Chapter 216: Night Comes, Night Goes 2
“I have something I’d like to discuss.”
The moment Shara heard that voice, she almost screamed.
It happened right after she started her night watch.
Shin and the others were already asleep, preparing for their shift.
Right now, it was just her and Erika, keeping watch by the dwindling bonfire.
Since only Shin and Erika could use the Presence Detection Skill, this pairing was inevitable.
Shara was already regretting it.
I should have arranged to be on night watch with Shin-san.
At least Shin-san wouldn’t consult me about anything. And even if he did, it would surely be something incomprehensible.
If it’s a consultation I can’t understand, I can just nod silently.
“Are you listening?”
Erika’s voice was like a flickering flame.
Seemingly weak, yet hot to the touch.
This is too troublesome, isn’t it?
“I can hear you,” Shara replied, despite her thoughts.
She’d had a bad feeling from the start. Anyone would know just by looking at Erika after Shin-san returned.
Actually, it was even before that.
Ever since that friend of Shin-san’s, Jenniferlin or whatever her name was, showed up, Erika had clearly been acting strangely.
Erika was clearly jealous of Shin-san.
I don’t get it, was Shara’s honest thought.
Even from an outsider’s perspective, it was obvious that what those two had was pure friendship. Or rather, no matter how you looked at it, it was like that of two clever brats.
It felt wrong to describe two nobles as “clever brats,” but that’s exactly how it looked.
She understood that their physical distance was close, yes.
But it wasn’t the kind of closeness for holding hands.
Shara thought it was the kind of closeness for looking at each other’s smirking faces and fist-bumping when a prank succeeded.
Those two are a handful. Not that I know them well, though.
“Um…”
Ah, yes, yes, that’s right. Erika-san, you’re a bit too infatuated with Shin-san to understand that sort of thing, aren’t you?
What are you, a maiden? Even though you’re married.
Shara felt weary hearing that voice, seemingly weak yet filled with an inner heat.
Yes, yeees, I’m about to be subjected to her lovey-dovey talk. It’s like having honey poured into my nostrils.
Shara gave up.
“Should I show him my cleavage?”
“What did you say?”
Have my ears finally been completely filled with sugar? Shara earnestly dug into her ear canal.
Erika ignored Shara, who was earnestly digging in her ear, and continued with a serious face.
With an embarrassed expression.
“Well, I hear that gentlemen prefer to see cleavage, so I was wondering if Shin is the same.”
Damn it! It’s about Shin-san after all!
“No, um…”
But Shara was troubled.
The direction of this consultation was too different from usual for her to understand.
What is this? What am I being consulted about?
“Why?”
Shara couldn’t help but ask.
She wanted at least a starting point for understanding, even just a finger’s worth.
She hated this feeling, like being made to sit naked in front of a bonfire that could explode at any moment.
Erika fidgeted, saying things like “Well,” and “Um.”
Was it the bonfire making her face look red?
“I was thinking of… seducing Shin.”
Erika definitely blushed and looked down.
So why are you doing that?!
I’m not asking for the reason to show Shin-san your cleavage!
What do you think will happen if you seduce Shin-san?
I can assure you, that man is always head over heels for you.
He’s constantly being seduced by you!
Even a butterfly before flower nectar would be more reserved!
“Just to be sure,”
Shara, almost gagging at the sight of Erika fidgeting shyly, somehow managed to compose herself.
“Are you perhaps misunderstanding something about Shin-san and Jen-san’s relationship?”
“They are friends, aren’t they? I believe it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call them best friends.”
What, so you do understand.
Shara felt relieved.
“I was distant from Shin during our academy days. However… while I am a little envious, I believe I have enough discernment to understand that what lies between those two is friendship, bisection.”
Bisection?
What is she planning to bisect?
“Um, excuse me.”
Shara calmed herself down.
“Huh? Then why are you trying to seduce Shin-san?”
“Well… he seemed to be lacking energy.”
Well, true enough?
Seeing the site where an entire village was massacred, it’s understandable that one would lose their energy.
Shara recalled Shin’s face when he returned.
She thought that even someone like him, who faced everything with a nonchalant air and would punch Iniquity straight in the face, could make such an expression.
For a moment, she wondered what to say to him.
Uncharacteristically, she felt she had to console him. Knowing the usual Shin, it was that much of a shock.
But well, Shara thought, that was Shin-san for you.
He had pulled himself together properly.
It was a quickness in switching gears that she didn’t think she could manage.
As expected of an eccentric who was both a noble and an adventurer.
Ah, no, no, that’s not it.
“I don’t think showing your cleavage to seduce your husband just because he’s feeling down is the right approach, you know?”
Right now, she absolutely had to stop Erika.
If this continued, a disaster was clearly in sight.
“Is that so?”
Erika tilted her head. Shara had nothing but bad feelings about this.
“At the Adventurers Guild, I heard someone say that if a woman showed her cleavage, any man would cheer up no matter how tired he was. So I just assumed that’s how it was.”
Which idiot said that, damn them.
Don’t, out of Imprudence, keep prying open the Lid of Hell!
Unable to tell Erika, “Actually, that cheers up a different part of him,” Shara desperately suppressed the urge to scream.
Calm down, my retorts, it’s nighttime.
“Um, well, you see?”
Shara tried somehow to close the carelessly opened Lid of Hell.
“Hypothetically, just hypothetically, okay? Even if you wanted to show your cleavage, you don’t have any clothes like that with you, do you?”
She tried offering a sensible reason for now. Since they operated on the premise of using Purification Magic, even Erika, a former noble, didn’t have a change of clothes.
And Erika was in her usual equipment.
Typical of adventurer gear, it prioritized ease of movement, exposing her shoulders and thighs, but her chest area was completely covered by fabric.
Surely even Erika wouldn’t suddenly rip the chest part of her clothes just to cheer Shin-san up.
Shara bet on Erika’s common sense.
“Ah, this can do this, you see.”
Shara was speechless.
Just as she thought she heard the sound of fabric rubbing at Erika’s chest, illuminated by the bonfire, a dazzling cleavage appeared before her eyes.
She had thought that Erika’s gear couldn’t just be ordinary sturdy clothes. It was probably a semi-Magic Tool, like her own Nun’s Habit.
She had thought so, but what on earth was that function for?! Shara roared internally.
I want to tie up the creator and grill them about manufacturer’s liability!
Stop prying open the Lid of Hell! Because of you, the Lid of Hell is about to fly off!
From the creator’s perspective, it might have been a playful feature added as a bonus to the function that adjusts the size to fit one’s physique.
Don’t give, sell, or teach Erika something like that! Shin-san is right next to her, you know?!
Damn it, what do I do? At this rate, tomorrow will be a pandemonium of shrieks!
I can’t take it anymore, I’m going home. She half-seriously wanted to throw everything away and return to the Hecate Church.
And then, Shara caught a bolt of lightning.
She thought her flash of inspiration was a divine miracle.
“Um, Erika-san? There are other men here besides Shin-san, you know?”
Shara elegantly, implicitly, asked Erika: Are you going to show your cleavage to men other than Shin-san?
As a result, Shara was convinced she had won.
Erika thought with a serious expression for a few moments, then her face suddenly turned red.
“You’re right, that would be indecent.”
Seeing her gently return her boldly opened chest to its original state while saying that, Shara thought she had accomplished a miracle worth a thousand gold pieces.
“In that case, I’ll try showing it discreetly only to Shin.”
And with the words that followed, Shara despaired. Despair only visits those who have held hope.
How cruel could things be?
Shara could only keenly feel her own powerlessness, realizing that all she could do now was pray.
“Tomorrow, please, I beg you. Stay sane.”
All Shara could do was give that warning to Shin when he came out to take over the night watch.
The next morning, what Shara saw when she woke up was—
Erika, fidgeting more than Shara had ever seen her before in front of Shin, uttering a single “Good morning,” and then scurrying away.
That girl!
Shara screamed internally.
She chickened out at the last minute!
＊＊＊＊Author’s Afterword＊＊＊＊
The chair arrived!
Chair! It’s the best!
Goodbye, primitive era! The author has become a civilized person!
It’s a terrible greeting, I know, but the author has returned to the civilized world.
And now for an announcement.
The release date for the first volume of “An Adventurer’s Life with the Exiled Marquise’s Daughter” is in two days.
It’s released on May 20th! I wonder if faster places will have it on shelves tomorrow?
I don’t really know!
At this point, as the author, all I can do is pray.
Well, how should I put it… The fact that all of you, my readers, told me, “This is interesting!” was the catalyst for this award.
I feel proud, if I do say so myself, that I was able to prove that what you readers found interesting was indeed worthy of being published as a book.
So, while it’s my sincere hope that many people will pick it up…
…I’m actually even more satisfied that I could demonstrate that the “interesting” you all experienced was, in fact, genuinely interesting.
Well, that being said, I’d love to get the continuation published as well! Honestly! And most fervently!