"I wish the world would end?"
When I looked at Xenon with an expression of disbelief, he protested with an incredibly aggrieved face.
"It was you, Lady Anneli, who said you would watch the world end while eating snacks."
"Ah, I did say that."
I didn't expect him to take that to heart.
I nodded indifferently and turned my gaze away. Of course, at that time, I hated everything, found everything meaningless, and didn't care what happened one way or another.
'It's not like some righteous sense of mission to save the world has suddenly sprouted within me.'
Certainly, my attitude had changed slightly between then and now. This was something I myself felt most clearly.
I still hated every human who had made a game of my death, and I never wanted to see them again. However, I didn't want to abandon everything for that reason.
At the very least, I wanted to find the Dullahans' heads.
Not because I intended to serve as an unwilling agent of the gods, but purely for the Dullahans' peace.
'If the Dullahans who have found peace leave my side...'
Of course, if such a situation came to pass, I would feel gloomy and sad.
Since meeting Nadav, I had never been completely separated from the Dullahans.
Even in situations where I couldn't summon them, the Dullahans always waited inside the bracelet. I didn't realize how great an unconscious comfort that was.
So when I newly imagined life without them, the greatest feeling was helplessness.
Nevertheless, wanting to find their heads enough to cherish them had led to the current situation.
"Yes, it wasn't I who had no attachment to the world, but you, Lady Anneli."
I emerged from my thoughts and looked to my side. Xenon was watching me with an ambiguous face that gave no clue what he was thinking.
It seemed he had been watching me the whole time.
"Do you still not care if tomorrow doesn't come?"
That was something I had once said to Xenon.
'We were camping like this back then too.'
Xenon had asked if I wanted to die, and I had asked in return if I really needed to try to die.
That was what I said back then. That I didn't care if tomorrow didn't come.
"...Well."
When I murmured quietly, a crease formed between Xenon's brows.
"I will try harder."
"At what?"
"To make you curious about tomorrow."
"How?"
After a brief pause, he suddenly raised his hand.
The gesture of lightly sweeping through the empty air was unfamiliar, but I could guess at least what he was trying to do.
Probably magic.
As soon as I guessed that, his fingertips glowed blue.
Following the light emanating from his fingertips, I inadvertently let out an exclamation of admiration.
"Oh."
Shimmering blue light formed a certain shape. It was a beautifully glowing blue carp.
The carp swam through the empty air, moving its fins as if actually swimming. After circling round and round before my eyes, it moved little by little to draw a semicircle further away.
Its range of movement expanded. Everywhere the carp passed looked like underwater.
"Sometime while watching the sky, I had such a thought. That intense blue was just like a lake."
Controlling the carp's movement with his fingertips, Xenon began to speak.
"So I thought it would be nice if there were fish that suited that deep blue sky."
"Is this the result?"
"Yes."
Xenon nodded and, with a mischievous smile, moved his hand broadly. Small schools of fish appeared around the carp.
Every time Xenon moved his fingers, various kinds of fish multiplied in the air.
"It's a slight modification of illusion magic. It's a magic with no use other than looking good, but I've researched quite a lot of these useless magics."
The reason Xenon researched such magic was probably because of his mother who was said to have been ill. Xenon's mother was said to have had a chronic illness.
If his mother had been in a position where she had to lie in bed for a long time, he would have wanted to show her beautiful scenes with his magic since she would have difficulty moving around.
Xenon was that kind of man.
"I won't show you everything at once, but one by one."
The fish that had been swimming while brilliantly lighting the surroundings began to disappear one by one.
Where the fish disappeared, magical particles scattered like final traces, leaving afterimages.
"I hope this magic becomes a reason for tomorrow to come."
I gazed at Xenon for a long time. He was smiling quite innocently.
He really was a strange man. Until the beheading, I had never met anyone like Xenon.
Perhaps that was why I sometimes wasn't sure how to treat him.
The surroundings, which had brightened for a moment, began to sink into darkness again. Even the last carp hovering above my head disappeared, and only blue light particles were scattered in that place.
Looking at that shining afterimage, I slowly parted my lips.
"Xenon."
"Yes?"
The distance between him and me was not far. Just by leaning my body with my hand on the rock, our lips could touch.
With a cute smacking sound, our lips met and parted. It was a very light kiss, but Xenon startled as if burned and opened his eyes wide.
He was touching his own lips with a face of disbelief, and finding it funny, I faintly raised the corners of my mouth.
"It's a reward for the eye candy."
"...This?"
"I think it's a certain reward."
Xenon's face was flushed bright red. He seemed to have fully woken up, and appeared completely flustered from embarrassment and surprise.
It was definitely not a negative reaction. I didn't think he would dislike my kiss, but the reaction I was seeing now was more intense than I expected.
What was certain was that Xenon was so happy he didn't know what to do. Even without checking, his heart was surely racing fast.
"This way, I end up looking forward to tomorrow more than you, Lady Anneli."
Xenon, who had been frozen with his hand covering his mouth, mumbled with his eyes wrinkling. It was a small voice but enough to understand.
I chuckled and replied.
"Do that."
I straightened my body that had been leaning toward him and calmly looked up at the sky.
"I don't want to harm your tomorrow."
Did I not care if tomorrow didn't come? Actually, I'm not sure.
I wanted to fulfill the Dullahans' wish, and I liked this time with Xenon.
But if asked whether these things made me dream of a hopeful future, I only felt that I didn't know.
Tomorrow that I would welcome... I still didn't really care. What was moving me now was not some embarrassing word like dreams or hopes for the future.
'Deares said the last authority would give even me peace.'
With this kind of heart, if I complete the last authority, what will happen to me?
"So you look forward to tomorrow."
Would my peace be death? Would the goddess leave alone an agent who had served their purpose?
I couldn't be certain. I couldn't even die at will, so now that I wanted to live, could I even live at will?
Even though I had recognized my feelings for Xenon, I didn't promise any particular future because I couldn't ignore these points.
"I will look forward to the reward Lady Anneli will give me tomorrow."
After a moment of silence, Xenon seemed to have barely collected himself and spoke in a much calmer voice.
I nodded while still looking at the sky.
"Alright."
"Did you understand what I meant?"
His voice had some force in it. When I glanced back at Xenon, I saw his face still hadn't lost its redness.
While his cheeks still held a flush, there was nothing like shyness in his tightly closed lips or his settled golden eyes.
"I mean that in my tomorrow, Lady Anneli must absolutely be there."
I didn't answer. Xenon didn't insist on receiving an answer either.
We quietly looked up at the sky for a while, then returned to our respective tents.
Holding the cold air, I went back to bed. When I lay down covering myself with a blanket, an unbelievably strong sleepiness rushed over me.
In my fading consciousness, I dimly realized.
That even if all the Dullahans leave, I would not be left alone.
* * *
We passed through several villages on the way to the Lizardmen's habitat.
There, I heard news of Maxel. It seemed there was a group systematically moving to deliberately spread word of the Crown Prince's achievements.
However, contrary to those efforts, it seemed unlikely that Maxel would become a hero among the imperial citizens.
There was already someone else famously known among the imperial citizens as a hero who defeated monsters.
That was me.
"It'll be hard to win favor with ordinary subjugations."
Xenon, who had visited several shops to replenish supplies in the village, shook his head and conveyed the news.
According to him, while the Resurrected One single-handedly subdued monsters, the Crown Prince led hundreds of soldiers to subjugate monsters, which apparently appeared ridiculous to the imperial citizens.
"I also heard about the monster hunters."
With monsters running more rampant than before, relying solely on requests to the Temple had made it difficult to respond to each one individually—that was the current atmosphere.
There was a limit to the number of Holy Knights the Temple could dispatch, so eventually villages in poor environments needed other alternatives.
"They say they catch monsters at quite cheap prices. They're mainly hired by small villages."
"It's unlikely to be charity work. Was their affiliation revealed?"
"They say they're mercenaries who take requests freely without affiliation, but among merchants, the name of the Yusgel Trading Company was being whispered about."
Merchants were people who reacted sensitively to the flow of money. So they seemed to be noting the business viability of monster hunting that had suddenly emerged.
Until the Yusgel Trading Company stepped forward, monster hunting had been the domain of the Temple, the Imperial Army, or territorial soldiers. They alone were sufficient to deal with monsters.
In particular, the Temple had almost exclusively taken on monster hunting.
"Does that mean monsters have increased enough for mercenaries to step in?"
When I muttered to myself, Samuel interjected with a voice mixed with a sigh.
"It's true that reports coming into the Temple have increased. But the High Priest doesn't want problems solved in this manner either."