Moon Serenade
The Hero Party's expeditions had been repeated several times, and about two years had passed since its formation.
The Hero Party's reputation kept soaring higher and higher, while my own evaluation was diving straight downhill so fast it could outslide a snowy mountain.
Lately, when I walked through town, people would hurl insults at me, pick fights with me, extort me, and I'd even been kicked out of nowhere once.
Well, can't be helped... I haven't been accomplishing much, after all.
---
On the Hero Party's expeditions, we often went not only nearby, but out to the countryside too, and staying overnight happened often.
When we camped out, the Hero Party wouldn't even stand watch...
The escort knights and adventurers handled most of that, and I joined them.
And when we could stay in town, same as always, they'd drink alcohol and go on rampages. (This is a world where fifteen is adulthood. Drinking is allowed from fifteen here. Not in Japan, though!)
What the Hero Party did was almost exactly the same as when they first formed...
There was only one difference.
Every last one of them crossed the line.
And they crossed it real easily. After that, they kept doing it constantly like monkeys in mating season. They think nobody notices...
And now, standing face-to-face with unlucky pink-haired childhood friend Almeria.
She had just come out of the Crown Prince's room in the middle of the night...
And then I appeared. (Pure coincidence.)
She was shocked enough to let out an "Ah!"
Of course, I already knew she'd crossed that line, so I wasn't that surprised.
"Almeria, want to talk for a bit?"
The moment I called out, she jolted flinch and said only one thing in a tiny voice.
"... Yes."
They walked in silence, Almeria following behind Julius, her mind completely blank...
Like she was heading to an execution platform.
And Julius, walking ahead, was remembering the past..........
The smile she showed when the sickly girl he'd met worked hard at magic, and regained her health through that magic...
The day he first fell in love with her, seeing how she endured everything without complaining...
Her kindness when she earnestly used healing magic on small animals and little birds...
The dungeon where he got beaten up gathering mithril so he could forge a dagger himself...
The time he got the mithril, then prostrated himself before a dwarf master to beg to be taught how to forge it...
The sweat from searching deep in the Demon Forest for the Moon Enchanting Flower so he could propose, finally finding it only after wandering until dark...
The beautiful tears she showed him when he proposed...
Let's end it today.
Near this town was a hill famous for blooming with flowers from all over the world.
Tonight the moon was especially clear, so even at midnight they reached the hill without losing their way.
A light wind blew and their hair swayed, but it wasn't cold.
The beautiful moon shone down on the two climbing the hill.
"I’m sorry for making you wait all this time. I thought it was only right that I be the one to say it, after making you wait too long... My first love was you, Almeria. I was really happy when you became my fiancée. I truly wanted to make you happy. I really did love you, Almeria. So now... starting today, let's end this relationship as fiancés, and go back to being just childhood friends!!"
Almeria couldn't say a word.
A single tear fell and dropped onto the ground...
Then she handed Julius the mithril dagger he had given her, the one she had always kept close to her body.
Julius looked at it, then accepted the dagger.
In exchange, he removed the silver bracelet wrapped around his arm, the one Almeria had given him, with strands of her hair sewn into the back, and held it out to her...
Almeria couldn't bring herself to take the offered bracelet.
She stepped back once, then...
"I'm sorry, Julius. I betrayed you. And... thank you for everything until now."
She bowed once, then started walking down the hill before Julius could say anything.
(Don't cry in front of Julius. I'm the one in the wrong... Julius is kind, so if I cry, he'll forgive me. But I already... I already betrayed him...)
Thinking that, she glanced back one last time...
Julius had turned his back to her and was gazing at the moon.
The sight of him looked fantastical, like something from a story inside a painting.
Then Julius drew the dagger I had returned to him and raised it toward the moon.
The dagger, never once used since it had been unsheathed, remained beautiful...
Though awkwardly made.
Then he tossed high into the air both that dagger and the bracelet I had given him.
Bathed in moonlight, the mithril dagger and silver bracelet glittered as they spun through the sky.
And somehow, Julius now held two swords.
One was a golden blade glowing faint red...
One was a silver blade glowing faint blue...
Those swords swung only once, crossing through the airborne mithril dagger and silver bracelet.
At that instant, dense mana overflowed from Julius.
Normally, being metal, they'd have been deflected, or if cut, split cleanly in two.
Instead, with a sharp WAM!, they burst apart, the sound echoing across the whole hill...
Almeria stood frozen.
In the sky, shattered fragments of mithril and silver sparkled in the moonlight like a flood of stars.
A gentle wind blew, making them sway and dance, the bits of metal chiming together with a beautiful shoo-shoo sound.
Like a lovers' serenade...
---
Within that glittering storm stood Julius's back, holding golden and silver swords as he looked up at the moon.
The cute boy who once took me outside when I couldn't even leave my room as a child had grown into a strong young man...
My prince was standing there!!
What had I been looking at all this time?
Why didn't I believe in Julius?
The young man looked terribly sad...
But unbelievably cool.
This may have been the first moment I ever felt true regret...
And for only an instant, when Julius released that dense mana, the ground around his feet bloomed completely with those Moon Enchanting Flowers, enough to cover the entire hill.
Bathed in moonlight, they glowed softly.
That fleeting light gently wrapped itself around Julius...
(Almeria, this flower only blooms where mana is dense, and if there is a source of mana nearby, it never withers. When moonlight shines on it, it glows softly. That's why its flower language is...)
“I will shine upon you, eternal love.”
Almeria couldn't stay there any longer, and hurried back to the inn.
How could I have been so stupid!?
Her tears wouldn't stop.
"What am I doing...?"
Crying, her eyes fell upon the flowerpot by the window.
There, the Moon Enchanting Flower Julius had given her when he proposed had withered.
She had become so absorbed in the Crown Prince that she hadn't cared for it...
I'm truly an idiot.
This can't be undone.
Until dawn, she cried as she poured mana into the flowerpot by the window...
But the flower never returned to what it was.
Perhaps it was the same as what the relationship between the two of them would become from now on...
She didn't learn that Julius had left the inn the Hero Party was staying at until past noon the next day...
What do you think about this chapter?
