Episode 14: Reflecting on First Times with the Exiled Marquise, Part 4
Someone, anyone, please praise me. For not screaming, for not letting my body tremble even a bit, and for managing to reply calmly without stuttering.
I said it. No, I managed to say it.
“What is it?”
Incidentally, my inner voice was going, ‘W-w-w-what is it?’ Erika Solntsalri let out a hesitant sigh before speaking to me.
Stop it, please stop with the sighs, my heart really can’t take it.
“About killing someone.”
*
Without waiting for my reply, she began to speak.
“It was my first time.”
But her voice held no trace of regret.
If anything, perhaps it was bewilderment?
“However, it doesn’t feel real. I thought those were Monsters, you see.”
Incidentally, Monsters and Majin are different things.
Although many who have never seen a Majin equate the two, anyone who has actually seen one will invariably say they are different.
Confronting Monsters doesn’t evoke that intense aversion one feels towards Majin.
Naturally, Erika Solntsalri is a Marquise; she likely had never even faced a Monster before.
Even at the academy, actual combat is a fourth-year assignment.
The experience of taking a life is, at most, limited to killing livestock with one’s own sword as part of an academy assignment.
“Even now that you’ve told me those were originally human, to be perfectly honest, it still doesn’t feel real.”
Erika Solntsalri lightly shook her head.
“It’s not that I doubt you, you understand? It just feels somewhat disrespectful to have killed them without it even feeling real.”
Saying so, her gaze wandered into the air as if searching for the right, jumbled words.
Seeing her profile, the words came out naturally.
“It was my first time too, Erika Solntsalri.”
I looked up at the night sky and closed my eyes.
I pictured the faces of the three men I killed today.
They were all ordinary men, the kind you could find anywhere.
They didn’t have particularly evil features, just ordinary faces, like you’d see anywhere in this city.
“But I have no regrets.”
I declared it, and I could declare it with certainty.
“It’s because I was able to protect you. Because I decided for myself that it was to protect you.”
If you are a noble, let me state this unequivocally.
Whether you realize it or not, someday, your decision will inevitably lead to someone’s death.
Whether it’s when you order a criminal beheaded or when you sacrifice the few for the benefit of the many, I don’t know.
But it will inevitably come someday.
As a second son who wasn’t going to inherit the family, the chances of me having to make such direct decisions were probably low.
Still, for the family to decide means that I, as a member, also bear the weight of that decision and its consequences.
But this wasn’t some ambiguous first time where my awareness of the act was questionable.
I made the decision out of my own will, to protect Erika Solntsalri, because I wanted to protect her.
There was no regret in that.
Even recalling the faces of the three I killed today, I do not regret my first time.
It might just be a selfish thought, but even thinking that, I didn’t want her feelings to be ambiguous either.
“What were you thinking when you swung your sword back then?”
I looked at her and asked.
Her eyes, which had been wandering in the air, met mine.
Erika Solntsalri thought for just a moment, then offered a smile that was almost a wry grin.
“That I had to protect the Coachman and… the seemingly exhausted guard.”
“To be precise, it was the Coachman-slash-guard and My Lord,” she added with a laugh.
“In that case,”
I said, to tell her that her decision and its outcome were not the product of ambiguity.
“I should be thanking you. Erika Solntsalri, thank you for wielding your sword for my sake.”
A brief silence, followed by a small nod.
After those, she replied, “You are most welcome,” and turned her body towards me.
“Then allow me to thank you as well, Shin Longdagger. By your sword, the dew blocking my path was swept away.”
“Even now—” she added with a smile.
“Come to think of it,”
Erika Solntsalri said, as if remembering something, just as we had both turned our gazes back towards the city out of a certain indescribable embarrassment.
“Shin Longdagger, I gathered that calling me by my full name was a declaration of your resolve, and I followed suit… but it’s quite a hassle, isn’t it?”
I realized she was under some strange misunderstanding.
Calling her Erika Solntsalri had nothing to do with whatever resolve she imagined.
It’s simply because I’m too embarrassed to call her Erica.
Seriously, calling her by her first name is impossible.
“From now on, I shall call you Shin. And you shall call me Erica.”
Isn’t the difficulty level a bit high?
Before I could clear up the misunderstanding, I shuddered at the rapidly increasing difficulty level.
“This isn’t to disregard your resolve or feelings, but for the coming one year—”
“Erica.”
I said it purely on impulse.
I’d said it.
A strange silence fell upon the balcony.
Could you please not go silent right after telling me to call you that? It’s so embarrassing I could die.
“Yes, let’s go with that, Shin.”
Breaking the silence, she smiled, Erika Solntsalri—Erica—her Golden-colored Magicka sparkling.
“Besides, I was mistaken, wasn’t I?”
Erica smiled teasingly.
“After all, I am no longer a Solntsalri, but a Longdagger. If you want to call me correctly, it’s Erica Longdagger, My Lord.”
With those words, she left the balcony.
That was close…
I almost jumped off the balcony.
That night.
Whenever I was in bed and remembered her calling me ‘My Lord,’ I felt like thrashing about.
Frantic tossing and turning sounds came from the next bed, making it quite hard to fall asleep.
I see, she’s quite a restless sleeper.
Author’s Note
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