Don Quixote's Reverie (11)
-Affiliated with the Slayers. Garulik and Unnieon. We have just returned safely from the Cultist Branch.
What happened after that was obvious.
The children welcomed our return in their own ways.
Everyone looked terrible, like they had stayed up for two nights straight.
"Vik...tor..."
The exhaustion beneath her eyes.
And yet, even that melted away in one brief moment.
Anxiety dissolved into relief, and a watery world ran down her cheeks.
The first to approach was, as expected, Carmilla.
Her Highness strode over and pulled me into a tight hug.
"Your Highness."
"......Bad henchman."
Her forehead rested against my chest.
Her disheveled silver hair and breath tickled me through my shirt.
"Bad... truly, bad."
"......"
"You promised. You said you would not make me worry..."
Her mutter was mixed with tears.
She bit her lip as if trying to hold them back, but it did not seem to work.
In the end, her shoulders trembled, and the girl buried her face in my chest.
"You said you would not... leave my side... hic..."
"I am sorry."
"Do not apologize. Sniff, you did nothing wrong..."
"Even so, I nearly broke my promise to Your Highness."
"......Are you hurt anywhere?"
"I am perfectly fine. A little tired, though."
"Bad henchman... Bad, bad, bad."
"I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry."
"Did I not tell you not to apologize...!"
Her Highness grumbled through a stuffy nose.
Still, she only tightened her arms around me and murmured quietly.
"Thank you... Thank you so much for coming back..."
The Vampire trembled so pitifully.
So I had to pat that delicate back for quite a while.
"......Sir Viktor."
Next was Alice.
The girl did not say much. Tears simply welled in her eyes.
Her blue eyes grew soft and wet, then finally burst like a flood.
"Hueeeeng..."
Alice just cried out loud.
Dew gathered on her pale chin, and thick tears dropped one after another.
"Both of you... hic, are safe. I am so... so glad..."
"Miss Alice."
"I thought something... really terrible had happened... sob, I..."
"It seems I made you worry. I should have escaped a little sooner."
Alice did cry often, but I felt like it was rare for her to cry this hard.
It seemed she had suffered through every kind of anxiety over the past two days.
Among our group, she was also the most mentally fragile.
I reached out gently and wiped away the tears beading in her eyes.
'Hm.'
Something about this.
With the first two reactions being like this, guilt started creeping up on me.
'Well... the truth is, I was never kidnapped by the Cultists or anything. I just disappeared to farm an item.'
Hm.
Since I had almost died, could I call it even?
No. Depending on how you looked at it, could that place not be called a Cultist Branch too?
'Let us think.'
Was it hidden somewhere hard to find? O
Did something related to an evil god happen there? O
Was it hostile to intruders? O
Every item on the checklist got a circle.
'Right.'
Lumiera's Temple had been a Cultist Branch.
I went in without knowing and almost got into serious trouble.
I should be careful not to enter by mistake from now on.
"Hmhm."
"......Hey."
While I was sorting out those silly thoughts.
Yellow hair had come up beside me before I knew it.
Thud.
A bronze fist hit my shoulder.
It was a punch with quite a lot of emotion behind it.
"Fuck... You're fine."
"Miss Caitlin."
"You were going to be alive in the end, so why the hell did you make me worry for no reason?"
"I am glad too. To be able to meet Miss Caitlin again like this."
"Shut up. You just... keep your mouth shut..."
Thudthudthud.
The violence continued with no sign of stopping.
Her way of speaking was even rougher than usual too.
"You bastard. Fucking bastard. Dogshit bastard. Smooth-talking bastard."
Thud.
Was this punishment for making her worry?
The girl's gaze was vicious too.
Of course, since I could see the rims of her eyes had gone red, it was not scary...
"Miss Caitlin."
"Don't pat me."
"Thank you for trusting me and waiting."
"Die."
Thudthud.
The bronze fist landed a few more times.
I silently stroked the girl's head.
"I am glad I came back."
People who welcomed me.
I smiled once more and told them I was back.
After that, I had to serve as a punching bag for a long time, until the children calmed down.
***
Ranne and I.
The two of us were forcibly laid on sickbeds.
It was not that we had any visible injuries, but they wanted to be sure.
Most of our energy had also been drained, and even the attending physician who checked our condition firmly declared that we needed rest.
"Hm... I do not think there is any real need to take potions. I truly am just tired."
"I am the same! Though I did faint for a moment, my body is in perfect condition...!"
"Both of you, stop talking and drink."
"Please drink quietly."
"Shut up and drink."
Yes, ma'am.
Our small resistance was trampled beneath the voices of the many.
After that, we lay in bed for a few days and recovered our strength.
"......"
And the situation was quite burdensome.
I was surrounded by a crowd.
First, Her Highness was stuck tightly to one of my arms.
Usually, she grew embarrassed from our hands touching, but this time she hugged my arm tight and looked as if she had no intention of letting go.
"Um, Your Highness? I believe my arm is starting to go a little numb..."
"Be quiet."
It seemed this disappearance really had come as a terrible shock to her.
Instead of loosening her grip, the silver-haired girl pressed herself even closer to the sickbed.
Maybe because this was my karma.
It was hard to point anything out.
"U, um..."
Alice occupied the opposite arm.
Unlike Carmilla, she could not hug me, and only timidly held onto my sleeve.
Even that alone had the girl's cheeks red enough to burst.
"Ah, um... uuu."
She looked as if her language function had failed.
Still, whenever I tried to get up from the sickbed or leave the room, her hand would tighten around my sleeve.
It was somehow pitiful, yet also cute, like a puppy clinging to its owner leaving for work.
Of course, the problem here was that if I was held down, I really could not move.
"Sir Viktor... You must not... move."
"I was only going to step out for some air."
"They said you have to... rest..."
"You are terribly stubborn."
"Because it is for your sake, Sir Viktor..."
It did not stop there. Lua was dangling from my front.
Her clear eyes looked up at me with a bright smile.
As if simply being stuck to Dad made her happy.
"Mhehehe."
The girl rubbed her cheek against my chest.
Then, suddenly, she looked once at each of the two people stuck to my sides and spoke.
"Wow...! I got two more moms!"
No.
What are you talking about?
"Then Lua has three moms!"
That is quite amazing.
You did not have a single dad, yet you have three moms at such a young age.
"As expected, our daughter is different."
"Fuck off with that bullshit..."
Beside the sickbed, a thick curse stabbed in.
Caitlin was looking at us as if she could not believe what she was seeing.
"You guys look seriously ridiculous."
"Oho."
"What are you doing, sticking so close together?"
"Would our Doggy Caitlin like to become ridiculous too?"
It had been boring lately.
After the School Trip, she had become rather obedient, so I had left her alone.
"Woof?"
"Ah."
"Answer."
"......"
Like that, we spent several days inside the room.
Ranne was not restrained like me, but Ranne's situation was similar.
The moment Ranne tried to move even a little, a bombardment of nagging fell from all sides.
"Hm! To be worried over this much! It appears I am an extremely loved person!"
Of course, our protagonist brushed even that aside with the power of positivity.
No matter when I saw Ranne, that person truly sparkled.
'Ranne has good sense too.'
What had happened in the courtroom.
Ranne kept quiet about it.
'To be exact... the things about me.'
The orphanage burning down.
Kim Muro.
The evil god.
Ranne did not say a word about anything connected to those.
Though I doubt Ranne understood what any of it meant.
Ranne seemed to have simply guessed that they were sensitive topics for me.
Even when the Count asked about what had happened back then, Ranne answered while leaving out everything related to the trial.
'Thanks to that, it worked out well.'
People firmly believed that we had been kidnapped by a Cultist Branch and returned.
You could say the little preparations I made before coming back paid off.
'There was no way they could not believe this.'
Using the Plague Tablet, I had soaked Ranne and myself until we were drenched in dark mana.
Anyone who looked at us would think, "We were attacked by Cultists, sob sob."
Thanks to that, Count Kihano and his vassals had completely lost their minds.
Rage toward the Cultists boiled in his purple eyes.
"How dare they... on Kihano land, target my daughter and son-in-law!"
The Count raged at the fact that his daughter and son-in-law (not true) had been attacked.
Not only the Count, but every person in the territory was furious.
Northerners were famous for being combative by nature.
The blood of warriors who had survived hellish winters for ages flowed in them.
If a bear appeared while they were chopping firewood in the forest, these madmen would grab their axes and charge at it instead.
'And I heard they usually win too.'
A place where every single person in the territory carried warrior DNA.
Making an enemy of a house like this meant death.
'Even the Cultist bastards were afraid of them.'
In the original story, they aimed for a time when the North was busy subjugating magical beasts.
The best timing. They launched a surprise attack while everything was chaotic and took it down in one swift strike, or so it said.
'But.'
This time, they would not be able to.
The North had already started making preparations against the Cultists.
'Cultists! Such atrocious bastards! How could you kidnap Count Kihano's daughter and son-in-law (not true)? You deserve to be judged by the North...!'
As I chewed over their cruelty, moisture gathered in my eyes.
I sniffled from my deeply rooted trauma.
"Prepare for war at once! We will show those filthy black magic bastards the taste of the North's axes!!"
Hell yeah.
This was auto hunting.
"I will chew you all up and leave not a single handful of bones!!"
""We will chew them all up and leave not a single handful of boooones!!!""
Following the Count's cry, the knights of the house roared.
I looked down at the training ground outside the window and smiled brightly.
'How nice.'
It seemed.
The Cultist situation would become interesting soon.
***
And this was a story from a few weeks later.
The Cultist executives continued their meeting while clutching their heads.
"......Over the past few weeks. Five Branches located near the North have been wiped out."
One of the executives announced their defeat with a grim face.
The Nightmare that had descended upon the North.
Beasts swarming in with axes in hand.
That was closer to a moving disaster than a war.
"Fuck."
"No... Who the hell was it?! Which bastard touched the North?!"
"Were they out of their mind? Of all things, why would they kidnap that side's daughter and son-in-law...!"
"The plan is ruined! We clearly said not to touch the North until the proper time came!"
Warriors who defended the North from the magical beast hordes that rushed in every year.
These were people hardened by hunting and slaughter.
The Cultists had no choice but to be helplessly trampled.
The even more maddening part was that every Branch denied it, saying none of them had touched the North.
It was enough to make a ghost wail.
"Then who the fuck was it...!"
The Branch that kidnapped Count Kihano's daughter and son-in-law.
They had actually searched, but there was no Branch with such a record.
An absurd mystery.
"Who the hell framed uuuuus?!!"
A scream filled with stress up to the tips of their hair.
After that, they said several Cultist executives grabbed the backs of their necks and collapsed.
On the other hand.
The mastermind who had plotted the whole thing was supposedly humming while listening to the news.
"Ah, serves them right."
With a very refreshing mockery, at that.
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