The Pilgrimage—What Are You Doing Here Again? (3)

It was the third day since they had departed the capital.

Unlike an ordinary journey, this was an arduous trip in which they pushed themselves to travel as quickly as possible, even though they had to sleep outdoors, and participants had begun complaining of suffering one by one.

Blanc’s loyal attendant was no exception.

“Are you truly all right?”

Blanc looked worriedly at the old attendant sitting before him.

Their entire bodies ached from the uncomfortable bedding, and opportunities to wash or rest were limited.

It was only natural for them to become grimy or complain of fatigue, but Blanc’s attendant was suffering from more than simple exhaustion. His wrinkled face had gone deathly pale, making his illness unmistakable.

“It seems my motion sickness is coming on. I’m sorry to worry you.”

The attendant lightly frowned around the eyes and tapped his own chest with a fist.

“Hasn’t a full day already passed? If it’s motion sickness, you must feel nauseous. Are you eating properly?”

“…I apologize, Your Highness. Still, I’ve been managing to eat small amounts of light refreshments.”

Perhaps he thought he was being reprimanded, because the attendant lowered his head.

“I’m not blaming you, so please don’t worry about it. For now, let’s switch seats. Sitting facing backward will put even more strain on your body.”

The attendant hesitated for a long while before moving to Blanc’s seat, apparently unable to endure it any longer.

“I’ll wake you if anything happens, so get some sleep until then.”

“…Thank you, Your Highness.”

The attendant, who had kept smiling at Blanc until the end, quietly closed his eyes and took deep breaths.

It had only been a few days since their departure—how had this happened already? Hoping nothing serious would occur, Blanc quietly turned the pages of his documents.

***

The maids from the Ministry of Magic were in no better condition.

Vieta hurriedly held out a basin to another maid who was gagging and retching.

On an ordinary journey, they would stop the carriage and rest for a while at a time like this, but that was impossible now.

Holding her nose, Vieta poured the vomit from the basin through the hole in the carriage floor.

“Take it away! I told you I’m not eating!”

While Vieta tended to the other maid, Laura was bearing the brunt of freckled Adrienne’s temper.

“You have to eat something. You can’t get by on cookies alone.”

Adrienne and the other two women were suffering from similar symptoms. At first, they had complained of headaches and nausea, but afterward, they began refusing food.

They said that rice balls and bread felt too difficult to swallow, so they could barely manage to consume anything besides cookies and water.

“Don’t bother me!”

With a clack, a wooden cup rolled across the carriage floor, and thin gruel splashed onto Laura’s apron.

Laura let out a brief sigh, braced herself with one hand gripping the rope, and carefully began wiping the carriage floor with the other.

Frowning as she watched Laura stagger, Vieta turned her gaze toward Adrienne.

Vieta understood that her body was struggling, but Adrienne’s abusive behavior was growing worse with each passing day.

Whenever she became irritable, the atmosphere inside the carriage grew increasingly hostile as well.

“Eat something when Laura brings it to you. Do you think Laura waits on you because she enjoys it? You need to eat even gruel if you’re going to make it through this somehow. Are you planning to starve to death in the carriage?”

Vieta snapped, irritation and exasperation in her voice. Adrienne then hugged her own arms with both hands, lowered her head, and spoke.

“…Get out of here. And get that obnoxious bitch out, too.”

Adrienne couldn’t meet Vieta’s eyes, but she made no effort to hide her temper.

“Hey, you. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re causing Laura….”

Vieta’s anger surged at the rude reply, and just as she was about to say something, someone grabbed and tugged at the hem of her skirt.

“It’s all right, Vieta.”

It was Laura. She looked up at Vieta and quietly shook her head.

“You must be tired, too. Everyone should rest.”

When Vieta looked around, the carriage was filled with an indescribable weariness. Thinking that causing any more of a commotion would make her no different from Adrienne, Vieta quietly closed her mouth.

A little while later, once the carriage had grown quiet, Laura, sitting beside her, whispered in her ear.

“Thank you, Vieta.”

“You should get some sleep too, Laura.”

It was hard to imagine sleeping comfortably in a carriage that jolted nonstop, but Laura said, ‘You too,’ and closed her eyes. Vieta also folded her arms, composed herself, and quietly tried to sleep.

*

Adrienne held her constantly trembling body tightly with both arms.

Her red bangs had grown damp and stuck to her forehead, while beads of sweat trickled down her deeply sunken cheeks.

Though time had passed, the fear and oppressive pressure that had swept over her the moment her eyes met Vieta’s still held her body captive.

‘I’m scared. I’m going to die. I’m scared.’

To suppress the inexplicable anxiety welling up in her mind, Adrienne clenched her hands tightly.

***

At night, groans echoed from tents throughout the camp.

After lying down following an exhausting day, all the tension suddenly left their bodies, and the pain they had been holding back came rushing in.

“Ugh….”

Adrienne staggered into the tent.

Judging by the dampness around her mouth, she seemed to have vomited somewhere nearby.

‘I wonder if she’s all right.’

Although Adrienne was a woman Vieta disliked in many ways, seeing her suffer like that left Vieta feeling uneasy.

“Shoo, shoo.”

As Vieta watched the tent Adrienne had entered, a soldier standing nearby suddenly swung his spear back and forth toward the ground.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Some wild animal, a raccoon or a cat, was hanging around. Wild animals usually avoid people, but it kept coming right up to me.”

Perhaps embarrassed at having danced alone with the bushes in the middle of the night, the young soldier rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

“I chased it off, but it won’t sneak into the baggage wagon, will it?”

“If it was frightened and ran away, it probably won’t come back anytime soon.”

That brief midnight conversation ended there. The soldier leaned against his spear and began dozing, while Vieta sat on a camp chair and absentmindedly enjoyed the tranquility of the night.

In truth, her thoughts had been terribly tangled lately.

What exactly did the goddess mean by protecting the Empire, and why had she suddenly asked Vieta to do so?

Would she really be able to return once this mission was over?

What would she say to Fulcare and the others if she completed the mission and returned to her homeland?

There were nothing but questions to which she could not give a single clear, satisfying answer.

After Vieta had spent a long while trying to sort out her thoughts, a faint groan came from inside the tent.

‘She vomited earlier. Could something be wrong?’

At the sound of Adrienne’s pained voice, Vieta cautiously entered the tent.

‘…What’s wrong with her?’

To avoid disturbing the others’ sleep, Vieta summoned a faint orb of light and watched Adrienne, her eyes widening in shock.

Even while asleep, Adrienne was frantically scratching her neck and collarbones with both hands.

She had scratched herself so violently that her neck and the surrounding skin were swollen bright red, with even drops of blood beginning to form.

It was exactly like a scene from a horror movie.

As the startled Vieta reached out to wake Adrienne, the tri-gem embedded in the hilt of her dagger flashed.

***

After observing Adrienne for a while, Vieta quietly went to find Fulcare’s tent.

“…Captain?”

The moment Vieta disregarded the magic circle and entered the tent, Fulcare rose from his bed.

The magic circle around the tent had awakened its master.

“Were you sleeping?”

This was not something that could wait, which was why she had hurried to find him, but the moment she heard Fulcare’s low, heavy voice, Vieta felt guilty for disturbing the deep sleep he had finally managed to enjoy after so long.

“You should at least fasten your buttons before sleeping. You’ll catch a cold.”

After summoning an orb of light and checking on Fulcare, Vieta chided him.

Fulcare felt around to check his clothes, then hurriedly fastened the buttons on his shirt.

“I wasn’t peeking.”

Fulcare chuckled at Vieta’s joke.

“It’s fine. It’s not as though a little peeking will do either of us any harm. So what brings you here at this hour?”

“Do you feel tight in the chest or nauseous?”

“Everyone’s been saying they feel unwell lately. Is it related to that? The priests and cooks say the food doesn’t seem to be spoiled….”

After speaking, Fulcare drank some water, apparently to soothe his scratchy throat.

“Exactly. So are you all right?”

“I am. I don’t tend to eat much in the first place.”

Fulcare was more sensitive than other people by nature. From eating to sleeping, if anything was even slightly uncomfortable, he would neither eat nor sleep. As a result, his body had been wasting away with each passing day.

“Eat something, will you? Stop making me worry.”

Following Fulcare’s gesture, Vieta sat on the edge of his bed.

“Anyway, I just saw a magical beast.”

“…A magical beast? Here?”

The drowsiness vanished from Fulcare’s eyes, which flashed sharply.

“Yeah. One that’s inside a person’s body, at that.”

A very cute one, too.