Chapter 21 - The Champion's Party
There were hardly any people who welcomed Alebien.
Most people gave various reasons for why they were reluctant about her, but in fact, the cause behind those reasons was mostly the same.
Alebien’s eyes.
Those strange eyes that gave the feeling of something extremely odd.
Eyes that gave such a bizarre feeling that it was difficult to see her as a normal person.
Because of those eyes, Alebien was a particularly unique existence even in this Evian where various types of people lived.
And now, such a person—
“…Oh, Alebien?”
“Yes, yes… It’s me, Yona. I’ve come. I’ve come to find you.”
A strange smile twisting up the corners of her mouth.
Yona unconsciously took a step back.
Alebien took a step forward as much as Yona stepped back.
Alebien, who had been standing in front of the door, now fully entered the room.
The inn room door slowly closed, and Yona looked at Alebien with a completely stiff face.
“Y-Yeah. I was just about to go find you.”
“Oh my, I’m so happy. To think you were going to come find me. It would have been fine if I had just waited quietly, but this is okay too.”
Alebien plopped down on Yona’s bed, passing by her.
“It’s even better coming like this. I can smell Yona’s scent too.”
As if to prove her words weren’t a lie, Alebien took a deep breath.
Yona’s face didn’t look too pleased at this sight.
“Won’t you give me a glass of water?”
Alebien smiled at Yona.
Not the strange smile with corners of her mouth curled up, but literally a bright smile.
Yona poured water from the jug at the bedside and handed it to Alebien.
“…Well, thanks for coming. It saves me the trouble.”
Even so, she couldn’t treat Alebien badly when she had made an effort for her sake, so Yona poured another glass of water for herself and sat in the chair at the table.
“It’s nothing. I can do anything for Yona. Even things harder than this… anything at all.”
No, don’t go that far.
Yona mumbled, unable to say it out loud.
“Did you find out anything?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“…What’s that supposed to mean?”
You said you could do anything, but what’s the use if you haven’t found out anything?
More than that, how can you say that so boldly?
“If I said that, our pretty Yona would be disappointed, right?”
Alebien felt a strange pleasure seeing Yona’s face distort.
She couldn’t help the smile that leaked out.
Yona’s reaction made her feel the satisfaction of teasing someone.
Despite her prim beauty, her extremely honest reactions were endlessly enjoyable.
“What’s with you?”
“They’re just letters.”
“…I know that much.”
“Yes, they’re letters not used anywhere on this continent now.”
“What?”
Yona glared at Alebien with a furrowed brow.
What does she mean by letters not used anywhere on the continent?
“At least a few hundred years ago, or at most a thousand years ago… They were letters used then. Characters used in the era when there was no Celestial Deity.”
“…The era without the Celestial Deity?”
“Yes, the time they call the era without echoes.”
She had heard about it during her nun education.
That is, the god of that era called the False Celestial Deity—or the false god.
The era when that god was worshipped as the Celestial Deity.
The very era without echoes when there was no response to the countless prayers because it wasn’t the real Celestial Deity.
“Letters from that time…? These?”
Yona unwrapped the holy cloth wound around her arm.
As she unwrapped it, the black letters were revealed.
Even so, it doesn’t make sense for letters to change after a few hundred years.
To the extent that no one recognizes them—moreover, even Guidance Sister Eije couldn’t recognize these letters.
As far as Yona knew, Eije was the most knowledgeable person after Bishop Phoebe.
It was incomprehensible that even Eije couldn’t recognize them to this extent.
Moreover, even Alebien couldn’t recognize them at first, could she?
“It’s strange, even if a few hundred years is a long time, for letters to be completely forgotten… It’s just strange…”
In Yona’s world, even letters thousands of years old are passed down, aren’t they?
Of course, that’s because they continue to be used, but still.
At Yona’s words, Alebien reached out and caressed Yona’s right arm.
“Listen to me to the end, Yona. These weren’t letters used generally. They were characters used by only a very small group.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“They were characters used by the Celestial Church at that time to offer prayers. They were used for a very specific purpose by a small group. So isn’t it enough for them to be forgotten?”
‘…Is that so?’
It sounded plausible to Yona at first glance.
If they were letters used for a very specific purpose even within the Celestial Church, it might make sense.
“But, Alebien.”
“Hmm?”
“How did you know about this?”
Isn’t that right?
How did Alebien know the identity of these letters?
How did Alebien know about letters that weren’t known and had been forgotten?
“…I have a very long lifespan. I’ve lived for a very long time, Yona. I know much more than you think. That’s why.”
Alebien smiled.
Although she had said the price was one kiss, Yona sent Alebien away, putting it on credit.
“But this… why did it spread when the Dullahan was killed?”
She only showed Alebien up to around her elbow by unwrapping the holy cloth.
So the newly arisen question remained unsolved.
Why, after killing the Dullahan, did these letters… this tattoo-like thing cover all the way to her palm?
She couldn’t understand at all why it had happened.
“…This is full of incomprehensible things.”
Yona abruptly stood up from the bed.
This wasn’t the time to be doing this.
Originally, she had planned to go to the mage community after meeting Alebien, so it just got moved up a bit earlier, which didn’t matter much.
She took out a box that had been pushed deep under the wardrobe and opened it.
A pile of copper and silver coins.
Yona poured the coins, which had been stacked neatly in counted piles, into a leather pouch made of multiple layers.
The number was quite large, so the sound of coins pouring went on for quite a while.
Time was dissolved in the sound of coins falling.
The past two and a half years when Yona had been desperately saving money while doing adventurer work.
That time poured into the pouch with cheerful metallic sounds.
Those efforts piled up neatly inside the pouch.
“Okay… This should be enough, right…? To go to the community, and then to Infula… Hmm.”
It means she has one more destination now.
If she can return to being a man at the community, and if she can return to her original world from there, that would be the best.
But things probably won’t work out that conveniently, and it will probably have to be one or the other, but even so, returning to being a man comes first.
“I don’t want to live with this thing…”
Yona tightly tied the mouth of the pouch and looked down at her chest.
Honestly, she knows well how much this attracts men’s gazes.
Well, isn’t that so?
What man wouldn’t like big breasts?
There might be men who say they don’t like them, but that’s probably just pretense.
If a man sincerely says he doesn’t like them, that’s an even more dangerous man.
Yona liked big breasts too.
But she hadn’t wished for this kind of thing to be attached to her own body.
Standing and looking down, she can’t see her stomach.
Not just her stomach, she can’t see her toes either.
To begin with, her stomach and waist were slim and slender, so they probably wouldn’t have been visible even if her breasts were small.
“Anyway, after returning to being a man… I need to go to the Infula Church Territory and check what this tattoo is first. It would be even better if I can solve it there.”
Things have really gotten tangled up like this.
Already being thrown into this kind of world seemed like life had gotten properly messed up, and on top of that, becoming a woman was like getting even more tangled, and now even having this bizarre tattoo engraved.
“Life is fucked.”
Yona lifted the leather pouch.
It was quite heavy.
Now she just needs to pack this up, pack her bags, and go call Alec.
This bastard Alec, he won’t say he can’t go now, will he?
Well, if Alec says he can’t go, she can just go to the adventurer’s guild and make a request.
It was just as Yona was thinking this.
Knock knock.
“…Who is it?”
At the sudden knock, Yona quickly pushed the leather pouch into the wardrobe.
It’s me.
It was the innkeeper.
She had paid the rent, and there was no reason for that guy to come looking for her.
“Why?”
Someone’s here to see you. Come downstairs.
It was strange.
If someone had come to see her, he could just tell them which room she was staying in.
But if he’s specifically telling her to come downstairs, Yona thought there was only one reason for this.
It seems like someone important has come.
At least someone higher than Yona, someone so important that it’s natural for Yona to go down to them rather than them coming up to see Yona.
“Well, well, so you were staying in a place like this. You’re in a place that doesn’t suit you.”
Yona frowned when she saw that brown-haired champion.
It was already quite displeasing enough, but next to him was another lump that irritated Yona even more.
“Why are you looking at me with those eyes? I feel exactly the same way about you, so keep your eyes down.”
“What are you saying, you bitch who was trembling in fear of the demon?”
“…Shall I shut that mouth of yours for you?”
“Try it, you fucking bitch. I’ll knock all your front teeth out.”
It was Bigrind, the church priest—no, now saint—who always growls whenever she encounters Yona.
“Now, now. Don’t fight.”
The champion, Rud, intervened between the two women with his usual refreshing smile.
Surprisingly, when Rud stepped in, even Bigrind shut her mouth and then turned her head away with a small snort.
They were now sitting in Yona’s room.
She thought, ‘If you were going to come up again after making me come down, you could have just come up yourselves’—but that damned Bigrind probably would have refused to do so even if it killed her.
“What do you want, you?”
“Watch your language. You ill-mannered ruffian.”
“Why are you making a fuss when the person himself is quiet?”
“Oh, this is really…”
“What? This? Thiiiis? But really, are you fucking crazy, asking to die?”
Yona stood up abruptly, her eyes blazing, looking as if she was about to grab Bigrind’s hair and tear it out.
And looking up at her, Rud said,
“Ah, you’re about to become party members, so how can you fight like this? Let’s calm down and sit, Yona.”
“Same parㅡ what?”
Yona looked down at Rud with a dumbfounded expression, as if she had been hit with cold water.