The Uninvited Guest

Could it be that he wanted to take responsibility? Perhaps the matter weighed on him so badly that he wanted it firmly tied off.

And he is such an upright man, after all.

Sure enough, the deep shadow lying about Keith’s eyes did not lift.

“Even so, how could I have done that to the body of a woman who is not even married…”

He could not get the rest of it out. Pai swallowed a sigh and deliberately kept her tone light and everyday.

“I saw Mr. Keith’s bare body too, you know. And if we are counting, I am the one who stripped the clothes off an unconscious man.”

Since it has come to this, I’ll drive every last bit of the responsibility onto myself.

That is how you soothe a man with an unshakable sense of responsibility.

“The kiss is the same. You did not force anything on me, and if I had not wanted it I would have pushed you off. You know how strong I am, don’t you? Someone as frail as Your Grace is no trouble at all.”

A bit of shameless banter on top of that, and the crease between his brows smoothed out.

He did seem more all over the place than usual today, but he must have come running the moment he opened his eyes, so it would hardly be fair to measure him against his ordinary self, would it?

My legs are starting to go numb as well, so I had better wrap this up quickly.

She had been on her knees the whole time, and the backs of them were prickling. Waging high-level psychological warfare (?) had brought the hunger on, besides.

She opened her mouth to bring this nutritionless contest to a close.

“So then, let us call it even between us and…”

“Does that mean the kiss with me was not distasteful to you?”

“Sorry?”

The gravity drained out of his face so completely that it went past relief and on into something a little foolish. His mouth hung open, and some sort of expectation had settled into his red eyes until they glittered like rubies.

What was she supposed to do with this man, stuck on entirely the wrong point?

Stop shaking me like this… I’m a woman too, you know.

Innocence turns cruel at times. Because it makes the soiled feel ashamed of themselves.

— Gulp.

She swallowed dry and took the whole weight of Keith’s gaze. His eyes, filled with expectation and desperation and ardor, did indeed look sincere.

All at once Pai felt wronged.

Why am I the only one who has to be embarrassed?!

Go on, you try being shaken too.

“Well, when a man as handsome as Mr. Keith comes at me, what woman could possibly refuse?”

She brazened it out with a cut-my-belly-open-if-you-must tactic.¹

Keith, though, brightened openly at what she said.

“Am I handsome?”

This was not how it was supposed to go.

Flustered, Pai made a show of being unimpressed.

“…You only have to look in a mirror to know that.”

“Yes. I do hear it said often enough, but Miss Pai thinking so is another matter entirely.”

“What is different about it?”

The man would not be shaken in the slightest, so all that was left to her was her own undignified position. She knew it perfectly well, and still she could not stop her mouth from moving on its own.

“What meaningful difference does it make to Mr. Keith whether other people call you handsome or whether I am the one acknowledging it?”

“…”

Keith’s face went stiff. His mouth shut tight as a clam, and the luster died out of his eyes on the spot.

Ah. Oh dear.

He seemed to be sulking.

The hunting contest may have come to a disorderly close, but the Victory Festival went ahead without a hitch. Keith too was back on the front line within half a day, and in any case, once an event has begun, the greater part of it falls to the people doing the actual work.

On top of that, the rumor about Ardine and the silver snow elk fanned the festival’s fever hotter. Snow elk masks, which until then had been selling neck and neck with the snow wolf ones, sold like hotcakes, and the stuffed toys with heads and bodies in exactly the same proportion became impossible to get hold of.

The little snow wolf Reni seemed thoroughly dissatisfied with the whole state of affairs. On the day Ardine came home with the smell of another beast all over her, Reni sprayed piss across every cushion in the place and got a scolding from Anna. Snow wolves and snow elk are the apex predators of the ecosystem and hold each other in wary regard, so it was only to be expected.

And so, even with the Victory Festival over and done, Ardine was sparing no effort to win Reni’s favor back. The ball-throwing was part of that. She would throw a cloth ball stuffed with grain and Reni would fetch it back in its teeth, and since the ball had burst some seven times over already, Hamel had put a protective spell on this one.

“Riiight, Ari’s throwing it!”

“Yip!”

Ardine was wearing down a little. Whoever said that only a puppy can keep up with a child had it exactly right. She had been throwing the ball for an hour without a break, and by now her shoulder really did feel as though it might come out of its socket. However far she threw it, Reni went flying off like the wind, caught the ball in its teeth, and came snuffling around to find her.

My clever doggy.

But a little too clever.

“Ari threeew i-iit!”

“Whine, hrrmf!”

So on the very last throw Ardine mixed in a touch of magic power.

Really the tiniest touch.

— Whoooooooosh…

“…”

Her control of the force was not quite what she had imagined, though.

“Huh—!”

The ball drew a clean curve and split the air. Its arc, forever climbing, looked ready to punch straight through the grey clouds.

“Aaagh! No, no, no!”

Reni tore off after the ball like a loosed arrow. Its tail spun so madly it had turned into a dot and gone all but invisible.

Ardine ran hard too. Ever since he had agreed to be her master, Hamel had kept her exercising steadily, on the grounds that becoming a strong mage takes a foundation of basic stamina, and thanks to that she had grown a little taller of late and shed a little of her puppy fat.

“Stooooop!”

Soon the deep-purple ball hit its limit somewhere up in the air and began to draw a downward curve.

Just clearing the castle wall, or not quite…

“Whiiine, hrrng!”

And then, from up ahead, came the sound of Reni whimpering.

“Reni!”

The White Castle sat on a gently sloping hill, so Ardine could look down and see the castle’s middle gate swinging open. Her eye caught a body of people crossing the bridge that had been let down over the deep water.

A white horse, its mane as full as a lion’s, and the company following behind it in perfect order moved with such restraint that the whole thing might have been a single illustration.

— Gulp.

“Wh-what is that…”

Some twenty of them moved as though they were one body, and the sight of it pressed down on the small child. The man on the white horse in particular was almost as huge as the horse itself, and across his face, below the nose, he wore something like the veil a bride puts on for a wedding.

“Yap! Yip!”

Just then Reni barked ferociously once more. The cry sounded exactly as though it were shouting, ‘Snap out of it!’

Ardine pulled herself together with a start.

“Reniii!”

She clenched her small fists tight and ran down the slope. The white fur she had wrapped around herself dropped away behind her, and her thick golden hair shook out in every direction.

The huge man glared at the beast blocking his way, then cast a sidelong look at the child rolling down toward him like a snowball. His cold eyes collided with the child’s blazing ones.

“Lay a hand on Reni and Ari’ll get you!”

In that instant, Ardine chewed over in her head what she had learned in Hamel’s lessons.

Concentrate magic power in the hand. Then fire. Like shooting an arrow.

Reaching the huge man, Ardine first gathered Reni up into her arms. Then she snatched up the purple ball lying forlornly to one side and shoved that into her pocket too.

The white horse blew its breath out through its nose as though the whole business were laughable.

“Fbrrrr! Fbrrr…”

“Nngh.”

“Move aside.”

The man pulled the reins to settle the white horse, and a soldier drawn up in rank behind him gave the order.

“We are they who carry out the sacred will of God, and in the doing of that noble will we do not forgive those who stand in our way.”

“Hmph.”

Going by all that talk of the will of God, they had to be people dispatched from a temple. Ardine had scarcely ever been outside the castle, but she knew there were temples and clerics in the North too.

She tipped her chin up a little and shouted so that it rang.

“I am Ardine Paragon, only daughter of Elrod Paragon, and one day I shall be master of this White Castle! Those who serve God will show proper courtesy!”

“…”

A murmur ran through the soldiers when Ardine declared her rank. Not one of them had imagined that the mongrel’s owner would turn out to be the young lady.

“You there!”

“Yap! Grrrr…”

“State your name and your rank.”

“…”

The man on the white horse raised his palm and silenced the soldiers.

He spoke.

“We have been discourteous.”

He knew he was facing the young lady and still did not dismount, which made it certain he was no ordinary cleric. Translucent cloth covered the lower half of his face, but the green eyes it left bare radiated an arrogance beyond measure.

“We are the Paladin Order of the Great Temple of Urafel, and we have come to the White Castle at the command of the Archbishop.”

“The Great Temple…?”

So they weren’t just a temple from the North after all?

Thrown into confusion, the child shrank back and clutched Reni all the more desperately.

“That is so. My name is Kashen.”

“…”

“I am an Inquisitor.”