Chapter 5: Birthday Song
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“Mademoiselle Isuzu, Mademoiselle Isuzu.”
Rundelhaus had contacted her with a party telechat first, so he knew she was awake, but that didn’t make it all right for him to just walk into a lady’s boudoir, so he called at the door of the girls’ room.
He’d received a report that wyverns had been sighted near the town.
Touya, Minori, and Serara said they were already headed for the reservoir to help defend the town. Rundelhaus had been ready to run to them, but they’d told him to meet up with Isuzu. The monsters hadn’t invaded the boundaries of civilization yet, but under the circumstances, there was no telling what could happen. Meeting up with Isuzu first and going to join Touya’s group together was probably the right decision. Rundelhaus felt that Minori wasn’t the sort of girl who’d issue poorly conceived orders.
After a few moments, just as he raised his hand to knock again, the cheap-looking wooden door swung open, revealing the room’s interior.
Isuzu had fastened her equipment to herself, and she nodded, ready, but Rundelhaus fell speechless.
Her face looked awful.
Her eyelids were swollen, and her nose was red, as if she’d rubbed it too much.
When he’d left her in the back garden that night, she’d been crying pearl-like tears. She’d probably continued crying when she was alone. Isuzu was kind, and Rundelhaus had indeed thought she might blame herself, so he’d also thought he should stay near her despite her directive. However, he’d reconsidered, thinking that it might be presumptuous, and had gone away quietly. It had only been about fifteen hours since then. Rundelhaus had waited for dawn in his room without sleeping a wink.
That meant that Isuzu’s tear-swollen face wasn’t something he hadn’t anticipated. Yet, even so, he found it hard to speak. There was a lump in his throat. Faced with this, he felt as if he’d done something terrible. Rundelhaus was the one who’d made Isuzu cry, and he’d left her when he should have stayed to dry her tears.
He didn’t think it was the wrong decision, but of course that didn’t make the pain go away. Needless to say, Isuzu’s grief was clearly several times greater than his own.
“Rudy.”
“Y-yes, Mademoiselle Isuzu.”
“Quit looking dumb.”
“What do you mean, dumb? Who’s dumb?!”
“Hm.”
Mouth set in a cross line, Isuzu pushed Rudy’s shoulder, making him do an about-face, then pulled him down the inn’s corridor.
“C’mon, let’s go. Minori and the others are waiting!”
“I know. I’ll walk on my own.”
“Look sharp, Rudy.”
You’re the one who isn’t looking sharp.
You look awful.
Here, wipe your face with this.
Rundelhaus swallowed all those words.
If he said anything like that, Isuzu would hit him with a fist more powerful than a Frost Spear, but that was only a very tiny part of the reason. It was because imagining himself saying those things and wiping away Isuzu’s tears had made his chest ache strangely.
Having left the inn at a trot, the pair quickly looked to either side, then hurried toward the northwest section of the city, as instructed. There were no figures on the road. The townspeople seemed to be hiding in their homes. As proof, shapes watched them through narrow gaps in the shutters and cracked doors.
Rundelhaus knew that feeling very well.
Before he left Nine-Tails, he’d been just like that. Even when you knew you didn’t have the strength to stand against a disaster, you couldn’t keep from peeking out at it. If you shut yourself up in your house, closed your eyes, and plugged your ears, it made the terrible things you imagined swell and grow, and that was really hard to take.
Without speaking to Rundelhaus, Isuzu set off at a jog. She seemed out of sorts, but Rundelhaus was relieved.
It showed him that she’d recovered from her depression of the previous night. Besides, for some reason, he could tell she wasn’t as angry as she looked. It must be the magical telepathic ability peculiar to Adventurers: Sometimes Rundelhaus could tell exactly what Isuzu was thinking.
She looked angry right now, but she wasn’t actually all that mad. She was troubled, or flustered, or sulking, or embarrassed; something along those lines. At times like this, he knew from experience that if he gave Isuzu practical advice—“Your nose is red,” for example, or “You should go wash your face”—he’d get hit.
This was a point that was particularly worthy of note: Astonishingly, Isuzu would strike him even when she wasn’t angry!
In fact, it happened faster when she wasn’t mad.
He might have learned to read her feelings to some extent, but that didn’t mean he was any faster at evading (and Sorcerers’ defensive abilities were lower than Bards’). In any case, as a rule, he didn’t understand her feelings at all. Rundelhaus had decided that, whether or not one was an Adventurer, this was based in the difference between the sexes, and had given up.
In any case, Isuzu jogged away, and Rundelhaus ran through the streets after her.
A sizzling, fizzing tension hung in the air. It was the atmosphere of combat.
“Rudy.”
“What is it, Mademoiselle Isuzu?”
“I feel kind of scared.”
That was a statement he had to agree with.
According to what Minori had said, the enemy was wyverns. Although they were powerful and their numbers were great, the Odysseia Knights had rushed them on the outskirts of the town, and the results of the charge were currently unknown. It wasn’t yet clear which side would win, but either way, it would take time for the conclusion to appear.
No matter what outcome presented itself, it would be a while before it made its influence felt in this district, near the center of town. The fizzing tension seemed as if it might be an overreaction.
Rundelhaus concentrated on searching for the sword attacks he could hear in the distance.
Right beside him, Isuzu was listening hard, her expression serious. Her adorable, shell-like ears worked much better than his did, and they were able to probe the state of the battle.
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