The star send-off ceremony for the kobolds who died was conducted early the next morning. Ever since then, Emon had remained out on the outskirts of town, practicing his sword swings.
“I was wondering where you’d run off to!” Darke called out to him as she walked up to him from behind. “How are you feeling? Have all your wounds healed?”
“M’fine,” Emon mumbled, neither turning to face her nor stopping his practice. “Compared to Sashalia, I had it easy... How’s she doin’, anyhow?”
“Still not awake yet, I’m afraid. We’ve tried all we could, but even after enlisting the aid of the spirits...”
Darke exhaled sharply before continuing.
“...she’ll never walk unaided again. She’ll need a cane or some manner of support for the rest of her life.”
Emon froze in mid-swing when he heard that. His head drooped slightly and he clenched his jaw. Even with his back turned to her, Darke could see the tension in his body.
Emon struggled to contain his immense frustration at his own helplessness. For the third time, he’d failed to save the people around him. He couldn’t help Gaius defend that small settlement from McArdle and the bandits. The adventurers took him down easily before he could save Fog, Fluff, and Fishbone. And now Sashalia...once again, he had been of no help whatsoever.
Ever since Fog’s death, Emon had trained relentlessly; he’d never once complained about his regimen after that. Gaius’s guidance combined with his natural dwarven strength to produce good results, considering how long he’d been training. But even so, he’d still fallen to the two adventurers that Hubert sent after him. All his effort could not compensate for the harsh unpredictability of a real combat situation. Instead of saving the day, it was all he could do to stay alive until Gaius arrived.
Dwarves were abnormally strong—perhaps the physically strongest intelligent race on the continent. They were even more durable and powerful than orcs, ogres, and other races that were notoriously suited for combat. When Emon left home, he’d believed that this would be enough to see him through during his travels through the outside world. He’d foolishly thought he’d simply grow even more powerful by walking the path of a hero king.
His foolhardy bravado hadn’t been dampened after the highway bandits outside Ryburgh had assaulted him. Even after McArdle’s men had caved his head in, his spirits bounced back even before his skull had—because in both incidents, he was the only one who had been hurt.
But he’d failed to save Fog, the mother of his dear little friend. Now, yet another of his friends had suffered because of his incompetence, with wounds that would last her the rest of her life.
The brash overconfidence so commonly found in young men, that belief that nothing could ever faze him—all that had vanished.
“Damn it all!” Emon screamed, slashing wildly at the air with all his might.
“...It’s almost time for breakfast,” Darke said calmly. “You should have something to eat.”
“I know...”
“You can’t gain all the strength you’re looking for in a day’s worth of practice.”
“I know that!”
Darke’s shoulders flinched.
“I just...I just wanna be helpful, too...”
Pretending not to hear him, Darke turned on her heel and walked back toward the village. As she left Emon standing there, she murmured her reply.
“...Boys always do.”
＊
In the building being used as a makeshift infirmary, Sashalia’s eyes finally opened that morning, and Gaius was sitting beside her to see it happen.
“Miss Sashalia!”
“Sir Gaius...? I...” Gingerly, she brought a hand to her forehead, then her cheek. Her face was plastered in poultices from medicinal herbs. As soon as she felt them, memories of the fight came flooding back to her. She twisted to the side and willed her left leg to bend in an attempt to stand, only to find that she was unable to feel anything from the middle of her thigh down. When her memories caught up with her physical state, Sashalia let out a quiet “...Ah.”
Gaius had been watching her face intently, but now he cast his gaze downward. He hesitated for a moment then brought a hand to her back and helped her sit up in her bed.
“Miss Sashalia...I don’t know what to say. This is all my fault. All that happened to you was because of my poor planning. I’m...so very sorry.” He knelt beside her, his pained expression disappearing as he brought his forehead down to the floor.
“N-No, you don’t have to do that, Captain! C—...Sir Gaius, this wasn’t your fault. I mean that.”
“It is. I should have been able to prevent this. I should have bolstered the village’s defenses more—at the very least, I should have made Darke stay behind to protect you all.”
Those words stabbed at Sashalia’s heart like a knife. Of course, she knew Gaius had no intention of putting her down, but they only fueled the fire of her inferiority complex. It was as though he’d said to her, “Darke can take care of herself, but you can’t”—words that were already wound around her heart like thorny vines. To make matters worse, he felt the need to apologize for her inability to protect herself. That only further drove home the fact that she’d failed on every front—as a warrior and as a counselor.
One after another, tears trickled down Sashalia’s face. “Ah, this isn’t...I’m not...” She fought to put a smile on her face, trying desperately to maintain a brave front, but she couldn’t stop the hot tears from falling.
“I apologize...” Gaius said again.
“Please don’t.”
If you do, I’ll only feel even more pathetic than I already do.
“Sir Gaius,” Sashalia continued, before he could reply. “I’d like to be alone for a little while.”
For a moment, he looked back at her, hesitant to leave things as they were. But eventually he nodded.
“...I’ll come back later.” With that, he stood up and made for the door. Sashalia couldn’t bring herself to reply, or to even watch him leave.
I’m so stupid. All that about being Sir Gaius’s best aide, and being able to hold off those adventurers...now look at me. I’ll be even more of a burden than I was before. And to make matters worse, I just made a fool of myself in front of him. I wish I were dead.