Chapter 5: Crimson Sword Saint, Carla Tsukamoto 1

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“Finn. I hear you made contact with the Second Princess.”

“…Word travels fast. I only just talked to her yesterday.”

The day after I consulted Marianne. Since we had a joint quest scheduled starting tomorrow, I was planning to take it easy for the day. I was spacing out in my room when Carla came by. I glanced at her for just a moment before quickly averting my gaze. The reason went without saying, her outfit was too damn erotic.

Carla was from the Eastern nations. Her clothing was distinctive, but the exposure of her bare legs was absolutely outrageous. How in the world did someone arrive at the fashion choice of baggy, oversized sleeves combined with fully exposed bare legs?

From a man’s perspective, all I could say was “thank you very much for the view.” In a kingdom where Marianne’s skirts and Astrea’s trousers were the norm, parading around like that was practically cheating. If she went outside dressed like that, men would undoubtedly leer at her with lustful eyes, while women would glare and mutter about a pervert but unfortunately, Carla didn’t care in the slightest.

Calm down… Don’t let her notice you’ve seen it…

Remember what happened to that guy who harassed Carla before? He tried to touch her leg and had all his fingers cleanly snapped, didn’t he? It snapped so beautifully…

I kind of want to experience that though…..

“I’m not blaming you. True, I would have preferred you spoke to me first, but in this country it’s a fact that Marianne is more reliable… Even if I feel ashamed of my own immaturity, I would never feel anger toward you.”

As she said that, Carla stepped into the room and for some reason, she sat down on my bed.

Don’t cross your legs…!! I can see everything…!! No, this is intentional. She’s absolutely showing it off. Not looking would be rude. I have to look!

“Marianne likely asked you the same… But how do you see us?”

Huh—h-how do I see you? Right now, the only thing I wanted to say was “your legs are way too erotic.” If I said that, I’d be met with icy disappointment at best, and a beating at worst. The old Carla might have done that without hesitation, but the current Carla should see me as a companion. So it would probably end with disappointment alone, which was why I wouldn’t say it.

Besides, no one normally declares that they see their companions sexually.

So… I’d be honest. Truly honest.

“Well… You’re precious companions. Irreplaceable. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re like family to me.”

We’d known each other for about five years. We’d been living together for over a year now. They were completely woven into my daily life. In fact, there were hardly any days I didn’t see their faces. Of course they were family.

Sure, at the beginning…. I wondered if it was really okay for a man like me to be around them. Marianne was a 【Saint】—wasn’t having a man around her kind of dangerous? Astrea was an elf, living in the same house as a male human seemed impossible, right? And Carla was… I thought my chastity might be in danger.

Cut me some slack. I’m a virgin.

I figured the reason why should be obvious, considering my entire party was made up of women. If an adventurer went to the red-light district, word spread immediately and you’d get teased at the guild. I wanted to go so many times. Ideally, I wanted to visit a place with a dominatrix queen who catered to masochistic men. I still wanted to go. But I hadn’t.

Because all three of them watched that ritual once and genuinely said, “Gross”… There was no way I could go after that…!! Since I’d never gone through the whole routine of boldly visiting the red-light district, losing my virginity, and then being mocked by fellow adventurers, people probably looked at me and thought, “That guy’s the only man in an all-female party! He must be getting special treatment.” That was more than enough reason for me to receive people’s resentment.

Fellow adventurers, please rest assured. I’m a hardcore masochist virgin. A Gold-rank adventurer, hardcore masochist, and still a virgin. My companions don’t look at me that way at all.

At this rate, I’d probably only be able to visit the red-light district once everyone found a man, got married, and the party disbanded…

!!!?!!?!!!

So that means… Does my second life start then!? After enjoying my current masochistic fulfillment, do I go solo and do whatever I want? Will all three of them end up with men they don’t tell me about (which will excite me), and I will live a lonely life buying young women in the red-light district while watching their children grow up!?

Guuuuuuhhh…!! S-So tempting…!! But no, this pleasure is dangerous…!!

“Family, huh…”

While I was fighting the darkness inside my own head, Carla gently touched my arm.

“Ca-Carla?”

“Why do you push yourself so hard?”

“Push myself… How?”

“Don’t play dumb. One look at your body makes it obvious.”

Her fingers traced along my arm.

Eeeee—!! T-this stimulus is bad for a virgin!

Marianne’s hug alone was already dangerous! If she did something this erotic, I’d be in serious trouble!

“You’re covered in scars. All of them formed after you joined us, didn’t they?”

“…Do they look pathetic? I think they look pretty cool.”

“Pathetic!? Of course not! It’s true that in my homeland, men with scars are considered attractive, but…”

What… What exactly does she mean by that? Emergency meeting! Was that just an appeal? Dark Marianne, answer me.

『It’s neither an appeal nor anything of the sort.』

I see… 

If the Saint denied it, there was nothing I could do. Feeling dejected, I waited for Carla to continue.

“To us… Your scars are… Our scars as well.”

Well, if you thought about it that way… It wasn’t wrong. After gaining companions, I changed my combat style so I could receive even more pain. Having scars left behind was nice too. Regular 【Heal】 spells only closed wounds. They didn’t fully restore them. Naturally, that meant the pain remained. And if you left that alone, what happened?

Obviously, it hurt. Back when I slept in stables, I always had a fever. It wasn’t just old wounds aching. It was more like “everything hurts all the time, so I can’t sleep.” For me, pain equaled pleasure, so it wasn’t much of a drawback but it did illustrate just how high the attrition rate for a meat shield really was.

I was actually lucky. Marianne healed me. Normally, people just applied first aid and left it at that, so others were left in far worse condition than I ever was. There was no way they could afford to go to a church, and more than once I woke up to find the other wall fighter who slept beside me had died.

Man… It’s amazing I survived.

Ah! Thinking about that is making my stomach…!

“—!!”

“W-what’s wrong!? Are you okay!?”

“It’s fine! This happens all the time…”

Because my internal organs had been wrecked so many times, they were generally weak. I protected vital ones like my heart and lungs, but I couldn’t even remember how many times my intestines had been blown apart. My stomach had taken damage more times than I could count, so when my abdomen started hurting like this, it usually…

“Gkh… ghk-ghk… gah!!”

I hurriedly covered my mouth. A slick, lukewarm sensation spread across my hand.

Ahh… There it goes again.

“Wh…Why… How…?”

“Gkh—ghf—gboh…!”

This was lasting longer than usual.

Uh… The potion for this should be on the shelf.

Holding my aching stomach and mouth, I staggered over and somehow opened the shelf. With trembling hands that barely had any strength, I pulled out the potion and poured it into my mouth, which was still overflowing with blood. I forced it down, washing away all the clogged blood along with it.

Once the potion reached my stomach, it began healing the weakened organ.

Mmmm… With this feeling, is it just the stomach? When it’s really bad, it comes out the other end too.

When a massive amount of pitch-black blood came out, I seriously thought I was going to die but I rushed to the church and managed to survive by paying an exorbitant treatment fee. Of course, I couldn’t rely on Marianne. There was no way I could say, “I’m passing jet-black bloody stool, please heal me”…!

Internal organ treatment was advanced magic, so during peacetime it was done with pretty direct methods.

You know… Stab! From behind… You get it….Right? There’s no way I could let an acquaintance do that.

Well, technically the same sister always handled my treatment at the temple, so she was already an acquaintance by now. Sorry. Honestly, it excited me a lot. I was absolutely looking at her that way. I just wanted her to treat me someday while saying, “So even a Gold-rank adventurer has such a fragile little butt, huh?”

That was all.

“Fi… Finn!! Why—no, that’s impossible… How…?”

Carla murmured, her face drained of color. This was bad. I never expected her to see this. Usually there were warning signs, but this time there weren’t any.

Well, what’s done is done. It’s not like I’m about to die anyway.

“…T-the church… Where’s Marianne!? Where is she!?”

“Calm down, Carla. It’s fine.”

“How is this fine!?”

Calling her would be the real problem. Stomach issues could be handled by drinking a potion. As for the intestines… The temple lady would take care of that. I was always scared she’d realize I was a hardcore masochist, but since she always greeted me with a pained expression, I assumed she just disliked me normally and not because she knew I was a masochist. 

“No, really. It’s always like this. I’m fine.”

“Always!? S-since when?”

“About three years? But it hasn’t gotten worse, and I go to the church regularly for treatment. So it’s fine.”

Once, during a quest to a remote region, everyone got sick. Back then… Yeah, it was bad. I couldn’t go into detail because it’d strip us of our dignity. But it was like that, constantly. After it went on for so long, I even started wondering if this was just my natural constitution.

“Three years…”

“But look! I’m fine, right?”

“…H-hey, Finn. Why… Why didn’t you tell us?”

“…I couldn’t. This… This is the only thing….”

There was no way I could say, “They shove a staff up my ass”…!! If anything, it’d be better to be despised for rumored weird play in the red-light district…!! I couldn’t deny being called a pervert. But I wasn’t a pervert who got aroused anywhere, anytime.

That line… I wanted to protect that line at least.

“…Please, Carla. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t tell…? How could I… After seeing something like this…!”

I really wanted her to stay silent. What would happen if Marianne found out? What if she said, “If you’re paying that much to go to the church… Why don’t you just let me heal you myself?” What would I do then? I’d have to take off my pants and get on all fours, wouldn’t I?

N-no! Absolutely not! I’d rather die than suffer that humiliation…!

“……Please. Carla…”

I squeezed her hand tightly.

…Ah.

Crap. I didn’t wipe it. Oh no, I’m so sorry! The blood I vomited smeared all over Carla’s hand.

Seeing that, Carla let out a soundless gasp and nodded while trembling.

~*~*~*~

With my vision swaying, I somehow opened the door to my room. I closed it behind me and slid down to the floor.

“…Finn…”

I stared at my trembling, powerless hands. They were soaked in red blood. Blood different from the lives I’d taken… Blood I never wanted to see, the blood of someone precious.

“Hah… Hah… Haa…”

Finn coughed up blood. Finn wasn’t okay. Finn’s body was already falling apart. If this continued, Finn might die.

“Hah… Hah…”

No. I don’t want Finn to die. I don’t want him to die. I want him to live. What should I do? How can I stop this? How can I save Finn? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. All I have are techniques that take lives. Hands that can’t save or protect… Hands that can only cut…. They are stained with the blood of the person most precious to me.

“Finn… Finn, no… Please don’t die…”

I want to help Finn. I want to protect Finn. I want to save Finn. I want to apologize to him…

“…I must apologize. This is… It’s all my fault…”

The reason why Finn had been injured so badly… The answer was simple… It was all my fault…

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