Vol 2 Chapter 37 – Apology【Exile to the Empire Arc】

At night, monsters become more active, so instead of using a simple camp, they took lodging at the nearest village. While overnight camping was possible, Roy preferred staying at village inns to ensure greater safety.

That night, after dinner, as he tried to return to his room, Sarina glared at him. He ignored her and climbed two steps up the stairs to the second floor.

“Hey! I told you I needed help with something tonight, didn’t I?”

“…Oh.”

“‘Oh’ nothing!—Just come to the terrace outside.”

Roy was dragged outside. Sophia and Yukino gave them a single glance before becoming engrossed in their own conversation.

Once outside, Sarina pulled something silver from her pocket.

“Are you trying to kill me?!”

Roy pulled the holy sword from his dimensional storage and entered combat stance.

“What are you misunderstanding? These are scissors.”

“…Oh, a haircut?”

“Here, this is the cutting cape. Put it on.”

“Got it.”

Understanding now, Roy sat Sarina in a chair and fastened the cutting cape from behind. Following her instructions, he dampened her hair with a wet towel. According to Sarina, something called a spray bottle would be ideal, she explained.

“Cut it even where the color changes.”

“You sure?”

“There’s no hair dye in this world anyway, right? It’s almost all black now, and it looks bad, so I want to freshen up.”

He cut her hair following Sarina’s instructions. During this time, a wordless atmosphere continued. Though both had black hair, hers wasn’t jet black like Yukino’s—it had a slightly brownish tint.

“You got anything to tie hair with?”

Just as he was internally praising himself for doing a good job, Sarina—having removed the cutting cape—asked him that. Her hair, which had reached down to her back, was now slightly above shoulder length, giving her a somewhat different impression than before.

An energetic girl bathing in the village during the Season of Red… The impression had changed to one that was both refreshing and dignified.

“—Hey! Are you listening?”

“Ah, sorry, sorry. Wonder if I have something like that~”

As he reached into his Shadow Pocket, a black hair ribbon—a keepsake from his mother—caught on his hand. Honestly, he hesitated… Sarina would eventually return to Haruto. There was even a possibility she’d become their enemy.

It couldn’t be helped—maybe for an item, not being used was the real misfortune.

“Sarina, use this.”

“Doesn’t this have a bit of a gothic lolita vibe? Well, it’s cute so whatever. Why do you have women’s stuff?”

“It’s a keepsake from my mom. So take care of it.”

“I-I can’t accept something like that! I only asked in case you had something, since it gets in the way when moving. Give that kind of thing to Yukino.”

“To Yukino? Why?”

“…Haah. Just put it away already.”

“Don’t push back something I’ve handed to you. I think it’ll probably suit you. I guess you’d call it healthy-looking… Hold still.—See, it suits you, doesn’t it? This thing’s better off being used by someone anyway.”

When he was little, his mother often wore this hair ribbon in a ponytail. At that age, he was curious about everything, so he often asked her to teach him and practiced on her hair. Though it had been a while, he was able to quickly style Sarina’s hair into a ponytail.

“…U-understood, so don’t carelessly say it suits me! Idiot!”

Sarina ran toward the inn, leaving Roy stunned before he began cleaning up. He could hear Yukino’s voice from inside the inn.

“Sarina! You cut your hair? It’s so cute!”
“Huh? Y-you think so?”

“The ponytail suits you! And that hair ribbon is really cute too! Your makeover was a success!”

Apparently Yukino was showering her with praise. However, afterward Sophia seemed to notice something and pointed out the hair ribbon.

“Sarina, I have seen that before, haven’t I?”
“Uh, um…”
“Well, take good care of it.”

Right after that, Yukino changed the subject and the women’s conversation continued in the first-floor tavern. After finishing cleanup, Roy returned to the inn and immediately headed to the second floor. For a moment, he thought he made eye contact with Sarina, but he ignored it and decided to sleep in his room.

The world had entered the Season of Blue, so early morning was still dim. When Roy woke up, Yukino, who was sleeping with him, woke up too.

“Uuu… Good morning~. It’s been getting cold lately. Ah, Roy-san, please purify me.”

“Got it, here I go.”

On the bed, Yukino and Roy sat facing each other, and Roy placed his hand at the position of Yukino’s heart. Since it had gotten quite cold recently, she wasn’t wearing sleeveless clothing like during the Tower of Agni. Now she wore fluffy pajamas as sleepwear.

With a soft touch, he lightly made contact, and Yukino exhaled slightly while gazing straight ahead. When their eyes met, she smiled at him. Previously, she had overreacted every time he purified her, but now that she was used to it, she only let out heated breaths.

“Wh-what?”

“It’s warm. Very fulfilling. Ah, how much stronger did I get from that purification?”

“We only defeated a few goblins on the road, right? The numbers haven’t increased at all.”

“I see. Ah, are we having breakfast at this inn today?”

“Kukuku, of course not. We’re still rank D, you know? We’re barely making it by using up the reward from the High Goblin. We can’t afford the morning service at every inn for a while.”

“Ehhh~~, th-then when we become rank C, can we eat it every day?”

“Even then, it’d be about once every two inns. First of all, climbing from D to C is really tough.”

Yukino drooped at those words. Basically, inns in this world implement morning services to celebrate and send off travelers on their journey. Of course, it’s not charity work, so you need to pay an extra 500G on top of the inn’s base rate. If you pay, they’ll include the village’s special dish with breakfast.

Roy, Yukino, Sophia, Sarina, Manabu, Palco… Paying for all these people would cost six times as much. He hadn’t expected to worry so much about budget management when they started traveling.

As Yukino was drooping, there was a knock on the door. The one who entered was Sarina. She had her hair in a ponytail with the black hair ribbon he gave her yesterday.

“Need Yukino? Then I’ll—”

“Wait! I have business with you too, so stay here.”

“O-oh. Got it.”

Roy and Yukino sat on the bed. As they focused on what she would say, Sarina bent at the waist and apologized.

“Yukino, about Haruto… I’m sorry! Roy, about your parents and the village people… I’m sorry!”

What kind of change of heart had occurred? Sarina suddenly apologized. Until now, she had just stubbornly followed them.

“When I had the corruption, there was like a haze in my head, and I thought I just needed to follow Haruto. This is just an excuse, isn’t it? I think if I had tried to notice, I could have. The weapons we were given were clearly black, and yet when they were called holy weapons, I didn’t doubt it at all.”

Tears were visible at the corners of Sarina’s eyes. While she seemed unchanged on the surface, after being freed and separated from Haruto, she had the leeway to look around and think things through.

“It’s not something I can be forgiven for, but still… I’m sorry!”

Sarina’s sincere words—Roy thought he should respond earnestly and wove his words together.

“Your sincerity came through. But you still want to see Haruto now, don’t you?”

“I want to see him, but there’s something I realized after being apart. Probably, if we had stayed in that kingdom, Haruto would just be used and then discarded. So I want to save him.”

“When you save him, I might get revenge on Haruto, you know?”

“If possible, I want you to stop. At that time, I might… fight.”

Yukino grabbed his sleeve and looked at him worriedly. It’s okay—as if telling her that, he placed his hand on her head with a pat and turned back to Sarina.

“Even now, I sometimes dream of that tragedy. But the frequency is definitely decreasing… I was able to walk forward because I had companions. If killing Haruto would make my companions sad, then I won’t retaliate. Sarina, I won’t easily say I forgive you, but if you keep your current feelings, I think watching that attitude will let me forgive you someday.”

Sarina’s sobbing began to be heard. Yukino embraced Sarina’s head and said:

“I was hurt when Haruto was taken too, but thanks to Roy-san, I was able to recover. Besides, I’m not even sure I really liked Haruto anymore. I was happy because we were childhood friends… so without even thinking about whether that meant I liked him, I might have accepted his confession. Now, um… I’ve come to understand various new things, so I’m totally not bothered by it anymore, okay?”

The girl who had only looked at Haruto was freed from corruption and came to understand what she had done until now. After that, we waited until Sarina stopped crying. She was facing her sins and trying to walk forward.

Sarina finally said “thank you” and went downstairs. Sophia and Manabu had questions about Sarina’s state, but by the time they got on the wagon, they were talking to her as usual.

And I would tease Sarina as usual to lighten the mood!

Vol 2 Chapter 38 – Traces of Ombra【Exile to the Empire Arc】

They avoided cities as much as possible, moving from village to village. They strictly adhered to staying no more than two days in any one village. This was because they didn’t know when the unmotivated Black Knight would get serious.

When Roy’s party arrived at the fifth village, it happened.

Roy had left inn arrangements to Sophia and was looking at the guild’s quest board when he heard something fall at the entrance.

He turned his gaze toward the sound to see a middle-aged man in fine clothing pointing at Roy while backing away. However, perhaps because his legs had given out, he wasn’t escaping very well.

“K-kill this man! He’s an assassin!”

This man, who had struggled to speak, finally uttered words that were, in a sense, accurate. However, while Roy had received assassination training, he had never once done that work.

If the village hadn’t been attacked by Haruto, he would have finally joined the adults in that work. However, he wasn’t without experience in killing.

Thieves appeared at ruins where out-of-place artifacts were enshrined, and he had already experienced killing then.

A guild receptionist who heard the commotion rushed over.

“Has some problem occurred?”

“K-kill him…! It’s a request, a request! I’ll pay 10,000G!”

The receptionist turned to Roy and questioned him.

“You’re an adventurer, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“I heard the word assassination. This is a non-combat zone and not an assassin’s guild, you know?”

“Listen, I’m an adventurer. I just came here to accept a quest. For some reason, that man suddenly started making a scene, so honestly I’m surprised too.”

“Lies! My brother was killed by a man with black hair and red eyes—my niece saw it! N-now he must have come to kill me next!”

“Look, I just arrived here. There’s no way I could do something like that, right?”

The middle-aged man making one-sided claims and Roy denying them—the receptionist made a proposal.

“Ahem, for now, let’s hear both stories in separate rooms. Is that acceptable?”

“Understood.”

“Wait, don’t let that man roam free~~!”

The unreasonable middle-aged man faded from Roy’s view. He was dragged away by a bald, muscle-bound staff member because he wouldn’t listen.

Taken to a separate room, Roy was questioned by the receptionist.

“So? He was clearly pointing out your characteristics, it seems?”

“A relative… did that kind of work, I’ve heard—though I haven’t confirmed it. Isn’t he mistaking me for that person?”

“Hmm, hmm. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it have been better to say so on the spot?”

“That type of person won’t listen to reason, will they?”

“There are many things you won’t know unless you say them. Maybe he would have been convinced. Discussion—you mustn’t judge without this foundation! Avoiding risks as much as possible is the leader’s duty, you know?”

He had only been looking at the quest board and hadn’t actually shown his guild card yet. Yet the receptionist before him, who declared Roy was the leader, made him wary.

Could she be one of Kairo’s agents…?

Guild staff members were a profession one could finally become after passing through the narrow gate praised as the most difficult. However, ordinary people could also become one. In other words, the possibility of Kairo’s agents infiltrating was not zero.

Roy prepared to draw the holy sword and said to the receptionist:

“Why do you know I’m the leader…?”

“Hm? …Ah! Please don’t be so wary. You just recently became an adventurer, right? Then you might not know, but receptionists have seen countless parties, you know? I can tell somewhat by appearance and atmosphere!”

“…Haah. Sorry, you’re absolutely right. I recently became a leader. Maybe I’m getting too suspicious.”

“Fufu, it’s a road everyone travels. However, it’s also true that parties led by people like you tend to survive. Please relax your shoulders and delegate work to your party members a bit more. That’s my advice.”

The receptionist’s smile made his heart feel slightly lighter.

“About that man earlier, he’s a former noble. It seems he fell from grace after his brother died, but now he’s desperately working to raise his only surviving niece.”

“…I see.”

Assassinate when the target is alone as much as possible. That was the iron rule, but if witnessed, they had to be eliminated. The fact that he knew the characteristics meant there was a high possibility the niece witnessed the assassination scene.

He hadn’t expected to encounter traces of his clan in a place like this. The fact that she was alive meant… she hadn’t sold her soul to the Demon King’s family.

The Regulus royal family stopped showing respect to the Shadow Clan as time passed. Feeling alienated by the royal family, the Shadow Clan survived until this generation without being discarded by offering the assassination-suited job as a merit.

All to protect the out-of-place artifacts. However, for that reason, they couldn’t lay hands on children who would carry on the next generation. It was all within the realm of speculation, but Roy wanted to believe it was so.