“Realized what?”
“There is no need to say more. Prepare yourself!”
When people said, “no time to protest,” this is what they meant. I obviously didn’t have the Eye of Foresight open, and without it, there was no way I could keep up with Ruijerd.
“Yow!” Ruijerd was on me in an instant, sending me sprawling on the ground. Still, compared to a decade or so earlier, I was a better class of loser. My daily training regimen paid off—I was just barely able to react. Ruijerd’s spear had come slashing from the right. I blocked it with the Magic Armor Version Two’s gauntlet. Ruijerd followed up with a low kick that I raised one leg to block, leaving me standing on one foot. He twirled his spear around to take out my pivot leg with its butt.
“Well?” Ruijerd pressed the point of his spear into my neck, looking down impassively at me.
“I give up. You win.”
I had no idea what he was asking. There was nothing else I could say. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t stab me through the throat, but I’d lost.
“Was that good enough?”
What are you talking about? Was what good enough?
“If anything, I think it was me who wasn’t good enough.”
“It…was sufficient, then?”
What was supposed to be sufficient? He’d knocked me down like it was nothing. I’d only embarrass myself if I tried to say any more.
“I think so,” I said. With that, Ruijerd drew his spear back. I pushed myself up to a sitting position. Even I could tell how pathetic I must have seemed as I looked up at Ruijerd.
Then, he said something bizarre.
“Then as promised, I claim your sister.”
Claim? My sister’s hand? What about my sister? Did I promise that? Hold on. What are we talking about again?
The thread of the conversation had slipped away from me a bit.
“It is as you suspected.”
What did I suspect?
“I would be bound in wedlock with Norn.”
“Wed…lock…” I desperately tried to remember what that meant. Right. Matrimony. The state of marriage.
“Huh?” So Ruijerd loved Norn?
Hold up. Don’t get ahead of yourself! You’ve got a bad habit of getting things mixed up.
“You mean, you…about Norn…”
After a long pause, Ruijerd said, “I love her.”
Was it possible he was joking? Was he planning that I’d be so delighted, I’d tell him I agreed to him marrying Norn on the spot, and then when I actually brought Norn in dressed in her bridal kimono, Ruijerd would pop up, saying “You got punked!”? It’d be a crushing emotional blow for me. Norn might even take to her bed. This was the Man-God’s plot, for sure.
Damn it all, Ruijerd was a disciple of the Man-God!
“Are you joking? Or is this some sort of prank?”
“This is no joke,” Ruijerd said, looking a little offended. He never joked, and this was no exception.
“Since when?” I asked.
“Since the battle in the Biheiril Kingdom several months ago. She selflessly tended to me at that time.”
It was true—they’d been inseparable back then. Very domestic. But had that really been more than a one-sided attachment on Norn’s part? I thought maybe she’d hung around mooning over him while he was oblivious.
“I did not act on my feelings, of course.”
Would he have acted if she hadn’t been my little sister? I guess so. That was what happened in the usual loops, according to Orsted—and then Norn would become a woman, a bride, and a mother.
“But you realized, I see. I assume that is why you came here so abruptly and asked.”
I was silent.
He’s gotta be kidding. All I knew was that Norn loved him—I had no idea it was mutual. I have the perceptive powers of a brick.
“I reiterate: it is my wish to take Norn as my wife.” Ruijerd raised the spear he’d held to my neck. “To that end, I have demonstrated my grit.”
Oh, so that’s what this was? A duel, to show me his grit?
But it was like…how do I put this? It was too easy. Everything was going too smoothly. Is it a trap? Who’s trying to trap whom? I have no idea. What’s going on here?
I spoke sitting right there on the ground while looking up at Ruijerd. “…Is it all right with your last wife and your son?” Because I didn’t understand, I decided to keep asking questions.
“I am not clinging to the past.”
It did ring a bell that he’d told me he just hadn’t met the right person.
When I didn’t stand up, Ruijerd stabbed his spear into the ground, then sat down cross-legged beside me. I shifted to kneeling. Now our eyes were on the same level.
“In other words…” Ruijerd said just that, then he frowned and looked down, pressing his lips together.
After I’d shown up out of nowhere and exposed his true feelings, he’d made up his mind to go on the offensive and brought me all the way out here to show me his mettle. However, he’d never been good with words. He was probably still working out what he wanted to say, what he ought to say.
Maybe I’d rushed this. I hadn’t needed to set the two of them up straight away just because of what Orsted had told me. Maybe I should have thought up a more indirect strategy to bring them together. Like, if Norn were kidnapped, and I asked Ruijerd to save her… No, scratch that. That would only capture Norn’s heart, so maybe I’d lure Ruijerd into a trap. Norn would hate me for it, though.