“Really!? You can tell!?”
“Just a feeling.”
“Wow…”
“And for the record,” Pomette added, entirely too serious, “my instincts are usually right.”
The name of Marietta’s savior was Oakley. It was an ordinary name, but it wasn’t just Pomette who felt something snag in her chest when she heard it. Other executives had reacted the same way.
Because Oakley was also the name of the heretic who had helped bring Daskel to ruin.
According to what Pomette had heard, Marietta met him in the very heart of Daskel’s collapse, at the moment a crumbling outer wall threatened to crush them both. In that instant, the man had shielded Marietta and slipped them out from under the falling rubble.
A cultist who slaughtered and abducted people wasn’t the sort to risk himself to save a girl.
You could write it off as a madman’s whim, sure… but among the executives, the prevailing conclusion had been simple: same name, different person.
But Marietta’s Oakley matches Oakley Mercury in more than just the name, Pomette thought. The features match too. Every time she talks about him, it feels like someone’s raking a hand through my insides.
Pomette’s thoughts churned. She combed her fingers through her translucent golden hair, offering distracted half-answers while she sank deeper into contemplation. Because she had her own brush with an “Oakley.”
When she’d been driven into a corner by Shadik and Pawk’s assault, a young man had appeared and saved her. Black hair, black eyes—exactly the same traits as the person Marietta described.
And that wasn’t all. He’d been searching for the boy Alfie. And if Marietta was to be believed, the Oakley who saved her had been searching for Alfie, too.
Was this truly a coincidence? It nagged at her—no, hooked into her mind, refusing to let go. The thing that stuck the deepest was what he’d said when they parted.
“Good luck, Pomette.”
It was the tone, as if he were commenting on a stranger’s errands. If he truly were an unrelated bystander, why did it sound like he was already standing outside her life, looking in?
As Pomette turned the oddness of that farewell over and over, Marietta snapped her back to the present.
“Hey! Are you even listening!?”
“Yeah… yeah!” Pomette jerked. “I totally am!”
Startled back to reality by Marietta’s sudden shout, the lady knight jolted, shoulders jumping as she blinked and asked her to repeat herself.
Somewhere along the line, the center of the conversation had shifted away from Oakley and onto something else entirely.
“It was going around among my classmates!” Marietta said. “That story about the squad that went to a village hit by monster attacks!”
“O-Oh. Right. That.”
Grinning, Marietta launched right back in.
It had happened only a few days earlier. A certain village had requested aid from the Kenneth Orthodoxy to deal with a pack of magical beasts, and in response, a squad had been dispatched.
But when the squad arrived, the first thing they saw was a field of carcasses.
The beasts were already dead. The extermination had been completed before the soldiers ever reached the village.
The villagers could only repeat one thing: “An outsider, a young man, wiped them out.”
When asked where he’d gone, they said he’d left right after, claiming he was headed for the Holy Capital of Sasfect.
Rumors moved fast, and Pomette had heard that tale in passing as well.
Compared to reports of heretics surfacing, it was almost peaceful news. Still, the idea that someone that strong existed outside orthodox awareness was… troubling. Even so, it hadn’t felt like something worth personally moving on—not until now.
While Marietta buzzed with excitement, Pomette responded with cooler, measured nods.
“Taking on a whole monster pack alone and just dominating. That’s so cool, right!?” Marietta leaned in. “Pomette-sama, don’t you think so too!?”
“It would take time for you to reach that level. Don’t get carried away.”
But even as she spoke, the knight’s instincts whispered.
The outsider’s description was familiar: a scarred young man with black hair and black eyes.
Could it be?
For a moment, the thought caught her. Then Pomette shook her head hard enough to scatter it.
No. Impossible.
She shouldn’t overthink uncertain information. Oakley Mercury had no reason to show up in some nearby village. No reason at all.
Forget it. Pomette exhaled slowly. I’m exhausted. I need rest.
That night, she drank—something she normally didn’t do—and went to bed early, as if she could drown the unease before it grew teeth.