Kiara had opened the sea path, but Shiron did not rush in imdiately.
He was a hero and a good man. He couldn’t leave Johanna, who had collapsed after being used, alone. So, Shiron rented an inn in a nearby village while Seira morized the coordinates of Orr’s vortex. Besides…
“Are you really Kyrie?”
There were unfinished conversations that needed to be had.
“It’s better to be honest. I’m really angry.”
Shiron moved his gaze from the unconscious Johanna to Seira. As Seira said she was angry, she crossed her arms and legs with a deeply furrowed brow. Shiron’s reaction was only one.
“No.”
“…That’s it?”
“Sorry.”
Shiron bowed his head, not ending with just words. It wasn’t a formal apology. He had impersonated her forr colleague Kyrie. No matter how necessary it was, it couldn’t have left Seira’s feelings unhurt.
“Ah… I knew it.”
Knowing this, Seira sighed deeply and ended it with a flick to Shiron’s forehead. Although Seira, a magician, couldn’t harm Shiron physically, Shiron pretended to be hurt to show his regret.
“I had so expectations.”
Seira muttered with a disappointed look.
“Expectations?”
“…A friend who had tragically died suddenly returned. It was a confusing situation, but it’s natural to be happy.”
“…”
“And just as much, the disappointnt was great.”
Shiron pushed a chair towards Seira, inviting her to sit. Even though he thought she might refuse due to her disappointnt and anger, Seira didn’t reject the offered chair.
However, the conversation did not continue imdiately. Both seed to need ti to organize their thoughts. Or perhaps they had nothing to say. Shiron, uncomfortable with the silence, spoke first.
“…I didn’t expect you to trust .”
“I don’t know, maybe I’m a fool. Or my loneliness reached its peak, and my heart grew weak.”
Seira’s eyes began to redden as if recalling painful mories, and she soon wiped away her tears with her sleeve.
Thinking he should perhaps comfort her, but knowing the consequences of crossing the line between friends, Shiron decided to pretend not to notice her tears instead.
“Sniff. Where are you going?”
Seira grabbed Shiron’s collar as he tried to leave.
“Even as a colleague, you can’t wipe my tears, but you can pat my back, can’t you?”
“…Am I that handso?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. Okay, I’ll pat your back.”
“Hmph! You should have done that from the beginning. It’s too late now.”
“…Sigh.”
With a deep sigh, Shiron looked at the unconscious Johanna. Despite the ongoing conversation, she hadn’t opened her eyes.
“Put all the protective spells on this kid.”
“…Sniff. You still feel sorry, huh?”
“I think she was just a child who really hoped for a hero to co.”
“…I understand, it’s easy to confuse her with that kid.”
Seira smiled faintly, raising her staff. Not missing a single word of her muttering, Shiron turned his head with wide eyes.
“I’m telling you again, I’m not Kyrie.”
“What are you talking about?”
Seeing Seira’s brazen reaction, Shiron decided not to address it further.
“Kiara must have experienced Kyrie too. Did she ever et her? She probably saw through this kid’s eyes…”
“You and Kyrie have nothing in common except black hair and eyes, and wielding a holy sword.”
Seira glanced at Shiron with a distant look.
“Don’t try to find reason in a mad person’s thoughts.”
“…”
“Like humans can’t understand a demon’s thoughts, a crazy woman did crazy things, that’s all.”
“…Was she always mad?”
“How could she sink a ship with hundreds of people on board with a smile if she wasn’t mad…”
“She was an enemy.”
“…You have the look of wanting to ask why I killed many demons too, but I always shot them from a distance and prayed to the gods every night.”
Seira crossed her legs and reminisced about old mories.
“Of course, later, I didn’t even have the luxury to pray as the enemies grew stronger and more vicious. Kiara was a wretched woman from the start.”
“I see.”
Shiron stroked Johanna’s head as she lay there. Since it was confird that Latera wasn’t lying, it wasn’t a lie that her chef father had injured his back either.
If so, it was highly likely that Johanna’s injury was caused by her own hands.
“…We need to kill her quickly.”
“Yes, we need to kill her quickly.”
As he clenched his fist, Seira suddenly thought of soone not present.
“By the way, is it okay to stay here?”
“…What do you an?”
“Your sister is still out there, feeling miserable. Shouldn’t you comfort her too?”
Seira stared at the door they ca through. Lucia wasn’t in this room, as she had been avoiding Shiron on purpose.
Shiron seed not to care, but Lucia outside looked like she was in deep regret, unable to pull herself together.
Shiron thought it was unnecessary fuss, but Seira understood Lucia’s feelings.
Although it was a provocation, she had kissed him courageously, but Shiron didn’t care at all. It wouldn’t be strange if Lucia was now in deep self-loathing.
A red-haired girl sitting on a rock, holding her sword’s sheath tightly while staring blankly at the sea.
“You… I think you should go to her.”
Seira opened her mouth, recalling Lucia’s appearance.
“I don’t know why your sister kissed you, but I think she must have felt terrible. It’s too pitiful to leave her like that.”
“I was quite surprised too.”
“Maybe Kiara provoked her by attacking you. It’s strange not to be surprised.”
As Seira sighed deeply, the hidden Latera also sighed heavily with worry.
[Maybe it’s because of your many sins.]
‘What are you talking about?’
[You know, there’s a saying. n with many sins are popular.]
‘Don’t talk nonsense. If you have many sins, you get stabbed, not kissed. And it’s been ages since I atoned for my sins.’
Shiron hugged his arms, shivering.
He could understand being stabbed for impersonating Kyrie, but a kiss from his sister?
[Anyway, Lucia seed to like you.]
‘…No way.’
[Insensitive n are out of fashion these days, you know? Are you pretending not to know, or are you really clueless?]
‘She has no reason to like . I flirted openly with Siriel, but with Lucia, I treated her like a friend or family.’
Shiron completely dismissed the possibility that Lucia might like him.
Even if he disregarded their relationship in ‘Reincarnation of the Sword Saint,’ there was little basis for Lucia to like Shiron.
Of course, to avoid getting stabbed, he built a close sibling-like bond and a friendship with her, but he never imagined it would lead to a kiss.
“Don’t just sit here. Go out and comfort her a bit! What if you can’t cooperate well in battle?”
Seira, who had abruptly stood up, grabbed Shiron by the collar and dragged him out.
“Don’t even think about coming back until you resolve this properly! Co back only when you’re sure you can cooperate well!”
“Hey, you…”
Shiron tried to say sothing, but Seira lifted him into the air and threw him out of the inn.
‘…Colleagues should get along well.’
Seira’s ddling might seem unnecessary, but she didn’t want Shiron to follow her path of not reconciling with Kyrie.
Kiara’s promise to open the path was not a lie.
The dark clouds remained in the sky, but the rough waves had ceased, and the sea was as calm as a lake without a single ripple.
Was her mind weighed down by thoughts of Kyrie? Despite pretending to be Kyrie, Shiron still didn’t understand Kiara’s true intentions.
Lucia was also in the sa situation.
Imdiately after Kiara left, as the cold wind sapped her body heat, her mind also cald down. So Lucia had no choice but to think about Kiara, the root cause of this incident.
Why had she only now realized Kiara’s presence, and why had Kiara bothered to open the sea path?
One thing that particularly bothered her was Kiara’s reaction when Shiron claid to be Kyrie.
‘…She seed to like . A lot.’
Though it was quite a leap in logic, Kiara had engaged in a crude act of kissing Shiron imdiately after he declared himself as Kyrie.
That act was not sothing one could do without significant affection. Even with the obvious imminent battle, doing so while ignoring everything else was sothing Lucia found hard to understand.
Of course, after Johabna escaped Kiara’s control, Lucia had also provocatively acted, but she couldn’t bring herself to kiss passionately!
‘Anyway, that’s that…’
Lucia blushed, unable to take her eyes off the sea.
‘I didn’t even know he liked … Does it make sense? Why would you like soone who chopped off your limbs as if to kill you?’
To clear her heated mind, Lucia recalled her last mory of Kiara.
Indeed, it was also in the sea. She rembered the command from high up to subdue Kiara to intentionally calm the sea’s turbulence and support the allied supply ships.
And, naturally, Kiara lost to Kyrie.
Although she couldn’t kill her, Kiara, with her limbs brutally cut off and bleeding profusely, was swept away by the strong currents.
‘And she’s a woman, right? It’s disgusting. Why would she like , a woman?’
They hadn’t even exchanged a few words. In a situation where it wasn’t enough to sharpen their blades as mortal enemies for hundreds of years, it made no sense to suddenly kiss her and make her… wet!
Then a thought suddenly crossed her mind.
‘Could this be what Yuma was warning about?’
-That’s why you have people who hold such deep grudges! The Queen of the Deep Sea and the Tower Master of Despair are still alive. If they know you’re alive, will they sit still?
Yuma had warned her to hide Kyrie’s identity when she left for Dawn Castle to find her true self. The reason was simple: if the fact that Kyrie was reincarnated spread, there was a risk that those who still rembered her with deep grudges would attack simultaneously.
But Lucia felt it was unfair.
The only one she intentionally spared was Yuma, and the rest she had no choice but to leave behind due to unavoidable circumstances.
Yura’s high fever. Seira’s injury. The retreat of the allied forces. The interruption of supplies.
And Kiara was missed due to an unavoidable accident. She regretted not following through with it, but even in hindsight, it couldn’t be helped at the ti.
The sea was not a place for humans to live. No matter how strong Kyrie was, it was tough to fight a life-and-death battle in a place advantageous to the enemy.
‘She used techniques I didn’t know. It’s certainly harder to deal with than before.’
It had been 500 years. Kiara, a demon who casually lived through hundreds and thousands of years.
It’s unclear if she beca stronger due to the ti it took to recover her severed limbs, but the Kiara Lucia saw was using more advanced techniques than before.
‘…I thought it would end with killing the demon god.’
It wasn’t over. And it wouldn’t end just because Kiara disappeared. Lucia gathered her courage and looked back.
“…Sorry.”
There was Shiron, keeping a sowhat awkward distance.
“Were you very surprised? It was so sudden…”
“…I wasn’t surprised, so co in.”
Shiron scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed.
“Really?”
Lucia asked with a hopeful tone. Shiron slowly nodded at her easily readable reaction.
“I’m not a kid who would put much aning into a kiss.”
“…Right.”
“So when Kiara did that… I didn’t think much of it.”
Seeing Lucia’s gloomy reaction, Shiron added words to cut off any unnecessary misunderstandings.
“So you don’t need to worry, I don’t think you did anything wrong…”
“You didn’t think anything when I did it either?”
Lucia interrupted Shiron’s words. His indirect concern for her feelings was too complex and difficult for her to grasp.
Seeing the anxiety in Lucia’s eyes, Shiron decided to be more straightforward.
“No, it was surprising, but I didn’t feel bad. Instead, I was happy you ca to save …”
“I see…”
Lucia muttered, lowering her head. Her face was so hot she couldn’t look at Shiron properly.
Amidst this, various thoughts crossed her mind. She pondered the cause of all these problems.
The reason Shiron had to impersonate Kyrie. The cause of wielding the holy sword.
Kiara’s unfounded affection for Shiron…
The secret being hidden.
‘I don’t think I can keep this secret… forever.’
With a determined look, Lucia raised her head.
“I have sothing I want to tell you…”
“Don’t.”
Shiron interrupted her with a serious expression. Lucia, disappointed by his interruption, pouted her lips.
“How can you say that without even listening?”
“Didn’t you hear from Eldrina? Saying ominous things brings bad luck.”
“…That’s not it. That…”
“If you have to say it, do it after killing Kiara.”
“Isn’t that more of an ominous sign?”
“I told you to be quiet, didn’t I?”
Shiron grabbed Lucia’s hand to stop her from talking. Although he didn’t expect her to reveal her identity herself, Shiron thought now was not the ti.
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