Leaving Arthur’s room, Boram walked slowly along the path in the imperial palace.
Everyone Boram met looked excited to see her, one of the Heroes, bowing their heads in greeting as they passed.
A splendid and well-maintained path, and herself walking it with ease. People adoring her as a Hero.
Yet why did her heart feel as desolate as barren land?
“…Haa.”
Boram let out a small sigh.
Arthur told her to “find” Ketron, but how could she easily find a man who might not even be in the empire? That man should know by now that magic isn’t omnipotent.
That man.
“…”
Boram pressed her fingers against her forehead as if she had a headache.
Why am I so drawn to that unremarkable man? Why?
Emotions were truly incomprehensible, Boram sighed. Wasn’t it already too late to regret or look back on the past?
She had sided with Arthur and betrayed Ketron.
Sometimes Boram dreamed of Ketron. Dreams where he didn’t pour out resentful words or glare at her, but simply gazed at her quietly.
Each time, her conscience—which she didn’t even know still existed, would prick her sharply, and she would wake from the dream drenched in cold sweat.
“No one knows anyway.”
Arthur had said that day.
“If we just keep quiet, truly no one will know.”
Then I can become the Hero as well.
Although she hadn’t been without hesitation, in the end, she betrayed Ketron for Arthur’s sake and willingly became his accomplice.
When Boram raised her head after sighing quietly again, she saw a woman with a splendid appearance walking from far down the corridor.
Saint Laila.
The ill-fated saint who had loved Ketron but didn’t even know her love’s object had changed.
Of course, even though she didn’t know, she seemed to sense something wasn’t right, as she had gotten engaged to Arthur the Hero but kept her distance from him.
“…”
“…”
But even so, it would be impossible not to be bothered by another woman close to her fiancé.
No, am I the one who’s bothered?
Thinking self-deprecatingly, Boram bowed her head first. Even if she was praised as a hero, the other was a saint, the representative of God, so there was no point in holding her head high in front of her.
Above all, Boram’s conscience pricked her too much to look her straight in the eye.
“Lady Boram, you’re here too.”
Laila spoke first. Boram nodded her head politely.
“Yes.”
“Is the Count inside?”
Momentarily taken aback by the unfamiliar title, Boram nevertheless nodded and answered soon after.
“Yes, he is inside.”
Count.
It was an extremely distant title to use between two people considered to be the love story of the century, a staple material used by minstrels when singing love songs.
Darling, or Arthur. Despite having sufficiently intimate terms available, she used the title “Count.”
As if to emphasize the distance between herself and Arthur.
This was a side effect of forcibly inserting Arthur’s existence into the gaps of the vanished Ketron’s memories. And what’s more, it concerned her loved one. Boram knew this fact better than anyone.
“Lady Boram.”
Laila, who had been quietly looking at Boram, spoke.
“The Count, he hasn’t changed at all, has he?”
“…”
Boram swallowed for a moment. Fortunately, Laila didn’t seem to notice Boram’s reaction and continued speaking.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? Nothing has changed, but it’s as if he’s not the person I knew.”
“…”
“I think he might have changed a little as time passed. Even this is a useless thought, though.”
Boram couldn’t answer. However, Laila, who thought that her silence was due to embarrassment at her strange remarks, was about to tell Boram not to worry about it when.
“Hey, Boram. So you were here.”
Suddenly, a cheerful voice cut in between the two. Boram turned around.
A man who was tall and had a sturdy body that made him look like a knight, but was wearing the white priestly robes worn by priests, making it difficult to be sure if he was a knight, was approaching them.
Augustine of Divine Power. Another one of the Heroes.
“The Saint is here too.”
The man with a bright face greeted Laila cheerfully as well. It was a light greeting for a Saint, but if Laila was the representative of God, Augustine was a man who was said to be God’s weapon, and since both were representatives of God, it wasn’t a big breach of etiquette.
Boram secretly sighed in relief. She had been feeling suffocated talking to Laila alone.
“It’s been a while, Augustine.”
“Yeah, Boram. Is it hard to see your face these days?”
“You’re the one who’s hard to see.”
Watching the two start a conversation naturally, Laila bowed her head.
“I’ll be going now.”
Seeing Laila greeting her, Augustine smiled subtly. His playful face probed her slightly.
“Are you here to see Arthur?”
“Yes.”
However, Laila only answered firmly, as if she didn’t feel any shyness or embarrassment. She didn’t feel like a fresh lover who had come to meet her beloved.
Unable to elicit the desired reaction, Augustine, who wasn’t very interested in other people’s relationships, shrugged his shoulders and waved with a smiling face, and Laila naturally passed by the two.
As Laila moved away to some extent, Augustine brought his face close to Boram as if telling a secret and whispered.
“Should be their passionate period.”
“…”
Boram remained silent because she didn’t want to respond. Augustine, who had been quietly watching her, tilted his head.
“Is something wrong with you?”
“Why are you asking that?”
“You’ve seemed a bit depressed lately.”
Boram was silent for a moment, but soon replied without much awkwardness.
“…Nonsense.”
“Yeah, that’s not a word that suits you.”
Augustine chuckled.
Boram didn’t want to talk about that topic, so she opened her mouth to change the subject.
“Where are you going?”
“Me? The Emperor told me to see him for a moment, so I was stopping by. I was also going to see Arthur’s face.”
Saying that, his cheerful smiling face didn’t seem to have any worries. There was no need to have any worries.
They had defeated the Demon King and become Heroes. Now, all that was left was a happy future, so there was no reason to be depressed.
Augustine, who had blocked the army alone outside the Demon King’s Castle when they defeated the Demon King, had received the blessing of oblivion. Unlike Arthur and Boram, he had also lost his memories of Ketron.
Yes, in the first place, such betrayal was impossible for a guy like Augustine. Even Arthur with his good speaking skills wouldn’t have been able to persuade a Saint who served God and regarded faithfulness as the highest virtue to betray.
It was a betrayal that was possible because Boram was the one who shared the same memories.
Boram, who had caught her breath for a moment, took a deep breath and asked. Hoping that Augustine wouldn’t notice her awkwardness as much as possible.
“Why does the Emperor want to see you?”
“The Nobles are making a fuss.”
“Because of Arthur?”
“No, because of Marquis Meggin.”
Augustine replied readily.
Boram frowned. Marquis Meggin was a Noble who represented the Noble faction and had recently been assassinated.
Boram also had some acquaintance with the lady of the same Marquis family, and he was a man who remained in her memory because he was the Noble who was most dissatisfied with Arthur’s conferment of nobility.
“Is he going to entrust you with the investigation into his death?”
“Something like that~”
Augustine smiled and brushed it off as if he didn’t want to explain the details.
He was a man who served God, but Augustine was far from being faithful or serious, as Saints usually were.
Even though he was a companion who had adventured with them, he had joined the group because of Ketron, so he seemed to be feeling less and less attached to Arthur and Boram in the absence of Ketron, spending less and less time with them and increasingly not telling them things.
Arthur acted as if he didn’t care, saying that it didn’t matter since the adventure was over, but Boram had been wary of Augustine’s attitude all along, saying that such gaps were gathering one by one to create cracks.
There’s no problem yet, though.
Everything is a worry, Boram sighed softly.
“And I’m going to do something very fun now.”
Boram tilted her head at his words as he quietly looked at her.
“Something fun?”
“Uh-huh.”
Augustine smiled and said.
“I heard there’s an inn in the central square of the capital that sells fun food. I’m going to go there.”
“How fun can food be?”
“If it’s incredibly spicy, it’ll be fun in a different way, right?”
Spicy food.
Boram felt the interest that had arisen for a very brief moment fade away.
“Do you want to go with me?”
Augustine casually suggested, but Boram knew that it was just a polite gesture. It would only be uncomfortable to go together. Moreover, she didn’t even prefer spicy food.
She refused outright.
“No, I don’t like spicy food.”
“Is that so?”
Augustine, who added the last words with an attitude that he wasn’t disappointed at all, smiled brightly.
“Then see you later.”
Augustine turned around without hesitation. Boram, who had been standing still for a while watching Augustine’s receding figure, also turned around.
She didn’t have time to be doing this. She had a lot to do.
The most urgent thing among them was to find out where Ketron was.
Haa, Boram sighed and quickened her pace.
She didn’t realize that she had just missed a great opportunity that had come to her.