Was my silence long? Piralo cleared his throat once and then said.
“By the way, can you guys stay here like this? Students here, isn’t there a curfew?”
“… ”
“Don’t do that at the entrance of the dorm, come in if you want to talk at length.”
It wasn’t a welcoming tone. Nothing like a friendship has been built between her and me yet.
“… no. As you said, we also have to go to the roll call preparations. What time is it?”
Pirallo walked towards the window of the dormitory and looked at the clock tower.
“It’s past 11 o’clock.”
“Certainly the time flies. The card game… Are you going to stay here forever?”
“Um, maybe? Because he’s making a new deck of cards. They say that the paper and dye sold at Frantimo are of good quality.”
“If there is anything I want to ask of you in the future, I will come to you.”
It was a word that came out instead of saying that I would leave. The [Frantimo’s Gambling Hall] event ended as expected, but the time after this cannot be wasted.
“Please… Nothing is free, you know?”
“Keep that in mind. Enough then.”
I wanted to ask about Ong, but I decided not to rush. It seemed like asking a person who was hesitant about a friend’s story about the teacher’s story right away would decrease the character’s favorability.
Like money and food, goodwill is also a consumable item in ‘Savior from Another World’. The favors and help you can receive from other characters are never infinite.
“Then, excuse me.”
“okay. Good bye. The pretty ones there too.”
Piralo returned the collateral he had taken. After receiving the crocodile umbrella and greeting Adrin, we turned around. After exiting the hotel building, we quickly moved into the falling rain.
Inside the umbrella that Hoan had covered, Adrinne sighed and said.
“Looks like a lot happened in one day.”
“Is that so.”
Adrinne was walking, fiddling with the chip in her hand. Like someone who hasn’t finished their excitement at the casino yet. However, Hannah’s expression hardened.
“John, it seems like every time I am with you.”
I can understand the wariness in those words. He is also a character who experienced the events of [Secret of the Clock Tower] together.
As a guardian knight who protects Adrine, it must be that I am not happy that dangerous things happen every time we meet.
but.
At this point, I couldn’t help but ask.
“What do you two think of me?”
“think?”
I thought it was a bit ambiguous word, but I walked in silence without a word. waiting for an answer to come back. Even if Hoan doesn’t know, Adrinne will know my intentions. She is a character capable of diplomatic conversation and is sensitive to the intentions of her opponent’s words.
When the sound of clattering footsteps continued about ten times, Adrine opened her mouth.
“Does it seem too rude in the manner of treating God?”
It’s a straight line. Because she and Hoan were very different from when I first declared, ‘God dwells within me’.
When I didn’t answer, she continued.
“yes… At first, when John made that dreadful confession, my hands and feet were shaking until I returned to my lodgings.”
A lot has happened, but it hasn’t really been that long. Adrinne seemed to be reminiscing for a moment, then put the chip back into her pocket and said.
“But that day, I changed my mind right away.”
“I guess you have a reason.”
“Give me time… Rather than… .”
Adrine was in an atmosphere where she was careful about what she said. After a while she spoke briefly.
“I got a letter.”
“… If it’s a love letter, I think you’ve already received it.”
“It is not a letter like that. It was a letter from someone who said he would support and protect me.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t want to reveal that. It is important that it was a really supportive letter to me.”
I don’t know, but that letter must have been the trigger for her to announce her resignation from the [Grade Principal Election]. In order not to get hit in the back at an important moment in the scenario, this part will have to be clarified in the future.
And of course I know how to do that too.
“And to continue my answer, I decided to watch you.”
Feeling a little embarrassed, I sighed ‘Whoa-‘ and continued to lead the way. Turning deftly toward the alleyway. Hoan, who diligently followed me holding an umbrella, looked around and spat out.
“But now, where are you going?”
At Hoan’s words, I raised my head while supporting my raincoat hat with one hand.
In a big city, positive and negative sides always coexist. And we are in the back alleys of Frantimo.
The half-naked women gesturing through the lighted windows are Frantimo’s prostitutes. Their thick makeup and flirtatious postures seduce boys in their prime.
And under the eaves of the houses, people in shabby clothes are begging on their stomachs, wet from the rain. The bowl next to their outstretched hands is filled with rainwater instead of coins.
Wandering fortune tellers.
Umbrella bearers.
And gangster-like people who seem to rule the alleys all night.
Various human groups were making their own noises.
“It’s raining, but we’re playing.”
“I was hungry all day. Please have mercy.”
“Let me see your luck this year. It fits really well!”
Walking through the center of the commotion, one of our party may have thought that this place did not suit ‘Adrinne’. He suddenly grabbed my shoulder and said.
“The entrance to the academy is over there.”
I thought of a plausible excuse and said.
“The curfew is over. We will not go into the entrance.”
“… What does that mean? Wasn’t it an outing that was allowed by the academy teacher?”
“It took too much time for that. We will go the other way.”
“… Are there other entrances to the academy? They don’t check for entry and exit there, do they?”
“I will not.”
“… Where is it?”
I said, walking a little faster. It was the return route I had in mind from the beginning.
“To the groundwater.”
And unfortunately, the sound of footsteps following me stopped. I walked silently, but the guardian knight stopped my steps.
“John. Let’s stop.”
“why?”
“Stop. I don’t want to draw the knife.”
I sighed and turned around.
“Don’t you think that is disrespectful?”
It was a concept I had as a stance for dealing with these two characters. To hold both the courtesy of ordinary people and the authority of a embodied human being at the same time.
I don’t know how much my authority will work for Adrine and her guardian knight who gave up running despite my words in the [Grade Principal Election] and said ‘I’ll watch over you’ in front of my face. In terms of gambling, this was close to asking bets.
And fortunately, Hoan was in an atmosphere that acknowledged my betting to some extent.
“I hope you understand my duty. I am the lady’s guardian knight.”
He said the same thing when he first came here.
‘I am the lady’s guardian knight. And not only protects the former lady, but also protects her honor.’
However, Hoan’s subsequent words did not even mention her honor.
“At the very least, I would like to be able to hear an explanation in advance before facing the danger.”
Joan bit his lip once, then continued.
“I try to be as sparing as I can, but it might be better to be clear. The boss I met earlier at the gambling house was no ordinary bet. If you are leading us to continue to encounter such people in the future, I will tell you in advance.”
Hoan took a deep breath under the umbrella and exhaled.
“I would be willing to oppose you.”
Originally, human relationships are a process of drawing lines. Being positioned within the line allowed by the opponent and the line allowed by myself, and growing that line little by little.
But I am a developer who knows the paranoid lines of this Guardian Knight. After thinking about it for a while, I changed my target. In the direction of persuading the target he wants to protect, not him.
“Adrine.”
“yes.”
“Adrinne listened to it earlier too.”
“I heard so many things… What are you talking about?”
“That’s what the sorceress said. About the head of the academy.”
“… What about it?”
“The fact that I made my way back to the underground waterway included the intention of investigating her whereabouts in advance.”
And I am satisfied with my choice. It was because a determined expression came to her face after hesitating for a moment. She is a character who cares about protecting her honor and justice.
she nodded and said.
“You seem right.”
“miss!”
“Hoan. I think we’d better go too. We already know the structure of waterways to some extent. Also, Mr. Yohan has a personal debt of mind.”
That’s what I was hoping for. Hoan and Adrinne once handed over the assassin’s recruits in the [Assassination of the Princess] event. And I’m guessing that it was in the culvert that the torture of the assassin took place. At the academy, where all students are roll-called in the dormitory, there is not much space to hide an assassin who has secured a recruit.
“But miss-”
“Your Excellency.”
Adrine silently took Hoan’s hand, and Hoan took a step forward as if he couldn’t win. With a feeling of relief, I turned around and took a step forward.
Shoot ah-.
The sound of rain was still there, and the three of us didn’t speak for a while.
It wasn’t long before Frantimo’s famous bridge appeared. I said it in order to loosen up the hard air current flowing between Hoan and Adrine.
“Do you know about this bridge?”
It was Adrine who took my words.
“I do not know? Is it a famous bridge?”
“It’s called a lover’s leg.”
“… ah.”
The river flowing under the bridge has a width of more than 20 meters. The river was flowing gently even in the rain like this.
There is a little legend about crossing that bridge. And I had no intention of crossing that bridge right now.
My aim was down the bridge.
“Go down.”
I went down the stairs that led to the side of the bridge and went to the riverside. The direction to go is opposite to the flow of this river. There must be an outlet for the academy’s underground canal.
Stepping on the low, unmanicured riverside grass, we walk upstream. The river looks pitch black at night.
Three moons swaying in the waves are reflected there. Like a buoy that does not lose its coordinates even in the rain and wind, the moon seemed to emphasize the remaining task for me.
“Looks like there.”
At the tip of Adrine’s finger, the iron gate was visible. It cannot be called a floodgate because it is not a gate that confines water. The door with the sign ‘No entry except for those involved’ was made of iron bars, and the water consumed by the academy was constantly draining.
“Whoa… .”
And we didn’t come here as an academy drain.
This place.
This is the workshop of Kirov, a wizard with the qualities of a genius.