SG! 11: Girls’ Talk/Heavy Conversation

“Hahhh, I was so nervous — ”

When we left the meeting room, Aira finally went back to normal, patting her chest with genuine relief.
Palmira, for her part, followed after with a somewhat pensive look on her face.
If pushed, I’d say Palmira’s reaction was pretty normal. After all, things had yet to begin. Did Aira really understand the contents of the discussion?
I’d have to check in with her later.

After the end of the meeting, the three of us were still in the barracks, along with our chaperone Irene. We were retracing our steps from the meeting room.
While being eyeballed by the soldiers in the training hall again, we went through the foyer and into another passageway.

“Come on, this way.”

So we were headed to the room at the end of the passageway after all.
Three people, three appearances, we went inside together. ¹

The room was no different from the previous meeting room in size, but instead of a large table at its center, there was a small round table stacked with books, along with three chairs.
Against the walls on both sides were large bookcases filled with books big and small. There was a window, but even that was hidden behind a desk with a veritable mountain of books piled on it.
There was a chest in front of it on the floor. It was overflowing, its lid half-open.
The wall before us, of course, was occupied by the doorway, but to the side of the door hung a small blackboard covered in complex diagrams.

“…Uh.”

Unconsciously, I made a sound of dismay.
Although they didn’t say anything, Aira and Palmira wore the same frown on their faces as they looked inside.

“Ahhh, please wait a moment.”

Maybe she noticed my quiet exclamation, maybe she didn’t, but Irene pushed past us into the room as we stood frozen in place.
Picking up the bundle of books on the round table in one smooth motion, she dropped them with a thud on the desk further inside. Not even a bookshelf, but the desk.

No, please actually clean up.

I wanted to interject, but on the off chance that this was some magus thing, I held my tongue.

“Pardon me. Well, don’t just stand there, come in!”

“Ah, okay.”

At her urging, we filed in one by one.
Behind me, Aira seemed to be muttering, [Huh, I wonder if it’d be too much to clean up once in a while.] It wasn’t like she was showing an unexpected side to herself, but I cautioned her to stop in a low voice.

“Now please, sit down, sit down.”

Irene rather forcefully seated us on the only three chairs.
Somehow the atmosphere was completely different from the earlier tension. The meeting room had a palpably serious character itself, but here, not so much.
At least, right now there was a considerable energy in the air, but at the same time, there was something very pleasant about it.
I didn’t really get it myself, but this woman here was the reason.

“Hm, mm, oka–y. Now then, please wait for just a little bit. I’ll be back right away.”

And swept along in her momentum, she left the room. Or would it be more accurate to say she hadn’t the slightest intention of listening to our responses? It was rather bracing.

“…Noisy.”

Palmira had been silent the whole time, but now she frowned and spoke sourly under her breath.
I couldn’t exactly disagree.

–

–

“Sorry for the wait — !”

About three minutes later, Irene returned. She had a tray with a teapot and several cups in one hand, and a mountain of a cake in the other.
With both her hands full, she nimbly shut the door with her foot, and laid her cargo on the table with a smile.

I grew a bit worried. This wasn’t a follow-up to the war council?

Ignorant of my uneasiness, Irene went around pouring tea into the tall cups. The pleasant scent of black tea wafted into the air. It looked like she used good tea leaves.
After that, she passed around the plates and used a pair of tongs to place a slice of cake on each one.

In the blink of an eye, we were the very picture of teatime.

To finish, she pulled a small chair away from the desk and set it in the gap around the table. Seating herself, and perhaps finally calming down, she let out a small sigh.

“Then, shall we eat?”

“No, hold on.”

Though I spoke up right away, Irene was already holding a cup.
She looked at me with what seems to be genuine curiosity. Seeing it, even I started to suspect that I was the one being strange.
I shook off the feeling before continuing.

“…So, magic?”

My tone was matter-of-fact. Naturally, this was something she could tell me about while we were taking care of business.

“Ahh, okay. But aren’t you tired from the meeting we just had? All of you. I was thinking we could take a break first and take care of that after. So I got this from the kitchen in the main building. It’s delicious, isn’t it? Eat up, eat up.”

To be honest, I was surprised by how considerate Irene was.
More precisely, she wasn’t exactly using formal speech anymore, and her tone was extremely friendly. I began to think, ‘Somehow, I’m the weird one here, aren’t I?’

“…Ah, delicious.”

Just as the thought occurred to me, Aira had already taken a sip of the black tea, even sharing her thoughts on it.
No, not ‘delicious’. But even Palmira next to me was stuffing her face with cake. And in a pretty single-minded way.

“Thanks! How is it? And how’s the cake?”

“…You’re a good person.”

That was what Palmira said in response to Irene. More than half her cake had already been demolished.
…Weren’t you calling her noisy just now?
Sensing my gaze on her, Palmira suddenly averted her face. You…

“Oh, um, you too. Mm, I’m glad. See, it’s all guys around here. The maids are around, but still, it’s hard to invite them to this sort of thing. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while!”

Irene’s face was full of smiles.

Ah. That’s it. Girls.

It was this indescribable feeling of alienation, or maybe the sense that I was the only one out of sync with everyone else. In my days as an adventurer, if there were only female adventurers gathered in a tavern, there’d be this same mysterious atmosphere.
In other words, at least right now, I was the one who was out of step. I vaguely perceived that.
And then I stopped going any deeper into thought. I knew for a fact that even if I thought about it more, it would just tire me out.
Still, I was conflicted. I sluggishly reached out for the tea cup and had a taste.

Damn, it really was tasty.
My faint surprise didn’t escape Irene’s notice. She smiled happily. And I felt huffy.
I felt huffy, but somewhere in my heart, I felt that this wasn’t half-bad either.

“It’s damn good.”

“Right!? By the way, how did all of you become slaves?”

At those words, I almost spewed out the black tea I just drank. It was a close thing.
Did she just ask that? Without the least bit of hesitation? I look at Irene in disbelief.

“The hell? Don’t ask about that kind of heavy stuff here like it’s nothing.”

“But I’m curious,”

Irene immediately replied, looking puzzled.
…No, but, I mean. Look.

“Come to think of it, I don’t even know your names. ”

“I’m Aira. I have no surname.”

“I’m Palmira Wilback.”

While I was feeling troubled, the conversation shifted to self-introductions for some reason. What’s more, holding their tea and cake, Aira and Palmira both answered as if nothing happened.
Of course, it was my first time hearing Palmira’s surname. It was an unexpectedly solid name.

“And you are?”

…Right, which reminds me, only the people on Leon’s side finished their introductions.
Is he inept? I’ll have to ask the next time I see him.

“Chris. No surname.”

At her prompting, I shared my name.
Naturally, I avoided saying my real name. Even if I said my male name, it would only make things more complicated. They’d definitely pester me endlessly about it, and that would be annoying to deal with.

“Okay, I got it! Airi, Polly, and Chrissy, right! My best regards! And I’m — ”

Quit with the ‘Chrissy’.

“We know. Irene Barnest.”

“I see! Polly, you’re so great!”

It couldn’t be helped, but still. Palmira was being treated just like a kid.

“Don’t treat me like a child. I’m twenty years old.”

“Ehhh — seriously? You’re older than me?”

Firmly rebutted, Irene grew excited.
Yeah, I’m gradually starting to think that this is Palmira’s go-to icebreaker.
By the way, Irene was apparently nineteen. Not all that different.

“Ah, I’m nineteen as well.”

Aira, catch. “We’re the same age!” Irene got even more enthusiastic.
I really don’t care.
Since the question was posed to me too, I dutifully answered that I was eighteen.

“So then, how did you guys become slaves?”

Without any logical segue, the conversation returned to its starting point.
I thought that topic was dead and buried, so it caught me off-guard.

“I used to be a foster child in a farming village, so… I was like a slave pretty much from the beginning, you know? Then, the harvest was poor last year, and it seems like the slavers happened to pass through this year. That was when I was sold…”

Aira related her all-too-heavy past with relative nonchalance. Even though she was that downtrodden in the carriage…
As common stories went, hers was one of them, but if I were in her place, it would’ve been pretty rough.

“So that’s it… that must have been terrible.”

“No, now I already have Big Sister, so it’s nothing to worry about, I think?”

Aira’s expression seemed liberated, somehow. What’s past is past, huh?
She’s strong. That’s what I think. If the person in question is in a good place, is that enough?

…But did you forget? Tomorrow, you’ll be a slave again.

“Whoa, what, ‘Big Sister’? You’re making me super curious.”

“As a matter of fact — ”

“Wait, stop right there. Seriously.”

I hastily stopped Aira. It really isn’t such a good idea to talk about this, I think. Yeah.

“I — ”

Irene grumbled, ‘Ehhh–‘ ‘Why not’ ‘Tell me’ ‘Stingy’ and so on. As I was refuting her, Palmira finished her cake and said that one word.

“Hm?”

“Originally, I was a Caidorussean soldier.”

When we quieted down to listen, she abruptly made a surprising confession.

Caidorusse. A small country that no longer existed.
Located to the north, it went to war with the Empire for reasons even I didn’t really understand. I was sure it had destroyed three years ago.
In the Empire, the war was known as the Caidorussean Campaign. A fairly long-running conflict, if I remember correctly.
The alpine nation of Caidorusse fought a defensive war in its mountainous territory. Its power was less than a tenth of the Empire’s, but it held out against its superior foe for several years. In the end, however, it was overwhelmed and its capital fell to ruin.
Ultimately, I didn’t participate in that campaign, but the day the capital fell — in other words, the day of the Empire’s victory — I happened to be in the Empire, so all I remembered was the grand festival they held in celebration.

“As the survivors of a defeated nation, they took almost all of us as prisoners of war, but they only held us for about a year. After that, they released us. They told us to live as we wanted.”

A long time ago, it was common practice to sell all prisoners of war into slavery.
Now, because of the pact signed by the three superpowers, slavery had been abolished.
It was part of a plan to deter the escalation of military conflict: create a situation in which, win or lose, all parties take a hit. That’s what people say.

‘Course, I don’t know how it holds up in practice.
In reality, even today, there’s always some war happening somewhere.

“But I didn’t know what it meant to live as I wanted. What should I do? How should I live? The means, the purpose — I didn’t have either.”

The story unfolding was a heavy one; it seemed like it would cave in on itself with a splintering sound.
It might have been at home in a bar, but for a tea party in the dazzling sunlight, no matter how you slice it, it was a bit too heavy.
Palmira told her story in her usual indifferent tone, but even so, the old unpleasant look in her eyes was tied in some way to this, and it caused her terrible pain.

“W–Well, Palmira, it’s okay if you can’t talk about it.”

Unable to take it, I interrupted Palmira against my better judgement.
At which point her gaze turned quickly to me, and she laid her hand on my arm.

“No, actually, I’d like you hear it.”

A trace of sorrow in her eyes, Palmira’s tone was pleading. Based on her usual behavior, I had the feeling that that was the best she could do to express her emotions, and I sucked in my breath.

“Got it. We’ll listen, so tell us all of it.”

Maybe Palmira did want me to hear it.
Rather, I was the one who wanted to come up with some excuse and run away.
But now, we’d already become companions who would stick together through thick and thin. Without a doubt. I didn’t know when our relationship took that turn, but now, if I had to put it into words, I’d say that I had a duty to listen.

“That’s why I became a slave.”

…Oi, isn’t that a little short?
I felt like she’d skipped most of it.

“Ehhh, then, you mean you became a slave voluntarily?”

“Wrong. I became a slave by coincidence. But I thought, if I’ve become a slave, that’s just how it is. ² And maybe that’s just fine.”

Irene got Palmira to supplement her story. Sort of.

…This was my guess, but for Palmira, who had been in war as a soldier pretty much from childhood, that might have been the only way she knew how to live. In the army, following orders.
To receive orders, and to carry them out. That was her life. A twisted world that crushed the individual and valued the devoted.
War was her whole reality. And for better or worse, it abruptly vanished from her life.
After being in the midst of war only to have it suddenly end, she couldn’t live with her freedom.

“What’s different now?”

“You told me how to live. How to live for myself. How to think for myself.”

Then, Palmira looked at me as she spoke.

“Those who who don’t try to survive, won’t.”

…Isn’t that too big of a leap, idiot?

I didn’t believe in the slightest that I said anything as ambitious as how to live.
It’s just that it’s important to about what to do on your own, how to act. That’s all I wanted to say. Not a big deal.
It shouldn’t have been.

But, even so.
Even so, someone felt something from my words, found an answer within them.
There’s no greater honor, I thought.

For some reason, I put my hand on Palmira’s head and stroked it.

“…Don’t treat me like a child, I’m twenty years old.”

Palmira scowled a bit, but my hand wasn’t brushed aside.