Ishmael awkwardly scratched his head. “I must apologize. I’ve actually been holed up in Elmer’s library all this time... I thought I would only stay for a bit, but quite a long time had passed before I knew it.”
I see, so that’s what happened... thought Angeline. It was just a place with a lot of books as far as a nonmagician was concerned. But it was a veritable treasure trove for anybody who could use magic. Still, what’s he doing with Lionel?
“Well, Mr. Ishmael came to me, see,” explained Lionel. “He asked if I knew where to find you. Something about going to Turnera... I don’t really know how you two are related, so I thought it best to tag along with him. Anyways, we went to your room, but you weren’t in, so I was hoping to run into you here.”
Angeline was an S-Rank adventurer; the name of the Black-Haired Valkyrie had spread to many lands beyond Orphen. It wasn’t inconceivable that some scoundrel might try to track her down with malicious intent—that sort of thing wasn’t completely unheard of. So Lionel had come along with Ishmael out of due concern. Even so, Angeline wearily propped up her head. “Do you think I’m so weak that I couldn’t handle myself?”
“No, I don’t. But there’s no harm in being careful. You’ve been pretty ill lately, after all... Well, it looks like I was worried for nothing.” Lionel smiled awkwardly.
Angeline sighed and bid the two of them to sit.
“No, I still have some stuff to do,” Lionel protested, scratching his cheek.
“Just sit already. I have something to talk to you about.”
“To me?” Lionel seemed a little pleased to hear that—it gave him an excuse to slack off.
Angeline ordered another bottle of wine before beginning. “I’m pretty sure I told you I’d be going to Turnera again...”
“You did, yes.”
“I want to leave earlier—right away, if possible,” Angeline said.
Lionel chuckled. “I see, so that’s what this is about. Don’t tell me your desire to go home is what’s causing this slump of yours?”
Angeline pouted. That wasn’t exactly the case, but she could see why he would take it that way. “Can I?”
“I don’t see why not. We’re not in the same straits as we were during that incident with the demon. We have enough adventurers to go around now—and you’ll check back in again before winter hits, right?”
“That’s the plan, for what it’s worth...”
“Ha ha! ‘For what it’s worth,’ huh? Well, you can spend the winter there if you’d like... Once you get back from Turnera, you’re going on a journey to the east, right? You’ll be off for a long time anyway. Going to Turnera a little earlier isn’t going to do any harm.”
Apparently, there were now a few other S-Rank adventurers apart from Angeline at the guild, and there was no shortage of manpower. Of course, considering their achievements, Angeline’s party was still ranked at the top in terms of capability and reputation, but that didn’t mean there were jobs that only they could complete. Perhaps it would be a different matter if the archduke were to request her specifically again, but that wasn’t likely. There was still paperwork to handle, but it seemed like the guild would be fine without her for the time being.
Angeline drank from her wineglass before turning to Ishmael. “That’s the gist of it. What do you want to do, Mr. Ishmael?”
“Huh? About what?” Ishmael, apparently lost in thought, was snapped out of his ruminations by Angeline.
“You wanted to go to Turnera, right? Isn’t that why you were looking for me?”
“Oh yes, that’s right... Um, I did intend to go... But from what I just heard, am I right in assuming you’re going to be leaving within the next few days?”
“Yeah... Hopefully.” I guess that’s too sudden... Angeline thought, scratching her cheek. Her party members were one thing, but Ishmael, Yakumo, and Lucille might not be able to make it if she pushed their itinerary forward. But there was no getting around her need to depart as soon as logistically possible. Now that her mind was made up on that score, she realized just how badly she was aching to leave. During the incident with the demon, she had been prevented from going home several times and had been driven up a wall by the delays. There was no such underlying circumstance this time, but she still wanted to hurry home regardless.
Ishmael thought it over for a while before looking up from his musings. “All right, I’ll join you... Though I may not be able to spend the winter. I was planning on going anyways, after all,” he said, laughing.
Angeline put a relieved hand over her heart. “Thank you... If you leave Turnera right after the autumn festival, you’ll make it back to Orphen before the winter.”
“I see. If there’s a festival, I should be able to hitch a ride with one of the peddlers.”
If Angeline decided she would stay in Turnera, he still had the means to return on his own. Angeline realized that Yakumo and Lucille had that option too. Yakumo had said she was fine with going to Turnera but that she didn’t want to spend the long winter there. But if they parted ways there, then it would dim their prospects of heading east together—in which case, Angeline knew she really would have to return to Orphen after all. She nodded to herself. Thinking it through helped calm her nerves.
In any case, Angeline would need to find the other two and talk to them about it before she could do anything else. She’d already met Ishmael, so tomorrow, she’d search for Yakumo and Lucille. If they said it was too sudden to be feasible for them, then that was that.
Lionel, who was drinking his wine slowly, seemed to have more to say. “Ms. Ange... You’ve been having a succession of bad dreams, right?”
“Yeah... But I forget what they’re about as soon as I wake up. That just makes me feel even worse...” Angeline turned to Ishmael. “Mr. Ishmael, do you know any spells to deal with that? I asked Granny Maria, but her medicine wasn’t very effective...”
“Hmm... If even Maria the Ashen couldn’t do anything, I doubt I could either.”
“Huh? Not even Ms. Maria could solve it?” Lionel wondered.
“I don’t really get it, but granny said I should hurry back to Turnera and that my dad is the best medicine for me.”
Lionel burst out laughing, and Ishmael chuckled too.
“Sure enough, Mr. Belgrieve could be just what you need. That’s Ms. Maria for you. She knows what she’s doing.”
“I guess your love for your dad is famous now.”
“Of course it is. You know, some time ago she was held up in Orphen unable to return home for all sorts of reasons, and I thought she was going to murder me.”
“I mean...I just wanted to go home...” Angeline puffed out her cheeks, eliciting further laughter from the two men.
Their conversation went on a while longer before Lionel had to go. “They’ll get mad if I’m gone for too long.”
Does he still have to work this late at night? Angeline wondered. But the guild had been doing good business lately, and perhaps that meant there was much to do.
Gradually, the pub emptied. She was left alone with Ishmael, who still sat drinking with her. Ishmael’s complexion didn’t seem to change no matter how much he drank, but from the way his hands moved, Angeline could tell that the drink was still getting to him.
“It’s a very busy job they have, those guild masters,” Ishmael observed idly.
“That it is... Hey, there’s something we never got to talk about the last time we met. You didn’t finish talking about Solomon.”
“Oh, now that you mention it. I was pretty sloshed at the time.” Ishmael raised a hand and ordered some water before turning back to Angeline. “So what do you want to know about Solomon?”
“Well...”
Angeline summarized what she’d heard from Elmer and what Maria had told her. She left out the fact that she herself was a demon, but she did mention that Schwartz was conducting experiments to turn demons into humans.