Chapter 5.4

Chapter 5.4

「Well, we got sidetracked there. Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?」

「Oh, please excuse my transgression.」

「You don’t gotta be so uptight. I’m Hiroshi Azuma. Azuma’s my surname. Hiroshi’s my first name. Class 10 adventurer. Call me whatever ya like.」

「Haruna Toudou. Toudou is the surname, and Haruna is the first. I’m also a class 10 adventurer. And you can call me anything you like, as long as it isn’t too weird.」

「Hiroshi-sama and Haruna-sana. My name is Aearis.」

After reading the adventurer cards to check that they were not lying, the girl started out by stating her name.

「There is something I want to ask you.」

「What is it?」

「How did you find us?」

「Y’all remember gettin’ attacked by a Giant Spider?」

「Yes.」

The question concurred with the girl’s recollection, so she nodded.

「Every single one of y’all were trapped in that spider’s ball of web. As prey.」

「If we had found you a little later, you may not have survived…」

「I see. What brought you two to the lair of Giant Spiders?」

Hiroshi and Haruna looked at each other, chuckling in response. While this may not affect the story, Hiroshi had situated himself on the farthest point of the room from Hiroshi and Aearis, and remained on his feet. This was a cause of some uneasiness for Aearis (unlike Haruna who understood his conundrum), but she didn’t know whether she should mention it or not.

「Our goal was simple, ya see.」

「We wanted thread to make some clothes.」

「Clothes…?」

「Uh-huh. I couldn’t get the stains out the outfit I had been wearing at the food stand anymore.」

「Curry and oil stains… No ordinary detergent’s gonna take care of that.」

While Aearis didn’t know what curry was, she had heard from a servant that oil stains were very difficult to get out. Still, Aearis fell speechless learning that these two had gone all the way to a layer of Giant Spiders just for a pair of clothes.

Why didn’t you just buy some? She wanted to exclaim (naturally) but Aearis knew that, if these two hadn’t gone down there following their peculiar thought process, it was very likely that her and her company would have been melting in a spider’s stomach by now. She had no choice but to be thankful of this stupid, stupid motivation.

「Can I ask ya a question, too?」

「Yes.」

「It was eight of y’all that were trapped by that spider. Yeah?」

「Yes, that’s right. I…」

「As for the most of ‘em, it’s not good news.」

Aearis understood that not all of them had survived. Her chin fell.

「Only three of y’all had survived, includin’ you. The lady you were sleepin’ next to, and a buff, older dude.」

「I saw Rayna… I see. Lord Douga made it, too.」

「I’m sorry. It was too late to do anythin’ about the others by the time we got ‘em out of the web.」

Aeris shook her head. Truth be told, she never felt like her spell had reached the other five. She assumed that they were already dead by the time they were entrapped in the web.

「You don’t need to apologize, Hiroshi-sama. That fact that any of us made it out alive is a miracle in and of itself…」

She was right. It was miraculous. It would be too greedy of her to ask for more, Aearis thought. What sort of ungrateful lowlife would accuse someone, who not only had saved her life but fed her, that they should have been able to save the others as well.

And yet, Aearis couldn’t keep it all in. Tears started rolling down her cheek.

「Scoundrels! What have you done with the princess!?」

As they watched Aearis, who was sniffling in tears, the woman jumped out of Haruna’s room.

「R-Rayna!?」

Aearis’ tears cut dry, surprised by her guard jumping in out of the blue. Her mind was reset from the absurdity of her intrusion at this very moment.

「You!」

With a single flourish, she hurdled over the table, drew her sword and slammed Hiroshi against the wall without hesitation, as she held her blade against his neck.

「Rayna, stop it!」

「Princess! Don’t let them deceive you!」

Aearis was looking to and fro, unsure how to deal with Rayna (who was clearly misunderstanding something). She had completely forgotten her sorrows from a moment ago.

「Rayna, let go of Hiroshi-sama!」

「I’m afraid I can’t obey, Princess!」

Glaring at Hiroshi as she said so, she continued with a harsh tone:

「I know you’re colluding with him! What do you want!?」

「Rayna!」

Rayna continued to ignore Aearis’ reprimand as she continued to threaten Hiroshi. Haruna was losing blood from her face watching this take place. Hiroshi didn’t look good. All color had drained from his face, and she could see that goosebumps covered him all over. His eyes were out of focus, and his entire body was clearly shaking.

Haruna was afraid that he would break at this rate. But if Haruna were to jump in between them, she could put more stress on Hiroshi. No matter what she did though, unless this woman named Rayna backs off, it would keep hurting Hiroshi unnecessarily.

Hiroshi Azuma had developed inhuman mental strength since coming here. Still, like Siegfried, who despite being baptized by dragon’s blood to gain immortality was slain by a single leaf, some mental scars were difficult to heal, regardless of mental durability.

While Hiroshi’s had improved through living with Haruna, for someone like Hiroshi (who, quite frankly, was a miracle that he readjusted to normal society at all) a strange woman ignorantly accusing him of a crime he hadn’t committed was an act that dug deep into his mental trauma.

「Your face looks scummier and scummier by the second. I don’t know what kind of evil conspirator you think you are… This is all it takes to make you quiver like a bird, you coward? You underestimated us, since we were women…」

But Rayna couldn’t finish. She was forced to parry an attack, deployed with terrifying rage. Just as Rayna barely parried Haruna’s piercing blow, she took an overwhelming blow, and flew across the room.

「I’m sorry, Aearis-san. I’m really regretting saving you guys, now.」

「…I’m terribly sorry, Haruna-sama…」

「Why should you apologize, Princess!?」

「…Rayna. How much disrespect do you intend to display against those whom we are indebted to?」

Rayna saw Haruna, who despite her cool expression, was radiating rage from her entire body, and Aearis who looked at her as if she despised her. A shiver ran down Rayna’s spine.

「P-Princess! They are deceiving you! That man must have toyed with our bodies while we were unconscious!」

「You don’t know Hiroshi-kun! Don’t you dare talk about him that way!」

Behind Haruna, Hiroshi was shaking, his eyes unfocused, as he mumbled incoherently in between hurls that turned into dry heaves. Keeping him directly behind her, Haruna approached Rayna with electrifying rage.

She still had no inkling of romantic feelings for this man, but she still liked him enough to share a flat, and trusted him as her partner, and perhaps was fond of him enough to call him her best friend. Haruna wasn’t well adjusted enough to hold back when a man like that had been humiliated, and even treated as a capital criminal with no evidence except this woman’s ignorance.

「Creepy young men, they’re all the same! You just happened upon coincidentally!? Impossible!」

「Silence!」

As Rayna continued to try and justify herself, the buff man around his fifties had come out of Hiroshi’s room to settle the wreckage.

「L-Lord Douga!?」

「Listen to yourself! Even if I did excuse your initial attack, it is inexcusable that you persist in defiance of the princess!」

「B-but…」

「Besides, what would you do if this woman turned her blade to the princess right now!?」

Rayna couldn’t answer. It was clear from Haruna’s prowess that she could easily strike Aearis before Rayna could get to here from this position.

「Rayna, I know that you have a difficult time trusting men. The thought even crossed my mind, so I don’t blame you for making that mistake.」

「Princess…」

「However, that issue is inconsequential in light of my orders to stand down.」

Rayna became completely sulky after being scolded by her two bosses. Ignoring her, Douga bowed to Hiroshi and Haruna.

「My deepest apologies. Any punishment you may offer, I will take.」

Sighing in response to Douga’s attitude, Haruna steadily sheathed her sword.

「This is your only warning.」

「My apologies.」

「Is Hiroshi-sama all right?」

「I’m not sure. I knew he’d get like this, so I tried to put as much distance between us as possible…」

As Hiroshi managed to get a grip on his irregular panting and failed to stumble back on his feet repeatedly, Haruna watched him with anguish.

「He had been through some terrible things. His life could have been threatened at one point.」

「…He seems like a nice man. That may be why people have tried to take advantage of him.」

When Hiroshi had just managed to get on his feet, and grabbed a rag from the kitchen to clean up his own vomit, Douga stopped him.

「I’ll do it.」

Taking the rag off Hiroshi as he shook his head, Douga began cleaning the vomit without another word.

「Azuma-kun. Here’s your change of clothes.」

Placing a set of clothes she took out from Hiroshi’s bag in the center of the table, Haruna, along with Aearis, dragged Rayna to the front door in attempted to gain as much distance between them as possible. Hiroshi silently took the clothes, and changed in his room before dragging his sleeping bag out onto the balcony, as if to shut out the rest of the world.

「I’ll sleep out there tonight.」

Said Douga.

「Just leave me alone, will ya…?」

Hiroshi replied, with a hoarse voice as he turned his worn out back. He climbed right into the sleeping bag, and closed the sliding door before jamming a stick in it to keep it from opening. As if to kick him when he’s down, rain started sprinkling, and turned into a decent downpour in no time. The three watched with guilt and pity, as Rayna finally seemed to grasp the repercussions of her accusations, and began to turn blue.

Not only did she disrespect the man who had saved her life, she had dug into the wound of his trauma nearly to the point of no return. This incident had set in stone the power balance between the two adventurers and the three rescued individuals. In some sense, this incident would linger long into the days ahead of them.