I silently sat there, her pure, straightforward feelings of goodwill filling my mind. I’d never received such words of gratitude in my life. I averted my gaze, unsure of how to respond to such genuine praise.
“Don’t misunderstand,” I said. “I didn’t do it for peons like you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Fol replied. “I’m just thanking you of my own accord, that’s all. Just shut up and have your life spared.”
“The hell are you saying?”
She was brutally frank as she clutched the fur pelt to hide her front and approached me to peer into my face.
“Lo...fus,” she murmured.
“Huh?” I asked.
“Your name. It’s Lofus, right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
What is she on about? Did she not know my name until now? I guess I never really gave her a formal introduction...
“Well, Lofus, you must be feeling cold,” she said. “Jeez... And after I went through all that trouble to warm you up.”
“I’m cold because you took the fur pelt,” I pointed out.
Fol outstretched the pelt and wrapped both of us in it. “Stay still.”
I felt our shoulders touch as we were rather close together.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nights by the shore are cold,” she replied. “You’ll freeze to death unless we stick together and keep warm.”
“And just how long are you planning on looking like that?”
“I...used my outfit to treat your wounds.”
Ah, right. Her outfit was in shreds as she’d used it to bandage me up.
“I can’t use my healing magic anymore either...” she muttered.
What does that mean? Does she not have enough mana? Or did she somehow lose her faith overnight? I haven’t a clue...
“Don’t look at me much,” she said.
I’m not.
“Where’s my mantle?” I asked.
“Er...” Fol awkwardly faced the ground. “I stripped you of that on the shore when I carried you here. I went back later to collect it, but it was gone by then. I think it was taken by the waves. Sorry.”
“I...see.”
Then my potions in the pockets of that mantle are also lost at sea. They could’ve helped me recover a bit of my stamina and mana, but there was no use crying over spilled milk.
I spent the rest of the night talking with her, though admittedly she did most of the talking. I only quietly listened to her, and when I occasionally showed my clear disinterest, she quickly switched topics without seeming to mind. Her undeterred mental fortitude was honestly a bit exhausting. Her name, Faltiana, came from her mother, who she lost to an illness when she was still a child. Her mother wished for Fol to grow up into a beautiful princess and thus gave her that name. Yes, I did think that it was quite an elegant name, unfitting for a commoner...
It seemed Fol’s mother had doted on her daughter very much, and often mentioned that a knight would appear one day, destined to whisk Fol away into a happily ever after. She sounds like she didn’t have much going on in her head. I can’t believe Greig married someone like her.
“Speaking of, when you fought against that whale, you looked very valiant. Almost like a knight,” Fol remarked in a teasing voice.
Why must I, a high-ranking noble of the kingdom, be seen as something as lowly as a knight?
I scolded her for teasing, but she only laughed back. What in the world...
She told me of a memory from her childhood, when she went off to explore the shore with her eldest brother, Log, and her second-eldest brother. There, they found a merfolk that had strayed from its school and wandered onto the land. The three siblings fought the monster together, and after a grisly battle, they managed to chase it away. Greig later learned of their dangerous mission, and he bopped all three of them on the head, much to their dismay.
Fol then moved on to talk about the childhood friend she’d grown up with, but I literally couldn’t care less. She kept yapping and yapping, though I later realized that she must’ve been trying to keep me awake. If one were to get lost in the snowy mountains, falling asleep was practically death; though the cave by the shore wasn’t as frosty, there was still a real nip in the air. We illuminated our surroundings with a fire, but it seemed the depths of this cave must’ve been connected to an exit, as every now and then the salty ocean breeze would blow in to ensure that the cave remained cold. The two of us huddled together for warmth as the night wore on.
✶✶✶
“My lord! My lord!” a familiar voice called in the distance.
I blearily opened my eyes. There was no mistaking this voice. Carlos, I thought. His voice reverberated outside the cave.
I’d tried to stay awake, but it seemed Fol’s boring talks made me gradually fall asleep before I even realized it. I focused my mana onto my hand and tried to produce a tiny Dark Ball atop my palm. Hm, my mana is far from fully recovered, but I’ve got enough to use a few spells again. Thankfully, I was able to cast several basic spells without issue, though I obviously wouldn’t be able to survive another harrowing clash against a monster like the Wicked Whale.
Fol was beside me, leaning on my shoulder as she snoozed away blissfully.
“Hey, wake up,” I snapped. “Help’s arrived.”
“Mm...” she murmured sleepily as she turned to me before jumping up with shock. “Ahhh! Crap, was I asleep?!”
You sure were.
“Lofus, are you alive?!” she cried.
“Of course I am,” I replied. Who do you think woke you up, moron? “Enough chatter. Let’s leave this cave—help’s finally arrived for us.”
I pushed the fur pelt onto Fol and staggered to my feet. She hastily threw the pelt aside and stood up to support me.
“Hey, don’t push yourself,” she said.
“My mana’s recovered a bit, so I should be fine,” I replied. “Your actions are commendable, but you... Are you planning on heading out while looking like that?”
“Er...”
She realized she was naked and quickly picked up the fur pelt to wrap it around herself and hide her body. Good grief, why do you think I handed you the pelt to begin with? I channeled my mana throughout my body, and I’d recovered enough to walk. I stepped out of the cave with Fol in tow, then spotted a ship docked nearby and Carlos scouring the sands for me. When he spotted me, he rushed forth with impressive speed.
“Lord Lofuuuuus!” he bellowed.
Tears streamed down his cheek as he clung onto me, and in his hands was my drenched mantle. Did he pick it up when he saw it drifting about nearby?
“I’m so glad! So, so glad that you’re alive, my looord!” Carlos cried.
“Don’t touch me,” I replied. “Your snot will get all over my body.”
My butler clung onto me as tears and other fluids streamed down his face, much to my disgust, as the other sailors began to gather around. They cheered when they saw Fol and me alive. Log, larger than the rest, pushed the crowd aside to greet his sister.
“You’re both alive! Thank goodness you’re safe, Fol!” he shouted.
“Don’t touch me!” Fol snapped.
“Huh?! Gah!”
Log tried to cling onto Fol, but she dodged his advances and delivered a kick. Unable to brace himself, he fell to the ground as he groaned, his face covered with sand, when he gazed up and looked wide-eyed.
“Huh?” he murmured.
It seemed he noticed that Fol was naked underneath the fur pelt. He stared at her for several long minutes before I heard his neck creak as he slowly turned toward me. Fol glared down at her brother as she clung to my side as though to use me as a shield.
“Huh?” Log murmured again, his silly voice filling the air.
This guy... He’s definitely misunderstood the situation.
After a bit of fuss, we were all guided into the ship, and we managed to safely make it back to Roguebert. On our voyage back, Log kept pestering me about what exactly my relationship with Fol was and what we’d done that night in the cave, but before I could answer, he was struck by a roundhouse kick. Carlos was admittedly shocked to learn that Fol was a woman, but he didn’t say anything more. He certainly didn’t try to interrogate me.
The island that Fol and I had washed onto was actually within the Devil’s Sea, though it was uncharted territory that didn’t appear on any maps. The terrifying legends surrounding the Devil’s Sea had deterred people from exploring it, so much of it was still unknown. It wasn’t odd if a small island or two was still undiscovered, and it seemed we were saved by that.
And Lunamaar vanished. I wonder where it went.
I tried asking Fol about it, but she didn’t seem to know herself. She claimed that it was her first time seeing a seahorse like that, and when the Founder’s Charm created a storm in the sea, the spirit had apparently guided us to this uninhabited island. Hm, in the story, Lunamaar was Faltiana’s partner and the two were always together, but I’m not really sure how they became connected.
I didn’t expect the Founder’s Charm to bring forth a storm and change the weather either. If Fol hadn’t been with me, I would’ve undoubtedly been dead. This storm had apparently prevented the ship from finding us, and Carlos vehemently apologized on his hands and knees for how long it had taken to rescue us. Since I was the one who apparently caused the storm, I decided to generously grant him my forgiveness.
This had been my very first ship voyage...and it was unexpectedly awful. I’d lost my left arm and vision in my left eye, suffered from mana exhaustion, and even got stranded on an uninhabited island. I counted myself lucky that I’d survived at all.
But in any case, I finally managed to make it back to Roguebert. When we arrived, Greig and the other villagers, to my surprise, didn’t come out to welcome us warmly. The fishing village, for some inexplicable reason, was occupied by a group donning armor of pure black.