”
As if he had really died, just losing his shape wasn’t enough, so when he stepped on it again with his shoe, his appearance was as good as water. All that remained of its original appearance was a dark green color.
“Isn’t it really amazing?”
“What’s so strange about it?! Just take it and throw it away.”
“Hey, I worked hard to catch it, but it’s a waste to just throw it away. And I thought of a useful place.”
Seeing Joab’s sinister face saying that, Reuben wanted to do that because he was thinking of doing something, but he couldn’t understand his thoughts until night fell again.
“So what are you going to do with it?”
The night that eventually came back, the wagons ran during the day and arrived at another island, but nothing had changed, so instead of setting up and exploring again, they were walking around the wagon together.
“That’s because I looked for a carriage with girls this morning.”
“…Why is that?”
At Joab’s words, the image of the girl came to mind. It would have been nice to have met them again, but I couldn’t find them today, so I followed them. But I couldn’t look inside the wagon. If you’re worried about whether or not these guys have found it.
“Just watch it for now.”
Then Joab, who stopped in front of a wagon that arrived, put his ear to it and inserted the bent reed stem he had brought into the gap in the wagon. Then, holding the end of the bent reed stem that came out of the door again, he began to pull it little by little. At first I wondered what the hell he was doing, but I soon knew what he was trying to do. It’s as faint as a hand pulling a reed, but I heard the sound of iron turning beyond the door, and wasn’t the door opening with a clang? Joab smiled proudly as he stared blankly at them.
“This is the widest door gap, so this is possible.”
Looking at the inside of the door, I could see that it was a cylindrical lock often used on wagons, so it could be opened by moving a reed back and forth.
“Awesome, really!”
“Joab, teach me that later.”
It seemed great, so I asked Joab to teach me too.
“I’ll teach you later, hush! If you do something wrong, you’ll get caught!”
Joab quieted them, opened the door very slowly, and beckoned to them. Reuben hesitated whether he should really follow him, but a friend behind him pushed and urged him, and he had no choice but to get into the carriage.
“Oh, it smells good.”
“Women’s room really smells different.”
“It just smells like cosmetics.”
Reuben could tell that the smell tickling his nose was something like cosmetics, but his friends seemed to like it.
“Hey, there he is.”
“You’re all sleeping, right?”
Because their attention was on the five women lying in bed and asleep. The moonlight streaming through the window made it easy to see what they were holding. He looked at them just in case, but fortunately or unfortunately, the girl was nowhere to be seen among them.
“By the way, what are you going to do with the women’s wagon?”
“I’m not even going to play with you.”
Did you play with each other? Unless it was a family or other relationship, men usually rode the wagon with men and women with women. Still, with girls I could get along with, I tend to make an appointment first and go to the carriage to play. Judging from their looks, it didn’t seem like they had an appointment. It was quite late, so of course.
“Now, look closely.”
“Hey, what are you doing?!”
“Be quiet.”
Joab’s behavior was unexpected even for them. He lifted up the covers and reached a woman’s lower body exposed beneath her, then pulled up her skirt.
“What are you going to do?
“It’s a joke, a joke.”
A friend said it was a joke, and this time, Joab caught the underwear revealed under the skirt that was put up, and I lost words to say Reuben. If it’s really a dignified thing, do you pull down her underwear little by little so that she doesn’t wake up like that? However, their eyes were taken away by the scene that was soon revealed as the underwear came down. Instead of something hanging between her legs, I could see a crack dug inward.
“Wow, it’s the first time I’ve seen a girl.”
“You have to get married now, but haven’t you had sex yet?”
“You, you!”
“I’ve seen it a few times while dating.”
Their nonsense was short-lived. Where can I do this? If I make a mistake, I’ll wake up right away.
“Joab, what are you going to do?”
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand it, so when Reuben asked, he smiled and showed them what they had brought. It doesn’t move at all, but it wriggles and melts when you step on it.
“Let’s put this in and pop it out. You’ll be really surprised to see it tomorrow, right?”
Only that? Reuben was dumbfounded, but Joab seemed to be serious and placed it between the legs of a woman who had taken off her underwear. But it was just that moment.
-Kirik!
“””Uh?”””
It moved with a sound that had not moved until now.
“Oops, ugh.”
What I started to do was to stick my head through the cracks of the sleeping woman. They could only watch blankly as it burrowed inwards.
