Iyue…?
The gazes of the villagers and the Ranger Corps members shifted at the appearance of this thunderous, startling name.
The clamor at the village entrance also vanished in an instant.
“Lady Iyue… Lady Iyue Nairfu!”
Iyue did not stop her steps. The Ranger Corps captain, thinking she hadn’t heard the call, added her surname and shouted her name even louder.
She rushed in front of Iyue, blocking her path, and without a word of explanation, took Iyue’s hand.
“I can’t believe my eyes… Really, is it truly you?”
Her voice overflowed with genuine awe and wild joy.
“…You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
Iyue lowered her head, deliberately lowering her voice.
But her concealment was meaningless to the Ranger captain… The captain’s gaze passed over the shadow of her hat’s brim, firmly fixed on her face all the while.
Because in her eyes, Iyue’s serene, deep emerald eyes, and her flowing, radiant golden hair, bright as the sun, were exactly as she remembered them from the past… And that transcendent, almost otherworldly aura, difficult to suppress even amidst a chaotic crowd, was no different from the archery instructor she remembered.
She looked at Iyue with an unbearably slow gaze, tightly holding Iyue’s hand… Only when Iyue uncomfortably tried to pull her hand back did she realize how rude her behavior was.
She quickly let go and took two steps back. Then she took a deep breath, her ear tips twitching slightly backward.
“I am not mistaken.” She lightly pressed her right fist to her chest, bowing slightly to Iyue.
“I am Athesia Alne, third squad leader of the Sixth Patrol, Quiet Wind Camp… Though you may not remember me, I once received archery training from you, Instructor… By the way, where is your ‘Flowing Wind’? Why aren’t you wearing it?”
After the salute, the captain’s eyes searched Iyue’s body, seemingly looking for that ancient wooden longbow bound to her legend—
Seeing that she could no longer continue hiding, Iyue let out a long sigh. And that sigh of hers was like a thunderclap shattering the brief silence of the scene:
“The Ranger Corps’… instructor?”
“Iyue Nairfu… Ilya.”
Low murmurs spread among the villagers… Iyue slowly raised her eyes.
She saw the villagers’ gazes upon her gradually shift from confusion to shock and fear.
“It’s the Ranger Lady Iyue…! It’s actually the real person!”
Two young girls squeezed out from the crowd at that moment. They ran up to the group, overjoyed…
One held a wind pen, the other held that clockwork doll carved in Iyue’s likeness, raising it before Iyue:
“Please, please, please! Give us your autograph! We admire you so, so much!”
Iyue recognized these two girls as the two human girls she had run past when entering the village earlier.
Seeing them hopping and jumping before Iyue and the Ranger captain, the person in charge, Harold, ran up sweating profusely:
“Mira, Siwei…! S-sorry, Lady Iyue, Ranger Officer… The children don’t know any better, I’ll take them away right now…”
“Humans really are… Can’t even manage their children properly, yet they want to manage those dangerous weapons?”
“Leiji… They’re just children.” In contrast to Harold’s panic and Ranger Officer Athesia’s impatience, Iyue’s expression was very calm.
She bent down, revealing a gentle smile, patted the two girls’ heads, and took the wind pen they offered.
“Alright. Where should I sign?”
“O-on the doll!”
“And on my clothes!”
The older girl shouted.
“On such clean, white clothes, wouldn’t it be a pity to get it dirty?”
“No, no! Hurry up, please!”
The children urged her impatiently… She could only smile wryly and sign her name on both the doll and the clothes.
“…Hmph, I want the instructor’s autograph too… But how come I can’t read this script? Isn’t this the Elven Language?”
“This… This is the script from that gravestone…”
The Ranger named Leiji and the person in charge, Harold, looked with different expressions at the name she had signed on the girl’s clothes.
“There. Done.”
“Thank you, Ranger Lady…!” The two little girls hugged each other joyfully. “We heard you were over four hundred years old, we thought you’d be an old granny… We never imagined you’d be just as beautiful as the doll!”
“What are you two brats saying?!”
Harold, horrified, tried to cover his daughters’ mouths… and Ranger Officer Leiji also wore an expression of displeasure.
“O-old granny…?”
Iyue looked deeply wounded.
“Pfft… Well, it’s not exactly wrong… Ouch!”
Lian, who had been silently watching nearby, couldn’t hold back a laugh… But as soon as she laughed, she received a solid punch on the head from Iyue.
“Can I call you ‘Sister’? I’ve always wanted a sister as cool and beautiful as you…!”
Leaving the flustered adults aside, the two little girls looked at Iyue with pitiful, expectant eyes.
“…Of course you can.”
Iyue paused for a moment before replying.
“Yay!”
The sisters high-fived each other… and were then pulled away from the group by their father, Harold, who kept apologizing.
“Never mind these rude humans… Instructor… You called my name just now? You actually remember me!”
“Of course I remember. You were the worst performer in that batch of trainees… I never thought you’d become a squad leader now.”
Iyue smiled helplessly at the Ranger Officer whose eyes were sparkling with stars.
“Just call me Iyue… I haven’t been your instructor for a long time, and I don’t hold any official position.”
“How could I do that? Once an instructor, always an instructor!” Ranger Officer Athesia said with an extremely serious expression and tone. “Besides, you are a hero who traveled with the Hero and saved the continent—”
As she spoke, Leiji’s gaze couldn’t help but shift to Lian, who had been following Iyue—
“And this person is… She looks a bit like the Hero. Could she be yours and the Hero’s—”
A series of imaginations appeared in Leiji’s head… But before the blushing girl could finish her sentence, she also received a solid punch on the head from Iyue.
“Stop talking nonsense. It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Oww… That hurts… But to be hit by the instructor is also an honor for me!”
The struck Leiji instead showed a very happy expression, giggling.
“The captain’s acting weird again… Wasn’t it the same last time she saw Lady Gloria?”
“Yeah, yeah. Really can’t stand it.”
The Ranger Corps members looked at their captain with exasperated eyes… Hearing their discussion, Leiji quickly coughed twice, straightened her expression, and issued orders:
“Hurry up and disperse the magic power you’ve gathered! These humans know the instructor…”
Only then did the Ranger Corps lift their state of alert. Seeing the tense confrontation in the scene dissipate into nothing, many people present sighed in relief—
Except for the villagers of Jingye Village.
“W-what do we do, Village Chief? I never heard about this! Ilya being Iyue Nairfu…!”
“I don’t know either!” The Village Chief, along with the few elders standing around him, had twisted expressions…
If the events unfolding before their eyes hadn’t already explained everything, he would never have believed such an absurd thing could be true.