Chapter 11
The prospective saint's lessons had gone on far longer than I'd expected.
Our promise to meet Roxanna at lunchtime kept getting delayed, and before I knew it, the sun was sinking toward the horizon.
“Sorry I'm late, Sis!”
My gaze, which had been half-lidded as I slumped on a bench in front of the church, caught sight of a tiny little girl bouncing toward me.
“Roxanna! You're finally done!”
Seeing my drained spirit instantly refill, I understood how parents must feel while waiting for kindergarten to let out.
I raised my body from where it had been lying and hurried over, stroking Roxanna's head at lightning speed.
“Did you eat lunch?”
“No! But I had cookies instead!”
“Then let's go get something to eat!”
Since it happened to be dinnertime, I picked Roxanna up and spun her around once, when a slightly sheepish voice reached me.
“Do you have any money?”
“…Ah.”
Since begging had been the only economic activity I'd engaged in for two months, it was only natural that I didn't have a single coin on me.
As my eyes trembled at the realization that I'd instinctively substituted my past self, who had money, into the equation,
Roxanna saw my expression, pulled out her bulging wallet, and proudly declared,
“It's okay! Roxanna has money!”
To think I had to receive financial support from a little sister more than twelve years younger than me.
My pride as an adult was crumbling in real time, but as a beggar, I had no choice.
“Then Roxanna's treating today!”
“Heeheehee! Yay!”
…In the end, I put my pride aside and decided to accept reality.
I'll take her to a nice restaurant once I start earning money.
“Do you like bread, Sis?”
“You really like it, right?”
“Then let's go eat soup!”
“…? Sure!”
I didn't know why asking whether I liked bread had led to soup, but we headed to a specialty soup restaurant like a pair of close sisters skipping along together.
“Two family sets, please!”
“Certainly! We'll bring them right out!”
Roxanna was a proper nun and did receive a salary, but it was only enough for pocket money, so we chose reasonably priced sets.
“I've wanted to come here with you for ages!”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm!”
The soup restaurant we'd arrived at had an extremely pastoral, homey atmosphere.
Unlike other restaurants dominated by adventurers, this place was mostly filled with families bringing their children….
…?
“Acard, try this, too.”
“Aaah~.”
“Acard~! This one, too!”
“Nom…!”
“Try this bread, too!”
“Mmm…!”
…Why are they over there?
Whether by coincidence or fate, Acard's group happened to be enjoying dinner by the restaurant window.
Fortunately, they didn't seem to have noticed us, but….
Why did it have to be them….
“Sis? What are you looking at?”
“Huh…? Oh, it's nothing!”
Roxanna's gaze overlapped with mine as she looked in the direction I had been staring, so I had no choice but to cover our little girl's eyes with my hand.
“No. Dirty, dirty.”
“Why is the handsome guy dirty!”
The little girl in front of me was still young, but she was a girl all the same, so naturally she couldn't help being drawn to handsome, dashing men.
…I could never let Roxanna be stolen away by Acard.
“You're so selfish, Sis! You get to look at the handsome guy all by yourself!”
“No, Roxanna! I swear, he's really dirty!”
Acard's group consisted of handsome men and beautiful women attractive enough to steal even my gaze if you only looked at their appearance.
In reality, though, they were a slightly kinder kingdom of beasts, making them no more suitable for a child to see than an explicit show.
“Pbbbt!”
Perhaps angry that I'd covered her eyes, Roxanna puffed out her cheeks and grumbled, then suddenly seemed to have an epiphany, making a nasal sound and curling up the corners of her mouth,
“Aha! I get it! You like that guy, don't you, Sis?”
“…Huh?”
“There's no use denying it! Roxanna knows everything!”
Having apparently gotten something terribly wrong, she confidently teased me, convinced that I liked Acard.
“Roxanna…? I think you've got the wrong idea….”
“Hehe…! Sis is young too! Got it! Since Roxanna already has someone, I'll let you have him!”
…?
For a moment, the word ‘taken’ in ‘already has someone’ lodged in my mind, and my strength nearly left my body.
…She has someone? Roxanna!?
“W-what do you mean, Roxanna?! What do you mean you have someone?!”
“Hm? Didn't I tell you, Sis?”
“Huh?”
“I have a fiancé named Felix, my childhood friend! We decided to get married as soon as we're adults!”
…No, no way.
My little girl already had someone she'd promised to marry? This had to be a lie!
“Ta-da! I even have my engagement ring!”
“That wasn't just for decoration…?”
“Hehe…. Felix gave it to me when he confessed….”
With Roxanna driving the final nail into the coffin, eliminating even the possibility that it wasn't true, the world came crashing down around me.
“…Then where is this Felix person?”
I tried to pin my hopes on the possibility that this thief named Felix might—however unlikely—be a bad guy with some creepy preferences.
“He went to the capital for the knight exam! He'll be back next week, so I'll introduce you to him, too, Sis!”
“…H-how old is he?! Don't tell me he's, like, ten years older?!”
“Huh? Obviously he's my age, Sis!”
Every one of my possible lines of attack was stopped by the perfect defense of Roxanna's reality.
“No way…. This can't be happening….”
“Two family sets are served~.”
“Thank you! …Ahem. This can't be happening….”
The food briefly changed the mood, but regardless, my world had collapsed today.
I was sad that the future in which I might somehow raise Roxanna to be my bride had grown more distant.
“…The soup is good.”
I was also envious that Roxanna had gotten a chance to land a cushy marriage before I did.
How had a ten-year-old little girl grown up so fast?
…I'm just a little brat who's only gotten older.
“Is the soup good, Sis?”
“Yeah. It's really good!”
But the most important thing was that the soup really was delicious enough to make me forget all those pointless thoughts.
The flavor wasn't much different from a bland corn soup, but the tiny soy-meat pieces floating on top were a real delicacy.
Thinking I might as well eat instead of entertaining pointless thoughts, I dipped a crisp, freshly baked baguette into the soup and tried it.
The broccoli that came as a side dish was ugh….
“Sis! No being picky!”
“I don't like broccoli….”
“No! Eat it!”
“I'm not eating it!”
If there had been some spicy gochujang sauce, maybe, but I thought simply chewing on plain broccoli was a culinary abomination, so I didn't touch it.
“If you don't eat it, that guy over there won't like you, Sis!”
“I-I don't care if he doesn't like me?!”
I didn't know why, but as I listened to Roxanna nag me in this situation where our maturity had somehow been reversed,
“Lemonade is served.”
“…? We didn't order this.”
The waiter suddenly set two cool glasses of lemonade on our table.
“The gentleman at that table paid for the lemonade.”
Wondering who had ordered it, I followed the waiter's pointing hand all the way to its destination.
Acard was looking at me, smiling awkwardly and waving.
“….”
“…Gasp! Sis! This is your chance! Go make a move!”
Whether she knew my feelings or not, Roxanna, having completely misunderstood the situation, sucked on her straw and drank the lemonade with shining eyes.
I'd tried to pretend they didn't exist at all, but I must have made too much of a commotion, because Acard had noticed me.
On top of that, Karina, Vika, and Mira, sitting beside him, were all looking at me with fond smiles….
“Roxanna. Let's run.”
“Huh? Eek! Sis! I haven't finished my lemonade!”
Deciding this wasn't going to work, I hoisted Roxanna over my shoulder and stood up.
Since we'd paid up front, there was no problem with running away, and I quickly reached the door.
“All right, everyone freeze!!”
“Kehehe!! Hand over everything you've got!”
As if the gods were deliberately kicking me while I was down, a gang of masked robbers came surging into the restaurant.
All six masked robbers wore identical outfits and carried cheap guns, so they seemed to be a professional criminal gang.
“From now on, anyone who does anything strange dies!!”
Bang—!
The robber leader fired a warning shot into the ceiling, then laughed heartily with a threatening expression.
Since the restaurant had more ordinary family patrons than adventurers, its mood flipped into outright panic in an instant.
“You there.”
“…!”
“Put the kid down and come here.”
And of all people, I was naturally taken hostage because I was closest to the robber gang.
The one fortunate thing was that the robbers seemed to retain a shred of humanity, since they didn't choose to take Roxanna hostage.
Sweating coldly, I gently set Roxanna on the floor, then walked toward the robbers with my hands raised.
“Now, listen up, everyone!! If even one of you tries anything suspicious, I'll put a hole in this woman's chest!”
When the robber shoved a gun against my head while saying he'd put a hole in my chest, I squeezed my eyes shut.
There really isn't a single day when things are quiet….
None of the ordinary people in the restaurant made any sudden moves.
Rather than play hero and put someone else's family in danger, their priority was probably to end the situation quickly by placing their wallets and valuables on the tables.
In that respect, choosing a family restaurant had been an incredibly clever choice for the robbers.
“Boss. We got everything.”
“Yeah? Let's go!!”
“Ghk…!”
“Sis! No!!”
Apparently intending to keep me hostage to the very end, they dragged me outside by my hair even after robbing the family restaurant.
…Where the hell had Acard and the others gone?
They'd been stuffing their faces with food just moments ago, then suddenly disappeared….
Had they run off to save themselves?
“Kids, bring the sack.”
“Kehehe…! We even got a top-quality woman! Today's haul is unbelievable, boss!”
“Mmph…! Mmph…!”
Before I knew it, they had stuffed a gag in my mouth and wrapped my body in a sack, putting me on the verge of being carried off like a package.
…Someone, please help me.
Damn that bastard Acard.
Was all that dragon nonsense just a lie?
He was nothing but a fraud who only knew how to talk.
I was an idiot for trusting him….
“Now let's get the hell out of here!”
And so, with no rescue attempt in sight, I was being bundled up and was on the verge of being kidnapped when—
“B-Boss….”
“What? Is there a problem?”
A thin line appeared across the shortest robber's mask, and as blood gushed out along the line, his head split cleanly in two horizontally.
“…!! W-what the fuck?!”
“The kid?! Ghk!”
Then the female robber, whose figure had been noticeably different from the others, had her neck creak around 360 degrees before she crumpled limply to the ground.
“Boss…! We're under attack!! Someone's—”
—Slither.
The bespectacled masked robber, quick enough to realize first what was happening, died grotesquely as his body melted away.
With three of the six robbers dead in an instant, the remaining three skillfully formed ranks and pointed their pistols at my head.
“Don't come any closer, you bastards!! Take another step and this bitch dies!”
Despite the robber leader's hasty threat, shouted at the dim, ominous street as darkness descended, the surroundings remained eerily silent.
“I'll go check it out!”
“Go on, Fourth! Go take a look!”
At the fearless Fourth's declaration, the leader swallowed hard and waited to assess the situation.
Squish—. Squish—.
An unpleasant sound like footsteps treading through mud rang out with each step Fourth took,
“…U-uaaagh!! What the fuck is this?!”
Only belatedly looking down at his feet, Fourth saw the horrifying sight of the ground turning into a swamp and slowly devouring his feet first.
“Boss!! Please save me!!”
“Fourth!! Grab my hand!”
“Boss!! My—”
—Splash.
The moment Fourth reached toward the robber leader, the swampy ground swallowed him whole, as if it had been waiting for that chance.
“…F-fuck!!”
Apparently deciding they couldn't hold out any longer, the last remaining robbers exchanged glances and pointed their pistols at my head, preparing to pull the triggers, but—
“All right, that's the end~!”
“Did you really think you'd make it out alive?”
Right on cue, Karina and Vika appeared from the darkness and subdued the robbers by slicing off their trigger fingers just before they could pull the triggers.
“Hurting family…. Is punishable by death.”
Then Mira descended from the sky, scattering stardust, and bound the legs of the last two robbers with chains like an angel passing judgment.
“Get away from Ria right now!!”
As Acard swung his longsword and passed by, leaving a blue trail across the bodies of the two masked robbers,
the men holding me hostage collapsed to the ground without shedding a drop of blood.
“Aaaah?!!”
Seeing Acard swing his sword at me at the end, I screamed, thinking I was going to die too, but—
“Aah… huh?”
Then I belatedly came to my senses and wondered why I'd been cowering when I wasn't a robber.
“Are you hurt anywhere, Ria?”
The moment Acard sheathed his sword after cutting through the air, the gag and sack binding me split apart smoothly with a rustle and scattered across the ground.
“…Yeah.”
Even though my body was free, the unbelievable situation left me dazed; as I answered, the strength went out of my legs.
“Careful, Ria.”
Karina supported my shoulder, fortunately preventing me from embarrassingly planting my head on the ground as I had last time.elsego?
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