[18] Chapter 3. To Not Love (5)
And that girl had now parted ways with him to find a village she had never heard of before. Ilyas touched the strands of hair fluttering near his eyes again, recalling this morning.
From the beginning, his agreement with Fernciana was to provide information as they headed to the capital, not to accompany her all the way there. Ilyas realized only then that he himself had forgotten about those things.
The girl had calmly and composedly said that she had to go find that village she had heard about last night. Ilyas had been looking at her hands without Fernciana noticing. Her hands, which had been covered in blood, had improved a lot overnight.
‘No, does that mean it’s a small community where certain characteristics are maintained internally? Doesn’t it seem extremely closed off?’
Ilyas suddenly hardened his expression. The word “closed off” was synonymous with being exclusive to outsiders. In such places, they might do something to visitors.
It could pass without any incident, but in places with little interaction with the outside world, their own rules were often seen as divine laws.
‘No, Peirun knows how to protect herself. She’s better than me, that little one.’
Ilyas tried to relax his expression. If Ruairi had seen it, he would have asked with a pale face who he was and where he lived, but anyway, Ilyas tried hard to calm his mind.
‘Besides, if she needed help, she would have asked me to go with her. Even if we’re not close, if she had asked me to go with her at that point, it would have been fine.’
The fact that they had come together from Ronen to here was because Fernciana had requested it, so the fact that she had said she would go southwest from here without mentioning such a thing meant that she didn’t need anyone else to go with her, right?
Moreover, even if Fernciana had asked him to go together, he wouldn’t have been able to. Ruairi was still waiting for his return in the capital, and he also had things to do. So…
‘Oh, if metal touches…’
Ilyas moved his lips for a moment. He had never seen a condition where the skin gets damaged from contact with metal, but seeing her, he learned that such a thing could exist. Even the wounds Fernciana had after fighting the bandits made sense if he thought about it that way. Yet, he felt resentment rising inside him.
No, even if that’s the case, shouldn’t she have said something about it? People can only be considerate if they know, but she had endured it without saying a word, thinking she would get used to it someday. Isn’t that the kind of thinking only a fool would have?
Ilyas himself was not skilled in swordsmanship, but his discernment was not lacking. As he watched Fernciana wield a sword against the bandits, he realized that she was quite skilled.
She must have understood the difference between a real sword and a wooden sword much more deeply than most people. Yet, the fact that she had obtained a wooden sword was to that extent. Despite knowing that, she didn’t want to hold a real sword to that extent. It was that painful for her.
So Ilyas fully understood and accepted that she would immediately turn her steps upon hearing a stranger, the store owner, say that there were people similar to her.
That’s why he had let her go with only a word of concern and turned around.
‘If metal touches… Is it really only referring to iron? Or all metals?’
The day before they parted, Ilyas had given Fernciana a necklace as a gift. How did Fernciana react at that time?
Of course, she was very happy, but at first, she seemed a little flustered. Was it because she received an unexpected gift? If not, was it a conflict between the pain she would experience when wearing the accessory and consideration for Ilyas who had given her the gift?
‘Ah, no… Did she wear the necklace I gave her? She might not have. And now that we’ve parted ways, even if she was wearing it, she would have just taken it off.’
So he had nothing to worry about. Besides, was her personality just meek and gentle? Even when they first met, didn’t she fiercely retort, asking if he was going to buy her a meal just because she didn’t have money and if that meant he was buying her current meal as well?
At that moment, the carriage stopped. The coachman who had Ilyas sitting next to him glanced ahead and then relaxed his hands that had been slightly tense, as if he had understood what was going on.
“It’s another carriage from our caravan going to Maroila. It seems they’re just greeting each other. If you want to go back to Maroila, the fastest way would be to catch a ride on that carriage.”
As soon as he heard those words, Ilyas scribbled a note, handed it over with a few coins to the merchant, and without a second word, grabbed his luggage and stood up from his seat.
Despite speaking so fiercely, Fernciana had ended up buying him a meal.
*
“Ilyas? How…?”
“I have something to check.”
“What are you…?”
Her voice was stuttering with surprise at the unexpected person in front of her.
As Fernciana was barely wiping away her tears, Ilyas strode over and pulled open the collar of her neck. It was a hasty but careful motion.
As Fernciana blinked her eyes and shook off the remaining tears, a long sigh escaped from Ilyas’s mouth.
“I must be crazy, this idiot…”
“Huh?”
“I knew this would happen. Ha, really. Turn around! Quickly!”
Fernciana had no idea what was going on, but she silently turned around as Ilyas told her to. Ilyas removed the necklace from her neck with a mixture of annoyance and guilt.
“You… Didn’t I tell you before that you should speak up if you have a problem like this?”
“Ah, yes… That’s true, but…”
On Fernciana’s nape and chest, red burn-like wounds remained in the exact shape of the necklace.
“The ointment! The ointment you received!”
“Oh, uh, uh-huh…”
Fernciana hurriedly took out the ointment from her luggage. Ilyas looked around, realized there was nothing, took out a water container, washed his hands, and scooped up the ointment. Then he bent down and carefully applied it to the wounds on her neck, applied the remaining ointment to her hands, and only then straightened his back.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you get like this just from touching any metal?”
“No, this is…”
“If your neck got like this from wearing it, you should have taken it off. Why were you still wearing it?”
“Because it’s pretty…”
Ilyas jumped up and down on the spot. It was a measure to avoid raising his voice at her for a problem that no one was at fault for. If there had been a wall nearby that he could break, Ilyas would have smashed that wall first.
“…No. No. It’s my fault for buying it without knowing anything. Anyway, I’m confiscating this.”
“What? Why!? Who gives something and then takes it back? Give it to me!”
“I’ll give it to you later, but I can’t give it to you right now.”
“Did you come here to check on this?!”
Fernciana seemed so resentful of the suddenly confiscated necklace that she clung to his collar, but Ilyas didn’t budge at all.
“…Yeah.”
Ilyas didn’t consider himself a strict person. Rather, he was lenient with himself. He was lucky to be born with an excellent brain, and he was doing what he wanted to do with it.
The scale cast upon him seemed to be quite fair, and although there were frustrating and resentful things, he had the heart, will, and ability to move the scale himself. He thought this was enough.
So Ilyas was realizing for the first time that he becomes at a loss when he sees someone who is strict with themselves.
“Are you going alone?”
“No, I…”
“What if there are only scary people there?”
Fernciana blinked at the expression that sounded like he was dealing with a child, and then burst into laughter. Ilyas sighed.
“Besides, you, didn’t you promise to protect me in exchange for buying you a wooden sword? Are you throwing away your promise like this? Huh? You little one.”
“I’m not throwing it away… …Ilyas, do you not have to go to Pomilas?”
“No, why didn’t you ask me to go with you? Geez.”
“I knew you had to go to Pomilas, so…”
“Then you have nothing to lose by asking, right? You should have at least asked. If I couldn’t, I would have refused properly.”
“I was worried it would be troublesome for you…”
Ahh, Ilyas sighed and tucked his feelings away.
So that’s how you are. You can’t refuse people’s requests and can’t push away those you’ve once cared for, so if you hear such a request, you end up going along with it despite the inconvenience.
“What’s troublesome about me saying no when I can’t?”
“…Still, I thought maybe.”
“Anyway, we’ll just stop by that Desidiera or wherever it is to check and then head back to Pomilas.”
“Okay.”
“Then let’s go quickly. I just need to get there before Ruairi comes looking for me with a knife in his mouth.”
Ilyas joked and walked a few steps ahead. He felt a gaze watching him from behind. He knew Fernciana was silently looking at him without moving, but Ilyas didn’t look back. And not long after, Fernciana ran up lightly and matched his pace.