“Then we’ll be going first! Mother, remember not to soak for too long! …… Teacher, are you really still going to soak? You came here so much earlier than us.”
“Mm. Go and rest first. I still have to talk with your Mother about tomorrow’s arrangements.”
“Then I shall also take my leave. My Brother must be waiting for me anxiously.”
After spending a period of leisurely time, Milin, who had confirmed that Teacher was safe and sound, took Lian by the arm and left the Bathhouse first.
Accompanying them was Princess Nolan, who had been delayed in the Changing Room for a long time—the time she actually spent in the bath did not exceed ten minutes even by the most generous estimate.
She seemed to have picked this timing to leave together with the two peers…… neither Meliya nor Vera tried to make her stay.
The two of them guessed that this girl might have sensed that their subsequent conversation would be inconvenient to conduct in front of outsiders, and thus chose to leave first.
Thus, only Meliya and Vera remained in the hot water pool.
The silence between the two continued until the sounds of Milin and Lian laughing and playing dissipated from the Changing Room, only then was it first broken by Meliya:
“Do you not feel that those two children are like a pair of sisters with a very good relationship?”
“…… Mm.”
“Then what about us? Do the two of us count as sisters? Or rather…… Do we count as having a good relationship?”
“Of course……! I have always regarded you as my own little Sister——”
“Then why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me, your own little Sister, about the matter regarding 『Frosted Demon Sword』?”
The voice with which Meliya asked sounded incomparably calm.
But Vera knew that she was angry—and seriously angry.
“…… I did not intend to hide it from you. Including myself, everyone in the Brave’s Party believed that this illness had already been cured.”
“Then why did it flare up again? Did you use that sword again?”
“No. That sword is currently being kept by the Imperial Capital; I haven’t seen it for many years.”
“Sephy said the same thing. She doesn’t know the reason for your flare-up…… Could it be that you don’t know yourself either?”
“……”
Vera hesitated.
She truly did not know why this symptom had flared up again before…… but she could roughly speculate now.
The obsessions and memories that had repeatedly haunted her mind these days, as well as those hallucinations related to Lian En that she could see regardless of day or night…… all of them appeared only after seeing that child in the Flower Court.
That child named Lian, the child whom she affectionately called 『Xiao Lian』.
“Is it because of Lian?”
“…… What did you say? How could it be because of that fellow——”
“I am not talking about him. I am talking about that child who just left.”
Meliya suddenly turned her face to stare at her.
In an instant, Vera felt that under the gaze of those amber eyes, there seemed to be no hidden thoughts that could remain concealed.
“Do you like him?”
“She has some minor flaws in etiquette, but she took very good care of me today…… so I think she should be a good child. And she also won in the Martial Tournament. I watched the whole thing; her skills are quite good. I appreciate her——”
“I am not asking about her this time. You know who I am asking about.”
“Meliya…… What kind of joke are you playing……! What does this question have to do with my illness?”
Vera looked at her indignantly.
But she had no intention of joking, nor was she as angry as before.
She merely continued this interrogation with a terrifyingly calm tone:
“I think there is a connection. Because you only started becoming unusual after that child arrived. And she has the same name as Lian, and gives me a feeling similar to him.”
“……”
“You’ve taken that child for Lian, haven’t you? So I will ask once more——do you like him?”
Vera felt her own heart shattering along with the arrival of this question.
And within those fissures, there was some kind of emotion that had been suppressed for a long time surging wildly, urgently waiting to burst forth.
She tried to stop it——but she failed.
That suppressed emotion still escaped, and a certain icy feeling filled, filled up the place where they originally were.
So she fell silent for a long while, and then responded with a trembling voice:
“What does it have to do with you……?”
“…… Vera.”
“What kind of emotions I hold for that man, what does it have to do with you?!” Facing this woman she had sworn to love and protect like a younger sister, she let out such a roar for the first time.
“What significance could my answer have for you? Don’t tell me that even now…… even now if I tell you 『I like him』, you will give him up to me? Get this straight…… he isn’t even here!”
“……”
“Why aren’t you speaking? Didn’t you want to know? Meliya…… the lucky Meliya who became the first in his heart. The pitiful Meliya who was so longed for by him yet heartlessly abandoned by him. You are always so composed. Always showing that gaze that seems to see through everything.”
She lifted Meliya’s chin.
Seeing that her face still maintained that initial calmness, she revealed a wretched and frenzied smile.
You clearly should be just as pained and just as sad as I am.
How can I hurt you? How can I break this hateful expression of yours that always seems to be flaunting victory? Right…… that’s right.
As long as I dig into that spot.
As long as I dig out the most terrible pain of mine and his, and then hold it before your eyes——
“Do you think it was only the matter of the 『Frosted Demon Sword』 that was hidden from you? There are many more things you don’t know! I’m telling you——whether it was to him or to me, you were nothing more than a replacement for that child! Did you think you were the first in his heart, or in mine, from the very beginning? Wrong! Utterly wrong!”
“Vera…… Sister.”
She finally saw Meliya’s face reveal an expression of pain and sadness as she wished.
She revealed a smile like that of a victor, watching Meliya curl up her own body, despite being soaked in hot water, she was trembling incessantly as if she had fallen into an ice cellar.
“Don’t call me that! The only person in this world who can call me that is that child——”
“You big idiot!”
Sage Saifei, who suddenly appeared behind her, interrupted her desperate and broken roar with the wooden scrubbing basin in her hand.
Having suffered a direct hit to the back of her head, she directly lost consciousness and fell into the pool water with a “plop”.
“Sephy…… I finally…… finally know why her illness flared up.”
“Scolding her but not you, right? You are also a thorough big idiot! Did you have to use this kind of method?”
“I…… felt that it had to be this way. After all, she hid it from me for a full sixteen years……”
While Sage Saifei was scolding Meliya head-on, she also dragged her out of the pool.
It turned out that Meliya’s trembling was not just because of Vera’s words, but also because the originally steaming bath was truly slowly freezing——the plummeting temperature had condensed the surrounding water vapor into fine icy silk, constantly clinging to her hair and eyelashes.
“Damn it……! We have to return to the magic circle immediately! I clearly just wanted to come and take a bath——how did I run into you two idiots!”
She snapped her fingers, and thus a Doppelganger jumped into the pool to fish out Vera who had fallen into the water.
She waved her hand to open a Spatial Teleportation Gate leading to the Mansion, and together with the Doppelganger, dragged this pair of sisters who were troublesome to the extreme inside.