7
Sensing someone calling her name, Emilia felt her consciousness flitting back to reality.
When she slowly emerged from her slumber, the first thing she noticed was something smooth enveloping her. It was a pleasant sensation, as if she was embraced by an animal with warm, soft fur.
Previously, this was a feeling she could savor on a daily basis, and it was something that made her hazy memories throb.
“—Ah.”
The nostalgia left her eyelids damp and heavy.
Wiping those teardrops away with the back of her hand, she cut her lingering attachments to that warmth and chose to wake up instead. Slowly, she opened her eyes, which were rimmed with long eyelashes, and took in the world around her with her large, round, violet eyes.
She saw a tall ceiling, and a room with unfamiliar furnishings. It wasn’t a place she had ever been to before. She was atop a bed, wrapped in blankets that felt high-class.
“Where…am I…?”
With a shake of her still somewhat fuzzy head, Emilia slowly sat up.
She felt a bit languid, but she couldn’t feel any pain or distress troubling her body. The familiar feeling of sluggishness was an aftereffect from using too much magic and abusing her Gate, which she was not yet used to exerting.
Then having remembered that far, Emilia recalled exactly what had happened.
“That’s…right. I was in the square, fighting the woman in the bandages…”
If she closed her eyes, she could almost see the madwoman, her entire body wrapped in bandages—the one calling herself the Archbishop of Wrath. A shudder ran through Emilia as she remembered the hatred and the terrifying combat capability that had been directed her way.
Emilia had held the advantage for a time during the fight, but the tables eventually turned, and she had been assailed by an overwhelming flame—
“I…fainted after that. But I’m still alive and well.”
There was no mistaking that she’d been on the losing end of that battle and had subsequently faced mortal peril. Surviving despite such dire straits meant that someone had to have saved her. Of course, Subaru’s face was the first that came to mind.
The leading candidate was surely Subaru. If anyone was going to come and save Emilia, she hoped from the bottom of her heart that it would be him.
Though if she had lost out to Subaru after so much grandstanding, it’d be too mortifying to bear.
“Mmm, this isn’t the time to be in the dumps. I’m so far behind already; I don’t have time to stop and reflect. I’ll think about it while I walk.”
Touching her hands to her own pale cheeks, Emilia roused herself and slipped off the bed.
Given the bed and the blanket, someone had definitely been nursing her. She reminded herself to thank that person, find out what had happened since she was last awake, and figure out what had happened to Subaru and the—
“Uhhh, why am I naked?”
Just when she was about to boldly set off, Emilia realized that she didn’t so much as have a shift dress. With her naked body fully exposed, Emilia tilted her head as she wrapped the blanket around herself like a cloak.
She looked around the room, but nothing else wearable was there to be found.
“Mm, what’ll I do? I believe it’s considered unladylike to walk around like this, but…”
Bashfully reserved was a phrase that Puck had pounded into her during his time as her father figure. Now that Puck was gone, she had continued her studies with Annerose serving as her substitute mentor.
According to Annerose’s teachings, Emilia was clearly a failure of a student for wandering about in her current, nearly nude state.
“But I’m worried about everyone else right now, and it’s an emergency situation, so she’d make an exception, right?”
She had to confirm as soon as possible whether things had been settled with the Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins. Citing those circumstances as her just cause, Emilia left the room with a single blanket over her.
Exiting into the hallway, she confirmed that this was definitely a building she’d never seen before. It was just that the interior of the room she had woken up in clashed badly with everything else. A cold, antiseptic atmosphere seemed to permeate the corridor and the rest of the building.
It was probably the room with the bed that was the only exception.
Thinking this, she quickly accepted the mismatch between the atmospheres of the building and the room. This building was not for living in, but rather, it was supposed to be a place for work.
The proof was in the faint, lively sound of water, and the mechanical sound of some kind of gears turning—
“—Ahh, it seems that you have awakened. I am truly glad. I feel heartfelt relief knowing that you are safe.”
When that voice was suddenly called out to her, Emilia felt a twinge of surprise as she turned around.
As she did, she spotted a lone young man, whom she had previously bumped into on the city street, now standing there in the corridor. While he smiled as he watched Emilia, she noted his white hair and his nearly all-white clothing.
The young man still had a friendly smile on his face as he casually walked over to her.
“But I cannot commend you for walking out as soon as you awoke. You put a great deal of stress on your body in various ways. If something happened to you, it might be an issue later, would it not? I would sincerely like you to take proper care of yourself. I mean, that body is no longer yours alone.”
“Errr, and you are?”
Emilia’s eyes went round at the sheer force with which the young man spoke in such rapid succession.
They were surely strangers, and yet the way he closed the distance to within a single pace of her felt a lot like how she would interact with Subaru. However, the decisive difference between him and Subaru was the warmth—or lack of—in their words.
Subaru’s consideration for others was one of his cowardly virtues, but the young man standing before Emilia possessed none of that whatsoever. Where his own words and actions were concerned, it was clear that he did not spare a single effort toward the flattery of others.
Emilia had been getting such a strange impression of the young man since that single exchange.
The young man gave a generous nod in response to her question, with Emilia’s internal thoughts left aside.
“Ahh, that’s right. Sorry, sorry. I was able to gaze upon your sleeping face, but this is the first time you are looking at me, yes? Ahh, strictly speaking, it is not the first time, but there is little point in speaking of that. Even if you and I share a relationship of future blessings, I cannot be careless about the proper order of events. I apologize without reserve. See, I am a person capable of such a thing.”
“Er, uhh…”
The eloquent words that the young man used without pause left Emilia feeling like any reply she could muster would be rather awkward.
This was partly due to her being overwhelmed by the firmness of his demeanor, but more than that, a growing suspicion that something was deeply wrong kept eating away at Emilia. It was pleading to Emilia from a distant corner of her mind.
—She just couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew this young man from somewhere.
“It is unfortunate that such an important event is taking place in such a dreary corridor. Yet surely, you will look back upon this as a special memory of ours as well. People are filled aplenty with small bits of everyday happiness. I think that will be especially true in my time with you. Don’t you think so, Emilia?”
“I…don’t remember giving you my name… So who are you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. It is a bad habit of mine that I lose sight of everything around me when my feelings swell and crest. Even I think my own overly sensitive personality is lamentable when it gets all like this. This time, I was daydreaming too much while conversing with you, perhaps? Ahh, yes, my name.”
In a truly convoluted, roundabout manner, the young man’s words finally arrived at the topic at hand.
The unease that Emilia felt about him personally, and her odd, persistent foreboding that accompanied his strangely familiar presence—both lit a fire within Emilia, leaving her unable to pull her eyes away from the young man’s actions.
Emilia instinctively understood that whether she lived or died was directly linked to the slightest move of his hand.
The young man suddenly spread both arms wide, reverentially bowing to her.
“My name is Regulus Corneas. I work for a certain organization. However, that is not important where you are concerned. To you, there is but one thing you need to know about me. I am your precious husband, and you are my beloved seventy-ninth bride.”
“…Eh?”
The young man, who introduced himself as Regulus, seemed enthralled as he spoke these words, but she did not understand their meaning.
Emilia was perplexed as she furrowed her delicate brows. However, Regulus did not even notice her subconscious refusal, as he simply gazed at Emilia and the single layer of fabric wrapped around her body.
“That outfit is poison to the eyes. Wait, I will have fresh clothes brought to you. Rest at ease. Your dress will be changed by my wives, others in the same position as you. They are accustomed to dressing someone in bridal attire.”
“Wait, what do you mean by that? No, more importantly, what do you mean by ‘your bride’…?”
“That’s right, I forgot something very important! Oh, what was I thinking? That was a very close call.”
Regulus, who literally had ears yet did not hear, grasped Emilia by her shoulders. Emilia grimaced at the strength he put into his fingertips, but the young man did not pay her discomfort the slightest heed.
All he did was bring their faces so close that their foreheads nearly touched as he peered into her violet eyes.
“I forgot a very, very important question. The wedding ceremony comes after. Emilia, this is very important, so I want you to answer me straight from your heart. It is very important for our future.”
“ ”
The bizarre level of intensity made Emilia hold her breath as she maintained her silence.
Regulus smiled, perhaps taking Emilia’s silence as tacit consent.
As he smiled, he asked, “Emilia, are you a virgin? That is the only truly important thing, you see.”
<END>
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login