Before I knew it, that startlingly pretty girl was standing right beside me, peering at me with her fantastical golden eyes. They were so gorgeous they were scary, shaving away at many a thing within me.
The guys, taken aback by her sudden accosting of me, called out to her.
“Err, uhh, milady, do you have some business with him?”
“Ah, apologies. It’s a trivial matter,” she replied, getting even closer.
I wanted to scream, to yell at her to stay back. But the words wouldn’t come out of my parched throat.
“Wait, hold on!” shouted one of the guys. “Please refrain from interacting with other divers!”
“Surely a brief chat won’t hurt anyone. You won’t let me get involved with anything else, so please, let me at least have a little talk with this here diver, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Yes, milady, but...”
I guess something she said must have persuaded them, as their objections ended there. The girl who had silenced the three guys drew so close that our faces threatened to touch.
“You really are quite intriguing,” she whispered so that only I could hear. “Honestly, you’re so interesting that I’m green with envy. Truly, I mean. I’m really jealous,” she continued.
Only I could hear those murmured remarks. Her soft, clear voice sent a chill up my spine. She furrowed her beautiful brow, her covetous expression driving home the fact that she did indeed envy me. The angle was such that only I could see her face. Consequently, the three guys just stood by and watched.
“Must be nice. No, really, must be nice. It must be sooo nice...” she muttered.
I wondered if she was putting a curse on me or something. All I could do was endure as her comely lips kept on murmuring what I might call a hex.
“What’s the matter, milady?” asked one of the guys, impatient. “I know...you saw something with those eyes of yours, didn’t you?”
At that, her expression instantly shifted. Her mad envy disappeared, replaced by a doll-like blankness. Then she put on a smile and looked back at her entourage. “Yes, something like that,” she said innocently, as though that muttered malediction-of-sorts had never happened.
“Is that so? Does the boy possess some intriguing skill, then?”
“No, that’s not it. It seems our friend is poisoned, and his stamina’s running low. So I thought I’d heal him.”
“Wha?” I blurted out. I had not been expecting that. As if suddenly basking in the sun, blood started flowing through my ice-cold body.
“Ah, I see. So that’s all there is to it.”
“Now, allow this kindhearted lady to cure what ails you!” she said, facing me again and starting her incantation: “Sing thou to the soothing light of day. To illusion the waters cascade, the blood ne’er to return. Shroud thou heaven and earth...”
Soft, pure-white light spilled from her hands and enveloped my body. The pain and fatigue that was racking me subsided, and my body started feeling light again, as if none of my misadventures up until now had actually transpired. I couldn’t do anything but watch her magic take effect. As long as the spell she was casting on me was healing magic, I had no reason to resist.
“Full Cure! Ta-da. You’re good to go.” She stopped emitting her healing light and flashed me a grin in which I detected no hint of envy. She then gave me an even more intense once-over. “Looky here. Hmm... Huh. Wow. So ‘confusion’ isn’t a bad status effect, then. You really are intriguing. Oh, but the burn will leave a scar. Treatment came too late for that.” She nodded admiringly.
She’d mentioned my “confusion” status. I checked my menu.
【STATUS】
NAME: Aikawa Kanami
HP: 51/51
MP: 1/72
CLASS:
LEVEL 1
STR 1.11
VIT 1.03
DEX 1.01
AGI 2.02
INT 4.00
MAG 2.00
APT 7.00
CONDITION: Confusion 1.00
The “blood loss” and “poison” conditions were gone, leaving only “confusion.” Could she, too, see menus? Maybe it wasn’t the same as my power, but at the very least, she could sense my “confusion” condition in some way.
She chuckled and spoke so only I could hear, with a glib buddy-buddy tone that stuck to me. “I’ll be seeing you, Aikawa Kanami. Oh, and my name’s Lastiara. Don’t forget.”
“Did something happen, milady?” The guys drew closer once they saw the healing magic had been completed.
“No, nothing. Hnn, it sure feels good to give a helping hand! Now, let’s be on our way! Off to the depths. No time to waste!”
The girl named Lastiara had reverted to the more polite register of speech and walked away as if to tell me she had nothing else to say to me.
“Uh,” I said on the spur of the moment, “thank you so much.”
She smiled like a predator with its eyes on its prey. “It’s quite all right. I’ll have you return the favor sooner or later.” Needless to say, her grin was angled such that only I could see it.
“See ya, lad. Be careful out there.”
“I advise that you head straight home!”
“Indeed.”
The guys smiled as they offered their warnings. I didn’t sense any of Lastiara’s battiness in them. Their smiles were born of the sense of security and achievement they got from rescuing the weak.
I aimed to part ways with her as quickly as possible, though. “Understood. Thank you for helping me. I’ll be going now.”
I proceeded in the opposite direction from them on the well-maintained path—the “Pathway Proper.” The guys waved goodbye, suspecting nothing. In all likelihood, the way I was going was the way out, which I wanted. I forced a smile and walked away from the silver-armored group. Or more accurately, I ran away from the girl named Lastiara.