While soothing Unika, I decided to watch over Will"s battle. I will prepare to support him just in case, but it probably won"t be necessary.
Will took out Witch Killer from its scabbard and I immediately felt gooseb.u.mps.
What a sinister whirlpool of magic.
Red light is bewitchingly reflected on the dark-gray blade. I felt the blood in my whole body freezing.
That"s how much beautiful it is.
Both I and the silver wolf are unknowingly rooted to the spot.
Unnatural quietness covered my ears.
Will stepped in and the wolf, that was too late to react, kicked the ground. The match was decided in a second. Without minding thick fur wrapped in magic, Will slashed the silver wolf with one strike.
Far from being injured, there"s not even a drop of blood on him, neither is his breathing disturbed. I felt like his golden eyes shook for a bit while looking down at the fallen wolf but they soon returned to the blank state.
The blood and fat that was smeared on the sword disappeared with a loud voice. Seems like it was absorbed by Witch Killer.
Numbness ran down my spine.
I"ve seen scenes of Will"s battles many times in “Anime”. but to be honest I always thought that they were exaggerated.
I"ll admit it. At the moment when he went in for a kill, I could not see how Will moved. It"s not just the power of Witch Killer, Will"s abilities are also quite good.
“…..Thanks, Will. As expected you are very strong. It"s very reliable.”
Yup. He was stronger than I expected. To the point that I slightly panicked about what I should do. I didn"t let it show on my face though.
“Enough with the flattery. What should we do about the funeral rites?”
“You"re right. Well then, shall we?”
I hold my hand against the silver wolf that ceased breathing after being defeated.
【O, Exhausted Life, refine thy body and once again wander the heaven and earth】
After I finished chanting, the body of the silver wolf disappeared while wrapped in a pale light. To be more exact, a single sharp claw from its left paw was left and the rest vanished. Both I and Will offered it a short silent prayer.
This is the art of the funeral.
It"s an art that reduces the corpse to a river of the magic power of the nature world, but it also leaves magical beasts" core without dissolving it. Well, in other words, the corpse disappears and you obtain the spoils of war.
In case of this silver wolf, it means that the core was in its claw. This is a ma.s.s of magic power so it can be sold for a fairly high price.
….By the way, using the art of a funeral on a corpse of a witch or any other core-holders is forbidden throughout the whole continent. It"s a result learned from the blood-drenched history.
Will obediently picked up the claw and handed it over to me. Generally, the spoils go to the person who dealt the finishing blow, but if traveling companions have a master-servant relationship, it"s a different matter. Looks like you do have awareness of being a servant, Will.
When I was receiving it, I took the chance and patted Will"s head. It was silently avoided after one pat though. What a pity.
“Fufu, let"s eat something delicious as a reward tonight. What would be good?”
Will"s shoulders flinched.
“………at”
“Hm?”
“…..meat dish would be good.”
Sudden foolish sound resounded in the forest.
Oh, so that"s also the same as the original.
We managed to somehow arrive at the town before sunset.
After booking the inn and leaving Unika with them, we left to the neighborhood bar to have dinner.
The table is overflowing with plates and a fragrant smell is mixed in. While tilting the fruit sake, I observed the scene unfolding before me with great interest.
Even the sight from other customers that was at first focused on me has now concentrated on my companion.
Chomp chomp. Nom nom.
Fried rice, boiled chicken with sweet potatoes, Stir-fried meat, venison soup, and beef stew.
Various dishes that could possibly be for a five-man group, in a flash disappear into Will"s mouth.
Despite the pace, it"s an unexpectedly quiet dinner scene. Gobbling food while making loud noises isn"t dignified, after all. You can feel at least a minimal level of manners from him as the former knight of the Prince.
“Delicious?”
“It"s amazingly tasty!”
It"s the first time I got such a soft answer to my question, isn"t it? Corners of his mouth are slightly raised up and he has an expression of bliss on his face.
It feels like he"s so engrossed with the meal that he might even forget that I"m sitting before him.
At any rate, he eats well. I thought that this also was exaggerated in the “Anime”, but apparently, it was truly like in reality.
The witch-killing sword, that Will holds, consumes an enormous amount of magic power when used and the price for that is this big appet.i.te.
In the original work, from time to time he would fall down, empty the Prince"s wallet or get really depressed after dropping his hot dog.
It was apparently the only flaw and one of the moe points of the straight-laced and cool Will.
Personally, I slightly hate his disposition of not getting fat no matter how much he eats, but after looking at Will, my overwhelming appet.i.te disappeared so maybe this is actually perfect for dieting?
After finishing most of the dishes Will still looks like he hasn"t had enough. You"re dining with a female so you shouldn"t be making such dejected face, you know?
“I"ll give this to you.”
I slide chicken thigh meat I had picked out on my plate towards Will"s plate.
He was a bit vary while sizing up my chicken meat, but eventually, he stretched out his hand and ate with a chomp. It"s the last piece of the meal so he"s greatly savoring it.
…….cute.
My cheeks loosen up naturally. I might get addicted to feeding him.
While I was looking pleasantly at him, Will finally noticed my gaze.
“Why are you smiling?
“I was just thinking that people who eat well are wonderful.”
Frustrated and embarra.s.sed Will turned the other way.
“…..wasn"t fuel efficiency the best virtue?”
“Were you concerned about that, by chance? People and the mount beasts are different.”
Will looked like he wasn"t satisfied, but he still ate up the rest of the dishes fast.
Owner of the bar gave us extra dessert while praising Will"s appet.i.te and my beauty. After relaxing while eating the apple and honey cake, various conversations entered my ears.
“Come to think of it, I heard that the marriage between the Prince and the daughter of Alonisama failed. They say that the capital is in a big panic.”
“I"ve been told that apparently, the Prince had a different lover.”
“Wonderful! He pulled through with his pure love, didn"t he? I"m envious of his partner girl.”
“Are you dumb? I"m disappointed. To break off the marriage right during the marriage ceremony is too self-absorbed! I"m worried about the next generation Mistria.”
“Seems like Alonisama"s daughter is a very beautiful person. Not to mention, she also forgave the Prince"s rudeness or so I have heard.”
“I am glad that she ended up being an open-minded girl. Just by thinking about having to fight the witches again, I feel so frightened……..”
My reputation is very good. That reckless action was done in front of many people so the Kingdom side couldn"t manipulate the information to cover for the Prince. But the theme of everyone"s topic is only engagement abandonment and not the truth behind the attacks twenty years ago.
You"re very efficient, Your Majesty the King.
I wanted to hear more gossips, but Will looked uncomfortable so we decided to go back to the inn.
We"ve taken 2 rooms, one slightly bigger room for me and a normal-sized room for Will. I said that I didn"t mind staying in the same room but Will was absolutely against it.
“This is troubling. We"re already fully booked for today. The Prince"s wedding was canceled so it seems like there are many people abruptly changing their destinations….sorry but try somewhere else.”
“Please manage it somehow. This is the last place!”
The reception desk at the inn was noisy.
Parents with a small child, a family of three were desperately snapping at the owner of the inn. From what I"ve heard, they missed booking the room so they have no inn to stay at tonight.
“Can"t you manage to do something at least for this child? he"s been kind of unwell since the morning…”
“Is he sick?….I"m sorry to hear that but..”
When I looked, I saw a small boy coughing. His cheeks are also slightly red so it must be a cold. How pitiful.
I turned towards the reception desk.
“Excuse me, I can give you one of our rooms if you"d like.”
“Eh? Is that okay?!”
“Yes. We have to help each other in trouble. Isn"t that right, Will?”
Will looked like he really wanted to say something but after looking at the child"s pitiful appearance he swallowed his words back.
The inn is full because of the marriage ordeal so I can"t just ignore it, right?
I leaned over and put my hand over the boy"s forehead. He was surprised but it looks like he couldn"t make a sound because his throat was hurting too much. There"s also rash near his neck. All these are symptoms of the cold that has been prevalent among children lately,
“Please dissolve honey and ginger in hot water and make the child drink it. His sore throat should ease up quite a bit. He might be only slightly feverish right now but by tomorrow noon he"ll have a high fever so I would recommend against forcibly moving him around too much. Show him to this town"s doctor first thing in the morning.”
“Y, yes. Umm, do you have a knowledge of medicine?”
The parents looked anxious.
“I"m still in the middle of studying, but I"m a pharmacist by occupation. Don"t worry, it"s a cold that adults rarely catch and if he rests he"ll definitely get better. Please be at ease tonight.”
When I smiled confidently saying that there was no need to worry about anything, both parents and the inn owner stroked their chests in relief.
Handing over the room with a big bed to them, I charged into Will"s room.
It"s a cheap room with a one-person bed and a shower room. Maybe because the room is so small, silence is even more painful than usual.
“I, I"ll spend the night at the bar.”
“Wait a moment, Will. You must properly sleep and get rid of the tiredness. Are you planning to expose your lord to the danger during tomorrow"s travel?”
Looking closely, I noticed that Will"s forehead was covered in sweat, He has a face like it"s the end of the world.
Why is the man the now who"s nervous in this situation, I wonder.
Am I possibly getting a very rude treatment right now?
“Then I will sleep on the floor….”
“I don"t particularly mind sleeping in the same bed while stuck to each other, you know? It"s Will who respects chivalric spirit, after all. Nothing weird would happen, right?”
“O, of course! But still, we can"t share the bed. I prefer sleeping on the floor….”
In the end, I ended up holding my head in the corner of the room.
His will seems to be solid so let"s just let it be.
“I won"t stop you if you say that you absolutely want to do that. I"ll take the bath first, okay?
I got the reply that could also be taken as a groan and I laughed with a chuckle.
I was able to see various sides of Will, like during the fight, while eating or dealing with an unexpected accident.
There are still many things to enjoy on our way back home.
—
Notes:
Whoever felt a tingling sensation in their nether regions while reading about Sonia patting Will"s head, raise your hand!
Ginger part is actually written as マキナギショウガ, so it"s something like Makinagi shouga but I"m not knowledgeable in biology enough to make sense of what it is, though I asked around and the closest thing I could find out is that Makinagi might be a latin name for a plant which might be There"s also Maki and Nagi family of asian plants so it might be a hybrid of those or at least a similar berry type like those two. There"s also Nageia nagi that is Asian bayberry so yeah, leaving it as ginger was just easier. If you know what this plant is called, please tell me.
the loud noise was actually written as ぴきり but since I couldn"t make sense of what the h.e.l.l that meant, I went with what google-sama suggested.
Dish names are 焼き飯、鶏の甘辛煮、豚の肉炒め、鹿肉のスープ、そしてビーフシチュー。
Take the translation with a grain of salt and hmu if you know of better translations of those.
Art was written as 術 so that"s “jutsu”? honestly not sure how to translate it so I left it as art. Let me know if you know the proper translation.
No triple-checking of awkward grammar so beware and tell me about any stuff I missed. (will probably go over it one more time at a later date)
There are also bound to be mistranslations so don"t be shy and point them out
This should be the last chapter for this month because I"ll be going on a short vacation soon
might put out ch1 of darkness villainess tho